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".

 

[Ack]

All Alone

Part Sixteen: Gathering Information

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

[A/N 2: Apologies for the delay. Obligations and other things.]

[A/N 3: Please note that racist comments will be made by racist people in this fic. The author does not share those views.]

[A/N 4: On the upside, I'm currently on a diet, and I've currently managed to lose 19 kg (nearly 42 lb) since the last time I posted to this fic. Not sure if this says more about my (lack of) update speed or my diet.]



Monday Night, August 31, 2009

Animator

"So, how's Terry going, anyway?" I asked idly as Dad drove Sophia and me back towards her home. Despite the fact that we'd rescued her older brother, being kidnapped for an Empire initiation couldn't have been easy on him or their mother. I was just glad that we'd gotten him out of it before he was injured or worse.

"Still a bit shaken." Sophia liked to pretend disdain toward Terry, but as the events of the last few days had demonstrated, she cared far more for him than she usually let on. "Mom barely lets him out of her sight."

I couldn't really blame Mrs Hess. After I'd brought Dad and Sophia back, I hadn't wanted them to go too far away from me, either. "Well, once we take the last three down, he won't be in danger of that shit happening again."

"Damn right." Sophia had always had an edgy air about her, but now she wasn't even trying to conceal it. I had no doubt that she would kill them if they gave her the slightest excuse. If she did, I wouldn't be Animating them. "The fucking Empire's hurt too many people for too long. We're going to end it, forever."

Brad, who'd been sitting quietly in the front seat up until now, spoke up. "Won't be as easy as that, kid. There's still Gesellschaft to think about."

"Who what now?" she asked, looking at me to see if I knew what he was talking about.

I frowned as the name rang a bell from my World Issues classes. "Isn't that some kind of German criminal organisation?"

"More than that." Brad spoke with confidence. "They've got their fingers into everything, but the main thing they do is capes. These are Krieg's people. About as neo-Nazi as you can get. Fuckin' true believers."

From the way Dad spoke, he was frowning. "What do you mean, 'the main thing they do is capes'?"

Brad had our attention now, and he knew it. "They recruit capes, or maybe kidnap them, and brainwash them to be totally loyal to Gesellschaft. Maybe they even force them to Trigger first, I dunno. Anyway, by the time the poor bastards walk out of there, they're programmed like fucking robots. The rumours I heard about the methods these assholes use, they're not in there anymore. No personality left, except what gets put back in."

"And they actually operate here in the States?" I didn't want to believe that they even existed, but that wasn't up to me either.

"Sure as hell. And if I know that stick-up-the-ass Krieg …"

<><>​

At the Same Time

An Anonymous Empire 88 Safe House

Krieg

James Fleischer sat and fumed. None of the civilian members of the Empire were in the safe house at the moment, so he felt safe in unmasking, as did the other two Empire capes. Purity was just as angry as he was, while Fenja seemed more preoccupied with her aches and pains. She was bandaged here and there from the arrows that had been shot into her, and bruised where she wasn't bandaged. It had been a long time since he'd seen the girl so injured.

"How could this have happened?" It wasn't the first time he'd asked the question. It wasn't that he expected to receive a different answer, but he also wanted to know why.

"That shadow bitch was a fuck-ton tougher and stronger than I've ever seen her before," Fenja bitched. "She kicked the shit out of me and Nessa, all by herself. The asshole in the top hat was throwing Kaiser around like a rag doll after Kaiser put a spike through him."

"What about Hookwolf?" asked Purity. "You said he was back, and he was fighting Lung."

"No, he was kicking the absolute shit out of Lung." Fenja shook her head. "Lung set him on fire, but he just kept coming back. And that Animator chick, she did something to Nessa once Stalker had her down. It was like she pulled the power clean out of her."

James looked around. She hadn't mentioned that detail before. "Are you sure about that?"

"Sure I'm sure." Fenja nodded earnestly. "That's about when I ran for it. I couldn't beat her and Stalker both, and Kaiser was down and out by then."

Purity frowned. "We were talking about Animator before, remember? How she screwed with Alabaster's powers, and Cricket's too. She's got to be a Trump, for sure."

It was becoming clear to James. "The one in the top hat and Shadow Stalker are both far tougher than they should be. Animator must be boosting their powers, making them into Brutes, the same way she's weakened our people."

"But what about that cop she's supposed to have brought back to life?" asked Fenja.

James had heard the rumour too, but was less and less inclined to give it credence as the facts mounted up. "That doesn't fit with what else we've seen. More likely, she gave him a temporary boost that healed his injuries and made it look like he came back to life."

"And the name?" Purity didn't seem to be buying that explanation.

Did he have to come up with everything? "If I had a dollar for every mismatched cape name I ever saw, I would be far richer than I already am."

"Okay, granted." She gave him a hard stare. "But no matter what powers she has, the fact remains that her crew seems to have it in for us. Plus, we don't have the firepower between us to get Max and the others out of PRT holding. What do we do from here?"

"One solution for two problems." He was quite proud of himself. "I will contact Gunther tonight, and have Gesellschaft send us as many capes as they can. Once they get here, we kill Animator, then we break our people out of holding."

She didn't seem convinced. "I thought you said that the only capes they had in preparation aren't ready yet."

"They can send them anyway." James smiled coldly. "If it's the ones I'm thinking of, they won't be lacking in power, and their processing will be far enough along that I won't have any trouble keeping them in line. They'll certainly be ready to kill on command."

Fenja lifted her head. "Yeah, that's the other thing. I know we don't blink at killing civs if they do something stupid, but heroes? Wasn't there some kind of an agreement about that? We don't go for kill shots, they don't go for kill shots?"

James snorted. "We adhere to that sort of thing precisely as long as it's convenient to us, and not one minute more. Those who are too strong to be challenged can kill who they like."

"But are we there right now?" Purity didn't sound like she was arguing so much as she was honestly curious. "I can deal out the damage, but if the opposition starts bringing sniper rifles into play again, I'm a flying target. You two have a lot less to worry about with stray bullets."

"Once we have Nacht und Nebel on board, we will be there again." He was sure of that.

"What's that in English?" asked Fenja.

James smiled. "I believe you would call them … Night and Fog."

<><>​

Much Later That Night

Hebert Household

Undertaker

"So … can I ask a favour?"

Danny turned to look at Bradley. The ex-Empire Animated cape had been consistently respectful to them once the facts of (un)life were explained to him, but this was a whole new level of diffidence.

During his time under Kaiser, Hookwolf had been an awful person, and Danny figured the clarity that came with his death and revival had only done so much to walk that back. He still enjoyed hitting people and breaking things; the title 'headkicker' was one he embraced fully. But relaxing on the sofa at two in the morning, watching a late night movie over beers—not that alcohol did a damn thing for either of them anymore, but the taste was still there—he wasn't bad company. Given a different run-up at life, he might have made an acceptable Dockworker.

"Sure." Danny raised his eyebrows. "Not saying I'll do it until I've heard what it is, though."

"That's fair." Bradley turned to face him directly, ignoring the movie altogether. "When your girl brought me back, it was so I could kick the shit out of Lung, yeah?"

"I guess." Danny shrugged. "I don't even pretend to know what she's thinking most days, but that bit was pretty straightforward." He raised his beer to clink against Bradley's. "And you certainly ripped him an entire series of new assholes, just saying."

"Hah, yeah, not gonna say I didn't enjoy it, because I totally did." Bradley took a deep breath, which just showed how nervous he had to be. They were both fully aware that they didn't have to, and only stuck to it in public. It turned out that people noticed subconsciously if someone else wasn't breathing, and it put them on edge. "But I've been thinking … what do you need me for now?"

"What?" Danny frowned. "What do you mean? There's other capes out there. Villains who need to be put on the ground. I'm not bad at it now, and Kenny's pretty good too, but you put us both in the shade without trying."

"Yeah, but I'm not stupid. Lung was the last one in Brockton Bay that you're gonna need me for." Bradley spread his free hand expressively. "I'm Hookwolf. The worst of the worst. I've done more bad shit, hurt and killed more people, than you've had hot meals. And it stands to reason that as soon as you and your girl decide you don't need me anymore, it'll be—" He snapped his fingers. "—lights out for me, forever."

Danny watched him carefully. This was more emotion than the tattooed killer had shown since he'd been brought back. "Okay, so what's this favour you're asking?"

"Don't let me know it's coming." Bradley's eyes searched Danny's face. "I don't want to know. Let me go out at the top of my game, when I'm still riding high and kicking ass. I don't want fucking sympathy or apologies or 'time to get my affairs in order'. Tell her from me, when the time comes, just fuckin' do it."

"Hmm." Danny rubbed his chin. "Sure, I can tell her that. But I think you're forgetting something."

