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Confrontation II: the Reckoning (Worm fanfic) COMPLETE

Discussion in 'Creative Writing' started by Ack, Jul 26, 2015.

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  1. Threadmarks: Part Seven: The New Normal
    Ack

    Ack (Verified Ratbag) (Unverified Great Old One)

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    Confrontation II: The Reckoning

    Part Seven: The New Normal

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

    Dennis pulled the whiteboard over to where the Wards were sitting, and picked up a red marker. “Okay, then. The fighting’s died down for the moment, but it’s not over yet. Kaiser wants more territory and there’s nobody out there with the firepower to stop him. So this is … I guess a half-time briefing?” He turned toward us and shook his head slightly. “Yeah, I know this isn’t a game. I couldn’t think of a better analogy.”

    I shrugged, because it hadn’t really bothered me. Sophia was more my concern. She and I had more or less escaped injury, while the other Wards had been less lucky. Missy’s arm was in a sling, Chris’s armour had been absolutely trashed (and he apparently had a ringing headache) and Carlos looked like a botched Frankenstein experiment. Dean was absent because he was in sickbay with suspected broken ribs. With all that, Sophia looked absolutely wretched, while everyone else just looked pissed. Except Browbeat, who was currently manning the console. He looked as stolid as ever.

    “Okay, then.” Dennis uncapped the black marker and drew several columns on the board. The first one was marked ARRESTS, the second GANG INJURIES, the third HERO INJURIES. The fourth one was marked DEATHS. Then he switched to a green marker. “Cape arrests: Rune, by Buzz and Shadow Stalker. Apparently they drove off Grue at the same time. Not gonna say a twofer wouldn’t have been nice, but Rune’s a large part of the Empire’s artillery support, so I’m gonna just give you extra kudos for the fact that you pulled this off out of costume.” He wrote RUNE in the first column.

    “Whirligig and Mush,” offered Chris. Wearing T-shirt and jeans with a domino mask, he didn’t look up from the notepad on his lap, where he was busily sketching. “Pretty sure that was Armsmaster.”

    “Right,” agreed Dennis. “Was that before or after Squealer ran down Aegis?” He carefully printed the names in the appropriate column.

    “After,” husked Carlos. I wasn’t sure how he was even talking. Or seeing the board, for that matter. His entire body redefined ‘road rash’. “I nearly had her, too.”

    “Sure thing.” Missy went to pat him on the shoulder, then refrained. “Um, I helped Miss Militia capture Othala and recapture Stormtiger. We nearly got Cricket, but she did something weird with sound and got away.”

    I was impressed. Missy and Miss Militia were a potent team, but Stormtiger had been hard enough to capture the first time around. Something occurred to me, and I flicked a couple of fingers in the air. “Uh, Clock, how about Purity? Did she do anything? Was she in on it?”

    “No, actually.” He sounded relieved. “Seems the rumour that she’s had a split with the Empire are true. Either that, or Kaiser’s keeping her in reserve. But given the absolute shitshow out there today, I’m inclined to doubt it.” He turned back to the board and finished writing in the names, then swapped out to a purple marker. “Okay, gang cape injuries, anyone?”

    Missy spoke up again. “Victor took a hit from Skidmark. Looked like his shoulder was pretty messed up. Cricket took a shot to the leg from Miss Militia, but she was walking on it. And Glory Girl busted Menja’s kneecap.”

    “Victor, Cricket, Menja, right,” noted Dennis, writing busily. “Buzz, Stalker, how did Grue look to you when you last saw him?”

    I took a deep breath. “Well, we handled him pretty roughly, but he’s got those leathers, so I’d be surprised if he’s got anything more than bruises. He was on one of Hellhound’s dogs, so I’m thinking she was in the area too. Maybe Rune hurt her before going after Grue, but I don’t know enough to be sure.”

    “Hm. Good point.” Dennis wrote HELLHOUND? in the gang injuries column. “Nobody else we know of?” After a pause during which nobody spoke up, he nodded and swapped the marker for a blue one. “Okay, then. Hero injuries?”

    There was a pause, then Missy cleared her throat and pointed at Aegis. He turned his head to look at her. I got the impression he was trying to look and sound reproachful, but it just wasn’t coming across. “I’m good. I can still go out there.”

    “No, you can’t.” Dennis shook his head, then turned to the whiteboard and started writing Aegis’ name. “Your body isn’t any more durable than anyone else’s. You need time to heal. I’m pulling you from the patrol roster. You’re on monitor duty until I say otherwise.”

    “No,” rasped Carlos. “What if someone else gets hurt because I’m not there?”

    “What if you get killed because you think you can take a hit and you can’t?” Dennis shot back. “I’ve been assigned this responsibility, and I’m damn well gonna carry it out. And that means not sending injured teammates out into battle.”

    “Panacea—” began Carlos.

    “—will show up if and when she shows up,” interrupted Dennis. “The Director is aware of how badly we were hit. I know this because I forwarded her that information just before we started this meeting. If she chooses to request Panacea’s assistance, then that will happen. If she chooses not to, then that will happen instead. I am not part of that decision-making chain, and nobody here is dying of internal injuries right now, and you are going on monitor duty, so can we just put a pin in that and move along?”

    I blinked. Even Sophia seemed a little surprised by the outburst. It seemed Dennis’s happy-go-lucky, goofy personality had taken a hit. Instead of joking his way through the crisis, he was actually stepping up and making sure everyone knew how serious it was. I’d seen his mature side a couple of times before, especially the time Oni Lee had tried to assassinate me, but this was a whole new level. He wasn’t even trying to lighten the mood by calling the Director ‘Miss Piggy’, which just showed how fraught the situation was.

    “Sounds good to me, Clock,” said Chris, though even he had to stare at his friend for a moment. “You can put me down as out of combat for the moment too, until I can throw together some spare parts and make new armour. And don’t forget Vista’s arm.”

    “Hey!” she protested. “I can use my powers just fine with a broken arm!”

    “Let’s see you do ten push-ups,” Dennis retorted. “No? You’re strictly noncombat only. Until that arm heals up, you’re not even allowed to look at a villain. There’s blood on the streets, guys, and not all of it’s villain blood.” He turned back to the board and wrote KID WIN (ARMOR) and VISTA in the ‘Heroes Injured’ column. “Also, Gallant.” He put that name down too.

    “What happened to him, anyway?” I asked. “I thought his armour was pretty tough.”

    “It was,” agreed Dennis. “But when Menja punts you through a brick wall, it involves whole new levels of stress-testing.” He tapped the board with the other end of the marker for a moment. “Assault’s down at the moment, too. One of Coil’s mercs tagged him with a laser. Damn near took his leg off. Velocity ran into one of Skidmark’s skid-fields and got thrown fifty feet into a car. He can walk, with crutches, but he can’t run.” Both those names went down.

    “Geez,” I muttered. “We should’ve been there. Maybe we could’ve helped.”

    Sophia’s hand closed on my arm. “We couldn’t have known,” she reminded me firmly. “I mean, yeah, this is probably about Lung, but shit happens. They chose to start this gang war, not us. They’re the ones who’re responsible for this shitshow.”

    She stopped and looked around at the rest of the Wards, who were staring at her with varying degrees of disbelief. “What?”

    “Are we going to have to call for Master/Stranger protocols on you, Stalker?” asked Chris. “I can’t even remember the last time you took the time to be the voice of reason, much less comfort anyone.”

    “Hey, she can be nice!” I protested. The dubious looks intensified. “Well, she can,” I insisted. “You just don’t know her like I do. Because you never bothered to try.”

    “You know what?” Dennis turned back to the board. “I’m not even going to argue that one.” Raising the marker, he wrote GLORY GIRL and BRANDISH in large bold strokes.

    “Wait, what happened to them?” I asked. I didn’t know them all that well, but they were Panacea’s family and she’d been nice to me when she didn’t really have to.

    “Shit, I thought everyone knew.” Dennis glanced at Missy, then turned to me. “Glory Girl went for Menja after Gallant got kicked through the wall. Busted Menja’s kneecap and put her on her ass, then Fenja came in and shield-swatted her into the ground. Somehow this got through her invincibility. Last I heard, she was still in a coma. Brandish was getting set to take on Fenja when Alabaster sideswiped her with a truck, then drove over her arm. It got pretty badly mangled. That gave the Valkyrie twins time to get away.”

    “Holy fuck.” Sophia shook her head. “It’s like they’re pulling out all the stops. No holds barred.”

    “I’m pretty sure that’s not what they intended,” Dennis said. “For my money, it was supposed to be a straight-up territory grab. But Kaiser underestimated everyone else’s dedication to not letting him have what he wanted. They struck back, the Empire struck harder, and it all escalated out of control.”

    “So where’s the Triumvirate in all this?” I looked around at all the other Wards. “Surely they’d be stepping in by now, right?”

    “Pfft, are you kidding?” I’d never heard Chris sound so bitter. “I asked Armsmaster. Right now, no heroes have died, so we’re theoretically holding the line. The Triumvirate have craploads of crisis points that they’ve got to deal with, any one of them as problematic as the Bay just got. We’re in the queue, but we’ve got number one million, and they’re currently serving number one.”

    “Goddamn it.” Sophia shook her head. “If you’d asked me six months ago about this sort of scenario, I would’ve been chomping at the bit to get out there and kick heads with no restrictions. But now … it’s fucked up, that’s what it is. Everything’s totally fucked up. And not in a good way.”

    I had an idea what she was talking about. If the villains kept pushing like this, it was likely to bring on a huge crackdown from heroes and PRT alike. The big guns would come into town and people like the Undersiders, who didn’t do much in the way of damage, would be caught in the crossfire. I put an arm around her shoulders, and she leaned into me. “Hey,” I said. “It’s gonna be okay. We’ll all get through this.”

    “Thanks,” she mumbled, then she raised her head at the sudden silence. “What?”

    Dennis shook his head. “Nothing,” he said. “I’m just saying, this new you is taking me a bit of time to get used to. Getting all emotional and stuff? Wow.”

    “Are you absolutely certain we shouldn’t be calling for Master/Stranger protocols?” asked Browbeat from across the room; I got the impression he’d been listening in. “I don’t know Shadow Stalker all that well, but this is definitely out of character for her.” He didn’t sound as though he was joking.

    “She’s fine, Browbeat,” I called out. “She’s just had a bit of an upsetting day. I know what happened. I was there. And before you ask …” I gathered a swarm right behind his chair. They buzzed, “It’s none of your business.”

    “And there’s the Buzz we all know and fear,” Chris chuckled, breaking the tension.

    “I, for one, welcome our new insectoid overlord,” misquoted Dennis, before resuming his serious demeanour. “Okay, Buzz is literally Shadow Stalker’s parole officer. If she says everything’s on the up and up, that’s good enough for me. So, on to the part nobody wanted to hit.” He changed out markers again, for a red one. “Deaths.”

    “Thank god none of us is up there,” Chris muttered.

    Yet,” Missy threw in, surprising me. She was as hard-headed as they came out in the field, but normally she let herself unwind once she was in base. The events of the last few hours seemed to have hit her as hard as they had Sophia, but they’d had the effect of toughening her rather than making her open up.

    Dennis drew a deep breath. “Okay, top of the hour.” He wrote SKIDMARK at the head of the column. “That one’s on Kaiser, after Skidmark put a three-foot steel bar through Victor’s shoulder then tried to do the same to him.”

    I winced, imagining Kaiser’s reaction to such a slight. Skidmark probably hadn’t even had time to scream. It would’ve been very quick and very brutal.

    “What about Hookwolf?” asked Chris.

    “We don’t know, one way or the other,” Dennis pointed out. “Yes, Ballistic blew him out of the city. But the guy’s got a serious Brute level for a reason. We can’t even count him as injured until there’s an official notification.”

    “Oh.” Missy drooped. “I just wish he …”

    Chris put his hand on her shoulder. “Yeah. We all do.”

    Nobody disagreed. I’d never faced Hookwolf, but we all knew he was a bad opponent. Known for his brutal approach to combat, and rarely going easy on anyone he faced, he was on the official do-not-approach list for the Wards. It was an open secret that if and when he was captured by the authorities, he would be Birdcage bound. Nobody in the room (and relatively few people in the city) would be unhappy when that took place.

    I made a mental note to go easy on Ballistic if I ever had to face him in combat. Literally throwing Hookwolf out of the city had to take serious guts, and he’d probably saved whoever the Nazi asshole had been fighting at the time.

    “Anyone know of any other deaths?” asked Dennis, holding the cap over the red marker. “No? Thank God for that.” He capped it, then dropped it back on the little tray. “Okay, then. Let’s talk about what’s going on, and what’s expected of the Wards.”

    “Wait a second.” I flicked a finger in the air again. “What happened with Squealer? She wasn’t captured or killed or injured?” As the last cape in the Merchant leadership, what she did would affect the drug-based gang.

    “After Kaiser shredded Skidmark, she went kind of nuts,” offered Chris. “Tried to run Kaiser down, but he got out of the way. Aegis didn’t.” He glanced across at Carlos. “Then she vanished, just drove away from the fight.”

    “So yes, we also have a vengeful Tinker lurking out there somewhere, who’s proficient in building big scary vehicles out of scrap,” Dennis pointed out. Unlike how he normally might have said it, there wasn’t a single element of humour in his tone.

    “I’m just glad Bakuda’s out of the picture,” Chris agreed. “Two Tinkers, both with a rage-boner against the city? I’d be telling my parents to move. I still might.”

    I shuddered, recalling my last run-in against Bakuda. Only Sophia’s skill and a certain amount of luck had gotten me out of that one alive. I really, really didn’t want to have to face another pissed-off Tinker any time soon. “So, does Alexandria have any openings in the LA Wards?” I asked, only wondering after I opened my mouth if I was really joking.

    “Only if your parents are prepared to move.” Dennis left the whiteboard and came over to snag a chair. Turning it around, he sat down with his arms across the back, facing us. “We can take all the leave time we want, or take ourselves off the patrol roster, but there’s no way in hell you could convince anyone to transfer into the city right now, so the Director has put a hold on frivolous transfers. That covers Protectorate and PRT as well, in case you were wondering.”

    “Okay, got it.” It wasn’t as though I’d been planning to leave anyway. Brockton Bay was my city, damn it. “So what’s actually going on?”

    Dennis raised his hand and started ticking off points. “Orders from above are that we never patrol alone, and in pairs only in low-activity areas. We don’t go after a villain unless we’re supporting an approved Protectorate or PRT operation. We don’t get into a villain-on-villain fight at all; that’s for the big boys. We’ve had half a dozen incidences where capes could have died, including a couple of ours, and at least one villain’s died that we know of. We have no idea what’s been going on behind the scenes where we don’t have a presence. A lot of the low-end villains haven’t shown up at all, and we don’t know if that means they’re dead or just keeping their heads down and riding this out.”

    I nodded. “If their henchmen had any sense, they’d be staying home with the door locked and the blinds pulled, not answering the phone.” Any cape fight where either side chose to get serious tended to end badly for the minions involved.

    “How about Uber and Leet?” asked Sophia, rousing slightly. “If those two fuckwits get involved, absolutely anything could happen, none of it good.”

    “Put them in the ‘out of sight for now’ column,” Dennis said. “They haven’t even been posting to their channel.”

    That made me wonder. If they hadn’t even posted up a “We’re staying out of this” message, there was a good chance they’d been taken out by Kaiser’s forces early on. I didn’t know how to feel about that. It wasn’t as if I’d ever met them, and I’d heard they were kinda assholes, but something I’d been closely involved in had led to their potential deaths.

    “On the upside,” Chris noted. “Schools are shut until all this dies down.”

    I had to agree that this was a good thing, though my overall feelings were mixed. On the one hand, not having large numbers of children in one place was a good thing in case a cape battle spilled over. But on the other, my life at Winslow was just starting to come together. Emma and Madison were on notice, and I had Sophia to back me up, so I was actually able to get the grades I needed to go on to bigger and better things.

    Well, school would still be there after all this settled out. And it would be good to not have that to worry about, just for the moment.

    “There is that,” agreed Dennis. “Now, Aegis and Vista, you’re support only until you’re both back up to fighting form. Kid Win, you’re the same until you can get some armour together. That leaves Browbeat, me, Buzz and Shadow Stalker.”

    “I’m taking myself off the patrol roster,” Browbeat said. The tone of his voice wasn’t whiny or defensive, just … matter of fact. “I thought I was ready for this, until the bank robbery. I barely held my own against the Undersiders. I’m happy to take down muggers, but I’m no more durable than Aegis, and I can’t take an injury and keep on going like he can. They’re looking for blood out there.”

    Dennis’ expression didn’t change. Neither did he look back over his shoulder at the burly Ward. “Understood. I’ll make a note of that. Okay, that’s me, Buzz and Stalker.” He looked at the two of us. “Unless either of you wants out?”

