[The Kill List]—❈—02:: Bobbing for Apples

Seventeen year old Lisa Wilbourn, also known as the villainous cape Tattletale, and once known as Sarah Livsey, was pretty sure that her boss (who, she would like it to be known, she only worked for under duress) wasn’t particularly attached to the idea of her continued survival.

Hers or her teammates.

This was because, first, he’d done something as monumentally daft as making them steal from Lung, Brockton Bay’s resident rage dragon, then, when the villain had (as anyone with even half a brain cell would have seen coming) began to near literally tear the city apart looking for them, he’d ordered them to go out and face him.

Like, seriously? The four of them against Lung?

Even ignoring the fact that the rage dragon’s whole claim to fame was being nigh unstoppable, there was also the little matter of him being a gang boss; that fiery bastard had a small army of heavily armed norms at his beck and call. And that’s before you took the self-exploding, teleporting ninja psycho more popularly known as Oni Lee into account, which, speaking of…

Boom!

Another grenade went off, much too close for comfort, and Tattletale swore as two more exploded, pelting her with small pieces of rubble and, no doubt, wrecking the already rundown neighbourhood.

They were trapped.

Oni Lee had found them, and since the ABB lieutenant could teleport and had an infinite arsenal of grenades thanks to the cloning aspect of his power, he simply had to keep going from rooftop to rooftop, endlessly raining bombs down on them. And there was nothing any of them could do about it.

Their only saving grace was that Grue’s power had spread down to cover the entire street, effectively blinding Oni Lee and rendering all his attacks literal throws in the dark.

The problem with that though, was that Grue’s power didn’t differentiate between friend and foe, and all the members of The Undersiders, bar Grue himself, were also blinded and deafened by the black fog the boy created.

It wasn’t completely hopeless however; Tattletale’s power, for example, gave her limited and intermittent information about her surroundings, even through the sensory deprivation, while Bitch was so in tune with her dogs, who’s senses could (just barely) pierce through the fog, that she wasn’t completely helpless either.

Regent was completely helpless in the fog, but he was sharing Brutus with Grue to counteract that.

Boom!

Once again, the sound of an exploding grenade reached Lisa, audible even through the sound suppressing effects of Grue’s fog.

This wasn’t an ideal place to be in.

Eventually, Oni Lee would get a lucky shot and they’d be dead or worse. They needed to split up.

Lisa took a moment to curse Coil in her heart once again.

They were only out here because of that bastard after all, and while Lisa knew that he often made ridiculous requests of his underlings, which, somehow always worked out (likely thanks to some sort of thinker or shaker power), it was hard to believe that this would be one such time.

After all, if Oni Lee was here then Lung wasn’t far behind, and if they were having this much trouble against the psycho bomber alone then— Lisa’s power interrupted her thoughts.

Bombing ceased.

Oni Lee no longer attacking.

She blinked. What?

Was her power fritzing again? It did that sometimes, giving her information that even an idiot would know— Grue’s fog was lifting!

Why the hell was Grue’s fog lifting!? Was he hurt? Was he— Who the hell was that!?

Through the lifting fog, Lisa spotted an individual standing some distance away.

The first thing Lisa noticed after spotting the newcomer was his suit.

Expensive, her power informed her.

The second thing she noticed was that he was wiping blood off his left hand with a handkerchief.

Fresh, her power supplied.

Bits of grey matter.

Based on concentration of blood and guts, forefinger was pierced into an unsuspecting target’s head.

Finally, Lisa picked up what was arguably the most important thing; Grue’s body on the ground some twenty feet away, his motorcycle helmet looking like someone took a sledgehammer to it.

Unconscious. Concussed.

Faint sign of a palm print on helmet.

Slapped. Hard.

Likely attacker is the suited stranger.

Incredibly dangerous.

Escape.

Stranger murdered Oni Lee.

Unrepentant.

Unbothered.

Deliberate.

Stranger hunted Oni Lee.