"What's that?" Bradley frowned. "The hell'd I miss?"

Danny finished off his beer and put it down. "Brockton Bay's not the only place with villains in it. And there's some things out there that are a lot tougher than Lung."

Bradley's eyes opened a little wider. "Wait, are you talking …"

"Endbringers?" Danny waggled his hand from side to side. "Well, if you're going to go out anyway, what better way, am I right?"

Bradley toasted him with his raised beer. "Hell, yeah!"

<><>​

Tuesday Afternoon, September 1, 2009

Terminal E, Logan International Airport, Boston

Fenja

"So, these new capes." Jessica ventured. She knew she was the junior member here by some years, but nobody had just wanted to share with her so she had to bite the bullet and ask. "Do they even know English?" Krieg was German so he was fine there, and she didn't know if Purity had picked up any, but all she knew was 'ja', 'nein', and what she assumed were a few swear-words.

"I certainly hope so." Krieg didn't sound certain. "They were being prepared to work in the United States, so that should've been given high priority, if they weren't already native speakers."

"What?" Purity frowned. "What do you mean, if they weren't already native speakers?"

Krieg half-turned his head to glance at her. "I mean, Gesellschaft acquires its assets from wherever it can find them. These two may have been a married couple before all this, or they might have been total strangers."

Forced into a fake relationship? Jessica felt her stomach clench.

He was still reeling off the horror. "Either or both may have been pre-existing capes, or induced to trigger. They could be originally German, American, British, or one could be from Australia and the other from Iceland, for all I know or care. All that information is scrubbed from their files at the same time as it's scrubbed from their brains."

She'd thought it couldn't get worse. That was even worse. She swallowed and clenched the seatbelt as a way to keep herself grounded.

"What comes out the other end, what we get, is a pair of capes who can reliably masquerade as a married couple, and who are entirely devoted to the cause. And that's all we need to know."

Jessica shuddered. It sounded horrible, in an abstract sort of way. To be ripped out of whatever life they had before, forced to gain powers if they didn't already have them, then have an entire new worldview imposed over the old one.

Better them than me. Of course, it would never happen to her. She was already loyal to the Empire Eighty-Eight, and to the cause. And they absolutely needed the firepower, that was a given.

Purity raised her head. "Is there anything we need to know about them? Their powers, and whatever else might be important? I mean, 'Night' and 'Fog' aren't very descriptive as names go."

What, like 'Purity'? Or 'Krieg'? But Jessica kept her snark to herself. Kayden had always been fair and even-handed with her and Nessa, and she just plain didn't want to piss off Mr Fleischer.

"Hmm." Krieg considered the question for a moment. "From the report I received, Fog becomes a corrosive mist, so don't venture into it when it forms. And Night … well, the moment she is unobserved by a living person, she becomes a creature of blades and danger. While we are in the car together, there must always be someone watching her."

"That might've been something to tell us earlier." Purity wasn't complaining, exactly, but she was certainly making a point. "She goes in the front seat. Jessica, you and I will be watching her at all times."

"So, Fog will be in the back seat with us?" Jessica wrinkled her nose. "Not sure how I feel about that."

"You would've been sharing the back seat with both of them if this little power aspect hadn't come up, so count yourself lucky that I'll be there with you." Purity rolled her eyes, then shook her head. "With any luck, these will be our new teammates, so let's give them the benefit of the doubt, okay?"

"Yes, ma'am." Jessica looked up to check the arrivals board. "L-H four-two-four, M-U-C. That's their flight, isn't it?"

"They flew out of Munich, yes." Krieg stood up. "I was told they would be pre-clearing with Customs before they left Germany. The least amount of agitation for them in unfamiliar surroundings at this end, the better."

"Agitation?" That wasn't a word that Jessica liked. "What's wrong with them? Why are they likely to get agitated?"

"I already told you." Krieg's voice held fake patience. "Their preparation wasn't complete. Personality implantation isn't an exact science, and taking shortcuts can leave the subject with … quirks. Such as emotional lability."

"Lability." Purity evidently knew the word, even though Jessica was unfamiliar with it. "Why not just call it 'instability' and be done with it?"

"Wait, they're actually fucking unstable?" Jessica looked from Krieg to Purity and back again. "Brand new capes, first time in America, might not even speaka-da-Eenglish, and they're unstable on top of it?" The little tiny red flags that had been popping up here and there started waving frantically in the breeze, getting larger by the second. "How do you know they're not gonna turn around and decide that we're the enemy?"

Krieg gestured toward where people were starting to filter through the Customs barrier. "Precautions are put into place before anything else. They literally can't push back on us. If we give an order, they are compelled to obey."

Jessica glanced sideways toward Purity, to see how she was reacting to this. The more she heard about these new capes, the less comfortable she was with any of it. But Purity didn't seem to have a problem—or if she did, she was good at hiding it—so Jessica figured it was best to go along with it now and raise her concerns in private later.

They were probably horrible people, anyway. As Kaiser always said, no sacrifice was too great for the cause.

Krieg raised his hand in greeting. Looking at the oncoming people, Jessica saw an older, balding man returning the gesture. With him, following close behind, were a man and a woman. Both were wearing evening attire, rather than the casual clothing sported by the rest of the passengers; in addition, the woman was made up to the nines.

Focusing on the couple, Jessica could see evidence for what Krieg had spoken of. Belying their confident walk, both had eyes only for the man they were following. For someone who knew nothing of their background, their expressions could have been mistaken for disdain or boredom; Jessica could only see a blankness, a void waiting to be told what to emote.

"James," the man said warmly. "Guten Tag, mein Freund. It is good to see you." His English held a strong German accent.

Krieg shook his hand with a double clasp. "And you too, Gunther. These are our new friends?"

"Ja, ja. Das ist Geoff und Dorothy Schmidt. Geoff, Dorothy, say hello to Herr Fleischer. What he says, you are to do." He held up his hand and Jessica saw a small plastic device in his hand, like a key fob. "Do you understand?"

"Ja, mein Herr." Geoff Schmidt's voice was almost toneless, but there was real fear in his eyes as he tracked the movement of the fob. "Hello, Herr Fleischer." Dorothy echoed his words half a second later.

"Gut, gut." Gunther handed the fob to Krieg. "I give them into your care. We will speak again later. Auf Wiedersehen; I must catch my return flight." They shook hands once more, then he strode off again toward one of the departure gates.

Purity blinked. "Well, that certainly happened." She looked the newcomers over. "Wait, don't you have any carry-on luggage? Is it all checked?"

Neither Geoff nor Dorothy said a word; both were watching Krieg with the same intensity as they'd been watching Gunther. For his part, he was busy examining the fob. Jessica couldn't see it too well, but it seemed to have two buttons on it.

"What does this do?" he asked, looking at Geoff and holding up the fob.

Geoff went dead still, as did Dorothy. "It punishes if we disobey, mein Herr." The tonelessness of his voice belied the fear in his eyes.

"Hmm." He slid the fob into his pocket. "And your luggage?"

"We have none, mein Herr." Again, the flicker of fear in his eyes seemed to indicate an expectation of punishment.

Krieg's lips tightened. "I see. Well, no more spoken German. Use 'sir' when you address me. These are Ms Russel and Miss Biermann. Use 'ma'am' when you address them. Is that understood?"

"Yes, sir." Geoff and Dorothy spoke at the same time, then fell silent again.

"Good. Come along." Turning, Krieg headed toward the exit doors. Geoff and Dorothy followed like ducklings in a row. Jessica and Purity brought up the rear; by silent agreement, both kept their eyes on Dorothy.

When they reached the car, Krieg brought out his key fob to unlock the doors; Jessica saw Geoff and Dorothy flinch. But they didn't protest, and when he pressed the button and the car's lights flashed, they didn't relax. Krieg ushered Dorothy into the front seat, while Geoff got into the back with Purity and Jessica.

Purity had clearly been thinking matters over; as they started out of the airport, she spoke up. "We're going to have to get them clothing and the basics of life. Why couldn't they have brought at least those along?"

"Because it seems they don't own any." Krieg sounded a little irritated himself. "What they're wearing now was probably purchased for the occasion. I was aware Gesellschaft were a little upset with me for pushing the issue, but not by that much."

"Is that true?" Jessica asked. "You don't own anything?"

There was no answer. Geoff's eyes remained fixed on Krieg, in the driver's seat.

After the silence had stretched out long enough to become awkward, Krieg cleared his throat. "Geoff, Dorothy, you must treat Ms Russel and Miss Biermann with the same respect that you do for me. If they ask you questions, you must answer them. If they give you an order, you must obey them. And you must never hurt them. Is that understood?"

