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Are You Afraid of the Dark? [Worm AU fanfic]

Part Nine: The Oncoming Storm
Are You Afraid of the Dark?

Part Nine: The Oncoming Storm

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

[A/N 2: Work is still kicking my ass, which is why this is so late in the month. Book is entering the last stages of editing, so woo!]

[A/N 3: Trigger warning of a racial slur in the Empire section. Racists be racist, yo.]



Tuesday Morning

January 11, 2011

The next morning didn't exactly dawn bright and early—it was January, after all—but it definitely started sooner for some people than for others. Dad had me set my alarm for half after five, more than an hour before sunrise, so when I stumbled yawning and stretching from my bedroom, it was still dark out. I'd hoped Chewie would sleep through the noise, but he woke up and came looking for attention shortly after we got downstairs.

"It's going to be a big one, today." Dad spoke calmly as he made the bacon. Alongside him, I dealt with the eggs. "The PRT's decided to land with both feet on the Empire, once and for all, because of what happened to Shadow Stalker."

It took a couple of seconds for that to sink in, then I realised what he wasn't saying. "You meant for it to happen this way!"

"It was a possibility." He shrugged, putting bacon onto three plates; one each for us two, and a smaller rasher for Chewie. "You have to admit, they've more or less opened themselves up as a target for that sort of frame. No matter who killed her, they were going to be the prime suspects."

I couldn't argue with his logic. "So they're actually going to arrest them all?"

"It's what I heard." He carried the rest of the bacon to the table while I put a generous helping of eggs onto each plate. Chewie got some egg, too. A growing puppy needed his protein. "I strongly suspect that with the capes, it's going to be a case of surrender or be gunned down in self-defense. They won't be going into the 'too hard' basket this time. Also, we've got a job of our own. One man in particular is going to die."

"Who?" I carried our plates to the table and sat down, then poured orange juice for each of us. "Kaiser?"

"No." He chuckled, shaking his head. "I almost feel sorry for him. He knows precisely what the score is and how he can't win, but I'm betting he's too proud to accept it without a fight. Unfortunately for him, the clock just ran down on the Empire and there's no compromises he can call on. The PRT can have him, for all I care."

While Dad gave Chewie his breakfast, I started on my bacon. Then, as he sat down, I asked the question. "Okay, so who are we killing, and why?"

"His name is Larry Peterson," Dad said, not actually helping with my curiosity. "He's twenty-two years old. Seven years ago, he walked up behind a woman named Jess Chandler at a bus stop and stabbed her five times in the back, then cut her throat. He was restrained and people called nine-one-one, but she died of her wounds before the ambulance ever got to her. As he was a minor by law and had no priors, he wasn't tried as an adult. He was released when he turned eighteen ..." He paused in his explanation as I sat up in my chair, and looked over at me. "Yes?"

I'd just realised who he was talking about. "Fleur! That's the guy who murdered Fleur, of New Wave! Whatever happened to him, anyway?"

Dad shrugged. "He did it to prove himself as a potential member of the Empire Eighty-Eight. When he got out, he applied again, and they welcomed him with open arms. Since then, he's just been one of the boys. No doubt, any of them who have tangled with the rest of the team have bought him drinks from time to time." He steepled his fingers, giving himself a supremely sinister air. "And today, we're getting paid to put him in the ground."

"Getting paid." That part drew my attention. "So, we're not just putting an end to him because he's a bad person?"

He chuckled before taking up his knife and fork again. "Oh, good Lord, no. If I used that as a reason, there would be dead bodies from Downtown to the Boat Graveyard. There are many worse people than him in the city. No, the only reason I kill people for free is if they're a threat to me or mine, and I don't believe they can be reasoned with. I've never met this despicable little hooligan, and he's never done anything to me, but someone wants him dead badly enough to pay for it. Given what's happened recently, I figure it's time for me to officially come back out of retirement. So, he gets to die today."

I thought over that as I finished my breakfast. Chewie, being an opportunistic little mooch, gobbled down the bacon and eggs we'd given him then came to us looking for more. I, being the strong-willed and independent young woman that I am, of course gave him more. All I had to do was look into those soulful puppy-dog eyes and my resolve just crumbled on the spot.

"So what's my job in all this?" I asked, once we were washing the dishes. Chewie had retired to a spot under the table where he could wrestle with one last piece of overly tough bacon; his tiny growls provided a counterpoint to our conversation.

"As much or as little as you feel comfortable with," he said at once. "I kill people; you know that. In fact, I'm impressed by how understanding you've been. I believe a certain mindset is needed to be okay with it, so I'm not going to rush you into things."

I snorted and rolled my eyes. "Well, I am your daughter, and Mom's as well, so I'm thinking genetics might play a small part in that. Also, everyone you killed so far has deserved it, right?"

"Well, it's not usually part of the decision-making process, but I like to think so," he confirmed. "It's hard to qualify for the attention of a hitman of my calibre, without being involved in something shady. Usually it's a turf war, or someone took something they shouldn't have."

"And Cricket and Hookwolf were just plain bad people, and the ones you killed to get Chewie back would've watched him die and laughed about it." I shrugged. "It's a tough world out there. I'm sick of being stomped into the ground while the supposed 'good' people ignore everything. If you and Chewie are the winning side, then sign me up."

"That's my girl," he said approvingly, reaching over to ruffle my hair. "But as I said, I'm not about to push you into doing anything you're not comfortable with."

"I'm good with that." I handed him the last dish to dry, and took a deep breath. "I'm fine with going as lookout and Chewie wrangler for the moment, but I'm thinking I'll carry that pistol you've been training me with, just in case."

"And that's perfectly fine." He stared out the window thoughtfully as his hands carried out the automatic task of wiping the dish dry. "I'm pretty sure I've got a clip-on holster for that one somewhere."

"What, not a shoulder holster?" Every time I'd seen someone carrying a pistol surreptitiously in the movies, it had been in a shoulder holster. Had Hollywood lied to me yet again?

He actually chuckled at my expression. "We can fit you with one, but they take time to learn how to wear and draw from effectively. It's much easier to give you one that clips onto your waistband, that you can slide around into the small of your back under your jacket as soon as you get out of the car. Your waistband is literally the last place you should put your pistol."

"Sounds like there's a few stories you could tell there," I observed as I crouched down next to the table. Chewie trotted out and jumped into my arms, and I scratched his ears as I stood up again.

"More than a few. I've seen people get away with it, I've seen them just plain lose the weapons—never a good thing in a firefight—and I've seen them shoot themselves in the feet, the legs, the butt, the femoral artery, the groin …" He shook his head. "People like that usually forget to set the safety catch, or it can accidentally disengage. They're also the type not to practice trigger discipline. Putting your finger on the trigger when you're not immediately intending to shoot what's in front of the gun is an excellent way of taking yourself or one of your buddies out of action."

"I got it, I got it." He'd been rigorous in enforcing trigger discipline from the very beginning. I was still an amateur with firearms, but at least I knew not to trust any gun as being unloaded unless I could personally see that it was. This was another lesson, I could tell. I resolved not to stick any pistol into my waistband if I could possibly help it.

"Good." He opened the door to the basement. "Let's go get kitted out, then."

As I followed him down the stairs, I couldn't help a quiver of excitement. Dad belonged to a strange and mysterious world, and for the first time I was going to see him doing what he did best.

I couldn't wait.

<><>​

PRT Building Parking Garage

0730 Hours

Director Piggot

"Attention!" The order echoed through the underground garage.

Emily Piggot walked along the line of troopers, her face impassive. Inside, she was seething at the need to go back into the Ops room while the active-duty men and women went out there and faced danger in her stead. She understood why the regs were the way they were, but that didn't make it any easier to handle.

Standing in their own little group were the heroes she'd selected to go along with them. While they'd all volunteered to go along on the mission, Vista, Clockblocker, and Kid Win would be staying in base. She understood they could all be useful in their own ways, but the first two were vulnerable to anyone with a pistol and a clear shot, and the third only had lightweight laser pistols to call upon. Aegis was durable enough to stand up to virtually any of the Empire capes, at least for a while, and Gallant's powers would work through armour. Triumph was due to be promoted into the Protectorate, and his sonic blast was definitely powerful enough to be of tactical use.

Bastion and Weld stood apart from the others; this was partly because they weren't used to working with them, and partly because (if Emily had it right) Weld's power tried to absorb any metal that he touched. Thus, if he touched anything metallic, it stuck to his skin. When coming into contact with vehicles and street-lights, this could be extremely problematic. On the upside, he was extremely durable and apparently much more level-headed than Bastion.

The adult contingent were all on deck, though Armsmaster had reportedly worked the night through on potential counters to Fenja and Menja's growth ability. Emily didn't know what sort of insane stimulants he was on at the moment, and didn't want to know. Miss Militia, grim-faced, had some kind of portable minigun slung over her shoulder. Usually, as far as Emily could tell, her weapon choices were guided by whim or amusement value; today, she looked like she planned on winning a war. Most telling of all was Assault's demeanour; normally he'd be making irreverent comments, but today he was silent.

"Listen up!" she barked, raising her voice enough to reach all the assembled personnel. "You all know the situation! You all know the stakes! You all know what we're fighting for out there! You've all been given your orders!" She paused then, to scan the ranks for any reaction. There was none. "I'm going to give you one more order! Don't take any chances! If they'll execute a teenage Ward for being black, then they'll murder any one of you if you let your guard down even once! I want to see each and every one of you back here in this building tonight! And if you're stupid enough to let one of them kill you, I will by God reach down into Hell and bring you back to life just so I can kill you again! Got it?"

There was scattered laughter amid the replies of, "Yes, ma'am."

She tilted her head. "I said, Got it?"

"Yes, ma'am!"

"I can't hear you!"

"YES, MA'AM!"

Drawing in a deep breath through her nostrils, Emily looked them over again, pride swelling in her chest. "Good. Take ten, check your gear over, make sure everything's ready to roll. You move out at oh eight hundred, on the dot. Dismissed."

As the formation dispersed, she turned to the strike squad commanders. "Keep them from getting too excited," she said in a low voice. "Verified Empire targets only. Kids throwing rocks aren't a threat. We need to make the point that we're cleaning up the city, not cracking down on everyone. The capes are force multipliers, so they're a priority. It's almost a certainty that one of them gave the order for Stalker to be murdered in this way, probably as a reaction to Hookwolf and Cricket. We just need to find out who, so they can be tried and Birdcaged."

This had all been covered in briefings already, but it was worth repeating. The city would be blowing up over this no matter what, but if she could shape the narrative, she could maybe get the citizens to understand that the Empire was the bad guy here. She had no doubt that she was walking a tightrope over a pit of hungry lions, but there was no way in hell she was letting the Empire get away with murdering a Ward on her watch. To do nothing would be tantamount to posting an ad on prime time TV: "Don't send your minority capes to Brockton Bay, because they won't come out alive."

Calvert answered for the rest of them. "Understood, ma'am. Question: the other gangs?"

What do we do if we see them, he was asking. It was a cogent question, but hopefully she had the correct answer at hand.

"If they don't bother you, you don't bother them," she said. "They'll probably already have the word that we're targeting the Empire, and why. If they've got the sense God gave a rock, they'll be sitting back with popcorn, watching us take the competition off the board without needing to do a damn thing. They haven't got a single reason to interfere, and every reason to keep out of the way."

"What if they offer to hand over Empire members to us?" asked another squad commander, Rusworth.

Emily paused briefly to think about that. "Accept. Be polite, but don't let down your guard. The enemy of your enemy is never your friend, merely an ally of convenience. And as soon as it stops being convenient, they'll stop being our allies. Got it?"

Rusworth nodded. "Understood, ma'am."

"Good." She would've said more, but her phone buzzed. Taking it out, she saw a message: New Wave on roof. Quickly, she typed back, On way. She looked up from the phone at the strike commanders. "See to your men. I've got business to attend to."

Turning, she headed for the elevators. Every last bit of assistance would be useful, she understood that. More capes would add firepower, but in her heart she wanted more boots on the street. People she knew she could depend on. Once again, she felt the chill down her spine from ten years before when she'd heard the capes had fled the Ellisburg battlefield, abandoning the PRT troopers to their fate.

Intellectually, she knew the Wards and Protectorate capes weren't like that, and New Wave had a reputation for getting the job done. Emotionally, she wasn't convinced. Part of her insisted that a cape was a cape was a cape. They were all the same; overgrown children with assault weapons nobody could take away. And it was her job to wrangle them into something approaching unity.

She used the elevator ride upward to compose her thoughts. Brandish had always been a firebrand, but Lady Photon was a more moderate voice, one whom Emily could find common cause with. The fact that they'd shown up in good time to go out with the troops was definitely a point in their favour.

When she stepped out onto the roof, she saw the guards facing New Wave; it wasn't quite a stand-off, as no powers or weapons were being readied, but there was a certain tension in the air anyway. It would be thus between the PRT and any non-Protectorate cape, at least for today, she suspected.

They'd brought the whole team, including Panacea, which heartened her more than a little. Troopers would be hurt during this mission (and capes might be, as well) but the difference between a mission-kill and an actual kill was considerable. The presence of the unassuming frizzy-haired teenager across the roof from her might literally spell the difference between life and death for any number of her men. Extrapolating that to troopers being able to pick up a rifle and head back out there to back up their buddies, her value in potential lives saved was considerable.

"At ease," she commanded the troopers. "New Wave. Has anything changed since you attended the briefing?"

It almost certainly hadn't, given they'd brought the whole team along. But she had to ask the question, in a way that gave them a graceful out if such was the case.

Emily Piggot knew she had a reputation of not being able to handle capes well. That was untrue; she was reasonably good at dealing with people, and capes were people, for the most part. She just didn't bother trying to deal with them politely most of the time, because confronting them over something stupid and avoidable brought out her acerbic side. And for some reason, capes brought 'stupid and avoidable' to a whole new level if they got the chance.

Now, she gave New Wave a polite gaze, awaiting the answer to her entirely non-confrontational question. They hadn't done anything stupid and avoidable since landing on her roof, so she was going to give them a conditional pass for the moment. Whether that state of affairs continued would be entirely up to them.

"We're here to help you against the Empire," Lady Photon confirmed. Emily took note of how her chosen wording was entirely unambiguous. "This is something that should've been done long ago."

Darkly amused, Emily snorted softly. "Well, I can't argue with you there."

"So, how does this work?" asked Manpower. "Do we split up and go with your guys, or go out on our own, or what?"

Emily had actually been putting some thought into this. "I think we can all agree that while we don't want Panacea getting hurt, her power could literally save the day for us. So we treat this almost as an Endbringer situation; we set up a medical post here in the building, and any injured get brought back as soon as possible. With her protected, the rest of you can embed with our troopers, just as the Protectorate and Ward capes are doing, and provide muscle where it's needed. We don't have flyers and the streets might end up being blocked, so if it gets bad, we might be calling on you for medevac duties. Are you okay with that?"

Part of her hated to be in the position of asking a cape if they could do something as self-evident as save the life of a fellow human being, but that was the situation. To her relief, she got four immediate nods from the capes in question.

Lady Photon stepped forward, lifting her chin. "You can count on us," she declared, then glanced over her shoulder. "Shielder and Laserdream, you'll be pairing with Glory Girl for that."

Emily frowned. "Why pair them up? Wouldn't they work twice as well separately?"

"Glory Girl can't shield anyone she's carrying," Lady Photon explained. "If they're sniping from rooftops, someone carrying a body will be an easy target."

"Right." Because of course she wouldn't be able to depend on the other side respecting things like removing wounded from the battlefield.

"I have a question," Manpower stated. "What's to stop the capes from simply stepping back into the shadows, taking off their masks, and hiding in their holes?"

"Only one thing." Emily set her jaw. "Pride. If they fall back on their secret identities, we will sweep up every last skinhead, white supremacist and racist redneck in this city. By the time they stick their heads up again, they won't have a gang. And how many people will flock to their cause once word gets around that the capes cut and ran once there was serious opposition?"

"Some will," Brandish predicted. "Because some people love to hate, and to pretend that they're the oppressed ones."

"But not as many as before." Emily was sure of that. "And it's virtually impossible for an organisation of that size to not have some leaks. Up until now, loyalty to the cause has kept their mouths shut. If they do go to ground, how long is that loyalty going to last among the few that are in the know? All we have to do is offer them a plea deal in return for a name."

With any other cape, her comment would've likely been met with shock or disbelief. The heroes of New Wave, already unmasked, nodded slowly in agreement. Glory Girl's lips drew back in a vicious grin; looking forward, no doubt, to punching Nazis in the face.

"Some people might have a problem with you outing them like that," Lady Photon observed mildly.

Emily shook her head. "Then those people can come and say it to my face. If they didn't want to deal with the consequences, they shouldn't have murdered a Ward. That breaks their so-called 'unwritten rules' in so many ways it doesn't matter. Kaiser didn't turn over the guilty party, so he gets to reap the whirlwind." She raised her eyes as she looked at the assembled New Wave capes. "Does anyone have a problem with that?"

Amid the various head-shakes, and Glory Girl smacking her fist into her palm, Brandish's voice carried through clearly. "Not in the slightest."

"Good." Emily turned and headed back toward the elevators. "Then let's get to it."

<><>​

Kaiser

Max Anders was having a bad day, and it was getting worse by the second. He'd successfully managed to divert the Dark's attention onto Coil—why the fuck that idiot had chosen the worst possible person on the eastern seaboard to impersonate, he had no fucking idea—but now this shit was looming over him. And he had no idea how to fix it.

Kayden was already gone; she'd finished packing up the car around midnight, shoved Theo into the passenger seat when Max's back was turned, and vanished into the night. He thought she might've gone south to Boston, but for all he knew she was outbound for LA. Somewhere far away from the developing shitshow here in Brockton Bay. And to be honest, some small part of him didn't blame her.

