The shop had everything cape related, from movies showcasing individual members of the teams to books, magazines, figurines, toys and posters.  The layout of the shop made it awkward as a battlefield.  The shelves, racks, stands and display cases forced visitors into a winding path as they navigated the shop.

Right, the winding path shop trick, getting visitors to pass by just about everything they might want to buy, at the expense of visitor convenience.

The window looking out on the street was smaller than the display windows, and was covered by metal bars.  Tattletale began unloading the lightning cannon on the bars.

Nice.

Though are you sure you want to heat up metal you’re going to have to climb through/past?

Dragon lunged out of the darkness, then spotted us, her shoulder turrets orienting in our direction.

Shit, hi.

We ducked behind a heavy wooden magazine stand filled with cape magazines and tourism pamphlets as Dragon opened fire with two streams of containment foam.

Why do I have a feeling this is going to cover the window?

They still faced the hurdle of passing by Weld, but a blast of darkness and an abrupt change of direction faked out the young hero, letting Grue slip by.

Nice.

“Dragon’s here!?” he shouted, aghast.

Yeeah, things kinda went to shit a bit, though if you can get away, the mission’s accomplished.

“Yeah!  But we got the stuff, had to wait for you!”

“Go through the gift shop, We’ll meet you outside!”  He charged right behind the spot where Dragon was still within the cloud of darkness, and out the front door.

Huh, I guess finding a way out wasn’t as difficult as I thought.

Shadow Stalker simply passed through Weld and bolted for the door, running faster than the Ward’s leader could, while the smallest dogs stayed just out of his reach, bolting after Grue.

Niice.

Bentley, the only dog currently under the effects of Bitch’s power,

Ah, wasn’t Angelica, never mind.

a little beaten and battered, came running towards us, far, far too eager for something that large and strong.

Heh. It’s like a car trying to come and lick you in the face.

Bitch grabbed his collar before he could leap up to greet her, redirected his momentum, then wrenched him toward the window.  “Go!” she shouted, pointing.

Whooo, time to make a cool exit!

Bentley eagerly plowed through the remaining display window, knocking over DVD racks as he landed in the shop.  We followed him in.

Well, entry, depending how you look at it.

More of my bugs set sticky pieces of glass down on top of lenses and sensors.  That was apparently enough for Dragon, because she stopped spraying the foam altogether and started using the two turrets that weren’t dedicated to fire management to deploying the same vapor that shrouded her legs.

Huh. What is she trying to do, fill the whole room with vapor so it reaches up to her sensors?

It surrounded her, and the work I’d done to stick things to her began to come apart as the foam turned runny.

I guess it spreads upwards enough that that wasn’t necessary. It slipped my mind how low this thing is to the ground, for that matter.

A wave of darkness swept over her.  Grue was awake, and had formed a loose group with Shadow Stalker and the dogs.

Eyy! Good to see ya, man. Now let’s find a way to get the hell outta here before the Protectorate arrives.

All but one of the dogs were normal sized, now, with no sign or trace of their mutations.

The one left would be Angelica, right? If I recall correctly, she was bigger than the others, since she’s well trained enough that Bitch could trust her with that.

“I could’ve figured something out,” Imp pouted.

Tattletale didn’t have a response to that.  Instead, she hauled her gun up and then fired a short burst at Weld.

Fair enough, I guess.

Also, seems Tattle’s gun is still functional. Nice.

He backed up into the wall of flame, oddly enough, and Tattletale stopped firing.

What? Why?

Two of Dragon’s shoulder turrets were now being set to the task of controlling the flame and keeping it from spreading across the lobby, to the front desk or up to the ceiling.   Twin jets of chemical spray kept the fire limited to the areas Dragon wanted it.

It’s pretty clear at this point that Dragon is in control of the battlefield.

“Doesn’t she care about property damage?” I asked.

Eh, the PRT can fix it easily enough, I suppose.

“She prefers to keep her data secure and pay out of her own pocket for any damage.  

Heh. Do not fuck with a sysadmin.

Betting this place is slated for some major renovations anyways, given the state of things,” Tattletale explained.  The foam was inching closer to us as Dragon prowled further into the lobby.

If it wasn’t before, it certainly needs to be now.

I looked at her, confused, but I didn’t have time to figure it out.

“What do you mean, ‘Imp!’?”

A flare of orange light caught my attention.  Dragon’s mouth had opened wide, and she was spewing something like an ignited accelerant into the lobby.  With this fluid, she drew a three-foot wide line of flame onto the lobby floor, stretching from just below her to the stairwell door by the front desk.  She’d cut off our escape route.

Welp. Better hope some horned girl makes a new one for you.

Weld leaped into and through the flame, his hook hands swinging wildly.  Some of the accelerant had landed on him, making him burn, but he didn’t seem to mind.

I mean, burning isn’t gonna do a whole lot to a guy who’s non-flammable and can literally melt himself partially without suffering ill effects.

He turned ninety degrees and lunged forward in response to something I couldn’t see or hear, then swept his hooks out in a frenzied series of blind attacks.  On the third swing I saw Imp duck beneath the attack, then stumble back out of his reach, towards us.

