100YoP Chapter Twenty-Two "Everything special about me, I built." (Patreon)

Samuel Reyes/Spider:

We had gathered in Butcher’s office, slightly cramped but managing.

Farah was nervously sipping at what had been, at the start of the meeting, a pretty full glass of scotch that Butchie had offered her to cool her nerves. She was halfway through it and her hands hadn’t stopped trembling.

Billy and Yua were doing last-minute check-ups on their weapons, with Billy making sure all his ammo was properly stored and prepared and Yua checking that all her various knives and other bladed implements were sharp, pointy and ready to maim.

I myself had made sure that my revolver was clean and my machete was sharp the previous night, so I was just sitting there making sure the finer details were in order before going out for doom or glory.

“So people are buying it?” I asked, my mask resting on my lap.

“Yeah,” Butchie said. “Seems like people are having trouble believing you would negotiate with someone you hate without bein’ adviced on it, so now they’re startin’ to think Namond’s full of shit.”

“That’s a little insulting, but okay.”

“Sam, I once saw you beat a man to death with a sock full of quarters,” Billy deadpanned.

Farah paused her drinking, set downt he glass and stared at me, raising an eyebrow.

“... I had a case of the Mondays,” I muttered, before clearing my throat. “In any case, that’s good for later. Is everyone prepared for what’s coming?”

“Got all my shit loaded up on the van already, boss,” said Billy.

“My computer’s got all the programs locked and loaded,” Farah assured me, “As soon as Butcher drops me off, I’ll be ready.”

“I installed the preparations you requested. I won’t fail again,” was all Yua had to say on the subject.

“I’ve made my own preparations,” Butcher assured me. “It’ll go on your call, son.”

I took a deep breath, snatched the glass out of Farah’s grip to her complaint, downed it and set it upside down on Butcher’s desk. “A’ight. Let’s roll, people.”

{[X]}

Drake Hotel. Twenty floors—each hosting five luxurious bedrooms—plus the lobby, kitchen and pool on the ground level, and the basement with the boilers and other assorted junk that hotels need but can’t make look pretty.

A more poetic person might call it an edifice to the pride and narcissism of one of Gotham’s wealthiest families; a monument to the ostentatious need of our higher class to make our city seem like something she’s not for the guests that come from outside her borders, most usually to taste the forbidden fruit of the illicit activities most of her citizens engage in.

It could be compared to a platter of delectable fruits and meats, cultivated at the cost of those living outside the palace walls to entertain the nobility’s guest.

Personally, the first thing to come out of my mouth when we entered the empty building was, “Damn. Place is swanky.”

Yua nodded with agreement beside me. “Indeed it is, sir.”

I couldn’t help but be disturbed, on some level, by the fact that I’d been able to rent out the whole damn building for the day, leaving it totally empty of even the staff.

I definitely did not feel mature enough to have that kind of economic power.

But then again, I never felt qualified to use a firearm and that never stopped me before, so what the hell did I know?

We paused in the middle of the lobby. I worked my mind, trying to find the words to express myself, and Yua faithfully waited, as she was wont to do.

Finally, I looked at her and, before she could react, wrapped her in a hug.

“You have a job, here,” I said. “You are goin’ to fight this bitch, and you are goin’ to beat her. You are goin’ to come back to us safe and sound and you are goin’ to celebrate with all of us. You’re goin’ to make an ass out of yourself after drinkin’ too much, and you’re going to laugh with all of us. Am I clear?”

Stiffly, Golden’s arms rose up and wrapped around my frame, eventually giving me a soft squeeze.

“... understood.”

After a moment of holding each other, we parted ways and headed for our respective positions.

{[X]}

William Priest/Huntsman:

It took Billy all of ten minutes to set up everything on the roof of the skyscraper nearest to Drake Hotel. The rest of the time was spent on his belly, holding the rifle, looking down the scope.

As Sam predicted, it seemed like Namond’s crew were running late as part of a kinda pathetic power play. Billy had to hold back a scoff at the lack of professionality.

Professionality had become something of a sticking point for him in Blackgate. The guy he’d shared a cell with, Malcolm, had talked a big game about the value of always making it to meetings on time and never making things personal.

It turned out he was in jail because he fucked his boss’ underage daughter and it was safer to take the fall for some stuff than to face the personal attention of a mob capo, but the rants had stuck in Billy’s head.

Especially seeing them in action with Butcher and Sam.

Not that Sam is all that professional, he thought, watching through binoculars as a limousine—a fucking limo—stopped in front of the hotel and four people got out of it. Really, Batgirl of all people?

Billy was self-aware enough, despite his best efforts at avoiding introspection, to know that he would’ve hated Sam’s girlfriend no matter who she was, so it was actually kinda nice to have a reason to wish the bitch stayed the fuck away from his friend. That whole relationship was like a ticking bomb strapped to the underside of a bus full of orphans: amusing to watch but destined for sorrow.

And the worst part was that he was actually happier for knowing her. She was the spark that lit off this whole Spider gig, and this gig was breathing new life into Sam that he still hadn’t recuperated from his time with the Blackgaters.