"What do you mean, you don't know who gave the order?" he yelled at Stormtiger—hastily promoted to 'lieutenant' status following Hookwolf's death—and Krieg. "Not one of those mouth-breathing fuckwits out there would've had the monumentally fuck-stupid idea of murdering Shadow Stalker as dramatically as that without either being told to do it like that, asking if they could do it like that, or boasting that they'd done it like that! One way or the other, we would've heard about it!"

"But we didn't," Stormtiger pointed out needlessly. "Nobody's said a word about it."

Max clenched his fists and refrained from nailing the idiot to the ceiling. "Which means that either we didn't do it, or much more likely, whoever did it has realised exactly how thoroughly they've fucked up and they're keeping quiet about it." He looked at his watch. There was less than half an hour to go before the troops rolled out, and his last chance of calling off Emily Piggot's dogs evaporated. "Okay, cards on the table. Time for the truth."

"What?" asked Krieg cautiously.

Breathing deeply to calm himself down, Max eyed them both, trying to isolate tells and tics from general nerves. "In twenty-five minutes, the Empire Eighty-Eight comes under attack from every hero in this city, as well as the PRT. They'll be arresting every single one of our followers on suspicion, and forcing confrontations with any of our capes that will end in either arrest or death for us. Even in the unlikely outcome that we win, Lung is likely to pounce on us and finish us off while we're still licking our wounds. So, we don't want that. Understand so far?"

"Yes …" Stormtiger didn't sound happy about it. "Why are you looking at us like that?"

"Because you two are the most likely to have given the order to kill Shadow Stalker." Max spoke flatly, without emotion. "You had the most authority, under me. I'm offering you both a one-off amnesty if you come clean. If you okayed it or gave the order, tell me who did it, and I'll give you a head start out of the city before I hand the asshole over. So, tell me. Did either of you do it?"

They both stared at him, then glanced at each other. He tensed; had they come up with this between them? Was this going to be a coup where they blamed him, and tossed him to the figurative wolves?

The moment passed, and they both looked at him again. "No," Stormtiger said. "I woulda told you straight-up if I had offed the nigger cooch, but it wasn't me."

"Nor did I do it," Krieg stated. "The schwarze Schlampe was not worth my time. And I would have checked with you first, because of this exact situation."

Max wasn't totally convinced, but they'd given reasonable excuses not to suspect them, so he had to accept it. "Alright then, one of the others is lying," he declared. "I know it wasn't Nessa or Jessica, because they're never far away from me. I doubt Tammi would have the initiative."

Stormtiger nodded. "So you're thinkin' Victor or Othala, or maybe Crusader? Yeah, I could see any of 'em doing it, but we asked 'em, and they all said no."

"Someone lied." Krieg's tone was matter of fact. "They are still lying. I do not think it was Crusader. He is too brash, too mouthy. He would want bragging rights. We would know."

"Yes." Max had to agree with him. Justin was an incurable show-off. There was no way he would've kept it quiet in the interval between Shadow Stalker's not so unfortunate demise, and the subsequent development of the shit-show that followed. "So, Othala or Victor then."

"Not Othala." Stormtiger snorted derisively. "Girl can't tell a lie to save her life."

"Whereas Victor," mused Krieg, "could tell us all the sky was green, and we would believe him until we went outside to see for ourselves. The man is an accomplished actor. We all know this. He also has a flair for the dramatic."

He wasn't wrong, Max had to admit that much. Nobody played poker with Victor for money. But the idea that …

"Fuck!" spat Stormtiger. "He could've done it, but would he? Why lie to us?"

Max tried to rein the discussion in, see the bigger picture. Time was ticking on; they had perilously little leeway in which to fix this. "Okay, let's put a pin in that. If it was one of us who okayed it, it was Victor. But what if it wasn't us? What if it was someone else?" It was a crazy idea, but he was willing to grasp at any straw by now.

"Yes, but whom?" Krieg posed the obvious question immediately. "Who else would murder Shadow Stalker in such a blatant fashion, and why?"

Stormtiger beat Max to the equally obvious answer by a fraction of a second. "To frame us, duh. To make this shit right here happen. The Merchants couldn't have done it if someone wrote the instructions on the side of a bag of weed. So we're looking at … Lung and Coil, yeah?"

Krieg frowned. "Was it not Coil who attempted to frame us for his impersonation of the Dark? Could this be some kind of ongoing campaign to have us ousted from Brockton Bay?"

"Well, shit." Max blinked a couple of times at the subtle brilliance of the idea. "That's … that's totally possible. We deflected the Dark thing, but this is a lot more direct."

"Or, y'know, it coulda been the Dark himself," Stormtiger pointed out.

That didn't take Max more than fifteen seconds to shoot down in his own head. "Nah. Everyone knows he doesn't target capes without a really good reason. He sure as hell doesn't accept hits on them. And I sincerely doubt she'd be able to do anything that might make him feel remotely threatened."

"Oh, right, yeah." Stormtiger rubbed the back of his neck. "Good point. So, you reckon Coil's behind it then?"

"He does seem to be the most logical candidate," Krieg agreed. "Even more logical than Victor, to be totally honest. The burning question now, of course, is how to prove this to the PRT Director before her men overrun our territory?"

Max grimaced. He'd heard the saying 'the truth hurts', but now it applied more than ever. "We can't."

Stormtiger summed it up for all of them. "Well, fuck."

<><>​

Tattletale

"In case you hadn't already gotten the memo, we're staying home today," Lisa announced to the other members of the Undersiders. In the event, this was Brian and Rachel; Alec rarely surfaced before ten or eleven. Not that he went outside the loft much as it was. The kitchenette and the sofa were usually the limit of his travels unless they were going out on a job.

So, of course, Rachel had to argue. "Can't. Gotta go check on my dogs."

She didn't have many as yet, but her collection of strays was gradually expanding. And now that Hookwolf was dead and the dogfights officially cancelled—an event that had almost caused the stocky girl to smile when she heard the news—there was less to endanger them out there. Still, she took them in, because that was what she did.

"It's going to be a war-zone out there," Brian warned her. "Everyone's going after the Empire Eighty-Eight for what they did to Shadow Stalker."

"You hated her, too," Rachel pointed out accurately. "A lot of people didn't like her. Why are they going after the Empire for it?"

"It's not a case of not liking her," Lisa said. She'd scoured the social media channels, and had come up with a conclusion that she hadn't shared with anyone. "She was held down and shot in the back of the head. They executed a Ward because she was black. The PRT and Protectorate can't let them get away with that sort of thing, ever. It's a public relations thing."

Normally when she knew something nobody else did, she couldn't wait to share it. Passing on information, watching the emerging comprehension in someone's eyes, gave her a dopamine rush like nothing else. But this time around, what she'd pieced together was totally off the menu. As in, "fuck NOPE!" The most terrifying event in her life had been when the Dark walked into their base and spoke to her about getting information on Coil. He hadn't said a single word about how she'd told Coil it was a good idea to make a fake Dark, but he didn't have to. Somehow, he knew.

Worst of all, he hadn't confronted her with the knowledge. He had instead let her dangle, allowing her to see it in his eyes as they spoke oh so politely and pretended everything was normal. They'd both known he could kill everyone in the room in less than two seconds. She'd seen some of it in his daughter's eyes as well; the awareness that lives hung in the balance. Brian had only been butt-hurt that he'd had his ass kicked on his own turf, and Rachel had automatically deferred to him.

They'd come out the other side of it okay, in her estimation. Nobody was dead, she had the chance to actually fuck up Coil properly this time, and the team would have access to an actual favour from the Dark. This was like the Holy Grail, if it were bestowed by a darker power.

Of course, when it came time to call the favour in, Brian and Rachel were going to have to sit on Alec, but that was just a minor detail. The trick would be to find something that benefited them all equally, and not to hold out on using it just in case a better idea came along.

For herself, she would've gone with "shoot Coil in the head, pretty please?" but it looked like he was well on the way to doing just that, as soon as he got the information she was carefully compiling on her laptop. The majority of the work was to make it look like she'd hacked it and not just downloaded it.

"It's not gonna do 'em any good anyway," Rachel said grumpily. "Soon as those Nazi jerks start taking casualties, they'll just duck for cover. Nobody knows who they are."

And that was when Lisa had her Idea. Slowly and carefully she looked it over. There didn't seem to be any flaws in it. Of course, that didn't mean the others would like it. "Guys …"

"Yeah?" Brian looked over, having caught the tone in her voice. "What's up, Lise?"

"Just how badly do we want the Empire to go down?" She looked over at Rachel. "I mean, even if they don't have dogfights anymore, they're still assholes to dogs, right?"

"Yeah, they are." Rachel scowled. "That's why I want to go see to my dogs. Why?"

"Just an idea I had. Brian, how about you? What if the Empire could be made to go away altogether today? How happy would you be?"

"I'd be thrilled," he said frankly. "But how are you going to achieve that? Call in the favour to the Dark and have him shoot Kaiser in the head?"

"Who's shooting Kaiser in the head, and can I watch?" Alec stumbled out of his room, rubbing his eyes. "What the fuck time is it, and why is everyone talking so loud?"

"It's seven forty-seven in the morning, and we're talking normally," Lisa told him. "Got a question. The Empire Eighty-Eight. What if it went away altogether, today?"

"Never happen," Alec said without even pausing for thought. "They'll go to ground and pop up again as soon as everyone forgets about Shadow whatsername."

"Ah, but what if it did?" Lisa put all her persuasiveness into it. "We'd still have Lung to deal with, true, but …"

"But there'd be a lot fewer assholes on the street who want to fuck me up just because of my skin colour, yeah, got it," Brian said. "Are you saying we should ask the Dark to kill Kaiser?"

Lisa shook her head. "No. But …" She drew the word out. "He's been in Brockton Bay longer than I've been alive. He knows all the movers and shakers, and they know him. And he'd know secrets that only a few other people know about. Such as … the secret identities of most of the Empire."

She'd meant the conclusion to be glaringly obvious, but it was a few seconds before Alec jumped on it. "Holy shit, you want the Dark to out the fucking Empire?"

"Well, yeah." She shrugged. "If the PRT knows who they really are, they won't be able to run and hide. It'll make things a lot easier for them. And life a lot more convenient for us. And let's face it; it's not something we could pull off any time soon."

"It's not something we would pull off." Brian was scowling now. "Have you forgotten about the unwritten rules?"

Lisa rolled her eyes. "Did whoever unmasked Shadow Stalker then shot her in the back of the head care about the unwritten rules? No? If the Empire got its hands on you, Brian or you, Rachel, do you think they'd care about the unwritten rules? Fuck 'em. Those rules only apply to people who never break them. You guys and me. The little guys. Not the big gangs. Anyway, we're not breaking the rules, and if the Dark doesn't want to he'll just say no."

She knew damn well he wouldn't, and they probably suspected it, but they didn't know what she knew about why. As the phrase went, it was a beautiful example of plausible deniability.

"Huh." Alec scratched the back of his neck. "I was gonna try and talk you guys into asking him to kill my dad. But sticking it to the Empire sounds like a boss move, so fuck 'em. Let's do it."

"He doesn't go after capes, remember?" But Brian sounded like he was coming around to the idea. "Okay, fine, if you're all in favour of it, I won't say no."

He doesn't go after capes. For a moment, she wondered if she'd achieved a totally erroneous result with her power, but then the second part dropped into place. Unless it's personal.

"Okay, so that's a yes from Alec and a conditional yes from Brian." She looked at Rachel. "Yes or no? Your call."

What the hell could Shadow Stalker have done that made the Dark come after her like that? It was something Lisa both feared to know and wanted to find out, if only to ensure that she never ended up in the same situation.

Rachel shrugged. "Fuck the Empire Eighty-Eight. They kill dogs."

"I'll take that as a yes, then." Lisa picked up her laptop and looked over her assembled files. Making a snap decision, she settled the computer on her lap and took out her phone. Taking the card from her pocket, she dialled the number, one momentous digit at a time.

<><>​

Driving Through Brockton Bay

Taylor

I took the mask off so I could admire it again. I wasn't sure when Dad had done the work, but he'd presented it to me when we went into the basement to grab our gear. A simple black domino mask with glasses lenses set into the eyepieces, it had a moth as the centrepiece over the bridge of the nose, the markings showing up as a prominent skull.

I loved it.

"You know, you don't have to wear it until we get there," he said with a quick sideways grin.

"I know, but it's so cool." I looked down to where Chewie was curled up in my lap, his nose tucked under his tail. "Maybe we should get Chewie one too. Dog-Breath of Doom."

This time, he chuckled. "We both know he'd chew it to pieces."

"Yeah, this is true." I tried the mask on again. "I'm Death's Head." Slyly, I glanced across to Dad. "Death's Head and the Dark. That actually sounds pretty badass."

He snorted. "Or like some forgettable punk rock band from the nineties." Turning his head, he glanced at me. "Just by the way, when you do speak, I'd suggest using the insect-buzz trick to overlay your voice. You'll sound a lot more intimidating that way."

"Okay, got it." I didn't have enough bugs in the car to make that happen, which was an oversight on my part—I'd have a swarm with me from now on, I decided—but that was something easily fixed when we got out. "I wish I could sound one-tenth as intimidating as you do without the bugs, though."

"Hm." He smiled easily. "Some things come with practice."

Right then, his phone rang. He fished it from his pocket and handed it to me, so I swiped to answer and put it on speaker. Carefully, I held it so it wasn't in his way but he could talk into it normally.

"You have the Dark."

"Uh, hi. This is, uh, this is Tattletale?" I recognised the voice as belonging to the nervous blonde from the Undersiders.

"I remember you, yes." Dad was all business. His 'Dark' voice was different from his usual warm tone. "What's the issue?"

"I've got some of the information you asked for, with more to come." Tattletale paused. "I, uh, we were wondering if we could have the favour right now instead of later."

"I'm a little busy at the moment," Dad replied. "How do you intend to get the information to me?"

"I'll set up a blind drop online and text you the link," she said. "The favour will be really easy for you to do."

Dad glanced at me, his raised eyebrows conveying a question. I nodded; it would be easy to grab the information that way. "Very well," he said. "And the favour?"

"We want you to tell the PRT who the Empire Eighty-Eight are, behind their masks."

I was brought up short by that. Looking over at Dad, I could see he was almost as surprised as I was. Again, he looked at me; this time, I covered the microphone with my hand. "Do you know who they are?"

"Most of them, yes," he confirmed. "Especially the higher-ups." I could see he was thinking it through.

"So, what are we gonna do?"

For an answer, he nodded toward the phone. I took my hand away from the microphone. "Your terms are acceptable. The favour will be carried out."

Before she could answer, he took his hand off the wheel and hit the end-call icon. I let him take the phone back, and he returned it to his pocket. Then he eased over to the side of the road and brought the car to a halt.

"How are you going to do this?" I asked. "I mean, I know the people who have your number are careful with it, but do you really want Director Piggot knowing it?"

"She's not a stupid woman, but I understand your point." He thought for a moment, drumming his fingers on the wheel, before taking his phone out again. This time, he tapped in a number from memory.

It rang twice, then a moderately angry voice answered. "What do you want now? It's bad enough that we're going after the Empire for something you did, but—"

"Madcap." Dad never raised his voice, but the diatribe on the other end cut off. "I have something that will make you popular with your boss. Are you interested?"

A pause, then the voice cautiously answered. "I'm listening."

"Good. Do you have a pencil and paper? I have some information I want you to take down."

"Do I look like a secretary? Don't answer that. Hang on a minute." The voice became more muffled. "Puppy, can I borrow your notepad?"

A moment later, he was back again. "Okay, shoot."

Dad cleared his throat. "Kaiser. Max Anders. Krieg. James Fliescher. Fenja. Jessica Biermann. Menja …" Slowly, he recited the names, giving 'Madcap' a good chunk of the secret identities of the Empire Eighty-Eight. When he finished, he asked, "Did you get all that?"

It took a few seconds for the person to answer. "Did you just … hand us the Empire Eighty-Eight on a platter?"

"Perhaps." Dad shrugged, even though the guy on the other end couldn't see him. "It all depends what you do with it."

"Right. Um. If you had all this information before, why didn't you …?"

"I didn't have a reason to, before." Dad ended the call. "People just ask so many questions."

I grinned and nodded. "It's true." And with that information out and about, it would make life just that much harder for the Empire as a whole.

For some reason, I didn't have a problem with that.

<><>​

Assault

"I didn't have a reason to, before."

The phone call ended, and Ethan stared at the list of names on the notepad. Right there, on that page, was pure dynamite. He put the phone back in its pouch and tore the page from the pad.

"Hon, who was that?" Battery was by his side. "Why did you need my notepad?"

"Because I forgot mine." He checked his watch. Three minutes to go. Not enough time to catch up to Piggot and explain. Crap. Hauling out his phone again, he took a photo of the page, then called up the email app. I am booting this upstairs right now.

<><>​

Director Piggot

Emily was just settling into her seat in the Ops Centre when her phone buzzed to indicate an incoming email. It was from Assault, and the header read, A friend from the old days sent me this.

The attached photo wasn't the best quality and neither was his handwriting, but it was still readable. As she worked her way through the names, her eyebrows rose dramatically.

"Motherfucker," she breathed. "Now I've got you."

<><>​

Coil

As Calvert climbed into the truck and settled into his assigned seat, he couldn't help grinning broadly. The Empire Eighty-Eight was going down, and so was Emily Piggot. All his plans were working out perfectly.

It doesn't get better than this.

<><>​

Taylor

Carefully, I pasted the link into the search bar and tapped the enter icon. The drop box opened up, and I grinned as the file names showed themselves. "Got it."

"So what is it that we have?" asked Dad pragmatically. "If it's his favourite song list, I will be disappointed."

Somehow, I didn't think Tattletale was that stupid. I tapped the first file, and it unfolded into a map of the city, with a single dot showing in red. Using pinch-and-zoom, I opened up the image until we could determine the exact location.

