Story is once again after the break. Tilda ruins everything.
“What the hell is that?!” The detective driving said.
“It's Krieg,” Charles whispered. How had she been able to find them? She must have had some way to sense the deadly orgone energy of the monster – no, the woman – he was sitting next to. Krieg looked into the car with her helm's glowing blue eyes. She put an armored boot on the car's bumper, lookng almost casual in her stance.
“I am here for the monster,” Krieg said, the weapon distorting her voice to sound synthesized and ominous. “Sorry about the sudden stop.” Yates unbuckled and got out slowly, Krieg ignoring the woman. The detective drew her gun.
“You're under arrest for interfering in a police investigation and assault on a police officer,” Yates said, hiding her fear well. Krieg looked at Yates.
“Really? A pistol?” She laughed. “The police should be thanking me. I killed the last two monsters that were attacking this city.” Krieg stood up straight and casually motioned to Yates. “These things are too dangerous for the police to deal with. It's safer if I take care of them.”
“We've already handled it,” Charles said, getting out of the car. Krieg looked at him with visible shock, despite the full-face helmet.
“Charles?!” Krieg said. “What are you doing here?!” She took a step towards him. “Don't tell me that you're mixed up in all this!”
“I don't know how you know me,” Charles said. “But I've already handled this.” He slowly reached down to Pax, and flipped the switch. Once again, a storm of orgone surrounded him, falling inwards and accumulating like snow into a bodysuit before forming armor. He took a deep breath as the cape appeared over his shoulder, hoping he wasn't going to have to fight Krieg. He'd had enough fighting today already.
“So that's it,” Krieg said. “You're Pax.” She looked down. “Well. That's disappointing. I thought you had more sense than this, Charles.” She looked back up. “I don't want to hurt you. I'm not here for you. There's a Verbesserte here and I have to kill it.”
Charles couldn't help but glance at the car. The woman was shaking in terror. He couldn't blame her. She started to glow. He had to calm everyone down before this got out of hand.
“Krieg,” Charles said, holding out empty hands. “Please. Just let me handle this my way. She's not a monster. She's just a victim. You're a victim too. You're being used by them just as much as this poor girl is. Why don't you deactivate that weapon and we can all go together? We can get this sorted out and no one will be hurt.”
“Not interested,” Krieg said. “There's more at stake than you know, Pax.” She spat the name like a curse.
“Then you can tell me, once we're somewhere safe,” Charles offered. “But this isn't the time or place for this.” He stepped forwards. “Krieg, this is a very delicate situation. If we can bring her in willingly, get some answers from her, we might be able to save a lot of lives and get to the bottom of this. We're both doing this to save lives, right?”
“I...” Krieg hesitated. “Yes.” She sighed. “But this is going to go badly, and a lot of people are going to be killed. The only way to deal with this for sure is to destroy the monster.”
“She's not a monster to be killed. She's a victim who needs to be saved.” Charles looked back. The woman was hyperventilating. He needed to get Krieg out of there. He turned back to her, holding up his hands to try and physically push her away from the car. “You're making this worse. We had this handled. Just get out of here before she ends up transforming again.”
“I think that ship has sailed,” Krieg said. She took a few steps back. The glow from inside the car was getting brighter. The detective inside the car frantically tried to unbuckle himself from his seat. But the latch caught, and he was trapped, unable to escape before the light reached its peak and a set of massive jaws bit down, tearing the car seat in half along with the man sitting in it.
“No!” Charles screamed. The car exploded, darting shapes flying out like a flock of birds. The shark Verbesserte climbed from the wreckage screaming in fear and anger. It slowly stalked towards him and Krieg.
“I guess you've got this well in hand,” Krieg said, her voice dripping with sarcasm despite the electronic distortion. “I should have known your stupid plan wouldn't work.”
“You can't fight fire with fire!” Charles said. “We have to-”
“Of course you should fight fire with fire! You should fight everything with fire!” Krieg's engines started up again. Charles could feel the deadly orgone flowing into the air, contaminating it. He ran over to Detective Yates.
“I'm sorry, Detective,” he said. “You need to get out of here. I've got to try and keep these two from destroying the city. Get somewhere safe and I'll do what I can.”
“I won't just run, damnit! I'm a cop!” Yates took out her radio. “I'm going to get a perimeter around here. If we get people evacuated it'll make your job easier.”
“Thank you,” Charles said. “That's a big help.”
