The Watchwomen

Chapter 33 (Act III): Acidic Assault

We last read Chapter 32, in which Sonya Pillsbury and the remaining Watchwomen---Voltara, Nightclaw, and Coldsnap---are forced to briefly put their infiltration on hold and defend themselves against scores of Legion Guard troopers and Diamond Legion assassins when Nightclaw blows their cover after losing her temper due to being bullied by a pair of guards in the second floor antechamber. All four of them get to show their skills, having extensive action sequences as they rapidly adapt between defeating the Legion Guard troopers and non-lethally incapacitating the assassins to cure them later; of note, Voltara destroys the antechamber's chandelier, Nightclaw kills two Legion Guard troopers who try to subdue her with cattle prods, Coldsnap modifies the battlefield to have patches of slippery ice, and Sonya handles herself expertly against the Diamond Legion assassins whom she used to work with. 

After a while, the heroines manage to defeat every adversary sent their way, and are about to continue on.....when they are accosted by the gigantic cybernetic flesh monster Bryan Birchwood and his infant son, B.B., two more of the Diamond Legion's allies---albeit forced---who try to block their progress. Coldsnap offers to stay behind while Sonya, Nightclaw, and Voltara press onward to Allie Bannister's office to defeat her and save The Viper, to which they reluctantly agree. 

This time, we watch as Coldsnap faces off against Bryan and B.B., while Sonya, Nightclaw, and Voltara finally reach the top of the mansion.....

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Coldsnap held her ice longsword in her right hand while her left shimmered with concentrated magic. She fired an ice harpoon from her left hand's palm, cleanly impaled the center of Bryan's body, and gave the harpoon a strong pull, yanking the entire aberration to the ground face-down and initially gaining the upper hand quickly. Then, she looked up at the gigantic cybernetic flesh monster's head and smirked. 

"Your move, bub." 

Bryan roared monstrously as he got up, stepped forward, unveiled a thick, nasty-looking tentacle from his right hand's palm, and reeled back for a swing. Just like with The Viper from before, he swept it across the floor and left hazardous acid puddles in its wake.....but Coldsnap performed an upwards flip to her lefthand side and caused the tentacle to move harmlessly below her. On top of that, although she was about to land right on top of one of the acid puddles, she utilized her cryokinesis to instead freeze the compound solid. 

Coldsnap scoffed. "Please.....that didn't do shit. My turn." 

Bryan tried to deny the icy heroine her "turn" by retracting his tentacle and instead opting for a straightforward punch with his huge fleshy hand, but Coldsnap jumped backwards and he ended up getting his fist temporarily stuck within the impact crater. She took advantage of this moment---when he wasn't able to do anything---and used his right hand and arm to reach his actual body, quickly carving marks all over his form while he desperately tried to get her off of him. 

Grasping her longsword's hilt with both hands now, she leapt towards the center of Bryan's body and embedded her blade within him up to its halfway point, much to his pain and discomfort. Then, she allowed herself to fall down slightly while the blade was still inserted, basically making a huge vertical incision in the middle of Bryan's mass. After that, she adjusted the position in which her hands were holding onto the hilt, and began bending and straightening her legs in a similar fashion to a child attempting to gain height on a swing set. 

Once she was sure she was flying high on every forward swing, she removed her ice longsword from the first wound, split it into its two rapier-like halves in mid-air, and threw one of them into the exact same spot where The Viper had stuck her Toxin Blade back at the Utah State Correctional Facility. Though Bryan had recovered from the serpentine heroine's poison, the injury itself had yet to heal fully.....and Coldsnap's ice rapier piercing it did absolutely no favors for its recovery.