All Alone [Worm AU]

[Kaiserfrost]

Is Taylor going to force him to confess to his crimes or go undercover with the Empire to try and get the whole organization?

 

[NavigatorNobilis]

... Oh Hookwolf, Hookwolf, Hookwolf... Didn't they tell you?

Ain't no rest for the wicked~

 

[Ack]

All Alone

Part Fourteen: Facing Facts

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


Animator

"What?" growled Hookwolf. Not 'said it in a nasty manner'. He actually growled the word. All part of the whole 'beast in human form' theme, I figured. So overdone. "What the fuck are you talking about, bitch?"

Officer Lagos stepped forward at that, but I gestured him back again. "Welcome to your new lease on life, Hookwolf. You're about to find that there's a whole set of new rules in play. Rule number one: You can't hurt me on your best day." Spreading my hands, I silently invited him to try.

"You think just because you're a chick I'll go easy on you? As if." He grew blades all over his upper torso, including two particularly long and vicious ones extending from his knuckles, and slashed at me with them. I gauged he wasn't going for a kill-shot, just a nasty wound that would put me screaming on the floor.

It didn't matter either way; the blades veered off target, and he stumbled forward at the shift in balance. I folded my arms and looked at him. "Keep trying. You might give me a cold from all the breeze."

"I'll show you a breeze!" This time he wasn't playing. Both blades were heading for my chest, on a trajectory that would see them punching through some of my favourite vital organs and out through my back. This was a kill-shot.

Except that the blades stopped, an inch away from me. Hookwolf stared, his muscles bulging as he tried to force himself to cover that last tiny gap. "What the fuck did you do to me?"

"I already explained that. You died, and I brought you back. As a result, you can't lay a hand on me." I stepped away from him and went to one of the less fortunate members of the Empire rank and file. One of Stormtiger's air-claws had ripped into him and caused a jagged wound that he'd bled out from while the curbstomp was still ongoing. "Which brings us to rule number two." Crouching, I laid my hand on the mook, sending a jolt of power into him, though I didn't bother fixing his injuries.

The guy came awake with a reflexive gasp, and sat up as I straightened and stepped away from him.

"Jesus fuck!" he screamed, looking down at the gaping hole in his torso, then around at the rest of us. "What the fuck's going on?"

"Run," I advised him coldly. "Run, and you might just get away."

He didn't need any more urging. Scrambling to his feet, he bolted toward the nearest exit. I raised my hand, paused to make sure Hookwolf was watching, then snapped my fingers. At the same time, I pulled my power out of the revived mook. He fell in mid-stride, face-planting and sliding to a stop.

I turned to look at Hookwolf, who was staring at me and then at the mook. "Rule number two is simple. You're only walking and talking and thinking because I choose to let it happen."

"Depends on what you mean by 'thinking'," muttered Sophia.

"Be nice," I said, amused. "He's in your camp now, if he chooses to be." I returned my full attention to Hookwolf. "I can pull the plug on you at any time. I don't need to be near you. I don't even need to know where you are. I just have to want it to happen. So right now, your primary concern should be convincing me that it's in my best interests to keep you up and moving around."

"I don't feel dead." He'd retracted his blades by now, and was patting himself on the chest and face, as though that was a viable test. "Pretty sure I've still got a pulse."

I raised a finger. "Hold that thought." Then I dropped out of the shadow realm.

Everyone felt it, of course, but Hookwolf was the only one who was really surprised. "Oof. Christ, what was that? What did you do to me? And what happened to your eyes?"

"I stopped supplying you with extra energy." I grinned behind the veil. "Check your pulse now. And while you're at it, see how long you can hold your breath. You might be surprised."

As Hookwolf took a breath, I shared a grin with Dad. This should be good.

<><>​

Detective Dana McAllister, BBPD

The laptop sat open on Dana's desk. Stafford hadn't even bothered to password-lock it, so getting in had been literally a matter of turning it on. He was a single man living alone; after her experience searching his bedroom, she'd gone in expecting quite a bit of the content to be extremely 'adult'. In this, at least, she'd been unhappily proven correct.

"How are you going with the phone?" she asked Loncey, seated across the desk from her. He'd been useful enough at the scene that she'd requested his assistance with Stafford's effects.

"Third try," he reported. "His birthdate, backwards. I swear, some of these people must want to lose their crap, so they can moan about it on social media."

"Well, damn. Nice work. Anything useful on it?"

"Nothing in text messages, but a couple of emails that look interesting."

"Okay, good. Keep looking, while I check that out." Dana figured that the larger screen of the laptop would give her a better chance of spotting minor details. Clicking out of the rabbit hole she'd found herself in, she accessed his email server and saw what Loncey meant. There was an email apparently sent to himself with several image files attached, and a 'notice of disciplinary hearing' that Stafford probably wasn't going to be attending, due to being under arrest.

The image files matched in every detail with the papers they'd retrieved from his bag: printouts of medical information for Taylor Hebert, Danny Hebert, Sophia Hess, and a John Doe, the last being noted as DOA. Danny and Taylor Hebert looked alike enough that they were probably father and daughter, while the Hess girl seemed to be around Taylor's age but didn't look anything like her. The John Doe was almost certainly a drug addict of some kind; Dana knew the signs.

The Brockton Bay General Hospital administration already strongly suspected Stafford of gaining illicit entry by way of his staff card, getting access to a terminal and downloading these files. This was just the proof. HIPAA violations were a big deal; Stafford was absolutely losing his job over this, just for starters.

The next question was twofold: what was so important about the Heberts and Hess that a PRT-affiliated consultant (eyebrows had definitely raised when that connection popped) had chosen to commit several crimes to get hold of information about them, and why the hell had Stafford agreed to aid and abet him in those crimes? There didn't even seem to be a payment arrangement in place.

She clicked onto the email about the disciplinary hearing, and it was what she'd expected. Someone had used Stafford's swipe card to access the hospital late at night, and a security guard had identified him as the person who had been intruding. Would he kindly attend the hearing—a date and time were given—so that the aforementioned disciplinary action could be properly arranged?

Closing her eyes for a moment, Dana shook her head slowly. Goddamn bureaucracy. There were no doubt regulations in place for slap-on-the-wrist offences like stealing pens from the front counter, and this probably had been activated at the same time as the hospital administration had directly contacted the BBPD to bring Stafford in for the HIPAA violation.

"I've got nothing here that connects Stafford directly with Calvert," she said, once she'd gotten over her bout of irritation. "Anything on your end?"

"Not yet." Loncey was still flicking through files on the phone. "I'm beginning to think there isn't anything on here. If there was, I would've found it already. This guy's got no concept of information security."

"Yeah." A thought struck her. "He was ranting and raving a bit when they shoved him in the back of the patrol car. Did you hear what that was about?"

Loncey looked up from the phone and frowned. "Yeah, actually. Zombies. He was talking about how there was an imminent zombie apocalypse and how we were all complicit if we didn't just let him go and get the information to Calvert."

"Is that so?" Dana closed the laptop, pulled the power cord, and locked it in her desk drawer. She could always get back to it, and she didn't want it wandering off in the meantime. While other people had lost cases due to chain of custody rules not being followed, that had never been her. "What do you say we go and have a chat with Mr Stafford about zombies?"

Loncey raised his eyebrows speculatively, then nodded and handed the phone to her. "Sounds like a plan."

<><>​

Animator

Five minutes later, Hookwolf finally let go the breath he'd been holding. Experimentally, he breathed in and out a few times, then shook his head. "That's fuckin' impossible," he insisted, but there was no conviction behind his words. "You can't bring anyone back from the dead. Nobody can."

"I can." I didn't say it as a boast, but a simple statement of fact. "You killed Officer Lagos here, I brought him back, he killed you, and I brought you back. So, now you're on your feet again, what are you gonna do with that?"

Ignoring my question, he stared at Kenny. "When the fuck did I kill you? I've never seen you before in my life."

"Just the other day, at the Lord Street Market," Kenny informed him bluntly. "You threw a motorcycle at me. It caved my chest in."

"Oh. Right." It was clear he recalled the incident only vaguely. "Shit happens, I guess."

"Hookwolf." I said it sharply, and his head came around fast. It was clear he didn't like it when I raised my voice to him, but I honestly didn't give a shit. "I'm not going to ask a third time. What are your plans now? Are you gonna cooperate?"

"You can kill me any time you want," he said; not an answer, but at least engaging with me. "Can you bring me back again from that?"

I shook my head. "Nope. It's a one and done. The moment I decide you're no longer of use to me …" I raised my hand like before, my fingers poised to snap.

He flinched; I was pretty sure that if he'd had blood flow in his face, he would've gone pale. "Shit, fuck, don't do that! Okay, fine, you've got me by the balls. What do you want from me?"

"Beans," I said thoughtfully.

"Beans?" Hookwolf looked at me strangely, but he wasn't the only one. Officer Lagos and Dad were also apparently in the dark about what I meant. I was pretty sure Sophia had figured it out, from her snicker.

