Chapter 1.2.29 — Got Everything?

Emmett swung down to the alley using his whip and landed on the pavement beside the delivery truck, startling one of the guards. Without thinking, Emmett lunged forward, punching the man square in the stomach—

The man crumpled around Emmett’s fist and slumped to the ground. Surprise quickly faded to a groan as the man fell.

On the other side of the van, Clara dropped to the pavement and raised her gauntlets. The loading bay door was opening, and a group of guards were already preparing to rush out. Clara’s kinetic barrage lit up the door, causing the guards to duck back behind cover.

Meanwhile, Emmett circled the van, using his whip to grab the driver’s ankle and pull him off his feet as he stepped out. The back doors of the van opened and Emmett pummeled the third guy before his feet touched the ground.

Then he grabbed the pistols off of the belts of all three groaning guards, ejected the magazines, and chucked the pistols down the alley.

Emmett quickly checked the back of the van, but didn’t see anything else besides four white crates. Jackpot.

He was about to reach for the nearest crate when metal squealed behind him. Emmett spun around, but didn’t get a chance to see what made the noise—

Something hit him in the face. Hard.

Emmett reeled backward, just managing to keep his feet beneath him. He got his hands up, ready to defend against another blindside, but nothing came.

Meanwhile, the noise from the metal door of the loading bay rose to a scream. Hands pulled at the door, wrenching it upward much faster than the mechanism could stand. The metal door buckled as it was shoved upward.

It took a moment for Emmett to realize that it wasn’t hands that grabbed the door—they were far too dark and far too large.

A woman strode out of the loading bay on limbs of immense black hair. She hung in the center like a marionette, while the mass twisted around her like a spider. Each limb of hair stabbed the ground and left a bloody smear—as she stepped into the lights of the alley, Emmett realized her hair was matted and wet with blood.

Clara immediately turned her kinetic blasts on the twisted super. Cracks of shockwaves echoed through the alley and the spider-like super scurried out of the way, barely staying ahead of the barrage.

Something hit Emmett in the face again. He staggered back and thought he heard the scuffle of shoes beside him.

“Picked the wrong shipment,” someone muttered.

Emmett heard a grunt of effort and he reeled backward just in time to feel something graze his fists. More scuffling, and Emmett quickly circled toward the van.

There was a third super and they were invisible. Emmett had no idea what weapons they might have, but they definitely weren’t some normal security guard. They hit hard enough that they were at least a Class 1 super.

“Shit,” Emmett muttered.

“That’s right,” the cloaked attacker said.

Emmett put his back against the van, then swung his whip out in a wide arc. His attack slammed into the rushing super, and Emmett had to dodge out of the way before he could get a good grip. The super slammed into the van, jostling it.

Emmett reeled back to swing his whip again, but the invisible super slammed into Emmett, knocking him to the ground.

He rolled over quickly, extending his whip and waving it around in a circle like a deep-sea fish feeling around for prey. It might’ve felt vaguely ridiculous, except that it succeeded in keeping the invisible super at bay.

“Get up!”

Emmett smirked.

It probably wasn’t smart to laugh and provoke an unknown, invisible super, but Emmett needed the bastard to get close enough to grab him… It didn’t help that Clara’s battle drowned out everything else.

Invisibility was powerful. Honestly, against most other supers, this guy was probably used to winning pretty easily. Even with Emmett’s reinforced skeleton and Mutagen-A, he couldn’t get pummeled forever. Eventually, this super would wear him down.

Emmett only caught glimpses of Clara’s battle on the other side of the alley. Both her and the hair-girl were evenly matched, at least Class 2. With Clara’s power limitations, she was using a mix of kinetic blasts and melee fighting, clearly trying to stay out of reach of hair-girl as much as possible.

Hair-girl wasn’t phased by any of it. Her black limbs rippled with each impact, but she kept crawling toward Clara.

He couldn’t even spare a glimpse up to the roof to see how Athena was doing—Emmett had to do something to even the odds and then end this quickly.

Emmett grabbed another smoke pellet out of his upper arm compartment, broke it on his chest. The smoke quickly enveloped the van, and Emmett pulled a noisemaker out of his utility belt and switched it on—

Now Emmett couldn’t see and couldn’t hear, and neither could his opponent. But he had to act fast.