Sam was the kind of person that felt better when he was taking care of people, out of some bizarre belief that he had to make up for everything he had to do to survive Gotham. Billy followed the same code, because it was Sammy’s code, but it was honestly just bizarre at times.

Live, eat, shit, sleep. Repeat as necessary. Take everything you can and give as little as you must. That was the first real lesson William Priest ever recieved, and it was one he’d carried from even before he met Sam. It was the only thing he remembered with clarity from that time, in fact.

All of Sam’s efforts towards ‘civilizing’ Bily had to contend with that unshakable truth. That faulty foundation upon which his mind was built. Butcher was the only one that really saw it, probably some form of like recognizing like.

Yua thought of him as an employer and little else, and Farah...

Hm. How did Farah see him? He’d have to dig into that, make his own part to make sure team cohesion was flowing easier, ease the burden on Sam.

He liked to mess with her, so her opinion was probably kinda bad, but it just needed to be functional.

The group arrived at the penhouse, and Billy adjusted his binoculars.

Four people. Chief among them, Namond.

It really was odd how similar he looked to the person he’d been before falling into Blackgate. Billy had seen him at a distance inside the house, but he hadn’t looked like he was working out then. He’d been there when he gained the scar stretching out the corner of his mouth, given by some Joker groupie that dodged Arkham and took offense to Namond’s existance or something.

Namond looked around the penthouse, noting the big glass windows but giving them no second look before sitting down on the couch and picking up the note that Sam had left for him there. So he was in place, at least.

Next to him, an Indian girl with a shaved head and one of those little red dots on her forehead. Big, wide eyes that looked around for threats, tense posture, scars on her knuckles and forearms, the former from fighting and the latter looked to be from knives or other sharp implements.

Satya Kamal, some nobody assassin with a kill count similar to Sammy’s, recruited from the Glass Eyes. She paced around behind Namond, looking at the windows, clenching and unclenching her fists with tension. So there was some identifiable intelligence there, that was nice for them.

Lawrence Reed sat to Namond’s left, reading the note over his shoulder. He was a pudgy old white man, with a noticeable excess of forehead and a lot of fidgeting. He rubbed his hands together as he read, frowning more and more then starting to look around for anyone.

Candy grabbed a bottle of champagne and sat down on Namond’s right, seeming uncaring of the message Sam had left. Billy felt his grip on the binoculars tighten as Candy opened the bottle and started drinking directly from it, in a way Sam would describe as ‘completely fucking barbaric’.

Namond had his own spot on Billy’s shitlist, but that was Sammy’s fight. Candy, on the other hand, was free real estate as far as ass-whoopings were concerned. It was why he’d asked Sam to make sure he was the one to take care of the cocky little fuckwit.

He hadn’t been there, and Sam had gotten hurt. This was his chance to rectify his failure.

Still, the plan came first.

Moving as little as he could from his position belly-down on the rooftop, Billy pulled out the burner flip phone and dialed the first of two numbers on it.

Spider’s voice answered. “Status?”

“They’re in position.”

“Copy. Good luck, brother.”

The call ended, and Billy set aside the binoculars. Three seconds later, the top floor of Drake Hotel exploded outwards, the heat from Billy’s homecooked explosive so intense that the glass from the windows was melted to the floor before the shockwave could send shards down on anyone walking on the sidewalk.

Billy’s breathing slowed down as he uncapped the scope on his rifle and looked through it at the penthouse. In the middle, there was a ball of red-hot iron, which opened like a flower and revealed the four asshole, standing there unharmed but not unshaken. Candy wasn’t smiling any more, though he still held the bottle. Reed was fidgeting much more. And Namond was standing there, in his stolen power shitsack of a suit.

The metal split into strands, which flowed back towards Kamal, then shaped into arms and turned back into flesh. That was... Item #34 on the list. Bioferrum Transmutation Injections, that was the name. The ability to turn the bodyparts you injected into an incredibly tough alloy.

Yua had her work cut out for her.

In any case, they wouldn’t have been able to defend unless they’d had an advance warning, and since Sam was sure his sixth sense wouldn’t have been enough, that meant he’d probably been right about Reed picking a power he felt would suit his personality.

Item #29, the Technopath Cranial Implants. When he’d read it as they were analysing the listing for hints of what Namond’s lieutenants could do, Sam had said two things. First, that Luthor had definitely used the auction to outsource testing a bunch of dangerous, experimental shit. And second, that someone fitting his profile of Reed wouldn’t rest until he had that item.

Which meant that Billy owed him twenty bucks, because he’d bet Sam that his profile was full of shit and that Reed was going to have laser nipples or something. Not that he actually believed that, it’s just that Sam liked to win bets.

(Now the bet on whether Batman was a vampire, that he should have bet. Who would’ve thought he was just some rich guy in a costume?!

(Sam did, of course. Because Sam was always right.))

In any case, Billy looked through the scope and waited, breathing as slowly as possible before squeezing the trigger as three people stood in a line.

Candy automatically teleporting away was expected. So was Namond dodging at the last second, though that was still disappointing. Reed catching the bullet in the shoulder and creating a hole big enough that the whole arm probably became useless, however, was immensely satisfying.

