Chapter 8: Fighting

Laura came to consciousness again on the streets of Kramston. Her costume was on: the one she had worn under her suit, with a retractable mask and a thinner design that still carried the characteristic brown spots on yellow pattern the Leopard was known for. The costume still had plenty of space for protective linings for blows, and of course she had all the gadgets the costume normally came with.

She figured that Etsu must’ve removed her executive suit which she was wearing earlier: probably just blinked it out of existence, most likely. The costume she was wearing was underneath all that, and only the black shoes from her previous ensemble were kept.

The streets were lit only by the numerous street lamps, and the hovering moon shining bright and full in the night sky.

Across from her, standing in the car-less road was none other than Etsu of course.

“What did you do? It’s night?”

“Isn’t that your favorite time?”, said Etsu.

“Did you skip time? Is this the real Kramston?”

“No I didn’t skip time, but I entertained myself and waited till now to bring you back. Yes, this is the ‘real’ Kramston in that it’s the one you’re used to living in. Don’t worry though, I’ll put it back.”

The streets were crowded with people, who didn’t take too long to notice the super heroine.

“It’s the Leopard!”, shouted one guy.

“My hero!”, said a random, college aged gal.

“Then they...”

“Are real people. Don’t worry, I’ve had my full of duplicates and mind control--for now~”

The crowd murmured.

“Mind control, what’s she talking about?”
“Real people?”
“Who is she?”
“Why’s the Leopard talking to that weird student over there?”

“So.”, said Etsu. “Let’s do this. You can have the first strike. Go on, fight me.”

“There’s no point.”, said Laura. “You’ll cheat.”

“Maybe.”, said Etsu. “But don’t you wanna hit me? Take out your aggressions?”

Laura hesitated, standing in the road, thinking.

Etsu was getting bored. She turned to her side at the woman who proclaimed the Leopard her hero. Etsu pointed her finger that way and shot a beam of focused light that cleaved the woman in two diagonally across the abdomen.

“How about now? Kehehe”, said Etsu.

Laura charged the purple-haired woman, fist reeled back.

“You fiend!”, she shouted.

Etsu stood still, letting the fist hit her face and twist her head far to the side. She quickly cocked her head back into place with a snap.

“Nice punch. Would've knocked any other person out I think.”, she said while effortlessly dodging the next few blows.

“You’re a monster!”, shouted the Leopard.

“Ah, good idea.”, said Etsu.

At once, her body and outfit changed. Her university clothes were gone and in her place were leaf coverings over her chest and bottom. The leaves grew out her body, which had quickly turned a shade of green itself with vines crawling over it. Her hair was laced with leaves and flowers, though still purple in its shade.

She moved her hand back and tried to backhand the Leopard. If it hit, it would've stung given the thorn sticking out of the back of Etsu’s hand. Thankfully the Leopard dodged in the nick of time. Another swipe came from Etsu’s other hand, which was blocked by the hard metal band covering Laura’s left wrist.

“Do you like it?”, said Etsu, as she dodged the retaliation strikes from the costumed heroine. “You recognize the influence right? Plant Man. One of your recurring foes.”

“I thought you said you didn’t read my mind.”

“This is all public knowledge. Years of articles and battles. I don’t think he used his powers to their full potential though. Like so.”

Etsu tilted her head, trying to sway her hair across the Leopard’s Face. Her hair was coated with a thin, oil-like layer of a toxin that would make poison oak juice look like massage cream in comparison. Laura didn’t exactly know that, but she saw the oily texture and put two and two together to duck out of the way of something dangerous just in time.

“Aww,” said Etsu, jumping back just in time from another blow. Her bare green fit landed on the sidewalk.

“Now I have to demonstrate on some others.”

Laura gasped as she realized Etsu was dodging back towards pedestrians. The plant woman bent her head down towards some poor man who had crouched down, shaking with fear from the brawl. Her hair draped over his face, rubbing against it as she planted a kiss on his scalp.

Screams echoed from behind the veil of the lose hanging purple hair. When Etsu leaned back up, the man’s skin was red with bubbling blisters, and his scalp was black, flesh sloughing off to reveal bone. Whatever the toxins were, they were spreading, and it wasn’t too long before the man rolled in agony, his body blistering and going red all over. Her fingers fell off the bone before death set in over the course of a few agonized seconds. By then, it was a long awaited mercy.

