191 Gesellschaft? More Like... uh... Penis! Ha! Ha!
Gesellschaft base, Germany, February 22nd, 19:45.
Annie thinks she's developing an inferiority complex of some sort.
It's hardly unexpected really, she used to be the Black Queen of Columbus after all. Even if she was never such a pompous jackass like her counterpart was, she still got used to being in charge.
People listened to her, because she was the big fish in the pond. Half the city's criminals feared her and the other half respected her enough hat they'd do anything she asked without hesitation.
Then the Nine came, and all of that went down the drain, and now she's a Clown. But unlike Black Queen, Diversity Hire is not a big fish in a small pond. No, she's a small fish in an ocean. The only reason she's even in the group is because one of the serial killers that tore down her life liked her enough to give her the position, even when she doesn't match up to the others.
She doesn't really blame Lusia for what happened in Columbus. Her own recruitment showed her just how little choice she really had, and yeah, she probably didn't have to make it so entertaining to herself, but Annie can't really blame the woman.
When life gives you lemons and all that.
But it truly feels to her that she is the only Clown that doesn't truly have anything to offer. The kids are both Tinkers, the new guy is a trust fund baby with connections in high places for the normal police, as well as one of the best thieves around. Even the guy without any powers has more to offer than her, being not only rich and connected, but also skilled enough that he could probably kick her ass in a fight anyway.
It's so depressing, being constantly surrounded by people of such incredible means. She's honestly debating with herself whether she should take the payday for todays work and reinvest it, hoping to at least be one of the rich Clowns, so she can have something to offer, or to just take the money and retire.
Truthfully, she's leaning towards the latter, because this Clown business is getting too crazy for her.
Take today for instance. As she's leisurely walking around in the target base for today, looking for any advanced tech to steal, Crawler, or Cerberus, as Lusia insists we call him, is outside fighting against Gesellschaft's trump card and arguable strongest force.
Zweithöchste, the second most authorities figure in Gesellschaft, just behind the leader, purely because of his own personal power, even if he seems to prefer spending his time in his lab than out fighting.
His lab that is a short distance away from her right now, getting assaulted by Crawler, while she simply looks through the nearby storage buildings, and when she manages to get a glance through a window and down into the dark, snowy valley in which the man's lab is located, Annie's resolve to retire only strengthens at the sight that beholds her.
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Ned isn't much of a thinker, never has been.
His desires have always been simple, and there's always been someone else to do the thinking for him.
First Jack, now Her.
She's changed again. He doesn't think she's even truly noticed it, but Ned has.
She's stopped enjoying the little things so much and started looking at the bigger picture instead.
But for all she's changed, she's still exactly the same.
It doesn't really matter though, Ned has long since decided that he'll follow her 'till one of them kicks it, if they ever even do, no matter what happens, or how she changes.
Because she still gets him. And he likes it. Feeling understood for the first time, and knowing for a fact that no one else on the planet could possibly understand him the same.
Right now is a perfect example.
Ned wasn't really paying attention to all the details, something about a Jew, he thinks. He's not really sure.
All he knows is that She's got all Clowns going after different targets, and that she gave him the most powerful one, some guy, presumably the Jew, with nanobots or something.
He'll know what it is in a moment, seeing as he's just bust through the guy's front gate.
A hologram of a man's dressed in a colourful lab coat over a white suit appears before Ned's stride as light fills the area. The sudden change from dark to bright would have hurt his eyes if they were normal, but obviously they aren't.
"Ich weiß nicht, wer du bist, aber ich schlage vor, dass du jetzt gehst, damit ich nicht meine wertvolle Zeit damit verschwenden muss, dich zu töten."
Tilting his head sideways, Ned only has one thought once the hologram finishes speaking.
...What?
He doesn't speak Muslim or whatever the hell that was. Wait, is Muslim the ones with Jews? Or is that Arabs? Eh, he doesn't care, it doesn't matter. The point is, that he has no fucking clue what the dude just said, so Ned decides to attempt non-verbal communication.
Naturally, Ned's method of communication is spitting a glob of acid at the hologram, watching it sail through the projection and start melting through the building's bunker-like front door.
No one ever accused him of being a particularly talented negotiator.
Besides, She sent him here, so it's a fair bet that she wants him to kill the guy, even if he has some vague recollection about trying to avoid lethality if it's easy to do so.
He's sure she won't mind either way.
"Gut, wenn du dich wie ein Biest benehmen willst, werde ich dich wie eines behandeln."