    Sophia and I shook our heads at the same moment. “We’re a team,” I said. “We took down Oni Lee together. We can hold our own.”

    I couldn’t swear that there wasn’t a tear of pride in Dennis’ eye when he stood up from his chair. “And I will be honoured to kick ass alongside you,” he stated firmly. Taking the whiteboard, he flipped it over to show a city map taped to it. Recent movements of gangs, as well as the currently-defined borders of gang territory, had been marked in with sharpie. “So, our patrol tomorrow will commence at nine oh five. We’ll make our way north along the Boardwalk …”

    <><>​

    … beep … beep … beep …

    Victoria Dallon lay in the bed, so very still.

    Amy sat beside her, Vicky’s hand warm in hers.

    She had healed all the outward injuries, all the broken bones, all the minor traumas. Physically, Vicky was as fit and healthy as she’d ever been … except for her brain. She’d suffered a skull fracture and a severe concussion in that one hit. Amy had been one of the first ones to get to her, and she’d softened and expanded Vicky’s skull so that the swelling wouldn’t cause any cell death, and she’d shut off two separate bleeds before they could do significant damage.

    Fortunately, Vicky’s brain had ceased to swell, and was indeed starting to go back to its normal state. There was activity going on, Amy could tell. Her sister wasn’t dead in there. Signals were passing back and forth between parts of her brain, and other signals being sent to her heart and lungs; she was breathing on her own, and her heartbeat was steady.

    Still, Vicky would not wake up. Amy wanted so badly to go in there and fix the damage that had been done in the original hit, but it was Vicky’s brain. Any changes she made would alter her sister forever. What held her back wasn’t that it would be difficult to do; on the contrary, it would be easy. Too easy. Too tempting. It would be so easy just to … nudge her slightly. Not change who and what she was, just make her more … open to the possibility. Set her feet on the path, so to speak.

    But she couldn’t. And what made her hate herself more than anything was the certain knowledge that she wasn’t refraining because it was the wrong thing to do, but because Vicky knew she could affect brains if she chose to. And if Vicky came out of her coma with an altered view of Amy, she might just realise what had been done. That would turn her against Amy forever.

    Amy couldn’t bear even the possibility of that happening. So she didn’t dare use her power on Vicky’s brain, save to monitor it and ensure that nothing was going wrong with it.

    Around her, nurses came and went. Vicky was checked on, the IVs changed out or replenished. Members of her family came and spoke to her, but she nodded and said nothing. Eventually, they went away again. The sun dragged down in the sky and eventually set.

    Amy sat, holding her sister’s hand.

    … beep … beep … beep …

    <><>​

    It was dusk before Brian finally made his way back to the loft. Brutus tagged at his heels, head low, limping slightly. Evading the cops hadn’t been all that hard, but he didn’t want to go back to the loft until he’d sorted everything out in his head. So he’d waited until Brutus was back to ordinary size, shoved the helmet and jacket into his backpack and become just another big black guy on the street.

    He needed to work things out for himself because he just knew Lisa would figure out something had happened, and the more he refused to answer, the closer she’d come to the truth, because she loved to niggle and poke and pry until she’d figured it all out. It had been bad enough when she’d realised he was going on a date. An actual date, with an actual girl. Alec’s blank disbelief was bad enough, and he was fine with Rachel ignoring the whole situation, but the way Lisa had done her best to worm out every detail she could had set his teeth on edge. It didn’t help when she figured out how little he knew about Sophia, and insinuated that he was being set up for something.

    He’d never come so close to punching her as he did right then.

    The worst bit was, though he knew damn well they hadn’t been aware of his identity until Taylor spoke up (and how had she figured it out?) Lisa had been right, in a way. A very twisted and convoluted way, but definitely a way. Of course, he’d also been setting up Sophia in the same way; and in fact, in a worse way if he were being totally honest with himself.

    Total transparency in a relationship was hard enough, even before the pitfall of a secret identity was brought into it. Was he supposed to lie to her until she found out? Was there a point beyond which it was too late to tell her? If he came clean on the first date, what guarantee was there that she wouldn’t immediately use that against him? There were so many questions, and no good answers.

    Worst of all, Sophia wasn’t a fan of Grue (which as a subject, again being honest, was hard to bring up with girls). In fact, she wasn’t merely indifferent or even ignorant of his existence. She actively hated him. He had the best possible evidence of that, both with the scar in his side and the still-sore bruise across his throat. He had to admit, Shadow Stalker wasn’t exactly on his Christmas card list either. Having someone literally attempting to kill him every time they met had that effect on him.

    Which made the whole situation worse, because he liked Sophia, a lot. She had a certain deadpan sense of humour, and she liked the same things in movies that he liked. It didn’t hurt that she was able to kick ass with the best of them, though in hindsight the way they’d handled the fight in the alley should’ve been a huge neon sign for all three of them that something weird was up. The only one of them he didn’t think was a parahuman was Aisha, and he wasn’t a hundred percent convinced of that, either.

    What he was absolutely convinced of was that he had no idea where to go on from there. Shadow Stalker knew his face and name, and he knew the same about her. They even had each other’s phone numbers. This wouldn’t have been so bad, except that she had apparently decided they were each other’s nemeses, and took it very seriously. Which worried him intensely. What if she decided that as a villain he was clearly going to go after her family, and opted to pull a pre-emptive strike on his instead? Yes, this was against the so-called unwritten rules, but despite whatever Lisa chose to believe on the matter, he’d always been aware that the only people who followed rules were the ones who felt they were bound by them. Sophia, even in the short time he’d known her, had given the strong impression of someone who was more willing to ask for forgiveness than permission.

    This had concerned him to the point that he’d reached for his phone; whether to call Sophia and ask her to not do anything rash or to call his father and tell him to get Aisha out of the apartment, he didn’t know. But it wasn’t there. At some point in the scuffle with Buzz—Taylor—he’d lost it.

    Having the police find it wasn’t an issue. That phone was a burner, with only Lisa’s, Rachel’s and Alec’s numbers on it. If the cops got it unlocked and tried calling a number, they’d know it wasn’t him and dump the SIM cards. The real issue was, with his personal phone back at the loft (because what idiot took a phone connecting them to their civilian identity out in costume?) he had no real way of getting in contact with anyone.

    When he finally got back to the loft, he was tired and footsore and the bruises were starting to stiffen. As the door opened, a cacophony of barking broke out, then was silenced with a single whistle. Brutus perked up, and dashed up the stairs before him. He trudged up, one step at a time, bracing himself for the inevitable interrogation. Not that he’d be saying anything, or even needed to.

    “Where the hell have you been?” demanded Lisa, looking more ruffled than normal. “When Rachel came in with a broken arm, she said the last she saw you, you were leading Rune away from her. But when you didn’t come back straight away, we thought …” She trailed off, staring at him. “What the fuck happened to you?”

    “Rune’s down, the cops got her, I got away.” Brian tried to push past her to get to his room. He wanted a hot shower in the worst way. But first he needed to find his phone.

    “No way in hell you took Rune down,” Lisa said firmly. “Unless you covered her with darkness and she ran into something. But you didn’t do that at all, did you?” Brian mentally facepalmed; he’d seen this kind of work from her when they wanted to know something fast, and she’d finally clicked onto a train of deduction that worked. “Someone else did. You got taken down as well, but …” She frowned, massaging her temple with her fingertips. “Something going on there. They had you down, but they let you go. But there’s more. You wouldn’t be this upset if that was all there was.”

    Reaching out, Brian grabbed the front of Lisa’s top, and pulled her to him so that he loomed over her. “I’m going to my room.” His voice was as controlled as he could make it, but he was sure she could read his desire to yell at her. “You will not disturb me.”

    “If the boss calls—” began Lisa.

    “Tell him we’re down a big hitter with Rachel hurt,” Brian snapped. “Until her arm mends, we’re severely limited in mobility.”

    “I can kick your ass any day of the week!” Rachel’s voice bellowed from her bedroom. “And I don’t need my arm to use my power!”

    “Can you hang on with one hand while your dogs are climbing buildings?” Brian yelled back. “No! The last thing we fucking need is you falling off your dog and getting caught or killed! It’s bad enough Rune ambushed us like that!” Ignoring Alec’s complaint of ‘how am I supposed to out-shitpost Void Cowboy with all this noise going on’, Brian pushed Lisa away and stormed off to his room.

    Once he was there, he found his phone. Picking it up, he looked at the screen … and froze. There, in front of his eyes, was a number he didn’t know with a text message under it. Call me. Please.

    He sat down on the bed, staring at the number. He’d gotten Sophia’s number, but this wasn’t it. He hadn’t gotten Taylor’s by some oversight, but why would she be texting him?

    Possibilities washed through his mind.

    She wants to yell at me for lying to her and Sophia.

    She wants to give me a chance to come in peacefully.

    She wants to warn me that Sophia is going after my family.

    She wants to urge me not to go after Sophia’s family.

    She wants to trace my phone so she and Sophia can bust in and arrest the lot of us.

    She wants to …


    He didn’t know what Taylor wanted.

    For the longest time, he just sat there, staring at the message.

    <><>​

    Trainyards

    Midnight


    All was quiet.

    Ever since the Boat Graveyard had killed Lord’s Port, more than a decade ago, the locomotive marshalling yards had been slowly falling more and more into disrepair. At first the city had neglected to take action in the hope that the situation would be resolved quickly. Then it continued to not take action because there were other issues to deal with. Now, it was a matter of not being able to afford to. Or, to put it another way, any time the money showed up in the budget, it immediately got earmarked for a dozen other different projects which might do more for the city than ‘remove an eyesore that nobody even looks at anymore’.

    So, year after year, the Trainyards had remained, gradually decaying, anything valuable or useful having long since been scavenged. Sometimes even by the legitimate owners. What was left had by now become more or less solid lumps of steel and rust. The locomotives were dead and dark, any single one of them needing to be stripped down to the bare chassis and rebuilt from scratch before it would run again. Even the rolling stock was frozen where it sat, the axles rusted solid to the bogies.

    Weeds braved the oil and other pollutants that had seeped into the soil over the decades that the trains had been running, curling over the tracks and up through the slowly rusting locomotives and train cars. In recent times, the ABB had claimed it as their territory, signing it with their logo in varying levels of skill, using broken-open boxcars as rendezvous points and places where drugs or other vices could be indulged in.

    Now, the ABB had lost its cape leadership. Former followers of the Dragon of Kyushu found themselves without the power they’d once had. With the Empire Eighty-Eight on the street in force, the remnants of the Asian gang had decided to embrace the better part of valour. Colours were discarded and red-and-green jackets hidden away. Men and women had returned to their homes, the illegal casinos and brothels had shuttered their doors, and all prepared to keep their heads down until it blew over. Without a cape to stand behind, no gang in Brockton Bay stood a chance.

    So the meeting places in the Trainyards were absent of surreptitious deals. Nobody slunk between the hulking shapes and exchanged quiet gang signals. The occasional stray cat yowled, but even that was few and far between, due to the poor hunting options. Even the rats had deserted the area.

    Therefore, there was nobody to witness what happened next.

    The locomotive had sat for more than ten years without moving. Once, power had surged through its frame as it hauled ten thousand tons of rolling stock across America and back. Now it sat silent, its very purpose defeated and dead.

    A spark popped from the highest point on its superstructure, arcing into the air before grounding in the ore hauler on the next track over. If anyone had been present, they would’ve remarked at the smell of ozone in the air.

    Nothing else happened for a moment.

    A hunting owl, curious about the sudden flare of light, swooped closer.

    Another spark popped, this time from the ore carrier. One leader found the locomotive, and two more zig-zagged off, forking as they went, to connect to three boxcars, a tanker and a second locomotive. A subliminal hum crackled through the air, along with a sharp increase in static electricity. The owl sheered off, wanting nothing to do with this.

    The network of purple lightning crawling over the seven highly conductive pieces of metal faded almost to extinction, then brightened again. More connections formed, arcing back and forth across the empty section of ground bounded by them. Another leader snapped out, and latched onto a switching lever, and through it into the ground.

    Power surged through the switch lever, heating it abruptly to a dull red glow. Pieces of rust exploded off it like shrapnel, glowing almost white-hot as they ricocheted from the locomotives and other rolling stock. The crackling intensified, the pulses of power increasing in frequency. Brighter and brighter flared the intricate, ever-shifting network of electrical arcs. The train cars and locomotives, despite the fact that they weighed tons apiece, began to shudder.

    And then, with a BOOM that echoed across the Trainyards, a hole formed in the air at the epicentre of the electrical network. Any human witness would have testified to its eye-twisting nature, the way that it seemed to be infinitely deep and not there at all, simultaneously. It pulsated, enlarging then shrinking, over and over, until …

    The hole snapped all the way open. There was the roar of an internal combustion engine. A jeep, missing its windshield and a good deal of its panelwork, burst through the opening and rammed one of the locomotives. A lithe figure, wearing the ragged, cut-off remains of clothing, bailed out and scrambled away from the smoking vehicle.

    All around, the electrical network seemed to destabilise. It pulsated again, the size of the hole fluctuating rapidly and unpredictably. A tendril of energy linked the hole to the jeep, where it had brushed the side coming through. With a horrible metallic crunching noise, the jeep was hauled backward and dragged through the hole, despite the hole being far too small for it. A single shattered rear-vision mirror fell to the ground.

    The hole closed to a point then disappeared. One by one, the electrical discharges ceased, leaving burn marks where they had been. Popping and crackling in the cool night air, the switch lever slowly slumped to the ground, the red heat gradually radiating away from it. Only the sharp smell of ozone remained to prove that anything untoward had happened.

    And of course, the person on the ground, clinging to a rail tie as if her life depended on it (and it may well have).

    Slowly, she released her grip. Sitting up, she looked around, crazed blue eyes taking in her surroundings. An equally unhinged grin peeled back her lips to show her teeth. Then she began to laugh, and all question of sanity was dispelled. There was none.

    Bakuda was back.

    And Brockton Bay was going to pay.



    End of Part Seven

    [A/N: The next chapter of Confrontation II: The Reckoning will be the last chapter.]
     
    Last edited: May 5, 2020
  2. Simonbob

    Simonbob Really? You don't say.

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    Denis. "I just got leadership, and things go wrong. Well, time to Man Up."

    Nice.
     
  3. Ack

    Ack (Verified Ratbag) (Unverified Great Old One)

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    Just so everyone knows, I've altered one paragraph slightly.

     
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  4. macdjord

    macdjord Well worn.

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    That seems to imply that Piggot ever permitted 'frivolous' transfers, which seems out of character.
     
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  5. Ack

    Ack (Verified Ratbag) (Unverified Great Old One)

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    Transfers which she considers to be frivolous.

    That bar is moveable.
     
  6. Diraniola

    Diraniola I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    Frivolous here means without an official legal reason. Family moving is a real reason, as is some extreme interpersonal conflict. Wanting a change in scenery is frivolous.
     
  7. ShadowStepper1300

    ShadowStepper1300 I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    Not even a secret. Hookwolf's already been sentenced to the Birdcage, but the Empire broke him out when he was being transported there. And then the PRT caught him and the Empire broke him out again.
     
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  8. Ack

    Ack (Verified Ratbag) (Unverified Great Old One)

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    This is true, yes.
     
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  9. Threadmarks: Part Eight: All In
    Ack

    Ack (Verified Ratbag) (Unverified Great Old One)

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    Confrontation II: The Reckoning

    Part Eight: All In

    [A/N 1: This chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]

    [A/N 2: This was going to be the last chapter, but it just blew out of control. So there’ll be another one after this. Following that will be four epilogues. Enjoy.]




    Grue

    Brian opened his eyes, staring at the ceiling in the darkness. Slowly, he rolled his head sideways on the pillow until he could read the numbers on his alarm clock. 01:27.

    God damn it, he groused mentally. Ever since he’d read the text from Taylor—Buzz—he hadn’t been able to concentrate. Hadn’t been able to stay asleep. It had stuck with him, right alongside the memory of Sophia’s face when she realised it was him she’d been trying to kill. Had it been horror, or disgust?

    If she’d stayed … but she hadn’t stayed. She’d run, and Taylor had run right after her. This had given him the chance to get away which he was grateful for, but he knew he’d be more grateful if he knew what was going on inside Shadow Stalker’s head.

    No, he decided. Shadow Stalker’s a bitch. I want to know what’s going on inside Sophia’s head. She’s the sane one.

    It didn’t even seem odd to him to be thinking about someone as two different people, defined by whether they were wearing a mask at the time or not. The same went for Taylor, now that he came to think about it. Out of costume, she was friendly and reserved with a dry sense of humour. In costume she was tactically alert, extremely difficult to fight even inside his darkness, and absolutely relentless.