"As in spilling them, to Officer Lagos there." I indicated Kenny, who pulled out a notepad. "Don't hold anything back. I've got something else in mind for you after he's done asking questions."

Sophia cleared her throat. "Ah, unless you want to dispute jurisdiction with the PRT over who gets to hold on to knife-puppy here, we might want to move along. Pretty sure they're incoming, especially since I called them a little while ago and gave them this address."

I nodded. "Good idea. Let's do that."

<><>​

Dana McAllister

In the time it took for her to swing by the break room and Loncey to stack the paperwork they needed into a Manila folder, Stafford had been moved into an interrogation room. She leaned into the observation room and made sure the camera was running before she approached the door itself. Pausing before opening it, she turned to Loncey. "If we have to go good-cop-bad-cop, you're bad cop."

Loncey frowned slightly. "Not sure if I've got the scowl for it, but okay."

"It's not that." She hooked her thumb at her chest. "I've seen his internet footprint. This is probably going to be the most interaction he's had with a real live woman outside of work in years. If I ask the right questions with a smile and a sympathetic ear, the only problem will be getting him to shut up."

He chuckled and shook his head. "How cynical can you get? If this was a movie, you'd be undoing the top couple of buttons on your shirt right about now."

"If this were the type of movie you're thinking about," she countered, "I'd have a double-D cup, supermodel looks, and the top couple of buttons on my shirt would always be undone. Also, you'd have sexy stubble and a six-pack rather than a five o'clock shadow and that donut gut."

"Ooh, ouch, I am undone." He grinned and clutched his chest roughly where his heart would be. "Let's get in there and find out what this idiot has to say."

She rolled her eyes at his clowning, opened the door, and entered the interrogation room.

<><>​

Rodney

When the door opened, Rodney looked around, not at all sure who would be coming in. It turned out to be a pair of cops; or rather, one uniformed male cop and a woman in plainclothes. The male cop gave him the stink-eye as he pulled out both chairs and they sat down, but the woman seemed to offer him a faint smile.

"Hello, Mr Stafford," the woman said, putting a cardboard coffee cup holder, holding three cups, on the table. Next to it, she placed a paper plate holding a slice of walnut cake. The tantalising odour of coffee and confectionary teased Rodney's nostrils. "I'm Detective McAllister, and this is Officer Loncey. Do you mind if we record this interview?"

"Uh …" Rodney's first instinct was to say 'yes, I totally mind' then his brain caught up with his mouth. He wanted as many recordings of what he had to say out there as possible. "No. No, I don't mind at all."

"Oh, good." She was definitely smiling now. Ignoring the Manila folder that the male cop had been carrying, she took a cup of coffee from the holder. "Would you like one? I get the impression that it's been a very long and trying day for you."

"Uh, yes, please." He reached out with his cuffed hands, and accepted the coffee.

As he took his first sip, she placed a digital recorder on the table and pressed the button. "Detective Dana McAllister, with Officer Dalton Loncey, interviewing Rodney Stafford." She recited the time and date, then turned a benign gaze on Rodney. "Have the cake too, if you want. I know it's not much, but it's all we had in the break room."

"Thank you," he blurted, grabbing the plate and pulling it over to himself. She didn't stop him from picking up the slice in both hands and taking a large bite; it tasted even better than it smelled.

She beamed at him. "You're welcome. So, it seems we're a bit behind the eight-ball. Strange things are happening, but we don't know why. And now it seems you know why. Would you mind filling us in?"

"Wait," the uniformed cop said. "Have you been read your rights?"

Rodney looked up from the cake. "Yeah, yeah, they did that before."

"And you're willing to talk to us without a lawyer present?" asked the lady detective.

What the hell use was a lawyer going to be with an imminent zombie apocalypse to avert? "Totally."

Detective McAllister nodded. "So what is going on? What's this about zombies?"

"You don't know about the zombies?" Why doesn't this surprise me?

She shared a glance with the officer and they both shrugged before she gave him her full attention once more. "Everyone's been holding out on us, until you showed up. Tell me all about the zombies."

It was as though the heavens had opened and a ray of sunlight had illuminated the room, complete with angels singing hosannas. This was exactly what Rodney wanted to hear. He started talking, filling in more and more details with each helpful question.

Oh, thank God. It's a miracle. They're listening to me. We're going to save the city.

<><>​

Miss Militia

Holding a sniper rifle over her shoulder, Hannah watched as the PRT troopers went from body to body. Some were secured, others appeared too badly injured to move on their own, and a few were clearly dead. The pièce de résistance of the show was Stormtiger, who was barely conscious even now. His arms were both broken and severely dislocated, to the point that it seemed someone had come close to literally tearing them off his body.

"Some of these men have been shot," reported Lieutenant Grant, coming up to her. "A lot were beaten, and a few have other wounds. But there's one I'm thinking you should see."

She figured the whole area was something she should see, and in fact was drawing lines of fire in her mind while looking it over. However, she was always interested in seeing something new. "Lead the way."

The body he indicated was close to one of the exits, and had almost certainly been attempting to escape before he suffered the ghastly wound that had essentially ripped out one side of his ribcage. She looked down at the man, judging that the fatal injury had been either a blue-on-blue by Stormtiger, or he'd been executed on the fly for cowardice. But Grant wouldn't waste her time on something so simple, so there had to be something she was missing. Glancing at the lieutenant, she raised her eyebrows in a silent query.

He gestured at the body. "Where's the blood?" His pointing finger followed a line of footprints, leading back to a large pool of mostly-congealed gore. "More to the point, how did he lose all that blood there, then still have the strength to get up and run in this direction, then suddenly die right here? It wasn't a gradual loss of strength. He went from full on to full off like someone flipped a switch. When he landed, he skidded."

"Oh." She looked back along the line of footprints, then down at the body again. Now that he'd pointed it out, she could see it clearly. "That's … definitely strange. Are we sure that's his blood back there?"

"Nobody else who's in or near it has injuries big enough to contribute meaningfully to it." He shrugged. "And if that isn't his blood … where is it? With a wound like that, there's not going to be a lot left inside his body."

He had a point. The simplest explanation was indeed that a man who should've been dead had gotten up, stepped in his own pool of blood, bolted for the exit, then dropped dead for real. She would've suspected a trigger event, but those generally worked to help the new cape to survive whatever had caused it.

"So who called this in, anyway?" she asked. Maybe that would give them a clue as to what had happened, and who had brutalised Stormtiger so thoroughly. Without extensive surgery, the guy was never going to regain anywhere near full use of his arms.

(She wasn't going to come straight out and say that this was an amazing example of karma in action, but it totally was.)

Grant held up a hand. "One second. Got a call coming in."

"Okay." She stepped away to give him his privacy, and examined the scene again. The lack of animals in cages told her that this hadn't been a dog-fight setup. However, there had evidently been fighting of some description planned, given the small pile of hand weapons in the middle of the floor. Some kind of grudge match? Maybe an initiation? Whatever it was, to have both Stormtiger and Hookwolf present (the snapped-off blades were impossible to mistake for anything else), it had to be reasonably important.

Which led to the next question: where's Hookwolf? From what she'd seen of the man, it would take extreme odds to force him to abandon a comrade and run from a fight, but he had been in the building and now he wasn't. Had he gotten the upper hand and chased the opposition away? Technically possible, but from Stormtiger's injuries, she suspected that wouldn't turn out to be the case.

She was watching the techs load Stormtiger onto a stretcher—they'd be strapping him down, but right now he was pumped full of sedatives so he didn't start throwing around air-blades in the ambulance—when Grant cleared his throat to get her attention. "Done now," he said. "Some detective from the BBPD wanted my input on that trigger case in Brockton General. Teenage girl raising the dead."

"Raising the dead?" The click of connection in her mind was almost audible as she turned back to the Dead Man Running, as she'd labelled the guy in her mind. "Like that one? He was dead, she raises him for whatever reason, he tries to bolt … did she say if she could un-raise them?"

"She certainly did." Grant sounded like he wanted to face-palm. "Why didn't I see it before? According to her, she just pulls her power away from them and they just go back to being dead again. And get this, when she raises someone, if she's in what she calls power mode, they're a lot stronger and faster than normal."

"Strong enough to beat the living snot out of Stormtiger, and to subdue Hookwolf enough to abduct him?" suggested Hannah. "Those guys over there looked like they got thrown into walls."

Grant nodded. "Definitely strong enough for that. The trouble is, until one of them is lucid enough to answer questions, we're going to be missing the answers to the big ones." His gesture took in the whole scene. "Such as: what were they doing here that Animator's crew decided to bust in and take them down?"

Hannah suddenly had an unpleasant epiphany. "What if they didn't come here to bust up whatever Hookwolf and Stormtiger were doing, but to abduct Hookwolf? Do we have any way of telling if Animator's capable of controlling her subjects, once they're Animated?"

