Welcome to the Omniverse, Claire Ferguson

[Blink]

When Blink jumped out of one of her pink portals and onto the roof of an apartment building, the  first thing she saw was the blaster fire shooting down the street. Stormtroopers were lined up in formation on one end of Tier Two's main street, opening fire at will on their target down the road. Blink glanced to the right to see what they were aiming at. Vendetta was in the middle of the street a few dozen yards away, literally holding futuristic looking cars up with his telekinesis and using them as shields from the lasers. He then slammed forward towards the soldiers in white, causing them to scatter as it came crashing down onto the pavement in front of them, barely avoiding getting any of them. "Come on!" He was screaming, "Is that all you've got!?"

Behind Blink came Rufus, stepping out of the same portal she had come through. The sound of the gateway closing hit her pointy ears. "What a cluster-fuck," Rufus said to her. He stroked his goatee as he watched the chaos down below. Vendetta was now approaching the fallen line of soldier-clones and was tossing them aside with his telekinetic powers. "What's the point? He's staging a one-army assault on the entire city. Even with the Orb, what's his gameplan? As soon as some of the stronger Primes get wind of this, he'll be toast."

"Maybe he's counting on that," Blink answered. "I don't think he has an overall goal. I think he's trying to maximize the amount of damage he can do before he's done."

"Yea, but when is he done?" Rufus asked, as if Blink had a legitimate answer.

She shrugged back at him. In her head, she was sure that Vendetta was slowly making a chaos-riddled path of destruction towards Tier One, where he likely wanted to challenge the Primes there head on. But telling Rufus and getting him worked up over a theory wasn't going to do them any favors. They had to stop him here, on this street, to avoid any further casualties. The more Primes that got involved in this fight, and the further up the city the conflict moved, the more danger there was for everybody involved. "You ready?" she finally asked, breaking a brief silence.

This time, it was Rufus' turn to nod.

"You sure you're okay with this?" She followed up.

"Yea. Fuck it all, right?"

The pink teleporter smiled at his dry humor. He smirked back and punched his own palm, cracking his knuckles in that pose. He backed up a bit on the roof and then took a breath, nodding at her to show he was ready. He then jumped forward and lept off the roof, right into a carefully-placed pink portal that Blink laid down. Down on the street, Rufus appeared on the surface level with Vendetta, only about ten yards away. He had both of his pistols in his hands, pointed down towards the pavement. There was a burning car near him as he glared at Vendetta, squinting with anger. Blink thought he looked like a cowboy, a bit, about to duel for his life.

"Rufus!" Vendetta welcomed him with open arms, literally. He was obviously being overly sarcastic. "Come to beg me to take you back?"

"You know why I'm here." Rufus answered vaguely. Blink began to move along the rooftop so she was closer to the pair. She could barely hear their conversation, even with her exception hearing. "You tricked me into this. You fooled all of us. And now people are dead."

Vendetta reached into his jacket, gripping something solid that had been bulging from his chest. He pulled out the orb, which glowed a light green with power. His tattoos adorned across his bald head seemed to glow as well, as if he was literally drawing energy from the artifact. "Rufus, I never tried to fool you. You and I have been together since you came to this universe. You knew what I want. You knew what this was leading to. You knew...why we did this."

As they spoke, Blink could seem stormtroopers lining up down the street again, this time for a more concentrated attack. She glanced down the other side, where a mirror image was taking place. There was a silver-armored trooper directing them and speaking to others on a radio. Snipers appeared on the rooftop across from her. She could see that Rufus was doing a good job of keeping Vendetta in place, but wasn't sure of his chances once Vendetta or the troopers attacked. She was going to need to act faster then she thought.

She was just waiting for the signal.

"This was never about fighting for freedom!" Rufus angrily spat at Vendetta. "This was always about you! You manipulated me to help you do this. Now I'm going to make things right."

Vendetta smirked. "Who? You? Rufus, you're a good shot but you already know that you can't kill me with bullets. And Blink? How far do you think a teleporter is really going to go for you? They run from fights, not towards them."