    Even if Taylor’s being genuine, how do I know Shadow Stalker won’t suddenly snap again and try to kill me? God, what if she goes after Aisha? Did I ever give her my address? Does she have Aisha’s number?

    Fumbling for his phone, he squinted in the dark as he tapped out a text to his sister. If Sophia or Taylor contact you, don’t respond. Call me instead.

    He’d done all he could for the moment. Shutting down the phone, he closed his eyes and tried to get some sleep. The turmoil in his mind, aided and abetted by the dull throb of the bruising on his throat, ensured that it would be a long time coming.

    <><>​

    Squealer

    The wrench slipped and Sherrel skinned her knuckles. She cursed, but it was more out of habit than from the pain. Besides, the tiny sting was nothing next to the great aching void in her chest that came from losing the one man she’d ever loved. Adam Mustain might have been a lowlife druggie supervillain, but he’d been her lowlife druggie supervillain.

    Again, the image played out in her mind. Victor had been aiming a rifle right at her head, through the (not overly bulletproof) windshield of her current ride, and Adam had popped up with a length of pipe over his shoulder like a missile launcher. When the piece of rebar whipped out of it and harpooned Victor through the goddamn shoulder, she’d screamed in exhilaration. The fucking Empire had been sneering at the Merchants for way too long, and to see one of them go down in a bleeding heap was amazing.

    But then everything went wrong. He’d grabbed up another piece of rebar and got ready to drop it in the back end of his little homemade railgun (she could make one that was ten times as good, but it would take her hours) with the blue-glowing end pointed at Kaiser. She figured—as he probably did too—that even if the bar didn’t punch through the Nazi asshole’s armour, it’d sure as hell send him ass over teakettle.

    Except that Kaiser shot first. Adam’s wild cackle had stuttered off into a gurgle of blood as spikes erupted from the street all around him and pin-cushioned his body from a dozen different angles. He couldn’t even fall down, held up as he was. The makeshift launcher had fallen from his shoulder and slid down the spikes to the street, where she could see that the blue glow had faded.

    She’d gone a little crazy then. Powering her ride into high gear and engaging the afterburners (because who doesn’t want jet engines on a tank?) she smashed aside half a dozen cars in a definitive attempt to run the leader of the Empire down and splatter him across the sidewalk. She would’ve succeeded too, but he’d put down some spikes that guided her one way while he went the other. At some point Aegis went under her tracks, but all she wanted was Kaiser’s broken, bleeding body on the ground in front of her. So she could drive over him again, then back up a few times.

    The motherfucker needed to die, was what she was getting at.

    In fact, all of the Empire needed to die.

    And while she was making a list of assholes who would look a lot better in a pine box (or smeared all over the asphalt), the Protectorate and the PRT belonged on that list as well.

    “Fuck it,” she said out loud, fitting the wrench on the nut once more. “Let’s just kill everyone in fucking Brockton Bay for you, Skids.” She was going to be leaving the city in her rearview sooner rather than later, but before she did that, she was going to show the whole fucking city why they shouldn’t have messed with her. And why they shouldn’t have killed her Skidsy.

    Muttering to herself, she levered the plating off and let it fall to the floor with a clang. She needed to upgrade all over, if she was going to have a chance of fucking up everyone in Brockton Bay who’d had even the slightest connection to Skidmark’s death. More guns, bigger guns, more firepower. Also, reactive armour so if any asshole tried to rip open the tank to get to her, they’d get a faceful of shrapnel. Fortunately, the basic chassis was intact, but the outer hull had taken a beating before she got far enough away to engage the cloaking and break contact altogether.

    “Anti-sniper point defence,” she decided. “Fuck Victor and the fucking horse he rode in on.” She’d be reducing her view to a narrow slit to discourage snipers, but she also wanted to put little guns all over that would pick the fuckers off before they could pull any tricky shit. Just in case.

    A niggling doubt in the back of her mind told her that she was unlikely to be able to build shit with enough firepower, but she shoved it aside ruthlessly. She would do what she had to do.

    <><>​

    Armsmaster

    Colin frowned as he pulled a device off his belt, made a few adjustments, and set it to scan the area. This particular section of the Trainyards had seen some sort of action very recently, or the damaged train cars and the melted switch lever were lying to him. He just didn’t know who would’ve been out here, or who they would’ve been fighting. Nobody had actually reported the fight, but sensors on the Protectorate headquarters had picked up one particular detonation from all the way out in the bay.

    His frown deepened. The screen of the reader was showing half a dozen types of exotic energy, only one or two of which he could put a name to. It was easy to find the nexus point, but adapting his halberd as an antenna and prodding the area from six feet away achieved nothing significant.

    “What happened here?” he mused, putting the halberd away and starting another sweep of the area.

    “I’m not certain, but it’s definitely making the hair on the back of my neck stand up.” While Miss Militia was capable of cracking jokes, on this occasion her voice was entirely devoid of anything resembling humour. She cradled a rifle large enough to put a respectable hole in a charging rhino as she kept an eye on their surroundings.

    Colin had been feeling the odd prickle at the back of his neck as well, but he kept silent about that. Changing settings on the scanner again, he swept it over the area, and paused. Flicking a switch on the side of the device, he bathed the area in light. “Does that look like wheel-tracks to you?” he asked.

    After doing one more all-round sweep of their surroundings, Miss Militia looked down at the pool of light. After a moment, she nodded doubtfully. “Something as wide as a car, sure. It might even have hit that train car.” She pointed across at what looked like relatively recent impact damage.

    “Except that it’s no longer here,” Colin pointed out. “The wheel-tracks start and stop there. But what else would create furrows in the gravel like that?”

    “Wait. Shine the light over here.” Miss Militia moved alongside the purported wheel-tracks toward a small, dried-out tuft of grass that had somehow survived the night’s events. “There’s something right there.” She pointed her rifle barrel, adding the undermount flashlight beam to Colin’s illumination and picking out the gleam of metal.

    “What is that?” Colin put the scanner away and unshipped his halberd once more. Moving up alongside Miss Militia, he used the grapple function to reach into the grass and lay hold of what lurked within. In the event, it turned out to be …

    “A busted rear-vision mirror,” Miss Militia said in tones of mild disappointment. “Looks like it was torn from whatever it came off with Brute strength. Look how that metal’s twisted and compressed.”

    “Well, now we know there was a motor vehicle of some kind here,” Colin said. “This mirror almost certainly came off it. The trouble is, we don’t know all the important information.”

    “Who was driving it, where it came from, what happened while it was here, and where it went to,” Miss Militia summarised. “You’re thinking a teleporter?”

    “I’m thinking a Tinker with a teleporter,” Colin amended the concept. “If his accuracy is less than perfect, driving through a portal into the Trainyards by accident and ramming a train car isn’t outside the realms of possibility.”

    “And the other stuff?” Miss Militia gestured at the still-hot melted lever.

    Colin had been thinking about that. “If there was an energy imbalance, the arrival or the departure might have caused that. And if the teleport is a field around the car and it fluctuated …”

    “Say, because the vehicle rammed into a solid obstacle …” Miss Militia was clearly on the same page.

    “Then the mirror could’ve been left behind when it teleported out.” Colin nodded. The theory fit all the evidence, even down to the stressed metal at the severance point. It looked as though it had been squeezed like taffy then pinched off altogether. Superficially, it could’ve fitted Miss Militia’s initial Brute theory, but teleportation was looking more and more likely all the time.

    “So, has anyone heard from Leet since the fight?” asked Miss Militia, seemingly at random.

    Colin shook his head, not because he didn’t think Leet capable of this, but in negation to the question. “Nothing. They might as well have dropped off the face of the earth. And if it was Leet who did this, that might not be a figure of speech.”

    Miss Militia nodded slowly. They both knew of the propensity of Leet’s devices to fail in spectacular but—so far—non-lethal ways. A Tinkertech portal with an imprecise aiming mechanism could easily drop its user into a fatal situation even without blowing up in his face. “Well, all we can do is keep an eye out.”

    “That’s usually the way, isn’t it?” Turning, Colin led the way back to where they had left their motorbikes. One more thing to write a report about. It had been a long night, and he hadn’t thought to bring along his fingerprint kit. Something like that could wait until morning, right?

    <><>​

    Bakuda

    Alice had been walking for what felt like hours, which hadn’t improved her temper in any way. Still, she was back from that hellhole, in the land of McDonalds and hot showers and fresh underwear and no fucking dinosaurs, so there was that. Which meant that she was free to rebuild her shit and go after the Undersiders and the Wards and any other asshole who got in her way. Having to dodge overly-toothy feathered monsters, not to mention things that bore an uncomfortable resemblance to Bitch’s dogs at their most monstrous, was not her idea of a relaxing vacation away.

    Of course, her next big problem was that she’d used up basically everything she had in the way of resources to build the portal-bomb that had delivered her back to Brockton Bay. It had been the kludgiest of kludges, and she’d estimated a twenty percent chance that it would either spread her all over half a mile of terrain or send her to a random alternate world, but she’d been rapidly running out of resources anyway. As it was, the Jeep had made the run on an empty radiator, given that she’d had to drain it dry and boil off the antifreeze for drinking water.

    Which wouldn’t have been quite as much of a problem if she’d had access to one of her workshops. But each one she’d gone to had either been emptied of basically everything useful or had been sealed up tight by the PRT. So now she was reduced to slinking through the city in search of something, anything, she could use as an explosive device. Even a 7-11 would be perfect; sugar, flour, drain cleaner, refined chemicals of all sorts. Also, food. She’d have to shoplift the stuff, given that her coins and paper money had gone toward building the go-home bomb (circuitry and insulation, respectively) but a little petty theft had never bothered her in the slightest.

    And then she smelt it. The acrid odour of one piece of metal being welded to another. Once scented, never forgotten. And for the vast majority of Tinkers, the very breath of life. Turning her head, she breathed deeply and attempted to isolate it. Where was it coming from? This was not an area of town she’d expect to find a garage open at this time of night.

    Like a predatory cat, she stalked through the night, literally tracking her prey by scent. It grew stronger as she neared her goal, until she pushed open an ill-secured door and entered … heaven. Just for a moment, her brain manufactured the sound of a chorus of angels as she beheld a fully-stocked workshop; tools galore, and storage drums holding all kinds of volatile liquids.

    With this shit, I could blow up the city. And that’s even without Tinkertech.

    Across the other side of the workshop, she heard the crackling sound of a welding seam being laid down as harsh violet light played across the ceiling, then the tap-tap of the welding operator knocking away the slag to check on the bead. While she hadn’t been into building much in the way of big shit (her bombs tended to be on the small side), she was fully cognizant of the procedure.

    There was a grunt of approval as she began to sneak closer. Whoever this was had to be wearing either a set of goggles or a full mask, which meant their peripheral vision would be shit right now. Without conscious thought into the matter, her right hand snaked out and took up a hefty wrench. All she had to do was get close enough, and the workshop would become hers.

    The welding began again as she sneaked around the end of the vehicle taking up a large section of the workshop. She didn’t care who they were or what they were building; she just wanted their stuff. Her hand clenched around the handle of the wrench in anticipation. Brockton Bay is going to regret fucking me over. Starting with whoever the fuck this is.

    Shielding her eyes from the glare with one arm, she eased closer. Ten more steps. Nine. Taking care not to kick loose tools or step on anything that might roll under her foot. Eight. Seven. The fumes from the welding stung her nose and throat, making her wish she hadn’t had to take apart the gas mask for components to use in the go-home bomb. Six. Five. She raised the wrench in anticipation. Four. Three. Two.

    The welding arc cut out again, and the woman in the welding mask raised the darkened glass visor to observe her work. “I’ll get the assholes for you, Skidsy,” she said out loud, startling Alice, who thought for a moment she’d been spotted. “I’ll kill every last one of the motherfuckers. Make Brockton Bay into a fucking crater.”

    As the woman laid down the electrode clamp holding the stick and took up a small hammer, Alice paused. If she was connecting the clues right, this was Squealer, a Tinker in her own right.

    A pissed-off one. One who wanted to fuck up Brockton Bay almost as badly as Alice herself did.

    Slowly, Alice lowered the wrench.

    She could use talent like this.

    <><>​

    Squealer

    When the person cleared their throat from just behind her, Sherrel nearly pissed herself. But she came around fast with the chipping hammer held up in a threatening position, ready to bury the sharp point in the skull of anyone who came too close. After a few seconds of panic, she realised that there was just one person; a woman with Asian features and bright blue eyes, leaning back against a tool cabinet with her arms folded, a heavy wrench dangling from one hand.

    “What the fuck?” squawked Sherrel, fully aware that she’d been caught napping by the intruder. If the bitch had wanted to, she could’ve caved in Sherrel’s skull easily with that wrench. Which meant she’d chosen not to. “Who the fuck are you and what are you doing in my fuckin’ workshop?”

    “Hey, take a chill pill,” advised the taller woman. Her eyes bored into Sherrel’s. “I’m not here to hurt you.”

    In her chosen line of work, Sherrel had associated with habitual liars more often than with the other type. After all, addicts would lie to themselves just as frequently as to others, if not more so. And there was literally no lie they would not tell to get themselves that next fix of the good stuff. So she was well-acquainted with the mind of the liar, having been down that road many times before herself.

    The woman opposite her was lying in one way but not in another. If Sherrel had to guess, the intruder had come in here to cave Sherrel’s head in and rob the place blind, but for some reason had changed her mind. “Yeah?” Sherrel said challengingly. “What are you here for, then?”

    With a smile, the woman stepped forward and held her hand out. “Alice Himawara, but you can call me Bakuda. And I’m here to fuck up every last cape in Brockton Bay.”

    “What, really?” Sherrel stared at the woman. The build was right for Bakuda, and the hair too. There was no way she could tell from the voice or even the looks; the gas mask the bomb Tinker usually wore had utterly concealed every aspect of her facial features and tone of voice. “What’d they ever do to you? An’ where you been, anyway? I thought you left town after Lung and Oni Lee got caught.”

    Apparently reminded of something that pissed her off greatly, Bakuda gritted her teeth. “They fucked with the ABB, and they fucked with me. I should’ve won, but instead I got sent to someplace where I had to watch my driver get eaten by something with far too many teeth. Nearly got me too, but I had a couple of bombs in reserve. Now I’m back, and I’m going to fuck them all up.”

    Now Sherrel could place what unsettled her about the woman. She was fuckin’ nuts. Either she’d been that way all along, or the little side trip she’d just referred to had driven her around the twist. It was obvious in the voice and the eyes, once Sherrel knew what to look for. There went someone whose grasp on reality was tenuous at best, and who’d casually stab someone to death over the last chocolate bar in the fridge.

    Still, her bombs could absolutely provide the firepower that Sherrel had been missing up until now. And if Bakuda wanted to blow shit up, who was Sherrel to argue?

    “Sounds good to me.” Sherrel hooked her thumb toward the door to the back room. “Food in the fridge. Hot shower. Check the dresser for clothing; most of my stuff should fit you. Once you’re sorted out, we can talk.”

    The wrench clanged on the floor and the door was already closing behind Bakuda before Sherrel had finished speaking. She shook her head and turned back to her welding. She’s nuts, sure. But she’s my kind of nuts.

    Let’s fuckin’ do this.


    <><>​

    The Next Day

    Taylor


    There was a gentle onshore breeze, and seabirds soared and squawked over the Boardwalk. It seemed downright peaceful; I could almost imagine that yesterday’s cape brawl hadn’t even taken place, and people hadn’t died or been badly injured. But it had, and they had. Which was why Dennis was on patrol with me and Sophia; not to keep us from killing each other, but to provide safety in numbers.

    Paradoxically, our job wasn’t to be a show of force; we were there to pretend that everything was okay, and that things were back to normal. Or whatever passed for normal in Brockton Bay, that is. Unfortunately, having fewer criminal capes on the scene was not necessarily a good thing. With Lung and Oni Lee in PRT holding cells and Bakuda (hopefully permanently) out of the picture, that left a power vacuum in a significant area of the city, which Kaiser wanted to claim for the Empire Eighty-Eight.

    As yesterday had proven, he couldn’t just walk in and take it without facing determined opposition. But that opposition had not come without a price. Skidmark was dead, Mush was in custody and Squealer was on the run. More than a few of Protectorate capes had been messed up to one degree or another. The PRT could call on Panacea (and had in the past) but the rumour I’d heard was that she hadn’t moved from Glory Girl’s side since her sister had been injured, not even to heal Brandish. That is, she hadn’t healed her own mother.

    “Earth Bet to Buzz. Come in, Buzz.” Dennis’ voice was joking. “What’s going on in the world of bugs?”

    It only took me a split second to tap into the insects (and other things) I had patrolling invisibly around us. Swarms of crabs paralleled our motion offshore, and I even had earthworms under our feet ‘listening’ for odd vibrations through the earth with their whole bodies. Given yesterday’s shit-show, I wasn’t leaving anything to chance.