He shook his head. "They tried an experiment in the hospital, just before we got there. Raised a Merchant ganger, who went berserk before Animator pulled the plug on him. Unless the whole thing was staged to make us think she can't control people—and I didn't get the impression they were thinking that far ahead—I'm pretty sure she can't. Are you thinking they came here to kill Hookwolf and turn him into an Animated?"

"If she can't automatically control them, no," Hannah said slowly. "But I think you're at least partly right. They killed him, then she brought him back, and he left with them for reasons unknown."

"I know why he left with them." Grant pointed at the Dead Man Running. "Once she brought him back, she raised this guy and demonstrated how easily she could put him back down. Whatever they wanted him for, he decided that cooperation was the easiest way to stay alive … well, Animated."

Hannah nodded. "Yeah, that tracks. So, if they didn't come here for him, why did they come here? What were the Empire guys doing that drew their attention? Why did they literally kick the door in and come in swinging?"

Grant led the way to the small pile of weapons, still lying on the ground. "I'm thinking a bunch of Empire goons were being initiated. See those? They're about as crappy as you can get, and still be usable. They've been used, dozens of times. If they abducted some minority off the street, put him in the middle of a bunch of wannabe Empire recruits, and they fight until someone puts him down …"

'Initiation' had been one of her guesses, and his analysis nailed it down for her. "That makes a lot of sense, yeah. So, I'm thinking the abductee was important to Animator or one of her people, which is why they came in hard and fast."

"Not Animator." Grant shook his head. "Her father was her only family in town, and he was one of the first people she Animated. But she'd also Animated a black girl, who might easily have had friends or family taken for an initiation like that."

"That actually gives us some interesting data," she mused. "If it was indeed an Animated dead person's kin who was in trouble, this means the Animated are still capable of feeling emotions and acting on them, and Animator cares enough about their feelings that she will help them out."

"Huh. You're right." He paused. "So, if they killed Hookwolf, Animated him, then took him with them … why?"

She shrugged. "To hide the evidence that they'd killed him?"

His tone suggested a grimace. "Or maybe they've got some half-assed plan of infiltrating him back into his old gang, to bring them down from the inside? Because that never goes wrong."

She shared his lack of optimism. "Well, until we can get one of them in front of us to find out, it looks like we're just going to have to wait until we're cleaning up the mess before we know one way or the other."

"Ain't that the truth."

Director Piggot, she already knew, was really not going to like this development.

<><>​

Dana McAllister

"Okay." Dana checked her notes. "So, Stafford's boss Dr Cartwright told us that Lieutenant Grant of the PRT attended the call at the Brockton General, which Grant verified. He also gave me verbal descriptions of the people involved, which match the medical records Stafford was trying to steal. Grant also warned me that as capes are involved, secret identities could make for tricky legal situations if we start spreading too much information around."

"Have the Heberts or the Hess girl even done anything for us to look at them as capes or cape-adjacent, or is it just Stafford and Calvert?" asked Loncey. "Because they aren't capes, right? Or at least, I hope to God Stafford isn't."

They shared a mutual shudder at the thought.

"We honestly don't know about Calvert yet," Dana warned him. "Might be, might not be. Trying to get control over a new cape who can get dead men up and walking is something I can totally see a supervillain doing."

Loncey frowned. "I think I saw that plot on a Saturday morning cartoon once."

"Life sometimes imitates art. Also, supervillains probably watch Saturday morning cartoons too." Dana straightened her notes. "But you're right. We can leave the Heberts and Hess out of the spotlight and focus on Stafford and Calvert. Right now, specifically, Calvert."

"Think he'll crack for a cup of coffee and a slice of walnut cake?"

She snorted. Stafford hadn't been so much an interrogation as a confessional. "Somehow, I doubt it."

<><>​

Coil

Thomas looked up as a female detective, along with a uniformed officer, entered the interrogation room. He'd been waiting for this moment, but the length of time they'd taken to get around to talking to him was both encouraging and worrying. It either meant that they didn't think he was all that important in the grand scheme of things, or that they thought he was very important indeed, and had taken all this time to get their ducks solidly in a row.

Following the both of them was a rumpled-looking man with a briefcase, who he identified all too easily as a lawyer. This concerned him; the fact that they'd taken the time to arrange a public defender suggested that they thought he might use the lack of one as a delaying tactic. Which he totally would have, given the chance.

"Hello, Mr Calvert." The public defender stepped over to his side of the table. "I'm Chuck O'Dwyer. I've been asked to represent you, unless you have another lawyer you'd like to call on?"

Thomas would have loved to possess sufficient cash reserves to have a lawyer on speed-dial. Unfortunately, this was not the case, and right now he did need someone to spot any legal loopholes that he might miss. "No, I'm sure you're competent enough at your job."

"Great!" O'Dwyer beamed, apparently oblivious to the back-handed compliment. Pulling out the chair next to Thomas, he sat down. "Now, the information I've been given is that you've already been read your Miranda rights. Is that correct?"

"I have, yes." Thomas knew denying it at this juncture would delay matters only by a few minutes.

"Excellent." O'Dwyer tapped his fingertips together. "So, is there anything at all you want to fill me in on before this interview starts?" He looked meaningfully at the two law-enforcement personnel. "I'm sure they won't mind stepping out for a few minutes."

Thomas didn't really have a plan yet, but he was nothing if not an eternal opportunist. "Yes, I do want to talk to you in private." As he said the words, he split timelines.

Coil: Timeline "Negotiation"

He waited until the door closed behind the pair, then turned to his lawyer. Keeping his voice down and his back to the mirrored window, he let some of the desperation he was feeling creep into his voice. "You've got to get me out of this! That little shit Stafford stole from me, and pretended he was going to sell my own property back to me, but the cops were after him for something else. Now they've got him, but I'm willing to bet he's trying to say I made him do it, and since when does a black man get a fair deal in this city? Half the cops are Empire sympathisers as it is."

O'Dwyer's eyes widened. "Why didn't you tell them that at the scene?"

Thomas snorted. "Because when they showed up, I was pointing my pistol at him. An armed black man in a confrontation with police has exactly one chance to drop the gun and do exactly as he's told; otherwise, he's likely to end up as a statistic on the nine o'clock news."

"Right, okay." O'Dwyer was clearly trying to process this new information. "Please tell me you're licensed to carry concealed, at least."

"Not as such, no." Thomas sighed with the aggravation he was feeling about the whole situation. "I used to be, when I was in the PRT, but they pulled my accreditation once I left. But I was going to meet someone who had already stolen from me once, and I wasn't going to give him a second chance at it."

"Okay, okay, got it." O'Dwyer seemed to go over options in his mind for a few moments, then his eyes focused again. "I can maybe work with that, plead you down to a lesser charge. So, what did Stafford steal from you? If they found it on him, that'll boost your case a lot."

This was the linch-pin of the whole fabricated story. "My medal case. It had all my awards and medals from my time in the PRT." He tightened his lips and let his focus drift until it would seem as though he was looking through the far wall, in the best approximation of a 'thousand-yard stare' that he could manage. "Two of us came out of Ellisburg alive. I still regret the choices I made that day."

"Jesus." O'Dwyer shook his head. "I'm sorry, man. I'll do my best for you."

Thomas nodded. "I appreciate it."

Coil: Timeline "Escape"

He waited until the door closed behind the pair, then turned to his lawyer. "Give me your pen and notepad. I want to keep notes once they start interrogating me."

"Okay, sure. Did you want me to take the notes instead?"

"No, you focus on stopping them from pulling legal bullshit on me." He accepted the pen, noting with satisfaction that while the pen was cheap, the clip was made of metal. O'Dwyer put the pad in front of him, and he pretended to fiddle with the pen. In reality, he was twisting and bending the clip so that he could use it to unlock the cuffs at an opportune moment.

Any kind of serious digging on their part would screw him over no matter what he said to them, unless he could talk his way out of this within the next thirty minutes. His only chance would be to throw Stafford under the bus as hard as possible, and hope like hell they were lazy enough to grab the bait and not investigate him too closely. If he'd had the chance to prep for this eventuality, his chances would've been a lot better, but sometimes shit just happened.

Not to me. I'll get out of this, I'll arrange Stafford's accidental death, and plant enough evidence to throw it all back on him.

This is the sort of shit I took that vial to get away from.

<><>​

Dana McAllister

When they came back into the room (at O'Dwyer's invitation) Dana noted that Calvert had a pen and notepad at the ready. If the man wanted to take notes, she had no problem with that, though she decided to have words with his lawyer afterward about giving his client items without running it past her first. "So, are we ready to continue?" she asked.

"Certainly." O'Dwyer sat down next to Calvert. "You may commence the interview."

"Thank you." Dana introduced herself and Loncey, went through the rigmarole with the digital recorder, then came in guns blazing. "Mr Calvert, where do you know Rodney Stafford from?"

He managed to pull off a reasonable facsimile of confusion. "I'm sorry, I don't know anyone of that name." Such was his poker face that Dana may have been taken in by his bullshit if she hadn't known the truth.