"I guess we'll find out!" Rufus lifted his guns up.

That was the signal. He never actually the pistols. Vendetta was much too fast, blasting a ball of telekinetic energy towards him and shoving him backwards as if he got caught in the wind. Rufus did a good job of landing on his shoulders and rolling backwards onto his feet in a squatting position. Vendetta threw another ball of gust, this time sending a nearby bench flying into a pizza shop behind Rufus. Rufus, for his part, ran down the sidewalk, starting to open fire on a laughing telepath. "I told you already! You can't-hrk!"

He was cut off as Blink appeared above him and sliced one of her green energy daggers through his arm, cutting a clear path along the side of it. His fingers opened on instinct, causing the Orb of Horace to roll from his grasp. There was a moment of panic by both of them as the Orb floated in the air, falling towards the ground. Blood spilled from the side of Vendetta's arm, right under the elbow. Blink dropped down, kicking one foot out towards the orb. Her boot-covered foot made contact with it, sending it flying away from the pair and towards the sidewalk.

Rufus caught the orb and a bright flash of light erupted from it, causing him to stumble sideways mid-run. But he caught his composure, clearly not letting the power overwhelm him as he ran straight of the stormtrooper barricade.

"NO!" Vendetta howled as he lifted an arm (the non-injured one) to stop Rufus from getting away, but Blink sliced her blade across his back to stop his movement. He let out a howl of pain as more blood splattered towards the paved road and his jacket remained cut open. He finally turned around to face her, growling with frustration. "You sneaky little pink bitch!" He howled, this time using both hands to push her backwards through the air. She easily teleported herself up on a light post, catching her balance quickly. He looked up at her, fingers curling with anger. "You shouldn't have done that, Blink!"

"You don't have your little toy to protect you anymore," Blink teased him, perhaps boasting a little more then she should have. Still, it felt good. "You don't want a fair fight?"

He gritted his teeth at her taunting. "I might not have the orb, but don't get it twisted...I never needed it to take care of you!"

There was a moment there were Blink felt like he was just over-compensating for a lack of actual talent. But soon the fallen vehicle that had been near them, which he threw earlier, sprang to life and began to float up in the air. Her emerald eyes bulged as she could it turning to point upwards towards her. Clearly he didn't need the orb when it came down to how much strength he had in his telekinesis, because those things looked damn heavy. "Oh, you gotta be kidding me," he mumbled to herself.

The vehicle shot forward towards her, spinning in mid-air as he hurled it towards her. She teleported forward, expertly running along the top of the car as it soared through the air. When she realized another object - this time, a postal box - was heading towards her, she ducked it and teleported again. She arrived on the ground level with Vendetta, bringing her power dagger down towards his shoulder. Just as his came up defensively to knock her back, she teleported again, appearing behind him and stabbing the energy blade right into his back, underneath where she sliced earlier.

"Agh!" He grunted, a hand coming up to his chest where the blade poked out. While he clearly had a ton of power, his actual fighting ability didn't seem up to par. He dropped down to one knee, clutching his chest. She put a hand on his head, as if preparing for an execution. "Do it!" He hissed in front of her. "If you don't kill me right now, I will always remember you. I will always come after you."

She brought her knee up and connected it squarely with the back of his head. His voice went quiet as he fell forward onto the road, unconsciousness.

"Step away from the suspect!" She heard someone say. She looked up to see the stormtroopers (better late then never) starting to move forward with their guns trained on her. She instinctively put her hands up and backed up.

It had been a quick fight. She had expected a lot tougher encounter. But at the end of the day, it was clear that maybe he just wasn't a particularly good bad guy. That was why he needed the orb - a serious case of over-compensation. He could never do anything like the destruction he rained down without it. He just wanted to be powerful. To know what it felt like. But even with that orb and all the power he contained in his skinny, bald little frame, he was no match for little pink Claire Ferguson.