Swarms Lung

This wasn’t going to be enough. I realized that as Lung incinerated a third me; the Hundred-Faced Hassan was too weak, too close to an ordinary human. He could beat normal gangers, probably most low level parahumans, and the numbers I could bring to bear with him might be enough to overwhelm even a few of the upper tiers — but it wasn’t enough against Lung. I couldn’t hope to beat him with Hassan.

The rest of myself did an about face, throwing myself against him and in his path while I, the true I, continued to back up. Lung roared again, and as he grabbed another two of me by my heads and roasted their faces off, I caught a glimpse of him, now six inches taller and starting to show more bulk on his chest and arms.

That was fine, though. I wasn’t trying to beat him with Hassan, I was just making room.

The rest of myself appeared from the shadows, replacing and bolstering the previous numbers until I capped out. Several had already died, so I didn’t have the full eighty, but there was enough of me to put in his way, even as he carved through more of them with flames and now brute strength. I kept backing up, running backwards so I could keep my eyes aimed in Lung’s direction, and I only stopped once there was about sixty feet between us.

That should be enough.

I was about to let it go, let Hassan fade, but I hesitated and waited again, urged by some unknown instinct. The rest of myself piled on Lung, swarming him and slamming their fists and their dirks into him with as much strength as possible, but they might as well have been gnats for all the damage they seemed to do. If I tried, I could look through the eyes of one of my other selves and see Lung grow just a little bit, become just a little bit stronger, but every few seconds, another of myself was incinerated.

Sometimes, I was jarred out of my new perspective entirely, and sometimes, my sight just transferred to another of myself. For what felt like several minutes, but was probably only about thirty seconds, I was jostled and switched between more than a dozen of myself, trying to find something — anything — that would hint at a weakness, at a spot or trait of which I could take advantage. But Lung only grew stronger and more resilient, and every new attack was shrugged off and ignored more easily than the last.

I wasn’t getting anywhere, I realized. All I was doing was throwing fodder at him to let him get stronger, and eventually, there’d come a point where he would have burned through all of my other selves and become too strong and fast for me to switch to a stronger Hero. At that point, I’d be done, dead, game over.

Right. While I still had time and room, then —