Chapter 29
It’s been a few days since our first encounter with Mercury, and he hasn’t exactly made his move since then. There have been reports of slight power surges, but they have been kind of all over the place, so we don’t even have a general idea on where to look for him. So, we used the time to focus on recovering from last time, all while Weiss worked on her plan. Today, we meet at her place for further discussion.
Blake: “Still nothing on Mercury’s whereabouts.”
Yang: “Damn it. What the hell? How does one guy just disappear like that?”
Ruby: “He’s probably causing all of these small surges everywhere to throw us off. But even if we find him, we can’t even effectively touch him without getting shocked.”
Weiss: “Which is why I’ve been working the past few days preparing.” She opens up the schematics for our suits. “I’m going to be making copies of your suits with a new layer of insulated material in between the outer layer showing the design and the inner layer housing the electronics. The visor we won’t be able to work around, but as for your web shooters and grapple, there’s also nothing we can do to keep his electricity from coursing through the webs and cable, seeing as they are easily conductive, but we can stop them from shorting out by magnetizing them.”
Ruby: “Ugh! Why didn’t I think of that?”
Weiss: “Regardless, I spent the last few days working to gather the insulated material. Now I just need to actually make the new suits.”
Yang: “Here’s just hoping he doesn’t start any trouble for us in the meantime.” And of course, she jinxed us, as the police radio went off.
Cop: “Officers be advised. Suspect, Mercury Black, has been sighted in the town square sporting a new look. He appears to be draining power from the city! Proceed with caution!”
Blake: “Draining power!? Is he insane!?”
Ruby: “We have to stop him.”
Weiss: “But the suits haven’t been made yet. Even with my equipment, they won’t be ready until tomorrow at best.”
Ruby: “We can at least distract. Keep his attention on us so he can’t drain power. With any hope, we can keep it up until he tires out.”
Blake: “If he even CAN tire out anymore.”
Ruby: “Even so, we can’t just ignore him when people are in danger. Safety suits or not, we have to protect them.”
Blake: “Your right.”
Weiss: “Okay. Just please be careful.” Once we suit, we head out for the town square, where we find streams of electricity being drained from the LED billboards and the buildings, all into Mercury, floating in the center sporting a new costume. A black suit with light blue lightning patterns, silver plating on his forearms, shoulders, shins and waist, and a mask similar to Blake’s on his face with orange lenses instead of violet.
Blake: “Geez. Tasteless much?”
Ruby: “Agreed.” To which we land to confront him. “Mercury!”
Mercury: “Huh? Oh. It's you. Sorry to burst your bubble, but Mercury Black is dead. What stands before you now... is Electro! The modern Raiden and Vale’s very own Archon! With my power, I can rule the cities power like the god that I am! And I’ll start by growing strong enough to destroy Schnee!”
Ruby: “Not if we can help it!” I fire some webs which encase his hands and try to go on the offensive.
Blake: “Scarlet, wait!” When I try to jump him though, he just disappeared in a flash of light that passed through and when I turned around, I see him materialized again before I fall flat on my face.
Mercury: “Ha! What the hell was that? How did you ever defeat the others with moves like that?”
Blake: “Damnit. As he gets stronger, he gets more abilities.”
Mercury: “The brains of the operation, I’m guessing. Not like it’ll matter if you can’t touch me!” She looks around and sees the fire hydrant.
Blake: “Scarlet! I think this guy could use a drink!” I see the hydrant and get her meaning.
Ruby: “So do I!” I stomp on a sewer to launch it up into my hand, before I toss it like a discus into the hydrant, and the result water spraying right at him do to the way the hydrant bent over. Knocking him out of the air.
Mercury: “Argh! What in the-?”
Blake: “Seriously? Don’t you know that water and electricity don’t mix.”
Mercury: “Haragh!” He spread his power around and got us both in the large burst. “You guys think your so clever, huh? Water or no, I still have all of the power!” To which he fired a stream of lightning at Blake and launched her into a building before charging right at me, grabbing me by the throat and holding me against a wall. “I am your god now! And I won’t let you get in the way of my new score!”
Ruby: ‘Ngh! You keep saying that like we should who your old score was, but we don’t even know anything about you between Vale and your parents' death!”
Mercury: “Yeah. I guess you wouldn’t know the truth, would you? Just how much do you know about the ‘oh so brilliant’ Marcus Black? Literally anything aside from him being Mistral’s greatest electrical engineer?”
Ruby: “I-”
Mercury: “Nothing! That’s what! Because nobody ever bothered to ask about his personal life. No fans or stalkers ever bothered to look into him and find the truth! Well, here it is: Marcus Black may have been a genius, but he also a terrible family man. He hated me for my average grades even when I was ELEMENTARY school! I was a kid when he used to beat me because of it. And Mom was just as bad for doing nothing but watch out of fear. And now to let you in on a little secret.” He leaned in to whisper in my ear. “I finally had enough when I was 9. So I decided to light a fire under them, if you know what I mean.” I was mortified when heard this news.
Ruby: “Gagh! You killed your own parents?”
Mercury: “They had it coming!”
Ruby: “That doesn’t mean you had to kill them! You could’ve talked to the police or something.”
Mercury: “Yeah, like they would believe a kid. Especially regarding one of the most respected SDC members! And even if they did, I have no doubt Schnee would’ve done something to cover it up. Like I said, they had it coming. And after what Schnee said he’d do, so does he!” To which he tossed me aside and proceeded to assault me with his lightning!
Ruby: “AAAAAGH! GRAAAAAAGH!!!”
Mercury: “Hahaha!” To which Blake finally got out of the building and threw a piece of rubble in his face. “Argh! Why you little!”
Blake: “Leave her alone!” She tries to throw another, but he disappears again, and proceeded to shock her when he reappears.
Mercury: “Too easy. You guys aren’t worth my time. I still have things to do.” As he quickly drains a bit more power before flying off into the night before we pass out.
Weiss: “Guys? Blake! Ruby!” Afterwards, Vernal shows up to see the carnage.
Vernal: “Shit.” And she sees us unconscious. “Shit!” And she comes to our side. “Hey, come on. Wake up!” She checks our pulses on our necks. “Phew.” And then she hears distant sirens. “Shit! I need to get you out of here!” She works quick in laying us in the back seat of her car and parking it in a nearby alley. She waits there for a while before we eventually wake up. “Oh! Thank the gods!”
Blake: “Mmm... What happened?”
Ruby: “Ngh! So much lightning... My muscles still feel numb.”
Vernal: “You guys really had me worried there. You're lucky I hid you before the others showed up,”
Blake: “So you basically kidnapped us.”
Vernal: “Better that than let them arrest you. As far as I’m concerned, you guys are the only ones who can possibly stand a chance against this guy. Or so I thought. I guess even you guys can’t beat every villain.”
Ruby: “Not without a proper plan anyway. And after that last fight, I think I may have one. Thanks for the save, but we need to get going.” But I trip when trying to get due to my numb limbs.
Blake: “Hey! Be careful. You took quite the hit back there.”
Weiss: “She can’t do much like this. You guys stay hidden in the alleys for now. I’ll send Yang over in my car to get you guys.” After the comms cut, she gives Yang the keys to her car and sends her off. A while later, we see a white sedan on the opposite end of the alley, and then see Yang in the driver's seat.”
Blake: “Looks like our rides here, so we’ll be taking off.”
Vernal: “I need to go join the others. You two take care of yourselves. Gods only know you need it if you're going to stop this threat.” To which she drives off, and we get in the sedan and Yang drives us back to Weiss’ place so we can rest and rethink our approach. And with any luck, we’ll be able to pull this off soon.