"Yes, sir." Again, both answered with the same eerie echo.

"Is that necessary?" asked Purity. "I mean, telling them that they're not allowed to hurt us?"

"To be honest, I don't know." Krieg shrugged. "But I feel it's better to be safe than sorry."

Jessica took a deep breath. "Geoff, is it necessary to tell you not to hurt us?" She felt like a character in one of those stupid science fiction movies with robots that would go insane and try to kill all humans if given the wrong order, then wondered if this wasn't closer to the truth than she'd previously considered.

"Yes, Ms Biermann," Geoff responded promptly. "If we were not given that order, we could easily kill you."

"Do you want to kill us?" Jessica probably wouldn't have phrased it like that, but Purity was apparently made of sterner stuff.

"Yes, Ms Russel," Dorothy answered from the front seat. "But we are not permitted to do so, so we will not."

Well, that's not fucking creepy in the slightest.

"We're going to need to break Kaiser and our other members out of PRT lockup." Krieg managed to make it sound like the most normal thing in the world. "What equipment will you be needing for that, Dorothy?"

Oh, yeah. There's the turns-human thing. Jessica felt momentarily sympathetic toward the Gesellschaft woman for her shitty Changer condition. I know for damn sure that I wouldn't be able to kick ass if I Changed back every time someone looked at me.

"I have practised with smoke grenades, sir. Also, there was a cloak with hooks that I could throw over my opponents' heads." Dorothy used exactly the same tone as she'd used to say that she wanted to kill everyone in the car.

Krieg nodded. "We can definitely see about acquiring such things. In the meantime, we'll be buying you basic clothing and toiletries, and figuring out where you're going to stay. I'm assuming separate bedrooms."

"My Changed form does not need sleep, sir." Dorothy did not phrase it as a boast, merely a statement of fact. "This body does, but whenever I Change from one into the other, my state of health and rest is reset."

"Unless you're under twenty-four-hour surveillance, understood." Krieg nodded. "Or can you deliberately stay in either human form or Changer form?"

"Neither one, sir. It is entirely dependent on being observed." Dorothy's tone was as toneless as every other time she'd spoken, betraying nothing of the frustration or irritation that Jessica would absolutely have been feeling in her place.

"Well, we're just going to have to work with it." Krieg raised his eyes to the mirror and nodded. "I'm beginning to think these two aren't quite enough for our purposes. We need more."

Purity let out a relieved sigh. The thought of relying on broken puppets like Geoff and Dorothy made her skin crawl. "I was thinking the same thing, but I wasn't sure how to say it. What about that teenager in Alabama, the one with the ghosts?"

Jessica frowned. "What teenager?"

"A potential team member." Krieg glanced around at Purity and nodded. "Get in touch with him. We don't have time to do this the normal way. See if he's willing to jump straight in."

"There is that other guy, the skill thief." Purity raised her eyebrows. "Think it's worth fast-tracking him in as well?"

Krieg considered that, then shook his head. "This is the sort of thing we need heavy hitters for, not subtlety. If we delay too long, they'll move Kaiser and the others to more secure facilities. I think we should see how quickly your teenager can get here from Alabama."

"Will do." Purity set her jaw. "And we definitely need to find out what the hell's going on with Hookwolf. If he's alive and not in PRT custody, why hasn't he come back to us?"

Krieg shrugged. "Find that out, and we will both know."

<><>​

Detective Dana McAllister

Outside the Hebert House

"Sure you don't want me coming in with you, ma'am?" Loncey glanced dubiously at the house across the street. "If half the whispers I've been getting out of the PRT are true, there's a lot more to those two than meets the eye."

"Those four. The Hess girl is visiting, and they've got a houseguest. Rough-looking customer. But I think I'll be fine." Dana opened the door and got out. "If I'm not out in fifteen minutes, call for backup, but only then."

"Copy that, ma'am." Loncey still didn't look thrilled with the situation, but he didn't argue.

Satisfied that he wouldn't jump the gun, Dana checked both ways—it was a quiet suburban street, but being hit by a car would hurt just as much as on a busy inner-city avenue—and crossed the road to the slightly run-down house. Small signs of new repairs were visible as she climbed the steps and rapped on the front door; moments later, she heard footsteps before the door was opened. Taylor Hebert, readily recognisable from her medical file, stood there, though she was wearing heavy wraparound sunglasses. "Uh … hello? Can I help you?"

"Good afternoon, Ms Hebert." Dana had long since decided that up-front honesty was the best way of getting the same in return, especially in a situation with this many questions hanging in the air. "I'm Detective Dana McAllister. Could you please ask your father if it's okay for me to come in and have a talk with you both?"

The Hebert girl's eyebrows hitched up slightly, then she nodded. "Sure, I can do that." The door closed again, and Dana heard her receding voice. "Dad! We've got a visitor!"

<><>​

Animator

Sophia shook her head. "We shouldn't be talking to her at all. She's a cop!"

"What the brat said." Hookwolf nodded in agreement with her, something I was pretty sure he never would've done in life. "Can't trust pigs nohow."

Dad's tone was mild. "It can't hurt to find out what she wants. And she might have important information to share."

I nodded. "So long as there's nothing in view that outs us as capes, she's got nothing on us, right?"

"Correct." Dad frowned thoughtfully. "Bradley, have you ever been arrested and unmasked?"

"Not yet, though they've sure as hell tried." Hookwolf looked down at the tattoos on his arms. "But if we're letting her in, I should maybe cover up, yeah?"

I didn't need to look. While Hookwolf had always gone masked, the swastika and wolf tattoos had been in plain view for every one of his public appearances, and would identify him even more readily than his fingerprints.

I was actually kind of impressed that he'd come to that realisation himself. The pre-Animated Hookwolf would've resisted covering up and more or less dared the detective to do anything about it.

"I've got a heavy winter coat you can wear," Dad offered. "It'll be warm, and you probably won't be able to close it, but it'll do the job."

Hookwolf looked from Dad's less than imposing physique to his own, and nodded. "Sure. Let's do that."

<><>​

Dana McAllister

Strain her ears as she might, Dana couldn't make out the conversation that took place once the door was closed again, though she was fairly certain someone had run upstairs and come back down again. What for, she had no idea.

This time, when the door was opened, Danny Hebert stood there. "Good afternoon, Detective. Please come in."

"Thank you, Mr Hebert." Dana stepped over the threshold and followed Hebert into the living room.

Taylor Hebert and the Hess girl were already seated on the sofa, while the rough-looking guy in the jacket—she was certain she'd seen him somewhere before, but she had no idea where—was seated the wrong way around on a straight-backed chair, his arms crossed over the back; another chair stood vacant in the middle of the room. Hebert sat down in an armchair in the corner of the room. "You're welcome. So, you wanted to talk to us? Here we are."

Everything about this situation absolutely screamed 'preparation', down to the chair that had been left out for her. She knew damn well that she'd get nothing out of them that they didn't want to give her, but right at this moment, she'd take whatever was available.

Taking out her notebook, she sat down in the empty chair and looked them over. "Okay, everyone please relax. I don't want this to feel like an interrogation. More of an exchange of information. For a start, do you happen to know this young man?" A photo of Rodney Stafford was right there in her notebook for this specific reason, and she showed it around to each of the four people.

Danny Hebert nodded; his snort of disgust was echoed by the Hess girl. Taylor Hebert pursed her lips, and Dana was pretty certain she was rolling her eyes behind the sunglasses. The big guy in the jacket was the odd one out, from the way he peered at the photo and shook his head. "Nope," he declared. "Never met the little shit in my life."

"I presume he claims to have met us?" Danny Hebert was taking control of the conversation from the get-go. Dana was entirely unsurprised, considering his background in union work.

"Yes." She didn't feel that the admission cost her anything. "He says you three were brought into his workplace at Brockton Bay General, and that you and Ms Hess died before your daughter raised you as zombies." She didn't bother to hide her skepticism. "His feelings about this were … stringent."

The Hess girl spoke up. "Well, I told him then, and I'm telling you now. I'm not a zombie and I've never been one."

"Understood." Dana turned the page on her notebook, and took out the next photo. "How about this man?" It was a photo of Calvert, taken during the booking process.

This time, all four of them showed no sign of recognition. Danny Hebert took up the ball again. "I presume he's connected to this case as well?"

"He is." Dana hesitated, then reminded herself of her intent to be open and honest with the Heberts and their associates. "This is Thomas Calvert, once a lieutenant in the PRT, until recently a civilian consultant to the same organisation, and currently a wanted suspect. A few days ago, Stafford infiltrated Brockton General after hours and pulled your medical records, as well as those of Officer Lagos, apparently at the behest of Mr Calvert." She glanced at the rough-looking guy. "Not yours, though, Mr …?"

