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Alea Iacta Est - a Worm AU Fanfic

Reader mode
Gaemnomut said:
So what is her exact power? Large range, fine controle hydrokinesis? Does she even know herself?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Basically that, shading into weather control (specialising in thunderstorms).

When she's agitated, it starts to rain. If she's not paying attention, water will actually bend toward her (the intent of this is to outfit her in hydrodynamic armour, but that would freak her the fuck out). She can also purify water (by shifting impurities out of it) and she'll never drown.

Unfortunately, she's not at all combat-minded, and she's phobic about water.
 
Love this story. Maybe captain neo-con isn't on this version...?
 
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Janet deeply needs therapy, but the poor woman likely never will
 
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Part Thirteen: Team Building Exercise
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    • Alea Iacta Est
    Part Thirteen: Team Building Exercise


    [A/N: This chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]


    Tuesday Morning
    February 1, 2011
    PRT ENE HQ
    Director Emily Piggot

    In Emily Piggot's expert opinion, mornings existed for the sole purpose of taking bright and hopeful souls and showering them with toxic, radioactive explosive diarrhoea. Not that she had a soul that could be called either bright or hopeful. After surviving Ellisburg and Nilbog, and ten years of subsequently overseeing the seething mass of existential self-hatred collectively known as Brockton Bay, her soul was not in great shape. In order to safely collect it when her time came, whichever higher (or lower) power had been designated for the task would need to make use of a hazmat suit and a biohazard container. But still, mornings seemed determined to shit all over her anyway.

    She took a sip of coffee, and her internal rhetoric dialled itself back down to a less scathing level. Picking up the photo before her, she eyed it unfavourably. "So Hookwolf's dead, and Stormtiger and Alabaster are in custody." The photo portrayed none of the three except perhaps Hookwolf, represented by several pieces of metal in the medium distance, but it was nice to be able to make the observation all the same. Closer to the camera, a large section of the street had been blasted away to the depth of a yard or more. Chunks of concrete with asphalt attached, some with dirt still clinging to them, lay haphazardly all over the field of view.

    "They were on scene when we arrived," Armsmaster confirmed. "Stormtiger has a number of broken bones and a few internal injuries. I can't see him being up and around within at least two months, maybe three. Alabaster, of course, is perfectly healthy. Hookwolf was … as far as I can tell, they've collected enough pieces to determine that it was indeed Hookwolf, and he is indeed dead."

    Emily wondered briefly which of the forensic pathologists had landed the unfortunate job of jigsawing the extremely deceased Hookwolf back together, in an attempt to determine exactly what had disassembled him so thoroughly. Of course, she knew what it was, as did Armsmaster. Or rather, they knew in the absolute sense but not in the legal sense. Which was where the feeling of being shat on from a great height came from.

    Hookwolf's demise was something she felt capable of coming to terms with. Even if the man technically hadn't had a kill order up against his name (which made this murder), he was still a killer who had been sentenced to the Birdcage. His sentence, thanks to last night's events, had been abruptly and unexpectedly upgraded to death with no remission for good behaviour. Brockton Bay was measurably safer for his passing, especially for any ethnic minorities in Empire territory, not to mention stray dogs.

    Likewise, Emily would shed no tears for Stormtiger's broken bones. The man had inflicted far worse on far more innocent people. He would even survive and recover, in time.

    Alabaster was the one least deserving of sympathy, having come out of the experience with nothing but mussed clothing. Interestingly enough, though, he'd said exactly nothing to the PRT troopers who had carefully collected and transported him back to the headquarters. In her experience, villains who had been so thoroughly trounced (especially with a death) were the ones who sang the loudest about who had done this to them, as though outraged by the idea that they could be targeted with the same violence they were used to inflicting on others. So Alabaster's resolute silence on the matter should have been speaking volumes to her. She just had to find the decryption key.

    "Are we sure it was Purity?" She asked the question out loud for the first time. This was what burned her the most. They'd had a member of the Empire—a powerful member of the Empire—in a weakened position. Or rather, they'd had someone they very strongly suspected in that position. The right push, to get her to give herself up to them, and they could have turned her. Even if she gave up nothing on the Empire—and to be honest, with Kaiser dead, the Empire seemed to be disintegrating anyway—there was a possibility they could have rebranded her into a hero. But on their terms, not on hers. In order for the higher-ups to be comfortable with such a situation, they had to have the leverage, not her.

    "It fits her capabilities to within a few percentiles," Armsmaster noted. "There is one worrying discrepancy, though." One metal-clad finger pointed at the gouges in the street. "She could've ripped a hole clear down to bedrock if she'd wished. This was her using her powers with a very light hand, which should've been impossible with the drugs they were using to help manage the pain. So when she left the hospital, she was healthy enough to fly and deliberately smash Stormtiger with chunks of debris to bring him down."

    "But Hookwolf walked right up to her, close enough that when she powered up, she blasted him across three city blocks," Emily agreed. "He had to know she was aware that he was planning to kill her. Why did he let her get so close? Why did he even give her a chance to get a shot off, if she was on her feet?" She didn't even posit the idea that Purity had been too weak to blast deeper into the street; the devastating power of the shot that had killed Hookwolf gave the lie to that idea.

    "So who helped her, and where did she go?" Armsmaster wanted to know. "Even with those three out of the way, she still couldn't be certain that the rest of the Empire wasn't likewise gunning for her. Someone helped her out. Someone healed her. There's no word on the street about any new schisms in the Empire, so it probably wasn't Othala. So who was it, and where did they take her?"

    Emily shrugged. The list of parahumans with healing powers wasn't very long. It was only by statistical coincidence that two of them resided in Brockton Bay. On the downside, one of them was a villain. She considered this to be compelling evidence that the universe had a sick sense of humour. The next most prominent cape whose power could technically be used for healing was Bonesaw, of the Slaughterhouse Nine; Emily's opinion of this fact was obscenely unprintable.

    "I suppose we could ask Panacea if she knows anything about this?"

    "We can try." Armsmaster's tone was doubtful. "She gets irritated when anyone asks who she's healed recently."

    <><>​

    Andrea Campbell's Apartment
    Taylor

    "Seriously, what the hell?"

    The small apartment was somewhat crowded, made even more so by the fact that Panacea was pacing back and forth across it. Taylor and Annette sat on the sofa along with Kayden, while Danny took up the apartment's sole armchair, with Andrea lounging across his lap. Janet, wearing clothing donated by Andrea, stood just inside the kitchen nook as if unsure if she was supposed to be there.

    "I still can't believe I agreed to do it. And I just lied to the PRT and said I didn't!" Panacea paced once more across the living room. On reaching the far wall, she turned and planted her back against the firm surface. "You were supposed to leave the hospital without anyone getting hurt once you were healed. But you killed Hookwolf! Why didn't you just fly away?" Arms folded, she glared at Kayden.

    "Because he would never have stopped," Relaxing on the sofa, Kayden seemed unfazed by Panacea's anger. "If he hadn't seen me leave, he would've decimated the people in the hospital. Even if he did, he would've tortured a few to find out where I might've gone. People like him are very final about people they consider to have betrayed them. I would've always been looking over my shoulder."

    "But you didn't betray him," Danny protested from where he sat. "Or even Kaiser. He came looking for a fight with you."

    Andrea shrugged, then wriggled her shoulders under Danny's arm. "With Max, there was never much of a difference between saying no to him and betraying him."

    Kayden shared a look of understanding with the redhead. "And Hookwolf was all about making sure nobody disrespected the Empire twice. Or even once, if he could manage it."

    "Well, I'm glad you're alive," Taylor said, trying to lighten the mood. She looked across at where Janet lurked half-hidden in the kitchen nook. As per usual, the careworn blonde had her left wrist pushed into her jacket pocket. Taylor wondered briefly why Janet hadn't asked Panacea to grow the hand back for her, then decided it wasn't her business. "And I'm glad you were there to help out."

    Janet shrugged briefly. "The kid was really persuasive." The ghost of a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. "You'd almost think it was her power, or something."

    "She is good at finding the right person for the job," Taylor agreed with a smirk. "We wouldn't be where we are without her." She paused, unsure of how to continue. "I don't want to push, but …"

    "After last night?" Janet grimaced. "You guys have got a lot of problems here in Brockton Bay. Confrontation's not my thing, but I don't think I could live with myself if I walked away now, then found out later you got killed because I wasn't here."

    "That's a relief," Kayden gave Janet a genuine smile. "Actually, there's something I was wondering. I know you don't like using your powers, but how did you stop Alabaster from shooting at me? For a second there, I thought I was going to have to smear him across the street as well."

    Janet held up her right hand and spread the fingers. "Same way I helped you out against Cricket. The human body's got water everywhere. Muscles need it to work right. I migrated water from his hand and wrist into his arm until all the muscles froze up."

    "Wow, damn." Danny shook his head. "I'm just glad their van wouldn't start. It might've made things a lot messier."

    This time, Janet smiled slightly. "I used to own a yacht with an auxiliary motor, and I know just about all the ways a little moisture in the wrong place can shut a diesel engine down almost instantly. Besides, it was a crappy motor. Almost didn't need my help at all."

    "Okay, seriously? I'm even more impressed than I was before," Annette said. "So, could you migrate water inside people anywhere you like?"

    "Technically, yes." Janet's smile was replaced by a frown. "I'm not about to kill anyone, though." She tucked her right hand under her left arm, possibly as a substitute for crossing her arms. "It's bad enough using my powers at all."

    "No, no," Annette retorted with a wide grin. "Could you make someone want to pee, real bad?" Her grin morphed into her mother's trademark smirk. "Can you imagine the look on Armsmaster's face if he's giving you a hard time and you're just increasing the pressure a little at a time until he has to go? And then he's trying to make excuses, and you're like 'actually, I do have questions', and he's trying to get away without seeming like he's trying to get away."

    Taylor shook her head. "Only you. Only you could think of using a power like that for a prank." It would be a mean and horrible thing to do to Armsmaster. Did it make her a bad person that she now wanted to see it happen?

    Annette nodded proudly. She and her mother spoke up at the same time. "Darn tootin'!"

