I’d been drawing my bugs closer to the building since we arrived, and I brought them into the fray as Dragon continued to lock down the lobby with the spray.

Taylor just keeps ending up in fights against people with metal protecting their bodies, sheesh.

And in Dragon’s case I’m not

even

entirely sure there is a human body to protect, let alone that it’s around here.

So… what can the bugs really do in this situation? I suppose they might be able to sabotage Dragon’s weaponry or senses, or if they can somehow get in there, circuitry.

The first tactic I tried was blocking the spray with the bugs.  I didn’t intend to stop the spray, exactly, but I hoped that I could cause the bugs to catch it & drop down atop Dragon, sticking to her.  It didn’t work – the spray was too strong, and the bugs were blasted much too far away.

Only one or two landed on her, and even then, I doubted the positions were that ideal.

Nice try, anyway.

Instead, I adjusted my tactics.  The idea was the same, but I didn’t want to sacrifice bugs for the purpose of clogging her systems or blocking her guns if it would be that ineffective.

Hm… so how do you do this without sacrificing too many bugs?

I gathered some bugs on anything that looked like a sensor – glass panes or openings in the armored vehicle, and I set the rest to gathering on the shattered glass that littered the floor of the lobby.

Ah, the sensor-blocking tactic 🙂

The feet of the insects and arachnids had setae, or small hairs, which branched further into setules.  These fibers, in turn, harnessed Van der Waals forces to cling even to surfaces as slick as glass.

Interesting! So are you going to have the bugs try to pick up the glass and drop it back down on Dragon, or something like that? Sounds ineffective, though… I’m guessing Taylor has a smarter plan.

I’d been reading up.

Nice. That explanation did sound a bit more academic than we’re used to.

The four engines mounted on the shoulders of Dragon’s armor shifted position, each aiming at a different point within the lobby.  Tattletale was the first of us to turn and run, the rest of us moving to follow as Dragon opened fire.

Hm. This sounds a bit familiar… I wonder if Kid Win took some inspiration from Dragon like he was suggesting that Chariot could.

All in all, Dragon unloaded four streams of containment foam into the lobby, each of the shoulder mounted turrets gushing like firehoses.  Only flecks of the spray struck us, but they expanded into blobs of foam the size of golf balls and softballs.

Sheesh, as if this room wasn’t already messy enough with that foam.

Each blob was tacky, sticky, and any attempt to wipe it away just smeared it and exposed more surface area to the air, making it expand more. 

If we’d started running a fraction of a second later, we might have been screwed.

Yeeah.

Weld moved to block our retreat, but Shadow Stalker stepped up to fight him with one of the dogs, Bentley, joining her.

Oh right, some of the dogs did get back up.

It made for a pretty effective combination, as Weld couldn’t swing hard enough to hurt the dog without risking hurting his teammate.

Sweet!

The way Regent was having Shadow Stalker fight, there was no self preservation or defense, which worked out to being a more effective combat style than anything else, in its own way.  I was pretty sure Weld had never fought someone who was actively trying to get hit.

It’s the kind of tactic that depends a lot on the opponent’s relation with the attacker, and in this situation, it’s pretty good.

I glanced behind us, where Weld was standing with excruciating slowness.  He was already cooling off.  The dog by Bitch’s side was growling, now.

The good news: Sticking metal to him will still work.

Seriously, do try to get Dragon and Weld to collide.

Tattletale continued, “The bad news is that the Protectorate is about a minute away, Grue’s still out of action, and there’s pretty much no chance we’re going to get out of here before then.”

Well, fuck.

As I was saying: Weld was trouble enough.

I looked at the weapons that bristled from Dragon’s shoulders.  If I didn’t know Tattletale’s power, I wasn’t sure I’d believe her.

Dragon does seem to know how to intimidate. Then again, I don’t think that means those weapons aren’t fully functional.

“Well, that’s good,” Regent replied, “Except it can still totally kick our asses.”