Etsu laughed of course. She raised her arms and vines crawled up them, then shot out like whips towards the Leopard. The heroine was ready with her smart-tech boomerangs which cut through the vines with ease. Etsu tried to grow the tendril-like growths back, but Laura was already charging her again.

Etsu turned to the side and opened her mouth. A stream of thorns shot out, blocked by Laura. So, she turned to the side and hit some pedestrians running away through the streets. The men and woman punctured by the thorns stopped, turned around, and looked at the Leopard with anger in their eyes.

“Get her!”, said Etsu, chortling. The people rushed the Leopard’s way.

The super heroine dealt with them easily. A shot from her grappling hook roped them by the legs. She hit a button the hook’s roped cut off there, keeping them tied.

“You said no mind control!”, barked the Leopard.

“Those were just pheromones, laced into the stings~”

Laura fished out a capsule-like device from her tool belt, hit a small button on it, then stuffed it into some of the leaves dotting Etsu’s plant-like body.

It started to fizzle, then caught fire.

“Hey!”, shouted Etsu. “I thought you didn’t kill people?”

“We both know you won’t die from this.”

The thermite-based fire spread over Etsu’s form with ease. She winced, feeling some pain while dulling any excess. With Laura no longer holding her immolating self, she rushed towards a nearby fire hydrant and grabbed hold of it. With her godly strength she twisted the cap off and let the water flow over her.

The water kept flowing, soaking into her body which doubled in size. She changed colors too. Her body was no longer green, but a gray-brown like clay. Indeed, her flesh shifted and warbled much like clay taking shape. In lieu of eyeballs and a mouth, she simply made holes for her facial features, and her nude body had the lewd details smoothed out. The only symbol of her old self was that the clay morphed to her hair was colored purple.

She took a soggy step towards the Leopard, her new bulky clay-morph of a body thumped as she moved. Her steps were deformed the moment they impacted: demolding to just a pile of clay really. Yet, when the time came to move the leg again, she was sure to get every last drop of her clay self back up with her.

“Kehehehe. You know this one right? Clay Woman! Famous model turned shape-shifting killer.”

“Enough of these games, Etsu!”, shouted the Leopard.

The heroine rushed to the other side of the street. She had known from facing the actual inspiring villain that Clay Woman had quite the reach, so she kept her distance.

“But I’m having fun!”, said Etsu. She then opened her mouth wide and started spitting balls of clay the Leopard’s way. It was exactly as the heroine had planned. To attack her from too long a range, Etsu had to lose mass.

Etsu caught on fast, though. Rather than aim at the Leopard, who easily dodged, she shot a few balls of clay towards some pedestrians still cowering on the other side of the street. The clay didn’t just knock them over, but it seeped inside their bodies. It filled them from within, blocking their internal organs and clotting the arteries that the clay mass burrowed its way into.

After tearing through the people she had infested, the clay she shot came back to her like snakes and she stomped back after the Leopard.

Laura had to compose herself.

‘The people are real, but they will be brought back. The best way to save people is by focusing up. I can’t save everyone, but I can always try.’ she thought to herself.

As the fight went on, Laura was looking for a special grenade of hers, tucked tight and far on her belt. It was tricky to get to, unfortunately for the people already killed.

Etsu raised up her arm, which slowly morphed into a big clay bludgeon.

“You know, I’m kind of baffled how so many of your enemies lost. I think they are just a bit too crazy for their own good. They seem to have every advantage over you. At least half of them seem to have real powers! Yet, you keep winning. It’s quite the story each and every time!”

She swung the clay arm and missed, though cracked the asphalt of the road with ease. The sopping clay monster stumbled after the Leopard once more, this time morphing the arm to a bit thinner of a bludgeon. She swung faster, but still missed.

Alas, in tracking the heroine’s dodge she noticed a pedestrian right by her side. She reached down with her other hand, letting it flow over the middle-aged woman. The clay limb brought the victim deeper into the claymass, where Etsu devoured them. The sounds of bones cracking and screams echoed out, muffled by the pounds and pounds of clay. that worked to churn and ‘digest’ the meal.

“Mmmf, yummy.”, taunted Etsu. In her haste, she hadn’t cared to stop the Leopard from moving towards another hydrant on the side of the street. The heroine had gotten the water from it free, somehow, and it blasted Etsu.

