The Rise of Marquis 8: Strength (Patreon)

The Rise of Marquis
Chapter 8: Strength

-VB-

Standing atop a building directly opposite of the Parahuman Response Team ENE Headquarters, Marquis watched as his lieutenants charged into the foray first, followed by the man’s clone projections. Armed to the teeth as they were, he doubted that any of the normal PRT trooper could win against them without overwhelming numbers.

“They won’t be able to do much damage, and you know it.”

He glanced to his right and hummed. Sitting on the edge of the rooftop was his planner, Scholar. With flowing black hair and a slender body, she would have fit the stereotypical image of a sexy villainess if she didn’t wear a large poncho everywhere.

Oh, he knew exactly what was underneath that poncho, and he wasn’t thinking about her sexy body. Scholar had a reputation for bringing out the weirdest of gadgets at the most opportune(?) moment. When they fought Hookwolf - the latest cape member of the Teeth - when Teeth came calling a year ago, she used an excessive amount of chewing gum to make all of his blades grind to a halt.

He didn’t even know how or why she had that much gum ready.

And that gum had come from underneath that poncho.

He also knew that she took up the poncho to put more distance between her public and cape persona. After all, who expected a white English professor with nary a drop of Mexican blood in her to take up a poncho for her cape persona? He certainly hadn’t. In fact, he had been so confused when she revealed herself for the first time that he actually had to think for a moment.

But that was a story for another time.

Right now, the March struck at the PRT.

“This is reckless,” Scholar sighed.

“I know, but we can’t exactly leave that device in the hands of the PRT, right?”

“You mean aside from them locking it away and never using it as the device was intended?”

“Yes.”

Even though she had a full-coverage mask with only two slits to give her vision, he knew that she was rolling her eyes. “You just can’t do anything against your girls, can you?” she asked him with a deadpan.

“I’ll have you know that I can certainly do a lot of things-!” he snapped back with faux pride.

“Aside from getting them pregnant.”

“Yes, aside from getting them pregnant.”

“Because Amy was really happy.”

He wilted a little.

“I’m not judging you,” she snorted. “But you do realize exactly how you will be seen, right?”

“I do.”

“Even so?”

“It was what both of us wanted. You know that I do not do things half-way. If I am going to be taking Countess as my lover, then I am going all the way.”

“Hmm. I can respect that, though not the actual act.”

“... The Protectorates are here.”

The two of them looked back down onto the street where the Protectorate heroes stationed at the PRT HQ bulldozed through Jenkins’s clones.

At the forefront of this counterassault was Armsmaster himself, cutting through the clones with his energy halberd with brutal efficiency and speed that made his assault look like a rough yet awe-inspiring dance. Behind him was Challenger, swinging her giant hammer with enough force to send each clone flying away in ragdoll.

“Not going in yet?” she asked him.

“No, I want them to exert themselves a little. Besides, Jenkins is not out of the count yet.”

Indeed, Marquis watched as the cloner jumped right back into the fray. Some of his clones used themselves as meat shields while others became full-on suicide bombers as they charged the two leading Protectorate capes with pinless grenades.

It might have worked if Jenkins didn’t forget about the third member on site.

Five precise shots rang out, cutting through the skirmish, and struck the five clones attempting to kamikaze Challenger. Challenger whipped around and gave Miss Militia, who sat on the rooftop of the PRT HQ, a thumbs-up.

Miss Militia changed her gun from a sniper rifle to an assault rifle, an AK-74, if Marquis remembered the model correctly. She looked up at him, which wasn’t hard considering that they were right across the street and on the same level as well.

He bowed to her dramatically before rising back up.

She didn’t aim at him. She knew the folly of that well enough. Instead, she turned away from him and shot at below to take out more of Jenkins’s clones.

Despite the assault of three very capable of Protectorate heroes, Jenkins didn’t let up. If anything, he made more clones to make up for the loss in numbers. This was one of the reasons why Marquis took on Jenkins despite the man’s foul mouth; he was an underappreciated powerhouse who can keep entire Protectorate hero teams locked up at a location.

“Countess,” he spoke into his earpiece. “How close are you to the battlefield?”

“{Five minutes. My worms are just barely underneath Armsmaster’s lab here.}”

“Good. Keep me updated.”

The battle continued, but it was clear that Jenkins was slowly losing ground against the three most lethal fighters the local Protectorate had to offer.

“Jenkins, fall back. I’ll be taking care of them now.”

“{Roger, sir! Have fun fucking ‘em up!}”

The jovial cape, who had been in the back, ran away before getting scooped up by a van ready to take him back to his base.

Marquis took a step forward as the clone swarm died down to the last handfuls, and allowed himself to fall to the streets below.

He landed, bending his knees slightly, with a thunderous crack that cratered the asphalt.

The battle paused for a moment as the Protectorate heroes realized that he had just entered the battlefield.

Cracking his neck side to side, Marquis stepped out of the foot deep crater he’d just made. “It’s been a while since I faced the three of you together in a fight,” he smirked. “What was the score again?”

Armsmaster, prideful as he was, didn’t respond and stepped forward and swung his halberd. The bladed end detached and came at him like a flail.

Marquis didn’t even need to gesture to parry that. A bone grew out of the air and parried the halberd-flail less than a foot from his shoulder, and another bone shot up from underneath Armsmaster to strike his powered armor’s solar plexus. Instead of stopping at the strike, the bone continued to grow, forcing Armsmaster to back off lest he be carried into the sky.

Challenger came from his left side, striking horizontally from her left to her right. Her hammer met another bone growth mid-air, and detonated as her hammer often did, and sent fragments of bones everywhere.

Marquis blinked for a moment, and in that instant, felt his head snap back from the blow of a high caliber bullet.

He glared up at Miss Militia before he sprouted a dozen bone spikes around her, forcing the woman to back off from the edge of the rooftop.

Then the ground rumbled.

Armsmaster froze before his head snapped back to the PRT HQ.

“Bad battlefield manner, Armsmaster,” Marquis drawled before he had more bone spikes converge on the Protectorate leader.

Armsmaster noticed his mistake quickly and jumped away before he got skewered.

Challenger attacked again, but he locked her arms up in position by thrusting a bone spike from below through the hoop made by her swinging arms. Caught with a literal pillar of bone in front of her, she aborted her attack and let her left hand go. The hammer swung around, missed him by two feet, and she spun with the flow.

Then she came back for round two.

This time, he moved in. He ducked underneath her strike, struck the back of her armored knee, and then destabilized her footing by making a bone “bump” in the road that she stepped on. She tripped forward, almost landing on her face.

“{We got the tinkertech.}”

“Good. Then we’re retreating.”

Then he jumped up.

He made a platform of bones, jumped onto it, and jumped up again. He repeated this until he was next to the rooftop where Scholar had been continuing to watch without interfering in the fight.

“Next time, my dears,” he said as he helped Scholar and walked away from the battlefield.

Miss Militia didn’t shoot after him.

She knew better than to do so.