Ned has no idea what any of that means, but as the building folds open, releasing a group of robot men and flying ball-things, Ned gets the message.
Unfortunately, whoever he's dealing with clearly doesn't know who Ned is, as the laser rifles do a grand total of nothing as they fizzle out against his hide, and the flying balls achieve equally little with their sound attacks.
Disappointing.
Bursting forward, Ned spits twice, the acid hitting three robot men and melting them into a pile of sludge even as he pummels another pair into the ground with his front paws, only for the robot men to fall apart under his strikes, spreading out and reforming together into a slightly larger robot, almost twice as big, if not for the bits left crushed behind by Ned's attack.
"Dann bist du also nicht völlig nutzlos, das ist gut, ich habe viele neue Designs zum Stresstest."
He still doesn't know what the guy's saying, but it seems to be an improvement as the ground splits in half, the valley base opening up before him until Ned is looking down on what seems to be a pure black crater.
A crater that is writhing.
The new visual brings a smile to his face, and he lets out a soft chuckle at the sight.
From the centre of the hole in the earth, a pillar starts to rise, construction itself in real time until Ned finally gets to see his target as they reveal themselves atop a tall platform, looking disdainfully down on Ned.
"Ich hoffe, dass Ihre Haltbarkeit konstant bleibt. Es wäre schade, wenn Sie zu schnell ablaufen würden."
Ned is honestly getting a little tired hearing so many words he doesn't understand, so he does the simple thing and charges forward, leaping at the man with his maw spread wide, only for a pair of crescent shapes to form out of the podium's sides, both of which glow with the blue light of electricity for only a moment before blasting at his airborne form.
Except, they seem to have underestimated his weight, as the two bolts do little to slow him, forcing Zweithöchste to hurriedly backpedal, moving his podium back to avoid the flying beast, which just results in him crashing into the pillar and breaking it in half, causing both of them to fall into the pit of nanobots.
Zweithöchste falls into the bots like a sea, being enveloped by it like a lover and disappearing in it's embrace, while for Ned the pool hardens right before impact, causing him to crash down with a hefty thud.
Turning around, Ned starts spitting out globs of acid that melt through everything they touch until Zweithöchste shows himself again, rising above the sea of black and hardening the ground, forming an arena of sorts.
"Erster Test, mein neuer Kampfanzug."
Still without a clue as to what the guy's saying, Ned watches as the 'arena' flows up his body like water, shifting and forming an armour that reminds him of Hers, just less brutal and more clean and techy, until it finishes forming and the guy swings both of his arms down to his sides, showing a pair of swords instead of arms, both of which have glowing blue edges.
He doesn't really know what's going on, but he's happy to be involved as the guy actually charges at Ned this time, a charge he happy to meets with a laugh.
Ned's opening lunge is dodged with a simple side-step, and the guy rakes both of his swords over Ned's side as they pass, actually managing to cut pretty deep to Ned's own surprise and joy, and so he laughs.
Stopping his charge, Ned turns on a dime, spinning around far faster than anything of his size should be capable and catching the guy unaware, slamming a clawed paw into his chest.
But the moment the impact lands, the guy's armour bursts out of his back, rapidly assembling four pillars that connect him with the 'ground', stabilising himself even as his chest armour seems to harden over Ned's claws, leaving him unable to push any further, no matter how hard he tries.
With one paw that is. Ned happens to have many, and he brings another around, smacking the guy from the side and sending him bouncing down the arena, a cloud of black 'dust' following him from the impact.
"Uff, es sieht so aus, als wäre eine Neugestaltung für Gegner mit mehr Gliedmaßen als normal notwendig. Zeit, etwas anderes zu testen." The guy says as he climbs back to his feet, the armour sloughing off of him to joining the arena.
Right as Ned is about to continue the assault, the floor between the two of them rises up, shifting to form a large mechanical soldier, with four arms and legs, heavy armour and plenty of ordinance on display.
But before Zweithöchste can even get the chance to brag about his creation, Ned simply spits an acid ball at it and melts almost the entire thing, leaving Zweithöchste staring with twitching brows.
"Na gut, dann untersuche ich einfach deine Leiche!"
The moment he finishes his declaration, the arena rises up around him, forming segments that then connect into a twenty foot long cannon with him at the far base and Ned right before the barrel.
Now this seems like a fun toy.
Ned doesn't even bother to try and dodge, simply grinning wider as he sees the barrel light up blue, right before that is all he knows as energy washes over his form, pushing him back but not doing much more than scorching his skin a little bit.