"Well, well, well," Dad murmured. "So that's where he is."

"Looks like it," I agreed, as Chewie awoke with a yawn. "Chewie thinks so, too."

"Good." He shut the phone down and put it back in his pocket. "We can follow that up later, at home. For now, we have a job to do."

Starting the car, he moved it back out onto the road. I settled back in my seat and rolled down my window so Chewie could stick his nose out and enjoy the breeze.

When Dad got around to dealing with him, Coil wouldn't know what hit him.



End of Part Nine
 
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What are the odds that Calvert realizes he fucked up big time while looking at his timelines, and offers the Heberts something lucrative in return for his life?
 
Part Ten: Retribution
Are You Afraid of the Dark?

Part Ten: Retribution

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

[A/N 2: Ugh. This chapter seriously kicked my butt. Not least when I realised halfway through that the neat scene I'd set up for Rune to be arrested at school was entirely null and void because … it's a Saturday. Anyway, enjoy.]
[A/N 3: EDIT - on closer re-examination of the timeline, it's Tuesday. FML.]




Medhall Building; 7:55 AM

Kaiser

Up until this point in time, Max Anders had never had much time for the so-called stages of loss. As far as he was concerned, if you had enough money and power, loss was what happened to other people. But in the last few hours, he'd found himself cycling through an accelerated version of it.

Denial: I can't believe this shit is happening to the Empire. To me.

Anger: How dare those officious assholes at the PRT try to pin this on us. On me.

Bargaining: Maybe if I offer them some kind of deal. Find and hand over whoever actually did it.

Depression: I have no idea who did it. How are we—how am I—going to get out of this?

And now he was in Acceptance. "Fuck it," he said out loud. "They want a fight, they can have a fight."

"What?" asked Victor. With Othala in attendance, he'd just come in. "Max, that's not a great idea. They've got all the capes they can muster, and every PRT trooper who can hold a gun or a sprayer. Today, they won't be playing keep-away. They'll be playing capture or kill. They're pissed."

"But we've still got more capes than they do," Max announced, holding tight to his new epiphany. "If we can wipe their capes off the board, it'll be our capes and street guys against the PRT grunts. We'll roll straight over the top of them, all the way to the PRT building. There's a reason we've held power for so long in this city. They never wanted to go up against all the capes we could muster at once. Well, now they're going to find out why."

Crusader diffidently cleared his throat. "Uh … we don't have as many capes as we used to. Kayden left last night, and Geoff and Dorothy headed out sometime early this morning, as soon as they heard. And one of our guys just told me that New Wave landed on the roof of the PRT building not long ago."

Fuck. This had just gone from bad to worse. He did the mental math. Even discounting Panacea as a frontline fighter, New Wave added seven formidable capes to the PRT's lineup, while the Empire Eighty-Eight was down by five. He took a deep breath, hating himself for even having to suggest the idea. "Have someone contact Faultline and see if she's amenable to a temporary contract inside the city."

"I already tried." Krieg sounded resigned. "She hung up on me. When I rang back, she said—and I quote—"not just 'no' but 'hell no'," then hung up again."

Max's options were drying up faster than sidewalk puddles after a summer shower. Mentally, he went through the other potential allies in Brockton Bay. Lung? The man would laugh at me, then dance on my grave. Coil? I'm pretty sure he started all this. Skidmark? He'd be more of a liability than an asset. The Undersiders? They're more thieves than front-line fighters. Also, Bitch likely has a problem with us regarding Hookwolf's dogfights.

"Don't we have any friends in the city?" he asked out loud, hoping someone would come up with something he'd forgotten.

Alabaster grimaced. "I'm pretty sure we always went with, 'we're too tough to mess with'. And we used to be. Until now."

Hard times require hard decisions. Max was sure he'd read that somewhere. Or maybe it was 'desperate times require desperate measures'. Whatever. "Okay, I know what we're going to do."

"Leave the city while we still can?" That was Krieg.

As Faultline put it, not just 'no' but 'hell no'. "Not going to happen. If we do that, the Empire relinquishes all title to Brockton Bay. We'll be seen as weak, a pushover. Wherever we set up our main power base next, the locals will be forever probing to see if they can push us out again. Not to mention, some of us have well-known civilian identities. If Max Anders vanishes from Brockton Bay the same day Kaiser flees with his tail between his legs, it won't take a Thinker to determine the reason."

"So, it's just gonna be the old secret identity two-step?" Crusader sounded disappointed. He didn't say 'I thought you had something smarter planned' out loud, but he didn't have to; the tone of his voice said it for him.

"No." Max gave him a medium glare, just to see him wilt. Though it was a testament to Justin's character that he hadn't followed Kayden from the city, so there was that. "Doing that would be almost as bad. We'd lose a lot of our popular support, and they'd be turning us in any time we were spotted. No, we're going to fight, like I said. But we'll do it smart. Victor, how would you do it? I want to see if your ideas align with mine."

The skill-thief gave him a cynical look, as though he knew exactly what was going through Max's mind, but he played along anyway. "Our secret identities are still a huge asset. Specifically, the Medhall building. Nobody knows it's ours. We can make our base here, and sortie out via the secret entrances. Othala can stay here where it's safe—"

"Wait," Othala objected. "I can make you guys impervious, or super-fast, or whatever you need. I'm a force multiplier. Why keep me back?"

Victor sighed. "Because you can't use your Trump abilities on yourself, and they will absolutely be targeting you. With containment foam, if not actual fucking bullets. No, the best place for you is back here where you can give our wounded a chance to regenerate in total safety, then go back out again."

Max rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I'm afraid he's right, Othala. I was going to have you stay here anyway; he merely confirmed my opinion." He turned to Victor. "And how would you deploy our fighting forces?"

Victor frowned for a moment. "I'd hold them back initially, until I saw how the PRT was deploying theirs. If they're splitting them up, I'd bring all our capes down on one group at a time, singling out the capes from the PRT troopers. Once the capes are down, the troopers will be easy game."

"And if they go out in one big group?" Max didn't think they would, but it was a possibility. "How would you handle that?" He was careful to give the impression he'd already thought it through and was merely checking with his subordinate.

"Oh, in that case I'd make a straight run for the PRT building, once they're far enough away not to be able to react in time," Victor said flatly. "If we can take that, especially if we get our hands on Piggot, we've got 'em by the balls. Then, it's a simple matter of arranging a cease-fire. They back the fuck off, and they can have their precious building and Director back."

"And if they're thinking like you are," Othala put in, "they'll have their medical setup in the building too … with Panacea. I think she'd be an even more valuable a hostage than the Director. I mean, Piggot can be replaced. Panacea can't."

"Either way," cautioned Victor, "we have to be careful not to actually hurt or kill Piggot or Panacea. If we take the building, it's got to come across as a reasonable response to an unreasonable escalation, not a sudden jump to HOSV status. The last thing we want is for Costa-Brown and Legend to suddenly start taking notice."

"My thoughts exactly," Max claimed boldly. The general public thought 'HOSV' stood for 'High Occurrence of Supervillains' or something like that, but Max had heard from a solid source that it actually meant 'Hive of Scum and Villainy'. In such a circumstance, most citizens tended to evacuate the city and martial law was imposed for the remainder. The irony being, of course, that supervillains could only truly thrive within a normal law-abiding environment; when everyone was breaking the law equally, the profit margin went straight out the window. Villains needed marks to prey on, or what was the point?

However, the next bit he could handle himself. "Victor, once the action starts, I'll need you to hang back, because they won't be going in for hand-to-hand combat. Draw a sniper rifle from the armoury, and look for opportunities. Crusader, hang back as well and protect Victor, and move him from point to point when necessary. Your ghosts can handle front-line combat, but you can't."

"And the rest of us just … wait here until something happens?" asked Alabaster. "You know the boys won't be happy about having to face the PRT and Protectorate on their own."

"No." Max made a snap decision. "You, Victor, Crusader and Stormtiger are going to go out in civilian garb, just four regular citizens. Go to each of our hangouts in turn and inform them of what our plan is. Tell them to stand ready." He didn't want to simply call them because he had no idea of who would be where, and he had no desire to spend an hour on the damn phone just to reach a dozen people.

"What about me?" Rune stepped forward. "You didn't mention me."

"You are going to be staying right here, young lady," Max said. "When we need to start moving our forces around quickly, it'll be at a moment's notice. But even then, you need to keep your head down. You're another one they'll be targeting. Like Othala, you're not bulletproof."

"Aww." Rune's head drooped. "I could maybe help the guys get around faster."

"You could," agreed Max. "But that would make it harder for them to get where they're going without being spotted by the PRT and their stooges. We need to play it low-key, at least for the time being."

"Yeah, okay, got it." Rune nodded, though she still didn't look thrilled.

"Hey," said Othala. "If you could come down with me and help set up the clinic for incoming wounded, that would be a great help, yeah?"

Rune smiled. "Yeah, I can do that."

The pair headed out together, and Max dusted his hands off. "Well, I believe I laid out the current plan of action. Get to it."

They got to it.

Max watched them go, then picked up his glass of bourbon from the desk and headed over toward the windows to look down at the streets of Brockton Bay. Krieg came to stand beside him, his own glass in hand.

"Do you really think we have a chance?" he asked quietly.

"I don't see why not." Max sipped at his drink. "You've already sent word to Gesellschaft. If we can survive today, tomorrow will be easier as they realise that we're not just going to roll over for them. Inside of three days, we'll have reinforcements. Also, once someone gets to Night and Fog and tells them to get the fuck back to Brockton Bay, maybe they'll start doing the job they were sent to America for."

"This would be a lot easier with those two, and Purity as well," admitted Krieg. "Why is it, when we started losing capes for the first time in forever, did we have to lose some of our heaviest hitters? Hookwolf, Purity and Night—those three could almost win this for us on their own."

"Only Hookwolf's dead," Kaiser reminded him. "Kayden's just … working things out. She'll come back on her own." This was their first real separation since they'd married. He had to believe she still loved him. After all, how could she not? "And when she comes back, Night and Fog will too."

"I certainly hope so." Krieg fell silent, staring out over the city's skyline. "I still can't believe how all this blew up over a single dog."

Max nodded. "I'm just glad we've only got the PRT and Protectorate on our case. This is at least survivable."

"Isn't that the truth."

<><>​

PRT Building ENE

Operations Room

"Director Piggot to all points." Emily paused to marshal her thoughts. "New information has been received. Pursuant to this, I will be very shortly requesting arrest warrants for persons of interest, and search warrants for locations of interest. Once signed, these will be conveyed to the teams who can make best use of them. Until then, stick to the original plan. Piggot, out."

One by one, the various team leaders radioed through their acknowledgements. Emily listened with half an ear, while she watched her analysts tear into the list of names and narrow down locations where they (or their associates) might be found. Equally interesting was the subsidiary list of names and descriptions fitting people not identified in the original list.

They would have arrest and search warrants ready to roll just as soon as Velocity could convey them across town and get them signed. The irony was almost palpable; in life, Shadow Stalker had been divisive and a rule-bender. Her death was bringing them together to pull off a victory against the crime in the city that hadn't been seen in years.

Still, Emily wasn't going to argue with results. If this ended up with the PRT and Protectorate rolling up the Empire Eighty-Eight once and for all, she would give the little twit all the credit in the world. If only for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and provoking the wrong gangbanger into killing her.

"Hey, I got another hit," said one of her analysts. "We got Othala via Victor's secret identity, right? Well, check this out. Mugshot of Tammi Herren, aka Rune, before going into juvey and triggering there. And here's a high school yearbook photo for Teresa Biermann. Niece of Othala, and she's taken Fenja and Menja's surname. I'm pretty damn sure it's the same kid."

Emily leaned closer to the screen, scrutinising the two images. The earlier image was scowling instead of smiling and had shadows under her eyes and was gaunter around the cheekbones, but the resemblance was utterly unmistakeable. Even looking past that, there were tiny details that both shared. Far more than two merely similar-looking girls would have had. "I concur," she said. "Where is she?"

"Currently attending Immaculata, ma'am. We can call ahead and get her class schedule."

Emily considered that. "Okay," she decided. "No lights, no sirens. Roll up on the school in unmarked vehicles. Put a trooper either side of the classroom door. Have the admin staff page her and two other students to come to the principal's office. As soon as she walks out of the classroom, foam her solid. Take no chances."

"Yes, ma'am."

<><>​

Taylor

"There's a question you want to ask, but you don't want to sound stupid," Dad observed. I wondered how he knew; he hadn't even looked around at me. Oh, right. He's killed more people than I've had hot dinners. I guess that lifestyle breeds a certain amount of attention to detail.

"Yeah." I ruffled Chewie's ears. "How exactly are we going to find this Peterson guy, anyway? Look him up in the White Pages?"

"That is actually one way to do it," he said. "Normally, I'm given more time to locate my targets and arrange an exit scenario both for them and for me." I rolled my eyes at the assassin joke. "Sometimes I'm given the details up front, or the person's prominent enough to make it no trouble finding them. But in this situation, I'm going to go with an age-old favourite: I'm going to find someone who knows what I want to know, and ask them."

I raised my eyebrows. "Ask, or 'ask'?" Just in case he didn't get it, I put finger-quotes around the second version of the word.

"I usually go with the first, then graduate to the second when and if necessary." He didn't seem to be bothered by the prospect either way, which didn't overly surprise me.

"So how do we find people who are likely to know where he is?" Because that part wasn't particularly clear to me, either.

"I know where he was living before he was arrested for the murder of Fleur," he said. "He's almost certainly moved since then, but people don't travel far from their home neighbourhoods, especially if they're in a gang that runs said neighbourhood. So, we go to an Empire hangout in that general area."

I nodded, reasonably sure I'd followed his chain of logic. "And what if they object to telling you?"

He smiled coldly. "Then I know I'm on the right track."

<><>​

Derek 'Deke' Foster

The lights were turned off in the front of the bar, and the 'CLOSED' sign had been hung inside the front doors. Deke and the others sat in the back, trying to play cards but utterly unable to concentrate on their hands. A small TV in the corner was showing the news but with the sound turned all the way down, and nobody wanted to look in that direction.

One of the guys coughed, and everyone jumped like a gunshot had gone off. "Sorry," he said weakly. "It's just so goddamn quiet, you know?"

Deke took a deep breath and let his hand brush the pump-action shotgun leaning against the wall behind him. "If one damn asshole says anything about it being 'too quiet', I will fuckin' shoot them," he promised.

"Maybe we should just go home," muttered someone else, too low for him to pick out who'd said it.

This time, Deke did pick up the shotgun. He didn't point it at anyone, but he did lay down his cards—they weren't worth shit anyway—so he could hold it across his lap. "Nobody's going home."

The guy who'd coughed, Joe, sat up straight. "Why the fuck not? The PRT and Protectorate are gonna be busting every Empire place, kicking in doors and stuff. Why should we just sit here and wait for them?"

"Because that's not what our orders were," Deke said steadily. "Our orders were to go to the hangouts and wait for Kaiser to tell us what to do. If we go home, do you think they don't already know who we are? We've all worn the fuckin' colours in public, you moron. They'll just kick in our front doors and arrest us there, where we've got no backup. So we're staying, until we get told what to do."

"Admirable," said a new voice, by the back door. Deke looked around, wondering who the fuck that was, because it didn't sound like Ferg, who'd been standing guard—

Ferg stumbled backward into the room, his hands held up in surrender, mainly because there was a gun in his face. And holding the gun was someone Deke not so much recognised as he simply knew who it was.

"Sit," ordered the newcomer, and Ferg more or less fell backward into the one empty chair. "Question for you gentlemen: are you afraid of the Dark?" The pistol twitched fractionally toward Deke, and he dropped the shotgun like a hot potato. "Smart man."

"Uh, hey, we haven't done—" Joe began.

The Dark's pistol flicked in his direction, and he shut up. "Quiet." The Dark turned to look at Deke. "I need the whereabouts of one man."

Deke kept his hands in plain view. Everyone else, he was pleased to see, did the same. Even among the young bloods in the crew, word had travelled fast. Nobody crossed the Dark and lived; it was as simple as that. "Who?" Right then, he was willing to reveal the location of anyone he knew.

At that moment, the Dark's head came up and he stepped aside from the doorway. Deke wondered what was going on, until he heard the rumbling sound of a motorbike. Someone else was arriving, though he had no idea who, or how the Dark had known about them before anyone else.

A moment later, an imposing figure darkened the doorway, accompanied by the sound of clinking chains. Stormtiger stepped into the room, hands busy with the act of settling his blue-and-white tiger mask in place. He stopped, looking at Deke's group. "What the fuck are you lazy bastards just sitting around for? Why isn't someone on guard? What are you all looking at?"

"Me." The Dark spoke the single word with such menace that chills went down Deke's back; when Stormtiger spun around, the pistol was eighteen inches from his face. Too close to dodge, too far to bat aside.

"Jesus fuck!" Stormtiger legitimately jumped six feet backward, but nobody laughed at his fright. "Listen, man, we didn't do that armoured car, and the dogfights are all shut down. Kaiser's told us all we've got no beef with you."

"I know." Somehow, even those two words bore a world of menace. "I have a name: Larry Peterson. I need a location."

The room was filled with a brief silence, as several grown men each visibly refrained from asking 'why do you want to know where he is?', mainly because they damn well knew the reason. Deke considered asking who wanted Peterson dead, but decided that if the Dark wanted them to know, he'd tell them.

"Peterson," Stormtiger repeated, then his brain clearly caught up with what he was saying. "That Peterson?"

"That's the one." The Dark gave the faintest gesture with his pistol, as if to say, 'get on with it'.

"Well?" demanded Stormtiger, half-turning his head. "Do any of you lazy fucks know where Peterson is?"

Joe hesitantly raised his hand. "Uh … pretty sure he's at Casey's," he ventured.

