Does it matter?

Does it matter?

They were dealing with an organised clandestine group seemingly with a vast amount of resources that allowed them to kidnap experiment on and give superpowers and jetpacks to dozens of people that they knew of. They were approached by a man who gave no explanation - actually, scratch that – a very confusing and disjointed explanation of who he was, admitted that he was part of whatever experimentation these monsters were doing and expected them to just trust that he was not trying to lead them into a trap or was actually still working for these people in order to earn his freedom, same as every other person running around tonight.

No, really it was fine, just get in the back of the car with the stranger who said he died and came back to life twice and had a superhero girlfriend and let him take you to somewhere.

She still got in the fucking taxi though.

What other choice did she have at this point?

Kitsune was silent during the short trip to the pain clinic and it seemed like Joel wasn’t going to say anything either. It wasn’t until they arrived and stepped out the car that either of them said anything, with the stranger laying out a very basic plan of approach. She wasn’t entirely sold on the idea of letting this person out of her sight when he still might turn around and betray them, but she wasn’t sure going with him would end any better for her. All she could do is stick with Bouncer and hope that between them they could deal with whatever they ran in to.

The girl was sort of bulletproof after all. They could probably handle themselves.

“Alright, fine. Let’s get started.”

Had Bouncer ever been in a taxi before? She decided she hadn’t, and couldn’t really understand the appeal. Well, no, actually, did Mateo’s car count? He drove her around sometimes when the wolf woman wanted her to do something or she had nothing better to do than tag along on the boys’ errands. Still, this shit kinda blew. Wasn’t it more fun to walk? Or, like, teleport? Not that other people could do that.

She spent the ride with her feet propped up on the driver’s headrest, much to the man’s chagrin. The clinic didn’t look like much when they pulled up, but honestly all these little hole-in-the-wall places kinda bled together. Bouncer’s back was kind of starting to ache from her sitting posture, and she jumped out quickly when the cab rolled to a stop.

Joel’s plan was about as shit as he’d warned. Why the hell did he get the fun part? Bouncer opened her mouth to protest, but Kitsune cut her off before she could say anything. Bouncer glowered at the other woman, but let it go anyway. Whatever. If this really were some kind of secret evil lair, the “discrete” entrance would probably have plenty of fun to be found anyway.

“After you,” Bouncer said, sweeping her arm toward the clinic in a grand, permissive gesture. She stepped aside to let Joel past her, turning to cast her gaze over the building. It looked like she could go through the windows into the upper floor, but the fox woman probably wouldn’t be able to follow her there. No doubt there was an emergency exit or access door around back; that would probably work better. If it was locked, Bouncer could just head inside and open it.

Or maybe Kitsune could, like, break it down. With whatever it was she did. Bouncer wasn’t actually sure if she’d ever found out or not. Whatever.

Bouncer mentioned their likely method of ingress to Kitsune after Joel took off to do his thing. “I can take point,” she began, trying to remember all the “tactical” words she’d heard the boys say before. God, she was so good at strategy. She should be a leader, she’d be good at that maybe. “And you can clean up any stragglers who get past me. We can do a clean sweep while Joel holds the primary force away from me. Us. If he’s right about this place, there’ll likely be heavy resistance, so we should exercise force with full discrimination. Or whatever.”

In typical Joel fashion, he showed little hesitation as he approached a situation that would almost certainly turn out bad for him. He picked up a loose chunk of sidewalk and hurled it through the window. It shattered into a million, very satisfying, pieces.

"Always kinda' wanted to do that," Joel said as he stepped through the broken glass. It wasn't really apparent who he was talking to.

"Just remember: No headshots this time," Doug reminded him.

"Right. No headshots." Joel walked around the front desk and tried the door behind it. Locked. Maybe he could pick the lock, or look around for a ke- he kicked the door down.

The shitshow began almost immediately. The door led to a hallway with an elevator at the end and six mall cops in-between. They opened fire and Joel got to work. First guy got his gun ripped from his hands and fed to his face. Second guy got shot by third guy, then got a knee to the face from Joel. Third guy was backing up, crowding four, fifth, and sixth guy. Joel turned his new gun on them and aimed at their feet. Non-lethal. It just really sucked for them.

He dragged them out of the way of the elevator door and left them there. It wasn't like they were going to run away. Once the doors closed, Joel hit the only button available and counted his new holes while he waited. This was exactly why he wore all black.