    “It’s clear all the way around,” I reported. My range was all the way out to four blocks at the moment, a distinct improvement on the usual, though I wasn’t totally certain as to why. “Oh, wait, no. There’s a mugging. Block and a half that way.” I pointed, just as a swarm of wasps swooped in at the perpetrator. “Well, there was.” After the wasps were done with him, the spiders were ready to move in and web him in place.

    “Mugging? Shit.” Sophia’s voice expressed the disappointment that her mask was so good at hiding. “He’ll be long gone before we get there.”

    I shook my head and smirked under my own mask. “Nope. He won’t. I’m just asking the victim if he can hang about until we get there. One perp. May as well get the cops to pick him up, yeah?”

    “Hah!” The laugh was jerked out of her, and she offered a low-five which I returned. “That’s what I love about working with you, Buzz. You own the goddamn battlefield.”

    Dennis shook his head, but his tone was amused when he spoke. “Everyone else would be terrified or freaked out, but you enjoy this crap. I’m not surprised you two work together so well. You’re both as crazy as the other.”

    Sophia turned her head as if to glance at me, and I nodded slightly. We both moved up until we were right behind him; me at his left shoulder and Sophia at his right. “One of us,” we chorused in the creepiest voices we could manage. “One of us.” I added buzzing tones from my bugs as a fake echo.

    “You know how I said you should freak people out? You just succeeded with me.” Dennis turned his head to survey us both. I got the impression he was pretending to glare at us from behind his opaque faceplate. “Just save it for the actual villains, okay?”

    “You’re the boss,” I said in the most innocent tone I could manage. I was pretty sure I hadn’t succeeded in convincing him, and Sophia snorted in amusement, so she was probably a wash as well. Then again, I hadn’t been actually trying to fool him, just get it on record that I agreed he was in charge. Which he would be, right up until I needed to do something he didn’t agree with.

    “And don’t you forget it,” he replied, his tone confirming my supposition. Then he cleared his throat and put his hand to the side of his helmet in the standard signal for ‘using the radio’. “Ah, Console, this is Clockblocker, over.”

    As he was retransmitting to us so that we were all in the loop, I heard Browbeat’s reply. “Clockblocker from Console, go ahead, over.”

    Idly, I wondered how many times people had stumbled over our team leader’s name when talking on the radio in the past. Part of me suspected it was why he’d called himself that.

    “Yeah, Console, we have an attempted mugging at …” He trailed off questioningly.

    “Broad Street, halfway between Lamont and Packard,” I supplied helpfully.

    Dennis repeated my instructions. “If you could notify the police to swing by and pick up the perp, that would be nice, over.”

    “Understood.” I heard typing in the background as Browbeat spoke. There was a pause. “Uh, I show you as still on the Boardwalk, about a block away from the location you’re talking about. Are you sure you’ve got it right? Over.”

    “Absolutely.” Even though I couldn’t see Dennis’ face, the grin was audible in his voice. “Our very own Buzz was just demonstrating how a Master handles matters. We’ll be there in a couple of minutes, over.”

    “I, uh, copy that, Clockblocker.” Browbeat sounded resigned. “I’m contacting the police now. Oh, and while I have you on the line, just for general information, two men identifying as Uber and Leet presented at Brockton Bay General about half an hour ago, suffering gunshot wounds. Uber is stable, but there’s some doubt as to whether Leet will pull through. There was verbal identification of Empire Eighty-Eight rank and file as the ones who attacked them. Over.”

    “Clockblocker copies. Out.” Dennis closed the channel then glanced at the both of us. “You heard that?”

    “Yeah. Damn.” Sophia sounded actually shaken. “Those two are assholes and fuckwits, but that’s over the top even for me.”

    “I know, right?” I shook my head. “They might be the Greg Veder of capes, but that doesn’t mean we actually want them dead.”

    “I don’t recognise that reference,” Dennis said. “Should I?”

    “Nah,” Sophia assured him. “Just someone me and Buzz know. She’s not wrong, though. Being a clueless moron, even if you’re a villain, doesn’t automatically mean someone’s justified in kicking your door in and shooting you.”

    “And the scary bit is, you actually had to say that part out loud,” Dennis agreed. “I think we’re all in agreement that Kaiser sent his goons to make sure they didn’t join in on the other side, yeah?”

    “Which means he’s desperate.” I didn’t like what I was saying, but I said it anyway. “He’s committed to winning any way he can, which means he’s tossing the standard norms out the window. Just between me and you guys, I think it’s gonna get worse before it gets better.”

    Dennis sighed. “You’re not wrong, but I wish you hadn’t said it like that.”

    “That makes three of us,” agreed Sophia.

    <><>​

    Kaiser

    Max Anders considered his options.

    Yesterday had been a mixed success. Only one cape had died; Skidmark had overstepped and paid the penalty. His death, Max decided, should serve the purpose of passing on a message. Specifically, ‘cross the Empire at your peril’.

    No heroes had been killed, which was perhaps a good thing. Nobody wanted reinforcements flooding in from other cities. Or worse, the Triumvirate coming to town. It was mainly for that reason that he had given orders to go easy on the Wards; nothing would enrage the cape community faster than seeing the bodies of costumed kids on the news. A broken arm was one thing, but a broken neck was quite another.

    In the absence of Othala, the bullet wound in Cricket’s calf muscle had been given standard first aid. It was a through-and-through that had missed all the major blood vessels, and she claimed to be strong enough to go into battle after stitching it up herself. Unfortunately, Menja still needed support to get around and Victor’s shoulder was an absolute mess. Getting the team’s Trump back was a high priority, and not just because Victor missed his wife. Without her, they were lacking a serious force multiplier that he’d gotten used to.

    On the upside, a message had come in from Hookwolf that he was alive, though a ways down the coast. Max had sent men in a car to pick him up.

    That was probably the one bit of good news he was going to get out of the whole shit-show. Stormtiger was back in PRT custody and Rune had been captured by a pair of Wards who hadn’t even been at the battle, after she’d split off to go after a couple of the Undersiders. With Kayden still refusing to rejoin the Empire Eighty-Eight (despite his disinformation campaign to spread it around that she was merely undercover for the moment) and with Night and Fog out of town, he was getting painfully low on capes. Right now, he’d even take Crusader back, if he could pry the little suck-up clear of Kayden’s orbit.

    Which left him with the pressing question: did he keep pushing, capitalising on the gains already made, or did he pull back and admit that he couldn’t keep what he already had?

    His pride demanded that he not simply roll over and concede defeat. The Empire needed a win out of this.

    This wasn’t just about his pride, either. The Empire Eighty-Eight, though made up of the capes under Max’s command, was nothing without the rank and file, the believers in the Cause. His support base were the ones who showed up to hear him speak. If they lost faith and walked away now, the Empire was done.

    All right then, he decided. He would compromise. “James.”

    “Yes?” responded his sole remaining lieutenant (at least until Bradley got back).

    “We’re going to wind things back a little. I want everyone off the streets; tell them to go home and get some rest, but to be ready to move in a couple of days’ time. Let them all know we’re luring the PRT into a false sense of security, but then we’re going to strike at the heart of the beast.”

    James only needed a second or so to get his meaning. “The PRT. You want to break Othala out.”

    “And Stormtiger and Rune, yes.” Max decided that he’d earned a little self-indulgence, and steepled his fingertips together. “Once Hookwolf gets back, we’ll have the throw weight to force our way in there and retrieve our people. And then …”

    He didn’t need to keep going. With Othala on hand to provide regeneration and other powers at need, and with Cricket and Menja at full fighting form alongside Hookwolf and Stormtiger, the Empire Eighty-Eight would retake their place as Brockton Bay’s strongest cape alliance.

    And if the opposition had any sense, they’d step back and let it happen.

    <><>​

    The Undersiders’ Hideout

    Grue


    When Brian came out of his room, Lisa was waiting for him. She had her arms folded, which was always a bad sign. It didn’t help that she was tapping her foot as well.

    Whatever it was she wanted, she knew enough to stand aside while he went to the restroom. He considered waiting in there until she went away, but he knew damn well she wouldn’t. Still, he took as long as he dared then splashed cold water on his face. A little more awake, he opened the door and looked at her resolute face.

    “Restroom’s free,” he said, and tried to ease past her. He knew it wouldn’t work, but he had to try anyway.

    “I don’t want the restroom. We need to talk.”

    “I’ve got nothing to say.” Maybe if he refused to open up, she’d leave it alone?

    “Fine. I’ll talk. You listen.” She hooked his arm with her hand, somehow managing to find the nerve point in his elbow on the first attempt, and towed him along behind her to the ad hoc dining room. He could’ve pulled free at any time, but at this point he knew resistance would cause more trouble than going along with what she wanted. When they reached their destination, she pointed at a chair. “Sit.”

    Again, he considered just walking away, but the glint in her eye warned him otherwise. So he dragged out a chair, spun it around, and straddled it. “I’m sitting. Now what?”

    She hitched her butt up on the corner of the table. “You’ve been dating Shadow Stalker.”

    As an opener, it was a fairly effective one. He sat up straight, not even pretending not to pay attention anymore. “How in the living fuck did you know that?”

    “Well, duh.” She rolled her eyes. “The big clue was when I saw on the news that Buzz and Shadow Stalker engaged Rune and Grue yesterday. Rune was captured; you weren’t. You came home wondering what the fuck to do. So, they let you go. There was another account of Shadow Stalker and Buzz chasing someone away from the scene, but they weren’t, were they? Shadow Stalker had just found out you were you, and she was running away from that knowledge. It was a surprise from both sides.” She tilted her head slightly. “Stalker tried to kill you again, Buzz stopped her, and that’s when you both learned about each other. That about right?”

    He shrugged. “Dunno why I’m here. You seem to have all the answers.”

    Rapping her knuckle once on the table, Lisa leaned forward. “You’re here because you need to figure out what you’re going to do, going forward. This is not something we can just ignore and walk away from. Has Stalker tried to contact you … no. She hasn’t. Buzz has. Okay, then. Stalker’s still an emotional mess about it. Buzz is being a good friend and helping her through it. Also, she’s trying to get in touch with you. What did she say when she texted you?”

    He didn’t even need to get his phone out. “Call me. Please.”

    “And you haven’t, of course.” Lisa huffed a sigh. “Because you’re such a fucking male that you can’t stand it when something’s not under your direct control. You don’t know what’ll happen if you call, so you won’t call.” Reaching out, she snapped her fingers twice. “Phone.”

    Reluctantly, he dragged it out of his pocket. He had no idea how he’d gotten into this position or how to get out of it, but Lisa seemed to know what she was doing. He just hoped she wasn’t about to fuck him over.

    “Thank you,” she murmured, twitching it out of his hand. Glancing at him a couple of times, she tapped on the screen; entirely without surprise, he saw the phone open up for her. “All right then …” She began to scroll through the numbers. “That would be Buzz’s call, and … huh. Shadow Stalker’s name’s Sophia? Sounds pretty ordinary for a raging murderous bitch.”

    “She’s not—!” he began, then bit off his words as she glanced sideways at him. The corner of her mouth quirked upward. Fuck. She played me. Again.

    “Never thought I’d see the day,” she mused obscurely. “You must have it bad. Okay, then. Imma call Buzz. You get to choose whether it’s me or you on this end.”

    “I’ll make the call,” he said, the words slipping out of his mouth unbidden. “Buzz doesn’t know you. She might think I’m trying to set her up for something.”

    “Awesome.” She tapped the ‘call’ icon, then put the phone on speaker. “We can both listen. You talk.”

    “The others?” he asked quickly.

    “Told ’em to keep out of it,” she assured him.

    The phone rang again, then Taylor answered. “Hello?

    <><>​

    Taylor

    I had just finished de-webbing the would-be mugger and handing him over to the police when my phone rang. I gestured as such to Dennis and Sophia and they nodded, so I moved away from the group a little. When I saw Brian’s name on the screen, my heart nearly stopped for a moment. My eyes found Sophia, but I didn’t call her over. Not yet.

    Swiping the answer icon, I put the phone to my ear. “Hello?”

    Almost immediately, I got the impression the phone on the other end was on speaker. I decided to be extra cautious about what I said.

    Buzz?” It was Brian’s voice, full of pain. “Is that really you?”

    I got it immediately. There was someone else there, and he was keeping my identity secret. This was a good sign. “Hey, it was as big a surprise to me as it was to you. Are you okay?”

    “Yeah. No thanks to her.” He sounded more angry than hurt now.

    “I get it, I get it,” I assured him. “She’s got issues. We’re addressing some of them, but the one about you was something we were getting to. Now she’s having to face what she did. What she almost did. She’s hurting, Brian. She doesn’t know what to do. She doesn’t even know if what you and she had is still a thing.”

    “Still a thing?” His laugh was hollow. “She tried to kill me. And it’s not the first time.”

    That bit was news to me, though not a huge surprise. “Brian. I had my own issues with her before I ever had powers. When I first joined the Wards, I didn’t know who she was. She didn’t know me, either. We ended up as partners. Watching each other’s backs. Saving each other’s lives. Meanwhile, outside the mask, we hated each other’s guts.”

    “So what happened when you unmasked to each other?” he asked bitterly. “Kiss and make up? You seem pretty chummy now.”

    “Hah, nope. I broke her jaw.” I didn’t even know why I was saying this. Well, I did, to be honest. I wanted to save what Brian and Sophia had. “When I told them what she’d been doing, she nearly ended up in juvey. Again. But I decided that what I had with her in costume was more important than the shit between us outside the Wards. So I gave her a second chance. And I’ve never regretted it.”

    The silence that followed was so long that I checked the phone to see if the call had dropped out. It hadn’t. So I waited.

    When Brian spoke again, his voice sounded different. Almost hopeful. “What did she do to you, before you joined the Wards?”

    I hadn’t told him she’d done anything in particular, but it was a valid question. “We’d need more time than this phone call to cover everything in detail, but in short? She fucked my life up for more than a year over petty teenage bullshit. For her piece de resistance, she and her friends shoved me in my locker with some pretty nasty shit and locked me in for about an hour. So yeah, we had issues.”

    “Oh.” In the background, I could’ve sworn I heard someone gagging. Maybe he had the TV on? “How can you forgive her for all that?”

    “I didn’t, not really. I just moved past it.” I took a deep breath. “I’ll be honest. She’s done bad shit that I’m not actually okay with, but she’s trying hard to be a better person, and I can appreciate that. As my partner in the Wards, she’s got my back. When Oni Lee came after me personally, she could’ve run. But she stayed, and she took him on more or less single-handedly, and she won. Saved my life. That gives her a lot of leeway, in my book.”

    “Oh.” He paused. “Thanks for telling me that.”

    “One more thing.” I waited to see if he’d say something. He didn’t. “After what happened with you, she was a total mess. She looked me in the eye and asked me for help.” I lowered my voice instinctively. “That’s the first time I’ve ever seen her cry.”

    “Jesus.” The exclamation was jerked out of him. “I don’t even know how to address that.”

    “Call her,” I said simply. “Please. Just to talk. Not right now—we’re on patrol—but maybe later. Yell at her if you want. I think she wants to be yelled at by someone. But don’t just … throw it all away. Not without giving her a second chance. Please?”

    Again, there was a long silence. “I’ll think about it. No promises. Thanks, Buzz. For everything.” Then I heard the tone for the end of the call.

    Slowly, I put my phone away. I didn’t know if I’d helped or hurt their situation, but I’d had to say something.

    Sophia looked up as I came back over to them. The mugger was now in custody, and the police were talking to the prospective victim. “Hey, you okay?” she asked.

    I was pretty impressed at her perceptiveness, given that I was wearing a full-face mask. “I’ll be fine,” I said, hoping it was true. “We done here?”

    “Just about,” Dennis said, coming over to us. “The cops just need a statement about how you bugswarmed the guy and we can go.”

    “Pfft,” I muttered. “I barely touched him. The big wimp.”

    Sophia snorted with amusement and elbowed me in the arm. “Go get ’em, tiger.”

    <><>​

    Tattletale

    She patted him on the arm as he ended the call. “Feel better now?”

    “Yeah, but not a lot,” he said grudgingly. “I mean, Taylor’s okay with me but I still haven’t heard from Sophia.”

    “You told me they were besties,” Lisa reminded him. “Do you honestly think Taylor wouldn’t talk to her and try to bring her around?”

    “Yeah, but … I dunno … shit!” He scrubbed his hands over his face. “I have no fuckin’ idea what to do now.”

    Lisa sighed. “It’s very simple. Do you want to sever ties and go back to the way you were before?”

    The answer popped out before he would’ve had time to think about it. “No!”

    “Then do you want to fix matters?” She tried to be gently prompting. Romance wasn’t something she ever wanted to get into, but that wasn’t because it was confusing to her. In her opinion, people made it way too complicated.