Yeah, that’s the bad news.

Tattletale didn’t disagree.  “Best tinker in the world?  Probably.”

Yep, Dragon really knows her stuff.

That explained why Dragon had been so quiet.  When she’d talked about reinforcements, Dragon had been talking about herself.

…right.

I’m not convinced that she’s actually inside that, but she’s presumably controlling it remotely.

Then again, I can’t rule out that she is this thing, in a sense. I mean, if she’s actually some sort of AI or otherwise virtual in nature, she can have a hivemind of mechanical bodies that she controls directly. But that’s more of a possibility that I can’t rule out than something I actually believe is the case.

“Okay,” Tattletale spoke as she backed up, moving her gun to point it at Weld, then Dragon and then back to Weld again.  “Good news, that’s a model Dragon designed for speed, meant to get places fast.  Like, say, if she wanted to get an armored suit from Toronto to Brockton Bay to personally take a hand in dealing with a group of teenage villains.  It’s not really that serious a combat model.”

It’s armed to the teeth it may or may not have… if that’s not either meant for intimidation or a serious combat feature, then wow the serious ones must be chock full. No wonder the Dragonslayers are so effective with only a little bit of Dragon tech.

It would have been intimidating enough on its own, but the four engines that were mounted on its upper body, extending out of each of its shoulders in two places, were some combination of a weapons array and a propulsion system.

Hm. Maybe it’s less like a salamander and more like a… dragon.

They bristled with turrets and missiles.  It opened its mouth briefly to vent off some vapor and I could see more weapons contained within.  Foremost among them was some kind of massive cannon.

Evidently this thing comes prepared, whatever it is.

Tattletale, Weld and I hurried to back away as he began to climb to his feet, Tattletale recovering her lightning gun.   I could see her debate striking him again, but she seemed to decide it would be better to keep her distance and hold on to it.

Is it still functional?

I could see Shadow Stalker materialize behind Weld, with Bitch approaching from the other end of the hallway.  One of the dogs, the setter whose name I couldn’t quite remember, had climbed to her feet to join Bitch.  Grue was still out of action.

Plot twist, the setter’s name is Aisha.

Weld started laughing, the noise just a little off, coming from someone who I suspected didn’t even have to breathe.

Having fun?

Tattletale caught some meaning in his laughter a second before Regent did.  Tattletale, Regent and Shadow Stalker all simultaneously turned toward the front of the building.  Regent and his puppet uttered a whispered “Oh shit” in unison.

…

The floodwater and moisture were stirred into an whirlwind flurry around the metal frame by turbines and jets, pushing water and debris a distance away as it set down.

Why’s it always gotta be water…

As the engines turned off, the water slopped back into place, lapping around four metal legs.

Reinforcements have arrived… and the Undersiders were having enough trouble with Weld alone.

It was squat, the frame low to the ground, with a snakelike head, and a segmented, sinous body.  It had four legs and a long tail that trailed on the ground in a zig-zagging shape, segmented much as the body had been.

Wait, what? A salamander bot, or something like that?

These reinforcements are taking a very different form than I had expected.

Also if this thing has a lot of exposed metal, try to get it to collide with Weld.

A short distance from us, Regent fell to one knee, grunting slightly.  A backfire?  Or something else?

…can he feel what happens to Shadow Stalker?

More out of an attempt to minimize the damage to Shadow Stalker than actually being bowled over, Weld fell.  I did as Tattletale had done before, and struck Weld with the metal of my gun’s barrel.

Well, guess we’re not seeing any more shots from that gun, then.

As I’d hoped, he was still hot enough that the gun bonded to the metal of his body, I could help to hamper his movements.

That’s not how that works, but it’s a reasonable assumption.

Rather than hit him in the face, I struck him across one arm, so the gun made contact with both his forearm, where the hook-hand started, and his bicep.  My hope was that it would limit his range of movement. 

Nice!