Finally, the elevator doors open. Joel immediately got some new holes again.

Shadows writhed and slid across pale skin, each attempt to raise up met only with the further twisting of shadows. It almost looked like eels struggling within Zoey’s very flesh, skidding across her face and arms as her powers strained against what was happening to her, lashing out like a cornered beast beneath the harsh lights above but unable to escape.

It had been fifteen minutes since the IV line had been inserted into the woman’s arm, and it was as though her very skin was trying to rip itself apart. In her time as Grim, Zoey had been subjected to many things - including poison that burned through her very veins - and this wasn’t like that. There was a burn, but it wasn’t acid and fire that set her blood ablaze. This was a pressure that threatened to burst from every pore, a heat that ignited every cluster of nerves just to smother it so the pain streaked with the last dying embers of the sun. Her teeth ached, her skin was clammy, and her thrashing was only contained by the restraints that kept her locked to the bed.

Doctor Edwards had been patiently watching, the damnable bastard having cleaned himself up from Zoey’s brief attack and gone back to being an infuriatingly amenable and warm Grandpa of a doctor. The man had slid a stool over to sit and write upon a clipboard, keeping up a steady and mostly one-sided conversation about how she’s been running the hospital quite well - very hands off, unlike her father, which many employees appreciated.

She was going to rip his fucking jugular out with her teeth.

And now there was blood in her mouth.

“... Ah, my apologies Miss Kasimir! I should’ve really put a guard in your mouth - it’s not unusual to bite one’s tongue right off sometimes on this particular cocktail.” Edwards chuckled, reaching out to pat Zoey’s arm and ignoring how she jerked away from his touch.

“What-” Zoey’s back arched, as much as it could tied down as she was.

“Oh, your treatment? I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to explain it a little.” The Doctor clipped his pen onto the clipboard, setting it on his knee and leaning forward. “As you’re probably aware, there’s a little genetic lottery going on nowadays that most people don’t even think about. You’re actually an extremely lucky individual, as your circumstances of birth have given you two advantages over the masses.”

He waved up towards the off-green bag hanging from the IV line.

“This is a little concoction made by myself, inspired by a comic book my grandson told me about actually. Most people we have… working … for us, don’t exactly meet certain criteria we set. This helps them tick those boxes. Why, Sarah was one of the first to use it, and you can certainly feel how its helped her abilities come into themself!

“You see, Miss Kasimir, right now this liquid is entering your blood stream and, in layman’s terms, is giving your very powers a shot of adrenaline. It can become permanent over prolonged exposure, but it’s really only controllable on those with already weak abilities. The few times we’ve had someone with … well, competent powers, their own bodies tore themselves apart. Which I’m sure you’re feeling right now, and would be much worse if not for Sarah here. Now, this was obviously a high profile little stunt of ours out there in the streets - what better way to distract from it than a beloved hero being unmasked and forced to put down? It’s all very well and good for us. Plus, well, you’re certainly someone we don’t want knowing about what’s going on.”

Edwards chuckled, returning to his clipboard.

“At least, that’s the suggestion I put forth. We’re still deciding if we want to try and work from another angle, but I’ve already administered and the antidote-”

An alarm rang out, and Edwards gave pause. Sarah didn’t even flinch and Zoey was too wrapped up in herself to do more. After a moment the doctor’s phone vibrated and he took it out to answer the call.

“Yes, Edwards here, I hear it. Yes, they’re right here. Really? Interesting. Carrion is indisposed, but send Tank and Ember. I’m sure they’ll be happy to have a second chance.”

He hung up his phone before turning back with a pleasant smile.

“Now, where were we?”

It didn’t take long for the gunfire to start up. Evidently Joel wasn’t wasting any time in starting his ‘distraction’, meaning they had to find a way inside the building as soon as possible if they wanted to take advantage of it.

Kitsune agreed with Bouncer that their best option was to find some kind of back entrance to this place; a side door or a fire exit. If this place really was operating as a pain clinic as a front then they would need to make compromises on security in order to make it look like a normal building; or so she hoped. Leading the way towards the side of the building, Kitsune walking around the exterior in search of a door or, failing that, a sufficiently person-sized window they could climb through and let Bouncer do all of the talking. She listened with half an ear as the younger girl brought up strategy and while she could tell that Bouncer was trying to use as many buzzwords as she could fit, the plan itself was sound.

