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Freezing the Celebration

For VeronicaFoxx

By Draconicon

Retirement was supposed to be easy. Maybe not effortless, but easy. Latexia had been looking forward to it for some time, ever since she got that one big score that let her buy a plot of land right in the middle of the fucking city, and she'd planned a big to-do for a pre-grand-opening celebration, to be done right after she finished plopping the building itself on the plot.

So. Much. For. That.

The latex hippo pulled her hand back from the frozen wall of her bar, the end of her arm snapping off and leaving a fist behind. More latex flowed out from inside of her, creating a new hand as she walked away from the icy building, looking into the sky at the figure that was responsible for fucking up her night.

It was the Icebreaker, of course. One of the heroes that actually caused her a problem from time to time, though she could have sworn that she'd gotten a restraining order against him after the last time he broke down the door to her apartment. The hippo glared up at the penguin at the top of his little ice spire, watching him jump jauntily from one flipper foot to the other. She clenched her teeth for a moment, crossing her arms over her chest.

"You know I'm retired, right?" she shouted. "I'm not even on the villain registry anymore. Why don't you just fuck off?"

"That doesn't take place until tomoroooooow," the penguin said in his sing-song voice. "And if you think that I'm letting you go after everything you've done, you're cuckoo, cuckoo."

"Look in the mirror."

"Heh, I could, but I'd prefer to just throw you away, first. Villains like you really don't deserve a retirement, anyway. All that you've done to screw with everyone else; you should be locked up already. Maybe I'll just do that myself; freeze that body of yours until you can't do anything else, ever again."

Latexia glanced back at the bar. Already, there were places where the heavy ice was cracking through the brittle latex, and she made a mental note about the construction of it. She'd need to do something to revise the designs to make sure that didn't happen in the future. If she had a future.

Just had to be this asshole...

She sighed, rubbing her forehead. Icebreaker was one of the only heroes that had ever caused her problems after their first meeting. Maybe it was down to him having more pride than the rest, maybe it was because he was just a fucking asshole that didn't like her, or maybe he just had this idea that she really was a horrible person. There were heroes that only saw the labels, after all.

Whatever the reason was, he'd frozen her work, destroyed hours of effort, and now was threatening her directly. Latexia sighed.

"You're not going to let this go, are you?"

"I'd sooner let a serial killer go."

"You know I never killed anyone, right?"

"I don't care. You've done worse."

"...You're not wrong." The hippo sighed, rubbing her forehead. Looking up and down the streets, she checked for cars, for streetwalkers, for anyone that might be out for the night. Nothing. Either it was good luck on her part, or Icebreaker had actually done something responsible for once in his life and gotten the cops to block off this part of the city. Either way, she knew that this was not ending the way she wanted. "Fine."

"You'll come quietly?" the penguin chirped, almost too eagerly.

"Hardly."

"...Fighting, then? Heh. Latex against ice? We know who's going to win."

"Not until we duke it out."

"Ha! Fine then! Let's get this started!"

The penguin jumped off his tower, falling the fifty or so feet towards the ground. Latexia knew what was coming, and threw herself backwards, her legs melting into a wave of shimmering black, the hippo rising up as the wave grew.

Just as she expected, he slammed into the ground with a wave of blue and white, ice crackling out from the center of the new crater in the streets. The ground froze on contact, and the ice rippled up the latex wave that she'd created. She had to cut it fast, falling onto the roof of her frozen bar.

The penguin thrust his arms up, and the ice on top of the bar stabbed up with it, forming points that jammed into her body from below. One leg, one hip pierced straight through...almost. She stood very still, having opened holes in her body just ahead of the ice spikes, and she slowly walked forward, the holes expanding to allow the spikes to pass through behind her, leaving her unharmed.

"You're not going to just go down, are you?" Icebreaker honked. "It'd be better for everyone if you just went down."

"Not a chance in hell."