Emmett rolled to his feet and extended his whip and swung it in a wide, low arc. A second later, he felt his confused opponent and sprung his trap. The whip coiled around his enemy like a python.

Then Emmett wrenched the man off his feet and hauled him in like a fisherman hauling in a catch. The super slid across the ground until he was at Emmett’s feet. His opponent stared up at Emmett, completely bound and eyes wide.

Emmett punched him in the face, and the guy went slack. He waited only a moment to make sure the guy was still breathing, then he turned toward the sound of Clara’s battle just outside the smoke.

Emmett recalled his whip, and then, with practiced swiftness, disconnected the mod and swapped it for his concealable pistol. He pocketed the noisemaker, then pulled a sonic grenade.

Then Emmett strode out of the smoke and joined the real battle.

Hair-girl was snaking one massive limb around the left arm of Clara’s exosuit, while Clara’s thrusters pulled and jerked, trying to tear her free. Meanwhile, Clara fired with kinetic blasts with her other hand, forcing hair-girl to shield her body with the rest of the black mass.

Emmett chuckled the sonic grenade at hair-girl’s feet and a moment later the high-pitch whine of the sonic drowned out everything. Clara claimed the sound was limited, but it still covered the entire alley.

The enemy super recoiled, the mass of hair squirming like it was alive and in pain. Her grip on Clara slackened, and Clara channeled all the power she could to her thrusters to pull away. Hair-girl let down her defenses and spiked her tendrils into the pavement to keep from being pulled by Clara.

Meanwhile, Emmett walked closer and raised his metal arm. As soon as he had a clear line, he shot hair-girl with a sledgehammer round—

And hit her directly in the face. Hair-girl recoiled, almost tumbling over backward.

Emmett winced—he hadn’t meant to hit her in the face. He’d just been aiming for center mass.

But before he could feel sorry for her, hair-girl turned toward him, sneering like a crazed marionette. She released Clara, who stumbled backward from her thrusters. Then the angry super scurried toward Emmett.

He emptied the magazine.

Emmett had practiced enough with his pistol mod that he was a pretty good shot, even firing as quickly as he was. Not to mention his mechanical arm was more than able to handle the recoil. Shot after shot, slammed into hair-girl, staggering her and forcing her to half-heartedly cover her main body.

All eight rounds struck her and she kept coming. Kinetic blasts even hit her from the side as Clara rejoined the fight,but it wasn’t enough.

Emmett was already reaching back to swap to his sonic blaster when something slammed down on hair-girl—like a giant, invisible hand squashing a spider.

This time, hair-girl didn’t get up. She lay crumpled on the ground.

Athena landed beside him and patted him on the shoulder. “You would’ve gotten her, but we’re out of time.” She turned toward the loading bay, where guards were tentatively peeking around the corner. “I’ll cover you. Take care of the van.”

Athena waved a hand and conjured a barrier just as the first shots rang out. Emmett turned his attention toward the prizes in the back of the van.

He tore the lid off one crate, waved away the icy smoke, and quickly scanned the vials.

“Shit.”

At least half of them looked like duplicates—colors he’d seen before. Some he’d even taken before.

But not all of them.

To be sure, Emmett grabbed two and three of each vial, stuffing them inside the front pocket of his hoodie. He and Dr. Venture would sort them out when they got back to the lab.

Behind him, the whine of the sonic grenade cut off abruptly as Clara stomped on it with her exosuit. When Emmett stared in shock, all she said was, “We’ve got plenty at the lab.”

“Got everything you came for?” Athena asked. A second later, she slammed a forcefield down on the van, turning it into a pancake.

Emmett winced at the screeching steel and the aftermath. He was glad that Athena was on their side.

Venture’s voice came through. “Prepare for extraction. Athena, I trust you can find your own way out?”

She smirked. “Don’t worry about me.” Then she leapt up to the roof on invisible platforms.

Emmett watched her leap away with superhuman grace until a drone decloaked and opened up beside him.

“Get in, loser,” Clara said. “We’re going home.”

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