Chapter Text
Brad Meadows - 1
It felt good.
It felt real good.
It felt real good when he got to fight — to rampage! To slaughter!
When he's let off the leash to finally use his power and shed some blood, he loves riding on the high that comes with it.
Call him an adrenaline junky or a psychopath or whatever.
Fighting and killing was what he was good at, so it only made sense for him to enjoy it too!
Max might bitch and moan about him getting Birdcaged the next time he's caught — he will never it admit to anyone, but he is afraid of going there — but the PRT wasn't going to bring him in any time soon.
There were close calls here and there — if anyone can even call it that — but he can be slippery when he wanted to, and it ain't a cowardly move to tactically retreat.
"OH FU-!"
Some random Merchants druggie screamed as he charged down the street and rammed a van — sending it flying at a bunch of those pathetic fuckers and crushing them.
Tonight, he and Lars — Stormtiger, Max always drilled into his head about using Cape names when they're out — were messing up the Merchants.
Honestly, despite him thinking it wasn't going to be any fun, it was fun enough to absolutely wreck the shit out of these druggies.
'Well, who else am I gonna fuck up? The PRT? The ABB?' He briefly thought as he charged at the druggies down the street and tore up the asphalt with his blades and weight.
Even though he can slip away when he wants to, attacking the PRT straight-on was just stupid, that's just asking to be Birdcaged.
The ABB's out of the equation too. Sure, slaughtering the unpowered members was right up his alley, and chasing Oni Lee was exciting — shredding the fucker's clones gave him a lot of satisfaction — but Lung's a big fat no.
He liked fighting and killing, and if given the chance he'd do it to Lung. But alone?
Well, not alone — he had Stormtiger with him, but still.
At some point, trying to climb the extremely tall and vertical wall seemed less possible and a waste of time.
Time and life. He won't deny that Lung can kill him.
Terrorizing the Merchants some more, he kept chasing them down, ignoring the bullets and mauling them with his blades and claws while Stormtiger dodged, clawed and blasted them.
"Hookwolf!" Stormtiger called out to him while he was busy biting open a car with some Merchants inside, so he didn't get to turn and reply to Stormtiger.
"Skidmark's coming in on one of Squealer's Killdozers!" His comrade said, and that made him turn to look at where Stormtiger was trying to point to — car pieces still in his metallic jaw.
And Stormtiger was right.
Fucking Skidmark in his stupid, rag-tag costume and cape was sticking his head out from the wheeled fuckup that is Squealer's latest Killdozer, with the Tinker most likely behind the wheel judging by how well it's being driven by someone in a drugged-up gang of losers.
Tinkers and their bullshit, honestly, the Killdozer doesn't even look functional at all! Is that supposed to be a monster truck? Or just a very tall and enlarged Mercedes made of junk?
Skidmark was saying something while he was still leaning out from the Killdozer's window, but the fucking moron was probably so high he didn't even notice that he wasn't even audible with the Killdozer's engine screaming.
Well, it didn't really matter.
He spat the cheap car piece out from his jaw as he turned to face the incoming Killdozer, lowering himself to the road as he prepared to launch himself at the butchered and grafted vehicle.
Meanwhile, Stormtiger stopped harassing the fleeing unpowered Merchants member and hopped on top of a car — gathering air into his claws to power them up for some big blasts.
He knew it wouldn't be easy taking down one of Squealer's Killdozers even if it was made of junk — Tinkertech is just that bullshit — but he can feel it in his fucking blood.
He and Stormtiger were going to put the two Merchant Capes into the fucking ground.
But before the Killdozer came into his range, he caught a blur flying towards one of the Killdozer's right tires.
And just as he could focus on what it was, there were bright flashes of orange and the blur backed off.
Then the Killdozer started slowing down real quick before crashing into a building. That was anticlimactic.
'What the fuck just happened?'
Looking over to Stormtiger, he saw that his friend looked like he thought the same thing with how confused he looked.
