Morgan and Rupture

[Devilpants]

Christmas had come and gone, but for Morgan, Christmas came a second time and she received the greatest gift she could ever ask for: Revenge.

The destruction of the Nowicki Institute for Gifted Children was a coordinated effort between supervillains, organized crime in and around Minneapolis, and individual prominent criminals, all sick of the interference from the Nowicki's team of superheroes in their operations. It was a meticulously-planned attack that left the survivors without homes to return to, and hunted in their home city.

In the months since coming to Cobalt Academy, Morgan had been busy. Not just with training and studying, but with gathering information and planning revenge. As it turns out, revenge had come to her: One of the perpetrators of the attack, a supervillain named Rupture, had come to Salem specifically because he had heard a Nowicki Institute survivor was here.

Rupture was a minor player, a dumb brute with very little drive of his own who was only good at doing what he was told. He had the typical brick powerset, perfect for an idiot like him: Strength and durability. He was bulletproof and was strong enough to lift cars over his head, but he had earned the name Rupture by punching hard enough to explode a man's chest cavity, instantly killing him.

Rupture was there at the Nowicki Institute when it happened. He was part of the attack. He busted through walls and used his immense strength to kill people, and children, and whoever he was paid to kill. Morgan had watched him kill her friends and siblings, and his expression while he did it was permanently burned into her mind.

Morgan wasn't afraid of him. She was too angry to be afraid. She was planning on ambushing him with her two friends and the inhibitor collar they stole from Cobalt Academy, getting as much information as they could out of him, and then killing him.

Cayenne and Mia were Morgan's two best friends, and they went everywhere and did everything together. All three were orphans, and had bonded over their shared trauma. While Morgan was abandoned as a baby, Cayenne and Mia were disowned by their families when their powers emerged.

The three of them bonded almost immediately upon meeting in Cobalt and had become an inseperable trio, and when Morgan revealed her plan to track down and exact revenge on the murderers who destroyed the Nowicki Institute, they were enthusiastically on board.

Their contacts in Salem revealed that Rupture had established a routine, which made it easier to track his movements and pick a place to ambush him. The day had come, and the three were lying in wait on a rooftop overlooking an alley that Rupture used as a shortcut.

"Hey dickhead, this is our turf." Rupture heard a teenage girl's voice behind him. He turned and looked her over: Normal but stylish winter clothes, barely five feet tall, red skin, horns poking out from under her winter hat.

"Hey, little girl, where'd you learn words like th-" Rupture was interrupted by something hitting the back of his head. The street sign bent around his skull and only dazed him, but it was enough time for Cayenne to close the gap between them and deliver a super-strength punch to his liver, hard enough to lift him a solid foot off the ground.

Rupture made a strangled noise and dropped his coffee and breakfast burrito, then bent double, clutching at his gut and staggering. This gave Morgan enough time to run up behind him and slap the inhibitor collar around his neck.

An invasive tingle shot through Rupture, starting from his neck and spreading through the rest of his body. He felt heavier, weaker, and softer, but he was still reeling from the liver punch. That's when Morgan started punching him in the face.

Cayenne and Mia had never seen Morgan act like this. She was spitting swears at him through her stuttering, words they didn't know she knew, while she was throwing punch after punch after punch at him. After a solid thirty seconds of this, Morgan began elbowing, kneeing, and kicking Rupture. She made up for her lack of physical strength with training and unrestrained fury.

It took several minutes of savage beating before Morgan was satisfied. Rupture slumped to the ground, his back to the alley wall, his face swollen and bruised, blood and teeth on the ground. He was still conscious, but had no fight left in him. He looked up at his attackers. Red-skinned girl with horns, a short-haired tomboy, and...

Rupture grinned with missing teeth and bloody, split lips up at Morgan.

"It'sh you. Been looking for you, girl. Got away. Sent ta... ta finish the, the job."

Rupture clearly didn't understand the situation he was in. Morgan took a deep breath and rubbed her sore knuckles while glaring down at him.

"Well, you f-fucked that one up, huh?" She almost lost it on him again, but kept her cool. "I'm feeling generous. I was gonna kill you, but if you tell me everything you kn-know about the attack, I'll let you live. Understand?"

Mia had her phone out, ready to record the important bits of this interrogation.

Rupture choked out a laugh. "Not tellin' you shit. They'll kill me."

Morgan inhaled sharply through her nose, then stepped forward and delivered a vicious kick to Rupture's ribs with a steel-toed boot. He winced, coughed, and gagged, clutching at his definitely-broken rib.

Morgan leaned in close and whispered. "I'll kill you."

With the threat of death by three teenage girls hanging over him, Rupture, surprisingly, cooperated. He had a few names, mostly money-men and go-betweens and middlemen. It wasn't as helpful as Morgan hoped, but it was a start. She had some names, and from there, she could figure out who they worked for and get some more names.

It didn't take long. Mia hadn't recorded any video, just typed out the names in her phone, along with some notes.

Morgan then followed through with her promise. She pointed at Rupture's chest and a mote of beautiful golden light wavered at the end of her finger. Rupture looked up at her in horror.

"You shaid you'd let me go!"

Morgan didn't say anything. The mote of golden light erupted into a swirling, sparking, coruscating ray that blasted into and through Rupture's chest. He didn't have time to scream as his lungs and trachea were immolated and the ray scorched the alley wall behind him.

The three girls stood over Rupture's smoking corpse for several seconds before Morgan spoke up.

"I w-wanted to... to leave dental records. Let's get th-the collar and get outta here." Morgan reached down and took the collar, easily ignoring the smell of burned flesh.

Morgan's conscience was clear. This wasn't just revenge, it was justice, it was setting things right. Rupture was a murderer, and by killing him, she was saving everyone he would have killed in the future. She wouldn't let anyone moralize to her about slippery slopes or eye-for-an-eye nonsense. They hadn't felt the loss she had felt, they hadn't seen the carnage she had seen, they hadn't watched their homes collapse in fire and be surrounded by the death of everyone they ever loved.

Morgan would fight the world if she had to.