    "I could probably do it," Janet said. "But it's a bad idea. If he got the idea I was messing with him—and from what I've heard of Armsmaster, his suit's probably lined with sensors that might detect something like that—then I'd be in ten times whatever trouble I was in before."

    "Plus, he probably uses a catheter," Danny put in. "If I was going to be locked in a steel shell for eight to twelve hours a day, I'd certainly consider one."

    Annette pouted. "Aw, you're no fun. I was enjoying the mental image of Armsmaster having to pour pee out of his boot."

    "As amusing as that might be," Danny noted, "we do have a more important matter at hand." He nodded toward Panacea, who was still glowering at Janet, though not as intensely as before. "Miss Dallon, you've aired your complaint against Kayden. She's explained why she did what she did. Is there still an issue to address, or are you satisfied?"

    Panacea huffed but her arms relaxed a little, moving own until her left hand clasped her right wrist. "I guess she's got a point. Dad and Mom always told me to never get too close to him. I'm a noncombatant, but that wouldn't necessarily stop someone like him."

    Taylor got up from the sofa and went over to her. "I get it that you're upset someone died. I mean, you're a healer. It's kind of what you want to prevent. But if you were interested in joining, we'd have more options to go on with." She tilted her head. "Want me to roll the numbers for and against you joining?" Opening her hand, she showed Panacea the five ten-sided dice resting there.

    "Wait, you use actual real dice?" Panacea stared at the plastic polyhedrons. "They look really weird. How does that even work?"

    Taylor shrugged. "I ask a question about probabilities and roll the dice. They give me the percentage chance of what I'm asking about." She decided not to bring up the alphabet dice for the moment. There was no sense in overloading Panacea with information. "Like I told you when we met, I'm a precog, but it expresses through dice rolling and stuff." She grinned. "As a bonus, I can make dice do basically anything I want."

    "Anything, huh?" Panacea's expression was still a little dubious, though it was thawing. "Show me."

    "Sure." Taylor tossed all five dice over her shoulder, in the general direction of the table. She heard them hit, and saw the look of scepticism on Panacea's face dissolve into disbelief. Still sitting on the sofa, Annette audibly snickered.

    "Oh, no fucking way." Panacea stepped past her and stared at the perfect stack of dice on the table; five dice, one on top of the other. "You weren't even looking."

    "It's my power." Taylor scooped up the dice again. "Name a possible outcome of you joining."

    Panacea frowned, but the expression was more contemplative than dubious. "Okay, what are the odds of me joining your team and not having it screw up things for New Wave?"

    Taylor nodded. "Okay, rolling." The polyhedrons clattered on the faux-wood surface. She eyed the result. "Okay, eighty-seven point one nine four percent chance that they won't suffer from you leaving."

    "That's what, a one in six, one in seven chance of problems? I'm not sure I like those odds." Panacea didn't look happy at that.

    "Chance she'll be happier in the team than in New Wave," sang out Annette from the sofa.

    Taylor picked up the dice. "I can do that. You good with that question?"

    Reluctantly, Panacea nodded. "Go ahead."

    Again, Taylor rolled. The dice came to a stop, and Taylor nodded. "That's … huh. Seventy-nine point one three one percent chance that you'll be happier in this team."

    "How do you even know which one is which?" asked Panacea, pointing at the dice. "I mean, that could be eleven or thirty-one, or ninety-seven."

    Taylor shrugged. "How do you know how to heal someone? I look at the roll, and I know how the numbers go." She picked up one of the dice and tossed it over her shoulder in the direction of where her father shared the armchair with Andrea. "Dad, think quick."

    "Got it," her father reported. "What do you want me to do with it?"

    "Pick a number and hold it up so Panacea can see it," Taylor said, still not looking. "Don't tell me what it is. I will then roll that number."

    Panacea looked past Taylor at her father. "Okay, got it."

    "Good." Taylor rolled the other four dice on the table. They came up showing different numbers.

    When Panacea turned to look at them, she burst out laughing. "Uh, sorry to burst your bubble, but not one of these dice is what your dad showed me. They're not even in sequence! You've got a one, two twos and a three."

    Taylor nodded. "I know. What's on the one he showed you?" She'd never tried this particular trick before, but she thought it should work.

    "Eight," Panacea said triumphantly.

    "Uh huh," said Taylor, and gestured at the dice on the table. "What do those add up to?"

    Panacea looked at the dice again and her lips moved silently. Just as her expression changed, Annette burst out laughing, as did Andrea. "Fuck!" the healer spluttered, looking back at the die Danny was still holding. Taylor looked over too, to see the '8' still showing. Staring once again at the four dice, Panacea shook her head. "How the fuck?"

    "I told you. Precog and total control of thrown dice." Taylor shrugged.

    "Okay, got it." Panacea shook her head ruefully. "Just one more question. How do I know you aren't rigging the predictions to show what you want?"

    Taylor took a deep breath, reminding herself how it must look from the outside. "I can't. If I call the roll for a prediction, intending to lie about it, I get hand cramps." She'd only tried it once, but if it got Panacea on board, she was willing to undergo it again. "Here." She held out her free hand.

    Tentatively, Panacea took it. "Okay …"

    Taylor gritted her teeth in anticipation. "This roll is to determine …" She cast about for something. "Tomorrow's weather on TV. The temperature." Two of the dice she put down, leaving two in her hand. "I intend to manipulate the roll and lie about it." Drawing back her hand, she went to throw the dice. In her mind, she told the dice to come up '99', which was basically impossible, even in Brockton Bay, on a winter morning. But, exactly as had happened when she tested this before, a painful cramp locked on to her hand, bending the wrist over and forcing the fingers into a claw. Involuntarily, her hand closed over the dice, preventing them from accidentally falling to the table. "Fuck, aaarrrgh!" Pulling her other hand free of Panacea's, she clutched at her spasming fingers.

    "Jesus," blurted the healer. "I felt that. That was your power?"

    "Taylor!" Danny started to his feet; Andrea twisted adroitly, managing to scoot her butt on to the chair arm instead of landing on the floor. Barely slower than him, Annette and Kayden also stood up. "Are you okay?"

    Taylor held up one finger in a 'wait' motion and silently counted to ten. By 'twenty', she felt capable of coherent speech. "Yes," she gritted as an answer to both questions, her breath hissing between her teeth. "It really, really doesn't like me lying about the rolls I make." Slowly, she managed to prise her fingers apart to retrieve the dice. "It's not like a normal cramp. It's already easing off. Give me five or ten minutes and I should be good again. Maybe."

    "Can I help?" asked Panacea, her tone and expression showing concern for the first time.

    "If you can make it hurt a bit less, that'd be great," Taylor said. She held out her hand to Panacea, hoping the healer could actually do something about it.

    Panacea put her hand on Taylor's cramped fingers and the pain eased right off. Taylor began to uncurl her hand. "Wow, that's—" The moment they lost contact with each other, the pain flared up to what it had been before Panacea tried to fix matter. Her fingers locked up again. "Ow. Ow, ow, owww." She cradled the clawed fingers with her other hand. "That was not a great idea."

    "What the hell?" Panacea frowned. "I turned off the cramp and scavenged away the waste products that caused it. Can I look?"

    "Uh huh." Taylor gingerly held out her hand again. "I think it'd be best to let it sort itself out."

    "Don't worry, just looking." Panacea touched it once more. "Huh. Wow. It looks almost like it reversed everything I did for you."

    "Told you." Taylor's breath hissed between her teeth as she massaged her hand. Gradually, it began to uncramp again. "It doesn't like me lying about rolls. I've heard of Thinker headaches but for me, it's my hands."

    "Okay, I guess you're on the level," Panacea said slowly. "Still, I need to think about this. I don't want to rush into making a decision this far-reaching."

    Taylor recalled the rolls which had informed her that Lisa would be required to induce Panacea into making the final decision. "That's fair," she agreed. "The last thing I want to do is push you outside your comfort zone."

    Panacea nodded, looking just a little relieved. "Thanks. Even if I do join you guys, I have no idea how I'm gonna break it to Carol and Mark. Or Vicky." From the expression on her face, she wasn't anticipating that specific revelation with any particular joy.

    "That's okay. You take your time." Moving over to put his hand on Taylor's shoulder, Danny gave Panacea a reassuring nod. "Whichever way you choose, we'll definitely owe you for healing Kayden. So don't ever feel that you're obligated to join."

    "I appreciate that," said Panacea. She gave Kayden one last unreadable glance, then turned back to Danny. "Would I be able to get a lift home, please? I don't want my folks worrying, and I'm pretty sure you don't want them to know about you yet." Her lips twisted in wry amusement. "Because if you think I'm a hardass when it comes to villains, you ain't seen nothin' yet when it comes to Brandish."

    Danny grimaced. "I haven't got my car back from the garage yet."

    "That's okay," Andrea told him, standing up from the chair arm. Pulling her keys from her pocket, she spun them on her finger. "I can give you a lift." She shot Panacea a brilliant smile. "You okay with that?"

    Her smile was infectious. Panacea shrugged and gave her a half-smile back. "Uh, sure, Ms Campbell. That would be nice."

    "Ooh, can I come too?" asked Annette eagerly. "I didn't get to talk to Panacea the last time we met." She gave the healer a grin. "I think you're even cooler than your sister."

    Taylor smirked inwardly at Panacea's double-blink. Annette's personality was almost as forceful as her mother's, and this was the first time the healer had been hit with the full brunt of it.

    "Yeah, that's why you were talking to her and not me, before," Panacea retorted. "You got her to sign your butt!"

    Annette rolled her eyes. "Lower back, lower back. Anyway, that was just to keep her occupied so Taylor could lay it out for you without any interruptions." She got up from the sofa. "Anyone can be cool with an Alexandria package and a short skirt—not the best choice for a flyer, just saying. But to have a behind-the-scenes power like yours and keep doing it, day after day, that takes serious dedication. So, can I come along? Pretty please with sugar on top?" She batted her eyelashes at Panacea in an almost cartoonish fashion.

    The healer hesitated, looking bemused. "I … guess so?" she ventured.

    "Cool, it's settled then." Andrea tossed the keys into the air and caught them again. "Let's go, kids." She headed for the door, with Panacea trailing behind. Andrea paused just long enough to give Taylor a wink, then followed on.

