Chương 135: Joseph, Part 1

Couldn't get a moment's rest for anything. With the news of the prison being attacked by someone very clearly from the ADU given their very large Wyrdwood weapon, we had to stir into action. My costume was luckily brought along in one of the moving vehicles, and I always kept my mask in my jacket now. Just a habit. Felt more secure. Tancred intercepted as I was collecting my suit, audibly exasperated.

"Guess you caught the bulletin, then?" I nodded.

"Prison break. What the Hell could they want? Was that where the ADU Fathers and Mothers were being held? Because they shouldn't have been here in the first place."

"Yes," Tancred started.

"That's where they were being held. We couldn't exactly move them for a while, but we had finished preparations for that earlier last week and I gave the standing orders to relocate them last night." I shot a glance at him.

"To Wendy, right?" He nodded.

"Mole," I noted. He stared at me for a few seconds, before sighing.

"Probably the fucking mole intercepting the message somehow. Lowered guard means easy access. Regardless, this means it's going to be several ADU supervillains all in one area."

"Do you think it's going to expand into an attack?"

"No," he answered, shaking his head.

"Even with potential sabotage, they're all so heavily dosed up on enough eszopiclone and aripiprazole to leave them in La La Land for up to a couple of days after last dose."

"You drugged them?"

"Yes, we used sedatives and antipsychotics to keep the raving cultist lunatics from turning violent. Are you going to moralize me on it?" I shook my head.

"No, but if they have any means of synthesizing it from their bodies after taking it, it might end up in the drug trade we were investigating. So they're a lot higher-value now than they were as just killers." Tancred raised his eyebrows before nodding.

"Sharp. Go get suited up, Jairo's bringing Chris here from an errand he was running. You're taking off in the van with Billy and a couple armed staffers in five minutes."

"Is that enough time? It already looks like the ADU guy with the axe was breaking in." Tancred nodded.

"They're not just immediately accessible. They're in a basement-level holding facility. He's not even on the right side, which tells me there's zero communication between Tweedles Dee, Dum, Dumber, Dumbest, Dipshit, and so forth. Not that they're capable of much communication right now, given they're higher than bird ears." What lovely language. Heading off, I found a private area to swap into my suit and mask up. By the time I came out, May was already in her full Spectroma costume.

We went out of the front door to where Billy was sitting on the hood of our van, rifle hanging from a sling around his neck.

"Hey kids, ready for a field trip?" He called out.

"I haven't gotten to shoot any superpowered terrorist stuff in like two presidential administrations. Can't wait to serve with you boys and girl."

"Not the time, Billy," May warned as she climbed into the van. I made my way to passenger. Chris wasn't there, so it's not like he could argu- Well, there he was, standing by the passenger door in his full Flowstate get-up, Jairo standing next to him.

"Shotgun," he said, seemingly not aware I was going to take that seat. Oh well. I rolled my eyes and went to the back, Jairo following in behind me. Inside were a few other SC staffers in suits, holding onto their own rifles. Three total. They gave us waves but didn't speak up. Billy started the truck's engine and we immediately sped off. Chris leaned over from his seat towards us, speaking up.

"So what information do we have on the guy?" He inquired. May leaned over to one of the various screens on either side of the van, tapping away at a keyboard before one of them brought up newsfeed of the attack on the prison. The feed gave us a clearer view of the large man and his large weapon tearing into the prison.

"Everything we're seeing on the screen here," she explained. The man's body was immense, he stood far taller than a human should. He had long, blonde hair and a mustache that hung past his chin. Wooden horns stabbed out from his head and curved upwards. Sitting on his chest was a leafy shirt or jacket of some kind. That Wyrdwood axe seemed to be physically independent from him, in that it couldn't have been his power. None of it was integrated with his body like the other Fathers.

It looked almost like a bigger version of those staves a bunch of ADU guys use when they're not carrying guns. Rushing around him and flooding into the building were, in fact, a group of those gun-wielding ADU men. None had the staves, actually. Interesting.