Deke spared no thought to Larry Peterson's imminent demise; that was a done deal. His only emotion was relief that Joe had known and spoken up.

The Dark let his gaze pass over each of them; Deke swore he could feel it, like a burning torch. "If he's not there, I'll be back." Then he vanished out through the open doorway.

Slowly, as the fear leached out of his body, Deke let out a long breath. "Fuuuucccck," he muttered.

Stormtiger took two steps to the table and loomed over it, and Joe. "You're certain Peterson's at Casey's?"

Joe nodded spasmodically. "Y-yeah. It's where he said he was goin'."

"Good." Stormtiger looked around the room. "Okay, so the Dark didn't want to kill us, so we're all good. Now, as for the fuckin' PRT, Kaiser's got orders for everyone."

Deke wanted to know something. "So … we're not gonna ring Casey's and warn Peterson, right?"

That earned him a glare from Stormtiger. "Don't be a fuckin' moron. The Dark was never here, and we never saw him. We absolutely did not tell him where he could find one of our own. Got it? Now, Kaiser's orders …"

<><>​

Manpower

Neil hunched over in the PRT van, feeling cramped. He knew he took up two seats compared to anyone else; just in costume, he was still bulkier than a fully kitted-out trooper. Armsmaster sat opposite him, and Triumph was next to the Protectorate leader.

"So, where are we going?" he asked. He hated having to ask, but the PRT had their in-helmet comms and hadn't thought to offer earpieces to the capes.

"Right now, we're just showing the flag." Armsmaster sounded grumpy. Neil could understand why; the man was proud of the bike he'd built up from stock into one of the most distinctive vehicles on the East Coast. "Cruising the streets, being visible, until the Director sends us new orders."

"Um, I think I might've missed something in the briefing," ventured Triumph. "Why aren't you out there on your bike, sir? That's kind of your thing, isn't it?"

Armsmaster nodded. "It is, but the Director decided that the Empire might just try to dogpile PRT-friendly capes and take us out of the picture. So, for the moment, we're riding inside. That way, they have no idea what they'll be facing if they hit one of these vans."

"Oh. Right."

"Well, I hope we get these orders soon," Neil quipped. "Because if we don't, my spine's going to be bent over so far, I'll come out of this about four feet tall."

It wasn't exactly hilarious, but he got a laugh anyway.

Then Armsmaster's head came up. At the same time, the van accelerated, and took a corner rather more sharply than previously. All the troopers in the van started checking their weapons.

"The new orders?" Neil asked. He really, really hated being out of the loop.

"Absolutely." Armsmaster's teeth showed in what might have been called a grin by someone who wasn't paying attention. "We've got him."

"Who?"

<><>​

Kaiser

Max checked his phone to find a text from Victor on it. He was making good progress from one hangout to the next; by Max's estimation, the Empire's people should be all informed within the hour. Alabaster and Crusader were also checking in on the regular, with only Stormtiger falling behind. This sort of thing happened. Max suspected that his newest lieutenant was having to dodge PRT patrols.

Placing the phone back on the desk, he leaned back in satisfaction. All according to plan. They'll never know what hit them.

The desk phone rang, startling him. As he sat forward, he automatically checked the caller readout. It said LOBBY SECURITY.

Now, why are they calling me? He'd been tempted to shut the entire building down for the day, but as opposed to a few bars and bowling alleys, important people would notice if Medhall itself closed its doors ahead of time. Still, there were very few people in the building who weren't loyal to the cause that he professed to follow.

Taking up the handset, he said, "You've got Max Anders." Unspoken, but entirely understood, were the words, 'This had better be very important.'

"Sir, this is Grantley. The PRT is here, right now. They've got a warrant to search the building—hey!"

There was a confused thudding or clattering sound, then a different voice spoke. "Max Anders? This is Armsmaster. We need to speak with you, immediately."

What? He blinked in shock. "I'm a busy man. Please make an appointment with my secretary. I'm sure she can find an opening for you."

"That's not how it works. Remain where you are." The call ended.

Max stared at the handset, then dropped it on the cradle and jumped up from his desk. Hurrying over to the windows, he stared down at the street in front of the building. At least three PRT vans were out front, and those were just the ones he could see.

All of this could only mean one thing. They know. The PRT knows. There could be no other explanation for them hitting his place of business in such force, with a search warrant of all things.

Worse, Armsmaster hadn't asked him to stay where he was, he'd demanded it. He had exactly zero doubt that there were capes and PRT troopers on the way up to his office right then. They've got proof. There's no way in hell they'd base an operation of this magnitude on a mere supposition or a suspicion.

"What's going on?" Jessica and Nessa had come to their feet, but it was the former who'd spoken. "What's the matter?"

"It's the PRT and Protectorate," he explained rapidly as he launched himself back toward his desk. "Somebody's just outed us. Outed me. They're raiding the building."

"Our armour!" Nessa looked down at herself with good reason; her weapons and armour, and that of her sister, was kept stored in the sub-basement set aside for Empire business.

Jessica was more pragmatic. "Who talked?" she asked, striding up to the desk. "Who knew and talked?"

"Night and Fog wouldn't have the imagination," Nessa decided. "Does Kayden hate you that much? Does she hate the Empire that much?"

Max tried to tune them out so he could think. The secure elevator, hidden behind a secret panel, beckoned. But he had to warn his subordinates; if only because not doing so spelled the end of any chance he had of rebuilding the Empire Eighty-Eight after this debacle was done. And mobile signals were crap inside an elevator. So, he typed as fast as he could, linking every Empire cape into the outgoing text message. PRT in Medhall, aware of secret. Take all due precautions.

Just as he was finishing, he heard the pounding of heavy bootsteps outside the main doors to his office, and reflexively reached under the desk to hit the emergency-lock button. Then he pressed the Send icon, and watched as the text … did nothing. The little circling icon just spun around and around.

Something hit the doors with an almighty crash, and the steel-cored doors actually bulged inward slightly. Max's eyes widened with shock. Christ, what've they got out there? A rocket launcher?

The phone was still trying to send the message, but he didn't have any more time to waste, especially after a metal blade with a glowing edge began to slice downward through where the main locking mechanism was. Slapping the panel open, Max stepped into the lift.

"Ladies," he said. "I'm going to need you to hold the line." Then he hit the button for the lowest level. As the doors closed, he was already starting to form his armour, aided by the genuine Rolex on his wrist.

Who betrayed us? Is Nessa right? Was it Kayden? He didn't want to think it was her, but she'd certainly shown her disdain for the way the Empire Eighty-Eight operated. If she still thought that Max had ordered the death of that stupid fucking Ward, then her entire departure took on a whole new light.

She'd had motive and she'd had means. And the opportunity would've been simple. A stop for gas at any of the towns she was passing through (Max had enough reach to know she was out of the local area, at least) would've given her the chance to drop a dime on him and not even Theo would know about it.

Another thought shook him up. What if it wasn't even Kayden? What if it was Theo? While the boy was Max's own flesh and blood, he'd never showed any enthusiasm for taking up the family business, or even for the creed the Empire was built around. Max had always had hopes of bringing him around, of bringing out the man in him by way of tough love … but what if Kayden's babying of the boy had brought out a resentful streak instead?

There were too many variables. Following the demise of Hookwolf and Cricket, one of the others might have decided to make a play for the top spot; what better way than to turn in the boss and lay low for a while, then re-emerge and claim leadership over what was left? After all, that was how he'd claimed leadership of the Empire Eighty-Eight … well, minus the turning Allfather over to the PRT and laying low aspect. Some members of the Empire must surely have suspected he had a hand in his father's death, but nobody had said a word about it, so those that did must have approved.

But that was enough dwelling on the past. What was done was done; now he had to move forward and deal with the present.

<><>​

Taylor

Like its predecessor, the bar we'd been directed to was dark and lifeless, with a CLOSED sign in the window. Also like its predecessor, it had a bunch of guys sitting around nervously in the back (it sounded like they were chatting quietly, but my control still wasn't good enough to listen in on human speech. It was all rumbling and squeaking, and barely anything in between).

"They're there, but they aren't any more agitated than the last lot were," I reported. "No capes, either."

Dad chuckled dryly. "I wonder if the Empire realises that they're advertising where they are by the number of businesses that are shut down on a normal Tuesday morning. Oh, well. When your enemy's making a mistake …"

"… don't interrupt him," I finished. This was something Dad had drummed into me. A good operator forced his opponents into making mistakes that he could then exploit, but a really good operator saw the flaws in his opponents' tactics and adjusted his own tactics to suit.

"Correct." He pulled his pistol into view and checked the chamber; I saw a brief glint of brass before the pistol vanished again. That firearm was very definitely loaded. "Did you want to come in this time, or stay out here?"

I knew why he was asking. This was going to be his first paid kill since Mom died, and he wanted to be sure I was okay with it.

"I'm fine staying out here," I reassured him. "Besides, Chewie is likely to get lonely if we leave him in the car, and I'm not really certain that we'll make quite the impact we need to if I'm carrying a friendly puppy."

"Valid point," he agreed, and got out of the car. "Just make sure you don't concentrate so much on me that you let someone sneak up on you."

"Understood." I wouldn't be a very good backup if I got taken out before things even got serious.

To show him I meant it, I took my own pistol out—making sure not to point it at either of us, or at Chewie—and checked my own chamber. Like his, there was a round in the breech, and the safety was all the way on. If I had to shoot someone, all I had to do was flick it over with my thumb. But of course, that presupposed the massive swarm I'd have all over my hypothetical opponent was having zero effect. Carefully, I put the pistol away again.

"That's my girl." He gave me a nod of approval, then headed across the road toward the bar.

I watched him go then started a general lookout of the area, vastly augmented by the bugs. Every human being within two and a half blocks was under my surveillance, with insects riding their clothing undetected. I knew where everyone was and, to a certain degree, what they were all doing. This included the people inside Casey's; there would be no unpleasant surprises from that direction.

Of course, there was definitely going to be an unpleasant surprise, but we were going to supply it, not them.

<><>​

Medhall Building

Laserdream

"I'm not sure … why we couldn't … have taken the elevator," panted Gallant, thumping down the stairs in hot pursuit of Miss Militia.

Crystal didn't even bother pretending to be using the steps, gliding down the stairwell in the Protectorate hero's wake. "Because elevators can be locked down," she said sweetly. "Or, you know, dropped into the basement."

"Ssh!" hissed Miss Militia, hefting a multi-barrelled shotgun that looked like it could be used to shoot down low-flying pterodactyls. "Gallant, I'm sure you've got a silent mode for that suit."

"I'm using it," he panted. "Running doesn't help."

"Hm." Crystal got the impression she was pursing her lips behind the bandanna. "Go more slowly, then. Laserdream, with me."

"Ma'am." He slowed down a little, the heavy thumping sounds easing off.

Miss Militia continued downward, with Crystal following close behind. When they hit the bottom of the stairwell, Miss Militia gestured at the door. "Can you open that silently?"

Crystal felt like grinning, but this wasn't the time or the place. "Yes, ma'am." She placed a layer of her crimson force field over all the door except for the lock—this wasn't to protect the door, but was in case whoever was on the far side decided to shoot through the door—and quickly cored out the lock itself with a quick burst of identically-hued laser. Where her field was barely stronger than plywood, her laser sheared through steel, concrete and wood alike.

"Good." Miss Militia tugged at the untouched door handle—Crystal dismissed the force field—and it opened smoothly and silently.

"—over here?" asked a teenaged girl's voice.

"Yes, that'll do nicely," an older woman replied. "Thanks, Tammi."

Miss Militia leaned in toward Crystal and cupped her hands around her mouth. Up against Crystal's ear, she whispered, "Othala and Rune."

Crystal nodded to show she'd gotten it. Being fliers, they'd tangled with Rune before, but not so much with Othala. Eric had once given the blonde villain the nickname 'Sabrina the Teenage Nazi', and it had stuck. "They must have pulled her out of school."

These two weren't the Empire Eighty-Eight's biggest hitters by far—that distinction probably belonged to Purity and probably Night or Stormtiger—but they definitely helped make the Empire as tough to beat as it was. Rune's power gave her aerial bombardment capabilities, as well as the ability to Move her comrades across the city en masse. Othala, on the other hand, could take injured and make them whole once more. Worse, she could give healthy capes other abilities altogether, making them a total pain to fight. Alabaster on his own was bad enough, but Alabaster with the ability to fly was horrifying.

They didn't have time to wait for Gallant, and his heavy tread had too much chance of alerting the bad guys anyway. Miss Militia seemed to be of the same mindset; gesturing for Crystal to follow her, she started off down the corridor toward the voices.

<><>​

Armsmaster

Once the lock was dealt with, Colin stepped back for Manpower to make his entry. The New Wave member's force field was capable of dealing with any surprise attacks that the Empire capes could muster, after all. This time, when the massive cape hit the doors with his shoulder, they burst open and he entered with an entirely unnecessary shoulder-roll.

Colin followed him in—minus the shoulder-roll, which was far too difficult to pull off, no matter how flexible he made his armour—with his halberd at the ready. Kaiser was known for metal spikes and barriers, so the plasma cutter on the axe-blade was ready for use.

Except that there were no such obstacles to be found. In fact, the office was clear, save for the two eight-foot-tall women who were currently grappling with Manpower. It wasn't much of a stretch to recognise Menja and Fenja, even without their signature armour and weapons.

At Colin's side, Triumph let out a bellow; one of the women was blasted away from Manpower, rolling over and over until she hit the wall and left a dent. Colin reversed his halberd and fired a dart into the other one. Unarmoured, she was an easy target, and the powerful soporific soon had her shrinking back to normal size.

While Triumph secured the two prisoners, Colin looked around suspiciously, triggering various vision modes in his HUD. There was nobody in the office apart from his fellow heroes and the PRT troopers who had followed them in. Even the tiny ensuite—quickly checked by a couple of troopers armed with confoam sprayers—revealed no hidden villains.

"Okay," said Manpower. "Where the hell did he go? That was the only door in or out. And he had to be in here to lock it, right?"

"You'd think so, yes." Colin went behind the desk and leaned down to examine the array of buttons underneath. He didn't press any, but he knew the tech guys would probably have a field day disassembling Kaiser's office. "When I was speaking to him on the phone, my helmet recorded the ambient sound. It's identical to what we've got right here. He was in this office, less than a minute ago."

"And he can't teleport. And the Empire's got no Tinkers to make him an emergency teleport getaway device." Manpower was more or less going through the options now, as though searching for the hidden key to Kaiser's disappearance.

Colin, however, had a different viewpoint, as befitted someone who built things as part of his powerset. "That's all true. But he very likely did have access to the architects when this office was being built, or rebuilt. And with his kind of money, do you think he could've had an escape route constructed within the building itself?"

Manpower's eyes widened. "Shit, you're right! This was his villain lair, and every lair has a back door."

They both turned to look at the wooden panelling directly behind Max Anders' desk. It was clean, pristine, and showed no sign of being anything other than a wall. If a piece of inanimate timber could exude smugness, it would have.

Manpower punched it. His seven-foot frame and concomitant musculature gave him serious heft and throw weight, but even that didn't explain the sheer power that went into the blow. Colin had long theorised that the largest member of New Wave had the ability to fluctuate his protective force field to add more damage to his punches, either kinetic or electrical. And this time, his fist was a pure battering ram.

Pieces of wood flew everywhere, destroying what had to have been five or six figures' worth of handiwork in an instant. Colin cared just as little as Manpower evidently did, especially when the rubble fell away to reveal the closed door to an elevator.

Manpower grinned. "Bingo."

<><>​

The Dark

Every sense alert, Danny approached the back door of Casey's. There was a guard on the door, an older man holding a shotgun as aged as he was. Danny's eyes narrowed as he recognised the man. He'd once been an up-and-comer in his own right, but now it seemed he'd been absorbed into the Empire.

Stepping sideways as the guy turned away from the wind to light a smoke, Danny came up behind him. The muzzle of his suppressed pistol touched the old man on the back of the neck, and Danny saw every muscle freeze. The guy knew exactly what it was, and expected to die at any second.

"Hello, Frankie." He kept his voice down.

"Dark." To Frankie's credit, his voice didn't shake. "Shit, I never thought it'd be you who'd kill me."

"Doesn't have to be. How many years has it been?" How many men are inside, he meant.

"About a dozen, I reckon." Frankie was just as quick on the uptake as ever.

"Hm. Impressive."

"You here on business?" The sir was implicit.

"Afraid so, Frankie." There was a pause while Danny let Frankie work that one out, then he decided to give the old man a break. "Why don't you just go home? I never saw you, you never saw me."

Frankie nodded. "Thanks, I will. About time I got shut of these assholes, anyway." He carefully leaned the shotgun against the wall and walked away, never looking back even once.

Danny moved on into the building, letting the pistol lead the way. The murmur of voices gave him his direction, and he stepped into the room before anyone was aware he was there. He knew a small swarm had preceded him, buzzing at ankle-height, and was ready to fly into anyone's face if they tried doing anything stupid.

"Morning, gentlemen," he said, his voice cutting across their chatter. "Are you afraid of the Dark?"

And with that, he had their complete and total attention. Shadowed against the doorway as he was, they couldn't see his face, so his manner had to project total menace. But that was merely a matter of practice. And of course, they could see his gun.

One guy yelped something obscene and clawed for a pistol; Danny shot him in the face, not bothering to go for a non-lethal wound. Doing that sort of thing too often would send entirely the wrong message about people being allowed to pull guns on him.

The subdued whipcrack—apart from certain purpose-built versions, there was no such thing as a silenced pistol—echoed through the room, while everyone else froze. Danny noted with satisfaction that Peterson wasn't the idiot who'd pulled the weapon. This meant he'd be able to fulfil the terms of the hit.

"You," he said harshly, gesturing with the suppressor. "On your feet."