    Taylor waited until the door closed, then snorted with amusement. Janet and Kayden looked at her, their expressions curious. On the other hand, Danny didn't seem at all surprised by this turn of events.

    "Did I miss something?" asked Janet, sounding puzzled.

    "I think Annette's got a crush," Danny explained. From the twinkle in his eye, he'd come to the same conclusion as Taylor; that there was more than a simple crush going on. Taylor wasn't sure if Annette would actually be hitting on Panacea on the car drive home or just flirting, or even if there was a difference when it came to the redhead.

    "Hm." Janet's look of enlightenment morphed into amusement. "She's very … direct, isn't she?"

    "Wait, she's gay? Does her mother know?" Kayden sounded concerned.

    Taylor couldn't help it. She burst out laughing, half a second ahead of Danny.

    "What?" Kayden frowned. "What's so funny?"

    Shaking her head and still giggling, Taylor looked over at Kayden. "Annette's whatever she wants to be. And yeah, her mom knows."

    "And she's okay with this?" Kayden looked at Danny. "You're okay with this?"

    Danny sobered up almost immediately. "Yeah, I'm okay with it." He eyed Kayden sternly. "What's your problem with it?"

    Kayden blinked at the intensity in his voice. Taylor flicked a look at Janet. The blonde was watching the interaction, her expression wary.

    "Uh … it's not … usual?" ventured Kayden. Taylor got the impression that she'd been about to say something else, then changed her mind at the last moment.

    Danny shook his head. "That's Kaiser talking, right there. Being gay isn't a crime, or even a sin. It's just another way people do things. Andrea's been interested in women as long as I've known her, and Annette seems to be much the same way herself. There's nothing wrong with it. If you believe otherwise, then there's less difference between you and the rest of the Empire than you seem to think."

    Wow. Taylor was taken aback by the harsh tone in her father's voice. She hadn't heard him take a stance like this in … forever. But if she was startled, Kayden was astonished.

    "What?" The petite brunette stared at Danny. "How can you even say that? I'm making an effort, here. That sort of thing is …" She paused. "Wait, Andrea's gay too? But … she was sitting on your lap!"

    "Oh boy, yeah, she's definitely into women," said Janet unexpectedly. "She hit on me the other night. But once I made it clear I wasn't interested, she backed right off."

    "But they're driving Panacea home," Kayden looked at Danny then Janet. "There's nobody else in the car with them. What if …"

    "Do not finish that sentence," Danny growled. "Panacea's a cape, with the ability to put people to sleep at a touch. You think anyone could lay a hand on her without her permission?"

    Kayden didn't seem convinced. "But what if …" Her voice trailed off again.

    Now Danny looked more than a little pissed. He took a step closer to Kayden. "But what if what?"

    "What if Annette makes a move and Panacea doesn't say no?" asked Kayden.

    "Well, if that happens, it's between the two of them," Danny snapped. "None of my business, none of yours. Now, what's your problem with gays or lesbians?"

    It took Kayden a moment to answer. "Uh …" She looked from Danny to Janet and back again. "I've got no problem with them as people, but … I just don't approve of that sort of thing."

    Danny rolled his eyes. "Well, can you keep that attitude to yourself, or is this going to be a problem?"

    "I don't know; is it?" Kayden met his gaze with a defiant stare. "We'll never be an effective team if Andrea keeps hitting on me—"

    Janet snorted with amusement. "Yeah, that's gonna happen." When Kayden stared in her direction, she shook her head. "She's not gonna be hitting on you. You're not her type."

    "Type?" Kayden shook her head. "That sort of person doesn't have a 'type'."

    Danny raised a single finger, then turned and stomped to the front door. Opening it, he exited then slammed it behind him with enough force to rattle the pictures on the walls.

    "Well, congratulations," Taylor observed dryly. "I've only ever seen him this mad once before in my life." She didn't explain exactly when that had been.

    "What did I say?" Kayden looked puzzled.

    "Did you even hear yourself just then?" asked Janet, moving out of the kitchen nook. "Everyone has a type. That's a fact. I've only known Andrea a couple days and even I can tell that. She likes people who are tall or muscular, or both. You're neither. Trust me, you've got nothing to worry about on that front."

    Taylor tried not to stare at the blonde. This was the most that Janet had asserted herself since Taylor had met her. Up until this point, the one-handed woman had been diffident to the point of fading into the background. Making a firm statement about Andrea's preferences was a small step, but it was definitely a new look on her.

    "What?" Kayden turned toward Janet. "How can you defend—"

    "Knock it off!" Janet interrupted her with a horizontal chop of her good hand. "I'm not 'defending' her, because she's done nothing wrong. I'm telling you how things are."

    "But she hit on you! You said so yourself!" protested Kayden.

    "And so have hundreds of guys, and I turned them down just as flat too!" Taking a moment to calm down, Janet went on in a quieter voice. "Yeah, it threw me at the time. But once I made it clear I wasn't interested, at least she backed off. Can you say that about the men in your life? About Kaiser?"

    Kayden opened her mouth. Taylor even saw her lips begin to form the word 'yes'. But then she closed her mouth as her brain caught up with her automatic reaction. She glanced at Taylor, who raised an eyebrow. Slowly, she took a deep breath.

    "Well, no," she admitted reluctantly, letting her breath out in a long sigh.

    In the long silence that followed, Taylor became aware that the front door had opened again. Danny was standing in the doorway silently. She wasn't sure how long he'd been watching and listening.

    "Kayden," he said, drawing her attention. "You stood up for Annette, which we all appreciate. If Max had taken her, Andrea would've had an impossible task getting her out of his clutches. You stood in his way, and you nearly died for it. I get that you have no interest in women. Are you able to step back and allow Andrea and Annette their own preferences, or are you going to insist on trying to enforce your views on them?"

    "God damn it," muttered Kayden. She scrubbed at her face with her hands. "It's really hard to separate what I think from what the Empire's been telling me to think for the past ten years." Lowering her hands, she looked up at Danny and Janet. "Part of me wants to condemn them for being like that. But I can hear what you're saying, and I get it that you think I'm wrong to think that way."

    "So what are you going to do about it?" asked Janet. "Are you just going to let a bunch of Nazis keep dictating to you?"

    Kayden's lips quirked sideways in ironic amusement. "Yeah, okay, I get it. They're Nazi assholes. Kaiser was a control freak of the highest order. I don't know if that was him being a Nazi or just him being an asshole. But I'm not going to let him keep controlling me after he's dead. So I'll do a deal with you. If I say or do something that's offensive to you, call me out on it. If I think you're justified, I'll stop doing it. Okay?"

    Danny stepped into the apartment and closed the door, then glanced at Janet. "I think it's a good deal. What do you think?"

    "What are you asking me for?" asked Janet, looking somewhat surprised. "I'm not in charge, here."

    "You stepped up and made a few good points," Danny reminded her. "And you're the only other adult cape on the team. Your opinion counts."

    "I was just saying what I thought needed to be said, but okay." Janet looked at Kayden. "I think it's a good deal. If you're willing to not let your past rule you, I'm willing to do the same with mine."

    "Sounds like a plan." Danny held out his hand to Kayden. "We're good?"

    "We're good," Kayden agreed. "Thanks for giving me this chance." She clasped Danny's hand.

    "And me, too." Janet put her hand on top of theirs. "I've been hiding away from people for too long. I think it's time I stopped."

    Taylor slapped her hand on top of Janet's. "Let our powers combine!" she proclaimed, raising her other hand up, fist clenched. All three adults looked at her in varying levels of surprise. "What, am I the only one who's watched Captain Planet?" she asked. "You were getting way too serious here, and I asked myself 'what would Annette do?'."

    Her words broke the tension, and Kayden was overcome by a fit of giggles. Janet just looked bemused. Danny looked at Taylor and sighed. "Well, you certainly channelled Annette and her mom." He shook his head as Kayden dropped into the armchair, still giggling. "At least this team isn't going to be boring."

    <><>​

    Tuesday Afternoon
    Tattletale

    Strange things were happening in Brockton Bay. This wasn't odd in and of itself, given the city's standing population of parahumans, but in the last few days, things had gotten stranger than normal. Between being approached for recruitment by a middle-schooler, Kaiser being struck by lightning, and Hookwolf being literally blown to bits by Purity (or so Lisa's power told her), the 'weird-shit' quotient of life in Brockton Bay was way higher than normal. Worse, her power kept insisting that all three incidents were connected, but she didn't have enough data to fill in the gaps.

    She was in the process of trawling through the tinfoil-hat sections of PHO in the hope that one of the lunatics on there might let slip something that was actually true when her phone rang. She picked it up; there was no name on her caller ID.

    "Hello?" she asked cautiously, leaning back on the sofa.

    "Hi. Can you speak freely?" It took her a moment to recognise the voice, then her power filled in the blanks.

    It's the kid I met in the Market.

    She's calling me about Coil.

    She thinks she has a working plan to bring Coil down.

    She's going to need me to give her information to do this.

    She's got a major heavy-hitter on her side to do it with.

    It's not just Purity.

    She glanced around, trying to appear casual. Rachel was out, Alec was playing his computer game with headphones on, and Brian was off somewhere. She was reasonably sure her phone wasn't tapped at the moment. "I can," she replied cautiously. "How solid is your plan, and what do you need from me?"

    The kid didn't miss a beat."Pretty solid. I just need some information. And a way of contacting the PRT so they can clean up the mess."

    This call was becoming more and more surreal. "What information?" At that moment, her phone beeped, and she looked at it. Crap, it's Coil. "Hold on, I have another call." Her asshole boss got all kinds of testy if she failed to answer her calls in a timely fashion.

    "Don't answer it. Coil wants you to come in, which will screw the whole plan up." The kid's voice was matter-of-fact. "Worse, you'll end up telling him about us."

    "I wouldn't … would I?" Lisa had a hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach. "Is this your precog in action?"

    "She spent a lot of time running the numbers over the last day or so," 'Management' confirmed. "Can you come meet us before he calls one of your teammates?"

    Lisa gritted her teeth, fully aware that this was a tipping point for her. If she left the base right now, she was committing to Management's plan. Coil would quickly learn that she'd turned against him. Every previous effort she'd made to escape his grasp had fallen through. Did she dare try yet again?