Huh, it seems he detected her before she became visible to Taylor.

So did he detect her but not remember what he was detecting?

“The fucking fuck!?” she shouted.

Hm. Maybe Dragon can detect Imp and told Weld over their communications that Imp was next to him?

“Dragon can see you, you twit, and she’s relaying directions to Weld!” Tattletale shouted at our new member, “And what the hell were you hoping to accomplish over there!?”

Good question, but whatever it was, it’s probably better than nothing.

“So she’s piloting that thing, then?” Imp asked.  “My power works on her?”

It should, unless her seeing you through digital sensors makes a difference.

“We can’t be sure,” Tattletale spoke, “Don’t risk it.”

Huh. That’s not something you hear from Tattle every day.

Dragon advanced another step, circling our relative cover from the window to spray inches closer to us.  The way it was piling up, there would be no way to go over it, and the route we had available for going around the far end of it was rapidly closing.

Ah, right. Might be a good time to exit the gift shop, then, before you no longer can.

We were getting hemmed in, our backs to the wall by the window.

“Imp!” Tattletale shouted, “No!”

She’s risking it, isn’t she.

The gift shop jutted out from the wall of the lobby some, the glass panes arranged to showcase more of the pictures, action figures and memorabilia with three broad windows than they might with one.  This layout gave us some cover from Dragon’s attacks.

And hey, if she ends up breaking the windows with a burst of spray, maybe you can move some sticky shards. Although I guess they’d get stuck to the ground.

Even when the force of the spray served to break the windows, the expansion of the foam at the edges of the frame soon blocked the worst of it off.

Ah, yeah, or the frame.

If anything, it was closing the windows off.  Only the pane of glass facing us was left unbroken and largely free of foam.

Nice – cover that, when broken, only covers more. Not bad.

Sensing this, Dragon started to advance further into the lobby.  Her broad, mechanical feet began hissing with vapor, and the goo my ground-borne bugs were hauling towards her began to run, losing its consistency and stickiness.

Ahh, she considered the possibility of the mech having to go through the foam and installed the anti-foam substance in the mech’s feet… smart.

She set one foot down directly on a pile of foam, and lifted it up again with no difficulty.  It was clear: the foam wouldn’t hamper her.

Maybe you can somehow use this? Coat the bugs in the anti-foam and fly into some foam that’s in your way? But the solvent is probably used up too, so that wouldn’t do much and the bugs would probably get stuck.

Shadow Stalker was still fighting Weld.  As Dragon turned a stream toward them, Weld reacted fast enough that I suspected he had some line of communication to her.

I guess that would be through his earpiece. Did they ever turn Shadow Stalker’s earpiece back on?

He backed out of the way, and Shadow Stalker and the dog both moved in the other direction, with a stream splashing where they had been brawling a second before, blossoming into a pile of foam as tall as they were, separating the two groups of combatants.

Well, shit, that seems to mean Weld is now free to go after Taylor & co.

Most of my first wave of bugs had either been shot out of the sky by errant bits of spray or had placed their initial pieces of glass and were going back for more.  This wasn’t a K.O. hit, and Dragon was too good to let something this minor stop her, however it might delay or hamper her.

If there’s a way out of this situation that doesn’t involve K.O.ing Weld and Dragon, that would be worth pursuing, but even if you find one of those, you gotta wait for Grue to unfreeze.

The real issue was that this was too slow, and we were on a tight time limit.  Less than a minute, and the Protectorate would arrive.  Their team was smaller with recent deaths and Armsmaster’s ‘retirement’, and I hadn’t heard about any new recruits.

But they’re still a threat, and you’re having enough trouble with Dragon.

Then again, I hadn’t heard about the Ward’s new recruits, and here Weld was, being annoyingly persistent.

He really has been quite the formidable hero.

I was assuming he was the new leader, given his tone with Shadow Stalker.  I wondered if being ridiculously tenacious was a job requirement for being in charge of the Wards.

Heh. It certainly doesn’t hurt.

It made sense to have a commander who wouldn’t be removed from the field by an errant attack.  You wanted someone who would stay in the thick of it for the whole fight.

Yeah, and add Weld’s brains to that and you’ve got a fantastic leader.

“No way she got here this fast,” Tattletale spoke, “She’s based in British Columbia, on the other side of the continent.  This has to be remotely controlled, like the one she used to fight Leviathan, which means the only eyes on you are digital, and-”

Eyyy!

And… that means?

“She’s not,” Regent interrupted.

“What?” Tattletale asked him.

What? Are you sensing nerves in there?

“There’s someone in there, I tried using my power on her, experimenting, and I felt some kind of nervous system.  Too much material between me and it for me to do anything with it, and I wouldn’t really try it while I’m controlling Shadow Stalker anyways.  I’d probably backfire.”

Huh.

Well then.

Way to shoot me down just after my theory seemed to be confirmed, Regent. 😛

it could still be someone else, trapped inside the mech like the animals in Dr. Eggman’s robots…