His borderline sneer told her that he knew exactly what she was playing at. Also, that he had no love for police officers. "Call me Bob. And no, they got no reason to have my records."

"I see." She made a note of what she was certain was a false name. "So, uh, just out of curiosity, why are you wearing a heavy coat in September?"

He met her gaze squarely. "I'm cold."

"Okay," Taylor said almost plaintively, breaking the deadlock. "Maybe I'm just slow today, but why would a PRT consultant get a disgraced hospital orderly to steal records for him? Couldn't he just tell the PRT what he needs, so they can requisition it for him?"

Which was a question Dana wanted the answer for, not least because the guy had used her as a hostage to get out of the precinct building.

The Hess girl went to speak at almost exactly the same time as the man who'd introduced himself as 'Bob' did. Taylor cleared her throat, and they both shut up, glaring at each other. Taylor silently pointed at Hess.

"He's a supervillain, duh." She sneered at 'Bob', then addressed Dana. "You go back through his financials, you'll find bribes an' payouts, probably disguised as other shit. But ten to one, he's a cape. Dunno who he is, though."

'Bob' grinned suddenly. "I might. How tall is he? And is he skinny or heavyset?"

Well, now we're getting somewhere. Dana flicked to the appropriate set of notes. "Six foot eight," she reported. "And he's skinny. Very much Mr Hebert's body type, only more so."

'Bob' snapped his fingers and Dana thought she heard a metallic clack, though she wasn't sure where it came from. "Fucker's called Coil. New-ish in town, tryin' to build a rep. Not sure what his powers are, but lookin' good in a morph suit definitely ain't one of 'em."

"Coil?" Dana frowned as the name stirred a memory. "I heard a few rumours about a new name in town, but nothing substantial."

Danny Hebert cleared his throat. "Now you've definitely got something to pin on him. I'm guessing the PRT will be interested in him for that, and for anything else he's supposed to have done."

"Yes, well." She cleared her throat, trying not to sound too embarrassed. "We were questioning him about the Stafford thing when he got out of his cuffs—I'm pretty sure his lawyer slipped him a shim when I went to fetch him a drink—and he used me as a human shield to get out of the precinct. Right now, he's in the wind."

The Hess girl snorted, sounding unimpressed. "Well, that was fuckin' smart of you, wasn't it?"

Which more or less paralleled the theme of the dressing-down she'd gotten from her superiors, only with vastly more brevity and considerably more snark. "Not a highlight of my career, no," she admitted.

"Did he hurt you?" Taylor asked, her brow creasing in concern.

"Only my pride, and a few bruises." Dana shrugged. "My partner was shot, but his vest took it. Could've been a lot worse on both counts."

Danny Hebert leaned forward. "Let's get back to the arrangement he had with this Stafford idiot. Do you know if he managed to actually get hold of any of our medical data? Or even our names?"

She frowned, flipping back through the notepad to the appropriate entries. "He gave no indication that he knew your names even after the fact, and he didn't get so much as a glance at the medical files, thanks to an incautious reminder Mr Stafford left for himself."

'Bob' snorted. "If he really wants that stuff, he's gonna keep tryin'." Notably, he didn't give any reasons why Calvert/Coil would be seeking said information; from her investigations so far, Dana could make a few strong guesses. "But now we know to keep an eye out for him."

"Is Mr Stafford alright?" asked Taylor.

The Hess girl gave her a 'you're kidding, right?' look. "What, apart from being sheer bat-shit cray-cray? Tay, the guy believes in zombie apocalypses. He belongs in one of those nice jackets that lace up the back."

"He's in custody, but he's physically fine," Dana said reassuringly. She didn't add in the part about Stafford still believing whole-heartedly that he'd just saved the city from a zombie apocalypse, though she suspected she didn't have to. "Was there anything else you'd like to fill me in on?" Confirmation that Taylor had actually gone through a trigger event and was doing all this with powers would be nice, but she suspected she wouldn't be getting it. Nor, she figured, would there be any information forthcoming about the mysterious 'Bob'.

"No, that's about it." Danny Hebert stood up from his armchair. "Thank you for coming over, Detective. I appreciate you filling us in on the information about Calvert." He offered his hand to shake.

"You're welcome. I suspect I won't be getting to the bottom of this case for some time yet, but every bit of information helps." As she shook his hand, she contrived to get her finger onto his pulse point.

He didn't object; in fact, he rolled his wrist to give her better access, allowing her to get a good read on the strong and steady beat of his pulse. The whole time, he locked eyes with her, a slight smile on his face. For a supposedly dead man, she had to admit, he seemed remarkably alive.

"Well, I don't envy you your job." He walked her to the door and opened it for her.

She descended the steps, then headed down the front path and across the street to where Loncey waited in the car. Only then did she glance over her shoulder to where Hebert stood in the doorway, with Taylor beside him. Both raised a hand to wave, then they stepped back inside and the door closed behind them.

"So, how'd it go?" asked Loncey as she climbed into the driver's seat. "Get any answers?"

"A few." She let out a gusty sigh. "But they came with a lot more questions."

"Well, that's a surprise."

She gave him a dirty look.

<><>​

Later That Evening

Brockton Bay Port Authority

Purity

Kayden glanced around the bus terminal again then grimaced, irritated with herself. Ever since the majority of the Empire Eighty-Eight had either been captured or defected (or whatever it was Hookwolf had done), she'd felt more than a little vulnerable when going out in public, even when not in costume. The truth of it was, she'd gotten used to the security of belonging to a sizeable team, where there was always someone to watch her back. Having just two other members she could depend on was a huge step-down from just a few days ago.

There was no way in hell she was going to trust Night and Fog to do anything except exactly what Krieg told them, down to the letter. She certainly wasn't going to let them know that Theo existed, much less introduce him to them. Even if they knew of him, she wouldn't trust them to babysit a rock. Thus, Fenja was spending the evening with him, while Krieg kept an eye on the murderbots (as Jessica had privately called them) at the safe house and she herself fetched the new recruit from the bus depot.

God, I miss Max. I miss everyone.

She especially missed Max because of the news she had for him, but of course now that was going to have to wait until he was broken out of holding.

Focus. That's for later. Pay attention to the here and now.

The bus from Mobile pulled into the correct bay, its air brakes letting out a loud chnkpssshhhhhh as they engaged. A moment later, the engine cut out and the bus doors opened. Kayden watched carefully as the passengers debarked; she'd studied the photo carefully, but people had been known to change, sometimes in a remarkably short interval.

But it seemed she needn't have worried; when he stepped off the bus, she recognised him immediately. The trouble was, she then lost sight of him just as quickly, because he wasn't unusually tall, while she was particularly petite. The last thing she wanted to do was draw attention, but if she didn't draw his attention, this could get all sorts of problematic.

Plus, she didn't want Krieg yelling at her like he had Fenja. They were equally placed as Max's seconds in command, but sometimes he seemed to forget that.

"Justin!" she called out. "Justin! Over here!" At the same time, she waved her hand over her head, hoping he would see it.

For a long moment she didn't think he'd seen or heard her, then he forged his way through the thinning crowd to end up in front of her. "Hi. Uh … Ms Russel?"

She smiled tightly, gauging him. He looked like his photo, but words could lie easier than faces. "Call me Kayden. Did you have much trouble getting out of Mobile?"

"Well, people will be looking for me when they realise I skipped town." He shrugged. "But it's a bullshit situation anyway. Pulling the plug on her was my only option."

Kayden didn't know all the details about that yet, but she figured she'd find out in time. "If you say so. Do you have any luggage?"

"Only this." He patted the backpack hanging off his left shoulder. "I couldn't grab any more without making my folks suspicious. Had to sneak out."

She chose not to comment about how he apparently still lived with his parents; it wasn't up to her to judge that sort of thing. In any case, it was more important to her that he was here to join the Empire. The past of everyone who joined was very much that: in the past. "That's okay. We can fit you out with whatever you need. Come on."

He followed her out of the bus station, and got into the passenger seat of the car. Only once she had the engine started and was on the road did she speak again. Time and again, Max had impressed upon her the importance of not talking cape matters out of costume.

"So, you generate ghosts?" she asked. "How does that work, exactly?"

He smiled anxiously, eager to please. "They come out carrying whatever I'm carrying—knives, spears, whatever—and they only affect stuff that's alive. And they can fly, and carry me too."

"And how many can you generate?" This was important.

His smile widened. "Lots. Dozens. Maybe a hundred. I've never counted."

Kayden nodded slowly. She'd made the right call, bringing him into it. "Did you have a cape name picked out?"

"Ah, yeah." He cleared his throat. "Seeing how I figure I'll be carrying medieval weapons and I'll be cleaning up the trash, I'm thinking Crusader."