    The beeping continued.

    <><>​

    Boardwalk
    Janet

    "Coil's a precog for sure," Taylor decided. "There's no way he would've known to call Lisa like that." She gripped the rail and looked out to sea. "You doing okay?"

    "Surviving." Janet concentrated on looking away from the ocean. The usual 'pull' wasn't there. It hadn't been for the last couple of days, ever since the thunderstorm and the death of Kaiser. She still didn't like being this close to a large body of water, but there was something different. Now she was aware of the actual presence of the water as it moved and surged. Even the tiny droplets in the air glittered in her mind's eye, as did the water within people. Before Kaiser, she wouldn't have been able to focus this clearly, because all of her concentration had been aimed at denying her power. Now that she'd used it in a major way, she was able to keep from using it in a major way. If she didn't know better, she would've described her power as being satisfied for the moment.

    "Excellent." On Taylor's other side, Annette hung upside-down from the railing by her legs, supporting the rest of her weight on her hands. To Janet's relief, she was wearing cargo pants and a crop-top, both of which assisted in maintaining her modesty. "So what's Dinah's plan, again?"

    "She doesn't have one, not really." Taylor turned around and leaned her back against the rail, rubbing it up and down, probably to scratch an itch. "She just knows that taking down Coil is going to require Janet and Kayden. Once we find out what we need to from Lisa, she can hopefully make a plan that works."

    <><>​

    Dinah

    "You know I can hear you guys, right?" Dinah didn't look around, but she raised her voice just enough to be heard by Taylor and the other two, about twenty feet away from the bench she was sitting on. Her eyes never stopped scanning the passers-by on the Boardwalk. She was on the lookout for one particular person; with every second that passed, more and more unpleasant scenarios crowded through her mind.

    Coil brought her in and she told him everything.

    She went to Coil and told him everything.

    She's going to show up with Coil's minions and act as bait to capture us.

    She's not going to show.

    He's precogged everything and is manipulating events from behind the scenes.

    And then her eyes settled on a shock of messy blonde hair. Lisa was wearing sunglasses, but her eyes had to be darting all over the place, checking everything out. Dinah didn't blame the teenager for being cautious to the point of paranoia, especially after being forced to work for someone like Coil. She wondered what it would've been like for herself if she'd gotten a different power and ended up without the support base that Taylor and her dad offered. Probably not good.

    "Here she comes," she warned them. "She'll probably know that you're with me, but don't do anything threatening. We want her cooperating willingly, not feeling like she has no choice."

    "Got it," Taylor called back. Dinah didn't turn to look at them, because her attention was fixed on Lisa. If there was any nasty surprise in the offing, Janet would have to take care of it.

    Lisa strolled up to the bench and sat down, as casually as if she'd done it every day. "I'm here." Tension vibrated in her voice, echoed in her posture. "What do you need from me, and why couldn't we have done this over the phone?"

    "Because phones aren't secure enough for this sort of thing." Dinah looked pointedly at Lisa. "You've got yours turned off?"

    "Pulled the card and dumped the handset in the trash, a hundred yards back," Lisa said. She tilted her head toward Taylor and the others. "Who're they?"

    Dinah was almost certain that she hadn't made any motion that would've clued Lisa in on the others, but it apparently hadn't mattered. "Friends. Teammates. Here to keep this meeting honest." She turned her head properly and met Lisa's eyes. "So, the first bit of information I need. Director Piggot's direct office line."

    Lisa's eyes opened wide and she let out a startled snort that turned into a chuckle. "Whew, you really don't play around, do you? What do you need … holy shit, you're going to call the PRT in to mop up Coil's guys once you're done with him? You're that certain this is going to work?"

    Dinah let a grin expand across her face. "That depends on you, and how much you know about his base."

    The answering grin on Lisa's face held a few more teeth. "Try me."

    <><>​

    Not Far From Coil's Base
    Annette

    Never in her wildest dreams had Annette Campbell thought that she might one day play any sort of role with a superhero team taking down a supervillain base. Of course, she also hadn't thought that her real dad might end up being a supervillain himself. That was comic-book thinking, and this was real life.

    So yeah, her life was looking more and more like a comic book every day. Who was she to argue with that?

    "Okay." Lisa pointed at the map that was spread over the hood of the car. Janet watched every motion of her finger carefully from one side, and Kayden from the other. "Main area of the base is right under … here. Exits are here and here, parking garage exit here, and Coil's escape tunnel is here." She looked at Kayden. "You'll probably be able to blast down to it but not collapse it. It was built using the same engineering as an Endbringer shelter."

    Dinah perused the map carefully as well, her lips moving silently, then she looked up at Lisa. "Is he there right now?"

    "She's right." Danny Hebert stood on the other side of the car hood, his arm around Annette's mom's waist. "If he gets away, he can start up again, and we'll never know until he comes after us."

    "One way to find out. Once we do, we're on a timer." Lisa pulled a brand-new phone from her pocket. Annette had watched her put her old card in it, fascinated by how easy she made it look. "So be ready to roll."

    Kayden nodded. Janet followed suit. Annette hefted her own phone.

    Taking a deep breath, Lisa made the call. It was answered in short order. Even from a couple of yards away, Annette could hear the raised voice of someone whom she assumed to be Coil. "Hey, it's me," Lisa said. "I've been busy. What's up?" She paused, listening. "Right, right, right. I'll look into that straight away. Come in? Okay, gimme an hour. Okay, half an hour. Okay, see you as soon as I can." She shut the call down. "Okay, he's there. The echo patterns in that place are unique."

    "Good." Dinah tapped the map. "That exit and that exit first. Then the escape tunnel. But first …" She nodded to Annette. "Make the call."

    Annette grinned. "Oh, boy." She pressed the speed-dial on the phone.

    It rang exactly twice, then was picked up on the other end. "Who is this?" asked a suspicious voice. "How did you get this number?"

    "Director Piggot, hi," Annette said chattily. "I'm calling on behalf of the Girl Scouts. I'd be selling you cookies but we're all out, so I was thinking as a consolation prize we'd offer you one somewhat waterlogged supervillain. If you're interested, you can come and pick up Coil. Bring some friends, because it might get a little busy. I'll just email you the address, k-thanks-bye."

    Hanging up the call, she switched to email and hit Send on the pre-prepared message, then looked up at the circle of faces looking at her. "What?"

    "That was not exactly what we told you to say," Danny remarked. "In fact, that's entirely unlike what we told you to say."

    "Bet it gets her out here even faster, though," Andrea said with a smirk.

    "My power told me to nominate Annette for the job of notifying the Director," Dinah reminded Danny. "She did it the way she felt like doing it. I'm not going to second-guess her." She nodded to Kayden. "You're up."

    The ex-Empire cape smiled grimly. "Time to cause some property damage." A glow built up around her body and she shot into the air. Within seconds, she was out of sight over the rooftops. But not out of earshot; it didn't take long before they they heard the not-so-distant sounds of her blast tearing into concrete and earth.

    "Is it just me," Taylor observed, "or does she really enjoy her work?"

    Andrea shook her head. "Nope. It isn't just you, hon."

    It didn't take long for Kayden to finish her attack run. Lisa leaned into the car and turned up the radio scanner. It was no coincidence that the scanner was set to the PRT alert frequency. "The good guys are incoming," she pointed out, over the crackle of messages coming through. "I think it's time for Stage Three."

    "Stage Three it is," Dinah decided. She turned to Janet. "You know where the base is?"

    Janet nodded. "I can feel the people in it."

    "And there's water nearby?"

    "Yeah. Lots of it."

    "You can make the water go where you want?"

    "Easily."

    "Good." Dinah grinned. "Go ahead. Fill her up."

    Janet grinned back. Annette got the impression this was the first time the blonde had smiled in some time. "You got it."



    End of Chapter Thirteen
     
    Last edited:
  • Threadmarks
    • Ack said:
    "Good." Dinah grinned. "Go ahead. Fill her up."

    Janet grinned back. Annette got the impression this was the first time the blonde had smiled in some time. "You got it."
    Click to expand...
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    Jesus Christ, Dinah! Gleefully advocating drowning a base full of people, if I understood the conversation correctly. What's more, the harrowing hydrokinetic hydrophobe happens to have no issues with this plan. I mean, sure, she can use it to block paths and herd people for an easily controlled battle, but "fill her up" and "underground base" is a combination that evokes rather... dark imagery.
     
    abyssmal_kismet said:
    Jesus Christ, Dinah! Gleefully advocating drowning a base full of people, if I understood the conversation correctly. What's more, the harrowing hydrokinetic hydrophobe happens to have no issues with this plan. I mean, sure, she can use it to block paths and herd people for an easily controlled battle, but "fill her up" and "underground base" is a combination that evokes rather... dark imagery.
    Click to expand...
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    Do it slow enough, and they have ample time to evacuate the base.
     
    abyssmal_kismet said:
    Jesus Christ, Dinah! Gleefully advocating drowning a base full of people, if I understood the conversation correctly. What's more, the harrowing hydrokinetic hydrophobe happens to have no issues with this plan. I mean, sure, she can use it to block paths and herd people for an easily controlled battle, but "fill her up" and "underground base" is a combination that evokes rather... dark imagery.
    Click to expand...
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    If they went for a full fill, yeah that'd be bad, but Janet has a chance to expel a few more demons here by making them live her nightmares.

    Water rushing and bursting everywhere, always rising but never getting high enough to drown. Lights flickering and failing everywhere, unseen things in the water tugging and nipping at their limbs.

    She's a very specific kind of nightmare any time she wants to be and can leave her target perfectly healthy but far more phobic of water than she herself has ever been.
     
    abyssmal_kismet said:
    Jesus Christ, Dinah! Gleefully advocating drowning a base full of people, if I understood the conversation correctly. What's more, the harrowing hydrokinetic hydrophobe happens to have no issues with this plan. I mean, sure, she can use it to block paths and herd people for an easily controlled battle, but "fill her up" and "underground base" is a combination that evokes rather... dark imagery.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Starfox5 said:
    Do it slow enough, and they have ample time to evacuate the base.
    Click to expand...
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    doomlord9 said:
    If they went for a full fill, yeah that'd be bad, but Janet has a chance to expel a few more demons here by making them live her nightmares.