There was no mistaking who he was indicating, but Peterson still went with the dumb-show of who, me? before two of his more awake erstwhile comrades literally shoved him upright.

"Wh—what do you want me for?" he quavered. But there was a growing look of comprehension in his face. He knew. For seven long years he'd managed to escape the final price for his actions, but now karma was finally coming back around.

"You talk too much, Larry," Danny said, confident that when Peterson was drunk, he would certainly get boastful about his one big deed. "Some people don't like little shits talking like you're better than the capes. And they finally took notice. Come on." He gestured with the pistol.

Peterson looked around, evidently realising that not one of the people in the room would lift a finger to defend him, mainly because they didn't want to die. "Guys? Help me. He's gonna kill me!"

"And if we try, he'll kill us, you stupid fuckwit," grunted the big guy in the corner. "Fuckin' go an' die like a man, you little pussy."

The man Danny killed had been trying to draw a pistol; it had landed on the floor near his outstretched hand. It seemed Larry wasn't trusted with firearms because he didn't attempt to pull one out himself. Instead, he dived for the discarded weapon. Danny fired while he was in the air, taking a little more care than with the first snapshot. Peterson screamed as the bullet smashed through his wrist, turning it into a useless mass of destroyed bone.

Danny stepped forward and grabbed up Peterson by the collar and dragged him out of the room. Even when he was out the door, he still heard no movement from within.

<><>​

Taylor

I got out of the car as Dad came into sight, manhandling the idiot we'd come to kill. Peterson's right wrist was bleeding, but it wasn't like he'd have to live with the problem for long. As I came over, pulling out the burner phone that we'd bought for the occasion, Dad forced him into a kneeling position.

He waited until I had the camera up and recording video—catching the back of Dad's head, but the look on the face of Fleur's killer perfectly—before he leaned forward. "Larry Peterson," he intoned. "New Wave sends their regards."

Dad waited just long enough—Larry's eyes opened wide as the full realisation hit him—then he aimed the pistol at Larry and shot him in the face. Blood and brains sprayed out to paint the sidewalk, then Larry slumped to the ground. I stopped recording.

"Nicely done," said Dad, putting the pistol away and taking the phone from me to check the recording. His voice sounded from the phone speakers, much more tinnily, then the poc of the shot heralded the end of Larry's life. "And that's perfect. Much easier than doing it myself."

"New Wave, huh?" I asked as we headed back to the car. "That's a bit dark, isn't it? I thought they were all about cape accountability and transparency."

His voice was dry. "There's a life lesson there. No single solution works perfectly for all problems. Even the most transparent of systems requires a little darkness here and there."

I nodded, looking back at Larry. He'd been a bad person, and had evidently felt no remorse for his crime despite the waterworks in court, given that he'd joined the Empire anyway after his release. I had no way of knowing what sins he'd perpetrated since then, but intellectually I felt that despite all that, I should feel bad about his passing.

But I didn't. He was a null, a cipher, in my emotional landscape. Now that he was dead, I felt nothing at all about him.

"Lingering regrets?" asked Dad, following my line of sight.

I opened the door and got in; Chewie immediately jumped into my lap. "No, actually," I said, hugging the wriggly little pup. "None whatsoever."

He smiled as he started the car. "That's my girl."

<><>​

Kaiser

The elevator finally reached the sub-basement that wasn't even on the building plans housed only on Max's personal computer system. It was below the clinic, below the parking garage, and below the secret meeting area for the Empire Eighty-Eight capes. This area wasn't large, but it contained several items that might be of use to a supervillain on the run. These included a change of clothing, a briefcase full of cash, another case containing escrow cards connecting to accounts holding large amounts of untraceable cash plus several very well-made fake identities, a car that was registered to someone who was not Max Anders, and an exit tunnel for the aforementioned car.

He stepped out, heading for the bug-out stash, but before he'd made three steps, there was a huge crash from right behind him. Spinning around, he saw that the interior of the elevator was totalled, given that most of the roof of it was on the floor. Picking himself up from the remains of the former roof was Manpower; his gaze fell on Kaiser, and he grinned. "Hi."

Fuck. Do these assholes ever give up? Kaiser waved his hand, causing a thick fence of metal palings to spring up in front of the elevator. They were stronger than his office door, so they should hold—

Vzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Grabbing up the nearest briefcase, Max turned to look as the strange buzzing noise ceased, then a plasma blade slashed off the iron fence at shin height. The metal palings fell over with a tremendous clatter on the raw concrete flooring, to reveal Armsmaster alongside Manpower.

More sheets and spikes of metal extruded from the floor and ceiling as Max hastily tried his best to delay the two heroes. "You won't be able to get them all!" he called out as he retreated, grabbing the second case on the way. "I warned them before I came down here!"

"I jammed the signal," Armsmaster replied. The stink of plasma-heated metal wafted through the air. Manpower was taking the initiative to wrench several more spikes from the ground, speeding the efforts to get through. "Your team is going down."

Max wrenched the car door open. The keys were right there, in the ignition. Ignoring the seat belt, he turned the key, eliciting a roar from the engine. Throwing the car into gear, he spun the wheels as he prepared to get the hell out of there.

One of his own metal spikes smashed in through the rear window of the car, passed by close enough to dent the armour on his right arm, then speared through the dashboard and firewall into the engine. It clunked horribly, seized, and the car swerved to a halt. The airbag went off, pinning him back against the car seat.

The driver's side door was ripped off, then dropped to clatter to the floor. Inhumanly strong fingers dragged him from the car, then began prying the armour from him, until enough of his arms were exposed to apply flex-cuffs. Armsmaster stepped in front of him. "Max Anders, you are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent …"

Well, fuck.

<><>​

Laserdream

Crystal followed Miss Militia out of the corridor and there they were; a normal looking young woman chatting to an equally mundane teenager as they laid out medical supplies. Except that their faces matched the pictures they'd been sent, of Othala and Rune.

Their movement must have drawn the attention of the pair, because Othala turned to look at them. She was a great actor, because after just a split second of oh, fuck her expression turned welcoming. "Oh, hi," she said chattily. "I don't often see superheroes down here. What's the occasion?"

If Crystal hadn't been looking for it, she wouldn't have spotted what Othala was trying to do; that is, sidle closer to Rune. As her hand reached out and back toward the blonde teen, Crystal encased Rune in a force field.

"The occasion is that you're under arrest," Miss Militia strode forward, aiming a large taser at Othala. "You have the right to remain silent. If you choose to give up this right—"

"No!" screamed Rune, smashing both fists on the force field bubble and kicking out at the same time. The field fractured, and then she was free. "This doesn't happen this way!" She threw herself forward onto the table, one hand beginning to scrawl a sigil onto it while the other reached for Othala.

Crystal hesitated; Othala was blocking her best shot, and she didn't want to injure the older villain for something she hadn't even done. And then an energy bolt flashed past her, grazed Othala, and hit Rune full on. Othala staggered, and Rune collapsed in a weeping mess.

"Yeah," Gallant said, stepping up and blowing imaginary smoke off his finger. "It does."

<><>​

That Evening

Pelham Household

Sarah sat back on the sofa with her feet up. She was a little bruised—Stormtiger was no pushover—but they'd located and arrested every Empire cape they could. According to Crusader, Purity had skipped town already, along with Night and Fog, which had absolutely not helped the Empire's cause in any way. She'd heard of a rumoured split between Purity and Kaiser, and hoped that meant the flying Blaster wouldn't be back to break him out of lockup.

"We did good today, didn't we?" asked Neil as he came to stand by her. He'd been grinning ever since he and Armsmaster had taken down Kaiser and brought him in for processing.

She reached out and captured his hand to give it a kiss. "Yeah," she said. "We did."

Leaning down, he returned the kiss to her lips. "Found a parcel in the mailbox today, addressed to you." He took a bubble-wrapped package from his pocket and handed it to her.

"Thanks, hon." Frowning, she worked her nail in behind the pasted-over flap as he wandered away again. Who's sending me stuff?

A little bit of work had the package open; an extremely unremarkable smartphone slid out into her hand. Brow still wrinkled, she looked it over. Then realisation hit, and she pressed the power button. I think I know …

The phone woke up in very short order. She figured out why when she saw that all internet capabilities had been shut down, and there were only two icons on the home screen; a notepad app, and a video app. Hesitating between the two, she finally tapped the notepad app to open it.

There was exactly one note, titled Per our previous arrangement. It contained a price—high, but not exorbitant—and a set of banking details. Last came a single word. Sound.

With that warning, she turned the sound down to nothing before she opened the video app. As she'd suspected, there was just one file to play; she tapped it. The face that had long since been burned into her memory looked back at her. She played it through once, just to see what happened, then turned the sound up fractionally so she could play it again with the phone up to her ear and hear the Dark's voice say, "Larry Peterson. New Wave sends their regards." On the third play-through, she took atavistic glee in the horrified comprehension that crossed the asshole's face before the Dark shot him at close range. From the way he slumped over—and the gore sprayed over the asphalt behind him—he was comprehensively dead.

Smiling, she closed the video. She would go online in a moment from her own phone and send the money. The price was not too high to pay, especially considering she would've parted with three times as much with a song in her heart. But for now, she decided she could relax and enjoy the feeling of a wrong finally made right.

Rest in peace, Jess.



End of Part Ten
 
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Nice to see another chapter of this oddly wholesome fic. Sometimes, everything just comes together -- and the Empire goes down with a whimper instead of a bang.

Meanwhile, Coil will be mildly surprised at how efficiently Piggot is handling everything, with street violence shut down before it has a chance to get going. But I'm sure he'll take it philosophically, still putting it in the "win" column even if he may not be able to advance his agenda quite as far as he was hoping. It's not as if anything is actually going *wrong* for him yet after all, just not as right as he was hoping.
 
It is good to see this back and on the high note of E88 ceasing to exist.
 
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I know this is a cover story, but is it one they'd actually set up? Othala is supposed to be a teenager herself, and while it's not unheard of to have such a short age gap between aunt and niece it still stands out, which is something you don't want when you're on the run from the law and living under a false identity.
 
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I know this is a cover story, but is it one they'd actually set up? Othala is supposed to be a teenager herself, and while it's not unheard of to have such a short age gap between aunt and niece it still stands out, which is something you don't want when you're on the run from the law and living under a false identity.
Othala's actually her second cousin, but they changed it to 'aunt' to make it more feasible for Othala and Victor to be picking her up from school.
 
Othala's actually her second cousin, but they changed it to 'aunt' to make it more feasible for Othala and Victor to be picking her up from school.
Rune truly did join the worst supervillain faction. Not only are they Nazis, they also make her go to school despite supervillaining not needing a high school diploma! :p
 
This fic is one of my favorites. Always nice seeing the wholesomeness that can be present even if dark. Well ome would almost feel bad for Coil, if he wasn't Coil... I wonder if he is going to regret not just doing college or something else and cheating that instead...
 
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I know this is a cover story, but is it one they'd actually set up? Othala is supposed to be a teenager herself, and while it's not unheard of to have such a short age gap between aunt and niece it still stands out, which is something you don't want when you're on the run from the law and living under a false identity.
If the family's big enough, you can get aunts and uncles younger then their niece/nephew. I personally have nieces and nephews close enough in age that I could have gone to school with them if their parents were living in the same town while I was at school.
 
If the family's big enough, you can get aunts and uncles younger then their niece/nephew. I personally have nieces and nephews close enough in age that I could have gone to school with them if their parents were living in the same town while I was at school.
I know. As my first comment said, it's not unheard of but it does stand out, and Rune is a fugitive living under a false identity who should probably be avoiding any unnecessary standing out.

But I guess characters don't always make the optimal decisions and this detail isn't the focus of the story, so it doesn't really matter.
 
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Oh man, I just caught up with this one. What a blast with this father daughter duo. I cannot wait to see what other shenanigans these two get up to. Also I love the touch of Taylor wholesale not really caring about human life in a way she would expect, kind of echos the Taylor from Worm who got quite used to death.
 
Part Eleven: Bad Luck and Trouble
Are You Afraid of the Dark?

Part Eleven: Bad Luck and Trouble

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



Tuesday Evening, January 11, 2011


Director Emily Piggot

"Well." Emily looked around the expanse of Conference Room A, meeting the eyes of her PRT subordinates as well as the Protectorate heroes and Triumph, who was standing in for the Wards. "I want to say, first off, that I'm damn proud of each and every one of you. You went out there, you engaged the Empire, and you beat them. Every Empire Eighty-Eight cape known to be still in the city is currently in holding, and you put them there."

Assault raised his hand diffidently. His costume needed repair after the day's events, but he himself was hale and hearty, thanks to Panacea. "It wasn't just us. New Wave did a lot of the heavy lifting as well."

Miss Militia nodded. "That's true. They got our wounded to Panacea on time, and they were instrumental in the assault on the Medhall building."

"Which I'm actually curious about." Calvert leaned forward. His body armour was also less than pristine, but Emily had no issues with that. It showed he'd been on the front lines with the rest of them. "How did we know to hit there? This morning, we were hoping to take out the capes once they showed up to defend their followers, then all of a sudden we knew exactly who to go after, and where. What happened? Who talked?"

Emily glanced involuntarily in Assault's direction, then covered it by deliberately looking around the room once more. "I'm not at liberty to divulge that information," she said smoothly. "Suffice to say that a deep-cover source chose today to hand over the information that we acted on. It was what we needed, when we needed it."

"I'll say," murmured Triumph. Emily had heard about his takedown of Menja in Max Anders'—Kaiser's—office. He was definitely a good fit for promotion to the Protectorate proper when the time came.

"But while I would like to wax lyrical about my satisfaction with how well you all worked together and supported your comrades," she said, "this isn't the only reason I set up this meeting."

She didn't miss the way they all sat up and paid more attention. "There's another shoe, isn't there?" asked Assault. "There always is."

"There is, as you say, another shoe." Emily laced her hands together. "The Empire Eighty-Eight, although the biggest of our extant gangs until today, was not the only one. We still have the ABB and Coil's operations, as well as minor concerns such as Faultline's Crew, the Undersiders, the Merchants, and Uber and Leet. While not all of these are expansionist, the ABB definitely is, and I can see a few of the others also taking territory now that the Empire is out of business."

Armsmaster spoke up for the first time since the commencement of the meeting. "Are we shutting them down next?"

"It's a distinct possibility." Emily let her gaze span the room once more. "However, the immediate concern is that in the absence of the Empire Eighty-Eight, there's quite likely to be conflict over turf in areas that they once held, and civilians being put in danger."

"As opposed to people being put in danger by the Empire Eighty-Eight," quipped Assault. "Well, at least there won't be so many people being targeted just because of their skin colour or religion."

Dauntless rolled his eyes. "You have read Lung's file, haven't you?"

"I didn't say 'none'. I said 'not so many'."

"Be that as it may," Emily cut in before the discussion could spiral out of control. "The fact remains that this is not yet over. However, it should be clear to everyone not actually living under a rock that the Empire Eighty-Eight was taken down because they stepped over the line when they murdered one of our Wards. With any luck, the others will take the lesson to heart and keep their goddamn heads down, at least for a while." She personally didn't believe it for a second, but that was just her experience talking.

Velocity nodded. "And if they don't, we give them the Empire treatment, correct?"

She let a half-smile twitch her lips before it went away again. "Correct. In other matters, the memorial for Shadow Stalker will be held on Saturday the fifteenth, starting at noon, in the private chapel. Black armbands will be issued for all to wear on the day. Attendance to the memorial is not mandatory, but it is encouraged. Shadow Stalker's family members and friends will be invited, so all capes present will need to mask up." She paused. "Shadow Stalker may have been a problem child, but she was our problem child. Her memory deserves all proper respect."

"Speaking of which," Armsmaster said, "have we gotten any stronger leads for who pulled the trigger, or even who gave the order?"

"It will come as no great surprise to any of you that they are all denying involvement." Emily's smile had nothing to do with humour. "Kaiser, I'm told, is most insistent about this. He blames Coil. Krieg and Stormtiger seem to share this opinion, except that at one point while they were in holding, Stormtiger let slip a comment about 'unless it was that asshole Victor'. When questioned directly, he denied even thinking that."

"I can follow up on the Coil thing," offered Calvert. "Shake the bushes and see what falls out."

Emily considered it for a moment, then shook her head. "No, I'll be needing you and the other strike squad commanders to be patrolling with your men as ready-reaction forces. This whole thing has to be treated as a potential Boston Games in miniature. We can't afford to let things get out of hand. Armsmaster, you look into the Coil angle. Assault, Battery, you see what you can dig up regarding Victor's whereabouts on that night. Any questions?"

There were none. Even Assault seemed to be restraining himself from asking something ridiculous; it seemed the night for miracles.

"Very well," she concluded. "You all know what you have to do. Report to Deputy Director Renick with anything you've got. Dismissed."

As she rose to her feet, she reflected that it had been a long hard day, but god it had been worth it.

<><>​

Deputy Director Renick

Half an Hour Later

There was a knock on Paul's office door. "Enter," he called, raising his head.

The door opened, to show one of the PRT officers who had participated in the strike on the Empire Eighty-Eight: Captain Ridley. "Are you busy, sir?"

"Not with anything I can't get back to. What's on your mind, Captain?"

Ridley entered, closing the door behind him. "It was one of the safe-houses we hit. There was nobody there, except for two dead men."

Paul raised an eyebrow. "Just two? How did they die?"

"GSW for both, sir. And that's where it gets interesting. One was shot in the face, in the safe house. He'd been pulling a gun, or so it seemed. It was lying near his hand, anyway. Now for the other one, there was a blood splatter near the gun, and a trail of blood leading outside to where he was. He'd been shot in the wrist, and then forced outside and shot again in the head, execution style."

"Execution style …" repeated Paul slowly. "Like Shadow Stalker was."