"That's a good name." She liked how he spoke about cleaning up the trash, too. He was definitely the type of person they were looking for.

"Thanks." He hesitated. "So … I'm in?"

"Yes, you are." She gave him a broad smile. "Welcome to the Empire Eighty-Eight."



End of Part Sixteen

 

[woodzrox]

they only affect stuff that's alive.

Click to shrink...

Well he's in for a nasty shock. Thanks for the chapter, Ack!

 

[Ack]

Well he's in for a nasty shock. Thanks for the chapter, Ack!

Click to shrink...

Mwahahahaha.

Wondered if anyone would pick up on that.

Yes, yes, he really is.

 

[Ack]

All Alone

Part Seventeen: Finishing the Job

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

[A/N 2: Please note that racist comments will be made by racist people in this fic. The author does not share those views.]

[A/N 3: Update on weight loss. Down another 14 kg (31 lb) since the last time I posted to this fic, whee.]



Tuesday Night, September 1, 2009
Empire Eighty-Eight Safe House

Fenja

Jessica sat up and tried to look attentive as Krieg stood up at the front of the room. Purity had taken over babysitting Theo back at her apartment for the moment, but that was fine; she knew the plan forwards and backwards. She was the one who'd hashed it out with Krieg, after all.

Not that Theo really needed watching. Even at thirteen, he wasn't exactly your average problematic teen. Mostly, he preferred to sit on the sofa and watch TV. Damn near asked permission to go to the bathroom.

Still, Purity wanted someone to keep an eye on him and Krieg hadn't objected, so this was the way it was. Not that Jessica really had a problem with it; the safe house wasn't exactly large, and nobody wanted to sit near Night or Fog. Not even the new kid, once he'd met them.

While she'd only heard about the 'uncanny valley' effect at second or third hand, those two nailed it. They might look like they stepped out of the pages of a society magazine—Night had seriously good makeup skills—but they spoke and acted like meat puppets animated by an alien race that only knew about watching humans by watching old 1960's TV shows. And not the wholesome ones for the kids, either.

"Attention, please." Krieg cleared his throat. "For our newer members, welcome to the Empire Eighty-Eight. You are here because a serious miscarriage of justice is taking place on the very streets of this city as we speak. Subhuman criminals of every type are being allowed to run rampant while those of us who dare make a stand against them are arrested and incarcerated, often without trial!" He raised a finger as he got into his stride. "The Jew steals our money with his unethical banking practices, the Black sells drugs to our children and robs us on the street while the paid-off policeman looks the other way, and the yellow man runs illegal casinos and abducts our women to be raped daily in his brothels! Yet when we attempt to right these grievous wrongs, we are the ones accused of being criminals! We are the ones arrested, imprisoned, and yes, even murdered by the state for daring to speak out against this abomination! Are we going to let this stand?"

"Hell no!" The new kid, Crusader, was on his feet by now. "No, sir, we are not!"

"Thank you, Crusader." Krieg, Jessica could tell, had been thrown slightly off his script by Crusader's enthusiastic response. "You may sit down now."

"Ah, right. Okay." Crusader took his seat again, flushing a little.

Krieg took a deep breath. "As Crusader says, we are not going to let this stand. However, in order to win against our implacable and overwhelming enemy, we first need to release our brothers in arms from their unjust imprisonment. Kaiser, Menja, Stormtiger, Cricket and Alabaster; with them at our side, we will surely overcome."

Jessica raised her hand slightly. If Purity had been here, she knew this would've been raised, so it was up to her to ask the question. "Uh … what about Hookwolf? Do we know what happened with him? Has he been in contact?"

"He has not." Krieg bit the words off. "Neither have our people in the PRT given word that he's in holding. Or in the morgue."

Fog spoke up, sounding just as much like a robot as ever. "So he has either turned against us or fled. If we see him, is he an enemy to be killed?"

"No!" Jessica realised half a second later that she was the one who had spoken. "I might not have been his best friend on the team, but he's not our enemy. The last I saw of him, he and Lung were ripping chunks out of each other like they were competing for the last spot on Noah's Ark and it was starting to rain. He's probably, I dunno, just working through stuff or something."

"Whichever it is," Krieg decided, "he's not here now, so we can't plan for his assistance. This will make our task harder but not impossible."

Jessica knew this part of the plan. "Killing Animator and the rest of her team."

"Yes." Krieg nodded. "If we attack the PRT building before doing that, there is a strong chance she will interfere. With our current numbers, we can't fight a battle on two fronts and hope to succeed. So instead, we will remove her as an obstacle before going on to release our comrades."

"So, who are we going up against?" Crusader was certainly looking to make his mark. "Who is this Animator chick, anyway? Does she do cartoons or something?"

"No." Krieg spoke curtly. "The rumour is that she brings the dead back to life. Her cohorts are a tall man in a top hat calling himself Undertaker, and a Schwarze bitch calling herself Shadow Stalker. Undertaker reportedly has Brute level strength and was unbothered by Kaiser impaling him with a metal spike through the chest; Shadow Stalker has an immaterial Breaker state and uses a crossbow as her favoured weapon. Fenja?"

Jessica sat up again. "Couple more things. I saw Animator pull my sister Menja straight out of her Breaker form, back to normal size. And Shadow Bitch didn't used to be nearly as strong and fast as she is now. Last time we fought, she took on me and Menja both at once, and kicked our asses big time."

Crusader blinked. "So what you're saying is, you think Undertaker's really been brought back from the dead, and that's why he's so tough? And maybe Shadow Stalker has too?"

"No, I do not." Krieg shook his head. "Hookwolf and Alabaster can each take a spike through the chest, and neither of them have been brought back from the dead. So can Lung. I personally believe that Animator is a Trump, able to pull … call it 'life energy' for the want of a better phrase … out of people and put it into others. This would make them stronger and faster and more durable, yes?"

Jessica frowned. It sounded good, and was definitely more believable than just being able to bring people back from the dead. However, there was just one thing. "Yeah. But from how hard Hookwolf was going at Lung, it was like he was charged up too. You don't think he made some sort of deal with her, do you? Get a charge-up, and in return he takes down Lung?"

Krieg paused, opening his mouth then shutting it again. Jessica would've bet that he was about to say, 'he wouldn't do that' before reconsidering. Hookwolf had been wanting to kick Lung's ass for the longest time, and if she'd made him the offer … he might just have accepted.

To be honest, with the sheer damage he'd been doing to Lung before she fled, it was the only thing that made sense to her.

"So, when do you think he'll be coming back?" Crusader spread his hands. "It'll be good to have another big hitter when we break everyone else out of holding."

Jessica cleared her throat. She'd been thinking things through, and her logical conclusions had started to lead her to problematic results. "He might not. If he's chosen to work with Animator to take out Lung, he probably won't take it well when we kill her."

"So he is our enemy." Night spoke with the same robotic tone as Fog had.

"Not yet." Jessica tried to use the same firm tones as Purity would have. "You will not treat Hookwolf as an enemy unless one of us says he is. Is that understood?"

Night and Fog nodded at the same time.

"Yes—" Fog began.

"—that is understood," Night finished.

"Um, just a point of note." Justin grimaced. "I'm not totally sure I'm good for trying to kill someone who's never hurt me. Could we maybe just put her on the ground hard, break a few bones, then go and bust Kaiser and the others out while she's limping around on crutches?"

Krieg shook his head. "We have to assume that whatever boosts she gives to her associates, she can also apply to herself. Hookwolf set a trap for her, and it failed badly. We have no recourse except to use all the force at our disposal, and not stop until she is provably deceased. Anything less than that risks failure and capture."

Jessica nodded. "If you blink at the wrong moment even once, they will fuck you up badly. I saw Undertaker get spiked through the chest, then he broke the spike off, grabbed Kaiser, and started flailing him against the sidewalk until the sidewalk broke. One of the guys who was there at the Hookwolf trap said that Undertaker did the same thing to Stormtiger. Pulled his arms out of their sockets, then smashed him on the floor until he stopped resisting."

"Christ." Crusader shook his head. "Maybe we should be focusing on killing Undertaker instead, then. He sounds dangerous as fuck."

"He is," Krieg said patiently. "That's what we have been trying to tell you. They are all exceedingly dangerous. None of them are to be taken lightly."

"Shadow Bitch also needs to be taken down." Jessica felt strongly about this. "She made Nessa and me look like idiots. Made us look weak. No nigger bitch does that to me, or my sister, and lives."

"Okay, okay, got it." Crusader was smiling by now. He held up both hands, fingers spread. "Me and my ghosts are on the case. I'll put a couple of them on this Undertaker asshole, and a couple more on Shadow Shit, which will leave the rest of you to dogpile Animator and pummel her into a greasy smear. Sound good?"