    Water rushing and bursting everywhere, always rising but never getting high enough to drown. Lights flickering and failing everywhere, unseen things in the water tugging and nipping at their limbs.

    She's a very specific kind of nightmare any time she wants to be and can leave her target perfectly healthy but far more phobic of water than she herself has ever been.
    Click to expand...
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    Exactly and precisely.

    Also, you will note that they called the PRT in to surround the one entrance that wasn't collapsed by a certain high-flying Blaster.

    Basically, she's putting Coil & crew into the worst possible situation. Turning their impregnable base into a one-exit trap, one where they can't just hunker down and wait the enemy out.

    You've heard the term 'flushing them out'?

    Janet's using it literally.
     
    People are going to freak when they realize that the flying Blaster 8-9 is the least scary member of the new team. :D

    Edit: Also, is it just me, or is Kayden showing a few signs that she's unknowingly in the closet?
     
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    Jack of Olives said:
    People are going to freak when they realize that the flying Blaster 8-9 is the least scary member of the new team. :D

    Edit: Also, is it just me, or is Kayden showing a few signs that she's unknowingly in the closet?
    Click to expand...
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    Malcanthet said:
    Oh you got that feeling too?
    Click to expand...
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    No, she's showing signs that she's been spoonfed homophobia by the Empire Eighty-Eight over the course of the last ten years or so.

    Where do you get 'in the closet' signs from?
     
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    Ack said:
    So how do you tell the difference between someone who is trying to conceal it by being extra homophobic and those who are ... just expressing an opinion?
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    From my understanding: if they seem incapable of letting themselves think about why they feel the way they do, it's usually either they're deep in the closet and are terrified of rejection, or something traumatic happened in their past.

    Edit: the trauma option need not have to be from being molested/raped, it could be something like parental figure having a massive fit when they were young due to someone being/acting gay.
     
    Part Fourteen: Turning the Tide
  • Threadmarks
    • Alea Iacta Est

    Part Fourteen: Turning the Tide


    [A/N: This chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]


    Water.

    It is a substance rife with paradoxes.

    A lack of it will kill within a week, while too much of it will kill in minutes.

    Its life-giving properties (for both hygiene and imbibing) are well-known, and indeed it is the most abundant compound on the surface of Earth Bet (and in the universe at large). Yet, while the oceans support an unimaginable spectrum of life, that very water is unpalatable to humans until the salt and other impurities are filtered out of it.

    On oceans and rivers and lakes, it supports watercraft of all types, ranging from the strictly business to the entirely frivolous; despite the more-than-trivial number of drownings per year, people swim and disport themselves in water wherever they find it.

    Water is piped into cities and sprayed over farmlands, to allow life to flourish where it would normally wither. People dam off rivers so that it will collect there, to be used when they need it. Sometimes, they even make their dwellings downstream from the dam itself to make use of the water pressure thus garnered, despite knowing that if (when) water breaks free of its bonds (and its banks) it is a cruel monster with mercy for neither man nor beast.

    Another oddity of water is that, despite being both transparent to light and entirely fluid, it is tremendously resistant to being compressed. This leads to the 'water hammer' phenomenon, which can be either extremely useful or extremely inconvenient, depending on the situation.

    Once in a while, depending on perspective, it can be both at the same time.

    <><>​

    Coil

    On the occasions that Thomas Calvert deliberately collapsed a timeline and opened a new one, he preferred to be in his base, on the principle that it was the safest place in Brockton Bay to do so. Everyone who could reach him here was by definition loyal to him; he paid their quite generous salaries to ensure this state of affairs. After he split the timeline, one instance of him would usually leave the base and go home to enjoy a good night's sleep, while the other would stay back and pull an all-nighter, gathering information from all over and seeing what there was to be seen.

    On this particular instance, he intended to stay in for a while and do some information-gathering from his Tattletale. She liked to tweak him as much as she could get away with, and sometimes he enjoyed reeling her in and finding out what she really knew; a process that occasionally involved testing to destruction. Not that she was ever really aware that this was going on; throwaway timelines were useful like that.

    To this end, he had already contacted her to come in. In one reality, they would sit and talk like employer and employee; she would update him on team needs and he would make any necessary arrangements. In the other, the questioning would be somewhat more stringent. Torture on its own was less useful for gaining crucial information than commonly supposed, but it was an invaluable resource when the subject could also be questioned without torture, and the answers compared in real time.

    And besides, it was fun.

    It wouldn't be the first time he'd coerced answers from her without her knowledge, and it certainly would not be the last. One day, he supposed, he would wring one final fact from her then dispose of her, not bothering to keep a timeline in which she would have survived unscathed. But that would be sometime in the future, once she had ceased to be useful to him. Not today, my Tattletale.

    Frowning at the clock on his computer, he picked up his phone to call her yet again. The guards had not yet reported her entry into the base, and she should have arrived by now. If she was just tweaking him by dawdling, he would make the torture session extra painful and more drawn-out than usual. Not that this would teach the surviving version of her any kind of lesson, but it would make him feel better.

    Just as his finger touched the button to call up her number, a tremendous crash and rumble shook the entire base. He was thrown from his chair by the shock-wave; his phone, dislodged from his hand, skittered across the floor and ended up in the corner. Looking around dazedly, he saw that the back corner of the room had collapsed entirely, throwing up a cloud of concrete dust.

    "What in the name of …?" Old reflexes came to the fore, and he was on his feet with his pistol in his hand before he knew it. Earthquake? He very much doubted it; before he'd ever broken ground for his base, he'd checked the tectonic stability of the area. Besides, Endbringer shelters (which his base effectively was) were rated to handle up to a certain magnitude on the Richter scale. Behemoth had seen to that.

    He got two steps toward the door to his office when another shockwave hammered through the base. This one was less intense, or perhaps a little farther away. He managed to avoid landing on his ass by the expedient of grabbing on to his desk, but it was a near thing. As it was, there was nothing hanging on his walls anymore; it had all ended up on the floor, including his computer monitor and a few more chunks of concrete.

    The door to his office juddered open and he looked out into the main area. Alarms were screeching stridently, with red and yellow flashing lights everywhere. Here and there, he saw his men picking themselves up off the floor; the more alert of them were already checking their weapons and looking around for potential attackers. More concrete dust was in the air out here. Looking up, he saw new cracks radiating across the roof. Nothing serious, not yet. But if this were an Endbringer shelter, he'd be decommissioning it for assessment and repair.

    He'd paused in the doorway for a reason; one shockwave had been a very nasty surprise and two even less pleasant. But with the second tremor, the chance of a third had become much more likely, and so he was braced when it actually came.

    What it was about, he could only make the vaguest of guesses as he rode out the unpleasant sensation. The Endbringer sirens had not gone off, so it wasn't Behemoth seeking to bring the place down around his ears. But capes were almost certainly involved. The only one of the required power level in Brockton Bay was Purity, but why she'd be blasting the ground around his base, he had no idea.

    Oh, crap. His eyes opened wide behind his mask as a disquieting thought occurred to him. The only cape in the city with the potential to take on Purity one-on-one was Lung; if they were engaged in a cape battle directly above his base, this could be very bad indeed. Both from the potential damage to the base itself, and the possibility of discovery by the authorities after the fact.

    Thinking of Purity, something else occurred to him. Scuttlebutt had it that the Empire cape had been hospitalised after Kaiser's death; or at least, a woman suspected to be Purity had been stabbed by Max Anders, posthumously identified as Kaiser, and had ended up in Brockton Bay General. The word was that the PRT were making overtures to her, with a view toward potential recruitment and rebranding. How that was going, he wasn't certain; it wasn't something he was officially read in on. And it certainly didn't explain why the flying blaster was currently wrecking the landscape around his base. Maybe I should've tried recruiting her instead.

    Putting the matter out of his mind, he stepped out on to the catwalk, grasping the rail tightly in case another quake came through. The alarms ceased shrieking, but the red and yellow lights continued to flash. "Guards to the entrances!" he shouted. "Damage reports! I want to know what happened, and I want to know yesterday!"

    As he'd expected, the voice of command steadied his men; with defined duties to carry out, they headed off in various directions. Looking around, he could see that one length of catwalk had collapsed altogether. Fortunately, it didn't seem that anyone had been on it at the time.

    Yet another rumble passed through the base; his grip tightened convulsively on the catwalk rail, but it didn't seem anywhere near as severe as the first three. In fact, even the sound of it was different, as was the feel. It was more like a jackhammer than a series of explosions. And it felt like it was coming up from below, rather than down from above.

    A different alarm began to shrill. This was one he knew about, because he'd overseen its installation. Flooding alarm; an unfortunate necessity in a port city where the entire base was below the water table, and where Leviathan could not be ruled out from visiting. Fortunately, he'd also overseen the installation of a series of high-powered pumps that could be relied upon to shift a large amount of water from inside the base to outside the base in a very short time.

    In another moment, he felt rather than heard the bone-deep reverberation as all ten pumps kicked in. Why the base was flooding—or rather, had been flooding—he wasn't at all certain. Yes, Purity was insanely powerful. But the idea that her blast had tunneled all the way down to the lower parts of the base and then breached the concrete was ridiculous. Not to mention that there was somehow enough water coming in to activate all ten pumps. The only place where there was enough water to do that was a high-pressure main, and he'd made certain to keep a certain distance away from the nearest one when laying out the construction of the base. The last thing he'd wanted to do was draw attention by interrupting city services.

    Turning, he went back into his office and rescued his monitor. There was a crack across the screen now, but it seemed to be functional for the most part. It was a good thing Tattletale was coming in; he had questions for her.

    <><>​

    Danny

    "Hm." Janet didn't say more than that; with her hand (and stump) in her jacket pockets, she seemed to be doing nothing more than staring into the middle distance.

    "What's up?" Lisa didn't even try to shift the smirk she'd been wearing since Dinah gave the order. As Kayden landed beside them and turned her glow off, she gave the mousy-haired woman a high-five.

    "I set up a resonance in the nearest high-pressure water main to burst out of the pipe and tunnel through the intervening rock and earth, using water hammer," Janet explained almost pedantically. "I even managed to break through into the base without much trouble. But it appears Coil is nobody's fool."