    “What if she doesn’t want to?”

    She prodded him ungently in the ribs. “Wrong question. You don’t start building bridges from her end. You start from your end. Now come on, get up.”

    “What? Why?”

    This is worse than trying to get Alec to clean the bathroom. “We’re going out for a drive. Down to the Boardwalk or someplace like that.”

    He tilted his head to look at her suspiciously. “Are you trying to arrange a meet cute in and out of costume? Because we kinda did that already. It’s how we got into this mess in the first place.”

    While that wasn’t a bad idea, she snorted and shook her head. “We’re going to find a gift shop and you’re going to buy her something decorative and useless that she’ll swoon over, because it will prove you still care about her. And then, maybe tomorrow, unless she’s already called, we’ll call her again and set up a neutral meeting where you can give her the gift, and you two can talk it out already. Got it?”

    “Oh.” But he got up. “Okay, I’ll get my wallet.”

    Finally.

    Lisa was profoundly grateful that Alec and Rachel weren’t dating anyone. Just fixing Brian’s love life was way too stressful, and he was the most normal of them all.

    <><>​

    Othala’s PRT Holding Cell

    Coil


    In one timeline, Commander Thomas Calvert sat opposite the prisoner, his demeanour immaculate, his voice measured. “Are you absolutely certain you don’t wish to give me anything about your employer?” His tone was the epitome of reason. “I’ll be certain to put it into your record for the trial. Who knows; we might even manage to score you a place in the Protectorate. After rebranding, of course.”

    He knew damn well she wouldn’t take him up on it. Even in the other timeline, where he was being somewhat rougher about questioning her, she’d been extremely stubborn about giving up any information at all. Fortunately, he had zero scruples about doing lasting damage, so she’d talked. As had Rune before her. Despite being full of teenage bravado, young Tammi had been a lot easier to break, though she hadn’t known nearly as much as Othala did.

    He’d only drawn that interrogation out as long as he had because it was fun.

    In the other timeline, as the broken, bloodied woman choked out what he wanted to know past shattered teeth, Piggot’s outraged guards finally managed to force the door open. It didn’t matter. He’d got what he needed.

    He closed that timeline and gave Othala an austere smile. “Well, if you’re absolutely certain? A little cooperation goes a very long way, you know.”

    Glaring at him from across the cell, Othala gave him the finger. “Fuck you and the horse you rode in on, you bl—”

    “What Ms Othala means,” the PRT duty lawyer interrupted hastily, “is that she does not intend to make any statements before the trial.”

    Thomas shrugged lightly and got to his feet. He closed the notebook, upon the first page of which he had written a single line—Prisoner uncooperative—and rapped at the door to the cell. “I’m ready to leave now.”

    The door opened and he favoured the supervillain and her lawyer with a slight nod. “Good day to you.” As he left the cell, he was going over the information she’d given him in his head. Also, on the second page of the notebook—now secure within his pocket—were all the names she’d revealed under torture. Names he’d suspected and wondered about, but now had proof of.

    It’s a good day to be me.

    <><>​

    Squealer

    “Oh, for fuck’s sake!” complained Sherrel. “We’ve been through Empire Eighty-Eight territory three times, and there’s not a single fuckin’ cape or skinhead to be seen!” She adjusted the controls on the stealthed tank and it turned the corner neatly, barely even mounting the pavement a little bit. From the inside, it was thirty tons of rumbling monster travelling on broad tracks. The outside; less so. Nobody saw or heard a thing unless they were within about two yards of it. The light didn’t go anywhere, and the sound and vibration were redirected downward into the ground in a diffuse pattern.

    “I kind of noticed that myself,” Bakuda agreed. “Are you certain they haven’t packed up and moved cities in the last few days? There’s not even any Hitler Youth around tagging the walls.” As she spoke, she finished constructing yet another one of her useful little devices. The movement of the tank might have caused her problems with this, but she’d managed to rig up a stable work surface that negated the vibration and swaying.

    “They were all up in everyone’s grille yesterday,” Sherrel reminded her. “I saw Kaiser just fuckin’ murder Skidmark, right in front of me. Why the hell hasn’t the PRT arrested and Birdcaged that Nazi asshole already? That’s what I want to know.”

    Bakuda shrugged. “Maybe they don’t care? It suits them to have the Empire keeping everyone scared until the PRT and the Protectorate come in and do the ‘big damn hero’ thing.”

    “So what you’re saying …” Sherrel’s voice was thoughtful. “Are you saying the PRT and Protectorate are in on it with the Empire?”

    “Well, why the fuck not?” Bakuda gave Sherrel a broad grin that didn’t make her look any less crazy. “They’ve arrested Hookwolf before, but every time they try to send him to the Birdcage, he ‘escapes’. Sounds pretty convenient to me.”

    “Right, then. Fuck this shit. Let’s go play with the big boys.” Sherrel jolted the tank into a higher gear, and gouged a little concrete out of the curb going around the corner. “Time to go see how many licks it takes to get to the centre of a Tootsie Pop. Or PRT building. Whichever happens first.”

    “All-right!” cackled Bakuda. “And I know just the party favour to start the festivities off with.” She rummaged around in the racks that held the bombs she’d already constructed, then came up with one that had ‘Fuck You’ written on it. Pulling down the loading rack for the big overhead launcher, she inserted the bomb into it. “Ready to rock and roll when you are.”

    <><>​

    Coil

    “Did you get what you wanted, sir?” asked the guard on the desk as Thomas handed in the pass he’d been issued for the prison level.

    “No,” he sighed, pretending disappointment. “Well, that’s me for the day. I just came in hoping the prisoners would have information useful to me. Surprise, surprise, they weren’t willing to talk.”

    “Yeah, that’s a shocker,” agreed the guard. “I suppose they’re expecting their homeboys to bust them out any day now.” He chuckled. “Might be a bit harder when we’ve got two of their heavy hitters right here behind bars.”

    Thomas smiled tightly in acknowledgement. “I can’t wait to see their faces when they actually go to trial. Actions have consequences, after all.” For everyone but me.

    “Can’t argue with that. Have a good day, Commander.”

    “You, too.” Thomas went over to the elevator and took it up to the garage level.

    His car was as nondescript as it could get, and the secondary exit for the PRT underground parking garage let out from what appeared to be a commercial parking lot. He approved of the security measures and made use of them whenever he could. Someone like him didn’t get where they were without exercising caution whenever they could, after all.

    He would’ve been happier if his pet could have given him a prediction on today’s events, but they’d been working on a new formulation of her ‘candy’ and it hadn’t agreed with her. So he’d gotten as far as finding out that Rune and Othala could give him actionable intel on the Empire Eighty-Eight, and that he wouldn’t fall under suspicion for interrogating them, then given the rest of the questions a miss. It wasn’t as though he was going to launch a criminal endeavour today, after all. Drive to the PRT building and drive home (or to his base) again. It was as simple as that.

    As he paused at the boom gate for the faux commercial parking lot, he split time. In one timeline, he got his phone out and dashed off a quick text to Creep to meet him at the usual place. The boom gate rose and he checked left and right to find the street completely clear. In both timelines, he drove out onto the street. One version of him turned left as his thumb tapped the last few characters and hit Send; the other, undistracted by any such thing, turned right.

    When the tank appeared out of nowhere, the first version of him could possibly have escaped or swerved out of the way, but he was concentrating on his phone. By the time he wrenched his attention back to controlling the car, it was too late.

    The second version of him had no chance at all. Between one instant and the next, the tank was right in front of him. His car went under it and the wide tracks climbed up and over, compressing it to a fraction of its height in mere seconds. The last thing that went through his mind was his spinal column.

    The first version almost managed to bail out of the car in time.

    <><>​

    Coil’s Underground Base

    Mr Pitter


    As the male nurse was making sure that the girl’s IV drip was feeding her the correct amount of nutrients, she began to giggle.

    At first, he dismissed it as a side effect of the new drug regime, but the giggles continued. They seemed to involve actual humour rather than hysteria, which puzzled him.

    “Are you alright?” he asked, with some concern.

    She giggled again. “He’s gone. Never coming back.”

    The giggles became full-fledged laughter.

    <><>​

    Bakuda

    “What the fuck?” Squealer wrestled the tank back into line. “We just ran over some stupid fuck! He just drove out in front of us!”

    “Stop the tank, stop the tank!” Alice lunged for the hatch.

    “What? Why?” But Squealer pulled the unwieldy vehicle to a juddering halt anyway. “Pretty sure he’s dead.”

    “Just before he went under the tank, I saw a uniform,” Alice said tersely. “I think he’s PRT. There might be useful shit in that car.” She pulled the hatch open. “Wait here.”

    “Yeah, no shit,” muttered Squealer. “You can go mess with squished dead bodies. I’m good right here.”

    Ignoring her, Alice clambered out onto the top deck of the tank, then jumped down and strode back to where the remains of the car leaked oil and gasoline across the asphalt. As she’d thought, the driver had almost managed to get out of the car in time, but the tracks had crunched the roof down over his pelvic and lower abdominal area. Without direct intervention from Panacea, and possibly even with it, he was going to die soon.

    As she approached him, he scrabbled weakly for where he probably normally wore his pistol, but it was nowhere to be seen. “Hey,” she said conversationally. “Got anything I might find interesting? Make it worth your while.”

    He tried to reach for her. “Help,” he rasped. “PRT … you’ve got to help me … please …”

    “Yeah, nah.” She kicked him in the face, then did it again because it felt so good the first time. Teeth scattered across the blacktop. He stopped trying to grasp her boots.

    Going down on one knee, she quickly frisked his upper body, which was all she could reach. Buttoned into one top pocket, she found a notepad, which she extracted from its hiding place.

    “No …” he gurgled. “Mine …” Feebly, he tried to take it back.

    Grabbing one of his fingers, she bent it back until it snapped, then stood up. Flipping back the cover revealed the front page, which read Prisoner uncooperative. It said nothing else and she was about to discard it when an instinct had her flip to the next page. He’d really wanted it back, after all.

    What she saw then made her eyebrows raise dramatically.

    Kaiser – Max Anders

    Hookwolf – Bradley Meadows

    Krieg – James Fliescher (sp?)


    Her grin widened dramatically as she skimmed down the list of names. “Oh, yes,” she muttered. “Oh, fuck me, yes.”

    Snapping the notebook closed, she looked down at the dying man at her feet. His breath stuttered in his throat as he stared back up at her. She grinned back savagely and opened the notebook again, right to the back where there was no writing. Tearing out a couple of pages, she crumpled them loosely then pulled out a cigarette lighter. It was the work of a moment to light the paper then she tossed it into the spreading pool of gasoline.

    Tucking the notebook and lighter into her own pocket, she turned and strode back to the tank and climbed onboard, ignoring the crackling flames and muffled screams from behind her. When she let herself down into the hatch, Squealer turned to look at her. “So, you find anything?”

    Alice grinned. “Did I. Got us a new target.”

    “Yeah? Where?”

    The grin grew wider, and Alice felt a giggle threatening to burst free. “The Medhall building.”

    “Really? What’d they do to you?”

    “Tell you on the way there.”

    Let’s see how long they play hide and seek now.



    End of Part Eight
     
  10. Threadmarks: Part NIne: All Out
    Ack

    Ack (Verified Ratbag) (Unverified Great Old One)

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    Confrontation II: The Reckoning

    Part Nine: All Out

    [A/N 1: This chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]

    [A/N 2: Actual last chapter, woo!]

    [A/N 3: Don’t forget to check out the epilogues.]


    Taylor

    “Medhall building’s up ahead,” Dennis announced. “Let’s stop in, do a civilian visit. Chat with security, make sure everything’s quiet around here, take five before we move on.”

    “I’m down with that,” I agreed. “Stalker?”

    “… sure,” Sophia agreed absently. “We can do that.” But she was looking around, tilting her head as if trying to hear something.

    “What’s up?” I asked quietly.

    “Dunno.” There was a frown in her voice. “Something’s not right. Can’t tell what. Call it a feeling.”

    I wasn’t about to distrust her feelings. My swarm was already out and about; I told it to look alive and start earning its keep. The rooftops, such as they were in the business district, were clear. No ninjas lurked just out of eyesight to ambush us. Since Oni Lee, I hadn’t even considered that a joke.

    “Rooftops clear,” I murmured. “Anything airborne?”

    Sophia stretched her arms above her head and turned in a slow circle. “Nothing,” she reported back.

    Then I noticed something weird. A low-grade vibration, too gentle to feel even through the soft soles of the boots I’d donned for this patrol. But the groundbound bugs and local earthworms (though all too few) were detecting something. Unfortunately, I couldn’t pinpoint it yet.

    “Got a vibration,” I said quietly. “Not sure of the source. I think it’s coming closer.”

    By now, we were outside Medhall proper. We climbed the steps to the doors, and I paused to put my gloved hand against one of the faux-marble pillars that flanked the entrance. If I really concentrated, I thought I could feel it with my fingertips. Or maybe I was just fooling myself.

    “So tell Clockblocker,” murmured Sophia.

    “You know, you can tell him too,” I retorted.

    She sighed, aggravated. “I’m the trouble Ward. You’re the responsible one. He’ll listen to you more.”

    I could tell she wasn’t going to budge on this. “Okay. Come on. We’ll both tell him.”

    Dennis had already gone inside, so we stepped forward and followed him. I caught up to him just as he got to the security desk, Sophia trailing a few steps behind me. “Clockblocker,” I said. “I need to talk to you about something.”

    Despite my carefully neutral tone, he looked at me immediately. “Back in a sec, guys,” he said, then stepped away to join me. “What’s up?”

    I glanced at Sophia and back to him. “Shadow Stalker has a bad feeling about something,” I said quietly. “And my bugs are picking up a weird vibration that’s getting closer and closer. But there’s nobody on the rooftops and nothing in the air.”

    “Underground, maybe?” he asked at once.

    “It’s a possibility,” I agreed. “I’m having trouble pinpointing it, though.”

    He glanced from me to Sophia and back again. “And you’re both absolutely certain about this.”

    Sophia nodded. “Totally.”

    “One hundred percent,” I added.

    “All right, then.” He put his hand to the side of his helmet. “Clockblocker to console, over.”

    “Console here, Clockblocker. Over.” Kid Win had replaced Browbeat on the console.

    “We’re at the Medhall building. Shadow Stalker and Buzz have reported an unusual sensory effect, a vibration, that may be parahuman in origin. I’m about to ask security to lock the building down and get ready to evacuate for their own safety. Can you copy the PRT and Protectorate in on this, please? Over.”

    Sophia and I shared a glance. Before Clockblocker had become Wards leader, he probably would have made some jokes about vibration that might’ve landed him in hot water. Now, he was taking it totally seriously.

    “Ah, roger that, Clockblocker. Alerting PRT and Protectorate now. You say you’re at Medhall, right? Over.”

    “That’s correct, console. We’re …”

    I tuned him out as something weird showed up on my bug senses. Bug sight was crap at the best of times, but to have an entire vehicle only pop into view when it got within a certain distance? That was pushing matters a bit far. I brought several more bugs into this area, and landed them on the thing as it trundled out of a sidestreet. What was it?

    The first thing they registered was vibration. Lots and lots of vibration.

    Then, as more bugs landed and roved over the thing, I started to get an idea of its size and shape. It was very … tank like. Even down to the caterpillar tracks. And oh wait, were those guns? They certainly felt like guns.

    I realised several things at once.

    It was a cloaked tank with guns on it.

    It was clearly up to no good (well, duh!)

    Squealer was back.

    None of this was good news.

    It rumbled to a halt opposite the Medhall building. The bugs I had on the gun-barrels detected a swing in my general direction, including the scary big one on top.

    I had a really, really bad feeling about this.

    <><>​

    Kaiser

    “Understood. Good work.” Max put the phone down and turned to James. “They just picked up Bradley. Would you believe he got tossed a good fifteen miles?”

    “I’m very impressed,” the cape otherwise known as Krieg replied. “One, that he was thrown so far. Two, that he survived the experience.”

    “Well, he says he landed in water, and skidded onto land,” Max allowed. “And he only woke up half an hour before he called in for the pickup.” It would be good to have Hookwolf back on the strength again, especially when they went in to spring their comrades out of PRT holding.

    “So after we get the others back, what’s our priority?” asked Krieg. “Take the territory, or crush the other gangs and then take the territory?”

    That was actually a good question. Even with Othala’s attention, Victor’s shoulder would take a while to heal properly. Still, Cricket and Menja were both heavy hitters in their own way.

    The Merchants, if he was understanding things, had gone the same way as Uber & Leet and the ABB; those that were not dead were in PRT custody. So the Empire only really had to worry about the Undersiders, the Travellers and Coil’s goons. There were of course the heroes to contend with but they’d suffered losses by injury as well, and they would be outnumbered once he had all his people back in the ranks.

