"Go secure the gunmen," Mary quietly orders the troopers around her, never taking her eyes off of Rock's mutated form.
As the normals rapidly turn to follow her order, smartly understanding when they are outmatched, the Heroes present don't stand on ceremony.
The fight starts in earnest with Dauntless thrusting his Arclance down on Rock, sending a bolt of pure white lighting striking down on him. At the same time, Miss Militia's power forms into an anti-material rifle at Mary's side from the get go, not willing to hold back after seeing Rock so carelessly kill a group of troopers.
Rock tries to push forward even with the lightning raining down on him, but his body still jerks back as Miss Militia's shot opens a hole right in the centre of his chest. If not for the fact that she had given up her hearing, Mary would have also gone deaf from the sound of Miss Militia's gun firing, but as it is she instead simply charges forward.
Battery beats her to the punch, appearing behind Rock's falling body surrounded by arcing electricity and landing a solid kick on his back, right above the regenerating hole in his chest. Seeing the opening for what it is, Mary rushes forward, swinging her cane hard for his face, only for the attack to be rebuffed with a metallic clang as her cane meets the head of an axe and the next instant, she has to lean back to avoid another axe aiming for her throat.
Following the weapons back to their wielder, Mary sees her old 'friend' Party Trick, currently known as Circus, smiling maliciously back at her.
"Ohai~ Zou-chan. Long time no see~."
Behind Circus, Rock recovers enough to flap his new wings and launch himself in the air at Dauntless. The others follow after him, leaving Mary alone to deal with Circus.
Mary regards her with a similar smile on her lips even as she is forced two steps back dodging and parrying Circus' axes with casual ease. "Ohayou, Trick-chan. What's with all the face paint? Do you just want to get invited to little kids' birthday parties or something?~ Naughty naughty, that kink's illegal you know?~"
Neither of them pay attention to the fighting around them as it moves down the street, their own fight moving back into the factory as they continuously exchange blows, sparks flying every time Circus' axes meet Mary's cane.
"Oh, what's this?~ Who knew Little Miss Hero had such a sharp tongue? Why, it's almost as if you're not so perfect after all, Zou-chan~. And don't think I've forgotten your own kinks~."
Circus' words cause her to pout with furrowed brows, and when Circus' next overhead strike comes, she parries it with much more force than before, knocking Circus off balance for a moment long enough to land a spartan kick right into their chest.
Circus' body flips in the air over a number of box crates before landing on another one deeper in the room and looking down at Mary with a haughty smirk.
"Oi, I already told you, that's not a kink! I'm not weird for watching Case 53 porn! We watched those videos together for fuck's sake, you can't deny that it's interesting!"
It's a good thing that her fellow Heroes trusted her to take care of a low level Villain like Circus by herself and focused on Rock instead, else she'd probably be getting some uncomfortable questions about her change in attitude, not to mention her browsing habits.
It helps that she's already told them all that she's always beaten Circus when they fought as Juuzou and Party Trick. Which is true, even if she tended to have both of her arms during those fights...
Oh well, she's confident that she can win even with a missing arm. Her power literally involves handicapping herself anyway, so it's nothing new. If anything, it just makes this more fun as Circus might actually prove a challenge to fight for once.
It helps that Mary enjoys beating up Circus. After all, back before she ended up with Master, Circus used to beat up little Suzu. So Mary is happy for any opportunity to humble the contemptuous prick with their difference in skill.
Well, she thinks that, but Mary doesn't really dislike the queer Villain. Her feelings for Circus are more like her feelings for heroics. Just another small part in a far grander act.
With that thought in mind and a smile on her face, Mary gives the factory floor a quick once-over. The room they are in is large, open and fairly well lit by a series of low hanging ceiling lights, as well as plenty of afternoon sunlight coming through large windows on the ceiling as well as the very top of three of the walls.
