She Thought It Was Love (Part 3/4)

Summary: Sophia and her siblings save the heroes. Everything is easier with an arsenal at hand.

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(Full story (as far as it's been completed) is attached as a PDF below! Otherwise you can search for "She thought it was love" on this page and the other parts will come up!)

(The very last, very dialogue heavy portion of this will be up this weekend. Thank you so much for reading!)

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The plan is for Sophia to stay behind Sven and Antonia. Antonia’s already empathically scouted the building and knows how many people there are left. Sophia’s the one who suggested they split this way, Knowing that Yellow Plague would send out Crusher, Destroyer, and the last two mercenaries.

But then Antonia turns to clear the sitting room to their left and Sven swings his gun towards the living room to their right and Destroyer appears at the end of the hall.

He’s the one, her brain whispers, he’s the one who took Marlo away. She’s supposed to stay behind Antonia and Sven. That’s the plan. That’s what makes sense considering her lack of training and their over abundance of it. But then she sees Destroyer standing at the end of the hall, stalking towards them and she Knows. He’s the one trying to take her love away from her. He’s the one who almost succeeded in taking her love away from her.

Antonia swears as she feels Sophia’s focus shift. “Sophia—!” Crusher crashes around the corner and Antonia bites off her cry as she’s forced to focus on the giant villain. “Sven!”

But Sven is busy too. The last two merceneraries are running at them from either side. An unexpected direction. Sven activates his Gift, his skin flashing metallic silver as it hardens. He turns away from Sophia to confront the enemy. To protect her.

Sophia has her own protecting to do.

“You!” Destroyer screams. His hair, limp with grease, swings as he shakes his head. “The girlfriend. Gigadark caved so quickly when we threatened you—“

Sophia lets that dark part of herself - that biting part of herself - rise. Her vision narrows in on Destroyer, the villain who tried so hard to take what was hers. She brings up her weapon. Fires once. Fires twice.

Destroyer flashes gold. His power is one of deconstruction. Anything that touches him breaks down. Disintegrates. Dissolves. A terrible and terrifying power.

Sophia Knows.

The bullets disintegrate without hurting Destroyer. He’s used to bullets and bombs - he’s not going to be taken down now. She can see his face twisting as his brain registers what she just tried to do.

“You,” he says, “will regret that.”

Sophia thinks of Marlo going down over the ocean, the mortifying object of his body on the mortician’s slab, and thinks, no. You will.

It’s chaos. It’s three fights in a foyer, a parlor, and a study. Sophia sees flashes of her siblings. Antonia is dancing around Crusher, letting the giant man hit walls and support beams instead of her. Dust and plaster rain around them. Every blow sounds like a cannon.

At one point, Crusher bellows, “You won’t survive the house coming down on you!”

And Antonia shrieks back, “You are the least stab-able person I’ve ever met!”

Sven always looks unreal when he activates his powers. He’s not actually made of metal. His skin, however, turns into a shell and it shines. He flashes from his fight to Antonia’s and then back again, careful never to pull the trigger of his weapon when it might hit one of his sisters. Sophia knows that he could’ve ended his fight much sooner if she didn’t keep getting in the way.

But, like when she was a teenager, Sophia can’t stop.

Four shots left.

She lunges for Destroyer. Destroyer flashes gold when he thinks she’s about to hit him, but she feinted. She was never going to hit him. She just wanted him to think she was when she pulled the trigger. He screams when he flashes gold a beat too late. He staggers back and has to catch the wall to keep from falling.

Her bullet sticking halfway out of his forehead. She shot him and, when his powers kicked in, half the bullet disappeared. The half that had already found its mark.

Blood drips from his half-gunshot, a trickle and then a stream. Destroyer blinks blood out of his eyes, a new surge of panic flashing through them. It’s been a long time since he’s been hurt. “You’re dead, girlfriend,” he says. His words catch in his throat. His hand flutters around his head and it looks like his pupils are having a hard time focusing. “You’re dead!”

Sophia wants him to hurt.