Billy cocked the gun, reaimed and fired again, but Kamal had already shifted her arm back into metal and had created a cover that stopped the second bullet dead on its tracks.

Just before the wall went up, however, Billy saw Namond pointing towards him and looking at Candy.

Just according to plan.

He grabbed the burner, opened the contacts list and stood up, pulling out a knife from his combat vest and stapping the AK-47 over his shoulder.

In the distance, across the street, he saw Candy suddenly appear halfway to his position, immediately starting to fall. Billy counted back on his head as he turned around and stood on the lip of the roof, finger right over the ‘call’ button.

At eight seconds, Candy appeared right in the middle of the rooftop, and Billy jumped back as he pressed it.

The wire attatched to the front of his combat vest kept him in a long pendulum, which he used to direct himself two floors down before slashing across the wire with the knife, sending him crashing through the window and creating mass panic in the office that he landed in.

This was just in time for the flamethrowers he’d wired on the rooftop to go off, right in the middle of Candy’s refractionary period.

About four seconds later, the sound of someone hitting the floor hard came from above, as well as a lot of screaming, both the regular panic of civilians and the blood-curling scream of someone boiling inside their own skin.

Huntsman ignored the civilians surrounding him, grabbed his trusty AK and aimed right at where the latter was coming from, counting down in his head from eight as he opened fire, making said civilians run away.

After the eighth second, he fired one more shot and ran forward.

Right towards where Candy suddenly appeared, lashing out with a kick.

The attack hit with more strength than what you’d expect from a baseline human, sending Billy flat on his back and almost skidding back out the window, stopping with his head hanging over the edge.

Okay. So that probably meant he had a bit of enhanced strength in the seconds after his teleportation. And Sammy probably hadn’t noticed, because his sense of what people could do had gotten a little screwed up after the spider.

Really, Billy loved the guy, but he could be sooblivious.

He rolled away just as the eighth second hit and Candy appeared over where he’d been, stomping down and creating a crater under where Huntsman’s chest had been.

Huntsman rolled to his feet, and got a good look at Candy. Most of his clothes had patches missing, not burnt but almost cut. So his power had recognized the danger and removed it from him.

This was also clearly applied to the bits of his flesh that the gasoline had stuck on, considering the many bits of missing skin all over his body.

Candy wasn’t smiling any more, but Huntsman could still see his teeth.

He smiled under his mask, grabbed the AK-47 and said, “Well... come and try your luck, then.”

It was nice to finally be where he was meant to be, doing what he was good at doing.

{[X]}

Farah Kane/Weaver:

Seconds before the bomb had detonated, Lawrence Reed had shouted out to the others. The cameras installed the previous night in the penthouse suite hadn’t included audio, but Weaver didn’t need to be an expert to understand when someone shouted ‘BOMB’.

So that confirmed Spider’s guess. That was annoying, now she owed him fifty bucks. She was sure Reed would grab the regeneration powers.

Weaver’s fingers flew across her custom keyboard, the three screens in front of her switching between tabs as fast as her body could send the commands. Live footage, taken from dozens of street cameras and GoPros attatched to Goonion henchmen and Sam’s soldiers showed before her eyes, and she lowered the microphone from her headset to rest before her lips.

“Team One, proceed by dividing attention between the front and the back of the safehouse,” she said, voice warped by a program in between speaking and hearing. “Be warned, there are supposed to be five soldiers inside, two shotguns and three full-autos. Fire through walls when possible, avoid civilian casualties.”

“Copy,” came the message, but she was cutting away to another team before the confirmation was halfway over.

“Team Twelve, there is a group of four soldiers sneaking behind you. Wait three minutes for civilians to clear and fight back.”

“Fuck that,” a Goonion henchman said. “Why should we—”

“You will do as you were told to, Erikson, or so help me everyone will know your search history before the hour is through,” she said, switching away as Erikson grumbled something affirmative. “Team Eight, approach the window without being seen, I want to get a clearer image of the inside.”

“A’ight—wait, fuck, I meant ‘Copy’,” a young soldier, Aisha, replied.

“Either will do,” Weaver said, amused, looking at the left monitor for a moment to see Candy appear on the rooftop Huntsman had been planted on and immediately catch fire from the gadgets the latter had set up. Farah winced, but kept it out of her voice as she turned back to the rightmost monitor. “Right... molotov the front, breach through the back.”

“Sounds like a fun weekend,” Aisha muttered, before she relayed her orders to the others.

Farah grinned a little, then looked at the center monitor.

Nothing yet...

She went back to coordinating the teams, as well as keeping tabs on the police raids.

The GCPD, as anyone would’ve expected, were significantly less coordinated than Weaver’s own soldiers, but they made up for it in equipment. The few bodycams she’d hacked into showed more than a bit of appropiation whenever they found stashes of cash or drugs, but honestly it was a lot more restrained than either Weaver or Spider had expected.

“Team Four, be advised, five-oh passing by your street,” Weaver called out. “Go low.”

“Roger.”

“Team Twenty, be careful, more soldiers than expected on second story.”

“Got it.”

“Team Three, I locked the elevator, but the four soldiers inside are starting to open the doors. Toss in a flashbang and continue up the stairs, I’ll clear the elevator for your exit.”