There's a metal walkway in the air that sticks to the walls with one bridge connecting it in the centre. The walkway is likely only there to grant access to the relatively small office box at the back of the building that looks down on the main floor.
She also notes how whatever equipment that used to cover the floor has been removed and replaced by a whole bunch of wooden crates almost as tall and wide as she is tall. Some of them are open and either empty or halfway there, showing that it's mostly guns, ammo and drugs being stored here.
The crates cover most of the factory floor starting from a few paces in and are arranged to have walkways between them all, making it something like a simple maze. Mary approves. A complex battlefield will just increase the skill ceiling of the fight, thus allowing her to better kick Circus' ass.
After all, in a straight fight, Mary is still missing an arm, and she's also not in a position to use her fire right now, so she is rather disadvantaged. The only thing she really has, and always will have over Circus is overwhelming skill.
Since they're currently alone, the main fight still taking place nearby outside from the noise, Mary doesn't bother restraining her grin as she jumps up onto a crate. The two of them enter a tense stand off for a moment, staring into each other's eyes even through Mary's blindfold.
However, before Mary can reengage their fight, Circus surprises her by speaking up.
"Hey, Juuzou-" Circus starts, only to immediately be interrupted by an unrepentant Mary.
"It's Maryam now actually."
"Should you be telling me your secret identity?"
"It won't matter."
"Sure," Circus shakes her head, choosing to ignore that comment, "anyway, as I was saying. Do you remember when we watched that tournament?"
"No shit, Dipfuck, it was like half a year ago. You don't have to act like we're old people reminiscing on the 'good old days'. You're not even an adult."
Circus lets out a put upon sigh, even as her lips twitch in a smile. "Must you be such a raging cunt all the time?"
Cocking her hip, Mary blows Circus a kiss. "Only for you sugah~," she teases with a wink, making Circus' grin grow a fraction.
"Well," Circus continues, pretending that little byplay didn't just happen, "you know how I said I wanted to join up with those Clowns?"
"Yeah, I do. I also remember telling you you were retarded for even considering it. You're nowhere near their level. I told you that if you somehow manage to get their attention, you'll just be crushed underneath its wight."
Seriously. Mary actually kind of likes Circus, even is she also wants to kill him at the same time. But they just really aren't at the level that they can survive playing in the big leagues. It's a shame that Circus won't listen to her warnings. Maybe things could have gone differently if he did.
"Yeah, you did say that. But you were wrong."
"Oh yeah? How's that? You don't think that just by dressing up like a clown that you are one, right? If anything, I'm surprised one of them hasn't hunted you down yet." Mary asks. Not because she particularly cares about the answer, but because it's rather blatantly clear that Circus just wants to tell her.
"Oh but they have~. A Clown called Jester came to me not that long ago."
"Really now. And how'd you manage to survive that?"
"Simple," Circus beams a smile, "I explained how I wanted to join her, how much I admired them, and she decided to give me a chance. All I have to do is pass her test, and she'll nominate me for membership! So how about this," one of the axes in Circus' hands disappears as she reaches the hand forward in offering. "Instead of fighting me, join me, and we can be Clowns together!"
A beat passes, and then Mary can't hold back anymore and bursts into laughter, clutching her sides from how hard she's laughing.
Circus' once triumphant expression falls flat, all the while Mary starts pointing at her as she continues to laugh.
Only after a long, awkward, for Circus at least, moment does Mary reign her laughter in enough to stand tall, even as her body continues to shake from poorly supressed chuckles.
"Y-y-you can't be- hahahaha! You can't be serious right now! Hahahaha!! You're such a fucking retard! Ahahahahahaaaaa," Mary's laughter ends with a long suffering sigh, and when she continues, her voice is perfectly level and devoid of feeling. "Seriously, Trick. You're an idiot."
"Fine then," Circus huffs, sounding genuinely aggrieved for the first time as she rescinds her offered hand and resummons her second axe. "If that's how you want to be, I'll just go back to Jester alone."