    “I think …” he mused out loud, then took the time to drain his glass, savouring the taste of the bourbon. “We’ll feint toward the territory, but once the gangs start mobilising on us, we turn on them and crush them utterly. No kid gloves, not like with the heroes. If they stand against us, they die.”

    He reached for the bottle, but just as his fingers brushed the cool glass a massive shockwave tore through the office. It wasn’t so much a sound as an immaterial impact on all of his organs at once. He found himself lying on the carpet beside his upturned chair, the neck of the bottle lying nearby. Where the rest of it was, he had no clue.

    Trying to marshal his whirling thoughts, he levered himself painfully to a sitting position. “James?” he called out, but his voice echoed oddly in his head. He put his hand to his ear and felt a warm wetness trickling down. Looking around at the breath of air against the back of his neck, he realised that every window in the office was gone.

    Shatterbird? he wondered dully. Are the Nine in town? I hadn’t heard.

    Reaching up and grasping the edge of the desk, he pushed himself to his feet. Just as he did so, another explosion tore through the building; not as strong as the first one, it merely sent him to one knee. What’s going on? I can’t … do I have a concussion?

    A hand fell on his shoulder and he turned as fast as his spinning head allowed. James had suffered a cut over one eye, and was bleeding from both nostrils, but his eyes were awake and alert. “Max, we have to go!” he shouted. At least, Max thought he was shouting, but his voice was barely audible. “We’re under attack! The building’s on fire!”

    The world suddenly clicked into focus. Whether it was those two words, or if his brain had chosen that moment to switch on, he didn’t know. “Got it,” he said crisply. His watch was still on his wrist, though the crystal was shattered. Swiftly, he began covering himself with armour as he moved with James to the secondary exit; the one not shown on the official building plans.

    The elevator didn’t seem to be working; at least, a blinking red light said that it had taken itself out of commission. But there was a stairwell.

    Which had smoke coiling up out of it.

    James hesitated, but Max pushed forward. “If we can get past where the smoke’s getting in, we’re home free.”

    “Max, there is no place where smoke can get in. Or there shouldn’t be.”

    “Shit.” Krieg was right. Which meant that he would have to go down the public stairs. Which meant …

    “You have to lose the armour.”

    “Or risk outing myself and everyone at Medhall. Gotcha.” With a grimace, Max shed the armour, letting it clatter to the floor, and hurried to the door leading out of his office.

    Outside was organised chaos. Max had inherited Medhall from his father, and he’d made sure to keep up with industry standard safety regulations. That included fire and cape-attack drills every few months. Not that anyone had ever thought capes would attack, but they went through the motions and ticked off on the sheets that it had been done.

    There were four official sets of fire stairs in the building. Max’s unofficial stairwell and elevator shaft was quite close to one, and he noticed that there was a large OUT OF ORDER sign on that stairwell. “What’s that about?” he asked the woman in the safety vest standing near it.

    “Mr Anders!” she exclaimed. “Are you alright?”

    He still wasn’t hearing all that well, but he picked up her meaning. “I’m fine,” he said impatiently. “Why is that stairwell closed?”

    “It’s been breached,” she said firmly. “There’s fire and smoke coming up.”

    “Breached?” Max looked dumbly from her to the sign to Krieg. “What could’ve breached it?”

    “We don’t know,” she said. “They just told us it was a cape attack.”

    To underline her statement, yet another concussion shook the building. This time, the juddering, groaning noise took a long time to go away. Max looked at James, and they both came to the same conclusion. Let’s get out of here.

    People were filing down the stairwell in a steady progression. Nobody was panicking just yet, but each subsequent shuddering BOOM raised the overall level of trepidation. Max kept pace with James, feeling his head clearing a little more with each step. Nobody was listening to them; everyone was concentrating on the next flight of stairs, and probably cursing the fact that they worked so high up in the building.

    “Who do you think it is?” asked Max, trying not to lose his breath. There were very few high-impact Blasters native to Brockton Bay. In fact, he could only think of one. He’d been married to her for two years.

    “You think it’s her?” asked James, clearly following his train of thought.

    “I wouldn’t have thought so.” Max had trouble believing it even now. While Kayden might be headstrong, she would never oppose him directly. But now the building was groaning and creaking nonstop even between the bone-shaking explosions. He knew of nobody else who could throw out that sort of power.

    People were still moving down, which meant there was a clear way out. He hoped.

    And once I’m out of here, as soon as I find out who’s doing this, they’re dead.

    <><>​

    Shadow Stalker

    The first warning Sophia got was when Taylor screamed “Oh, shit!” at the top of her lungs. Grabbing Sophia and Dennis each around the waist, she power-drove them past the desk toward the rear of the building, using strength that Sophia hadn’t suspected she possessed. “Everyone get to cover, right now! There’s an invisible tank—”

    BOOOOOOM

    The lobby dissolved in fire and flying glass. Sophia went to shadow just before bits of debris whipped through her immaterial form, giving her a most uncomfortable sensation; but still better than having it go through her for real.

    Slowly, she reformed and looked around, then coughed at the smoke. There was broken glass everywhere, and chunks of fake stone from the walls. “What the fuck was that?” she managed, then coughed again.

    “Not totally sure,” Dennis replied, crawling out from under Taylor, who was frozen in mid-lunge. A couple of wickedly sharp pieces of broken glass were resting on the bug controller’s back; Sophia suspected that if Dennis hadn’t done his time-freeze thing on her, they’d be embedded in her spine by now. “When the place blew, I just reacted.”

    “She said something about an invisible tank.” Sophia shook her head, trying to dispel the last of the uncomfortable ringing sensation. It didn’t help that there was a real ringing in her ears, with the fire alarms all going off. And then, of course, the sprinklers decided to get in on the action.

    Another explosion rocked the building, almost throwing them off their feet. Either it wasn’t as bad as the first one, or their senses were still numbed. Still, it was bad enough. She heard a shout from Dennis, then was pushed off balance by a shove. Sprawling awkwardly on the floor, she rolled to her feet. The sharp comment died on her lips as she saw him on the floor, under more debris.

    “Fuck, Clock, are you okay?”

    He didn’t answer.

    Scrambling over to him, she knelt beside the prone Ward and pushed the bits of ceiling off him. Nothing seemed to be sticking out of him, and he wasn’t bleeding anywhere, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Carefully, she reached up under the rim of his helmet, to where each Ward had a clear spot to feel the throat pulse. His was strong and steady; she exhaled a sigh of relief.

    The rest of her first-aid training didn’t cover this sort of situation. While he was only about her size, his body armour and the lack of traction (water on marble floors was a double whammy) meant she couldn’t drag him anywhere without risking further injury. Taylor, still frozen with his power, was the least in danger right now.

    Backup. Gotta call in backup.

    Reaching up under her mask, she activated her radio. “Shadow Stalker to Console, come in, dammit! The Medhall building’s under attack by a fuckin’ invisible tank and Clock’s down. We need backup, right the fuck now!”

    She paused, waiting for a response.

    All she heard was a vaguely melodic warbling.

    “Shadow Stalker to Console. Come in. You hearing me?”

    Nothing.

    Another explosion shook the building and she looked up apprehensively, but everything that seemed likely to fall down had already done so. “Shadow Stalker to Console, fuckin’ come in, goddamn it!”

    More warbling.

    Jamming. It has to be. “Motherfucker!”

    Doors opened and people started to spill out into the lobby. Sophia jumped up, waving her arms frantically. “Not out this way!” she shouted. “Back way! Go the back way!”

    “What? Why?” This was a suit-and-tie guy, who was already panting from walking down stairs. “This is the short way out!”

    She took three strides to get to him, grabbed him by the stupid fucking tie, and pulled his face down to her level. “Because there’s an invisible fuckin’ tank shooting at the fuckin’ building, you stupid fuckwit!” she screamed. “Now get out the fuckin’ back way!”

    When she released him, he stumbled back a few steps. But that was when three others pushed past him and Sophia both. “Fuck you!” one yelled. “I’m getting out of here!”

    They got as far as the rubble-strewn opening that had once been the entrance to the main lobby, and a crackle of laser fire sounded. All three went down, smoking from multiple cauterised through-and-through holes. They hadn’t even had time to scream. Their wounds steamed gently as the water spray hit them.

    The first man Sophia had stopped stared, aghast. “Uh … I’ll go the back way,” he mumbled.

    Gooood plan.” She gave the rest of the people the stink-eye, as best she could in her mask, and stepped back. “Okay, need to get backup somehow,” she muttered, trying to cudgel ideas out of her brain. “Tank’s jamming the radio. How about phone?”

    Congratulating herself for being a genius, she dived into her pouches. Only to find that the one holding her work phone—with all the appropriate numbers for the Wards and PRT—was open, the phone missing. All this running and diving and shit must’ve jolted the pouch open. Fuck.

    She briefly considered going for Dennis’ phone, but she knew his would also be passcode-locked, just like hers. But there was another phone in there, her personal one.

    Slowly, she pulled it out. She never bothered to code-lock it, so it opened to a touch of her thumb. There were only a few numbers in it now, since she’d brushed Emma, Madison and the rest of that toxic bunch of bitches out of her life for good. Mom, Terry, Taylor …

    … and Brian.

    Fuck.

    She liked Brian, quite a lot. More than she’d liked any boy before, ever. He was tough and cool and didn’t take any shit from anyone. The sort of guy she could see herself with.

    And the last time she’d seen him, she’d been trying her best to strangle him to death.

    If anything would put a damper on a relationship, that was at the top of the list.

    The bizarre thing was, knowing he was Grue didn’t make her like him any less. She wanted to know where they stood, but she didn’t want to have to ask.

    Taylor had hinted that she was trying to get in touch with him, but she hadn’t mentioned anything since.

    Fuuuuuuck.

    Well, the worst he can do is tell me to fuck off.


    She tapped the icon for his number.

    <><>​

    Grue

    The statuette of the raven had its wings spread wide, on the verge of taking off. It was dark and powerful, with black glass wing-feathers, and Brian had zeroed straight in on it. Lisa nodded thoughtfully. “It definitely sends a message,” she said. “I like it.”

    “I hope she does too.” Brian watched as the shop assistant carefully wrapped it for transport. “I hate this bullshit.”

    Lisa gave him a perceptive look; she knew exactly what he meant, he could tell. The hero-villain bullshit, locking people into mindsets until he and Sophia had only seen each other as an enemy to be beaten when they were in costume. Fortunately, Sophia had Taylor to reach out for her—

    His phone rang. Eyes widening, he met Lisa’s gaze. “Get the package, will you?” he asked and stepped out of the shop, ignoring her snarky what am I, your personal servant?

    When he saw Sophia’s name on the screen, his heart nearly stopped. He’d been waiting and hoping for a call, but now that it had come … “Fuck it,” he muttered, and swiped to answer. The phone went immediately to his ear. “Hello?” he croaked, his throat suddenly dry.

    “Brian.” Her voice was crisp, no-nonsense. “I know I’ve got no right to ask anything from you. Especially with what I’ve done. Especially to you. But Taylor and me and Clockblocker are pinned down, and it’s looking bad. We need backup. If not for me, at least for Taylor. Please?”

    It was the ‘please’ that got him. Sophia never begged, never showed weakness. And yet here she was, pleading with him. “Where are you?” Grabbing the keys out of his pocket, he hustled to the car.

    Medhall building. Taylor’s frozen and Clockblocker’s unconscious. There’s a great big fuck-off invisible tank across the road blowing up the building and firing lasers at everything that moves.”

    Brian wrenched the car door open, the key in the ignition and the engine starting before he even had his seatbelt on. He’d thought he’d heard distant explosions, but he’d been consciously ignoring them. “I’m on the way. Hold tight.” Gunning the engine, he peeled out of there, ignoring Lisa’s indignant yell from far behind him.

    <><>​

    Fenja

    Jessica started increasing in size as soon as they were out of the secret exit, half a block away from the Medhall building. “What’s the plan?” she asked, already missing her sister’s presence. But Nessa’s knee was still broken, thanks to that bitch Glory Girl. In fact, the only combat-worthy capes the Empire had on hand right now (apart from Kaiser and Krieg, who were actually in the building itself) were herself, Alabaster and Cricket. The latter bore a bandage around her right calf, memento of a shot from Miss Militia, but she swore she could still fight. Not so Victor, whose right arm was in a sling and likely to remain so until they could spring Othala.

    “I’ll draw fire,” Alabaster stated, checking his pistols. “Cricket, you go in sneaky, try to confuse them. Fenja, once they’re engaged in trying to kill me, come in over the top and crush the motherfuckers.”

    It was a plan. Victor probably could’ve come up with a better one, but there were only the three of them. Any course of action necessarily had to be relatively simple. “Okay, then.” Slinging her shield on her back, Jessica leaned down and scooped up her teammates. “Let’s go get these assholes.”

    Covering the half-block of distance was a snap, with legs that could cover fifty and sixty feet at a stride. Doing so while keeping out of view of whatever was bombarding the Medhall building was somewhat more difficult. As for the building itself … it was a mess.

    First off, there was a hole blown right through it, about halfway up. Flames and smoke poured from the ragged twenty-foot-wide aperture, while other sections had been blown away, or even melted in some unnatural fashion. Jessica was impressed that the thing was still standing. If this attack kept up, it wouldn’t be, and Kaiser was still inside.

    Crouching, she placed Cricket on a convenient rooftop and Alabaster on the ground. It was awkward to get her shield back into place on her arm, but she did it anyway. “Let me know when it’s time to move,” she said as quietly as she could.

    Cricket nodded. “You’ll know.”

    <><>​

    Taylor

    “There’s an invisible tank and it’s—!” I stopped, throwing out my hands to prevent myself from sprawling on the ground as the world flickered around me.

    Rolling over and sitting up, I took in my surroundings. Water sprayed down from overhead sprinklers. Dennis lay nearby, apparently unconscious. Sophia was just putting her phone away, peering out into the ruins of what I had to squint to recognise as the Medhall lobby. Instinctively, I took control of all the bugs in the vicinity and started figuring out what had happened.

    I couldn’t have been frozen for more than ten minutes; that was the outside limit of Dennis’ power. But in that time, Squealer’s tank had done a real number on the Medhall building. From what my bugs were telling me, a lot of the building was badly damaged, and there was vibration within the load-bearing beams that I didn’t like in the slightest.

    Farther afield, I still had bugs on the tank. Immediately, I began to converge swarms on it. All I needed was one entrance, one opening, and I could end this attack with ease. She’d never see it coming.

    It was only when I heard a distant popping and crackling, and felt my swarms starting to die off at a startling rate, that I realised she actually would see it coming. And in fact, she had included point defence. On a tank. Against bugs.

    I dispersed the swarms and the lasers cut out again. Not only did I need to conserve bugs, but I didn’t want a laser shot to come through the swarm and hit someone else. Okay, I need a plan B.

    That was when my bugs noticed the other three. Stealth was difficult when one was a sixty foot tall armoured woman; in my defence, I had been focusing on the tank. Fenja’s two companions, I quickly gathered, were Alabaster and Cricket. As villains, and as the aggressors in the recent cape conflict, it wouldn’t have surprised me if they were trying to find a way to capitalise on the situation, such as busting into the Medhall building and robbing it. But instead, it seemed they wanted to actually locate and kill the tank.

    The trouble with this plan was that it would invariably expose them to the tank’s horribly accurate fire. My bugs had already located and identified the laser-burned bodies at the entrance to the foyer; I had no reason to believe that the tank would treat them any differently. In fact, I suspected they would get an extra helping, being capes.

    From my reading of Empire capabilities, Fenja might be able to shrug off the lasers, Alabaster would probably survive by coming back over and over … but Cricket? Not a hope in hell. Worse, they didn’t know where it was. Even if they knew that, they’d have to get all the way up to it without being seen and shot.

    “Oh, hey,” Sophia said. “You’re up. Good.” She came over and helped me to my feet.

    Briefly, I hugged her. It was good to see that she’d survived the cataclysm that had scoured the lobby. Even the security guards behind the now-demolished desk hadn’t made it. “Situation?”

    Outside, I pulled together my depleted swarms and formed a barrier in front of Cricket. ‘Not safe,’ I had the insects buzz. ‘Invisible tank. Lasers.’

    She swiped her hand through the swarm, then did something with high-pitched sound that disoriented them and completed the dispersal of the grouping. “Buzz is in the area!” I heard her call out. “Probably Shadow Bitch, too!”

    “Once we deal with this shit, we’ll take them out too,” Alabaster replied. “I’m done playing nice.”

    Oh, for fuck’s sake. I was trying to save their lives. As a last-minute effort, I laid down several large arrows on the ground, pointing at where the tank was.