Jessica blinked and shared a startled glance with Krieg. That … actually sounded better than the complicated plan they'd already hashed out. From the look on Krieg's face, he knew it too, but he didn't want to admit it out loud.

"Shadow Stalker can go insubstantial," he hedged. "We haven't found anything that can touch her in that form."

"My ghosts are already insubstantial to anything that's not living, remember?" Crusader's smile became a cocky grin. "If she's alive, they can reach out and touch her."

"Understood." Krieg rubbed his chin. "Just out of curiosity, how strong are they? In the unlikely event of Hookwolf having actually turned against us, would they be able to contain him too?"

"Uh …" Crusader hesitated. "They can only be touched by living things, so he shouldn't be able to hurt them with his blades. But if he's as strong as I've heard, he might be able to shove past them anyway."

"If he shows himself to be our enemy, he will not shove past us." Fog's voice was as steady and robotic as ever. "I will blind him, and Night will destroy him."

"Only if we say so," Krieg stated definitively. "Until then, you do not move against him." He held up the fob he'd been given.

Neither button was pressed, but Night and Fog both flinched all the same. "We will not," they said in perfect unison.

"Good." Krieg tucked the fob away again.

Crusader paused for a moment, then seemed to bite the bullet. "So, what was the plan for drawing out Animator, anyway? I mean, without bringing the PRT or Protectorate down on us."

Krieg's smile held more teeth than humour. "I'm glad you asked me that …"

<><>​

A Little Later That Evening
33 Stonemast Avenue

Terry Hess

"Terry!"

He looked around from the TV. "Yeah, mom?"

"I'm going up to check on Anna. Stir the pasta for me, please. And did you lock the front door?"

Automatically, he stood up from the couch. "Okay, mom. And yeah, I did. Double-checked it, too."

Most people locked their doors because of a vague 'this might happen' fear for their safety. For Terry, this had happened, so they were taking no chances; even at home. The front and back doors were locked at all times now, and every window was secured.

They had very briefly discussed the possibility of buying a gun, but had decided against it. Neither Terry nor his mother had even picked one up before, much less fired one, and Terry was personally of the opinion that attempting to shoot an Empire cape was much more likely to piss them off than actually stop them. And if they did happen to hit one of the vulnerable ones, it would just draw the attention of the others.

In any case, neither of the capes who had been involved in Terry's abduction would be free to try it again. Mainly because Stormtiger was in custody and Hookwolf was Animated and thoroughly under Taylor's thumb (and wasn't Sophia enjoying the fuck out of that situation!). Even if they busted Stormtiger out, he wasn't going to be much use to the Empire with two comprehensively wrecked shoulders, and there would be no busting Hookwolf out of his current situation. Being dead didn't come with early release for good behaviour.

So it was with a moderate sense of security that he got up to do his mother's bidding. He made it all the way to the kitchen before there was a knock on the door.

His mother's call floated down from upstairs. "Terry, could you get that?" She didn't say 'seeing how you're already up', but he heard it anyway.

"Yes, mom." He gave the pasta a brief stir—it wouldn't matter if the President was at the door; if he let the pasta burn, he'd be in the doghouse for a week—then headed for the front door. "Coming!"

There was no peephole on the door yet; the guy who was supposed to be doing it would be showing up on Monday. So he unlocked and unbolted the front door, then opened it … and slammed it shut even faster, engaging the lock and reaching for the bolt—

The door burst in with a shattering crash under the impetus of a size-fifty foot clad in a gleaming armoured boot. Thrown back onto his ass, with part of the door lying on top of him, Terry stared upward in terror as the Empire Eighty-Eight capes trooped into the house. The giantess who had kicked the door in reduced a little in size so she could fit through the door (bending down to do so) then kicked the debris aside and picked him up with one hand.

This wasn't courtesy, he understood immediately. She wasn't letting him go. And considering the fact that he was literally surrounded by capes who considered him an extremely acceptable target for violence, he did nothing to try to escape.

"Terry! What the hell?" His mother's voice was sharp with alarm.

"Go ahead, boy." Krieg spoke with a slight German accent. "Call her down here."

He knew that if he did anything other than what he was told, he would die horribly. This was without even knowing who the new capes on the scene were; just Krieg, the giantess and Purity were bad enough. And they knew she was there. Even if she tried to escape, she couldn't get away fast enough with Anna.

"Mom?" He hated the quaver in his voice, but at least he hadn't pissed himself. Yet. "Could you please come down here?"

<><>​

Animator

I shook my head. "I still can't believe you tattooed yourself, just to see if you could."

Sophia rolled her eyes. "Not 'just to see if I could'. Because I'm a goddamn badass, and everyone needs to know it." She pointed at Bradley. "Much as I hate to agree with anything he says or does, he gets why you've just gotta have a tattoo sometimes." She flexed her calf muscle proudly. "I mean, how cool does that look?"

Bradley waggled his hand from side to side. "Meh. Not a bad effort. About mid-range for prison ink. I know about six different places coulda done it better, though. Open late, too."

She met his gaze squarely, then tapped two fingers on her bare arm. "They'd serve me with skin colour like this?"

He went to answer, paused, held up a finger, then nodded. "Okay, yeah, fair point. One place, and they'd count the needles after you left."

"Fuckin' thought so." Sophia opened her mouth to make some remark, then paused as her phone buzzed. "Wait one." Taking it out, she woke up the screen then froze. "Fuck. No." Her voice was a strangled gasp.

I'd seen this one other time, and so had Dad. We were both on our feet, while Bradley was still frowning in confusion. "Your family?" I asked.

"Yeah. They're at my fucking house." She glared at Bradley. "You did this. I dunno how you did it, but you did it."

"Whoa, whoa, hey. Fuckin' hold your horses." He held up both hands. "Wasn't me this time. I swear."

I wasn't convinced. "So how'd they know to go to Sophia's house? You only learned her real name after I Animated you."

"Well, it wasn't from me." He blinked, then his expression cleared. "I … wait, shit, I think I know. There's cops who pass on shit to us—I mean, to the Empire. Not members, they just think the same way." He focused on Sophia. "If Krieg asked one of them your brother's name and address from the police report of the kidnapping, he'd get it. The way you jumped to the rescue last time, they'd figure he had your personal number or something."

I sighed with aggravation. "So they're trying to draw me out." It was the only viable conclusion. "Again."

"So we go there right now and kick their asses. Again." Sophia headed for the door.

"Wait." Dad held up his hand. "We need to think this through."

"Fuck thinking!" Sophia had hold of the door handle by now. "It's my family!"

"It's an ambush." Bradley said what Dad and I were thinking. "Has to be. You utterly fucked us—them—over last time they tried to trap you. They've gotta have a reason for thinking it'll work this time. They'll have Krieg, Fenja an' Purity. Krieg's good for area stuff but not actually putting people down. Fenja's good for hitting and taking damage, but she's used to having Menja there to back her up. Purity's good for big damage, but she's a glass cannon and she doesn't do precision. An' they ain't about to go three on three."

"Why not?" I asked. "You and Stormtiger tried to go two on three with me, Dad and Sophia."

He rolled his eyes and snorted. "We had no fuckin' idea just how bullshit you were then. Plus, we had a bunch of shitheads with guns. Lotta use those turned out ta be. If even one of those assholes got away, Krieg and the others will know just how badly you curb-stomped us. They might or might not know about the back-from-the-dead shit, but they will absolutely know you can fuck 'em up in hand to hand."

Dad frowned. "So, how do you think they'll be trying to ambush us?"

"More capes, is my bet." Bradley shrugged. "Krieg was talkin' about some little shit who tried ta pull the plug on his sister or somethin', an' maybe a skill thief. Plus, he was gonna ask Gesellschaft to send a couple of theirs over, once they were finished bein' brainwashed."

"So, they're assholes," Sophia snarked. "Already knew that part. Any idea of their powers? Anything useful at all?"

"Nope." He rubbed his chin. "But they'll keep the new guys out of sight to start with, so you don't get scared off. Any mention of me in that text?"

She shook her head. "No, just 'The Empire Eighty-Eight is here. Come quick. Please hurry.' Which means Terry was under duress when he said it. Asshole never said 'please' to me in his life."

Dad nodded to Bradley. "Then they don't know about you. Or about Kenny." Dad had his phone out; he finished typing a text and sent it as he spoke. "So we'll keep you and him in reserve until things go sideways."

"Okay, we've got a plan. Good. Let's go already!" Sophia opened the door. "He might be my asshole brother, but he's still my brother! And they've got Mom and Anna too!"

I was already grabbing my veil and fitting it into place. "We'll get them back."