“Heh. Yes, ma’am.”

She peeked at the leftmost monitor again and switched tabs, showing Huntsman shooting Candy with a pistol only for the latter to disappear and reappear behind the former. Billy seemed to expect this, however, as he immediately ducked under Candy’s punch and pulled out a knife with his free hand, slashing Candy across the thigh.

Okay, that was handled for now. She turned back to the rightmost monitor and switched to the third party of cameras, though ‘party’ was a bit of an exaggeration, considering it was just one camera and one GPS, both on the same person.

“Team Five, hold position,” she said. “Spoiler is approaching and going to make first contact through the ceiling.”

“Who the fuck is Spoiler?”

Through the camera the girl had attatched to her hood, Weaver saw the vigilante crash with both feet forward through a window covered only with cardboard, grappling hook unlatching at just the right moment for her to slam into a soldier, roll off of him as he hit the ground, put both hands on the floor and lash out with a donkey kick at a second soldier that was still processing the sudden purple intrusion.

“The vigilante that just broke through the window. Go, now!”

“C-Copy!”

Team Five went, and Weaver switched to another tab. “Team Seven, there are soldiers coming in through the stairwell, they’re mostly unarmed and relaxed, but be careful.”

“Mm.”

“Team Two—” a window popped up in the middle monitor, and Weaver winced. “Never mind, something came up. Be careful, and good luck.”

Weaver turned off her microphone for a moment, glaring at the window.

It read ‘FIREWALL BREACHED. DEPLOYING COUNTERMEASURES.’. It was in big, bold red letters, because when she was fifteen and she’d designed her antivirus program she felt that it should look as important as she thought it’d be if someone got inside her system.

God, fifteen-year-old Farah would be freaked the fuck out if she knew what eighteen-year-old Farah was getting up to. Either that or she’d be really excited about the future, not without reason.

With a few clicks of the mouse, Farah opened two tabs, then she turned her microphone on again, disconnected from any channels.

“Hello, Lawrence,” she said.

There was a moment of silence. Then, a nasal voice that was clearly trying to affect an air of calm and sofistication rang unpleasantly in her ear. “So you’re one of Reyes’ little hanger-ons, then?”

Lawrence Reed. Sam had debriefed them on all the important members of Namond’s crew, and he’d put a bit of emphasis on Reed’s name.

His history of meddling in Gotham’s underworld goverment by supporting the up-and-comers had caused a fair bit of chaos and death throughout the years, and while emphasizing that they weren’t to kill even him, he asked that they did whatever they could to make sure he wasn’t a menace to anyone else.

So apparently the job fell on Weaver’s shoulders.

“I work for Spider,” Weaver replied. “Reyes bosses Spider around, Spider bosses me around, and I tell you to get the fuck out of my computer before I shove my fist so far up your ass I’ll be able to check you for cavities.”

“Ooh, so scary,” Reed mocked. “I’ll admit, this is an impressive set-up you have here, what with the processing power and the voice alteration program, but it doesn’t compare to my power.”

“Awfully bold to call it your power when you got it off of Lex Luthor’s garden sale,” Weaver noted, mentally apologizing to Sam whilst doing it. “And you don’t seem to be making much progress with it, in any case. What’s wrong, performance issues? Don’t worry, honey, I hear it’s very common for other people.”

“Don’t get cute with me, you bitch,” Lawrence hissed, before there was a moment where he probably took a calming breath. “I’ll admit, your software is good enough to give me some trouble. But not enough to keep me from doing this.”

And then, before her eyes, Weaver saw all the comm channels turn on without her input, before a voice that perfectly imitated the product of her voice modifier called out, “Everyone, fall back! The job is cancelled!”

Shit.

{[X]}

William Priest/Huntsman:

Despite a relatively long and busy career as a henchman, Huntsman had yet to smash someone across the face with a flatscreen monitor before his fight with Candy. Therefore, he was unprepared for the amount of wind resistance that came with swinging the damn thing at someone’s face, making him just barely lose the eight second window to hit the bastard and allowing him to teleport away.

As most times he’d done that, he reappeared right behind Huntsman. Unlike most of those times, Billy didn’t have time to lash out before Candy threw out a punch into Huntsman’s shoulder, imbeded with enough force to pop the thing right out of the damn socket.

“Fuck!” Huntsman shouted, falling into a roll. Still, he didn’t lose the count, and on the fifth second he managed to get three shots in as he raised his unwounded arm, revolver in hand. Candy was already running, using cubicles for cover.

Namond’s lieutenant had caught quite a few glancing hits during the fight, but the bastard wasn’t slowing down by much. Honestly, if he hadn’t lost whatever weapons he had along with the parts of his clothes that were on fire, Huntsman would probably have been dead by then.

As it was, he was just down an arm and kinda totally fucked.

“Everyone, fall back! The job is cancelled!”

Oh, hey, speaking of being totally fucked.

Before he could tap his headphone and inquire what the fresh fuckFarah was on about, another message rang out in the same modified voice. “Communications have been compromised! Protect civilians, proceed carefully as stated and ignore all further messages until the password is said!”

Ah, hell. Reed must’ve gotten into the comms. This was expected, and at least Farah apparently still had a say, but it was still kind of a problem.