Ridley nodded. "Yes, sir. Our best guess is that they were both in the safe house, someone came in, our first vic—some nobody called Tommy Knicks—goes for his gun and gets shot in the face. The second vic doesn't have a gun, so he goes for Tommy's, and gets shot in the wrist for his trouble. Then he gets dragged outside, forced to kneel, and takes one in the head there."

Paul frowned. "I notice you haven't named the second victim. Is that the interesting aspect?"

"Yes, sir." Ridley smiled grimly. "His prints popped right away. Larry Peterson. Went away as a juvenile on a charge of murder one, got out when he turned eighteen, and joined the Empire Eighty-Eight more or less straight away."

"Wait …" Paul knew that name. "Peterson … isn't he the one who …"

"… murdered Fleur, yeah." Ridley raised his eyebrows. "Like I said, sir. Interesting."

"Very much so. How are forensics on recovered bullets?"

Ridley grimaced and sucked air through his teeth. "Not so great, sir. One went through Knicks' head then hit a brick wall, and the other went through Peterson's head and hit concrete."

"And the one through Peterson's wrist?"

"Tile floor, sir. Impossible to reconstruct, they say."

"Fingerprints on the brass?"

"Wiped clean."

"So, there's no way to pin the deaths on any one person." Paul ran his thumbnail over his lower lip. "Any witnesses?"

"I asked around, sir. Nobody's admitting to even knowing about the deaths. To hear them talk about it, they walked out, Knicks and Peterson stayed behind, then someone came in and murdered them both, but took Peterson out of the building first."

"Well, it could have been the ABB, getting a little payback for something he maybe did on the inside." But Paul didn't believe it for a second.

"That's one theory, sir. And I like it better than the other one."

Paul tilted his head. "Which one is that?"

"You tell me. Who do we know, who could make a room full of hardened criminals swear they didn't see someone murder one of their own, then drag another one out to their death? If it is him, he's been out of the scene for years, so there's minimal chance that Peterson ever did anything personal to him. That makes this a contract hit. And who has the biggest motive for that?"

There was only one viable answer. "New Wave. They saw the opportunity for revenge, and they took it." He shook his head. "You're right. I like the other theory better." Specifically, he liked it because it didn't come attached to a huge can of worms.

"Well, it's not like we've got more than circumstantial evidence either way." Ridley grimaced. "Good luck getting the Dark to roll over on his clientele."

"I believe I'll pass on that attempt." Paul shook his head. "I will also refrain from any attempt to make such a shaky case stick, not with Brandish on the stand."

"Copy that, sir. Maybe … Peterson went nuts and shot Knicks in the safe-house? Someone got a lucky shot into his wrist to make him drop the gun, then they dragged him outside and killed him because he was a danger to them? Then they left the scene of the crime." Ridley tilted his head. "Does that sound plausible, sir?"

Paul didn't like lying in reports. It felt untidy. However, the alternative was to risk a highly problematic schism with New Wave right when they needed all the assistance they could get. In any case, it wouldn't be the first time he'd swept just such a problem under the rug. "I've heard stranger stories."

Ridley nodded. "Me too. It'll go into the 'death by stupidity' file. I have no doubt that every now and again, someone will probably look it up, make the New Wave connection, and decide to leave it as it is. After all, to put it very bluntly, nothing of value was lost."

Though he raised his eyebrows, Paul chose not to dispute the point. "And I'm guessing that they weren't the only two to die today?"

"No. They weren't." Ridley sighed. "A few idiots tried to shoot it out with the troopers. We fired back. Not all of them survived to make it to the hospital."

While he wasn't personally crude enough to make the observation 'fuck around and find out', Paul was quite familiar with it. "And all our wounded survived?"

"Panacea did stellar work." Ridley smiled for the first time. "There were only a few bad ones, but with Shielder, Glory Girl, Laserdream and Lady Photon acting as medevac, they all got back in time to be saved."

"Good, good." Paul leaned back in his chair, suddenly pensive. "What we were talking about earlier, how both Peterson and Shadow Stalker were killed execution style … do you think it's possible that the Dark did both?"

Ridley paused thoughtfully. "No. He had no reason to kill Shadow Stalker. Hookwolf and Cricket, sure. They got on his bad side. I can't see the kid even hitting his radar, much less pissing him off bad enough that he'd go out of his way to kill her. It had to be the Empire."

"That's a reasonable analysis, yes." Paul held up a finger as an entirely new scenario occurred to him. "Wait. Wait, wait, wait. What if … now bear with me, here … what if someone in the Empire, one of the capes, saw which way the wind was blowing and decided to sow discord in our ranks? They go to that safe-house and announce they're going to kill Peterson to make it look like New Wave called a hit on him. Knicks objects and gets shot. Nobody else makes a peep. Peterson goes for Knicks' gun, gets shot, then dragged outside and murdered. The body gets left out in plain view for anyone to find and identify. The whole aim being to drive a wedge between us and New Wave."

"Jesus." Ridley's eyes opened wide as an expression of enlightenment spread across his face. "Yeah. Yeah. I can actually see Kaiser ordering that. Someone like Victor could've totally pulled it off and been the guy who popped Shadow Stalker, too. I think you've figured it out, sir."

"You do?" Paul felt a twinge of relief. He hadn't really believed the concept of Peterson going crazy, but this one had weight behind it and left New Wave in the clear. And to be honest, he felt more at home with the idea of the Empire callously murdering one of their own than with New Wave finally taking belated revenge. It made sense.

"Absolutely. With what Stormtiger said, we've got reason to suspect Victor for Shadow Stalker, so why couldn't he have done both?" Ridley spread his hands. "Not exactly an open-and-shut case, but with the right prosecutor and judge, we might just get him into the Birdcage."

Paul knew the process of remanding villains to Baumann was a little more stringent than that, but if Victor was found guilty of murdering a Ward in cold blood as a hate crime, he'd be well on the way to meeting the criteria. He didn't want to disillusion Ridley, so he nodded instead. "It sounds like a plan. Thank you for filling me in, Captain."

"Not a problem, sir." Ridley turned and left the office, closing the door behind him.

Paul leaned back in his chair, holding a pencil at each end between his index fingers. This hadn't been the first unexpected consequence of Shadow Stalker's death, and it probably wouldn't be the last. He just hoped nothing else would be quite so momentous.

<><>​

Secret Underground Base

Coil

What a fucking day.

Thomas Calvert, now clad in his other working clothes, stepped up in front of his mercenaries. He was off-duty at the moment, but he'd be back on at oh-dark-thirty, so he had to give his orders now instead of later. "If you hadn't heard by now, the entire cape roster of the Empire Eighty-Eight is either dead, fled, or in custody. Many of their foot-soldiers have also been swept up. This opens up an opportunity to us. Tonight, I will be sending you locations to hit. If the Dark needs to appear, he will do so."

Frankoff stood a little taller at that, while the other men slapped him on the back. Thomas judged that they enjoyed having him there to make the opposition crumble without a fight. Which was, to be honest, quite fair. While his men had all been hired for their capability in battle, he hadn't wanted raving berserkers. A good soldier was just as happy to not have to fight.

Nobody ever slapped me on the back like that. He forced down his momentary resentment. These men were under his pay; they acted to his whim. He was in control, not them.

"So get your rest, but stand ready," he commanded. "I will be sending you orders as the situation evolves. The Empire Eighty-Eight is dead, and tonight we feast upon its corpse."

This time, they cheered him. He stood there, basking in the adulation, the smile on his face hidden beneath the morph mask.

Yes. This is what it's all about.

The only blemish on his horizon was that he hadn't managed to take control of the investigation into himself for the Shadow Stalker shooting, but that wasn't really an issue, given that he was actually innocent of all that.

Nobody's got anything on me.

<><>​

ABB Territory

Lung

Kenta smiled beneath his metal mask as he looked over the men and women who had flocked to his cause. "Tonight is a momentous night!" he proclaimed. "Our greatest enemy has fallen, and all we had to do was stand back and watch! Tonight, we rule Brockton Bay's underworld unchallenged! Tonight, we reap the rewards of our patience! Tonight, we seize what is ours!"

Cheers arose from his people. More than a few bottles were being passed around, but he pretended not to see. They had earned their celebration.

Caught up in the fervour, one of his men stepped forward. "Tell us what to do, great Lung!"

He hadn't asked for the interruption, but he was still riding the high of knowing that he had finally, unequivocally, won. Besides, asking for instruction was quite low in the scale of such things. "You will go out into what was once Empire territory," he commanded. "Each time you see an Empire tag, you will cover it over with an ABB tag. If you see a store that seems prosperous, you will explain to them that they are under my protection now and take one hundred dollars as a down payment for future protection. And if you see anyone wearing Empire colours, you will end them!"

That statement, unsurprisingly, drew more cheers. Many of his people pulled guns and other weapons out and brandished them, though they did not fire into the ceiling, mainly because he had banned the practice due to it being a waste of ammunition.

None of the men asked what they should do if anyone refused to pay. They knew exactly what was to be done. Nobody ever refused twice, which merely proved the efficacy of their business model.

Though one of them did have a legitimate question. "What if we are stopped by the heroes or the PRT?"

"You will call me," Lung responded, then forced himself to grow a little larger, a little more draconic. His voice took on a rasping rumble. "And I will show them the error of their ways."

They cheered him all over again.

Truly, it was a good time to be alive.

<><>​

Chicago

Lightstar

Mike frowned as he recognised the number on his mobile. What's Sarah want now? He'd gone as close to no-contact with his sisters as he could without officially cutting ties, but she apparently still had his contact details. This could be bad. Sarah meant New Wave, which meant dredging up memories he never wanted to revisit.

The temptation was there to decline the call, but Sarah had never been the pushy one. That was all Carol. If it was her making the call, he would've blocked her already—their last conversation had been acrimonious, to say the least—but he still had enough time for Sarah to see what she wanted.

Getting up from the armchair, he thumbed the Accept icon as he left the room. If he was going to raise his voice, it wasn't going to be in front of his family. His actual family.

"Hello?"

"Mike." Sarah sounded upbeat, which meant the news wasn't immediately bad. Nobody was hurt, then. "Have you been keeping up with the news?"

"You're going to have to narrow that down a little for me, sis." She was the only one he called by that nickname. Carol always got her given name.

"Brockton Bay news. We took down the Empire Eighty-Eight today." She seemed to be bubbling over with excitement. "We finally did it."

That startled him considerably. He'd managed to keep the name of that gang out of his mind for years now, but to find out they were finished seemed too good to be true. "What? You you, or everyone?" It didn't seem likely that New Wave on their own had managed that particular feat.

Slowly, with prodding for the occasional detail, the story unfolded. When Hookwolf and Cricket fell afoul of the infamous Dark (and there was a name he'd thought he'd left behind) that seemed to have been the initial inciting incident. Shadow Stalker hadn't been around when he was there—unsurprising, as Sarah noted she'd been a Ward—but her murder at the hands of the Empire as some kind of misplaced payback was what had truly set the train in motion.

The fighting had been fierce at times, while other members of the Empire had been blindsided and taken down with barely a struggle. Alabaster, trapped in containment foam, had apparently raved non-stop with a truly impressive command of profanity. By the time the dust had cleared, all the capes loyal to the Empire Eighty-Eight were either behind bars or pre-emptively gone from the city, and Medhall (he could hardly believe it had been a cover organisation all this time) shut down preparatory to a thorough investigation into its operations.

"You should've seen us," Sarah enthused. "We absolutely cleaned their clocks. Amy was set up in the PRT building, putting our wounded back on their feet as fast as they came in. Their wounded had to lump it."

"I can see how that would've been useful," he agreed. "So yeah, this is great news, but nothing I wouldn't have learned about sooner or later anyway. Why the tearing hurry to tell me about it now?"

She hesitated. "Because … I've got something to show you. And I need you to come to Brockton Bay for it."

"What? No!" He shook his head. "I swore I would never set foot in that goddamn city ever again. Whatever it is, you can tell me about it now." It had taken him longer than he'd thought to get to the voice-raising part, but there he was.

"I can't." She took a deep breath, audible over the phone. "This is something I need to show you personally, or not at all. And I really, really want you to see it."

"Sarah …" He tried to find the words to tell her how unreasonable she was being. "I have a family. Kids. I can't just run off to Brockton Bay. Just tell me what this is all about."

"I'm sorry. I can't." And she truly was sorry; he could tell from her tone of voice. She'd never been able to hide that sort of thing from him. Sarah had always worn her heart on her sleeve. "I don't even like mentioning it over the phone."

"Christ." He fell silent for a moment, trying to figure out what she was talking about. What was so great she wanted to tell him, but didn't dare refer to it except in the most general of terms? "Sarah, what's going on? What's the big secret?"

"If you want to know that, come to Brockton Bay." He knew her well enough to know that she wasn't going to budge. Carol was the more stubborn, but only by a matter of degree.

"Or I can ignore what you've said, and stay right here in Chicago, where I've got a job and a life." His riposte was weak and he knew it, but it was all he had to work with. While he wasn't officially going out as a hero, he helped out the local PRT from time to time, keeping things on the down-low. It worked for him, and he didn't want to upset the applecart.

"You could do that. But then you'd never know." Deliberately, she switched topics on him. "So, how are the kids, anyway?"

He knew what she was doing, but he was determined not to crack and end up begging for hints. So instead, he gave her the rundown on what he'd been doing recently, and the details of the last birthday party he'd thrown for his kids. They were still too young to really know what was going on, but it had been fun anyway.

She responded with anecdotes about what Crystal and Eric had been up to recently, and how they'd all kicked ass (except for Amy) against the Empire. Neil was doing well, Mark seemed to be about the same as always, and Carol was still definitely Carol.

"Well, this has been nice," he said, after she seemed to run down. "It's been good to hear from you. Thanks for not … well, you know." For not badgering him to come back and rejoin New Wave, he meant.

"Well, no. You're where you want to be. You've made that clear enough."

"Have I? Carol didn't seem to think so, the last I spoke with her."

She sighed. "Carol … is carrying burdens that she really should put down, but doesn't know how to. She has trouble letting go of preconceived notions. You know that."

"And one of those notions is that I should still be in New Wave." Knowing it still didn't make it any easier to handle. "Do you think that too?"

"I'd love it if you wanted to come back, even for a visit, but I'm not going to try to insist." He could hear the smile in her voice. "I just want my baby brother to be happy."

"Even if it made Carol unhappy?" He didn't know why he was pushing the issue.

"You coming back for good would make you unhappy, which wouldn't really help her state of mind. I'd rather one of you be happy."

"And are you happy these days?" The question had to be asked.

She paused long enough that he wondered if she was going to answer at all. "… yes. I think so. We're really starting to make a difference. Cleaning up the city. I'm busy but yes, I'm happy too."

"Sarah," he said seriously. "If you have to stop and ask yourself if you're happy, and if all you can say is 'I think so', then maybe you're not. Happy, I mean."

"Well, after today, I'm happier than I have been in a while." She chuckled. "You should've seen Othala's face when she realised we weren't fooled."

"I bet." He grinned, looking out into the darkness from the porch. His eyes, adjusting automatically, picked out the movement of a stray cat through the light snow that had fallen earlier. "But maybe, once the fuss and bother has died down there, you could come visit. Meet your nephew and niece."

She sighed again. "You know, I might just do that."

"Well, I won't try to insist, but …" He let the words trail off.

"Oh, you." The chuckle was in her voice again, as he'd intended by repeating her words back at her. "I'll see what I can do, okay?"

"See you when I see you."

"See you then."

He ended the call with a smile, then headed back to the living room, tapping his phone against his lips. Now, what was it she wants to show me, but can't just tell me about?

He couldn't fathom it for love nor money.

<><>​

Taylor

I sat back on the sofa with Chewie sprawled across my lap, legs in the air. He let out soft grunts of enjoyment as I rubbed his belly. I was still wondering if I was going to be hit by some great wave of guilt for standing by and recording a man's death, but it seemed to be affecting me as little as it was Chewie. In exceedingly blunt terms, Larry Peterson had been a murdering piece of shit, and he'd deserved no less.

"So, what's next?" I asked. "Do we give it a day or two, or do we go after Coil straight away?"

Dad set his jaw, and I saw the Dark in him more than I saw my father, perhaps for the first time ever. "Your mother and I spent too much time and effort building up the reputation of the Dark for some jumped-up would-be criminal mastermind to tear it down like this. I'm going out tonight. If you want to stay home, you can; I won't blame you if you do. People are going to die."

I shook my head. "No, Dad. We are going out tonight. Death's Head, the Dark …" On my lap, Chewie yawned and rolled over. "And Dog-Breath of Doom."

"You're sure?" He looked at me intently. "You're not just saying it because you think you have to?"

"You're my dad. You're the Dark." I gave him a half-smile. "And without Mom there, someone's gotta watch your back, right?"

"Well, there is that." He returned the smile. "And we're probably the most alliterative team in town, since the Empire Eighty-Eight went down."

"We are, aren't we?" That was kind of funny.

He snorted in amusement. "Of course, if you wanted to rename us, we could go with Danny and Taylor Hebert. Stick a word starting with E in there, and you have Death."

I shook my head. "I know you're not serious. You and Mom started the Dark, and that's what we'll keep going with. Besides, it lets me feel that she's still with us when it counts."

"True. Very true. And thank you." He reached across and squeezed my shoulder. "I appreciate the way you're stepping up."

"How could I not?" I put my hand on his. "Chewie and I are members of Dark now too."

I kind of meant the Chewie part as a joke, mainly to do with the fact that he'd actually been on more Dark missions than I had (and that Dad's re-emergence on the scene had been all about rescuing him for me), but Dad nodded seriously. "You are, that's true." He stood up from his end of the sofa and twisted his shoulders to pop his back into place again. "Well, it's about that time. Let's get ready and head out."

Handling Chewie carefully, I got up as well. "Time to rock and roll."

<><>​

The Dark

"Um, this is about as close as we can get."

