The morning exercise had been little more than pure boredom for Lara. Ted claimed there were things to gain from running other than muscle mass. Things like balance and patience and other words she thought belonged in fortune cookies.
Breakfast, however, there was a real mean challenge, and the phase
“Could I maybe get a slice of bacon on the side?” got no response.
Now Lara was staring into the twisted mouth of something from a nightmare.
Wau, high school must have been tough for this guy, Lara thought looking at Parasite. With slight nausea, she turned to her team and cleared her throat.
“Alright, guys, let’s start by… SURPRISE SUCKER-PUNCH!” she yelled out and blasted away with her laser vision, hitting floors, walls, ceiling and just about anything in front except her opponents.
All of those spread out instantly and approached with both calmness and haste, while Lara turned her head up and down, left and right in hopes of getting lucky.
In an adrenaline pumping second, she almost looked to her team for guidance, before she managed to turn off the laser shortly thereafter.
“Ideas, anyone?” Lara asked and had she known her voice would be shaking, she would have kept her mouth closed.
Rookie, for his part, just stood there in muted silence as the young half-alien unleashed a devastating torrent of laser fire every which way (including, briefly
his own, having been the closest to her what with being her
sparring partner until a minute ago) and hit... absolutely nothing.
Perhaps he was starting to go numb to the insane turns his life had taken these past weeks, perhaps all this training to get him used to the rigours of superheroing was starting to acclimate him to things like this... or perhaps all those super-powered fists to the head he'd taken recently had broken something important. Whatever the cause, it wasn't fear, excitement or even anger that showed on the young man's face at that moment; but a comically blank and profoundly
tired expression.
"...Really?" In retrospect, he probably should've been paying more attention to the giant, zombie-looking robot lumbering towards him reciting old-timey nursery rhymes, buuuuut the Grundy-bot saw to that anyway. Manually. For not even a second after the word had left Duncan's mouth, did the damned thing snatch him up by the ankles and begin whipping him into the hard floor like some kind of demented children's toy, digging divots into the concrete tiles and sending dust and debris flying every which way.
"Christened on a Tuesday... Married on a Wednesday!" It half-sang, half-screamed as it finally slammed the lad directly into the floor and delivered a thunderous haymaker that dug him even further into it for posterity's sake
"Took ill on a Thursday! Grew worse on Friday!"Simulated saliva foaming freely off it's simulated jaw, the machine then abruptly began
stomping on the Canadian boy like a tantruming toddler, shaking the whole room as he did so.
"DIED ON A SATURDAY! BURIED ON SUNDAY!""OH, WOULD YOU JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP ALREADY!?" Came Duncan's bellowing reply as, suddenly, a fist shot forth from the crater and intercepted the robot's foot, knocking the machine back and sending it tumbling backwards haphazardly away from the hole and the now very,
very angry man inside.
Very clearly, absolutely
one-hundred percent done with this shit, the Rookie shot upright to a sitting position before climbing to his feet and storming over to the bot that had offended him so, eyes glinting with seething anger and a vein bulging dangerously in his temple as he snatched a hold of the still-prone Grundy-bot's leg.
"FUCK YOU. FUCK YOUR RHYMES..." The t-shirt-clad Canuck roared as his grip tightened on the holographic appendage and he turned towards the Pseudo-Parasite with a near-deranged gleam in his eyes, before chucking the his opponent straight into it with a titanic swing
"...AND FUCK! YOUR UGLY! FACE!"Standing there, sucking in as much oxygen as he could and trying to calm himself as he stared down the two droids that were now awkwardly piled on top of eachother and trying to get back on their feet, Duncan's head slowly turned towards the resident half-alien as he let out a long exhale. Finally getting his anger (somewhat) in check.
"Supergirl..." He began with a tone and expression that was
trying to be friendly, but came out just a
teensy bit menacing
"Would ya mind firing more lasers at them, please?"“Two laser beams coming right up, good sir.” Lara blinked at Rookie and pointed that same look at Parasite and Grundy. She didn’t care that they were robots, to her they were Parasite and Grundy and needed to be brought down. With all the strength of will, she could muster, Lara concentrated, yet all she could charge up were a pair of sparkly eyes.
Shit, not now! she thought, desperate to prove herself, while two powerhouses were getting back up.
Any second now retaliation would come her way. Grundy was almost already at an upright position.
That fact alone was enough to get the fire stared, at least on the inside of Lara. It burned to get out and before she intentionally let it, two concentrated beams fired. At first, they drew a flaming canyon in the floor, until she directed the devastating ray of destruction forward.
Parasite lit up like a Christmas tree, as he was hit and then proceeded to hurl backwards, illumination everything in a purple light.
Grundy, however, just stood there, tall and broad, when the punishment blasted away at his face.
“Solomon Grundy. Born on a – Rahhhouuuuu!!!” The crude leather-like surface, that was his face, started dissolving and changing into a chilling skull-like appearance.
“What day was that? Didn’t catch the last part!” Lara cheered, and watched the giant fall backwards and shake the ground as he landed. Feeling a bit out of juice, she wobbled for a second and then felt an enormous force blow her across the room in a flash of light.
The shot originated from Parasite, who seemed more intimidating than ever.
“He absorbs energy, including your laser vision. Had that been the real Parasite, his blast would have been twice the intensity,” Ted explained from the sideline.
“Not helping,” Lara mumbled through her teeth. Almost on instinct she flew sideways and saw a purple hand burry itself into the wall where her head had been a second ago. Now in the air, she kept the momentum and flew over to the side of Rookie, who had proven without a doubt, he could take a punch. A real punch.