"Dumbass," Mary mutters to herself with a shake of the head. "For one, there isn't even a nomination process to join the Clowns, you just get invited. But more importantly, you're the kind of idiot that can't understand the difference between others laughing with you and laughing at you. Jester does not care about you. This is your last chance, surrender, and I will make sure you get a good deal. Please, Circus. The Clowns exist in a realm beyond you. If you continue this path, you will die. You aren't strong enough to survive their attention."
With her piece said, Mary decides that they've done enough talking and twitches her wrist up, letting go of her cane and catching it again at its tip before swinging it at Circus, who crosses her axes in front of herself to block the head of the cane-whip. The two weapons collide with a sound like a gunshot and a shower of sparks, but Circus deflects it to the side with little struggle.
Circus tries jumping at her, thinking he can counter from the parry. Unfortunately for the stupid transvestite, her weapon of choice is a whip. Which is, rather famously, not a particularly rigid weapon.
And it is a weapon of which she is rather quite skilled in its use. Which is why she has no trouble flicking her weapon back, smashing its weighted head into their open back.
Circus yelps at the unexpected impact and misses their footing, causing them to fall into the gaps of their 'arena' and slam chest first into the corner of one of the crates with a soft oof.
She knows that she is technically at a disadvantage in a straight fight, so she doesn't hesitate to push the advantage while she has it, leaping across the gap separating them all the while her cane rapidly reels itself back in.
In the short time it takes her whip to fully return to being a cane, she is standing above Circus' recovering form and bringing her cudgel down on her old friend like she's playing golf.
Being one handed reduces the amount of power she can put behind the swing, but superpowers make up the difference and as such the wooden crate still cracks and splinters under the barely dodged blow.
"Miss me~ miss me~ now you gotta-" She doesn't hear Circus finish her taunt as it is drowned out by the great ball of fire that shoots right past her face and into the ceiling above them.
She ignores the deafening explosion that lights up above them, shaking the building, and takes a half step back, a calm, focused smile on her lips even as an axe head falls right in front of her face.
She almost goes cross-eyed watching the blade brush against her nose, a single, tiny pinprick of red the only evidence of its passing.
Yet even then, she doesn't have any time to counter as Circus' other axe comes around in an attempt to bisect her that she avoids with an easy, almost casual backwards tilt. The next she meets halfway with her cane, jabbing it's head right into the blade of Circus' descending axe, just to show off.
However they both have to back off to avoid the falling rubble from where Circus' fireball put a hole in the ceiling.
The crashing noise of debris crushing a dozen or so boxes is almost louder than the fireball that caused it yet neither of them break eye contact.
Even as a small cloud of dust rises between them, they never lose sight of each other's figures. The new opening allows the sounds of intense battle to filter in from outside, where the rest of the capes present are still engaged in combat, but they ignore that too.
After a few passing moments, the dust between them begins to settle once more, leaving them facing each other over a small void between them where no more crates stand and wearing matching smiles, through Circus' smile is more exited than her own placid expression.
Not wanting to lose the advantage of terrain and knowing Circus is too stupid to take advantage of every edge they can get, she takes a step to the right, edging around the void.
As she knew they would, Circus mimics her. Calmly walking around to meet her. The gaps that separate the crates they are using as an arena are small enough that they only need a small jump or a large step to cross them, and soon enough they are face to face once more, with only a small gap in the crates separating them.
The seconds seem to drag on as they each wait for the other to make the first move, until a stray thought catches her attention.
"Hey, Circus?"
"Hm?"
"What do you even think is gonna happen when you get accepted as a Clown?"
Circus' smile grows a little as they shrug one shoulder. "No idea~. Probably something fun though."
Their cavalier attitude gets a huff of genuine amusement from Mary as her smile turns wry. "Yeah," she sighs to herself, too quiet for Circus to hear, "that sounds about right." Grinning just a bit wider, she speaks again, louder this time. "It really is a shame you went down this path. You could have been so much more."