“Alright, fine. Let’s go with that.” If Bouncer was confident that she could take point and deal with most of the people inside, people with guns, Kitsune would let her. They still needed to find a way in though and as they turned another corner towards the back of the building, she finally spotted one; a metal door with a fire exit sign above the frame; one of the ones with a push bar on the inside that was wired up to an alarm that went off when it was opened. There was a handle on their side, but at Kitsune approached and tried it she found that it was locked. The door itself didn’t look too strong, made of flimsy and most likely hollow metal that she could dent easily enough, but since it opened outwards breaking it down would mean hitting it hard enough to rip the hinges off the wall.

Not something she could manage with her regular, non-superhuman strength.

“What can you do? Besides teleport. Can you break this down or teleport inside?”

Bouncer raised her eyebrows slightly at Kitsune, looking toward the door as she processed the fox girl’s question. “I have to be able to see my destination,” she answered slowly. She could use the upstairs windows to get inside and work her way down, but she would have to deal with all the guards herself. Bouncer had absolutely no problem with that, to be clear, but they had a plan. They were supposed to be a team. They were supposed to do this together. Or whatever.

Bouncer rapped her knuckles lightly against the face of the door, trying to guess how sturdy it was. Judging from the way the knock echoed inside it, it probably wasn’t very strong. That fit with what Bouncer generally expected of doors in bad guy hideouts, but she had kind of thought this place would be more secure than that. Oh well. Maybe Joel had just hyped these guys up too much.

She stepped back, hands on her hips. “I could break this, yeah, but it’ll probably alert everyone inside that we’re here,” Bouncer said, looking over her shoulder at Kitsune. “Which, y’know, I’m fine with, but you should probably get ready.”

Bouncer spun on her heel, one hand swinging out to clap Kitsune lightly on the shoulder before air rushed to fill the space she filled in the next instant and the fox-masked hero was alone. The morning breeze echoed gently through the space, carrying the distant song of windchimes and the muffled chaos of Joel’s distraction. Bouncer’s absence extended for fifteen seconds, thirty, forty-five.

Then the door slammed back through its frame with the voice of a cannonball, Bouncer backflipping away from where the soles of her shoes had impacted against it and landing next to Kitsune. She stood with her arms raised in the air like she was some kind of olympic acrobat awaiting the cheers of the crowd, before pulling her masks away from her face to shoot a shit-eating grin at her partner and then vanishing again as she teleported inside.

He finished tying up the last of the armed guards and leaned against the nearest wall to gasp in immense pain until his body healed. Joel's pain tolerance was borderline inhuman, but even he had his limits. He opened his eyes when he heard more people approaching. This time, it wasn't schmucks in body armor. It was a frail looking fire man and a...naked metal guy.

"Goddammit," Joel spat as he shoved off the wall. His lame ghost powers were hardly of use here, and whatever these two were going to do was probably going to hurt quite a bit.

He braced himself as they approached, trying to come up with some kind of defense. Fortunately, he wouldn't have to. Unfortunately, that was because the two were taken out by something three times as scary.

The beast that rounded the corner behind the two superhumans was pushing seven feet tall, had dark gray, leathery skin, fangs that stuck out of it's mouth at all angles, and unnaturally long, lanky arms that were strong enough to throw both men several feet. This creature let out an ungodly screech and grabbed the fire guy off the floor where he'd landed. It slammed him into the wall until his flames died. It then rounded on the metal man, who was starting to run. The beast moved at nauseating speed to pounce on his back and forcefully bend his arms into unnatural positions.

The monster then discarded it's prey and turned on Joel.

"Oh fuck," Joel breathed, backing against the wall. He really wasn't looking forward to being torn literally in half by this thing. Would he survive that? Unfortunately, he probably would, and it would suck.

The creature dropped to all fours and lumbered over to him. It's white eyes gave off a soft glow, which he only noticed once it was way too close. It sniffed him. Joel was already cringing in anticipation.

"You smell like strawberries," The beast said in a surprisingly human voice. It raised back up to it's full height.

"Yup," Joel croaked.

"There's another outsider that smells like strawberries. Come with me, I'll take you to them."

"Okay." Honestly, this guy could have said literally anything and Joel would have gone along with it. Whatever kept him from seeing his own insides again.