Danny pulled the car to a halt and applied the handbrake. "Let me see."

Taylor handed the phone over, and he eyed the dot on the map that apparently represented Coil's hidden lair. Then he looked out the window at the nearby construction site.

"Want to know what I think?" Taylor scratched Chewie behind the ear, more or less automatically.

"I'm always interested in your input." Danny looked at the phone then back at the half-built structure.

"I think … what better way to conceal people coming and going at all hours, than by having it in a construction area? Put on a high-vis vest and a helmet, and you're instantly one of the crowd."

"Huh. You have a compelling point there." Danny looked at the building again, this time viewing it as protective camouflage. It would totally work. "However, the proof of the pudding and all that. Is there actually a base under there somewhere?"

"Hmm." Taylor looked thoughtful for a moment. "Well, there are bugs down there, and they're in an open space, but that doesn't mean they're not in a sewer or something. Can we get out and walk around?"

"We can do that." He took out his pistol and checked the chamber, and watched approvingly as Taylor did the same. She was picking up useful habits already.

They got out of the car, with Chewie on his leash, and began strolling in the direction that Taylor indicated. It wasn't too long before they reached the high fence around the construction area, and started around it, keeping to areas illuminated by street lighting. Danny took Chewie's leash while Taylor sketched in a notepad.

They made it all the way around the site—with some detours for other nearby buildings—after about half an hour. Chewie was panting happily after the walk, and Taylor's pencil had been quite busy. He handed the leash to her and unlocked the car, and they both got in.

Once Chewie was settled on Taylor's lap, Danny started the car and drove off. He didn't go far, just enough to satisfy any hidden watchers (or cameras) that they'd left the area. Pulling up in a side-street, he turned to her. "So, what did we get?"

"There's a whole Endbringer shelter down there, as far as I can tell." Reaching up, she flicked on the interior light and showed him her work. "A multi-storey underground area with people carrying guns, and several concealed ways in. One is a tunnel from under the construction area. There's another one that lets out into that parking garage we skirted around. I counted maybe fifty people inside."

"Huh." This was extremely valuable intel. "Is Coil on site?"

"Not that I could see." She ticked off points on her fingers. "Nobody off on their own. Nobody wearing a morph suit. Nobody who was tall and skinny giving orders."

He nodded slowly, agreeing with her points. "From what I've heard of Coil, he'd be doing at least one of those. Okay, so where is he? Home in bed?"

"Probably … whoa." She raised her head. "Something's up. There's a bunch of them moving around, like they're getting ready to do something."

Danny flicked off the internal light, put his hand on his pistol and glanced around. The night was still and quiet around the car. There was no sign that anything had changed. "If they're leaving, I want to know by which exit."

Taylor nodded. "Got it."

<><>​

Coil

The sergeant behind the wheel of the truck slowed for the intersection, glanced both ways, then kept on going. "It's quiet, sir," he observed over the gentle rumble of the engine. "Somehow, I expected it to be busier."

Thomas nodded. "We'll take our blessings where we can get them, sergeant. They could've quite easily been rioting because we took away their 'protectors'."

"Yes, sir. Says a lot that they're not doing a damn thing." The sergeant chuckled. "Seems to me that they just might prefer Kaiser and his scumbags to be gone for good."

"Maybe, maybe not. We'll see if things stay quiet over the next few days." They rolled past a jewellery store with a fairly elaborate frontage and an Empire graffiti tag next to it, and he took note of the address. "Pull up on the next block. The men can get out and stretch their legs for five."

"Sir, yes, sir." The sergeant rolled the truck through the intersection, then pulled over to the side of the road. Picking up the microphone on the dash, he keyed the talk button. "Okay, everyone out. Five-minute break."

Thomas opened his door and stepped out onto the sidewalk, stretching his arms above his head and working the kinks from his back. He paid little attention to the sergeant putting three men on sentry duty while the rest settled down around the truck or walked around.

Pulling out his burner phone, he sent a quick text, appending the address of the jewellery store. By the time his mercenaries got there, he and his strike squad would be long gone. Their orders were to show up on site and wait for the go/no go call. He didn't want to split time this early in case he needed it for his own welfare on patrol.

He tucked the burner away and strolled around the truck, returning salutes as they were given. The men were casually chatting, and he noted that they sounded cheerful, not grumpy. He smelled the enticing odour of coffee as one trooper poured a cup from a thermos, but moved along.

At the end of the five minutes, he climbed back into the truck and strapped himself in. With the men loaded on board again, the truck started up and they rolled off down the street.

It was quiet, alright. Just the way he liked it.

<><>​

Death's Head

With my bugs, I followed the men as they grabbed their weapons (at least, they felt like weapons to the bugs I had crawling on them) and headed for the exit. "They're leaving via the parking garage."

"Understood." Dad started the car and we drove about a block, and then stopped again. "Let me know which way they go when they leave."

"Sure thing." I sat and petted Chewie, who of course soaked up the attention as his rightful due, as I waited for the men to get into the two cars parked in the garage. "Two cars. I can't make out the plates. One of the men has a phone; I can see the glow of the screen but I can't read it. If I had to guess, he just got instructions."

"That's reasonable," agreed Dad.

I watched as the cars left the garage. One of my worries had been that they might go in different directions, but one seemed to be following the other. "Okay, they turned left." I pointed. "That way."

Dad started the car again, and began to follow the cars. This was different from every time I'd ever seen it in the movies or TV shows; we were literally a block over and behind the two-car convoy, entirely out of their line of sight. They were the only two cars on the road where they were, and yet we were sticking to them like glue.

When we were deep in what had been Empire territory, they pulled over and parked; I wasn't quite sure why. But I relayed this to Dad, so we cautiously got closer and finally parked a little way down the block, around the corner from where they were. Some of them got out of the cars, but the majority stayed inside. However, the only thing that happened was that the guy with the phone tapped out a message.

I told Dad all this, and he nodded. "Stay in the car." Opening the door, he got out.

While I wanted to protest and say I was good enough to go with him, I knew that wasn't the truth. At his side, I'd be a liability. In the car, I could cover him and Coil's goons with room to spare.

Well, I was going to be the best damn cover he ever had.

<><>​

'The Dark'

Frankoff, leaning against the car's hood, checked his phone again. He'd messaged the boss that they were in position and ready to roll as soon as they got the green light. Specifically, the message went: 'Here'. All they were waiting for was the answer. Anything starting with 'G' would be a green light, while any word starting with 'R' would be a wave-off. Frankoff had learned to not question the boss's decisions; they always turned out to be correct.

The phone pinged just as a car rolled down the street, deep thumping bass making the windows vibrate. He checked the message: Geranium.

"Okay, guys," he said. "Soon as these assholes are gone, let's go … what the fuck?"

As he spoke, the car with the music pulled in across the street, right outside the jewellery store. Having been about to take a step forward, he halted and waved everyone back. He didn't know what was going on, but witnesses to a break-in were a bad thing, even if you worked for Coil.

Either they'd been crammed into the car or it was bigger than it looked, because no fewer than six solidly built ABB gang members got out of their car once the bass stopped its incessant beat. Frankoff didn't have any particular disdain for Asians in general, but the visible tattoos on these guys looked more than a little worrying. Plus, they were ripped.

One shook up a spray can and headed for where the Empire Eighty-Eight tag was. Frankoff knew what was going on now; the ABB were striking while the iron was hot, stealth-claiming the suddenly unoccupied territory. He had no problem with that. As soon as they were gone, he and his men would be hitting the jewellery store.

"Hey!" One of the men pointed across the road at them. "What the fuck you doing?"

Shit. Frankoff straightened from the hood of the car, and pulled his mask on. Seeing this, the rest of the guys started paying attention. There weren't as many ABB as his men, but all they had to do was one spray of autofire. He didn't want to lose anyone to an unnecessary fight.

"Are you afraid of the Dark?" he called out, hefting his gun just to make his point. The armoured-truck guards had basically shit their drawers when he'd said this; even their cape had stood aside while his men raided the truck. These guys would crumble just as fast—

"I believe that's my line."

The words, delivered with supreme menace, had come from up the street a little. He turned and saw a dramatically silhouetted figure, with shadows swirling around him. Just for a second, they looked like a skull.

In that moment, Frankoff knew two things, but failed to recognise a third. First: the Dark was real. Second: he had fucked up, massively, by agreeing to this masquerade.

The thing he didn't realise was where the danger would come from.

He never saw the figure on top of the building, crumbling to ash.

<><>​

Oni Lee

All seemed to be going well, until the men down below pointed across the street. Lee had noticed the two cars, but so long as the men in them didn't aggress on Lung's men, they would be forgiven for existing. But when the one man stood forward and claimed to be the Dark, that was when he drew his knife.

He was just about to teleport down and end the fool's life when the second voice spoke up. His head jerked around at the tone. That was the tone of a killer. He knew it well enough; his own voice held that tone.

That made one fake Dark, and one … real one? The Dark was real? He had trouble conceiving of that. Lung had stated otherwise.

No matter. He would kill them both. First, the pretender, to get the distraction out of the way. Then the other. His way never failed.

He moved, reappearing behind the first so-called Dark, in the midst of the man's allies. Even as he grabbed the fool with one hand and brought his knife around with the other, he was moving onward, toward the other one.

The shadows were deeper here, despite there being a street-light not far away. But he'd seen the vague shape of the second Dark, and so he knew where to teleport to. He appeared behind his foe, grabbing for the tall man's shoulder, only for his hand to slip straight through a swirling cloud of … bugs?

Far too late, he registered the movement at his side, and turned his head to see a gun barrel.

It was the last thing he would ever see.

Fu—

<><>​

The Dark (the real one)

Danny registered Oni Lee appearing behind the false Dark. Bugs swirled around him, drawing shapes in the night air. The blade in Lee's hand had not yet sliced open the imposter's throat when Lee appeared right next to him. It wasn't even difficult to raise his gun and fire. One point-blank shot, one dead ABB assassin.

Thanks, Taylor. That was a lot easier than it might have been.

The false Dark convulsed and died as Lee's teleport-clone collapsed to ash. Now was the time to strike, while both sides were stunned by the sudden deaths.

"Gentlemen!" he called out. "This is the point where you must ask yourselves. Are you … afraid … of the Dark?"

A moment passed, while gangsters and thugs alike glanced at him then at each other, and decided that they were indeed afraid of the Dark. Both groups, showing newfound unwillingness to contest the name with him, piled into their respective cars and burned rubber out of there. He stood alongside Oni Lee's cooling body for a moment longer, then turned and walked back to the car.

"Well," he said as he climbed back into the driver's seat. "That's dealt with."

"Cool." Taylor grinned. "Did you like my bug shapes?"

He nodded. "They were useful. Are Coil's mercenaries heading back to base?"

"As far as I can tell."

"Good." He smiled coldly and started the car. "I have a bone to pick with that man."



End of Part Eleven
 
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Coil is probably shitting himself once he finds out Dark is after him.
 
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Utterly no great loss at all. Let him KNOW he's hunted...and his scum saving isn't going to save him this time.
 
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Part Twelve: Into the Lair of the Serpent
Are You Afraid of the Dark?

Part Twelve: Into the Lair of the Serpent

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

[A/N 2: Apologies for the delay. Head and chest cold have been kicking my ass.]

A/N 3: I have noticed that the time-date stamps for the chapters don't actually reflect the passage of time as shown within the chapters. So I've gone back to fix them. This chapter is up to date (so to speak).]




Death's Head

We caught up with Coil's guys as they returned to his base. In other words, we got close enough for me to pick out the bugs I'd ordered to stay put in their vehicle.

They weren't quite fleeing, but they weren't exactly dawdling either. I figured Dad must have spooked them somewhat, having appeared out of nowhere as though their faux Dark's act had accidentally conjured him out of some eldritch dimension.

In a way, that was almost correct, even if all the essential details were wrong. The fact was, we had actually been there because of Coil's impostor. As for it being accidental … well, he certainly hadn't meant for us to show up, so that was technically accurate.

Under my careful direction, Dad got us closer behind the two cars carrying Coil's goons. There wasn't much traffic out and about, but we were able to break the line of sight enough times that they didn't suspect we were following them. Or rather, they weren't making urgent phone calls sending text messages, or looking in their rearview mirrors more than usual, so that was the conclusion I came to.

They drove into the parking garage they'd come from in the first place and got out of the vehicle while Dad and I pulled up outside. This time, I'd prepared more thoroughly; by the time they got to the base entrance, each mercenary was carrying a substantial load of bugs in hard-to-spot places. Equally important, the concealed keypad had tiny bugs perched on each key, so when one of them tapped in the entry code, I could write it down in my notepad.

Dad glanced at it, then got out of the car. "Wait here," he murmured, then ghosted into the shadows.

I knew where he was, of course. With all the bugs I'd been gathering in the vicinity, I would've had to be literally in a coma to not know where he was. I wasn't exactly comfortable with him going into the lion's den (or would that the snake pit?) alone, but we'd talked about it.

Several factors militated against me accompanying him. First, someone had to watch Chewie, and it would kind of ruin the implacable image if I showed up carrying a puppy. Second, he was used to working alone or with someone as well-trained as he was. Even with my powers and all the things he was showing me, I was little more than a talented amateur, and he didn't need the distraction that watching out for me would cost him. Third, one person could be twice as stealthy as two (see above about my relative lack of training). And finally, even if I stayed out of the action, it wasn't like I couldn't help him out anyway.

By the time he got near the keypad, I'd located all the cameras in the vicinity, and my bugs were doing what bugs do best: randomly walking over the lenses at the worst possible time. Even if someone were watching every camera with hawk-like attention (they weren't; my bugs had crap vision, but I could still use them to detect posture) they'd only see what I wanted them to see. Dad could ease up to the keypad and tap in the code I'd given him.

With a friendly beep, the apparently solid concrete wall slid aside, and Dad was in.

<><>​

The Dark

As he stepped through the open doorway, Danny allowed himself a brief half-smile. Normally, this kind of incursion would've only been possible after extensive recon and information-gathering, and there'd be more than one person coming in. A hacker would be tapped into their electronics by now, taking over the cameras and looping footage as needed.

He didn't need any of that this time, because he had Taylor.

He kept the layout plan in his head as he moved through the base. His pistol was out and held low, ready to fire if necessary, but he was fully aware that even a suppressed shot (Hollywood had a lot to answer for) would echo forever in these concrete passageways. At the edge of his vision, he saw the swarm that had ridden in with him as it spread farther through the base, vastly augmenting Taylor's supply of insects already within the walls.

The sound of bootsteps came to him before the voices, echoing from around the corner leading to a side corridor. In the next moment, three fireflies lit up before him, blinking in a steadily increasing rhythm. He took a moment to see how Taylor had them arranged on the wall and nodded.

There was no place for him to hide, and he seriously doubted that any bunch of fifty mercenaries would be unfamiliar enough with each other's faces that he could pretend to be one of them. Likewise, the old 'hey, nice to meet you, I just transferred in' ploy, while surprisingly effective under certain circumstances, was likely to fall flat in less than ten seconds against people who were actually on the ball. Retreat was also off the table, mainly because he had a personal aversion to being shot in the back.

Which left exactly one option.

<><>​

The human brain takes time to react to changing circumstances, especially when confronted with danger in what was previously considered a safe environment. Those untrained in dealing with crises may freeze altogether. At the same time, even well-trained individuals can take up to five seconds to register and react competently to danger from an unexpected quarter.

In a not entirely unrelated side-note, I find that when a smaller force takes a numerically superior one by surprise, the advantageous move is to go on the attack, as hard and fast as possible. Getting in among them gives you a target-rich environment and allows you the best chance of killing or disabling as many people as possible in the time it takes them to react to your presence. This attack also engenders a strong shock and awe aspect, which can only help your cause.

In situations like that, it's amazing how much you can get done in five seconds.


- from the collected notes of Daniel Hebert

<><>​

Cued by the bugs, Danny went around the corner just before the three mercenaries reached it. They were all wearing body armour, including helmets with faceplates, but that wasn't really a problem. Absently, he considered the idea that Coil had somehow acquired some PRT gear and had it repainted for his guys. Nothing was sacred to the man, it seemed.

Independent from his musings, his body was already in action. The suppressor of his pistol went up under the helmet faceplate of the closest guard, and he pulled the trigger. Using a human head as extra sound muffling was something he'd done more than once; the auditory absorptive quality of brain matter was quite useful in his line of work.

As the bullet created a slight protrusion from the top of the helmet—Danny was glad he wouldn't have to be wearing that one, what with the mess that would now be splattered over the inside of it—he used his left hand to drive his knife point-first into the throat of the second guard, then ripped sideways. The concrete wall and floor beside the guard were painted red almost on the instant, which wasn't very surprising, seeing that Danny had opened up not only the man's windpipe but also his carotid artery and jugular vein. He'd live a little longer than the man Danny had shot in the head, but only by a matter of seconds.

The two bodies crumpled to the floor, and Danny surged forward over them to confront the third guard. This guy had had just enough time to realise that something Very Bad was happening, but not enough to figure out what to do about it, so he made the worst possible move. He tried to do two things at once: running (the natural instinct in that circumstance) and unslinging his rifle (which had evidently been drummed into him). As he backed up and turned, his fumbling with the rifle unbalanced him, and he tripped over his own feet; Danny would've taken him down anyway, but this just made the job easier.

He came down hard on the guard's back with his knee; holstering the pistol and dropping the knife, he grabbed the helmet with both hands and hauled it back with a slight twist. As the guard flailed beneath him, he pulled until he judged he'd reached the limit of travel for the luckless man's muscles and vertebrae, then essayed a sharp twist, yanking the guy's head around a good ninety degrees. There was a rending crack, and the guard spasmed and then went limp under him.