Shaking her head, Mary closes her mouth and prepares to restart their fight. Such a waste, she thinks to herself, even as she leaps across the gap at Circus, swinging her cane down at them.
Their axes disappear from their hands and abruptly there is a large, cross-shaped medieval shield filling her vision.
A loud clang echoes as her momentum is forced to a stop and she has to split her legs to bridge the gap between crates without falling down. Leaving her in a rather awkward position when Circus' shield disappears to show them standing with their arms pulled back holding a black metal halberd ready to be thrust right at her.
She smiles.
"Predictable," she says as she slides her back foot further away, falling into a perfect split and causing the sharp weapon to brush through her hair instead of her neck.
The Halberd disappears from Circus' hands as they try to react, but are too slow to move out of the way of her own thrust. However Circus' shield returns right before her cane can impact their stomach, yet they were still off balance enough that the blow almost knocks them over.
While they're still reeling, Mary pushes herself back to her feet and doesn't hesitate to kick the shield in front of her as hard as she can.
Regular steel would have dented under the blow that sent cracks spiderwebbing across the crate below her, but she can see that the shield is fine even as Circus is launched a dozen feet back, crashing into a crate and splintering it, sending dozens of identical guns scattering around.
Taking a step forward in pursuit, Mary's foot falls through the top of the crate she is standing on, but with an annoyed huff she yanks it out and continues forward, running after Circus before they can gather themself.
Arriving above Circus right as he is pulling himself out of the crate she embedded him in, Mary drops an axe kick right onto his face.
Still dazed, Circus only manages to bring one arm up in time to block the blow, and though he manages to protect his face, it comes at the cost of his right arm audibly snapping under Mary's boot.
"FUCKING OW!!" Circus screams as he collapses back into the pile of splinters and loose guns he just crawled out of.
Circus' unbroken arm swings forward, light beginning to gather in the open palm before Mary's cane smacks the offending limb to the side, snapping the wrist and causing the budding fireball to be launched wide.
Mary's face could have been carved from stone, her calm smile not wavering even as the passing ball of flame casts flickering shadows over her face.
The explosion sounds out right as the head of Mary's cane finds itself resting on Circus' throat, applying a faint pressure.
Circus sticks his tongue out at Mary mockingly, though he can't hide the faint scrunching of his eyes from the pain of his broken bones.
Mary smiles and opens her mouth to gloat, only to disappear in a blur of movement, a buffering wind and a thunderous crash the only signs of her passing.
It takes Circus' brain a second to catch up with what is happening, and when it does he quickly looks to his right where Mary has been embedded into a wall by a white boulder taller than her.
Turning the other way, he watches a heavily injured and barely regenerating Rock dashing through the newest hole that he just made.
He really looks like he's been through the ringer. His left arm is but a bleeding stump, his clothes torn and coated in even more blood and the only signs of his transformation are a wing and a half, the solid blood gauntleting around his remaining arm that is missing two thirds of it's pinky, and a pair of glowing red eyes.
Relaxing back into his nest of broken parts, Circus raises a hand in a two fingered wave, being careful to not move his broken arm. Though trying to appear nonchalant in his lounging, Circus does a poor job hiding his pained expression.
"Yo, Rocky. You don't look so hot. Having trouble?" He teases, and his voice sounds strained to his own ears.
"Fuck y-"
Rock doesn't get to finish his answer before Battery appears by his side wreathed in bright blue sparks and punches him in the side. Rock's body carves another line through the floor of crates, leaving even more splinters and broken parts scattered around.
"Annoying fucking-"
He has to cut himself off again when Assault comes flying in after his partner like an arrow, his feet poised to cave Rock's broken ribs even further in.
However, before he gets close enough, Rock swings his remaining arm forward only for the last of his pinky finger to abruptly swell and grow until the bone explodes out of his flesh and is launched flying at Assault, rapidly growing as the gap between them close.