Rolling her shoulders to limber up, Kitsune followed Bouncer into the building. As she did she spared a glance for the now destroyed door, the metal surface crumpled by the impact and the hinges torn from the frame; the other girl could definitely hit a lot harder than she could, though the fact that she needed teleportation to get a run up probably meant it wasn’t as simple as just enhanced strength.

For all of the rabbit masked girls concerns about their entrance attracting attention there was nobody to greet them in the back hallways of the clinic. Any guards who might have been there had probably been called up to the front to deal with Joel’s distraction, leaving their path completely open. Even the gunfire seemed to have stopped, meaning the guy was either dead or he’d dealt with everyone sent his way.

Kitsune followed along after Bouncer, stopped to open doors and peer into each room she passed only to carry on when she found nothing of interest. This continued without interruption until she opened a door leading to a stairwell that led downwards. She stepped inside and peered over the railing to find that the stairwell went down a lot further than one would expect if the only place it led to was a basement; a lot further. Returning to the hallway, she called out to Bouncer to get her attention and nodded her head towards the door.

“Hey, this way. I think I found the way to this lab.”

Bouncer zipped through the back of the building, teleporting from hall end to hall end with increasing frustration. This place was supposed to be defended! Where the hell were all the guards?! Joel hadn’t really managed to hog them all to himsel- to distract them all so effectively, had he?! What gives!!

She was at Kitsune’s side the instant the hero called out to her. A suspicious staircase reaching down into the depths of the earth. Looks like they had a winner. “The underground cabal of evil scientists built their secret lair literally underground. How…” Bouncer turned to Kitsune, not quite sure she was using the right word. “Gauche?”

“It’s cliché, but it keeps them hidden I guess.” Besides, given the size of the building they were entering it kind of had to be an underground lair; if this operation was of the scale that they could produce and hold dozens of experimentally enhanced individuals then they weren’t all going to fit on the second floor or a pain clinic. “Still, seems like a waste of money to build all this when you could just buy a larger building.”

Kitsune began to descend the stairs, skipping two or three at a time as she hurried down multiple flights in pursuit of the lowest floor of this place. She’d made it maybe four or five floors down when the first bullet ricocheted off of the railing next to her hand, fired from somewhere below, and she pressed herself against the far wall to avoid the rest of the volley of shots. Below her, she heard heavy footfalls of booted thugs making their way up the stairs towards their location.

“Found the guards.”

She had yet to see any doors leading out of this stairwell, no way out other than further down or back up the way they came. Trying to outrun bullets up a flight of stairs didn’t seem like the best idea, but then neither did running towards the source of the bullets either; if Kitsune had to pick one however, then the option that gave her a chance to fight her way out seemed like the better choice.

Ducking down, Kitsune braced herself with the wall behind her back and waited until she could see shadows dancing on the opposite wall. Pushing off the wall, she flung herself over the railing and the open stairwell below, narrowly avoid another gunshot from below, and crashed knee first into a group of armed men.

"My name's Kai," The creature said after several minutes of walking in silence. Joel grunted in response before he realized that he was probably supposed to introduce himself too.

"Uh, Joel." Why was he so awkward? "Hey, so, just to be clear, you aren't leading me into a more convenient location to gut me like a fish, right?"

Kai balked. "Why would I do that?"

Joel shrugged. "I don't know, you're a seven foot tall hell monster. It seems the part."

His new companion paused to give him a sharp look over his shoulder. "That's a really mean and judgmental thing to say," He spoke shortly.

Huh...yeah, he was right. Joel was being a dick. "You're right, that was out of line. Sorry man."

"S'okay. I get that a lot, actually." Kai sounded surprisingly vulnerable there, and Joel felt like even more of a jackass. They walked in silence for a little longer, turning the corners of empty halls. Where were the guards? Had they found a new target to chase?

"Hey, uh, where are we going again?"

"I told you: to the other outsider."

He must be talking about Grim, right? "But why are you helping me? It seemed like all the other mutants wanted to kill us."

"They didn't trust me enough to let me out there. Their brain washing doesn't work as well on me, or something like that. They were trying to move me from my cell into a big cage, but..." He paused, picking his words carefully, "I didn't let them. They've been packing the whole place up, and I think you and your friend are part of the reason. You came here to stop them, didn't you?"

"Yeah, something like that."

"Then I want to help. And, I want to come when you leave," Kai paused to face Joel, "I've...never been out there before. I want to, but...I'm afraid."