"That's interesting," she countered. "He says you came to his apartment, to talk about the problem posed by one of the patients in your hospital. He also said that you requested the medical records of four people, and that you would raise concerns in the PRT. Do you have anything to say to that?"

"I say that this Mr Stafford is either lying or confused." Again, he was so smooth with his bullshit that she could almost swear he believed it himself. "As I said, I know nobody of that name. So any claim that I've gone to his apartment would have to be false. And I certainly would not incite anyone to steal medical records. I believe there are stringent laws against that sort of thing."

"Yes, Mr Calvert, there are. So you're trying to tell me that when you encountered him in the Sit & Sip Café, you had never met him before?"

"What happened in the café was a misunderstanding of the highest order." He was now radiating embarrassment, a good trick in a man she suspected wouldn't know what shame was if it walked up and bit him. "I thought he'd stolen my wallet and stashed it in the bag he was carrying. He'd brushed past me earlier, you see. I demanded to see in the bag, but he refused." He shrugged, managing to look sheepish. "As it turns out, I had it in another pocket. Sheer carelessness. But in the meantime, one mistake escalated into another, and events went far out of control."

"If by 'far out of control' you mean that you pulled a gun and shoved it in his face just before the police raided the café and arrested both of you, then I would be forced to agree." Dana shuffled her notes for show. "Why were you carrying a gun, anyway? You're not licensed to carry concealed, and you haven't been since you were booted out of the PRT."

O'Dwyer cleared his throat. "Ah, Detective? I believe the whys and wherefores of him being armed are separate from the matter at hand with this Mr Stafford, and these medical records you're speaking of."

"Alright. Let me rephrase that. Why were you illegally carrying concealed today, when going to a crowded coffee shop? You have to know if the PRT caught wind of that, you'd lose your consultancy position with them in a heartbeat."

"Sometimes I feel I need to protect myself and my property, and sometimes I don't." Calvert's tone was so smooth, it could've been used as a skating rink. "This was one of the days when I did."

"Okay, so why were you in that coffee shop at all?"

"Detective, occasionally a man feels the need to buy slightly overpriced coffee, just for the experience. Today was one of those days." Now he was just baiting her.

"Possibly. But I think you were going there to meet Mr Stafford, for the handover of the medical information. Do you deny that?"

He snorted derisively. "Of course I deny it. I already told you, I'd never met the man, and I certainly didn't ask him to steal medical data—or any other kind—for me."

"So this note means nothing to you?" She put the Post-It note Loncey had found, now encased in an evidence bag, on the table. Meet TC at S&S. Do not forget!

His eyes widened only the barest millimetre, but she spotted it. This was definitely a nasty surprise for him. "There would have to be hundreds or thousands of people with the initials 'TC' in this city."

"And yet the only one he encounters, who puts a gun in his face and tries to take something from him, is you. In the Sit & Sip. Loncey, play it."

"Ma'am." Loncey, silent up until now, pulled out the second digital recorder they'd prepped and queued up in anticipation of this, and pressed the Play button.

'Do you recognise this note?' Her own voice came out of the tinny speaker.

'Sure!' Stafford's voice definitely got Calvert's attention. 'I wrote it to remind myself of the meeting.' His voice dropped. 'But I screwed it up. I screw everything up.'

'I wouldn't say that.' She'd spoken warmly to him, and he'd perked right up at the implied praise. 'So what do the initials mean, anyway?'

'Oh, it was just a reminder to meet Mr Calvert—his first name's Thomas, and he used to be a Lieutenant in the PRT—at the Sit & Sip Café, and hand over the stuff I got from the hospital.'

Dana made a gesture, and Loncey stopped the playback. Calvert's face seemed to have frozen, his eyes flicking from point to point in the room as though he was trying to figure out how to discredit what they'd all heard. The silence stretched on; Dana had broken more than a few cases just by letting a suspect stew in his own juices.

"Uh, Detective," O'Dwyer managed, through what sounded like a suddenly dry throat. "I'm going to want a copy of the recording, so I can listen to it all the way through and ensure you didn't prompt the young man earlier."

Dana smiled. "Totally doable. We both know you won't find anything untoward on it." She returned her attention to Calvert. "So, if you've never met the man before, how is it that he knew your first name and your previous affiliation with the PRT?"

With a visible effort, Calvert rallied. "He'd clearly looked me up online. I do have a presence there. A sufficiently skilled hacker would be able to ferret out those details and more. It's entirely possible that he set this whole thing up in advance, planting the note because he knew he was being followed, then brushing past me to make me think he'd stolen something and luring me into the shop, where we were both arrested. His whole ploy is to make you think I'm the mastermind here."

Dana nodded slowly. "Now that's a theory I like. It shows imagination and resourcefulness. What do you think, Loncey?"

Loncey barely hesitated. This was another thing they'd discussed. "It covers nearly everything, ma'am. Just one question, though. When I found the note, it was half-under the fridge, covered in dust. How did Mr Stafford know when he was writing it last night that Mr Calvert would be near the Sit & Sip at the exact moment he would be walking in?"

"Good point, Loncey." There were considerable benefits, Dana decided, in having a sidekick who could follow direction and think on his feet. "So, Mr Calvert, can you fill in that little hole in your explanation?"

Calvert coughed, his throat sounding dry. "Could I perhaps trouble you for a soda? I haven't had anything to drink for hours."

Loncey shrugged. "I'll get it, ma'am."

"Thank you, Loncey." Dana reached over to the digital recorder. "Pausing interview at …" She checked her watch and rattled off the time, then pressed pause. "Go ahead."

Loncey got up and let himself out of the interview room. Dana leaned back in her chair and looked Calvert over. She didn't say what she was thinking—that this was a transparent ploy to gain some time for him to think of a way around the damning evidence of the note—because the last thing she wanted was for O'Dwyer to put in a complain about her 'bullying' his client.

"Detective?" asked O'Dwyer, breaking into her thoughts.

She looked over at him. "Yes?"

"May I see that note, please?"

"Certainly." She smiled and handed it over. "Don't remove it from the evidence bag, of course."

"Of course." He accepted it and began to examine it closely. "Are you going to have many more surprises like—"

The handcuff came off Calvert's left wrist and he was out of his chair and around the desk like a striking snake, open cuff hanging free. Dana was caught off-guard, shocked and surprised at the sudden movement; he punched her in the chest, just below the throat, and she went over backward with him on top of her.

O'Dwyer cried out, but she ignored him, as she was fighting for her life. She was good at fighting, and she was strong, but he had greater reach and knew more dirty tricks than she did. They rolled back and forth, grabbing and gouging at each other, his skinny frame apparently much stronger than it looked.

She went for a groin strike, but he was wise to that one, and dug a thumb in her eye. She recoiled and reached for the Glock 28 subcompact in her shoulder holster, but he punched her again, this time in the jaw, with stunning force.

By the time her head had cleared long enough for her to recall what she had to do, he had the pistol in his hand, and was standing over her. "You had to keep pushing," he sneered.

The door to the interrogation room opened, and Loncey stepped in. "You didn't—" he was in the process of saying before he took in what was going on, and Calvert shot him. Subcombact or no, the sound of the .380 pistol was deafening in the small room, even with the acoustic tiles taking away most of it.

Stunned again, her ears ringing, Dana found herself hauled to her feet and dragged to the door. The hot muzzle of her own gun pressed up under the soft tissue of her jaw as Calvert forced her out into the corridor first. People were only just beginning to respond to the sound of the shot as he hustled her down the corridor. Most were not armed; at the sight of the pistol, they stepped back with their hands in plain view.

"You'll never … get away," Dana slurred, sure that he'd knocked a few teeth loose.

He sounded more confident than he should've been. "You'd be surprised. I'm lucky like that."

<><>​

Five Minutes Later

Coil

The wire gate barring the exit from the police car compound smashed aside as Thomas put his foot down and peeled out of there. He knew he was going to have to ditch the car as soon as he could, but he was out of custody, and that was the main thing. Now all he had to do was keep balancing his choices and he'd be free and clear by morning.

He knew he really should've put a bullet in McAllister and Stafford, but the latter would've been pushing his luck far too much, and killing McAllister would've done nothing to slow down the chase that would be roaring after him in very short order. Besides, it would've been a waste of ammunition, and he needed every bullet he had right now.

Well, shit. Looks like 'supervillain' is now my full-time job. Goddamn it.

He'd manage—he always managed—but it was just another roadblock in the way of his dreams of running the whole damn city.

One day.

<><>​

Animator

We sat at a table on the Boardwalk, Hookwolf wearing a hoodie we'd gotten for him, and sipped at our drinks. Hookwolf—or Brad, now that we knew his real name—seemed surprised that he still enjoyed it. "So, what now?" he asked. "You've got everything out of me that I knew about the Empire."

"And you're absolutely certain that Max Anders is Kaiser, and the rest of it? You're not just pulling some colossal prank on us?" That bit of information had surprised the hell out of all of us, especially Kenny.