"Fuck! Squealer! Ya soddin' bitch! Ya said this fuckin' ride's good to drive!" He could hear Skidmark shouting at Squealer inside the crashed Killdozer.
He was half-tempted to just launch at them now and kill them both, but the Killdozer pulled away from the building it crashed into — leaving a lot of property damage that needed a lot of taxpayers' money to fix — and reversed after the punctured tires fell off.
He found it funny that the thing reversed faster than it did going forward.
A damn fucking shame the fight was robbed from him and Stormtiger though. If the person who helped them — they didn't need the help anyway — wasn't the right sort, then he'll fuck them up for stealing his chance to wreck a Killdozer.
Pulling himself off the ground, and pulling his blades back into his core — reverting back to his base form, he'd wait for Stormtiger to form up with him before approaching whoever or whatever that blur was.
It was definitely a who, as someone stepped onto the street, and held something that seemed like a sword — nah, it was definitely a sword as he and Stormtiger came closer.
Getting close enough, he'd make out what they looked like.
'Wow, this guy really did that while dressed like that?' He couldn't help but think as he saw a blonde-haired and blue-eyed guy — the right sort in the eyes of the Empire — with glasses dressed in some of the most expensive and well-made clothes he had ever seen.
The guy was holding onto a fancy white sword with what seemed like runes carved in on it.
Guy was definitely a Cape — unmasked too, which meant he had some massive balls — most likely a recent Trigger since he never heard of this guy before, whoever it was.
But looking like that, and having a sword looking like that?
This guy wouldn't look out of place in the Empire.
Which meant it was time to recruit some new blood.
He walked up to the guy with a grin behind his mask and hands in his jeans pockets, Stormtiger following behind him.
"Hey, thanks for the assist," he started saying to glasses. "You new? 'Cause-"
He didn't even get to finish what he was saying when glasses' sword glowed a bright burning orange as he swung at him.
"Sunset Blade," he could hear glasses saying as he felt himself burning.
Lars Vale - 1
Lars felt something was in the wrong when they approached the potential recruit.
It wasn’t an actual power or anything, but he had this sense since he was a pit fighter that told him there was something wrong like he was signing into a fight way above his league, or if he was going to get scammed from his pay.
That sense — Lars refused to call it a ‘sixth’ sense, no matter how many times Cricket insisted that it was — helped him out a lot when he joined in as a cape for the Empire alongside Brad and Jasper.
And that sense warned him about the guy Brad was going to try and recruit.
It was right, and sometimes he hated it when it was right.
“Sunset Blade,” Lars could hear the short blonde say as he sliced at Brad with his burning-fucking-sword.
Lars couldn’t even manage to react and watched as his friend was slashed twice before getting hit around the head with the flat side of the sword — which sent him tumbling on the street while burning from his wounds.
‘What the fuck!?’
Lars wanted to shout out as he tried to tear at the glasses-wearing fucker with his claws formed from the gathering condensed air, who dared to grin at Lars as he leapt back and out of the way.
“You’ll pay for that!” He shouted at the race traitor — Jesus Christ, the Empire thing is fucking up his thought process — as he aimed both his knuckles, preparing for a blast and living up to his namesake as Stormtiger.
The fucker suddenly lowered himself, before launching forward just as Lars made his shots — the condensed air projectiles shooting over the blonde's head, who brought his sword up.
‘Shit! Shit! Shi-!’
Lars panicked as he tried to get out of the way, dodge to the side maybe — anything to not get stabbed by a flaming sword as he brought his forearms up in desperation.
“Stigmatise,” the bastard said as he thrust his burning sword forward.
Did he really have to announce his attack moves? God, it felt like he was being attacked by Mouse Protector.
And that shit really sucks.
Luckily for Lars, the thrust missed-
Holy fuck, he’s pulling back for another one-
Lars could barely do much as the guy stabbed him in his left abdomen with a burning fucking sword.
In any other situation, he might say that a burning sword is metal as fuck.
But right now, with it coming in and out the other end of his body?
"MOTHERFUCKER-!"
It was really painful.
That was obvious.