The laser beam keeps up for a moment longer with only a high pitched whine, burning a molten trench ten metres wide for hundreds of metres in the land behind Ned, but failing to cause him any harm. By the time the beam stops, it's not even singing his hide anymore, which is just... disappointing.
"WIE GEHT ES IHNEN FEIN?!" Zweithöchste yells out once he sees Ned's untouched form, and he has enough experience with that particular exclamation to know what it means even through the language barrier.
So Ned decides to try taunting him, to see if he can show anything more fun.
Raising one of his large claws to his shoulder, Ned wipes off some imaginary dust and laughs a slow, mocking laugh that visibly pisses the man off.
"Oh? Ist Ihnen das nicht genug? Dann zeige, ICH DIR ECHTE MACHT!"
The moment he finishes speaking, the 'arena' seems to shake and shrink under his feet, and with his many eyes, Ned is able to bear witness to six, equidistant crescent shaped pillars rising from the ground around them both.
At the same time, more and more of the black sea flows towards the man, augmenting his cannon until it is thrice as thick, with antenna-like pipes sticking out of it and sparking with yellow lightning, all while the man gets covered in thick armour from where he stands at the gun's base, his back having a half dozen rods sticking out of it like a spiked spine.
But as if that's not enough, the now finished pillars, each standing as tall as the nearby mountain's peaks, each get simultaneously struck by lightning, lighting up from top to bottom with yellow sparks.
Ned doesn't really know what's going on, but he gets a feeling that it's going to hurt, so he just sits back and watches the spectacle as the skies get replaced by a tumultuous storm, dark clouds swirling around like a cyclone as each of the crescent pillars' energy rushes towards the centre of their crescent, right between the two tips.
A ball of energy seems to form there for a moment, before bursting forward and down, six beams of yellow meeting in the centre, right on the man himself, each beam landing directly on one of the rods sticking out of his back.
Immediately, the man bursts into sparks, glowing like he is about to explode, and Ned hears him scream as an untold number of volts course through his body, powering up the enormous canon with enough energy to replace the missing lights and more, lighting up the valley like a second sun.
"VERSUCHEN SIE JETZT ZU ÜBERLEBEN!!!" He yells out, and Ned still doesn't know what it means, but he gets the idea and responds with a roar of anticipation.
Zweithöchste doesn't wait any longer, letting loose his attack with a scream, and the world flashes white for just a moment, before the silence of the night is replaced by a deafening BOOOOOOOM!!!
In slow motion, Ned watches the beam of yellow light approaching him. He watches as it carves through the earth with ease, annihilating everything in it's path, the sheer width of the beam enough that it covers his whole body many, many times over.
The attack lands, and he feels his body immediately leave the ground, the sheer force of the beam too much for him to hold out against, and as his body flies, he feels as his flesh melts and burns, evaporating and becoming more with every instant.
But the beam does not stop just with Ned.
It keeps going, crashing into the mountain behind him and not slowing in the slightest, carving a hole clean through it's base which causes the rest of the mountain to fall into the beam, only to be reduced to nothing the moment they touch.
And it keeps going, and going, and going, melting holes through mountains and digging a perfectly round trench for thousands of metres until finally, it stops, and silence returns.
Left suddenly alone, Zweithöchste pants slightly, feeling up the new lichtenberg scars decorating his body as he winces slightly, his bones creaking.
He doesn't know what that thing was, but his location is already too exposed, and if it survived that, then he'd rather not be here when it gets back, so he quickly collects what's left of his tech and leaves, planning to call Leopold once he's made some distance.
Meanwhile, the 'thing' he is talking about is clawing his way out of a deep crater, a wide smile on his face as he feels his new hide, even stronger than it was before. He tried to ignore the voice in his head telling him that he's getting closer and closer to never being able to grow again.
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A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
I realised that Lusia's the only one who's been getting big fights with powerful people, so I gave best doggo a chance to have some fun, plus I wanted to do some nanobot stuff.
I originally wanted to make a super mecha nanobot thing the size of a mountain, but idk how a fight with that would even work against cerberus, and I wanted to do the mega canon thing anyway.
And yeah, Diversity is gonna retire, because she really just doesn't fit in lol. She's just a girl with a weak power and a good sense of humour, that's literally it. Literally every other clown has way more to offer, from being rich to having connections or just being powerful.
Also, I'm prolly gonna run out of chocolate today, so maybe my diet will get better tomorrow, I'll keep you updated on that :)
(5+)Advanced chapters with the links below!
pat/reon.com/user?u=41732867 (get rid of the first slash or check the description)
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