Though it was not going to be easy. The latex under her feet would have been a wonderful weapon, but he could freeze anything that she threw at him. Not to mention that the ice between her and it meant that it was just one big solid object, too stiff to manipulate, too heavy for her to just throw.

And the temperature in the air was dropping, getting colder and colder. She could already feel the chill settling into her metaphorical bones, making it harder and harder to move. If she didn't do this quickly, he would freeze more than just her assets. He'd freeze her.

But...there was a way.

Pushing against her better judgment, Latexia jumped into the air again, throwing her arms out to the sides. Liquid latex leaped from her fingers, attaching to the nearby buildings. As soon as it retracted, she pulled herself into the air. The ice chased her as Icebreaker caught onto what she was doing, but it was too late to deal anything serious.

She did lose a foot, though. That was uncomfortable.

"What do you think you're doing, huh? I can freeze anything you make!"

He was not wrong. Her latex didn't retain heat for long once it left her body, and Icebreaker had the power to freeze a regular person into an ice cube within about ten seconds. She shook her head, ignoring him as she bled latex from her stump leg. In fact, she paid more attention to the leaking, swinging her leg around, scattering the 'blood' that fell into a series of splatters in his general direction.

Latexia started to fall as the rubber qualities of the latex lines started to fade, and the hippo let herself. She bobbed down, threw out another line, lifted herself up again. The rolling mass of hippo latex bounced, rolled, bounced, and rolled through the sky in the square above her building and the penguin down below.

The air was still chilling, her body still losing substance. The bar, the frozen wave down below, what she was bleeding: she'd guess that she was down to about sixty percent of her 'safe' amount of substance. She had more to work with, but past that...well, things were going to get dicey.

Just a bit more...

He kept freezing the latex over his head, causing it to create intricate waves and crystal patterns as it became black ice, instead. It was like ink patterns caught in artful splatters, creating almost a defensive dome around him. The penguin honked and laughed.

"You're just wearing yourself out. What are you going to do, huh? You can't touch the ground, and you can't touch me."

She didn't respond. There was no need.

The latex lines fell after she let go of them, the ice freezing them as they dropped, creating links and walls and barriers up and down the streets. Latexia threw herself as high as she could, swinging herself over the level of the buildings, and then finally plugged the leak. She drew as much substance into herself as she could, bloating her black, shimmering body as much as was possible.

"Idiot! You're just a bigger target!"

The penguin threw an icicle at her, and this time, she let it hit.

Latexia gasped as it penetrated her from behind, shoving through where her ribs would have been in the past. If she still had lungs, that would have probably killed her. As it was, she could feel the ice spreading through her, shutting her down, freezing her solid. Her latex crystalized along the outside of her body, but there was enough mass to her that it wasn't spreading too deep into the core, save for where she'd been stabbed.

Not yet.

Here's hoping I aimed this right...

She was already falling, and she couldn't move. No way to be sure until she hit. But as she picked up speed, she hoped.

CRACK!

She hit the raised wall of the frozen wave of latex, cracking it and dragging some of the black ooze with her. It layered almost instinctively over the top of her frozen exterior as she rolled down it, like falling down a ramp.

A ramp that was pointed right at the frozen dome of latex that she'd wrapped around Icebreaker.

More ice came for her, but that just added to the amount of mass that she had around her. Her foot, her hands, even her head came off as she rolled faster and faster and faster, and by the time that she came to a stop, she was blind, deaf...

And carrying a passenger inside that had been knocked the hell out by her wrecking ball of an attack.

The ice was starting to melt, but it would take a while. Maybe an hour. She huffed softly, reforming herself outside of the ball, shaking her head as she sat on top of it.

"Physics, fucker..."

The End

Summary: Latexia has just hit the point of retirement, but has one last battle with a hero that just can't stand to let it go. She's not great against ice, but there is a way to win...if you're smart.

Tags: No sex, superhero, supervillain, hippo, penguin, ice, latex, latexia,