    Lisa nodded sympathetically. "Let me guess. Pumps?"

    "Pumps." Janet frowned. "Strong ones. I'm having trouble putting more water into the base than they're pumping out. Even with the water main."

    "Don't try." For a moment, Danny wondered who'd spoken, then he realised it was himself. "You'll just wear yourself out." He looked to Dinah. "Ideas?"

    Dinah grinned. "Just one."

    <><>​

    Coil

    Calvert had barely settled down into the routine of checking damage reports when the flooding alarm went off again. With an irritated frown, he called up the pump status feed. If any of them had gone into default mode, he could start them up again.

    But what he found was much more concerning. One pump had failed utterly, and from the fluctuations coming from the second one, it was on the way out as well. This was extremely problematic; he'd accounted for the possibility of pump failure, but never two at once, especially with this kind of flooding crisis. As he watched, the second pump's flow rate dropped to zero, and the green status light flipped to red.

    And then a third pump started having difficulties.

    <><>​

    Taylor

    "You can jam pumps with your water control?" Taylor shook her head. "That's just bullshit."

    "I would've said the same thing, except that I'm actually doing it." Janet's distant expression had been replaced by bemusement. "Ever since I got my powers, I've been terrified of using them. Terrified of water in general. This—since I got to Brockton Bay—is the first time I've ever deliberately used them." She smiled tightly. "Four down, six to go."

    "Coil's gonna be figuring out this whole thing's been an attack on his base any time now," Lisa observed. Right on cue, her phone rang. Hitting the button, she answered it. "Hey, boss," she said cheerfully. "Yeah, I'm nearby. No, I can see there's been some sort of attack. I can see the craters. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's Purity. I'm looking right at her." Grinning broadly, she gave Kayden a fingertip wave. The woman rolled her eyes and waved back. Taylor had to put her own hand over her mouth to prevent a giggle from escaping.

    The ex-Undersider stopped speaking then, except to give brief noises of acknowledgement. Coil seemed to be quite upset about something; Taylor didn't have to be either Dinah or Lisa to figure out exactly what that was. Given Lisa's commentary about the man, she couldn't bring herself to feel much sympathy for him either.

    "Yeah, sure, right, boss." Lisa seemed to be turning red in the face for some reason. "I'll see you soon. Right. Yeah. See you soon." She hit the button to end the call. "Enjoy your swim, you son of a bitch." Then she collapsed on her ass, howling with laughter. Both Andrea and Annette seemed to share her sense of humour, because they were laughing just as hard; Andrea leaning on Danny for support, and Annette on Taylor.

    Trying hard not to let the giggles overtake her, Taylor looked around as the first sirens became audible.

    <><>​

    Armsmaster

    Colin led the convoy of PRT vehicles toward the location they'd been given. It seemed to coincide with the epicentre of a series of explosions that had been reported in the area; dust was still rising in the air. Several buildings had been demolished and a parking garage utterly trashed, following no pattern he could see. How the chirpy message was related to this, he couldn't be sure, but the chance to bring in Coil was too good to ignore.

    "Keep an eye out for threats," he said over his helmet microphone. "We can't assume that whoever did this damage is out of the area yet." Or that they're friendly, he added silently. This could yet be an elaborate trap for whoever responded to the call. If it was, they'd soon find they had bitten off more than they could chew.

    "Copy." That was the officer in charge of the detachment, a man called Prendergast. Colin listened to the man rattling off orders as he stopped his bike and climbed off. The fence around the construction site was tall and sturdy-looking, but there was a gate, chained shut. A swipe of his halberd dealt with that, then he pushed open the gate and strode in.

    Right where the email had indicated was an innocuous-looking hatch, set into a concrete seating and marked 'Drainage'. Logically enough, it was locked. He looked up and around at the unfinished high-rise building towering over him, checking to ensure the ground shocks hadn't destabilised the structure. While he wasn't an expert on the matter in the way that someone like the Chicago Wards leader Tecton would be, it all seemed to be holding together for the moment.

    Prendergast moved up beside him as his men deployed. "So what do you think?"

    Colin gestured toward the hatch. "I think if they're coming out, they're coming that way." But that was already blatantly obvious. "Though I'm curious about the 'waterlogged' aspect. If it's correct, how does the tipster know that there's water involved? And how is it involved? There are unanswered questions here."

    "True, but if the tip's on the level, I don't care if they used Thinker powers, consulted a ouija board or got a personal text from God." Prendergast chuckled briefly. "I'm happy to field obscure messages all day long if we get results out of it."

    He had a point, though Colin preferred things to be more cut and dried than that. There was also the question as to where Purity had gotten herself to; just as with Hookwolf's demise, the damage patterns in the local area were very familiar-looking. If there'd been a cape battle, who had Purity been fighting? Certainly not Lung; nothing was on fire. Were there members of the Empire Eighty-Eight lying in the rubble? Had the entire mention of Coil been a red herring to get them out here and capture Purity's victims? It didn't make sense; he would've come out for that, just as readily.

    He forced himself to step back from the situation and look at it from the outside. An anonymous tip had been called in by what sounded like a teenage girl. The only teenage girl he knew of whom Purity would have been associated with was Rune. Had she made the call? There were too many variables there. He shook his head and moved on. Either just before or just after the call, Purity had attacked random buildings, then disappeared again. Were the two incidents connected?

    Wait a moment …. He contacted his bike and had it send up a small drone, then called up an overlay map of the area. Once the drone was at sufficient altitude, he marked his own position, then used the visual feed to fill in the positions of the damaged buildings. The four marks formed a rough oblong shape, as if surrounding something.

    She was cutting off escape routes. The conclusion was as inevitable as it was unexpected. And what's the best way of driving someone out of a no doubt heavily fortified underground base? You flush them out, with water. Water didn't care about bullets, or Brute strength. He didn't know how Purity had arranged for Coil's theoretical underground base to fill with water, but he would've bet his halberd he was right.

    "Someone's coming up!" It was a soldier, crouching over the hatch, holding one of his sonophones to the metal. Something he'd come up with in a casual moment, they had proven useful in picking up the sound of people walking over hard surfaces.

    "Positions." Prendergast spoke the order instead of barking it, but his men snapped to action all the same. Some crouched with rifles at the ready, others held containment foam sprayers, and three prepared grenades to be tossed if necessary. Colin recognised the munitions as flashbangs, which would be devastating to the senses if used in a confined space such as an escape tunnel.

    The lock clicked, and the hatch began to raise.

    <><>​

    Coil

    Calvert swore profusely and bitterly as three things impressed themselves upon him with ever-increasing clarity.

    The first was that the pumps were somehow being sabotaged. One after another, they had failed, burning out their motors despite there being no good reason for this to happen. The water in his base was rising at a horrifically impressive rate. He had a backup base, but it was in no way as prepared as this one. Most of his supplies were still crated up, some of the crates beginning to float around on the lower levels. This was going to be a tremendous setback in both resources and planning. If he even got out, which wasn't necessarily a given; it wasn't as simple as that.

    Because the second thing was that Tattletale had betrayed him. It was becoming more and more obvious that she had no intention of showing up to be questioned and/or tortured. Whether or not she was simply taking advantage of the situation or whether she was complicit in the attack had yet to be determined.

    This was the third conclusion he had reluctantly reached. He—his base—was under attack. Purity's blasting run had neither been at random, nor was it part of a cape battle. The shockwaves had been the result of two of the main exits of the base being collapsed. The entrance to his escape tunnel had been in the corner of his office that had collapsed in the first attack. This was the tunnel that nobody was supposed to know about. Even the men who'd installed it without ever knowing what it was about had been disposed of in subtle and 'accidental' ways.

    Only one exit had been left clear. With the rising water mere inches below the upper level catwalk, their options were rapidly vanishing. The trouble was, every instinct he had was screaming at him that this was a trap; if your enemy leaves you one safe way out, it's not a safe way out. Someone was waiting out there for his men; whether it was Purity, some other group or even the Protectorate, his men would be in a supremely vulnerable position as they emerged one at a time.

    The one good thing was that this exit was being left to them. If the unnamed enemy wanted them dead, it would've been all too easy to close off the last exit and leave them to die as the water inexorably rose and they used the last of their trapped air pockets. Getting out alive meant capture and unmasking was a near-inevitability.

    Of course, he had a backup plan. It hadn't been formulated with something as dire as this in mind, but when his back was to the wall, he had to use every available resource. In this instance, the resource was a man called Hocking. Hocking was unremarkable in every way; not overly bright, physically unimpressive, and possessed of a distinct overbite. But he was over six feet tall and almost as skinny as Calvert himself. On the occasions Calvert had required a body double, Hocking had been invaluable, which was why he'd already transmitted the order for the man to report to his office.

    Water was just starting to swill gently over the floor of his office when Hocking showed up at his doorway. "You wanted me, sir?"

    "I did. Come on in, Hocking." Calvert hit the control to close the door, then held out Hocking's copy of the costume he was wearing. This one had been made to the man's measurements; Calvert certainly wasn't going to be wearing something that someone else had sweated into and breathed through. "You know how I've always rewarded you heavily for standing in for me? This will be your command performance." Turning back to his computer—fortunately, none of the electrical connections were at floor level—he typed in a command, transferring two hundred thousand dollars to Hocking's personal account.

    Hocking's eyes widened. "Sir, yes, sir!" he blurted. His boots splashing in the steadily-deepening water, he pulled off his balaclava and began to strip out of his uniform.

    Calvert did the same with his own costume; this was no time for modesty. They swapped out clothing, Calvert donning the mercenary's gear with the ease of long practice. Hocking was less sure with the costume, taking several attempts to get it to zip up. This was somewhat hampered by the fact that the water was nearly ankle-deep by the time he got it right. As the zipper travelled down the seam, with Hocking concentrating on not jamming it, Calvert wandered around behind him, to where the rubble lay on the floor. Picking up a double-fist sized chunk, he waited until Hocking had tucked the tab away next to his ankle, then struck.