Brad shrugged. "If you find out I'm lying, I'm worm food again. Besides, that Nazi Heil-Hitler crap was never really my thing. It was more an excuse to hit people and break shit, know what I mean?"

"The real question is," Dad posited, "now that we know it, what do we do with it? If Anders is anywhere near as careful as I think he'll be, proving it will be a nightmare."

Sophia grinned. "Oh, I dunno. Now that I know where to look, sneaking around and getting pictures should be dead easy."

"Emphasis on 'dead', as in 'really dead'," I cautioned her. "We still don't know if electricity can disrupt you anymore, or if it'll just shut you down for good."

We all turned to look at Brad, and he sighed theatrically. "I know that fuckin' look. It's the look the asshole turncoat gets given just before they hand him a wire to wear an' go back inside the bunch he just walked away from."

"Well, you are our best bet for a spy," Kenny pointed out logically.

Brad glowered at him. "Just tell me one thing. Are you just gonna be going after the Empire, or are you gonna be kicking Lung's shit in too? Because even with everyone in this little play-group stronger an' faster than normal, you're gonna need me to bring him down. Tell me I'm wrong."

"Oh," I said, "once I brought you back, the plan always was for you to beat up on Lung."

He smiled for the first time since he'd begun his new lease on unlife. "Now we're fuckin' talking."



End of Part Fourteen

 

[Ack]

All Alone

Part Fifteen: Thriller

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

[A/N 2: The Empire Eighty-Eight will be espousing racist ideas and slurs in this fic. The author does not share these views.]



The Evening of August 31, 2009

Kaiser

Max stared at the skinhead. The man was grimy, his clothing was torn, and there was blood down one side of his face from a gash on his head. He honestly looked like he'd been on the losing side of a fight, which did not bode well for the tidings he bore.

"Tell him what you told me." Krieg's voice was carefully controlled. "All of it."

The young man took a deep breath. "Um, okay, so we were doing the initiation, yeah? Hookwolf got us to grab some nigger or slant off the street, but do it loud so this Animator bitch would come calling. If she wants to fuck with us, we were gonna fuck right back. That's what he said."

"Understood, yes. So, she showed up?" It wasn't exactly a wild guess out of the blue.

The mook nodded jerkily. "Yeah, along with the guy in the top hat, and Shadow Bitch, and some other guy with a gun. But he wasn't even a normal guy. He was goin' toe to toe with fuckin' Hookwolf, an' he was winning."

Max already didn't like the sound of this. "And Stormtiger?" Normally the pair of them made a potent combination.

"Shadow Bitch shot him, then top hat guy started basically pulling his arms out of their sockets. No matter what we did to any of 'em, it didn't bother them. I snuck out when Stormtiger went down for good." The skinhead sounded well and truly rattled. "We were supposed to win. It was a fuckin' massacre."

"The PRT got them both?" Max was reasonably certain he knew the answer to the question.

Krieg frowned and rubbed his chin. "Vans and ambulances were called to the location, No word yet as to where any of them went."

"That's a little bit of a worry." Purity sat forward in her own chair. "Animator apparently did something to Alabaster and Cricket to mess with their powers. Did she do the same thing to Hookwolf and Stormtiger?"

Max nodded thoughtfully. "Well, considering that Hookwolf comes back from basically anything within seconds, it would have to be something like that, wouldn't it?" He turned to Krieg. "Start shaking the bushes with our people inside the PRT and BBPD. See if you can get the full story from their end."

"Certainly." Krieg gestured, and the mook retreated hastily from the room. "In the meantime, that's four of ours out of commission. In addition, I strongly suspect they intend to sentence Hookwolf to the Birdcage, now they've got the chance."

"Our people are only out of commission until we can break them out of holding," Max corrected him. "Didn't you say something a while ago about having Gesellschaft provide a couple of extra capes for backup?"

Krieg smiled briefly. "Yes, a husband-and-wife couple. They're still in … preparation, shall we say. Not ready yet."

"Okay, whatever. Not available, then." Max sighed. "Fenja and Menja are useful in the field, but not so much inside buildings. We need at least four good hitters to break Hookwolf and the others out, and I'm not sure we have that."

"There's a nineteen-year-old down in Alabama I heard about," Purity ventured. "He Triggered when he got caught trying to unplug his disabled sister from her life support. Apparently he can generate ghosts or something. From what they quoted of him online, he might be in tune with our views."

"Worth a recruitment attempt, certainly." Max grimaced. "But it would take at least a week to get him here then whip him into shape as a member of Empire Eighty-Eight. Did anyone ever track down Blitzen or Iron Cross?" He just wished someone would explain to him why the fire-blasting speedster and the Tinker had quit the team like that.

"Blitzen showed up in California recently, I believe." Krieg shrugged. "He's changed his name to Firestreak, but it's the same powerset. We still don't have a lead on Iron Cross."

California was a little far to go for any kind of retribution; besides, there was no evidence that either one of them had blabbed any of the Empire's secrets to anyone. "Alright, then. We'll put out feelers to the boy in Alabama. Also, wasn't there a report about someone who could steal skills, taken in by one of the families?"

Purity nodded. "I remember that, yes. A young man called Grayson. He shows promise."

"Good." Max smacked the back of his left hand into the palm of his right, in lieu of doing the same with a pair of gloves. "See about bringing him into the Empire. But in the meantime, I need both of you to explore all available avenues for getting our people out of PRT holding before they're transferred out of state."

"Certainly," replied Krieg. Purity just nodded.

Max leaned back in his chair, deep in thought. Just a week ago, the Empire Eighty-Eight had been sitting pretty, with a rosy future. And then everything had gone wrong.

What the hell happened?

<><>​

Lung

"So, it's true." Kenta didn't often laugh in front of his men, but this time a hearty chuckle or two seemed worthwhile. "The Empire set a trap and were caught by their own cleverness."

"Yes, great Lung." The ABB member who had brought him the news didn't dare echo his mirth, but did offer a tentative smile. "That's what our contacts in the BBPD say. Cricket, Alabaster and Stormtiger are in custody. We're not sure about Hookwolf."

He frowned at that. "What do you mean, not sure? Either he is in custody or he is not."

"There's no word to say that he got away, and the police are saying that they removed several dead bodies from the site. That's all we know." The minion was starting to sweat a little.

Kenta's head came up. "Hookwolf? Dead? I'd need to see his corpse myself, cold and stiff on a metal slab, before I believed that." He'd tried very hard to kill the Empire cape more than once, and could attest to his durability.

"Yes, great Lung." The minion nodded earnestly. "We'll ask more questions, and find out exactly what happened with him."

"See that you do." Kenta stood up and fitted his mask to his face. "In the meantime, alert the troops. We move tonight, while the Empire is still licking its wounds."

He smiled cruelly. Many people who had paid 'protection' to Kaiser up until then would soon be paying him instead. It would all be cash in his pocket; no actual protection would be given, of course. That wasn't how it worked.

They give money; I get money. That's how it works.

While he could drive a car—he'd boosted his first ride at fourteen—his image didn't permit him to do it when he had others to do it for him. The Dragon of Kyushu did not drive; he was driven. And so, as he walked through the outer room and gestured to one of his men, it was understood that he needed a driver.

Heading outside, he got into the back of the latest car that had been acquired for his personal transport. These cars were changed out regularly, partly because of ongoing wear and tear (cape battles were hard on any nearby cars, not to mention the fact that his people weren't the most careful of drivers) and partly to ensure that nobody could pinpoint him from a distance merely because of the car he was driving. It hadn't been so long ago, after all, that some of the less restrained villains and edgier anti-heroes had been known to snipe their foes from a distance with high-end military ordnance.

Not that he considered himself vulnerable to such things, but there was no sense in tempting fate.

As the car moved off, he leaned back in his seat and smiled. The lack of those four capes meant the Empire Eighty-Eight was significantly weaker than it had been in some time. Whatever territory the ABB took tonight, he would ensure that they held onto it.

<><>​

Coil

As night fell, Thomas Calvert considered his options. The first thing he'd done after evading capture was to go to an ATM and withdraw as much of his cash as possible. He hadn't managed to empty the account, but he figured he had two or three more chances to get more money before the cops managed to freeze his account.

He'd hit the ATM once more just after midnight, then he'd head to an out-of-the-way branch and see if he could empty his account over the counter. Splitting timelines, of course. The last thing he wanted was for some minimal-wage rent-a-cop to put a gun to the back of his head and catapult him back into police custody.

After that, he needed to locate someone who could supply him with fake IDs, the type that would stand up to close scrutiny. Without that, there was no way he could start building up legitimate resources to go with the illicit ones. The identity of Thomas Calvert may belong to a wanted criminal, but one name was as good as another.

The fact that the PRT had his fingerprints and other biometric data would require him to resort to extreme measures if he ever wanted to enter their employ again, but once he was rich enough, he might not even need them anymore.