“Making me more wet? That just makes it easier for me to move.”

She stomped over towards the Leopard, smiling wide with the clay hole that was her mouth.

Laura wasn’t in the mood for banter. She simply shook the grenade in hand, pulled the pin, then chucked it Etsu’s way. Mid flight, the liquid-nitrogen based cooling agent burst out as a fog of mist. It froze the spraying water on contact, while also solidifying the water-sopped clay-form Etsu had taken.

Another pedestrian was nearby. Etsu had reached out to try and swiped them down with a big clay arm. But, the limb froze just in time and the man ran off. The Leopard had saved at least one person, it seemed.

“Not, b-b-b-b-bad~”, said a shivering Etsu.

It was all she managed to squeak out before her entire form froze like a statue. The Leopard had sealed the hydrant back up, and walked over with ease thanks to her anti-slip shoes.

As expected, Etsu had more in store. The entire frozen clay blob she had become shock and cracked. It exploded outwards as shards of ice, which the Leopard shielded herself from. Nonetheless, the shards still pelted some of the cowering pedestrians that finally got the good sense to run away. Minor wounds, thankfully. Nothing fatal.

From the icy prison, Etsu emerged in yet another form and back at her normal height. The hat of a jester donned her head, and a clown outfit covered her body. It came complete with ruffles about the neck, and colorful purple and red spots and shapes atop a predominantly yellow color base for the clothes themselves.

Her face and skin were painted stark white with a big purple grin and black circles about the eyes. In her hands, she carried a hammer far too big and heavy than one a woman her size should wield.

“Tada!”, she said. “One of your favorite villainous inspirations right here. Sometimes, villains don’t even need powers to win right? They just need to be unpredictable, cunning. I have to say though, Leopard, you got me good. I think your villains lose cause they overlook their own weaknesses. I should've known ice was on its way. Overconfidence is a killer, right?”

She charged towards the Leopard, hammer in hand. Though Laura dodged the first slamming strike, she horizontal follow-up sent her slamming through the street to the nearest intersection. Traffic was thankfully closed, but the area was far more crowded.

Etsu was running back, hammer in hand. She lept into the air in an unnaturally high leap, then brought it back down atop a parked car.

The college-student turned villainess rushed at the heroine who, of course, dodged yet again after rising back to her feet. Etsu knew she would though, and her horizontal strike hit some of the crowd behind the Leopard instead. The powerful strike sent them flying into the distance, limbs mangled. Once they hit the buildings in the path of their flight, they splatted like flies to a windshield.

“The Clown didn’t have super strength.”, said the Leopard as she kneed Etsu in the stomach: a blow which the purple-haired woman didn’t even register.

“I may have taken some liberties. That’s why I will win our game. I don’t have weaknesses.”, boosted Etsu.

The student twirled her hammer, cleaving everything around her. The Leopard simply dropped to the ground and tried to tug at Etsu’s legs to trip the woman. It didn’t work.

The smiling woman rushed into the nearest crowd, spinning her hammer to blend the people around her into a crimson storm of gore.

“You’re wrong.”, said the Leopard. “You do have a weakness, at least one.”

“Oh?”

Etsu turned back to the heroine, who was holding an unlabeled little spray canister of some kind. Etsu knew the heroine’s tricks, but since the canister was unlabeled she didn’t quite know what was inside: she didn’t wanna peek, after all. That was actually ‘cheating’ to her in her already self-advantaged game.

So, she swung her hammer the heroine’s way. With a slight dodge, Laura missed the crushing blow, then blasted the hammer with a spray of purple gunk. It was a fast acting glue which held the hammer head in place.

Etsu tugged on the handle, making a show of having a hard time pulling it free. Of course, she cloud easily pull it free. She could melt the glue away. She could rip it free without any damage, or with the proper force needed to, which would probably tear up the road a bit. She could do any number of things with her infinite power.

Both her and Laura knew this. But, Etsu made it a show, cause that was entertaining to her. She liked the struggle.

The college student moved her gloved hands from the handled. She sighed, a mockery like everything else she was doing.

“Alright you got me again. My hammer is weak to glue.”

“That’s not what I meant.”, said the Leopard.

“Oh?”