    Hocking never saw it coming. The concrete had a hard edge, which made a meaty chunk sound as it contacted his temple; the man collapsed bonelessly into the rising water. Calvert dropped the concrete at his feet and turned Hocking face-down into the water. There were a few brief struggles as the semi-conscious man tried to avoid his fate, but then he went limp. Calvert checked for a pulse; there was none.

    Turning back to the computer, he reversed the transaction—Hocking had been too dazzled by the number of zeroes to realise that he hadn't actually hit the final command to carry it through—then pulled up another screen altogether. This one connected to the base self-destruct mechanism. He told it to mute all warnings and alarms, and blow in fifteen minutes. Then he pressed the hard-shutdown button. Even if his computer survived the upcoming flooding event—which was unlikely—nobody who got to it could reverse the countdown, or would even know it was happening.

    Slinging Hocking's rifle over his shoulder, he hit the control to open the door, then dragged Hocking out, carefully keeping his head above water this time. "Help!" he called out in his best imitation of Hocking's drawl. "Boss hit his head! Help!"

    Mercenaries came running, two of the beefier ones taking over the burden of Hocking's body. One of them—Brooks—asked, "What happened?"

    "Boss called me in ta gimme orders," Calvert said. "Bit o' concrete fell outta th' ceilin' an' beaned him. Figure we need ta git him ta medical help."

    "Right." Brooks looked in through the door to Calvert's office and saw the pile of rubble. "Shit. Okay. We can't treat him here. Only one way out. If we can fight our way out, we do, otherwise we just surrender, okay? We're no good to the boss dead."

    "Hell, we're no good to us dead," quipped the other mercenary, a South African called Holt. "Best we get outta here first, figure out what happens next after that, yeah?"

    Calvert nodded. "Sounds good to me."

    As Brooks and Holt sloshed off along the walkway—the water was well past ankle-deep now, with crates floating in the middle of the open area—he fell into line behind them. He'd done his best to make certain that nobody knew of Hocking's secondary role in the mercenary group, so nobody would be able to betray him, even by accident.

    "Everyone, keep your rifles dry." Brooks seemed to be falling naturally into the leadership role. Calvert made a mental note to watch the man in future, if they both survived the situation. "They'll fire wet, but the lasers will have problems with water."

    Under the balaclava, Calvert grimaced. It was really something he should've considered, but an attack on the base combining above-ground bombardment and underground flooding hadn't featured in the situations he'd anticipated. As it was, the lasers worked well even in humid conditions but if they actually got wet, they shorted out very rapidly indeed. With this in mind, as the water climbed toward his waist, he unslung his rifle and held it over his head. Several of the mercenaries around him mimicked the action.

    <><>​

    Taylor

    "Lisa …" Janet was frowning again. "What does it mean when henchmen hold their hands up like this, when there's no enemies in sight?" She lifted her arms so that her good hand was above her head, with her elbows slightly bent.

    "Weapons." Lisa's voice was firm. "Definitely weapons. They want to keep them dry."

    Danny raised his eyebrows. "Wait, you can tell the posture of a person from this distance? Underground?"

    "It's not as easy as it sounds, but when a lot of them are doing the same thing, it gets my attention." Janet chewed her lip. "Weapons, huh?"

    Leaning against the hood of the car, Taylor steadied the small tray her father had made, and rolled a couple of dice. "That's interesting," she murmured. She rolled again, and the numbers unfolded in her head. "Really interesting."

    "If you say 'interesting' one more time without explaining, I am going to punch you," Lisa said, mock-severely. "I'm supposed to be the one who makes obscure comments without including context. Get your own schtick."

    Taylor smirked and gathered her dice up. "No, you won't. I don't even need to roll to figure that one out. Okay, guys? I just asked the dice if this will blow up in our faces if we walk away now. Seventy-three percent chance of that happening. Second roll was for the chance of Coil getting away even now. Seventy-eight percent."

    "Oh, really." Janet put her hand—and stump—back in her pockets. "Let's see about that, then. If they want their weapons to stay dry, they're shit out of luck."

    Lisa turned to Danny. "Can we get closer? I need eyes on the situation. Whatever Coil's planning, if I can't see it, I can't screw him over."

    "That way." Dinah pointed. "And we're going to need the binoculars you keep in the trunk."

    Danny blinked. "I'd totally forgotten about the binoculars. How did you know I had a pair?"

    Dinah considered that, then shrugged. "My power told me your job was to supply Lisa with the binoculars she needs to carry out her job of surveilling Coil?"

    "Total bullshit," muttered Lisa as she climbed into the back of Danny's car. "Other Thinkers suck."

    "I guess you're used to being the smartest person in the room," observed Taylor as she got in as well. Dinah and Annette got into the back of Andrea's car, while Janet got in the front. Kayden climbed into the front of Danny's car. Personally, she thought Lisa was overreacting. "I'm just glad you're working with us on this one. I mean, would you rather Coil got away, to soothe your pride?"

    Lisa stuck out her tongue at Taylor. Taylor giggled.

    <><>​

    Coil

    Calvert currently had two timelines running; one where he was toward the back of the pack, and one where he was up near the front. In neither one was he actually helping carry the costumed body of their supposed leader; the last thing he wanted was for someone to see them next to each other and come to the right conclusion.

    Neither placement helped very much when the next unexpected event occurred. Startled yells were all the warning anyone got, before a massive surge of water came along the tunnel from the base. He tried desperately to hold his rifle out of the inundation but it reached clear to the roof, drenching everyone in the tunnel as well as everything they were holding. And then he felt the push from behind. It wasn't just a wave, it was a current. A second later, he revised that estimate upward; it was a torrent. Lifted off the floor and spun around, he lost his grip altogether on the rifle, not to mention any idea of where up and down were.

    Fuck. I'm going to drown in my own base.

    <><>​

    Armsmaster

    The hatch clicked and began to rise. Every man took a pace forward, aiming their rifles and readying their other munitions. And then there was a sound from below, somewhere between a rumbling and a whooshing. The hatch flipped up and back to the accompaniment of startled yells from inside the tunnel. Colin had just enough time to register that it had been forced upward by a blast of high-pressure air … then the water arrived.

    Erupting straight up in a square pillar shaped by the hatchway itself, the water formed a fountain ten feet high. He was drenched in a heartbeat, along with every soldier there, as men shot up out of the hatch one after the other, flailing wildly. They rained to the ground—along with the rain of water, of course—within the perimeter of soldiers, almost as if they'd been carefully placed there.

    And then it was over. The vast majority of the water drained back into the hatch, though he could've sworn some of it had to run uphill to do so. Not all of it went, of course. The PRT soldiers' uniforms were still soaked, and there were droplets on his visor, but the tons of water that had gushed up out of the hatch were simply not present anymore. He decided to worry about it later. The involuntary exit had apparently knocked the fight out of Coil's men, but they would recover.

    His main goal was to lay hands on Coil himself, and he smiled grimly to himself when he saw the costumed figure lying among the other men. "Secure them!" he called out, and headed for Coil himself. It was only when he got close that he realised Coil wasn't moving, and that there was red staining a white section of the part of his mask covering his head. Leaning down, he placed his hand on the skinny man's neck. Sensors in his gauntlet told the story; there was no heartbeat, no respiration.

    Coil was dead. This wasn't a capture, with the kudos that would come along with it. It was just a matter of bagging and tagging a corpse. He grimaced, knowing that Piggot would be far less impressed with a dead supervillain than a live one.

    "What happened here?" He grabbed the nearest one of Coil's men, and pointed at the deceased villain. "How did he die?"

    "Rubble hit him on the head," the man mumbled dazedly. Pulling off his balaclava, he turned away and threw up water.

    Colin's lips thinned. It looked like all of the other men had survived, though some were probably suffering from broken arms or legs. A clean sweep, marred only by Coil's death.

    Which brought him back to the original query. Who did this? An outside agency had planned this entire situation, from the bombardment (Purity) to the phone call to Piggot (an unnamed teenage girl) to someone emulating Leviathan to drive Coil and his henchmen from their base. Their motives were probably pure but their actions had resulted in the death of Coil, a man who hadn't even earned a Birdcage sentence yet, much less a kill order. Even accidental, that made this death into a case of manslaughter, or perhaps negligent homicide.

    That's the last thing we need in Brockton Bay. Another bunch of loose cannons.

    A flash of light some distance away caught his attention, but when he looked there was nothing there. When it didn't recur, he sent the drone in that direction and went back to what he'd been doing.

    <><>​

    Tattletale

    Kneeling on the roof of the building with her elbows resting on the parapet, Lisa steadied the binoculars. Behind her, she knew Kayden was trying to see what was happening as well, but they only had the one pair of binoculars.

    She watched as they took the mercenaries into custody, disarming them and zip-tying their hands behind their backs. Coil himself lay unattended, arms and legs askew in a manner that would've been highly uncomfortable if he was still alive. But he was dead now, and with him went the most direct threat to Lisa's life.

    The drone was the next thing she spotted; it was headed in their direction, and would get there in another couple of minutes. This, she knew, could be problematic for everyone, so she prepared to wrap up and get out of there. But as she performed her last sweep, something made her narrow her eyes and tighten her lips.

    Tall mercenary next to Brooks, walk is familiar. Trying to disguise it, glancing up at the building under construction. Planning to make a run for it.

    Walk is what Coil's would be if he was wearing armour and had his arms fastened behind his back. Scared of building collapsing on him.

    Is Coil. Switched costumes with another mercenary. Murdered his body double to fake his death. Knows building will collapse. Arranged for building to collapse. Explosives. Explosives in base. Base is going to self-destruct. Intends to escape in the confusion.

    "Shit," she muttered. "Shit, shit, shit." She scrabbled for her phone.

    "What?" Kayden leaned down beside her. "Tattletale, what?"

    Lisa paused, then eyed the unassuming-looking woman. "How precise can you be? With your blasts, I mean?"

    "They tend to spread out, but I can usually keep them on track." Kayden frowned. "Why?"

    Lisa grinned a tight grin, and told her why. Then she made a phone call.

    <><>​

    Coil

    Calvert knew his internal countdown wasn't perfect, but it had to be getting close to time. While he'd been disarmed and zip-tied, he had ways and means of getting out of zip-ties. He didn't know which way the half-built construction would fall, but his power would help avoid that as well. And while all that was happening, if one of the mercenaries happened to slip away, would they try all that hard to find him?