How was it that this hellion killing machine was tugging Joel's heartstrings? Had he gone soft? No, he'd always been soft for strays. That's what this guy reminded him of: a big, sad, scary puppy.

"Ok, sure, we can figure something out." Why was Joel agreeing to help this guy find a place in the outside world when he himself had very recently become homeless? This was probably a terrible idea.

Kai seemed pleased with this deal, as he grinned wide enough to show every dagger sharp fang in his too wide mouth.

When they did eventually encounter more resistance, Kai made short work of it. Having this guy around was like playing a video game on easy mode. This was great! Joel didn't even have to bleed this time!

Finally, they found the room that supposedly held Grim. Kai busted the door down easily and Joel followed him inside, ready to kick ass. But the only people in there was a guy in a doctor's coat, a perched gremlin, and some woman he didn't know. Well, swing and a miss, he guessed. Still, whatever was going on here clearly wasn't Kosher, and he intended to put a stop to it. Or maybe make it worse, it had been one of those nights.

"Give up, doc, and I won't sic my new attack friend on you," Joel said, flanked by Kai who growled in agreement.

Bouncer’s shot down the stairwell like a nervous impulse, landing on some goon’s shoulders in the midst of a firing squad. There was a split instant before they registered her presence, double-masked and crouching on their buddy’s back before she disappeared again, popping back into existence at the top of the stairs over Kitsune’s head in a mist of electrical spider webs. Air rushed in to replace her in the next breath, followed by a CRACK as Bouncer hit the ground hard enough to splinter its foundation, shaking the ground and sending the cadre of guards stumbling as they lost their balance.

Bouncer took a deep breath, savoring the scent of sweat and violence as that glorious, all consuming music swelled through her nerves. This is what she was looking for.

Men whipped their guns through the air as they found their footing, casting around for the second intruder. She disappeared the instant each found her, flickering around the landing behind backs and over heads, legs and arms shooting out like gunshots. The men fell one after the next, quicker than their increasingly panicked brains could process what was happening.

Then Bouncer took off, sprinting full tilt down the hall of the underground facility, not so much searching as hunting. The hall pulsed with bodies, clamoring to respond to the invasion of their nest. Slow, barking drones with small caliber stingers they were all so terribly convinced made them strong. They had no idea what it meant to be strong, not like she did. She knew what it meant to be strong. Relished it.

She’d come here for a reason, with others, but that thought was distant and small. There was something far, far, far more urgent to attend to, and these grunting morons weren’t nearly enough. This place made monsters, didn’t it? Where they hell were they?

She stepped off the back of some witless croney, eyes darting around for some sign of direction. There were all sorts of little rooms, locked tight without windows. They were all marked by little plaques with pointless combinations of letters and numbers on them. How was she supposed to find the ones that would give her what she was looking for? She paced back and forth across the halls, growing increasingly frustrated. This one? No, this one?

She ran right past the dour fox woman, going one way, then another. If she recognized the other woman’s presence, she didn’t acknowledge it, stalking around with quick, urgent steps and mumbling constantly behind her masks.

Where the hell were all the monsters?! The music burned loud in her spine, angry and unsatisfied and demanding. They’d all gone somewhere else, they must have. Where would they even go? Out on the streets, some part of her mind whispered. Right, right, the ones running wild outside. That’s where they all went. Why the hell was she here then? This place sucked. Why did she even come here? There was nothing to do, all the bad guys were weak losers. What rat bastard tricked her into wasting her time in some shithole like-

Bouncer blinked once. Oh, right. There was- Some gay dude in cosplay wanted to find his boyfriend, or whatever. She was supposed to be- they were looking for that other guy.

Where the hell was she? What hall was this? She’d been- She’d come from over there, so- Right, right, she could find her way back from here. The stairwell shouldn’t be too far from- Oh right, Kitsune. They were- this was a team exercise, or whatever.

Bouncer called out for the fox hero, releasing the locked doorknob she hadn’t even realized she’d been gripping. Her feet glided over the polished linoleum floors of the facility, back the way she’d come. She should- no, the plan was for her to take point anyway. She was just doing her part of the teamwork. She’d done a good job, yeah.