<><>​

33 Stonemast Avenue, Upstairs

Theo Anders, Age 13

I don't want to be here.

It was more than just a regularly-occurring thought Theo had had over the last few years. This was the mantra for his life now. Ever since his father had made it clear to him exactly what was behind the curtain, and what would be expected of him when he grew up, he'd wanted to be anything else.

But Max Anders wouldn't hear this from him; and what Max Anders wanted, Max Anders got. So Theo learned early on to hide his thoughts and feelings, to crush them down until they were invisible to everyone. It stopped Max from yelling at him, so he kept doing it.

When Max started seeing Kayden as more than just his lieutenant (Theo wasn't super-observant about this; Max just didn't bother hiding it) Theo had wondered if she was someone he could confide in.

The answer was … no, not really.

She didn't snitch on him when he broached the concept of him not taking over the Empire from Max in due time, but she also made it clear that she was definitively pro-Empire in this argument. So while she was vaguely nice and nowhere near as pressuring as Max, he couldn't actually talk to her about anything important. At best, she was a refuge from his father, and an uncertain one at that.

Crusader, on the other hand, was a totally unknown quantity. He was only about five or six years older than Theo, which was a plus. On the downside, he'd joined the Empire Eighty-Eight of his own free will and clearly admired Max. How much of this was just fluff and bluster and how much would translate to action, Theo had no idea. But the worst thing of all was that he wanted to talk.

"So, hey." He leaned forward in the chair he'd set up, to peer through the window looking out onto the street from the upstairs bedroom. "It must be a pretty sweet deal, being the boss' son, yeah? Everyone looking up to you, knowing you're gonna be inheriting the whole shebang sooner or later. You've got the keys to the kingdom, my dude."

"Mhm," grunted Theo, from where he was sitting on a footstool next to the baby's crib. It was a useful sound, vaguely signifying agreement but not inviting an extended conversation.

The kid made a noise in the crib behind him. He got up and turned around to check on her.

This was another part of the truly shitty feeling he had about tonight. The mother and son had stared at him as he'd been walked into the house and straight up the stairs. He wasn't in costume like everyone else, not even a mask, so they'd seen his face. This meant they had a chance of identifying him; and through him, his father. Even though Max Anders was at that moment in custody, the Empire would never let that stand.

The people in this house would die as soon as they ceased being useful as bait. Or as hostages, if it came to that, including the little munchkin in the crib, who was looking up at him with wide soulful eyes. Because the Empire Eighty-Eight were assholes like that.

Why does the world have to suck so very much?

Crusader lifted his phone to his ear. "Okay, we have movement." His form seemed to blur as translucent ghosts, otherwise identical to him, flowed out from his form. Each of them held a short stabbing spear just as he did, as well as a phone; Theo assumed the latter were non-functional.

It was so quiet in the bedroom that Theo could hear Krieg's voice from the speaker: "Good. Hold position. Do not reveal yourself."

"You got it, sir." Crusader ended the call and took a deep breath. "Okay," he muttered to himself. "You can do this. You can do this."

I really wish you wouldn't.

<><>​

Animator

"Don't move too fast," muttered Dad as we paced steadily up the street toward Sophia's house. "We want to project confidence. We're in charge. Keep them guessing at what's up our sleeve."

I nodded very slightly, my eyes roving around. "Someone's crouching behind the hedge across the road," I reported. To normal vision, they'd be out of sight, but to me the skeleton with the blazing nova for a head was hard to miss. "Two in the front room near the door, four farther back, three upstairs. One's the little sister." Anna was tiny compared to everyone else I could see.

"So, they brought in all four extra capes." Dad didn't sound happy. "This is going to be unpleasant."

I was thinking much the same thing. Dad and Sophia could physically outmatch virtually any cape in Brockton Bay, by virtue of being able to tank nearly any hit and continue fighting unimpeded. But if the Empire had extras, they'd be able to get to me while my protectors were occupied. I could drain them of energy, sure, but it would only take one of them hitting me from behind while I was distracted. Game over for everyone.

Which meant that we'd have to be stronger, faster … and sneakier.

Dad and I reached the front of the house and stepped up onto the footpath. Two figures loomed in the doorway and came out onto the porch. A moment later, Purity took off, swooping out from under the roof overhang and hovering twenty feet up. If I'd been looking with my normal eyes, I would've been dazzled. But I wasn't.

This was no doubt intended to intimidate us before Krieg sprang his trap. Fenja was very likely growing to full size right behind us; there was to be no escaping. But they still weren't attacking.

"Where's Shadow Stalker?" Krieg asked, turning his head from side to side as though looking around. "Doesn't she want to protect her own kind?"

I wanted to come back with a witty reply, but instead I used a pointed remark that I had prepared earlier; specifically, I brought up Sophia's crossbow and aimed it at Purity. She yelped as I pulled the trigger, and jerked back out of the way. I'd never trained with it, and the arrow went wide, but that didn't matter. The point wasn't to hit her.

It was to distract her.

Sophia came up over the roof and leaped outward, going to shadow (I presumed) to get more distance. Purity and Krieg were both looking at me and the crossbow in my hand, and she had a clear run. She went solid just before she impacted; one arm went around Purity's neck, while the other drove a brutal punch into the Nazi bitch's kidneys.

This time, the cry Purity let out was much more of a strangled scream than a yelp. Her light flickered as she struggled with Sophia; having a choke-hold put on her unexpectedly was bad enough, but Sophia fought dirty.

There was a crackle of foliage being crushed behind us, but I kept my attention on Krieg and the other people in the house. The two upstairs (was one of them a girl? They seemed smaller, and they were keeping back from the window) were staying put for the moment, while two of the four still on the ground floor started moving toward the front door.

"You know, I think she does," Dad said, and started up the front path toward him. I stayed right where I was.

Behind me, I heard the thud as Fenja put one enormous foot on the pavement. Then I heard the crunch as Bradley power-tackled her from behind. I glanced back then, and stepped aside as she crashed down on the asphalt, with Bradley on top.

He seemed to have that under control, so I looked forward just as Purity—with Sophia still on board, smacking every possible shade of shit out of her—crash-landed in a flower garden. At the same time, Krieg pulled a pistol. A Luger, appropriately enough. He aimed it at me, but Dad stepped in the way.

"Have it your way," Krieg said, and fired. Dad didn't even flinch, and just kept walking forward. Krieg fired again and again. Dad kept walking.

Weird ghostly skeletons poured out through the walls of the upper floor; an amorphous blob, sparkling with internal light, flowed out through the front door. Two of the ghosts dived toward Dad, while two more headed for where Sophia had Purity on the ropes. The oddly glowing mist went straight past Dad and ignored me in favour of making a beeline toward where Bradley was (I checked quickly) bashing the fuck out of Fenja with her own helmet.

"Hold him!" shouted Krieg, as the two skeleton-ghosts grabbed for Dad, one to an arm. Except … nothing happened. They were exactly as immaterial as they looked, their hands passing straight through him.

The other two were diving at Sophia, spears at the ready. I tried to shout a warning, but either she didn't hear me or she reacted too late. However, once more, it just didn't matter. The spears passed clean through her without affecting her in the slightest. I heard Purity scream in pain though, so at least the attack wasn't a total loss.

"Kill Animator, you idiots!" Krieg sounded on the edge of losing control altogether. "Kill everyone in the house! Kill Hookwolf! Just kill somebody!"

Things shifted into higher gear. I felt the air harden around me; it became difficult to move. This was Krieg's power, I knew; Bradley had gone over it in detail.

Krieg stepped aside so Dad couldn't shield me anymore, and aimed his pistol. Dad forced himself to move; I could see the concrete of the path cracking under his foot as he exerted all the power his Animated state allowed him.

Someone burst out through the front door, running toward me … no, toward the Bradley/Fenja/mobile fog bank fight. Krieg shouted in anger as they ran straight into his field of fire, but he didn't shoot yet. Unlike the ghosts with the spears (that were still uselessly stabbing at Shadow Stalker) he wasn't a proponent of friendly fire.

The person didn't acknowledge me in any way, which told me they weren't either Terry or Mrs Hess. They were fixated on Bradley. That was fine by me. I stepped forward; with my extra strength, I was still capable of moving. As the person ran past, I stuck out my arm and clotheslined them hard.

Their feet went out from under them, and they landed on their back with an audible thud. I took the time to kick them in the ribs, not holding back. They rolled over a couple of times, then curled up with the pain.

Good. I don't know who you are, but you probably deserve it.

The people who'd been inside, sitting on the sofa, were on their feet, struggling with a couple of those skeletal ghosts. They needed help, and I was the only unoccupied one.