    For the fifteenth time since he'd been spat out of his base, he split time and made a run for it. This time, he was clotheslined by a soldier who stepped out from behind one of the vans and held out his arm. He dropped that timeline and split off another one.

    "You." A hand fell on his shoulder. Gauntleted; Armsmaster's. "Come here."

    Again, he made a bolt for it. Taser wires spiked into his back and he fell over, twitching uncontrollably.

    In the other timeline, he nodded. "Uh, okay?" He stumbled a few steps in compliance, trying to slouch so that his height wasn't so immediately apparent. "What do you want? I can tell you all about what Coil did, stuff like that. Easy-peasy." While he was speaking, he refreshed his timeline.

    Armsmaster seemed to be staring at him as if he were aware of the repeated attempts to escape. Then he reached out and yanked the balaclava off.

    In one timeline, Calvert shoulder-charged Armsmaster in an attempt to push him off balance, while in the other he turned away, ducking his head to shield his face.

    He was foamed before he made it two steps. As with all the other timelines where he'd been irrevocably captured, he started fresh. In the timeline where he'd tried to hide his face, Armsmaster gripped his shoulder again, servo-assisted fingers digging into his flesh. The hero's other hand forced Calvert's head up and around. There was a long moment, then Armsmaster's lips thinned. "Commander Thomas Calvert, I'm arresting you on suspicion of—"

    That was the moment when the self-destruct went off. The ground rumbled and shook and water blasted up out of the hatchway again, this time in a column that reached over a hundred feet in the air. Fissures and cracks opened up here and there, more water fountaining up out of them.

    Above them, ominous groans and creaks heralded the oncoming danger. Calvert looked up involuntarily, to see the half-constructed building beginning to sway back and forth in a most alarming fashion. "Run!" he yelled, entirely genuine fear in his voice. "It's coming down!"

    Before Armsmaster could react, a brilliant-white streak came boring in from nowhere. Spiralling curls of energy lashed out from Purity's hands, striking the top of the building and smashing it backwards, away from the PRT contingent. She slowed to a halt and continued her assault, working her beam down the imperilled construction. With each floor that was shattered and blasted away, the swaying from the remainder became less and less pronounced.

    When the last of the building collapsed, it did so more or less straight down, with barely any rubble making it to the freshly-drenched PRT soldiers. Purity hovered for a moment, as if looking over her handiwork, then turned and accelerated away. As she did so, the remains of some sort of drone fell to the ground nearby.

    Despite being knocked around a little by the impromptu fountain, the PRT soldiers were still well in charge of the situation. Worst of all, Armsmaster had maintained his grip on Calvert's shoulder. If his fingers dug in any deeper, Calvert suspected that his shoulder joint would begin to separate. And while he'd kept in training with his CQC, he knew that fighting an armoured opponent (especially one as competent as Armsmaster) was a losing proposition.

    "As I was saying," Armsmaster stated. "Commander Thomas Calvert, you are under arrest for suspicion of carrying out criminal acts, and inciting criminal acts, under the guise of the supervillain Coil while serving as an officer of the Parahuman Response Teams. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be taken down …"

    Calvert grimaced as Armsmaster droned on and on. He barely reacted as the armoured hero fitted heavy Tinkertech cuffs on him to replace the zip-ties. They knew who he was, and they had him in custody. However, there was one faint ray of light. With the destruction of his base, there was no direct evidence to link him to being Coil. All he had to do was deny it and admit to a lesser charge.

    One niggling question still bothered him, though.

    How did he even know?

    <><>​

    Director Emily Piggot

    A Few Minutes Earlier

    Watching the ongoing bust through Armsmaster's helmet-cam wasn't quite as satisfying as being there, but it was nearly as good. She watched the mercenaries being disarmed, secured and herded together. And then her phone rang. Looking at it, she frowned as the unknown number popped up again.

    "Hello?" she said cautiously.

    "Yeah, hi." It was another teenage girl. "Enjoying the show?" This one sounded altogether too cheeky for her own good. Somehow, she knew Emily was watching the bust, but that wasn't the important part.

    "You got Coil killed." Emily's tone was flat. "That was careless of you." The subtext was clear; whoever this new team was (because she had no doubt it was a new team) they would have some yardage to make up before the PRT gave them any sort of trust.

    "So sure of that, are you?" She could hear the smirk in the voice. "That's not Coil. That's his body double. Coil swapped out with him, then murdered him so he could get away in the confusion."

    "Really." Emily was still dubious, but she was listening. "So which one's the real Coil?" It was worth a try, anyway.

    "Near the van. The tall one who just looked up at the building. You'll note that he's the same body type as the dead guy. Also—"

    Emily dropped the phone and grabbed up her radio microphone. "Armsmaster, I've just gotten new information. Coil may not be dead."

    He sounded surprised, even affronted. "I'm sorry, ma'am, but he is. Negative life signs. My sensors—"

    "There's a strong chance that's not Coil. The one to your right, the tall one. I've just been informed that he's really Coil. The other one's supposedly a body double."

    "On it." His voice, previously resigned, went up several notches in energy. He strode over to the tall mercenary. "You." His voice sounded over the radio link as he slapped one gauntleted hand on the man's shoulder. "Come here."

    "Uh, okay?" The mercenary stumbled a few steps toward Armsmaster. "What do you want? I can tell you all about what Coil did, stuff like that. Easy-peasy."

    Emily gripped the radio mic. On her desk, the phone rang but she ignored it. The mercenary's voice sounded familiar. Where have I heard that voice before? "Take his balaclava off. I want to see his face."

    It only took a second or so for Armsmaster to respond to the order. His free hand came up and pulled the waterlogged balaclava from the man's head. Almost immediately, the guy twisted away, trying to hide his face. Armsmaster didn't need an order to force his head around to where Emily could see his features.

    "Son of a bitch. That's Thomas fucking Calvert." Immediately, she started running the numbers in her head.

    If he's really Coil, this explains so much.

    What if he's not? What if he's just a peon?

    She shook her head. That wasn't the Thomas Calvert she knew and disliked. Calvert hated being ordered around by others. He'd shot his own captain in the mess at Ellisburg, all those years ago. She would personally bet a year's salary that even if he hadn't started out as Coil, he would've murdered the man and taken over.

    "Commander Thomas Calvert," Armsmaster pronounced. "I'm arresting you on suspicion of—"

    A loud rumble cut through the sound, and the view shook. Water suddenly poured down over everything, then Coil's voice cut through the confusion. "Run! It's coming down!"

    Armsmaster's helmet tilted upward, and Emily saw that the partially-constructed building that had overshadowed the bust was swaying like a tree in a high wind. Creaks and groans were audible over her speakers. Oh, shit. There was a self-destruct. And then the bright light burst on the scene.

    "Fuck," muttered Emily. "Purity." As if things hadn't been bad enough before.

    And then, as if the universe was conspiring with itself to fuck with her, she watched incredulously as the flying blaster blew the building away, floor by floor, until it no longer threatened the PRT troopers and Armsmaster. Shaking her head, she stared as the glowing cape flew away again. "Bullshit," she said out loud. "Utter bullshit." It wasn't Purity's demonstrated power level she was objecting to; that had already been adequately calculated. It was the fact that she'd saved PRT troops.

    Armsmaster's attention turned back to Calvert. "As I was saying. Commander Thomas Calvert, you are under arrest for suspicion of carrying out criminal acts, and inciting criminal acts, under the guise of the supervillain Coil while serving as an officer of the Parahuman Response Teams. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be taken down …"

    Emily was absolutely certain that the mysterious tipster was indeed correct, but there were problems still to be surmounted.

    The courts are going to need more than my assessment of the man. They're going to need more than a gut feeling. And I suspect he's going to go for a plea deal, claim to have been infiltrating the gangs or some other bullshit ploy. I need to be able to nail him to the wall.

    And then she smiled. It was not a nice smile. As a strike squad commander, he had an office in the PRT building. In that office, he had a computer. He might have high security on that computer, but I have two Tinkers to call on. More, if necessary. And nothing that ever goes on the internet goes away. Calvert, prepare to have every secret of your life laid bare.

    "Stick with him every minute of the way," she directed Armsmaster over the radio link. "I don't want even the slightest chance of him getting away. And after you get back, I've got another job for you."

    "Yes, ma'am," he agreed.

    Cutting the call, she leaned back in her chair. She didn't know how the irritating girl had known Coil was using a body double, or how she'd pinpointed that one henchman among all the others. But it was a win, all the same. I'll definitely take it.

    The other things that still lacked explanations—the rationale behind Purity's actions, and the identity of the water-controlling cape, just to name two—could be dealt with in good time. All that mattered was that one of the gangs in her city was dealt with, once and for all.

    <><>​

    Taylor

    "Welp, that's that." Lisa jumped down from the fire escape and dusted her hands off. Unslinging the binoculars from around her neck, she handed them over to Danny. "Thanks for that. We just averted a major crisis. Even if she didn't stop to listen to me about the base self-destruct." Pausing, she glanced over at Taylor. "We did avert it, didn't we?"

    "Let me check." Taylor let the dice run over her palm a couple of times, feeling her heart rate increase. She didn't want to roll, in case the numbers came up bad. Finally, as Kayden came in for a landing, she tossed them gently across the tray. One by one, they tumbled to a stop. She smiled and looked up at the others. "Less than one percent chance of him getting out and causing problems."

    "Woo!" Annette grabbed her and spun her around, then kissed her in the general vicinity of her left ear. "Taylor for the win!"

    "Pfft, get off, you lunatic." Laughing, Taylor fended off her overly demonstrative friend. "It wasn't just me. It was everyone. We all get this win. This is our victory."

    "Definitely." Danny, with his arm around Andrea, looked over the group. "We did good. We did really good. All of us."

    Andrea nodded. "I agree. So where do we go with this next?"

    Lisa caught Dinah's eye. Their smirks were almost identical. "Oh, don't worry—" said Lisa.

    "—we have ideas," Dinah finished.

    "Oh, god, there's two of them," groaned Janet.

    "Two Lisas, or two Dinahs?" asked Taylor.

    Annette smirked as well. "Yes."


    End of Part Fourteen
     
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