Destroyer’s powers flash, but he’s guessed her distance incorrectly. She Knows that there’s blood in his eye. Sophia races in low and mean, a blade drawn from her belt. She hits him across the back of the calf and then dips away when Destroyer screams.

Destroyer swipes for her, his power glittering at the tips of his fingers like blades. They rake across the wall leaving empty gouges in their wake, but Sophia is already gone. She uses the wall to leap away, rolling and coming up with her gun. She shoots.

Destroyer flashes.

Three shots left.

Across the hall, in the study, there’s the distinct sound of a body falling. Sven is done with the mercenaries. She sees him like a streak of silver, darting across the hall to the parlor to help Antonia.

That’s good. She Knows that they’ll be enough for Crusher. Crusher will live thanks to his healing abilities, but it’ll be close. It will take them time to defeat him though.

Time that they won’t see what Sophia is doing.

“You’re going to bleed out,” Sophia tells Destroyer. He’s staggering towards her, listing from one side to the other. His calf wound is already staining his pants black with blood. “Right here. Right now.”

“It’s a small scratch,” Destroyer says.

“Yeah,” Sophia says. She brings up her blade and her gun together like Antonia taught her. “They’ll all be small scratches.”

Destroyer leaps for her as best he can, his power sparking.

Sophia shoots when he’s halfway to her.

Destroyer is forced to activate his power too soon, absorbing the bullet.

When he lands, Sophia swipes.

Destroyer bleeds.

Two shots left.

———————.

Dominic fires.

“Ouch,” Yellow Plague says mildly. He twists his arm so he can see the gouge Dominic’s bullet put in it. It doesn’t bleed. Yellow Plague oozes. “You missed.”

Dominic can see Yellow Plague’s skin through the tear in his sleeve and that’s more upsetting than the not-blood. The man is withered. Not wrinkled. It’s as if he’s made of bark that’s gone rotten, soft and fleshy and twisted.

“I guess I did,” Dominic says. He eyes the room. Two heroes tied to chairs over by a round, wooden table, another hero strung from the ceiling like a piece of meat. There’s a body on the floor covered in burst pustules. He doesn’t look like a mercenary. No, he looks like a hero that got taken out. No wonder Eyad looks angrier than Dominic’s ever seen him. “Don’t suppose you’d let them go if I asked?”

“If you shoot me again,” Yellow Plague says pleasantly, “I’ll fill this room with a plague so vile there will be no hope of rescue. Even for heroes.”

Dominic shrugs. “That sounds bad. Want me to put my gun down?”

“Don’t!” Marlo shouts. He’s tied up, beaten, and still shouting. He pants. “Dominic, run. Get out of here. I can’t ever look Sophia in the eyes again if—“

“Do not,” Dominic says, smiling, “say my sister’s name.”

“Oh,” Yellow Plague says. He looks from Marlo to Dominic and back again. “You’re here for him. Was it the girlfriend then? I wouldn’t have pegged her as having Dominic Henning for a brother. I told Destroyer that it wasn’t smart to target her. Heroes get so touchy about their loved ones.”

“Do they?” Dominic asks. He raises an eyebrow and, though he doesn’t look at Eyad, he hopes the other man knows that he’s making a jab at him. “I suppose I wouldn’t know.” He sets the gun on the floor. “There we are. I was out of bullets anyway.”

“You’re clearly a man of reason,” Yellow Plague compliments. He was never tense, not even when Dominic shot him, but now he’s comfortable. He strolls around the table, dragging a hand down Phantasma’s arm. She shudders and chokes as one of his diseases races through her. “I could kill you, but I admit to some…hesitation. You’re too famous. Killing you would make me quite a few enemies.”

“It could also make you a few friends,” Dominic points out. He ignores Eyad’s glare at that and pushes his hands into his pockets. There’s a boom from down the hall that tells him that his siblings have started fighting. He presses the worry far, far down  and smiles. “It might make your life a little more difficult before those new friends find you though.”

“True,” Yellow Plague says. He strokes Phantasma’s arm again. “I am not unreasonable and you are a man of reason. Take Gigadark and go. I have no business with him.  I won’t chase you.”