Getting control of Animator instead might just be good enough.

<><>​

Animator

Smacking the Empire around had started out as an incidental thing, mainly for Sophia's sake. Now we were going to get serious. The ABB had killed Emma, so they were going down. This was our chance to smack two vultures with one big sharp rock.

"Okay," I said thoughtfully as Dad drove the car sedately down yet another quiet back street. "If you were Lung, where would you be right now?"

"Enjoying being King Dipshit of Dipshitville," Sophia snarked.

Hookwolf shrugged. "Can't actually argue with that." He peered out the window, looking from side to side. "We got ABB tags but I ain't seen no red-and-green-wearing shitheads since we came out. Says to me they're making a push against Empire territory. And that's where Lung'll be, right up front."

Dad nodded slowly. "That tracks, yes. So, what part of Empire territory is Lung likely to make a try for first?"

"Hmm." Hookwolf frowned for a moment. "We took Edmonton Plaza off them last month. I bet they're still pissed about that."

"Edmonton Plaza, it is." Dad hit the indicator and took the next left.

"Okay, so how are we going to play this?" asked Sophia. "Hooksy's got Lung, but then there's the other Empire capes and the ABB assholes to worry about."

Hookwolf nodded in agreement, then refocused on me. "Empire capes will be looking to grab or snuff you, Animator. That was the whole idea of the trap. Dunno if Lung's bought into the idea that you can bring people back from the dead yet, so just play keep-away with any of his crew that get close to you. Kaiser'll probably try an' get everyone to dogpile you, so watch out for that."

Dad raised his eyes to the rear-vision mirror. "That was a particularly incisive analysis. I'm somewhat impressed. The news usually paints you as a head-kicker."

Hookwolf shook his head and snorted. "I am a head-kicker. But you don't get far in the cage-fighting gig without learning to read your opponents before you ever get in the ring with them. You know how they fight, you can usually figure out what they're gonna do."

The look Sophia gave him bore a vague resemblance to respect. "That's actually pretty smart." Then of course she had to get in the inevitable dig. "So, how's that working out for you, so far?"

Hookwolf's expression suggested that he'd just bitten into something sour. "You need to clean your ears out, brat. I said 'usually'."

<><>​

Edmonton Plaza

Kaiser

"Keep up the pressure!" Max gestured, causing a row of angled metal stakes to spring out of the asphalt in front of an onrushing group of ABB gang members. They recoiled from the implicit threat, then raised firearms.

Max generated a six-foot-high tower shield to augment his armour, then looked over at where Fenja and Menja were playing keep-away with Lung. Their ability to grow much taller than the fifteen-foot-tall ABB leader should've been a deciding factor in the battle, but it was offset by his sheer savagery, his regeneration, and the fact that he was literally on fire. Even as Max watched, Lung vomited a white-hot blast of flame that splashed off Fenja's hastily-raised shield. He'd already seized Menja's spear and snapped it in two, causing her to be much more circumspect in her approach.

Max was beginning to regret splitting off Purity and Krieg to guard other approaches to Empire territory. In addition, the absence of Hookwolf, Cricket, Stormtiger and Alabaster was having a distinct effect on the course of the fight. All four were exemplary brawlers who were able to either take gunfire or avoid it with a high chance of success.

And then, as though summoned by that passing thought, Hookwolf arrived like a cannonball. Literally leaping off a nearby building, the metal-clad cape slammed into Lung with an impact that sent both of them rolling sideways. Metal claws threw up sparks from concrete and asphalt as Hookwolf halted his headlong tumble, then he launched himself back into the fray.

Lung, still climbing to his feet, was caught off-balance and went over again. He roared in what might have been pain or anger (Max was inclined to assume the latter) as Hookwolf's razor talons shredded his scales, sending silver metal and gouts of blood flying into the night air. In response to the attack, the fire surrounding him flared high, but it didn't seem to bother Hookwolf in the slightest.

Fenja and Menja fell back to where Max stood, both looking the worse for wear. Menja's armour was badly damaged, as was Fenja's shield; from the way they were both limping, Max suspected they were sporting burns and bruises from the intense fighting. "Where did he come from?" asked Fenja. "And where's he been?"

Max briefly considered pretending that he'd known Hookwolf's location all along, but decided it would be too hard to keep up the lie. "I'm not entirely sure, but I intend to find out."

Menja stared at the ongoing fight between the two capes. "And holy shit, is he winning? How is he winning?"

That was something else Max would've liked to know.

Hookwolf was tough, certainly. He'd been Max's lieutenant for a reason. Able to stand up to an inordinate amount of damage and keep on soldiering through, he nevertheless had his limits. But now he seemed to be effortlessly transcending them.

Lung, once more on his feet, treated Hookwolf to a burst of the same white-hot flame that had driven Fenja back. Doing no more to shield himself than holding one arm up in front of his face, Hookwolf powered in to the attack. Even glowing red-hot, his metal claws punched in through Lung's scales as he literally climbed up the Asian crime lord's body, ripping chunks out as he went.

But he wasn't having it all his own way. Lung grabbed him and tore him away, losing more flesh in the process. In the next moment, Hookwolf had been hurled a good thirty feet, only to roll to his feet, ready for another round.

"Is he on fire?" asked Menja. "I think he's on fire."

Just as Max was trying to figure out if it was just smoke drifting up from Hookwolf's form or actual fire as well, the question was taken out of his mind by a tremendous impact from behind. At the same time, Fenja cried out in pain and Menja in alarm.

Skidding across the cracked asphalt, Max generated a metal spike in one hand and gouged it into the roadway to bring himself to a stop. Turning, he looked around to see a tall figure advancing on him. The man was wearing a long-coat and a top-hat, with a skull-topped walking cane.

Behind the man in the top-hat, Fenja and Menja were fighting Shadow Stalker. Or rather, they were swiping uselessly at her as she flickered in and out of her shadow state, jumping from one to the other and dealing out shots from her crossbows like they were on sale. Max had known she was fast and agile, but this was a step up from what he'd thought she was capable of. Two against one, thirty feet tall to her five feet and change, and she still had them on the back foot.

Still, he had his own problems to deal with. As he climbed to his feet, he grew a cage of blades around the man in the top hat. "Who are you?" he demanded.

"You can call me the Undertaker." The tall man barely paused in his advance to kick the closest blade, snapping it off at ground level. He stepped through the resultant gap and kept coming. "You and yours are unwelcome in Brockton Bay. Leave, or we bury you."

Max resisted the urge to take a step back. He would not be intimidated by … wait. Tall man, top hat. Working with Shadow Stalker. "Are you with Animator?"

"I am." The Undertaker was too close for comfort now. The cane tapped menacingly on the asphalt.

Max made a metal spike erupt from the ground and spear into the Undertaker's back from behind, bursting out through the man's chest and lifting him off the ground. Stepping back, he sneered. "You should've watched your back."

"Hm." The Undertaker looked down at the spike, then brought his fist down on it. With a sound like a gunshot, the metal broke off short, and the Undertaker dropped to the ground with the spike still protruding from his chest. Taking hold of it, he pushed it back, and allowed it to slide out of his body and clatter to the ground. "About what I've come to expect from someone like you."

Menja cried out in fear and pain, and Max glanced over involuntarily. Shadow Stalker had managed to separate the Valkyrie twins so they couldn't fight in unison; she was harrying Fenja, while Menja lay on the ground with Animator holding her leg. As Max watched, Menja shrank in size, all the way back to normal human scale. Whatever Animator was doing to her, it wasn't affected by the size difference.

The distraction had been brief, but it was long enough. When he brought his attention back to the Undertaker, it was too late. The swung cane caught him in the side of the head with an almighty clang, knocking him off his feet again.

This time, even as he tried to get up, the Undertaker stepped up and kicked him solidly in the ribs. Metal snapped and bent, and Max was thrown to the side with the feeling that he'd just been hit by a pile-driver. There was a distinct dent in the armour where the Undertaker's kick had landed, and the left shoulder joint had lost some of its articulation.

Again, he tried to impale the Undertaker with more blades of steel, but this time the tall man evaded them with contemptuous ease. Grabbing Max by the ankle as he tried to crawl away, the Undertaker lifted him into the air, swung him over like a rag doll, and smashed him into the pavement with a stunning crash. As Max tried to regain his breath, he was hefted into the air again and used to pummel some more of the roadway into submission.

On the third such strike, his armour started to come apart, not having been designed to handle this level of abuse. The fourth was when his left arm, now exposed, hit the ground first and snapped like a dry twig. And on the fifth, Max's abused body decided to throw in the towel. As he passed out, his helmet came loose and rolled away; in that moment, he decided he didn't give a damn.

<><>​

Animator

I stood up from Menja's unconscious body—she'd had more energy than Cricket, but less than Alabaster—to see Fenja fleeing, along with the Empire Eighty-Eight mooks who had accompanied them. Dad, carrying a slightly bent cane and sporting a large hole through his chest, strolled over and deposited someone in front of me. The glowing skeleton was still alive, though unconscious, and had a broken arm. If I looked carefully, I could see bits of metal armour surrounding it, though some important parts were missing.