"Kind of looks like a viking," Jairo noted.

"With the big wood horns and stuff."

"That's the second thing I would've mentioned," I added.

"First thing is he's gigantic. Much bigger than a regular human. Eight or nine feet, at least." My gaze focused on the screen as I made out more detail. Those horns stood out. What I also noticed was that while Fathers had those leafy cloaks, his seemed to sit on him more like a jacket or tunic, closed around his chest. It could be simply customization, but was he hiding something?

"How did he even get that big?" May asked.

"He had to have been a superhuman before the ADU recruited him."

"Then the Super Commission would've recognized him," I pointed out.

"I need to figure out his Wyrdwood gimmick. Is it just the axe and the horns? That's way too simple for a Father."

"Maybe he's all in on the viking thing," Chris added.

"Father Assacu tried to be a cowboy. Bambusa and Moroides were martial artists. Gleditsia's got some sort of knight styling going on, I guess. What are some viking things he could be doing?" Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. I shook my head.

"I don't know a thing about vikings."

"Could be anything," May answered.

"Could be the axe, could be a berserker rage thing, there are a lot of random little details in that sort of culture he could be drawing from. It might even be a complete misread and he's doing something else." I nodded along to her explanation.

"True enough. We know he's not alone. Bunch of armed guys." Looking over towards the armed SC members, I decided to address them.

"What do you guys think?" One of them, a man with a ginger high-and-tight, spoke up, his eyes fixed on his weapon as he inspected it.

"This is my first real encounter with ADU, but if I went off of experience, usually the bigger supervillains don't have very complex powers. You don't need sophisticated abilities if you're physically strong enough to rip through brick wall, typically. And vice versa, if your powers are fancy enough, you don't need to get strong."

"Okay," I replied.

"Do you think this is going to be a tough fight, then?" He shook his head.

"Not really. If he's a high strength brute, you and Teiú outnumber him. You in particular are on record for being abnormally strong by even brutish superhero standards, and with Teiú's speed you can easily overwhelm him. We're there to support with the armed ADU, who we should be able to handle. Even if some are ex-military, they have less urban combat experience than we do. The only potential risk factor I can see is hostages, which I do not see as likely."

"Why not?"

"Their last attempt at hostages failed, didn't it? You all rescued them. And that prison is full of armed men. Even with a big prison break, the average criminal in Charlottesville is relatively nonviolent and low flight risk. Even if they did a recruitment drive in there, the options aren't great. I don't think the ADU would be emboldened by Bubba, who's just there because the most he could do was slap around his hundred pound wife. We need to be realistic here.

This is likely a desperation play, and collectively this group can capitalize on it." I nodded. His points were pretty clean there. We likely took out the majority of the Fathers during that attack. If there were more than just this big guy and the one who went into the trees and had those hearts, they were being kept under lock and key. We weren't going to know until they showed up. I just hoped that "if" wouldn't come true. In one of the fastest paces this van's ever gone at, we finally made it to the scene.

It was almost a fungal colony of two to four-floor brick buildings scattered about an asphalt lot. Multiple buildings had been torn apart, with smoke and loose flames coming out from them. To our backs was several acres of treeline. No need to guess where they all came from. Standing in front of one of the torn open buildings was the ADU Father who seemed to be leading the group.

A larger number of armed ADU men than we thought were there, going through different torn down buildings or spilling into the other ones further along. He didn't leave his spot when he saw us arriving, instead planting the head of his axe down and resting his hands on the pommel, watching us with intrigue and perhaps something like hunger. Billy swerved to make the back door face him. There were no plans on greetings or warnings.

Jairo and I launched out of the back door of the van with enough force to make it roll forward multiple feet. Jairo took along the ground, aiming for a low uppercut. I had coiled in the air, jutting both feet out like a human arrow to throw as much of my weight as possible into his head. In a flash of movement I didn't think a man his size could do, he brought his axe up so that the wide head of it would absorb Jairo's punch, while his hand caught one of my legs.