“Yeah,” Yates said. “Just try and take both of them down. I want them both thrown in cells for this!” Charles nodded. Though he'd be happy as long as he managed to keep them them from ending up in body bags. With what he knew of Krieg, that'd be a difficult task.
Tilda cursed at herself as she circled around the shark Verbesserte. She should have known Charles would end up mixed up in this. It was just her luck. Now she wouldn't even be able to look at him without feeling that sick, crawling feeling Pax gave off.
She tried to focus on the monster instead. She'd just seen it kill a cop, after all. She had told that idiot that things wouldn't work out. But he hadn't listened. It was probably better that it had happened here, when she was there to deal with it permanently, than in the middle of a police station or something. Tilda was even able to convince herself of that.
The shark roared from the street. Tilda smirked. It was going to have a hard time biting her from all the way down there. She could take her time picking it apart, maybe even lure it all the way out of town before she finished it off to make sure no one else got caught in the crossfire.
“Come on, you stupid thing,” She yelled. “Pay attention to me!” She backed off slowly, making sure it could keep up. There was no way the slow thing was even going to be able to come within striking range as long as it was just roaring and trying to bite things. This was going to be an easy fight for once.
And that was just what Tilda was thinking as the thing raised its arms and a flight of darting shapes launched from its flat surfaces. Tilda flew to the side as quickly as she could, hoping to avoid the missiles or whatever they were. They followed her, even more maneuverable than she was. They closed in, with the droning sound of jet engines.
“Shit!” Tilda cursed, just as they caught up to her and sent her spiraling out of control. She slammed into the street with bone-crushing force. Bone-crushing for someone not wearing superhuman armor, anyway. It still managed to hurt, though. She coughed up blood as she picked herself up. Tilda could tell she had probably broken a rib or something, but for some reason the pain didn't bother her as much as it should have. Maybe it was the effect of the energized orgone.
“We need to calm her down!” Pax telled, running up to Tilda and helping her up. Tilda jerked away from him. She didn't need his help now. She'd never ask for his help again.
“You've done enough to screw this up,” Tilda said. “You should have ended this!” She reached down to Krieg. If that thing wanted to play with long range, she could do that too. She changed the channel on the device, and the armor glowed, expanding back into energized orgone before collapsing and re-forging back into armor, this time curved and thicker. She was forced to take a few steps to adjust to the propeller heels that appeared under her feet.
“Krieg, don't fight! We can just talk to her. Calm her down. She can change back and then we can figure out what's going on and how to stop it.” Tilda felt disgusted. In other circumstances, Charles' insistence that this could be solved peacefully would have been cute, even adorable. But now, with lives on the line and Charles clearly on the wrong side of that line, it was infuriating.
“Don't be so stupid. I'm going to stop her for good. If you want to know what's going on I'll fill you in later, after that monster is dead.” She raised her arms, sending out a sonar ping. A red box appeared in her vision over the Verbesserte, and she launched a wave of torpedoes. She smiled as they closed in. That smile faded as white cylinders spun to track the torpedoes and fired a barrage of shots, blowing up the torpedoes long before they reached the shark-monster.
“What?!” Tilda yelled. “That's not fair! That's not even possible!”
“I told you not to fight!” Charles yelled, obviously frustrated. He shoved her, actually physically put his hands on her. Tilda felt rage growing in her throbbing chest. “What's wrong with you?!”
“What's wrong with me?!” Tilda shoved Charles back. “I'm the only one who's actually doing something useful! Don't get in the way! You've done enough harm here and if you aren't part of the solution than you're just part of the problem!” She ran towards the monster, her heels clicking on the asphalt. With some effort, her chest feeling like something was loose and torn inside, she jumped into the air, trying to land a kick on the monster.
The Verbesserte had surprising speed, raising up its arms like shields, catching the attack on their armored surfaces. The full power of the kick barely cracked the surface, and Tilda fell away in a shower of blue sparks. She almost landed on her feet, but the heels on her boots sent her sprawling.
“Only the goddamn Nazis would think it was a good idea to fight in heels,” Tilda tried to get back to her feet, too slow to avoid a giant backhand from one of the armored slabs the Verbesserte was swinging around. She grunted as she was sent head-first through a lamp post, ending up sprawled on the ground Stars floated through her vision, and everything was silent as her ears rang.
Something was wrong with the display in her helmet. There was a line through it. No. A crack. Right through her helmet. She could feel the cold from outside seeping in. This thing was impossibly strong and she had underestimated it. Her eyes fluttered. She felt so tired. She'd have to hope Pax could handle the rest. She closed her eyes, and everything went black.
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