In less than the span of a second, the pinky joint grows enough to be taller than Rock, but when Assault collides with it there is no crash of any kind. Instead, the giant lump of bone simply stills, as if a video paused, and the two of them drop to the ground with a thud.
A temporary lull in the fighting takes place as Rock takes a step back to assess his situation, cradling the stump of his arm with the other. As he does so, Battery comes to stand by Assault in front of him, and Dauntless floats in through the hole in the ceiling, Arclance held in one arm while the other hangs limply. At the same time, Miss Militia limps through the same hole in the wall that Rock blast through, a steady flow of blood trailing down her left thigh.
Rock grimaces at the sight, knowing that he is fighting a losing battle. Well, it's not like he didn't expect it, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt. Aren't the Heroes supposed to hold back all the time? He supposes killing those troopers right in front of them might have made them a bit more willing to use lethal force than he planned.
Oh the woe of being too good of an actor. Seriously, getting your arm ripped off hurts. A lot.
Before the fighting can begin again, the sound of shifting rubble comes from behind Rock, and when he turns to face it, making sure not to let the other Heroes out of his peripheral as he does so, he almost breaks from the character he created to let out a deeply annoyed sigh.
Out from behind the boulder-sized bone that crushed her against the wall walks Mary. She is holding her cane that seems to be broken and stuck as a whip for now, trailing behind her. But other than some spatters of blood, she looks mostly unharmed, or at least not hurt enough to impede her anyway.
"Ow," she says in a tone that sounds more dry than hurt.
"You okay Falcon?" Assault asks, not taking his eyes off of Rock.
Mary rolls her neck, letting it pop, before giving a smile that doesn't reach her eyes. "I'm fine," she says, "but if you throw another boulder at me, imma get pissed."
"Now wouldn't that just be tragic," Circus suddenly says, appearing by Rock's side with a strained smile, clearly trying not to jostle his broken bones.
The Heroes tense, ready for the fight to pick back up, but Rock just stares down at Circus, feeling contemplative.
From where he's standing, the entrance to the factory is to his right, most of the Heroes are in front of him while Falcon is behind him and Circus is to the left. Rock knows that he's on his last legs. The TGT in his system has mostly run dry, the regenerative effect basically non existent at this point. It will probably expire within a minute or two.
At best he can take one or two more attacks before the strain becomes too much and he either dies or gets knocked out.
Yet, despite that, he feels himself smile as a plan comes to mind. It's probably not a very good plan, but he's hardly in the right condition to be thinking things through.
"Oh, you got a plan, Sire Rock?" Circus asks with a brighter smile that falters almost immediately after making eye contact with Rock. "Er, Rocky. You've got a pretty scary look in your eye right n-"
Circus doesn't get to finish talking as Rock brings his remaining arm sweeping down at his legs, the protruding blade from his TGT-granted gauntlet cutting clean through Circus' thighs like a knife through butter.
Rock doesn't even give him time to fall down or cry out in pain before completing his spin and kicking Circus right in the chest, sending him flying into the office box at the other end of the room.
He doesn't get to do anything else as Mary's whip wraps around him, locking his arm to his torso right as another bolt of electricity strikes down on him from Dauntless' lance.
He feels his thoughts slowing down, becoming all jumbled and full of white noise. He thinks he blacks out for a second, because the next and last thing he sees is a red blur right in front of him.
He barely even feels the impact before the world starts getting darker. I'm sorry, he thinks to himself as he falls to the ground.
The final thought that passes his mind before darkness envelops him fully is a desperate plea for his dearest friends.
Live well.
///
A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
Well damn, this chapter took like a month of on and off writing to finish and it's not even good :'(
Ah well, hopefully this time it will actually kickstart me back into writing again lol.
I can't even really say anything about the chap cuz it's been so long since I started it and I can hardly remember jack shit. One positive though is that I've finally decided who the protag is gonna be lmao, so hopefully it'll get better from now on. Or it might just not, who knows.