Huntsman stood up, keeping a low stance as he cocked back the hammer of his revolver. Two shots left, reloading it would be too hard and slow with one arm so he’d have to either fix his shoulder or relegate his gun to blunt weapon. The eight seconds had already passed, so no matter how he attacked Candy next it would miss, meaning that he had to throw out a minor attack first and then shoot.

Oh, sure, he thought to himself, quietly walking around in a crouch, hoping Candy didn’t see him while trying to figure out his location. I’ll take the fight with the teleporting douchebag, it definitely won’t be more than I can handle. I should’ve just focused on shooting Reed. I just had to take vengence for Sammy.

He thought about it a bit more. Well, yeah, I did have to. Guess there’s no point in complaining.

He caught a glimpse of a foot on the opposite side of a row of desks, near the glass wall separating the office from the elevator and stairs. Making sure he wasn’t too visible on the reflection, Billy crept closer.

Every second of movement was agony, trying to make as little noise as possible while controlling his breathing so he wouldn’t be heard. On the way, he holstered his gun in favour of unsheathing his knife, deciding that he could always drop it and draw his revolver if the need came up.

Step, step, step. Every inch mattered, every step was made as long as possible while shifting his weight so he didn’t bump into any of the desks. The office workers had long vacated the space, and they’d left loads of papers, keyboards and desk decorations littlering the floor, each to be avoided as much as possible. His uselessly hanging arm was of no help here.

Knife in hand, he stepped next to the last desk on the row and looked at the glass for the translucent reflection of his enemy.

And therein laid the problem, because Candy was reflected on the glass as being behind him.

There were a few thoughts connecting in Billy’s mind as he immediately made to turn. To have arrived there as fast as he must’ve without making any noise, he must have teleported. If he’d done that as soon as Huntsman started walking towards where he’d thought Candy was, then the eight second window must have already passed.

Therefore, he reasoned as he finished turning, eyes wide and knife coming up like a defensive talisman in lieu of anything useful to do with it, Candy had a clear view of him and the ability to deliver an empowered strike to him.

This was confirmed when Candy suddenly manifested right in front of him, foot already raised and bent to strike out with a kick.

Pure instinct led Huntsman to lash out downwards with the knife, but he barely managed to score a scrape down Candy’s burnt thigh before the force of the kick sent him flying backwards, through the glass and into the wall next to the elevator door.

His back slammed into concrete, pushing all the air out of his lungs, staggering him long enough for Candy to cut the distance running and transfer all the forward momentum into a punch to Huntsman’s face.

Candy grabbed him by the neck of the bulletproof vest and punched him, sloppy and violent with the desperation of someone hanging on to consciousness by the tips of his metaphorical fingers. He’d started the fight heavily wounded, and though experience and powers had kept Huntsman from scoring a clean hit, he was losing a lot of blood.

Drawing from the experience that came from all the times he’d been held down and beaten up before Sammy’s inevitable timely interruption, Billy waited for a punch to come in before batting it in and down, then using the same hand to land a punch right between Candy’s eyebrows, sending him staggering back.

He’d lost count of how many seconds it’d been since he last teleported, so it was a matter of making every moment count. Wrapping his healthy arm around Candy’s shoulder, Huntsman closed the distance with a headbutt right to his nose, then pulled back for another one. And another one. And another one.

The fifth headbutt failed to connect, as Candy disappeared in Huntsman’s grip and reappeared just to the right of him, throwing an uppercut that caught him under the ribs and sent him flying back, gagging on bile before he even landed.

He wasn’t even done getting up when Candy ran up and kicked him on the chest, sending him sprawling back. When he pulled his leg back to kick him again, Huntsman twisted on the floor, wrapped a hand around his ankle and flung it out wildly, sending Candy flying on his ass.

Before Candy could react or regain the capacity to teleport, Huntsman shot to his feet and ran to the stairwell, tearing off his mask as soon as he was through the door and out of sight of any cameras so that he could put his head over the banister and empty the contents of his stomach.

The door closed behind him, and Sam had told him Candy probably needed line of sight, so he had until Candy got up to set up his next move.

So just what exactly could he do, Billy wondered, with only one functioning arm and a mouthfull of vomit and half-digested alfajor that Sam had given him because he’d skipped breakfast?

Huntsman’s blurry vision landed at the next level of the stairs, and he had a moment of awful clarity in which he knew what to do. Mind made up, he put on his mask and planted an unwavering foot forward and pushed off in a step.

A moment later, Candy burst through the doors and found Huntsman lying face-down at the foot of the stairs one level down, clutching his shoulder and groaning pitifully as he struggled to crawl to the door.

He burst out laughing.

{[X]}

Farah Kane/Weaver:

The sound of furious typing filled Weaver’s bedroom, almost overcoming the whirring from the extended computer parts that consumed the walls of her apartment.

Reflected on the blue light blocking glasses she wore, strings of code ran backwards, piling up one after another and going back for corrections as little as possible before her burning, unblinking eyes. Farah’s fingers were a blur over her keyboard, nails in need of trimming nailing letters and hitting the next before the button fully finished unpressing.