Just as I began to move, Krieg got a clear line of sight and pulled the trigger … only for Sophia to literally leap in front of the bullet, going solid at the last instant. She'd made it across the lawn in shadow mode, apparently unaffected by Krieg's kinetic field.

A moment later, Dad got to him. I heard a crack of bone and a scream of pain, and Krieg was no longer a factor.

That didn't mean we were out of the woods. The people in the house (probably Terry and Mrs Hess) were in trouble with the ghosts, Bradley was now engulfed in the mist-thing and it was doing something to him, and the four skeletal ghosts that had been trying to attack Dad and Sophia were now all arrowing toward me. Those spears, ghostly as they were, looked sharp.

And then something weird happened.

I was full almost to the brim on Alabaster's and Lung's power, but still I felt a wave of weakness and disorientation. Staggering back, I nearly lost my footing. This was not a good thing … but then, the ghosts just vanished. Blinked out, like they'd never even existed.

Sophia was already heading into the house, with Dad hot on her heels. This left me to deal with Fenja and the mist-thing, and not before time. Bradley was tough, but the mist-thing had him surrounded and was doing something nasty to him.

I headed in that direction. "Hey!"

Fenja looked around. "Get her!" she screeched, pointing at me.

The sparkling mist flowed off Bradley, who was … in really, really bad shape. Worse than he'd been after fighting Lung, even. He looked like he'd been bathing in sulphuric acid, or maybe hydrochloric. One of those ones that eat away your hand if you just think too hard about it. But he was still up and still fighting.

The sparkling mist came for me, and I prepared myself for the one thing I could do to it. I felt the bite as my hands plunged into it—yeah, that's definitely acid of some kind—then I exerted my power and pulled on the energy inside it. Power flowed, the sparkling wavered, and all of a sudden I was looking at a person half-kneeling in front of me.

"No, no, no, kill her!" Fenja began to grow, raising one armoured fist. I was pretty sure she didn't want to offer a congratulatory fist-bump.

Being smooshed by an out-of-control giantess wasn't in my plans, so I moved past the kneeling person and tackled Fenja, hitting her around mid-thigh because she was about nine feet tall by now. She staggered back a bit, then staggered a lot more when I started pulling the power out of her like I'd done with her sister. Her hands found my arms and head, and started wrenching at me. Then she grunted as something impacted her from the back, and the pulling stopped.

It was Bradley, of course, holding her arms so she couldn't maul me. I reached up and grabbed his wrist—more bone than meat—and performed the same pull-push stunt that I'd done with Lung. Power flowed out of Fenja and into Bradley; his body rebuilt itself almost from the ground up, requiring so much energy that I ended up using part of the store from Lung to top him up. Fenja was human sized again and thoroughly unconscious by this time.

"Whoa, damn." He shook his head. "That fucker was rougher than fighting Lung."

"Looked like it." I glanced around to check on the mist person and the one I'd clotheslined. That one was on their feet again—which was pretty damn impressive, from how hard I'd hit them—and was helping the mist person to their feet. "Nope. Not letting those two get away." With a sense of come on, why don't things stay where I put them, I started toward the errant couple.

Bradley moved up alongside me, carrying Fenja over his shoulder. That was a good idea; no need to worry about what she might get up to while our backs were turned. "Who are they, anyway?"

I shrugged. "Damned if I know. Thought you might."

"Never seen 'em before. And I definitely would've remembered that fucker with the acid fog power." He pointed at the other one. "What's her power, anyway?"

Huh. So the one I'd stopped was a woman. "No idea. Hey!" I'd raised my voice because they'd both looked in our direction, and started running. "Get back here!"

They ran faster. But then, just as Bradley also broke into a run as well, a car coming down the street swerved into their path, knocking the woman off her feet. The car door opened and Officer Lagos got out. His pistol was in his hand as he surveyed them both. "Hi. You'd be the bad guys, then."

<><>​

A Minute or So Earlier

Theo

"Kill Animator, you idiots! Kill everyone in the house! Kill Hookwolf! Just kill somebody!"

Theo's blood froze. "No," he whispered. "Don't," he urged, raising his voice. "Don't do it."

"I gotta, man." Crusader's tone made it clear he meant what he said. "If I'm gonna be in the Empire, I gotta make the hard choices." Two more ghosts flowed from him and went down through the floor, while a third headed for the crib.

"Then say no!" Theo tried for Max's tone of command, but fell woefully short. "I'm ordering you!" Reaching into the crib, he scooped the infant up and ducked away from the reaching ghost. I can't save everyone, but maybe I can save her.

"You're not the boss of me yet, kid." Crusader was still looking out the window. "Krieg is. And if he says they die, they die. Simple as that."

Theo was betting that Crusader wouldn't order his ghost to just shove a spear right through him to get to the child in his arms, so he did the only thing he could; he kept turning away, shielding her with his own body. "It's wrong, and you know it!"

"It's the way of the world, short stuff. Now stop fucking around!" The ghost grabbed Theo's arm and bodily hauled him around. With its other hand, it raised its spear—

"I said NO!" Reaching up, Theo grabbed the spear and wrenched it from the ghost's hand. It went from translucent but solid all the way to gleaming metal in an instant. Crusader staggered, but the danger wasn't over yet. Turning, Theo hurled the spear. It seemed to cross the room in a single gleaming instant, far faster than he ever would've been able to throw it.

Thonk.

Crusader was slammed against the wall, eyes wide, the spear pinning him upright through the centre of his chest. A red stain spread across the front of his costume. "Urk …" Then the ghosts all vanished, and he slumped.

Theo was still kneeling in the middle of the bedroom, cradling the bawling child, when they burst in through the door.

<><>​

Ten Minutes Later

Animator

"Well, this is definitely something I've never seen before." Kenny surveyed Crusader's body, still pinned to the wall like—it had to be said—a bug to a corkboard. He turned to me. "You gonna be inducting him into the club?"

I hesitated, thinking about it, then shook my head. "I don't think so. It would send a message to other villain gangs that I'm actively seeking to kill and poach their members, and I'm really not ready for that kind of underworld infamy, y'know?"

Dad nodded in agreement. "It would probably be a bad idea all around. In addition, we can't tell if someone's lying to us, so he could have a ghost out of sight working against us and we'd never know."

"Yeah, I guess so." Kenny shrugged. "Also, those ghosts might not be subject to the same 'can't touch me' rule for you that everyone else is. It would be really bad to find that out too late."

"Oh." I hadn't even thought of that. "So, what's happening with the rest of them?" We'd been filled in on the Night and Fog thing by Theo—he'd overheard enough to make for some very interesting listening—and Sophia and Bradley were watching that pair like hawks wished they could. Not even having to blink could be quite useful at times.

"PRT's on the way." He rolled his eyes. "Turns out they were interested in completing the set. Who knew?" Pausing, he gestured downward. "What are we going to be telling them about the Anders kid, and what happened with him?"

"As little as possible," Dad stated firmly. "The last thing he needs is an entire bureaucracy focusing on him right now. Even with the best intentions in the world, it would be hell on earth for him. And the best intentions just plain won't be there all the time. The Anders stigma will always be present, and we can be sure that some of them won't bother trying to look past it. They'll always be expecting to see Kaiser Junior pop up at any minute."

Downstairs right now, I knew, the Hess family were surrounding Theo with the appreciation and attention that he'd been lacking his entire life. Even Sophia had unbent far enough from her usual hardass nature to actually give him a hug, a gesture that had afforded them both an immense amount of awkwardness. But she'd done it anyway, and I was proud of her for it.

"I agree." I gestured at Crusader's body. "At the very best, if it gets out that he did that, any lingering fragments of the Empire would be personally gunning for him. But if we say it happened during the fight …" I shrugged. "Heat of battle. Shit happens."

Kenny nodded. "Yeah, I get it. That's the way I'll put it in my report. After all, I got here too late to do anything but stop two of them from getting away, so who knows what happened inside the house?"

"Good." Dad smiled. "And once he's settled down a bit, I'll be interested in hearing exactly how he did what he did. And also, what he wants to do from here. It may well be that he's interested in joining the Wards. But if he does, it'll be his choice, not the PRT's."

Kenny Lagos nodded as sirens sounded in the distance. "Yeah. I hear that."



End of Part Seventeen

 

[Avernus]

"Hold him!" shouted Krieg, as the two skeleton-ghosts grabbed for Dad, one to an arm. Except … nothing happened. They were exactly as immaterial as they looked, their hands passing straight through him.

Click to shrink...

Ahhh. So the Animated do count as "unliving" matter to his ghosts.

I wonder if they always count as unliving to powers, or if it's like Weld and they basically get a "treated as not alive when it's beneficial, treated as alive instead when that is beneficial" best of both worlds thing.