She turned a corner, side-stepping another unconscious guard slumped face-first against the wall before stopping in her tracks. Had that door been open before? Or, well, been broken before. Wait, had there been a monster down here all along?! Bouncer hopped up and down on the ball of her feet, feeling giddy at her luck. Her leg swung forward and she vanished midstep, teleporting across the hall to the busted door frame, crouching down to see what she was working with-

Oh, it was Joel. A monster! But also just… Joel. Did he… make friends with it? Oh, there were others in the room. An old dude and some chick tied to the bed. Kay.

”There’s been a … complication.”

This time Doctor Edwards had stepped away from the bed containing his patient to talk into his phone, voice quiet. With the man’s back to her Zoey’s eyes darted to and fro, crossing over Sarah multiple times but always ending up back on her.

This would all be so easy to get out of if she could so much as just land a foot on the girl to nudge her away.

“Ah, Miss Kasimir, it seems plans have to be altered.” The redhead tilted her head to look back at the Doctor, a strained emotion with how her very muscles were flexing and straining against this concoction running through her. The man smiled jovially to her. “Seems you have some friends, one of which was our original target. Considering this place has already been compromised, releasing you not into the streets but into this very facility would appear to be the better course of action. And of course, considering how abysmal the streets are filled right now, this will just be another case of insurance-”

Oh thank god, someone busted the door in and stopped his monologue.

Zoey’s head snapped to the side to take in this new threat, steel-grey eyes widening slightly at the appearance of the enormous creature… and also Wraith. Because you know, if there’s ever anyone else she wanted to see her identity, it’s definitely the half-crazy man she’s trauma bonded with as her alter ego.

Also the bunny girl appeared, and also appeared to have caffeine jitters. Great.

“Well this isn’t ideal…” The doctor muttered under his breath, stepping back from the bed. Under the harsh lights of the hospital it almost seemed like he was becoming shinier, as though everything on him - including his clothes - were covered in a layer of sweat. Then he began dripping, his clothes merging into his body as everything became extremely liquid about him. Which was a problem.

“He injected me with something!” Zoey half snapped, half snarled like an animal as shadows continued to just barely wisp around her.

“Oh, don’t worry - they’ll see for themselves.” Edwards’ liquidy hand grabbed onto Sarah’s face, carelessly tipping her over. The instant the girl’s glowing purple eyes were off her Zoey shrieked as Grim’s powers exploded outward - and despite the bright lights spikes of pure darkness exploded out from her, driving through the walls, floor, ceilings, a few through the oceanic Edwards himself-

Maybe later Zoey could laugh about how it was like a blowfish puffing up.

"Oh, gross," Joel balked in disgust as the doctor melted into weird goo. The sudden burst of solidified shadows was probably the last thing that Joel expected. That was weird; this lady had Grim's powers. How did- oh. Oh. Had Joel been using the wrong pronouns for Grim this whole time? Wow, he really was a shitty acquaintance.

He stepped forward to do something about this but couldn't. Confused, Joel looked down to see why his feet were stuck, but the massive shadow spike impaling his torso was in the way. Well. Guess he'll be seeing his insides again after all.

"Joel! Oh my god!" Kai, who thought he was witnessing the death of his new buddy, was understandingly shaken. His first instinct was to pull Joel off the spike which, while in this very specific situation was the right thing to, in any other circumstance with any other person would have been ill advised. He couldn't fault his new friend for not knowing the first aid rules for impalings, though.

Joel immediately collapsed to sort out his intestines while Kai turned on the doctor with newfound fury. His first instinct was to lash out, but obviously that didn't do much. It did provide a decent distraction, though.

Once the hole in Joel was mostly closed up, he got back to his feet and thought fast. There was a tray of diabolical syringes nearby. He had no idea what the drugs inside did, but it was the first thing that came to mind. Joel grabbed one and injected it into the doctor's liquid form. Immediately, he jumped back in case he got impaled with gross doctor water or something.

The guards were disoriented as she landed amongst them, even more so when she started throwing punches and elbows at everyone in reach. Her sudden arrival gave her a small and brief advantage as she caught them by surprised, but they didn’t change the fact that they outnumbered her or that they were armed and things would quickly turn against her if she gave them a chance to recover. She drove her foot into knees, elbows into jaws and pushed aside guns that were aimed anywhere near her general direction as she sought to gain as much ground as possible in this fight while she had the upper hand.

Or at least, that’s what she tried to do in the two and a half seconds it took for Bouncer to show up.