    In the meantime, Sophia had been filling me in on what had happened while I was in time-out. “… said he was on the way,” she concluded. “Wasn’t able to call the PRT, radios are jammed, but the building isn’t that far away and surely to fuck they’ll have heard the explosions or seen the smoke cloud.”

    “You can literally see the Medhall building from Director Piggot’s office,” I reminded her. “I’m almost certain she knows by now.”

    <><>​

    PRT Building, Brockton Bay

    Director Piggot’s Office


    “Yes, I actually do know where the explosions are coming from,” Emily snarled, standing with her phone in one hand and the other up against the high-end polycarbonate that made up her office window. “The Medhall building. How do I know? I can see it. There is a hole right through it. It’s on fire. And I’m almost certain that part of it has melted. Prep a full assault force; orders are to take down any hostile capes onsite, any means necessary. Go.”

    With a subvocalised growl, she stabbed the end of call icon, then pulled up another number. This one rang exactly once. “Console, Corporal Wyzinski speaking.”

    “Wyzinski, this is Director Piggot.” Emily spoke clearly and crisply, the better to get her message across. “I need to know the exact location of our Wards contingent. You need to pull them back in immediately.”

    The corporal’s words sent a chill down her back. “We’re trying to re-establish comms with them, ma’am. They were speaking with Kid Win about potentially evacuating the Medhall building when we lost contact.”

    “So as far as you know,” Emily said carefully, “they’re at the Medhall building right now.”

    “That’s our best guess, yes, ma’am.”

    “Alright. Keep trying. If you re-establish comms, get an immediate sitrep, and order them from me to keep their heads the hell down.”

    Wyzinski sounded mildly confused, but he didn’t argue. “Ma’am, yes, ma’am.”

    Trying hard not to swear—it would waste time and achieve nothing—Emily cut the call and dialled yet another number.

    It was answered before the first ring had finished. “You’ve got Armsmaster.” He was breathing a little hard; she suspected he was hustling somewhere. Probably to where the assault force was being assembled.

    “The best intel I have says that our Wards are in the middle of the mess at Medhall,” she told him crisply. “Your top priority is to extract them. If you have to get by whatever villains are on site to do so, you are authorised to use lethal force by my order. Do you understand?”

    “Yes, Director,” he acknowledged. “Extraction of Wards is my top priority. Lethal force authorised for this situation. Message received and understood.”

    She took a deep breath. “Good hunting. Piggot, out.”

    Shutting down the call, she stood at the window, staring out at the rising plume of smoke. She was sick and tired of villains running rough-shod over her city. It was time they learned about consequences.

    She’d burn every political marker she’d accumulated during her tenure if she had to, but whoever had attacked Medhall (with her Wards in the building!) was going to the Birdcage.

    <><>​

    Taylor

    “Goddamn it, she’s ignoring me,” I growled. “And they’re acting like this is all our fault or something.” I spared a glance for Dennis. “How’s he going?”

    “Pulse is strong, but he’s still out to it.” Sophia reported. “And are you surprised? Villains will fuckin’ villain, all day long.” She stood up and gestured at a bunch of people who were crowding into our area. “Front way’s a no-go zone. Back way out, go!”

    “The exit’s blocked,” reported a guy in a suit. “I think debris fell down or something. We can’t get it open.” His tone clearly asked, What are you going to do about it?

    I left the argument to her, as I was concentrating on what was going on outside. A few bugs went and checked on the rear emergency exit and found that yes, a large chunk of outside wall had fallen down and entirely blocked the doorway. Out front, it looked like Alabaster was making a move.

    <><>​

    Squealer

    “Fuck me, it’s Alabaster!” Sherrel turned the camera, trying to scan the area. “Where did he come from?”

    “Damned if I know,” Bakuda said, then smirked as a trio of the automated point-defence lasers hit the Empire cape in the chest, dropping him like a rock. “Nice one.”

    Just under five seconds later, he was up again, coming in at a dead run. They watched him pull two pistols, just before one laser took his left leg off at the knee and another one neatly excised his right arm at the shoulder. “Ooh,” Sherrel giggled with a fake grimace. “That’s gotta sting.”

    Again, he was whole in just seconds, and kept coming. Only to go down, lie there for a few seconds, then get up again as whole and hearty as before. He was now halfway to the tank, and showing no signs of quitting.

    “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Bakuda sighed. Reaching up, she loaded one of the small launchers with a grenade-sized bomb. She waited until he was up again, then sent the projectile on its way. With a soundless flash, it did its job. “Walk that one off, asshole.”

    <><>​

    Fenja

    “Fuck,” said Jessica, trying not to freak out at the sight. She’d just been about to move, but now she pulled back into cover. “Alabaster’s dead.”

    “Bullshit.” Crouching back from the roofline, Melody shook her head. “Alabaster doesn’t stay dead.”

    Jessica wanted to put her hand to her mouth, but her full-face helmet was in the way. “I think he is, this time. He just turned to liquid. Like, puree’d. I’m looking at a puddle. He’s dead. They just killed him.”

    That was a profoundly unsettling realisation to have. There were certain constants when it came to being in the Empire. Hookwolf was the toughest bastard in the gang, with Stormtiger and Cricket leading a close second and third. Alabaster was the one that nobody could kill. Nobody fucked with the Empire.

    And now Hookwolf had been tossed out of the city, the Empire was being well and truly fucked with, and it looked like the unkillable Alabaster was eminently killable after all. The process of change had been very fast; one moment he’d been running and the next his limbs and body had broken down, become a large puddle of uncertain fluids. Whatever else the man was, he was dead.

    And so, she coldly decided, were the assholes who had just murdered him. They might still be walking and breathing, but that was only a detail.

    “Okay, just going to check—”

    Jessica had seen the accuracy and firing speed of the lasers as they chopped Alabaster down, over and over again. She opened her mouth to object, but it was too late. There was a weird sensation behind her eyes as Cricket ramped up her subsonics in order to disorient anyone nearby, then leaned over the roof edge.

    Three lasers hit Cricket at once, and she toppled over slowly, steam rising from where the top of her head had been just a second ago. Jessica watched with horror as she vanished from sight, the horrific wound leaving no room for the chance of survival. There was a distinct thud, a moment later.

    “Melody, no,” she whispered. “No. No, no, no.”

    Tears leaked from her eyes as she squeezed the lids shut, trying to blot out the image. Alabaster had been a teammate, but he’d also been an arrogant asshole. Despite the fact that they came from entirely different backgrounds, Melody Jurist had been a friend.

    Okay, now it’s just me. Do I keep pushing, or do I back off?


    Common sense said to back off; whoever was doing this had killed two of her teammates in less than a minute. But her loyalty to the Empire Eighty-Eight said something entirely different. Cricket and Alabaster needed avenging.

    When it came down to it, there was only one real course of action to take. Pushing her power so she grew even larger, she stood up.

    You just fucked with the Empire Eighty-Eight. Time to pay the piper.

    <><>​

    Grue

    Brian was halfway to the Medhall building when he realised he had no costume in the car. The last thing he wanted to do was show his face and endanger his friends and family to anyone who might decide to take matters into their own hands, unwritten rules be damned.

    But Sophia needs backup now. I can’t go back home to grab it. By the time I get there and back, she’ll probably be dead. He paused. Wait. Unless Alec left that stupid balaclava in the car again ...

    Slowing the car somewhat, he leaned across and popped the glove compartment. Rummaging blindly with his eyes on the road, he shoved aside what felt like Lisa’s spare pistol and batteries for Alec’s sceptre. Finally, his hand fell on a bundle of cloth and he pulled it out. Sparing a quick glance as he shook it out, he nodded. Not perfect, but it’ll do. I just hope he washed it recently.

    He dropped the balaclava on the passenger seat and concentrated on driving. Hang on, Sophia. I’m on the way.

    <><>​

    Taylor

    “No!” I shouted uselessly as Fenja lunged around the corner and charged toward the tank; or rather, toward where my bug-arrows pointed. “Don’t!”

    Helplessly, I watched as the tank opened fire. Laser shots sparked off her armour and shield, reflecting back as multicoloured glints but never so much as warming the metal. I expected to see it burn through at any second, but she got closer and closer with every gargantuan stride, surrounded by an ever-intensifying halo of blinding radiance.

    Shit, I thought. She’s actually going to make it. It felt weird to be cheering on the supervillain who had nearly killed Glory Girl, but there we were.

    And then the big launcher swivelled toward her. It coughed once, and she screamed as her right leg (complete with armour) turned entirely to glass.

    Right then I had a second epiphany, even more unwelcome than the first. “Fuck,” I said. “Bakuda’s back.” What had happened to Alabaster had made me wonder, but this put the icing on the cake.

    Sophia didn’t question my words. “Well, fuck.”

    If Fenja had been standing still, the situation may have been almost salvageable. But she wasn’t. Her now-glass leg came down with shattering force, in every sense of the word. If the scream when her leg turned to glass was loud, her shriek when it disintegrated into a million glittering shards was deafening. She went down to her one remaining knee, supported by her free hand and shield arm, head hanging down.

    Still, she wasn’t done yet. Leaning her weight on her arms, she drew her leg up under her, clearly planning to try to get upright. But that was when the large launcher twitched slightly, adjusting its aim. I knew what was going to happen next. Fenja was going to die, and I couldn’t do a damn thing about it. While I had some bugs on the tank, there were nowhere near enough to jam either the launchers or the laser emplacements. I didn’t want to see what happened next, even via my bugs, but I made myself watch anyway.

    <><>​

    Grue

    Even without Sophia’s warning, Brian would’ve pulled up before getting too close to the Medhall building. There were crashed cars and dead people sprawled on the sidewalk and roadway, all showing signs of coming under attack from sustained laser fire. So he pulled the balaclava on over his head, wrinkling his nose as he concluded that no, Alec hadn’t laundered it any time recently, then got out of the car and moved up. Holding his hands in front of himself, he generated his darkness in a cloud that he walked through, hiding him from view inside the impenetrable fog.

    He got to the corner just in time to see something happen to Fenja. She’d been crouching on one leg—where the other one was, he wasn’t sure, though there were large shards of glass everywhere which gave him a distinct clue—and supporting herself on her hands, when an explosion went off around her head and chest.

    Well, kind of an explosion. There was no earth-shattering kaboom (to quote Marvin the Martian), no cloud of smoke or fire. But when the light stopped distorting itself into a Klein bottle and returned to normal, Fenja had been … inverted. As far as Brian could see, everything in her upper body that was supposed to be on the inside was now on the outside, and vice versa. One thing was for certain; she was dead. Nothing could survive that.

    At least, he hoped not.

    Also, he knew something else he hadn’t before.

    Bakuda was back.

    “Fuck.”

    He promised himself that he’d throw up later. Right now, he was here to back Sophia up.

    Here goes nothing.

    <><>​

    Taylor

    “What happened?” asked Sophia. “Did Fenja get them?”

    I shook my head, glad beyond description that bug senses were crap. I knew that something had happened to the Empire cape, and it had probably been fatal, but not precisely what. That was the bad news.

    The really bad news was that the tank was still there, and it seemed to be prepping to fire into the Medhall building again. The sprinklers had stopped, but from the creaking and groaning and occasional falls of bits and pieces of ceiling, it wouldn’t take much to bring the whole thing down. In fact, I was personally convinced that it was going to come down all by itself, even if left totally alone from this point onward. It was just a matter of time.

    Given that I was in the building, this did not fill me with an overwhelming sense of security.

    “Ow. Anyone get the number of that truck?”

    “Clockblocker! Shit, how you doing?” Sophia went from crouching next to me to doing a baseball slide, spraying up water, that ended her up next to our now-conscious teammate.

    I glanced over my shoulder, then went back to surveying the entrance. If a lot of smoke happened all at once, we’d be able to guide the trapped employees out, but right now Squealer and Bakuda (and wasn’t that a partnership made in hell) held all the aces. In fact, in light of my previous supposition regarding the building’s fragility, all they had to do was sit there and bottle us up. The building would kill us all by itself.

    “Ow. I’ve been better. Did the roof fall in on me? Feels like it did.”

    “Something like that. So, this is the situation.” Sophia began to list off all the bad news we had. This was appropriate, because there was no good news.

    Or maybe there was.

    My bugs noticed the cloud of pure blackness that had just come around the corner, and was now spreading toward where the tank was. I raised my bug-arrows into the air and moved them back and forth to make sure he got the message. Grue (because who else could it be?) was clearly on the ball, because the cloud rolled over the tank in short order, finally nullifying those goddamn lasers.

    “Shadow Stalker!” I yelled. “We’ve got cover from the lasers! Get everyone moving! We’re getting out of here!”

    She didn’t need telling twice. Neither did anyone else. While she and the still-groggy Clockblocker started the employees toward the open front of the building, I ventured out first. My swarm came together in a screen that would hopefully act as a decoy in case Grue’s cloud didn’t cover as much as I thought it would.

    Fortunately, it wasn’t needed. Grue stood in the middle of the street, shrouded in darkness, more of it pouring off him and piling up in a formless mass over where the tank still sat. He glanced over his shoulder once, and I gave him a thumb’s up. He nodded in acknowledgement, then he went back to keeping the lasers locked down.

    I didn’t care that he was Sophia’s boyfriend right then. When I got the chance, I was gonna give him the biggest kiss.

    Behind me, I could hear people crowding out and herding down the street as fast as they could hustle. I stretched out a line of bugs guiding them around the nearest corner so they’d be out of line-of-sight of the lasers if the tank happened to start up and rumble out of the cloud. It hadn’t yet, but I had no idea what Squealer and Bakuda were thinking right then.

    <><>​

    Squealer

    “Motherfucker!” shouted Bakuda. “I can’t see a fuckin’ thing in this! There’s nothing on any of the sensors! Drive us out of it!”

    “Fuck that!” retorted Sherrel. “Driving blind’s the fastest way to wreck your vehicle on something you can’t see. What if they’ve put mines or something around us and they’re just waiting for us to run over them?”

    “Well, do something!” insisted Bakuda.

    Sherrel took a deep breath and tried to collect her thoughts. It had been awhile since she’d had a good hit of anything, but Bakuda had been insistent that she not be high while she was building or driving any vehicle that Bakuda was going to be in at the time. “Okay, okay,” she said, trying to kick her brain into gear. “Darkness that thick, that not even radar gets through? That’s not normal. It’s not Tinkertech, either.”

    “Well, no shit!” shouted Bakuda. “That’s fuckin’ Grue! The Undersiders are here! How tough’s your armour? What happens when a couple of those big fuck-off monster dogs start tearing this thing apart around us?”

    “No, no, you’re right.” Sherrel hustled forward to the control panel alongside the controls. “I built something in for those cocksuckers. Here it is.” She flipped up a cover and pressed both of the buttons that had been hidden under it, one after the other. “Pop-up holograms showing a rotating series of puzzles to force Tattletale into a Thinker headache. High-pitched whistles to distract Bitch’s dogs. Regent can’t do shit, and I couldn’t figure a countermeasure against darkness.”

    “Well, I can.” Bakuda led the way back to the launchers. She took up four of the smaller bombs and loaded them into a launcher, then fired them in a wide arc to cover as much ground as possible. “Black hole bombs. They’ll suck him in, then take his darkness away as well. Goodbye motherfucker.”

    “Fuck yes!” Sherrel offered her a high-five, which she returned. “Why the hell didn’t we ever team up like this before?”

    Bakuda snorted. “Because you were a drug-fucked Merchant bitch, and I was working for Lung?”

    Sherrel tilted her head. “Yeah, fair point. How long ’til those bombs kill him?”

    Smirking confidently, Bakuda studied her nails. “Oh, any minute now.”

    <><>​

    Shadow Stalker

    The last of the civvies had stumbled out of the building and were heading for the corner. Clock was herding them along, making sure they got out of sight okay. He hadn’t even questioned the fact that an Undersider was making sure nobody else got fried by lasers, which Sophia appreciated. There would probably be awkward questions later, but right now all she wanted was for people to get the fuck out from under what was very shortly going to be a pile of rubble.

    “Shit!” That was Taylor; Sophia whipped her head around to see four round black objects fly out of the cloud in a fan pattern. None of them came particularly close to Brian, but when they hit the ground, they each erupted in a swirling vortex that began to suck his darkness into it. Worse, the closest one to him actually seemed to have pulled him off his feet. Lying on the ground, he was trying to scramble away from it, with minimal success.

    “Motherfucker!” Sophia didn’t care that anyone heard her swear. She’d just got Brian back. There was no way she was losing him again.

    Pulling her right-hand crossbow and wishing that she’d invested in a grapnel arrow for it—Kid Win had once offered to make her one, and she’d turned him down—she went to shadow and leaped across the intervening distance, faster than any merely material person could’ve made it. The closest vortex tried to draw her into it, but in doing so it pulled her directly toward Brian, as she’d planned.