"How craven. Do you think I'd just accept your blows with no introduction?" He asked, his voice deep and booming. All I could think of was how he could just casually absorb both Jairo and I's hits. Jairo at his strongest was still enough to tear through damn near any serious threat. And me… the last time I saw an ADU member with strength to rival me was Gleditsia. Just what the Hell was this guy? I didn't have time to answer that question, as he suddenly whipped me down into the concrete.

Entering my peripheral vision were several of the armed ADU members, pointing their rifles right at me. While I could take hits anywhere my suit was on, I wasn't risking another neck shot.

"Wide!" I yelled, as Shivvy slipped out of my suit and spanned over me like a bubble to absorb the incoming hail of gunfire. I could see the bullets spike up in his body before quickly being digested. Such a good kitty. Rolling onto my knees, I focused on the direction I remembered him being in. Coiling up, I then immediately launched from my feet.

Shivvy seemed to figure out what I was doing as he opened up a hole for me to blast out of, one of my arms hooking around the giant's neck and sending him toppling to the ground.

"Whoof!" He yelled out in surprise. Didn't bother with conversation, I just raised both my fists up, sunk as much strength as I could down into them and swung down. About halfway down, the horns on his head coiled around his face, producing a bunch of thorns and barbs that only reflexes kept me from impaling my arms on. So he could control his horns. Okay.

Gunfire and blasts of energy hailed ahead of us as the armed Super Commission staffers and ADU zealots had gotten into a proper gunfight, with May supporting the SC. Seemed to be weaponizing the muzzle flares from the SC's guns specifically to throw far hotter blasts than normal. I didn't see Chris, but I imagined he snuck off in the chaos specifically to start dealing with ADU members in the prison. Jairo, meanwhile, had attempted to lunge onto the large man, whose reflexes continued to surprise us.

"Freki, Geri!" Howling noises accompanied sudden blurs in the air that slammed into Jairo, taking him down to the ground. They came from the direction of the treeline. Were they laid in waiting the whole time? When they all landed, I could see what they were. Car-sized wolves, made entirely out of Wyrdwood. Their arbor mouths and fangs tried to yank and pull at Jairo, who managed to coil his way out. They all became blurs as they zoomed around the area, each trying to get into a superior position.

As my attention was taken away from the giant, one of his large hands had grabbed my face, lifting me from the ground.

"I wanted to introduce myself before I started introducing my pets, but so be it," he mused, parting his fingers so that I could see him between them.

"You're the strong one of the bunch, so I will address you. My name is Father Quercus. I am the first Father of the Arboreal Senate. I am here to collect what is mine and Master Sequoia's." With a whipping motion, he slammed me back down into the concrete with a THOOM. Even with my strength at its fullest in my back I could feel all that force vibrating through me like nothing. This was not someone with a power that just made them look strong. This man was genuine physical power.

He was easily stronger than Gleditsia in terms of just raw might. Which told me Gleditsia's "Brother" position was not specifically out of being the physically strongest of the bunch.

"Not-" I grunted out, my hands grabbing a hold of Quercus' forearm. Fingers dug into flesh.

"-Happening." All strength into my hands, and then I simply yanked in either direction. The bones in his arms split, as did the tendons. Vines were already shooting out of the open wound, but I took that opportunity to yank the dismembered hand off of me, and hurl it as fast and hard into the sky as I could. I wasn't giving him that hand back. He could wait for another to grow.

"Oh my!" Quercus shouted.

"You already knew how to really disarm me! I'm almost impressed! Unfortunately-" He was just so goddamn fast. By the time I was even aware of him swinging his axe in his other hand, it was slamming into me with enough force that I started to buckle under. It was only at the last second that I could start to resist his strength, my fingers digging into the material.

"You're quite the fighter, boy. But I regret to inform you, in a battle of strength, I'm the winner." The leafy tunic he wore parted itself, revealing one of those massive, swollen wooden hearts dangling from a necklace by his chest.

"Because I've always got my heart in the fight."