Even as she released one hand to grab at one of the cans from the minifridge under her desk, which she’d opened with her feet and left open to save time, the other hand kept typing as fast as it could.

In all honesty, this wouldn’t have usually been so bad. Farah tended to type like this when she got in the zone anyways, so it was almost like being handed a test she just so happened to have studied for. The fact that there were actual lives that she cared about, however, made the whole thing a whole lot more stressful.

She’d never been depended on before. She’d never wantedto be depended on before, so it was a whole platter of new, stressful sensations piled on top of trying to code as fast as her fragile, cumbersome meat shell could carry itself.

The fact that Reed didn’t stop talking for a single fucking second made the whole thing even worse.

“Really, I don’t know why you’re still trying,” said smug sack of shit said, his annoying fucking voice coming across even after Farah had lowered the headphones to rest around her neck. “I can see you coding, you know? It’s admirable that you lasted this long, but what you’re doing at the speed of a basic fucking human bitch, I’m doing at the speed of thought.”

Farah’s lips tightened, but she said nothing.

“I mean really, who do you think you are? What level do you think you’re playing at?” Reed continued. “My crew? We’re metahumans. Above humans. In the five weeks it would take you to code a fucking antivirus software, I can steal the nuclear missile codes, get access to Fort Knox and set every other digital clock back by five minutes. And that would be four weeks and six days on the clock thing.”

After a few more moments of Farah being silent, Reed scoffed. “Whatever. I’m wasting my breath on someone too stupid to understand.“

Farah frowned. It probably benefited her if she could get him to keep talking. So how did she do that? She was good with a comeback, sure, but she didn’t have Sam’s knack for pushing at people’s buttons.

Then again, it’d quickly become clear that Reed was just a bully. And Farah knew bullies. Knew that all they really craved was a reaction, and something that showed they were getting at their victims.

“Your crew,” Farah said, typing not slowing down for one second.

“What?”

“You said ‘your crew’,” Farah said. Hopefully, Reed would think he was catching more than 2% of Farah’s attention. “I was under the impression that this was Little’s outfit.”

Reed scoffed, “Please. There’s never been a surname more fitting for an individual. Everything great about him, everything that helped him get to where he is now? His powers, his connections, his life? That’s all thanks to me. He can parade around calling himself ‘Big Man’, but I’m the giant whose shoulders he stands on.”

If she’d had the hand to spare, Weaver would’ve made a jerk-off gesture. Instead, she said, “So Mr. Reyes’ guess was right. You were the one that helped him fake his death, and gave him the connect. And you’re the one that was helping the Hellions way back in the day.”

“Hmph, I’m surprised Reyes figured it out,” Reed said, venom entering his tone. “Then again, killing my brother was probably the most complicated job he ever accomplished, even if he just did it by crashing through his fucking house.”

“I’m sensing some hostility,” Farah noted. “Sad that my boss tore your bitch-ass brother a new asshole?”

“My brother was a sack of shit that barely managed to use the opportunities I gave him,” Reed scoffed. Then, clearly lowering his voice for dramatic effect like the fucking loser he was, he added, “But he was still my brother. And I’m gonna have to teach your punk of a boss a few lessons. Once I make Namond give me the remaining scraps, that is.”

“You’d have to find him, first,” Farah absently noted, quickly going back a couple lines to fix a semicolon then going back to writing.

“Oh, spare me the theatrics,” said Reed, without a trace of self-awareness. “Are you really keeping up the pretense?”

Weaver failed to reply.

“Be that way,” Reed scoffed. “It doesn’t matter, and really, you should be more concerned about yourself.”

“Me?”

“You didn’t think I’m happy just fucking up your communications, did you? I’ve been figuring out your location the whole time you’ve been struggling to keep me at bay, and as soon as I finish bricking your shitty little computer, I’m sending a crew of the meanest, nastiest sons of bitches we’ve got available to get real acquainted with you.”

Despite herself, Farah found herself swallowing nervously. It must’ve come across in some way, because after a moment Reed started laughing.

“Oh? No smart comments?” Reed laughed. “I know you don’t have a webcam in your little computer, but I’m guessing there might be one somewhere in your apartment. Maybe I’ll ask them to plug it in and let me see while they take their time on you. I’m thinking you need a serious lesson on why you shouldn’t step up to your betters.”

He made to say something else, but with a final press of a key Farah set her code to compile and smiled as no errors came up. “Finally! Jesus, that would’ve taken way less time if I’d had the time to make mistakes and fix them later.”

“... what?” said Reed. “W-wait, I thought that was you holding me back. Why the fuck can’t I enter your computer?”

“See, if you’d had any education outside of TV shows before plugging a computer into your brain, you would’ve known that that was just my custom-built antivirus software—which only took me two weeks to make, by the way.”

“Then... then what did you just—?”

“My counterattack.”

With a click of the mouse, the program was executed, and Lawrence Reed almost immediately started screaming.

{[X]}

William Priest/Huntsman:

Once he was done laughing, Candy teleported next to Huntsman and, with the momentary increase in strength, kicked him into the banisters, bending them slightly.

