So it sounds like Victoria isn’t quite dead yet, and won’t die since that didn’t kill her outright. Which means she needs to allow Amy to heal her if she wants to have her flesh back. Oh man, I like the sound of Vicky having to face that dilemma. 😀

I pulled a grenade free.  Maybe it could distract him long enough for her to-

Didn’t you already use your last grenade?

Crawler surged forward, slamming his head into her.  Like a spiked volleyball, she slammed hard into the ground.

Aaand there goes the forcefield.

I could see her skin turning red, then black, where the spittle had covered it.  Flesh melted away to reveal muscle, then the acidic vomit began to eat away at that.  She screamed, frantic, thrashing, oblivious to the flaming patches of ground that she was rolling into.

What a way to go.

The bugs I’d placed on my teammates told me they weren’t close.  Glory Girl and Cache were down and needed immediate medical attention – Cache had managed to call in the rest of the Protectorate and the remaining Wards, but he’d collapsed into the arms of one of the adults.

Good job, Cache.

Mannequin fell.

How the hell did I manage that?  Between the recoil and the shock of what I’d just managed, it was all I could do to stay seated.

Good work, Taylor!

Now how long before he’s back up?

I aimed and fired again at his prone form, the shot going off just before he rolled to his feet.  I couldn’t make out if I hit or not.

Two paragraphs. Sounds about right.

Crawler was distracted just long enough for Cache to bring out the first heroes.  Glory Girl, Prism, Miss Militia, Triumph…

Heya! Now don’t die on us right away, folks.

Weld tumbled to the ground, and switched targets to the retreating Mannequin.  Maybe he’d coordinated something with the others.  I couldn’t say.

Oh yeah, I suppose he would still have his earpiece.

Glory Girl, in her all-concealing fireproof suit, certainly seemed ready to serve as the frontline defense.

Makes sense, given that she’s pseudo-invulnerable.

I was so busy tracking Mannequin, looking for an opportunity to shoot him again, that I nearly missed what happened next. 

Uh oh?

Crawler got close enough for Glory Girl to swing a punch.  She took the bait and swung, then twisted in mid-air to deliver a kick.

Oh cod.

The mention of “bait” doesn’t give me high hopes for how this is going.

In any case, what did you expect these attacks to accomplish, Victoria?

He pulled just out of reach of both hits, then opened his mouth to retch spittle and bile all over her.

Hmm. I wonder if corrosion works for slowly tearing down the forcefield, or if she needs to get hit again for the acid to do anything.

It had the same effect on her costume that it did on Cache, only far, far faster.  In moments, she was down to the skin-tight costume she wore beneath her white and gold dress, her forcefield protecting her.

Oh, alright, so her regular blue and black costume goes outside the forcefield, but the forcefield does protect her for now. She’s probably glad she had that skintight under-costume on, huh…

This time, at least, Weld took on the heavy hitter.  He leaped at Crawler from the side, his hand becoming needle-fine as he plunged it into one of Crawler’s largest eye sockets.

WOO!

I knew that Crawler could dodge Ballistic’s hits.  He must have seen Weld coming and simply not cared.  The needle barely penetrated Crawler’s eye, but Weld used the leverage to wrap himself around Crawler’s face.

…still cool.

So what’s he doing now, just trying to be the giant bug on Crawler’s windshield, blinding him that way?

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but bugs are Taylor’s specialty.

I drew the gun and leveled it at Mannequin’s back.  He was running in a straight line, I remembered to click the thumb safety, squeezing the handle with both hands to get the grip safety on the back of the gun, and put him in the crosshairs, leading just a bit.  I could remember the tip you always heard in the movies.  Squeeze, don’t pull.

I’ve never heard that in the movies, that I can remember.

Maybe that just means I have a different taste in movies than Taylor. Very likely, that.

Exhale as you squeeze…

Visions of the dead Mannequin had left in my district flashed through my mind’s eye.  The paramedics, the bitchy old doctor, the people he’d gassed.  My people.

Time for vengeance, huh?

I could feel the recoil jolt its way through my arms to rattle my body at its core.

I feel like this scene would be a lot more tense if I was under the impression that shooting Mannequin would actually kill him.