Dominic hums. “Destroyer and Crusher are only working with you to get their hands on Gigadark.”

“You are well-informed,” Yellow Plague says. He cocks his head as another impact shakes the house. “It sounds as if your men have Destroyer and Crusher well in hand. And if they don’t…I suppose I don’t mind taking care of them for you. As an apology of sorts.”

Dominic is still smiling. “There’s just one problem with that.”

Yellow Plague tenses at last. He steps away from Phantasma, sliding towards Dominic like a snake. “And that is?”

“I’m Dominic Henning.” Dominic says. “I don’t make deals.” Then, as if forgetting Yellow Plague’s ability, he takes three large strides forward and claps a hand right over the gouge in Yellow Plague’s arm.

Yellow Plague doesn’t so much as stagger. He looks at Dominic’s hand on his arm, to Dominic’s face, and then back again. If he’s in pain, he doesn’t show it. “Right,” Yellow Plague says. “I suppose it will be something of a boast to be the villain who finally takes out Dominic Henning.” He opens his mouth and breathes out disease.

Dominic can’t run. The noxious cloud of gas, bright yellow, thick and quick moving, is more than a human should be able to exhale. It envelopes Dominic completely. Dominic’s skin tingles in warning. This is what took out the fallen hero. This is what caused those painful blisters and rashes that he sees on the bare skin of the man on the ground.

When the gas finally dissipates, Dominic is still standing. Smiling, he pulls his hand off Yellow Plague’s arm to show a long, thin cut across his palm.

For the first time, Yellow Plague’s composure cracks. He steps back, wizened face twisting. “You—you have powers. Only heroes can withstand my plagues!”

Dominic examines the cut on his palm with interest. The not-blood from Yellow Plague doesn’t burn as much anymore. It bubbles where it makes contact with his blood. “Not really plagues, is it? I had a theory and I suppose it was lucky I was right.” He looks back at Yellow Plague. “You’re not a plague; you’re a poison. And people can be immune to poison.”

Yellow Plague is an experienced villain. He’s never met someone like Dominic, never met someone Gifted rather than Super-powered, but he’s survived for decades by thinking quick on his feet. He lunges with surprising agility for the gun that Dominic dropped on the floor.

Eyad screams and thrashes against the ropes binding him to the ceiling. The hero’s eyes are white, filmed over, which means he’s using his power. Foresight is the best clairvoyant in the world. He can see the future with precision when his powers are activated.

It warms something hurt in Dominic’s heart that, despite knowing the outcome, Eyad fights for him.

Yellow Plague scrambles for the gun, scoops it up, and shoots all in the same motion. The gun clicks.

Dominic’s smile widens. “Told you it was empty.”

“I’ll get you for this,” Yellow Plague spits. He’s already backing out of the room. In the move to get the gun, he let Dominic get between him and the heroes. Without his powers, he’s just an old man and Dominic? Dominic is strong. “You’ve made an enemy out of me today, Dominic Henning. You’ll rue the day!”

Yellow Plague flees out the door, the darkness of the hallway beyond swallowing him immediately.

Dominic whistles. “I didn’t realize villains actually talked like that in real life. That’s kind of sad.”

“You idiot,” Eyad says. There’s blood clotted on the side of his head, his eyes shaking with the effort of having his power activated for so long and he’s calling Dominic the idiot. “You’ve stepped into my world now. I can’t protect you from everything that waits–”

“Yell at me later,” Dominic says, pointing a finger at Eyad without looking at him. He looks over the edge of his glasses at Marlo. “I’ve got something to say to Gigadark.”

Marlo, already pale from his injuries, turns into a ghost.

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A/N: Hey y'all! I'm so sorry that this has taken so long to get out. To be honest, I get stuck like this sometimes. It feels like there's a right way to write this story and somehow Im just not getting it. 

I love this group of siblings. In a short story format, I've had to cut out more than a bit of side scenes about them to try and keep it to a smaller story. I've struggled with it, but I'm happy with how this line of the story (Sophia saving Marlo) is going!

Thanks for reading!