When Huntsman flopped down, coughing violently, Candy rested a foot on his chest and tried to speak. It took a moment of croaking through the wounds of being momentarily on fire, but he managed to say, “This is pathetic. Honestly.”

In lieu of answering with words, Huntsman used the knife he’d been discreetly gripping to slice through Candy’s Achilles’ tendon.

Then he used the arm he’d popped back in place by throwing himself over the stairs to pull out his revolver and shoot Candy in the shoulder, sending out a burst of blood that splatted over Huntsman’s forehead and gas mask.

As Candy fell backwards, Huntsman surged forward, relishing in the confusion in Candy’s red and bloated eyes as he spun the revolver in his grip. He pulled Candy closer by sticking the knife in his hip and pulling sideways, then struck him across the temple with the butt of the gun.

Then again.

And again.

And again. And again. And again and again and again.

Huntsman wasn’t sure how many times he’d hit him within the eight-second window, but when Candy disappeared in his grip and reappeared to his right, swinging at empty air, he knew he’d fulfilled step two of the plan.

Concuss the bastard too bad for him to teleport.

Lashing out one last time across Candy’s jaw with the gun, leaving the knife to hold in the blood, Huntsman ran into the actual office floor, head on a swivel as he looked for a bathroom.

Once he found the men’s room, he stood at the door and watched the exit to the stairwell anxiously.

When Candy staggered through the door, he fired in his direction without really aiming and let the meta thug watch him enter the bathroom, trusting that he’d be too concussed to see the obvious trap for what it was.

Sure enough, he heard a body plop on the floor and loud cussing as the knife was jostled, then eight seconds during which Candy stood up and dragged himself to the bathroom door.

Seven seconds in, Huntsman spoke up, “I’m givin’ you this chance to give up.”

There was a moment of silence, then Candy’s croaking voice rang out through the door. “What makes you think I wanna, bitch?”

“You’re bleeding, stabbed, concussed and burnt like a fucking Batburguer nugget,” Huntsman pointed out. “I wouldn’t trust you to walk a straight line, much less warp through the fucking fabric of space and time. This fight is lost, man. I know you’re loyal, but if your guy’s worth followin’, he’d let you quit.”

It was an empty offer, in truth. If Billy was right in what he recognized from what he’d heard of Candy, then Little’s allowance wouldn’t matter in the carrying out of his duty. And if Billy was wrong, he’d still have to fight him, because what would matter would be getting even after getting hurt.

And Namond probably wouldn’t be okay with his failure, anyways.

Still, Sam would’ve made the offer. So Billy made it as well.

In lieu of verbally responding, Candy slammed the door and limped in as fast as he could, only making eye contact for a second before he disappeared and reappeared in front of Huntsman just as the latter was ducking.

Billy barely dodged a wild haymaker that left a hole on the wall behind where his head had been, but he wasted no time in making his next move. He rushed forward and tackled Candy, driving him to the floor and pinning him in place by the arms with his knees.

Giving him the space he needed to punch down, over.

And over.

And over.

Candy’s teeth spilled out of his face in a line of drool and blood, but he managed to release an arm to punch Huntsman in the face, then drag him down by the neck of the vest.

Candy landed a punch and teleported a bit above and to the right of where he’d been, lashing out with a punch that carried the expanded strength and a bit of downward momentum from gravity. Billy threw his head to the side at the last second, so the punch only brushed the side of his head while it cratered the floor.

A twist of the hips drove a knee into Candy’s ribs, which drove him into the stall door and down while Huntsman spun to be on top again. He reached down to grab the knife that still stuck out of his hip and twisted it slightly, making Candy cry out in pain and wildly lash out with his hand, cracked nails driving into Huntsman’s forehead.

He ignored the pain and punched him in the face again, right over the eye.

The eight second mark passed and Huntsman got ready to dodge just as Candy disappeared in his grip. Only to get spooked and jump when he suddenly heard Candy screaming in pain.

Turning around, he had to blink and take a moment to understand what he was seeing. Part of Candy’s formerly healthy leg was fused into the bathroom sink, almost like a glitch in a videogame. From the way Candy was screaming his throat raw, Huntsman could only guess that this must’ve hurt him worse than being set on fire had.

Not one to waste an opportunity, Huntsman rushed forward, grabbed the side of Candy’s head and smashed it into the mirror. Glass shards drove into Candy’s face, but that barely served to drive his attention away from the pain in his leg. Still, it was enough to make him listen to Billy.

“You lost!” he roared, screaming to be heard over Candy’s own howling. “If you teleport again, you’re gonna be missing a chunk of leg. You’ll bleed out in seconds. Give! Up!”

In truth, he had no idea if his leg wouldn’t be totally fine if he teleported out. But he had a feeling that Candy didn’t know either, and that he wasn’t willing to take that risk.

And he was proven right, as Candy’s body tensed for a moment, then his screaming slowly turned to heavy mouth-forced-closed breathing and his body slackened.

Once he was sure the fight had left him, Huntsman slowly stepped back, then slowly relaxed his own body. The adrenaline was filtering out, and pain was re-entering his mind. Still, he managed to sound mostly calm as he said, “Cops are on their way, you’ll get medical attention soon.”

Candy didn’t reply, the light in his eyes seeming dimmed out.