I wonder if Crawler is more vulnerable from the inside. Maybe throwing the grenade into his mouth could work.

Or it could give him a fancy new kind of breath/spit weapon.

I didn’t get a chance to see.  Cache came to life.

Ah, fuck.

Quick, get everyone out of your pocket, Cache! Even if you don’t make it because of the caustic spray, we need the rest of the team!

I couldn’t even imagine what went through his mind.  He went from disengaging from a fight with Jack and Bonesaw in a flooded parking lot to facing down Crawler and Mannequin in the middle of a sea of fire.

While covered in boiling corrosive mucus.

Maybe he’d anticipated that, but he couldn’t have anticipated the acid spittle.  Holes began to appear in the fabric of his fireproof costume.

Unfortunately not acidproof, clearly.

He managed to maintain his composure- I had no idea how.  I couldn’t imagine how it must have felt to be down there, feeling the heat and smoke coming in through the widening holes in the fabric.

And the acid, I’d imagine?

He began using his power, calling up the shadowy geometry that would deposit the heroes onto the battlefield.

Let’s call in the reinforcements!

The two members of the Nine, it seemed, didn’t intend to give him the chance.  Both charged for the hero.

Of course. If they can stop this, that’s fantastic news for them. They’d be rid of a whole bunch of local heroes, as well as Legend.

And all this so they could avoid some incendiary bombs Piggot insisted on dropping.

Mannequin made a gesture at Crawler, fingertips of two hands all touching, pressed to his ‘mouth’, then he pulled his hands away, splaying his fingers.

Air kiss? Roar? Tear him to pieces with teeth and claws?

Crawler cocked his head and Mannequin pointed at the frozen heroes.  I heard Crawler rumble with guttural laughter.

…bite over the heroes and wait for the unfreezing?

Sounds like a good way to give half the local heroes access to your guts.

No.

What could I do?  I was a bystander here, effectively powerless, but for my beetle.  I had the gun, but it wouldn’t do anything to Crawler and I didn’t trust myself to hit Mannequin at this range.

Would it do much more to Mannequin, for that matter?

I had a single grenade, and I knew that wouldn’t even make Crawler flinch.

Crawler spat a caustic spray onto Cache and Clockblocker.

Oh. Oh jeez.

That’s a problem.

I could see the mucus fizz and pop from my vantage point high above.

If I used a grenade, could I clear it away?  Or was it too viscous?  Would I be losing something I couldn’t afford to throw away?

I doubt it’d get it all away. Also, try not to take too many risks re: grenades right when they unfreeze.

Two grenades left.  I threw one down at them.  Mannequin backed away, and Crawler, though his head was directed at Weld, rose up onto his two hind legs and batted at the grenade with Weld’s body.

Oh jeez, we’re playing baseball now.

With a metal bat and everything.

The explosive went off a second after the impact, and Weld was thrown free of Crawler’s grip.  I saw him stagger to his feet, his wounds closing as he shapeshifted them.

Oh hey, he’s still alive! And the shapeshifting lets him take care of the healing himself. Nice.

Now can he manage to stay that way?

He couldn’t do much about the material that had been raked off of him.

Absorb some cars when this is over?

This wasn’t going well.

Wait, really? 😮

If he is still alive, he’s gonna be badly hurt, and I don’t think Amy can help him. He’s immune to her power, counting as inorganic for its purposes.

I didn’t know what his reasons were, but Weld turned toward Mannequin in the same moment the grenade left my hand.

Ow.

It was disastrous on two levels.  Whatever surprise I’d hoped to retain was lost when I was forced to shout out, “Grenade!”

Did the shout help Weld stop?

Mannequin abandoned his hold on the car as he leaped to one side to get clear well before it exploded.  Weld, too, managed to stay out of the way, stopping in his tracks.

Good. So what’s the situation with Crawler?

Crawler came tearing through the blazing parking booth and blindsided Weld.  In terms of raw power, the junior hero might as well have been a powerless human for all the defense he could muster.

I’m unsure about Weld’s chances of surviving this chapter. Fuck.

Crawler’s claws tore into him, revealing bones in silver, organs in copper and gold.

Yeeeeah, that doesn’t sound alive to me.

You were a good lad, Weld.