"Nicely done." I gave him a grin, then reached out and healed his injuries. Kaiser I could do nothing about, even if I wanted to. Unless he was dead, of course, but I suspected he would have issues with going that far just to heal a broken arm.

Sophia came back from where she'd been making sure Fenja was actually gone, and nodded to me. "Well, one out of two ain't bad," she declared. "Total rush fighting them, though."

"I bet it was." I gave her a healing burst as well, though she hadn't taken the level of damage Dad had. Hookwolf, on the other hand … yeah, he was going to need some fixing.

Still on his feet, though he'd been scorched down to the bone in some places, Hookwolf was slugging it out with a much-reduced Lung. Bent and twisted blades littered the ground for yards around, testament to how much damage he'd taken from Lung, and just kept on going. Metallic scales, many with chunks of flesh still adhering to them, were also spread far and wide, showing that he'd given at least as good as he'd gotten.

I headed over toward them. Fire flickered around Lung, though he was back down to human size and he wasn't blasting it at Hookwolf anymore. A metal-plated wing lay nearby, and he had a still-raw wound over his right shoulderblade.

Lung was nowhere near death, as far as I could tell. Given a few moments to recuperate, he would regenerate all his wounds and be back to full strength. However, Hookwolf hadn't given him the chance, doing more damage to him than his overstressed powers could fix.

Which was where I came in. As Lung turned to look at me, I called out, "Now!"

This was Hookwolf's signal; he grabbed Lung in a bear-hug, and hung on tight. I darted in even as Lung began to struggle free, and grabbed Lung's brawny arm (ignoring the heat) with one hand, and Hookwolf's charred and mangled wrist with the other. Then I began to pull and push energy at the same time; not an easy trick, but I could just about manage it.

Lung had a tremendous store of energy, just as Alabaster had. Even skimming ninety percent of the take into my power's storage space, I had plenty left over to repair Hookwolf's injuries. He seemed almost to inflate as I pumped energy into him, his muscles repairing themselves and the skin growing over the top.

Lung's fire was the first thing to fail, while his struggles to free himself lessened by the second. I'd been aware that Hookwolf's fight with Lung was drawing huge amounts of energy—he had a lot of potential for ramping up, and I'd given him free rein with it—but this replaced all of it easily. By the time I was done, Lung's energy stores were at an all-time low, and the man himself was thoroughly unconscious.

"So, you gonna do his arm like you did with Alabaster?" Sophia seemed eager for this to happen.

I shook my head regretfully. "It wouldn't do anything. Alabaster had a timer ticking off. Lung's regeneration is constant. Even if I turn it off, it'll just start healing him when it turns on again."

"So, we gonna kill him then?" Hookwolf let Lung fall unceremoniously to the ground.

Dad frowned and shook his head. "Probably not the best idea, unless you think he'd do well as an Animated. We don't want to get the reputation of people who go all-in to kill capes. That's how you get capes coming in to target us. Including Animator."

We all knew how that would turn out. One lucky bullet was all it would take to kill me; if that happened, the other three would die as well, this time permanently.

"With the shit Lung's already pulled, he's probably due for the Birdcage anyway." Sophia nudged him with the toe of her boot. "The PRT'll be thrilled to scoop him up, along with Maxie there, and whichever one that is." She gestured at the unconscious Valkyrie lying nearby.

"Menja," Hookwolf filled in. "Fenja's the one with the shield and sword."

Sophia's shrug bespoke a supreme lack of investment in the subject. "I honestly don't fuckin' care. All Nazis look the same to me. Faces to be punched and asses to be kicked."

"I'll make the call." I pulled my phone out. "I have to say, good work there. I wasn't sure if he could be beaten down, but if anyone could do it, you could."

Hookwolf hesitated, then spread his hands. "Probably couldn't've done it when I was alive. He did way too much damage to me, just then. Cooked me pretty good. But it was totally fuckin' worth it."

"Good to hear." I dialled 9-1-1, then waited until I was connected through.

"You've reached 9-1-1, what is your emergency?"

"Hi, yeah, I need the PRT. Tell them it's about Kaiser and Lung."

I wasn't sure if they'd actually passed on the message, but I did get through in remarkably short time. "Good evening, you've reached the PRT. What is your situation, please?"

"This is Animator," I said crisply. "I'm at Edmonton Plaza. I've just helped shut down a cape battle, and both Kaiser and Lung are down and awaiting pickup, as is …" I paused, trying to remember which one Hookwolf had said it was. "Uh, Fenja or Menja. The one with the spear. The other one got away."

There was a pause on the other end, which I interpreted as stunned silence. "Ah. I see. I'll vector personnel there immediately. Does anyone on site require medical assistance?"

"… yeah, probably," I confirmed. "Kaiser's got a broken arm along with some other stuff, I guess. Lung'll basically walk off everything we did to him. Fenja or Menja might need some basic first aid too. And there's half a dozen mooks who were down when we got here. Not sure what happened to them. So yeah, send EMTs."

"Copy that, Animator. Will you still be there when they arrive?"

Now, that was the sixty-four million dollar question. The last time we'd gotten into a cape fight, I'd ended up absconding with the corpse of Hookwolf; or rather, I'd gotten him to get up and come with me after I'd changed his situation from 'dead' to 'Animated'.

What I didn't know was, when the PRT showed up, were they going to be problematic about Hookwolf's status? On the other hand, if we left before the PRT showed up, what if Lung came to in that interval? After the effort Hookwolf had put into taking him down, I didn't want him getting away again.

"Yeah. We will." I looked at Hookwolf and then Dad and Sophia. Whatever happened, happened. And if the PRT wanted to object, then we'd have to deal with it. I figured it was better out in the open than playing a game of do-they-or-don't-they.

"Thank you. There should be people there soon."

"Okay, then. Thanks. Bye."

I ended the call and put my phone away, then dropped out of the shadow realm. It was easier to keep track of Kaiser and Lung and whatever her name was, that way. And even though I'd basically filled the tank all over again, I couldn't guarantee access to either Alabaster or Lung again any time soon, so it was probably a good idea to not waste what we had.

A minute or so later, I saw Lung begin to stir. Hookwolf was on top of it; as he headed in that direction, I went back into the shadow realm. We hadn't bothered putting any kind of restraints on the three capes, because Kaiser still had armour on his wrists and the other two would be able to get out of plastic zip-ties in short order. However, Dad had thoughtfully brought along a black cloth bag, and put it over Kaiser's head.

"Don't even try it." The lack of emotion in Hookwolf's voice made him sound even more menacing. "You get up, I'll put you down again. Then Animator will rip the life clear out of you and leave you pissing and shitting yourself on the floor."

I was pretty sure my power didn't make people lose control of their sphincters, but there was always a first time. Still, it was a fairly nasty threat. Nobody, especially anyone as powerful as Lung, wanted to have that happen to them.

"Hookwolf." It was Kaiser's voice, sounding pained, even through the echoing effect I got from non-dead people while I was in the shadow realm. "Is that you?"

"Was me." Hookwolf didn't move from where he was standing over Lung. "Not sure what I am now, but I don't work for you anymore."

"What? What do you mean? Did Animator do something to your head?" With his good hand, Kaiser reached for the bag.

Dad stood on his wrist before he quite got there. "Uh-uh. That stays where it is." The cane rapped Kaiser on the head through the bag, and he froze in place.

"Hey!" Sophia had spotted the Valkyrie cape sneakily trying to grow larger. She kicked the Empire cape in the ribs, probably not using all her strength, but the woman curled into a ball anyway. "None of that stealth bullshit. You get bigger, that just makes you a bigger target. You couldn't beat me with your sister here, you won't be able to do shit on your own."

Hookwolf sighed theatrically. "Quit it, Nessa. Max, Animator didn't do shit to my head. Fact is, I see things a bit clearer than I did before. You were the one pouring poison in my ear, and I didn't care what anyone thought about me so long as I got to kick people's shit in. I still don't care what they think, but now I don't give a shit about the other stuff either."

"Max? Who's Max?" Kaiser was a pretty good actor, even injured and with a bag over his head. "I'm afraid you've got me mistaken for someone else."

Dad wasn't having any of it. "You're Max Anders. Hookwolf gave us chapter and verse about the Empire Eighty-Eight. By now, a police officer we know will be talking to the PRT and giving them all the information. Basically, everyone's secret identity, and where they lay their head. The Empire is done in this town."

"You can't do that!" Nessa (I still wasn't sure if she was Fenja or Menja, but at least I had a name for her now) uncurled from the foetal position she'd assumed, though she was smart enough not to try to get up. "There's rules for that sort of thing!"

"What, the unwritten rules?" Sophia's crossbow was aimed directly at the prone woman's helmet. "The ones that you racist assholes stomp all over every chance you get, then hide behind as soon as things stop going your way? Those rules? Don't make me fucking laugh."