Satisfied at having avenged Sammy, Billy limped out of the bathroom and back towards the stairs. Still, he paused before entering and looked around to find a security camera. Once he’d found it, he looked at it and waited.

He was pretty confident of his chances of escaping if push came to shove. But he had to make sure Farah was fine.

... he could make sure while leaning on a wall. He was pretty sure he had a couple cracked ribs, and his shoulder hurt like a motherfucker.

{[X]}

Farah Kane/Weaver:

“W-W-Wha-a-at are you d-d-doing t-t-to me?!” Reed’s voice was glitching like a faulty program, and Weaver felt almost a moment of regret.

But Sam had gotten one thing right: sometimes hard choices had to be made.

Farah had never killed anyone. She’d never seriously hurt anyone, either. But Weaver had a duty to her crew and her friends and her people. And part of that was making sure that Lawrence Reed never hurt anyone else with his man-behind-the-man bullshit every again.

“What you’re experiencing is a virus I built specifically for someone with a computer plugged directly into their brain,” said Farah. “See, if you’d given yourself some education before you bought your way to be in my ballpark of skill, you would’ve been even slightly aware of what a monumentally stupid idea that was.

“See, that’s the difference between us. Everything special about you? Your connections, powers, all that shit? That was bought. You bartered for your advantage in the world, and while I admit that’s a legitimate way to move through life, in the end that still means none of it is ever truly yours. Everything special about me, I made. My knowledge, my skills, my computers, it was all me.”

With her computer free, she moved through Drake Hotel’s security cameras until she found Reed in a hallway near the top floor, leaning against a wall and throwing up.

“In any case, I’ve installed a modified version of the ILOVEYOU virus directly to your front lobe. What is happening to you right now is that your ability to consciously move, plan or actively reason is slowly, painfullybeing shredded from your mind, while it spreads to whatever computers you’ve repeatedly connected to and is sending me copies of all the information I could want before erasing the originals,” Weaver explained. In reality, it was more like she’d cludged a bunch of viruses together into something and prayed that it would work on a braincomputer, but there was some dark satisfaction in seeing her work come to fruition. “My boss gave me an order to make sure you didn’t die, but he gave me space to be imaginative. And I realized something about you, Lawrence.

“I realized you are the type that isn’t satisfied unless they’re on top of the world. And that made you anathema to me and mine, because you don’t give a shit about any of the citizens. You’d burn Gotham to the ground and salt the earth as long as you could rule the ashes.

“So this is me making a choice. You’re going to live a long life, Lawrence. You’re going to eat, piss and shit through a system of tubes, you’ll drool over yourself every day and you’ll never be able to have a thought more complicated than if you’re warm or cold, but you’re going to live a long, longwhile. I’ll personally make sure of it.”

In her footage, Farah saw Reed fall on his face and felt bile build up in her throat, but Weaver pushed it down and kept talking in a calm, steady voice.

“This, and no less, is the price of fucking with the people I love,” she declared, more for the world than for Reed’s failing capacity to understand language. This was a decision she’d made when she realized that Sam really would have her back no matter what. A decision to return that loyalty. “This, and no less, is what happens to people that threaten my city. And if Batman takes issue, he can try his fucking luck with me and mine.”

Reed vomited, thankfully not in a way that he’d drown, and a quick diagnosis proved that her computer was free of intrusions.

She barely managed to grab the empty bucket she usually used to move bags of snacks from the kitchen to her room and void her stomach into it, as she quickly realized she’d turned a man into a vegetable.

Carefully setting the puke bucket down, she switched cameras on the left monitor until she found Billy, looking straight at a camera. His chest was raising and falling slowly as he breathed heavily, but he seemed more or less stable.

She turned on a private comms channel and said the code phrase they’d prepared in case comms got compromised, “Maracuya.”

She saw his shoulders droop as he breathed a sigh of relief. “Good, you got him?”

“Yeah, Lawrence won’t bother anyone else, ever again,” she said. Then, with a bit of shaking to her voice that she failed to totally purge, she repeated. “Ever again.”

Billy looked at the camera searchingly, like he was trying to read Farah through it, before saying, “Good. Boss might take issue with it, but I’ll talk to him. You did the right thing.”

“He’s not dead.”

“But he might as well be?”

Farah’s silence was telling.

“You did the right thing, Weaver,” said Billy with more kindness than she’d ever heard from him. “Don’t ever doubt it.”

And sure, this was probably influenced by that whole ‘Billy has no code’ thing that Butcher warned her about. But the support was nice, so she let herself believe it as much as she could.

“... okay,” she sniffed.

“I gotta head out ‘cause the cops are definitely about to get here, but I’ll head on over, okay?”

She nodded, and almost corrected her mistake but Billy seemed to get it, as he nodded and walked to the stairs, away from her eyes.

Farah took a deep breath, sighed and turned the comms with the soldiers again. She could see a few had been hurt in the time it took her to beat Reed, and she felt slightly more justified in her actions, though not better.

As she gave the code once more and started recoordinating the soldiers, she spared one last look at the leftmost monitor, before deciding the soldiers took priority.

She’d just have to hope that Sam and Yua managed on their own.