Stranger incredibly dangerous.

Run. Run. Run. Run.

“Ugh,” the stranger said, making a face, and his voice wrenched Lisa from the spiral her power had sucked her into, “brains feel gross. No more shigan, I guess.”

Finished with wiping his hand, he discarded the fancy handkerchief, then his eyes roamed from Bitch (practically snarling under her mask), to Regent (wary and tense), to her.

Stranger wants you, her power screamed.

Run!

It was too late.

The stranger disappeared, and in the blink of an eye he had a fistful of Lisa’s costume and had lifted her from her perch on Angelica, hanging her up with an arm as he stood on the back of the dog.

Bitch reacted instantly. “Brutus, Judas, att—”

“Shut up,” the stranger said, and Bitch’s mouth snapped shut before she could finish the order.

There was a pressure in the air, a pressure emanating from the stranger, and Bitch and her dogs whimpered before it, and dipped their heads, averting their gazes from the stranger’s form.

What in the hell?

“You know I never really liked you,” the stranger said. “But even so, this is not a nice thing to do.”

His dark brown eyes stared into her.

“Just your bad luck that I need your power, I guess.”

Lisa thought fast. Was that it then? Was she going to be strong-armed into the service of another psychopath?

Okay, no worries, she could make this work. All it would take would be some time and—

“This will hurt,” the stranger said, and Lisa’s world became pain.

It was like someone had driven an ice-pick into her skull, and was using it to conduct a lightning bolt right into her brain.

Lisa seized, her legs kicking as her muscles spasmed and her mind felt like it shattered into a dozen pieces.

Her vision tunneled, and her lungs fought for a breath that couldn’t come, even as her heart pounded a mad rap beat in her chest.

Despite it all though, Lisa remained conscious, forced to watch as something like liquid crystal seen through a kaleidoscope formed over the stranger’s right hand.

The liquid crystal writhed and morphed and shifted, like a living thing in pain, then it stilled and rapidly compressed and solidified into a red apple decorated with odd-looking swirls.

The pain seized, so abruptly that the sudden absence of it came almost as a shock to Lisa’s system.

Her lungs expanded, sweet, delicious oxygen rushing into her system, and the more she gulped it down, the more Lisa became aware of a strange, unfamiliar hollowness deep in the core of her being.

Something was gone. Excised with perfect precision out of her. Something that was as much a part of her as her liver, or her kidneys.

The stranger had taken it. It was the fruit he now held in his hand. And Lisa had a chilling suspicion as to what it was.

She tried to pull up her power, and even before she completed the attempt, she knew.

A chill ran down Lisa’s spine, and her gaze laser-focused on the fruit.

The moment she attempted to snatch the fruit, the stranger tossed her to the ground.

The fall to the ground wasn’t high enough to cause serious injury, but it was rough enough to send Lisa tumbling, and she righted herself to find the stranger taking a bite of the fruit.

Of her power.

He made a face, like the taste of her power was beneath the standards of his palette, then he swallowed and tossed the rest of the fruit away.

Lisa watched it go, knowing, even without being told, that it was useless now.

Her power was gone. And the bastard in front of her had it.

Said bastard looked at her.

Had his eyes always glowed that way?

… No. No, they hadn’t.

Something dark and bitter formed in Lisa’s heart.

She’d known hate before.

It was familiar.

She felt it for Coil. She felt it for her parents still, even after all this time.

What Lisa felt now for this nameless cape made those feel like mild irritation at best.

“I’m going to kill you,” Lisa swore.

“You’re going to try,” he said, then he was gone.

The surrounding pressure dropped significantly with the exit of the cape.

Her teammates spoke to her, calling her name, asking questions; Lisa neither heard nor cared.

She went to the discarded remains of the apple.

She picked it up, brushing off the dirt stains on the fruit.

Lisa took a bite.

It tasted awful.

She took another bite, and another and another until there was nothing left, and just as she’d known, nothing changed; her power was gone.

Lisa cried.