The other woman showed up like a flash of lighting and blew through them like a storm, completely taking out all of the assembled guards in a matter of seconds. Then she was gone again, down the stairs and into an adjoining hallway that, from the sounds of further gunshots that were all too quickly silenced, also filled with guards.

That left Kitsune alone amidst a pool of unconscious bodies, left her to gingerly make her way down the remainder of the staircase without stepping on or tripping over an arm or a leg. When she made it to the bottom she saw the rest of what Bouncer had done, the maybe dozen or so guards she had taken out by herself without so much as a scratch.

It was… a sobering sight. A reminder that she was in over her head again, a person with a power that barely let her qualify as above average, let alone super, raiding a secret underground lab run by evil scientists alongside someone who could actually be called superhuman. Any one of these guards could have killed her; all it would take was a single bullet, a lucky shot or just inattentiveness on her part, to end her. Bouncer threw them aside like dolls.

Said superhuman individual was now stalking towards her, movements agitated and posture aggressive, and Kitsune wasn’t ashamed to say took a step back only for the other woman to ignore her entirely. She paced down the corridor, then back, then back again, looking for something; probably Joel, or Grim. Eventually she found something and seemed to visibly calm down; she called out to Kitsune and Akeno made herself follow after her. Bouncer led them down the hallway, around a corner and towards a door that had been ripped open, either by Bouncer herself or by something else; the other woman teleported ahead and peered inside, but it took her longer to reach the door to do the same.

Inside she saw… well she saw a lot of things. A monstrous figure with a human voice, Joel stabbing a puddle of water with a needle, a woman strapped to a bed with spikes of pure darkness erupting from her body and another, somewhat emaciated looking girl lying lifeless on her side.

“Does someone want to catch us up on what’s happening?”

Oh shit! Joel was dead! Joel got killed! Joel was- Oh, he was fine. Way to play with a girl’s emotions, jerk. Not that she really… well, they’d known each other for like half an hour. Or, technically it was more like two days, but was keeping track? Certainly not Bouncer. Oh, Kitsune was here. Where’d she go, anyway?

“I think we’re fighting the wet guy,” Bouncer answered, pointing at the doctor who had suddenly started pulsing with water like a broken fire hydrant, his excretions growing more aggressive and voluminous by the second. It was already flooding the room enough that water rushed around her ankles, flooding her shoes. Ugh, she had dude in her socks! That was even worse than having normal wet socks, probably! Gross!

The shadows that made the room appear like the back of a hedgehog were wisping, twisting, moving like they had too much energy. Slowly the spikes began to crack and bend as their control was fought over. Of course, to the now very liquid form of Doctor Edwards it doesn’t appear to matter - he was a being made up of entirely water and didn’t care about having a few spikes driven through his body.

The infuriating man was even stroking his moustache thoughtfully, which was also made of water. Bastard.

“You know Wraith - that is what you call yourself, isn’t it? - will that suit protect you from drowning? Well, protect isn’t quite the word, I suppose. More of a recovery situation.”

Ugh. Zoey hated his meandering sentences, and now they sounded garbled and underwater. Still, he was slowly flooding the room as his form seemed without end, and he seemed pretty confident in his own abilities. Up until the subject of his pondering just began… injecting chemicals into him.

When has that ever been a good idea in a mad lab? Actually, Zoey’s only been in two - three now, she supposed.

The Doctor’s voice distorted, as did his form. The details of his face and body began to lose their details, that fancy moustache and the wrinkles of his face embedded in a liquid form receding into the flurry of raging waters. The never ending form began to swell, the room’s water began to rise, and a shaking, garbled and wet roar splattered off the walls - literally, as water tidal waved from his form and around the spikes to launch towards the four that were in the doorway, splintering furniture and piercing curtains along the way even as the water around their ankles sucked down.

Also Sarah was drowning, but she didn’t appear to care about it - much like anything else happening around her.

As for Zoey herself, she was just as much a danger to pretty much everyone in this room except the Doctor for now - but he had released her from Sarah’s gaze which, though he did get lucky with her having impaled at least one of those liberating the place, also freed up her shadowstepping. As such Zoey disappeared into her own shadow - and was promptly thrown out of the shadow she was trying to exit near Wraith, his weird fucking creature, and the two animal girls she had briefly met before. She was launched out into the hallway where she once again exploded like a pufferfish, along with a myriad of cursing.