"She's got a point." Hookwolf gestured at Kaiser and Lung. "You have to admit, neither of these two ever paid a blind bit of notice to any rules they didn't feel like following, and that definitely includes those goddamn stupid unwritten rules. I know I never did."

"Hookwolf … why?" Kaiser seemed to be trying for 'more in sorrow than in anger', though I was probably losing some of the nuances while in the shadow realm. "You were a valued member of the Empire Eighty-Eight. I trusted you. Why are you working against us now? Is it money? Be assured, whatever they're giving you, I can double or triple it."

I was so very tempted to say something like I bet you can't, but I kept my mouth shut. This was Hookwolf's conversation, and I wasn't about to jump in over the top of him. Besides, I was interested in seeing where he went with this.

Hookwolf shook his head and sneered at his former boss. "You got no fuckin' idea what you're talkin' about. The more I think about it, the more I see you for the piss-weak big-mouthed asshole you'll always be. The ambitious little shit who never got over the fact that everyone respected Allfather ten times more than they'll ever respect you. Shit, if the true believers ever figured out you aren't even serious about that Nazi shit you dribble all the time, they'd gank you themselves."

There was a frozen moment in time before Lung let out a bark of laughter, proving that he absolutely did know English. Then Nessa turned her head sideways to stare at Kaiser. "He's lying, isn't he? Tell me he's lying!"

"Of course he's lying, Menja." I had to hand it to Kaiser, he hit all the right notes to make the denial sound convincing, even when he was lying flat on his back with a broken arm and a bag over his head. "They're just trying to turn us against each other."

"Why?" asked Dad, before I could. "What possible reason could we have for trying to do that, right now? You've already lost this fight."

"Besides, I didn't even know that." I looked over at Hookwolf, wishing my power would let me know what was going on in someone's mind. "Is it actually true, or are you just busting his balls?"

"Oh, it's true." He chuckled, showing his teeth. "It's amazing what you pick up when folks think you're a know-nothing shit-kicker. Little bit here, little bit there. Adds up to a real interesting picture. Except I didn't think it all the way through 'til just now."

"No, it's not true." Nessa sounded like she was trying to convince herself of what she was saying. "It can't be true."

"Keep telling yourself that." He snickered. "Oh, and there's something I didn't actually get around to telling your buddy Lagos. He's been screwing Purity for the last couple of years, and popped the question to her about a month ago. We've got bets down on if she's up the duff yet. I got fifty that says she is. How about it, Max? Want to settle the question? It's not like I'm gonna actually be able to collect if I'm right."

Kaiser's reply was drowned out by the sound of heavy engines; three PRT vans roared up to where we were, and screeched to a halt. They were accompanied by two capes on motorbikes: Armsmaster and Challenger. The former pulled to a controlled stop, while the latter came in hard and slid to a sideways stop.

As the heroes climbed off their rides, they couldn't have presented more of a contrast if they'd tried. Armsmaster wore blue and silver armour, with a helmet that covered his face down to his cheekbones, while Challenger's red bodysuit with fine chains dangling from the epaulettes shouted for attention. Drawing the rifle that was sheathed alongside the cycle, Challenger rested it back over her shoulder as she strode forward alongside Armsmaster.

I decided the threat of the villains attempting a last-minute escape was over and dropped out of the shadow realm, then turned to face the newcomers.

"Well, damn," Challenger said, looking at each of our captives in turn. She had an abbreviated helmet with a diagonal blindfold down over her left eye, but it didn't do much to obscure her features otherwise. "Both the big boys, plus one of the armour twins. Nicely done. How'd you manage it without setting the whole neighbourhood on fire?"

"Also, I notice Hookwolf isn't restrained." Armsmaster unracked his halberd and let it unfold into its full length. "Mind explaining what's going on there?"

I didn't much like his tone, so I folded my arms. "I made him an offer he couldn't refuse. Now he works for me."

Challenger raised her one visible eyebrow. Her right eye was green, I noticed, and she had sharp features. "Pretty sure it doesn't work like that … Animator, right?"

"Animator, yes." I gave her a defiant stare. "It does if someone dies and I bring them back. Or are you so anxious to handle the paperwork for when you arrest him and take him out of my range and he drops dead all over again, in your care?"

"He's dead?" Armsmaster pulled a classic double-take, staring at Hookwolf with such intensity that I almost expected cartoon binoculars to pop out of his visor. "Are you sure?"

Hookwolf stepped aside to allow the PRT troopers to secure Lung and the others, but he also gave Armsmaster the finger. "I'm not dead, halberd-for-brains. I'm Animated. In case you're wondering, I just beat the living fuck out of Lung, and I'm still standing. Know anyone outside the Triumvirate who can do that?"

Leaning down, Challenger picked up a piece of scorched metal: one of Hookwolf's discarded blades. "Okay, then. Evidence checks out." She turned to me. "So, what's the actual difference between alive and Animated?"

"Living people need to breathe and always have a heartbeat. Animated don't." I shrugged, wondering what else I could say that wouldn't give away too much information. "Oh, and Animated don't need to sleep." I pointed at the tiny plastic skulls Dad and Sophia were wearing on their costumes. "That says someone's Animated. I'm pretty sure Lung melted the one Hookwolf was wearing."

Armsmaster's head came up. "No need for sleep at all? How does that even work, neurologically?"

Dad came strolling over. "Well, I'm no neurologist, but I can tell you from first-hand experience that you just don't get tired. You can lie down and even close your eyes, but it does nothing for you that watching a movie or reading a book won't also do for you."

"Hm. Interesting. No loss of focus at all?" Armsmaster peered at Dad, as though he were about to whip out a notebook and start scribbling things down.

"No." Challenger waved her hand up and down in front of Armsmaster's face. "That's not something you want to try doing for yourself in the lab. For a start, it involves dying. Now, I'm good for a lot of crazy stuff, but actual suicide is way outside the scope of anything I'm willing to let you experiment with. And you can be damn sure the Director will agree with me."

"Death isn't necessarily a requirement." Armsmaster gestured at Dad. "Look at him. He's active, cogent, intelligently responding to stimuli. None of those things are a normal result of death."

Challenger shook her head so vigorously that the tiny chains on her epaulettes swung gently in unison. "No. Negative. Nyet. Nein. Ain't gonna happen."

"What I'm saying is, maybe we can skip that step." Now he sounded like a kid promising that he'd mow lawns the entire summer if his dad would just buy a car for him right now. "If I could pull it off, the boost to my productivity would be substantial."

I cleared my throat, and they both looked around at me. "Um, I just want to say, I don't know a ton about the subject, but I read somewhere that living brains need sleep to recuperate and unwind. If they don't get it, hallucinations are common, and that's just the start. With the Animated, their brains aren't alive in the standard sense, so it's my power that keeps them up and running twenty-four-seven. But—"

"That's exactly what I'm trying to say." Armsmaster gestured in my direction, as if to say, See? She agrees with me. "If I could function twenty-four hours a day, I could get so much more done."

I shared a sympathetic look with Challenger. "You didn't let me finish. I was going to say, 'but we've only been doing this for a little while'. I honestly don't know how it works, which means you can't meaningfully replicate it."

"Well, there's one way." Hookwolf raised his eyebrows meaningfully. "I gank him, you Animate him, and then he gets to find out what it's like instead of just assuming he knows."

I folded my arms and gave him an unamused look. "We are not 'ganking' anyone. Especially not so I can Animate them afterward. That's a terrible use for my power."

Challenger snorted and rolled her eye. "Besides, what would you classify it as? Murder or kidnapping? I mean, I don't even know how to describe what you did with Hookwolf. Disturbing the crime scene is one thing, but when the murder victim gets up and walks away, that makes things far too complicated, and not in a good way."

"Well, I don't know." Armsmaster seemed to have gotten past the idea of getting rid of sleep and was back in analysis mode. "It would certainly simplify things if we can just ask the victim who the perpetrator was." He turned to Hookwolf. "Just out of curiosity, who did kill you?"

"Not totally sure," Hookwolf admitted, waggling his hand in the air. "But if you wanted me to guess, I'd say it was Officer Lagos of the police department. Fair's fair, though. I did kill him a couple of days before that."

While Armsmaster facepalmed, Challenger shook her head and smirked. "Simplify things. Riiiight."

I nodded in agreement, but I was already thinking about our next move. The ABB was down, and the Empire nearly so. After that, we needed to go after the Merchants, because they'd killed Dad and Sophia. As Hookwolf had just said, 'fair's fair'. They kill mine, I kill theirs.

The only difference is, theirs stay dead.



End of Part Fifteen

 

[Avernus]

I actually sympathize with Armsmaster; I hate having to sleep too. Unfortunately for him I'm pretty sure that whatever brain function add-on lets them stay awake indefinitely is handled by Taylor's Shard and is simply inaccessible, so studying the Awakened probably wouldn't get much more of a result than "it just works".