    Just as she came level with him, she pushed the immaterial crossbow downward and went back to solid form, but with the crossbow half-buried in the asphalt. With that for a handhold, she grabbed his wrist in her other hand and hung on for dear life. Though surprised by the save, he didn’t waste time querying it. His large strong hand closed around her forearm, an experience that was both familiar and strange to her. While they’d certainly had physical contact before, holding hands hadn’t been a thing for them before now. She decided then and there that it would be, going forward.

    All of a sudden, the shrieking vortices cut out and the sensation of being dragged sideways down the street ceased. Sophia let go of both her crossbow and his hand and sat up; he did the same. “Thanks,” he said quietly.

    “Not a problem.” The reply was almost automatic. He got to his feet and helped her up; their fingers didn’t seem to want to let go of each other. Stretching out his hand sideways, he resumed covering the tank with his black fog.

    They spoke at the same time. “I’m sorry.”

    Wait, what? She stared at him. “Okay, what are you sorry about?”

    He shrugged. “Any time a girl’s pissed at me, I assume I did something, so I apologise first and then find out what it was later.”

    Sophia considered that. It was good philosophy, from her point of view. “Oh. Well, then, apology accepted.”

    “So is yours,” he allowed. “Now, what are we going to do about this?”

    “I owe those bitches a beatdown.” She cricked her neck. “Make me a hole?”

    He grinned. “I thought you’d never ask.”

    A moment later, she saw a gap open up in the coverage of the tank, low down. Taking a run-up, she went to shadow and slid in through the aperture Brian had left for her. A second later, she could suddenly see the damn tank, as her immaterial form went through the caterpillar tracks that held it off the ground. And then she was under the tank.

    The engine started. There was a lot of vibration involved. Sophia didn’t care. She launched herself up and into the tank proper.

    <><>​

    Squealer

    “Are we still blacked out?” Bakuda leaned past her to tap at one of the monitor screens, like it was a faulty gauge. “He couldn’t have survived that. Could he?”

    Sherrel was getting more and more nervous. “I don’t know what’s happening out there, but I don’t like it. I think we should just get the fuck out of Dodge.”

    “I thought you didn’t want to drive blind?” jeered Bakuda.

    “I don’t,” Sherrel agreed. “But I still think we should.”

    “Well, let’s do it then.” Bakuda went back into where the launchers were. “We’ll carpet the area on the way out. Give them something to worry about other than chasing us.”

    Sherrel grinned. “I like the way you think.” Sitting down in the driver’s seat, she worked her shoulders and cracked her knuckles, then pressed the button that kicked the engine over.

    A moment later, she heard a startled yell from behind her.

    <><>​

    Shadow Stalker

    “What the ever-loving fuck?”

    Surprise was a not unusual reaction, Sophia had found, when she came up through the floor almost directly under someone’s feet. However, she was now in an enclosed space with two women who almost certainly wanted to kill her; had in fact done their best to do that not so very long ago. Bakuda had even tried to do it twice.

    Of course, this also meant that they were locked into an enclosed space with her. Taylor had once discussed the concept of ‘target rich environment’ with her, and she’d agreed with it. The trick was to go on the attack and not give them a chance to retaliate.

    Which was why she brought her fist up almost from floor level, and drove it into Bakuda’s solar plexus. At least, she figured it was Bakuda. The gasmask was missing, as was most of the circuitry that had been woven into the Tinker’s hair. But the woman’s attitude and stance was all Bakuda. Also, she was inside the tank, so she was fair game.

    Bakuda huffed out a pained gasp and bent double, allowing Sophia to come to her feet and bring her knee solidly up into the villain’s nose. Grabbing Bakuda by the hair, she did it a second and third time. That seemed to do the job; Bakuda slumped to the floor with a groan.

    Instinct warned her just in time, and she turned and ducked as a heavy wrench whistled past her head and clanged off a bulkhead. Squealer’s face was contorted with rage as she readied for a backswing. In these confined quarters, it would be hard to avoid.

    There were mechanisms with handles on either side; Sophia grabbed one in each hand, lifted her feet, and delivered a powerful double kick to Squealer’s not inconsiderable chest region. Slammed backward with a totally on-brand squeal, Squealer did her best to maintain her balance. Sophia wasn’t about to let that happen; she pulled a backflip, landed on her feet, then shoulder-charged the villain into the tank controls behind her.

    With a rumble, the tank started forward, swerving erratically from side to side. Sophia didn’t care as she grabbed Squealer’s shoulders (there wasn’t enough of her top to grab) and delivered a crisp head-butt with her mask taking the brunt of the impact. As the villain stumbled back against the controls yet again, causing the tank to swerve once more, Sophia unleashed a one-two punch into her stomach region, then elbowed her viciously in the jaw.

    Squealer subsided, groaning feebly. Sophia glanced at the outside monitor that showed where the tank was going, then looked over her shoulder at where Bakuda was just beginning to pull herself to her feet once more. “Hey, bitch-features,” she said, and jammed the throttle wide open. “See you in Hell.”

    Then she turned to shadow and jumped out through the side of the tank.

    <><>​

    Grue

    Taylor joined Brian as Sophia disappeared under the tank.

    “Think she’ll be okay?” he asked, worried. “If they’re both in there, it’ll be two against one.”

    “She works best in a target-rich environment,” she assured him. “Besides, Squealer does tanks and Bakuda does bombs. What are they going to do, blow themselves up just to get her?”

    “Yeah, but—”

    “It’s moving,” she said, and pointed. “That way.”

    “Okay,” he said cautiously. “Do we do anything about that?”

    “Just try to keep it covered in case the lasers start firing again.”

    “Got it.” He blinked as the cloaking field suddenly vanished. “Okay, not sure what just happened, but now I can see it.”

    It swerved and jinked from side to side, clearly not under deliberate control. When it finally straightened out, the engine gave a roar … as it headed for the stricken Medhall building. At the last moment, just before it started up the steps toward the main lobby, a dark figure passed out through the side of the Tinkertech vehicle.

    Rumbling forward at full throttle, the tank entered the lobby and vanished into the interior of the building. Taylor and Brian glanced at each other, then at Sophia, who was sprinting toward them.

    “Run?” suggested Brian.

    “Run,” Taylor affirmed.

    “RUN!” yelled Sophia.

    They ran.

    <><>​

    Taylor

    Sophia was the fastest out of the three of us, but I’d been practicing as well. Adrenaline loaned me a little speed, and Brian wasn’t far behind me either. We sprinted down the street away from the stricken Medhall building, trying to get as far away as possible before the tank broke something structural.

    It didn’t take long.

    We slowed down at the intersection and turned to look back. Gradually, as though tired, the building was beginning to slump downward at one corner. The slump increased dramatically and all of a sudden, part of the building was falling in on itself with a long, low rumble. We watched, fascinated, as level after level collapsed until everything hit street level and a cloud of dust billowed down the street toward us.

    Stepping around the corner, I pulled Sophia and Brian with me; we put our backs to the wall and watched the dust billow past us. Slowly, it subsided and we peered back around.

    “So, is that it?” asked Brian.

    As if to answer his question, there was a sudden KRAKBOOM from the direction of the destroyed building. A flash of light hid everything for a moment; when it faded away, we saw a glass-lined crater where a good chunk of the rubble had been. Of the tank, there was no sign.

    Sophia sighed. “I think that’s it. Thanks for turning up.”

    “How could I not?” He gathered her in his arms and held her tight. She was embracing him pretty hard as well.

    Clockblocker wandered over and stood next to me. “Do I want to know?”

    Slowly, I shook my head. “Probably not.”

    “Okay. However, not to be That Guy, but maybe non-Protectorate affiliates might need to leave the scene. I just got word. PRT is on the way.”

    “Shit, yeah,” I said. I knew this for a fact, having picked them up three blocks away.

    “Oh. Right. Good idea.” Brian disengaged from Sophia. “See you later, you big softy.”

    “I’ll show you ‘big softy’,” she snapped back, but I could tell she was smiling under the mask.

    He turned away from us and got into a nondescript car before pulling off the balaclava. Starting the car, he drove away sedately, just as the first PRT vehicles showed up, Armsmaster in the lead.

    “Oh, hey,” I said as the armoured hero climbed off his bike. “You missed all the fun.”

    In another moment, Brian’s car turned the corner and was gone.



    End of Part Nine
     
    Last edited: Feb 12, 2021
  11. Threadmarks: Epilogues
    Ack

    Ack (Verified Ratbag) (Unverified Great Old One)

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    Confrontation II: The Reckoning

    Epilogues

    [A/N: These epilogues beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]

    Epilogue One: After Action

    Director Piggot’s Office


    “I’m going to be absolutely honest with the three of you.” Emily sat and looked over her desk at the three Wards facing her. Each showed signs of the events of the last few hours; their costumes were damaged here and there, and the way they held themselves indicated a few aches and pains.

    Clockblocker nodded. “Yes, ma’am, I know we screwed up, but I’m team lead. It was my fault.”

    Emily raised her eyebrows. “Might I suggest you wait until you’ve heard what I had to say?” Mentally, though, she awarded him marks for responsibility.

    “Yes, ma’am. Sorry, ma’am.”

    She nodded to acknowledge his words. “Shadow Stalker, you were a problem child even before the event with Buzz.” She didn’t have to elaborate which event that was. “But you weren’t quite enough of a problem, or more accurately we didn’t know the extent of your problematic behaviour, so you got to skate on that one. Afterward … well, Buzz was the only reason you got any kind of a pass from me after that. Clockblocker, you were a problem of a different kind. Starting with your name, then going on with your attitude. You were a goof-off and a discipline problem. Buzz, you wanted to be a hero, but after your initial fight with Lung, I thought you were going to be far too tentative to make it.” She slapped her hands on the desk. “But you all managed to surprise me.”

    The Wards before her didn’t quite dare to comment on her statement. Their masks hid their faces, but she could still read the wtf did she just say? in their body language.

    “Clockblocker, you’ve shaped up as a leader.” Her tone was crisp, professional. “Buzz, you’ve shown you can take the initiative and make hard choices. Shadow Stalker, you’ve gone a very very long way toward redeeming yourself. You and Buzz are the most effective hero partnership in the city, aside from perhaps Assault and Battery. The three of you also work well together. Today, you showed that in spades.”

    Again, silence fell, broken only by Clockblocker’s hesitant voice. “Uh, Director …?”

    Emily didn’t smile very much, except under special situations. This was such a situation. “Today, you saw a situation coming, reacted to it, and saved many lives. You made the Wards, and thus the PRT, look good. I am very proud of you.”

    This time, Clockblocker knew what to say. “Thank you, ma’am.” One at a time, Buzz and Shadow Stalker echoed his sentiment.

    “You’re welcome.” Emily waved vaguely at the door. “You can go now. I’ve still got your mess to clear up.”

    “Yes, ma’am.” Clockblocker led the way to the door. “Thank you, ma’am.”

    Now for the sting in the tail. “Oh, and Shadow Stalker?”

    The black girl froze halfway out the door. “Uh, yes, uh, ma’am?”

    “If Grue ever shows an interest in joining the Wards, I would not be opposed to the idea.” Emily dropped her eyes to the paperwork on her desk. “Close the door on your way out.”

    As the door clicked shut, she allowed herself a shark-like grin. That should keep them on their toes.

    End of Epilogue One


    <><>​

    Epilogue Two: Freedom

    Coil’s Base


    Mr Pitter stood next to Dinah on the walkway overlooking the assembled mercenaries.

    “Tell them what you told me,” he said.

    Dinah cleared her throat. “Coil is gone,” she said. “He won’t be coming back here, ever. Also, anyone who’s still here in exactly one week … dies.”

    As the mercenaries dispersed, Trickster came over to where they were standing. “You’re serious about this.”

    “As serious as I can be,” Dinah replied.

    “Fuck.” Trickster shook his head. “This is going to piss everyone off.”

    Mr Pitter shrugged helplessly. “I can’t solve everyone’s problems. I can barely solve my own.”

    As Trickster moved off, Mr Pitter looked at Dinah. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go.”

    She nodded seriously. It was time to go home.

    End of Epilogue Two

    <><>​

    Epilogue Three: Awakening

    Brockton Bay General Hospital

    Panacea


    … beep … beep … beep … beep …

    Amy didn’t register the fact that she had a visitor. Two days now, and Vicky still wasn’t responding. Her body was still healthy and her brain active, but she just wasn’t waking up.

    “Hey, Amy. Came as soon as we could.”

    A chair was pulled up alongside her, and someone sat down. When an arm went around her shoulders and pulled her close in a hug, she looked around in surprise. “What—?”

    “Wow, you really were out to it.” Buzz, with her scary bug mask replaced by a domino, grinned at her. Behind her, Shadow Stalker stood discreetly in the background, similarly remasked. “How long have you been here?”

    “Since she got hurt.” The words were jerked out of her. “I’m gonna stay here ’til she wakes up.”

    “Oh. Right.” Buzz looked a little lost for what to do.

    Not so Shadow Stalker. Rounding the bed, the dark-clad Ward grabbed Vicky’s shoulder and shook her vigorously. “Hey! Dumbass! Fenja bit the big one, so you can stop hiding in bed now! Wakey wakey!”

    beep … beepbeep … beepbeep …

    Amy stared at Shadow Stalker then at the readout on the screen. “What did you do?”

    “Took the initiative, duh.” Shadow Stalker gestured at the now-stirring Vicky. “You’re welcome.”

    Slowly, Vicky’s eyes inched open. “Wha …?” she murmured. “Oh, hey, Ames. How long’s it been?”

    But Amy couldn’t answer, as she was hugging her sister and crying too hard.

    End of Epilogue Three

    <><>​

    Epilogue Four: Curiosity and the Cat

    Five Days Later

    Outside Coil’s Base


    “Check it out,” boasted Bradley. He led the way through the chain link gate and over to where a hatch was lying unlocked and open. “I found this when I was looking around for a hideout the other night.”

    Max looked askance at the sewer entrance, then sniffed fastidiously. “You have got to be kidding. I don’t care if they are searching for us in every nook and cranny. We can locate a better place elsewhere.”

    “No, that’s just for show. Wait’ll you see what’s down here.” Bradley led the way down the steps, then along to where a barred gate had been just left swinging open. The smell was beginning to recede, which made Max look happier.

    When they stepped through the final door into the massive underground base, Max’s jaw honestly dropped. “Well, that’s different,” he finally managed.

    “Oh, hell yes,” agreed Brad. He pointed at a door along the top balcony. “That’s someone’s private office. Mine now. But there’s a computer there, and you know I don’t do those things.”

    Victor, his arm still in a sling, nodded. “I’ll go have a look. Might be able to find out what happened here.”

    “You do that.” Kaiser gestured to Menja, currently getting by with a crutch for assistance. “Go with him. See what you can find from any files. I want to know why this place was abandoned. James and I will see what else there is to be seen around here.”

    “Yes, sir.” Menja hobbled after Victor, who courteously slowed his pace for her.

    When they reached the appropriate door, Victor went in first, then gestured her in after he’d cleared the room. He seated himself at the high-end computer and pressed the button to turn it on.

    While it was booting up, Menja looked around for any paper files, but came up blank. “Looks like whoever this is does everything electronically,” she observed.

    “It’s a choice,” he agreed. The computer beeped as a password prompt appeared on the screen. “Hmm … okay, let’s see what happens when I do this.” Instead of trying to guess at the passcode, he clicked on where it said, “Forgot your PIN?”

    A small square of the screen in the upper right changed colour very slightly. Victor didn’t notice.

    The computer popped up a screen where he was led through various options for retrieving his PIN.

    He was halfway through when the base self-destruct went off.

    There were no survivors.

    End of Epilogue Four

    End of Confrontation II: The Reckoning

    Thanks for reading!
     
  12. Kitty S. Lillian

    Kitty S. Lillian Transhuman

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    Well, that snowballed.
    Typo spotted!
    die,
     
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  13. Ack

    Ack (Verified Ratbag) (Unverified Great Old One)

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    Thank you. Will fix.
     
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  14. macdjord

    macdjord Well worn.

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    Fuck yeah. Sorry to see this go, but that was one hell of an ending.
     
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  15. Scopas

    Scopas I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    Well... Wow! That was an explosive ending, if ever I've seen one. And explosion of content, rich in explosions! The only way it could have been more explosive would be if Deidara himself was in Brockton Bay conducting an art exhibition!

    That was a great, if fairly unexpected ending. It felt like the end stages of a game of Fiasco, where all of the teetering dominoes abruptly cross the point of no return. A very fun read, overall.
     
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  16. Prince Charon

    Prince Charon Just zis guy, you know?

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    Well, that was a rather entertaining mess. Thank you.
     
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  17. Zackarix

    Zackarix Hera's Divorce Lawyer

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