Taking up the knife, he wiped it off on the guard's sleeve—he'd be cleaning it properly later, of course, but congealing blood inside a sheath could make it hard to pull in a hurry—and sheathed it, then took up the guard's rifle. The cylindrical apparatus slung under the barrel wasn't something he'd seen before, though he had heard rumours that Coil's men were equipped with Tinkertech. Thoughtfully, he aimed it at the wall and pressed the square red plastic button on the side; a Tinker may have constructed it, but it was also intended for the lowest common denominator to use without issue—big red button equalled danger.

He was accompanied by a sharp smell of ozone and a pop of ionising air, an actinic purple beam shot out from the device and began to burn a hole in the wall. He let off the button and raised his eyebrows. Either that was the world's most aggressive laser sight, or Coil believed in equipping his men to do cape levels of damage when they were out and about.

He took up all three rifles and slung them over his shoulder, then headed in the direction of where Taylor's diagram had indicated the armoury would be found. The clock was now ticking. Those guards had been going somewhere, possibly to investigate why the door had opened and closed again, and whoever had dispatched them would soon be wondering why they hadn't checked yet.

Both he and Taylor knew that he was good, but every time he engaged with any of the opposition, there would be the chance that the noise of the conflict would just draw more into the fight. Forewarned, they would be much less of a pushover, and numbers would surely begin to tell. He preferred to avoid all that; he was a hitman, not some action hero.

The alarm had not yet sounded by the time he got to the armoury. Even before he stuck his head around the corner, he knew (thanks to Taylor) that there was a guard on the door, but nobody else in the vicinity. This, he figured, was probably standard procedure; if the alert had been given, there would be more than one at this important post.

He paused and passed his hand over his eyes. Then he unslung one of the rifles, rested his thumb lightly on the activation button of the laser, and stepped around the corner. Taylor was on the ball; even as the guard came into view, Danny could see the bugs clustering around the helmet faceplate, crawling up under it and utterly distracting the man at this crucial point.

He levelled the rifle and pressed the button, lancing the same actinic beam across the twenty feet that separated them, into the man's chest. The muted crack that resulted was quieter than either the rifle or suppressed pistol would have been; he dragged the beam sideways for half a second before releasing the button, causing the stink of burned meat to join that of ozone. As the guard fell over, Danny saw the scorched line in the concrete wall behind him, the beam having gone all the way through in less time than it took to think about it.

Hustling over to the guard, Danny determined that he was dead. Then he checked the armoury door; it was secured by both a card-swipe and an electronic keypad. Frowning, he looked down at the guard, fully aware that even if the man had been carrying the appropriate card, there was no way of coercing the code out of him now.

On the other hand … he looked thoughtfully again at the laser.

<><>​

Coil

Thomas' phone beeped an alert. He stilled a frown; what was going on now? Affecting unconcern, he took it out and checked the screen.

The content of the message sent a chill down his back. Someone had just forced their way into the base armoury, damaging the lock in the process. This was a silent alarm, sent directly to him so as not to alert any turncoats to his knowledge of their perfidy. But the question was, who the hell was doing this behind his back?

He already knew about the loss of Frankoff, but he'd ordered his mercenaries back to base upon getting the news. According to the less than coherent report, both Oni Lee and someone they tentatively identified as the actual Dark had been involved. He'd wanted to hear the full story, face to face, before he made his next move in this matter. Especially, he wanted to find out what the hell was going on with this mythical bogeyman who had supposedly manifested for real.

But now on top of that, someone in his employ had betrayed him. He couldn't figure it out. Had this brand-new Dark spooked them so badly that they would rather turn on him?

Oni Lee was dead, and so was his faux Dark; there was no option to change that. He'd simply carried on from where he was, having his troopers follow a different patrol route in each of the timelines. Now he was starting to wish he'd held back a timeline, because it seemed the loss of Frankoff was having knock-on effects that he'd failed to anticipate.

Exactly what had happened still had to be figured out, but he was absolutely going to get to the bottom of that, too. His power was all about making the right choices (for his own personal well-being, naturally), so he needed to learn where he'd gone wrong with that one.

The most irritating aspect of all this was that the breach of the armoury was happening in both timelines, so he couldn't actually rule out an arbitrary outside factor. Actually, that was the second most irritating aspect; most irritating was the fact that he couldn't simply choose to cancel the entire expedition, and keep his base armoury unscathed. That ship had long since sailed.

"Commander Calvert?" asked the driver in both timelines. "Is everything okay?" It seemed he hadn't been as good at concealing his emotions as he'd thought he was.

In the first timeline, he shook his head. "No. We're heading back to the PRT building, now."

In the second, he nodded. "Yes. Continue the patrol."

Dipping out halfway through the patrol would draw unwelcome attention, but he could use that timeline to determine exactly what the fuck was going on, then drop it for the second timeline where he could deal with the problem using his newfound knowledge.

In the meantime, he did the only thing he could at the moment: he sent a message in both timelines, activating the alarm system with the specific code that indicated the armoury was compromised. This would vector the guards currently on duty toward the armoury (he assumed the sentry who had been guarding it was either complicit or dead) and potentially deal with the problem before he even got there. Even if they didn't, they would gather information that he could hopefully use.

<><>​

The Dark

Danny heaved the door open, careful not to touch the smoking remains of the lock, and was five steps into the armoury before the alarm went off. Taylor wasn't alerting him with her bugs, so he figured he had a little time to play with, though the clock was definitely ticking loud and clear now. Looking around, he catalogued what he had to play with.

Pistols, there. Rifles, there. Ammunition, there. Laser modules on charge, there. Grenades, there.

He wasted no time in idle meanderings; re-slinging the rifle he'd used to kill the man outside, he played the undermounted laser from the second one over the other racked weapons. The harshly crackling beam, its ozone stink even more pronounced in the confined area, sliced through metal and plastic like a hot knife through warm butter. The only things he spared were the charging laser modules and the hand grenades: the former because he couldn't be sure that being cut in half by a laser wouldn't make their batteries explode, and the latter because he had his own plans for those.

He gathered up what he needed, and spent about thirty seconds ensuring that the next person to open the armoury door would receive a rather terminal surprise. Then he moved on, farther into the base. While he could have acquired one of the helmets to provide a little head protection, not to mention a moment of confusion on the part of any one he ran into, he decided not to. He had several reasons for this, but mainly because Taylor could provide more confusion than any disguise ever could.

He made good time, only having to duck into a side-passage once (on Taylor's recommendation) to avoid a bunch of guards going in the other direction. The clock in his head was ticking ever louder now, and he knew that if he wanted to achieve what he'd come down here to accomplish, he'd need to get it done sooner rather than later. So he kept going, planning out his moves in advance so he wouldn't have to stop and think once he got there.

Taylor warned him with a bunch of bugs just before more guards came around a corner right in front of him. This time, he didn't bother with suppressors or knives; he just brought the rifle to his shoulder and started shooting, one bullet per faceplate. Two and a half seconds later, they were all down and he was hurdling their corpses, moving faster now.

He knew the previous group had reached the armoury when the deep rumbling BOOOOM echoed through the corridors, sifting down concrete powder from the ceiling and making the floor shake underfoot. This was what happened when a single frag grenade wedged in the door set off a few more just inside; it appeared that the laser modules (which he'd stacked around the live grenades) were just as explosive as he suspected them to be. Almost at the same time, a hot wind blasted through the tunnels, followed by the sound of collapsing concrete.

Good thing there's more than one way out of this place.

A moment later, he came onto the open area he'd seen on the plan. There were catwalks above and crates below. None of the mercenaries he saw appeared to be armed, but that didn't mean there weren't weapons in their close proximity. Still, he'd gone loud, so it was time to show off a little.

"Tell me something!" he bellowed. "Are you afraid of the Dark?" As he spoke, he let the rifle fall on its sling and prepped an incendiary grenade, which he hurled toward the stack of crates. A second grenade, this one of the fragmentation variety, went toward an interesting-looking electronic console on the lower level. Stepping aside for a moment to allow the shrapnel from the latter to harmlessly pass him by, he kept an eye on his potential adversaries.

The crates were on fire and the console was a shredded mess after the grenades went off, so he started along the catwalk at a run. When one of the mercenaries pulled a pistol, Taylor surrounded the asshole's head with a swarm of stinging insects, so his first shot went wild. Danny put him out of everyone's misery with a single rifle shot to centre mass, then kept running.

Halfway to the next exit, he made a detour to another locked door. The laser on the third rifle burned through the lock, though it was somewhat sturdier than the armoury door, and he tossed in a frag and an incendiary grenade before he kept going. If, as Taylor strongly suspected, this was Coil's office, then the man was going to have to redecorate everything before it would be usable again.

He shot two more guards before he reached the other exit. The door was locked down, but that merely meant he would have to use the laser from the third rifle to carve his way through. He'd just begun when the quality and sound of the flashing lights and sirens echoing through the base altered noticeably. This was, he suspected, in response to the double explosion in Coil's office, though he didn't know what it meant.

Then the recorded message started playing. 'Base self-destruct activated. You have one minute to evacuate. Base self-destruct activated. You have fifty-five seconds to evacuate. Base self-destruct activated. You have fifty seconds to evacuate …'

Danny blinked, honestly surprised. In the twenty years he'd been dabbling in the cape scene, this was literally the first time he'd come across a supervillain base with a self-destruct mechanism. Coil, he decided, had been reading far too much lurid cape fiction.

He finished carving the lock out of the door and heaved it aside, then ducked into the tunnel beyond and started running. While he could run in pitch darkness (and had done so before) there were a series of muted lights in the corner of the roof of the corridor, allowing him to just barely see where he was going. Behind him, he could hear the countdown steadily progressing, and he set about putting as much space between himself and the base as possible.

The stairs were a welcome sight, but the metal trapdoor at the top was not, especially when it refused to move. He used the last of the battery power from the second and third lasers to carve it into sections, then stepped aside to let the glowing metal pieces fall down onto the stairs. As he emerged into the night air, he saw the headlights of the car coming around the corner, and smiled.

Taylor, of course, had been tracking him the whole way through, so when he started leaving by another way, she'd come to meet him. He was pleased both by her initiative and the fact that the driving lessons he'd been giving her were bearing fruit so early. Waving to her, he headed for the gate.

By his personal clock, the self-destruct had ten seconds to go, so he simply shot the lock away, shoved the gate aside, and dived into the back seat. "Drive," he said urgently. "The place is about to blow."

"Got it." Taylor sprayed gravel in a half-circle, then applied pedal to metal in no uncertain fashion. In the front passenger seat, Chewie yelped in surprise at the sudden acceleration. Danny ignored him, counting down in his head. Five … four … three … two … one …

They were a hundred yards away and still gaining ground when Danny felt the first juddering rumble through the suspension of the car, not unlike an earthquake he'd once experienced. Peering out through the rear window of the car, he thought he saw the ground split open here and there then close again, but the audible aspects of the self-destruct—a bunch of explosives seeded through the very structure of the base, if he wasn't much mistaken—were a lot more subtle than the palpable side of things. However, the half-constructed building was less fortunate about matters; Danny saw it sway and then begin to topple. That, at least, made a considerable amount of noise when it hit the ground.

"Holy shit," she said with admirable calm once the last of the echoes had died away and they were driving smoothly on the road once more. "How did you pull that off, exactly?"

"Built-in self-destruct," he said briefly. "Coil's the worst type of supervillain. He does what he thinks supervillains should do, without ever considering why he's doing it, or even if he should."

"Well, that's a thing." Without needing to be told, Taylor pulled over to the side of the road. The rifles went into the trunk, and Danny got into the driver's seat while Taylor joined Chewie in the passenger seat. "So, what are we doing next?"

"Right now? Home, for sleep." He glanced over at her. "Once Coil starts to regroup, we hit him again. Rinse and repeat. Wear down his resources."

"Until he sticks his head up where you can put a bullet in it?" Her tone didn't sound like she was guessing.

"Precisely." He set the car in motion. "I don't have a lot of rules, but your mom and I put a lot of work into that name. Nobody messes with it and lives."

Taylor scratched Chewie behind the ear, just the way he liked it. "Damn right." She paused, frowning. "Wait a minute. If I were him and I figured I was being targeted, I'd be inclined to set a trap at some point. How do we know he doesn't have a Thinker on speed-dial, so he can plan ahead of you?"

"He does." Danny smiled coldly. "Or rather, he did, until recently. Remember the Undersiders?"

"Yeah, but—" It only took her that long to get his point. "Tattletale? She's his Thinker?"

"That's my guess, yes. When we were talking to them, everyone else was very respectful, but she was utterly terrified of us. With her talents, she would have picked up the fact that I had zero intention of harming them if they played straight with us. So … why was she petrified with fear?"

Taylor stroked Chewie slowly as she answered. "Because she'd done something that she thought was likely to get her killed."

"That was my read, yes." Danny felt a surge of pride at how well Taylor was coming along. "Now, the only thing that's caused us any problems recently is the impersonation gambit. My guess is that she suggested it to him, then got a horrible surprise when we showed up on her doorstep. For all she knew, I'd figured it out ahead of time, and was there to shoot her right in the head." He paused significantly. "The question is, why would a Thinker suggest such a risky course of action to her boss?"

Taylor only took a second or so to get it. "She hates him. Wants him dead. Especially considering all the information she gave us on him. Which means she isn't working for him willingly."

"That would be my conclusion, as well." He bared his teeth in a smile as he drove. "Even if he contacts her, the last thing she's going to give him is a straight answer."

Leaning back in the seat, Taylor snuggled Chewie to her. "Mwahahaha."

<><>​

Throwaway Timeline

Coil


Thomas Calvert had been in and around military or military-adjacent command structures for more than a decade; in this time, he had acquired a better than average command of profanity in its many and varied forms. Having seen the slightly-subsided area of ground where his base had once been, he found himself lost for words. No matter what he might have said, it would have been inadequate for the situation.

The survivors stood before him, all fourteen of them. They represented a twenty-eight percent survival rate of the men he'd had stationed in the base. That was shocking by any metric, or it would've been if he actually had any kind of investment in their well-being. As far as he was concerned, they were mercenaries; if they got killed, they were taking a hit that otherwise might have gotten to him, and he didn't have to pay them anymore after that.

"The Dark? Really?" He was still having trouble coming to terms with the idea that the imaginary bogeyman of Brockton Bay had actually shown up to express an opinion on his methods. "How do you know it was him? How many were with him?"

One of the men, who went by the nickname of Fish, seemed to have broken his left arm from the way he was holding it. "He yelled out that thing about being afraid of the Dark, just before he chucked the grenades in your office, and shot Creep and Senegal. Then all the alarms started going off about the self-destruct. You never said anything about a self-destruct!" He stared at Calvert accusingly.

"Certainly I did. You got a warning, didn't you?" Thomas was starting to get a clearer picture of what had happened, and why the self-destruct had been triggered. Two grenades going off in the confines of his office would certainly stand a good chance of activating it. Also, he'd gotten a message on his phone, announcing the destruction of the automated console tasked with keeping the lower levels pumped clear of water. Even if the built-in explosives hadn't gone off, the rising water levels would've rendered the base unliveable all too quickly. "You didn't say how many men were with him."

"Nobody." It was Pritt. "Just one man." He spat to one side. "Except it was the Dark. The real Dark. He got in through the garage entrance and waltzed around us like we weren't even there. Nobody got a shot off in his direction, and he killed everyone who tried to point a gun at him."

"Yeah," agreed Fish. "Fuck this shit. I never signed on to go up against someone like that. I'm gone. We're all gone."

"Don't be so hasty." Thomas considered the ways to turn them back to his side. Greed was a good start; they were mercenaries, after all. "I can pay you all triple what you were making before. Call it permanent danger pay."

"Nope." Pritt pulled his pistol and levelled it at Thomas. Four of the men with him did the same. "All this? This is because you decided to get cute with someone else's rep. Frankoff and the others are dead because you pulled this shit and because you built the fucking base to explode like some stupid supervillain's wet dream. I lost good friends down there. Fuck off and die."

"Ten times." Calvert tried once more.

He wasn't sure who fired first, but the bullet caught him in the upper chest. His morph suit had nothing resembling ballistic cloth in it, and he was already falling before the other shots hit him. He sprawled on the ground, still conscious but already bleeding out, as Pritt stepped up and prepared to kick him in the face.

At this point, the timeline was a dead loss, so he dropped it, then split off from his current line. They'd returned to the PRT building in this one as well, though the patrol had been over by that point. Unfortunately, his assigned patrol route was nowhere near where his base had been, so he hadn't been able to officially investigate it.

Fortunately, there was a debrief ongoing in Conference Room A, where he could find out more about what had happened.

"So, this is what we have," reported the duty officer, a Lieutenant Holloway. "Approximately thirty minutes ago, reports started coming in about subterranean explosions toward Midtown. Our own seismographs also picked up the traces, and pinpointed them enough to vector troops in that direction. When they arrived, they found a large area of subsidence and a collapsed building."

"Casualties?" asked Porton, another strike squad commander.

"None from the building, thankfully," Holloway acknowledged. "It was a construction site, half-built. But according to a suspicious person we picked up near the site, the subsidence was apparently due to a large underground base, belonging to none other than Coil. He'd rigged it to blow, and the charges went off tonight."

"Fucking supervillains," muttered someone else in the room. There was a murmur of agreement.

Although Holloway had to have heard it, he chose not to react. "According to the person, he was a member of a fifty-strong mercenary force Coil had kept quartered in that base. Some of the others apparently got out, but he doesn't know how many. Most of them, he says, are probably still under the rubble."

Calvert decided to ask the question, if only to find out what the PRT knew. "Did he say why the self-destruct was triggered?"

Holloway tilted his head slightly. "He gave an explanation, but it's entirely unverified at this point."

"This is Brockton Bay," quipped Assault from the back of the room. "Hit us with it."

Holloway half-shrugged to acknowledge the point. "He says it was the Dark. Apparently, the man walked in through a code-locked security door, blew up their armoury, killed a bunch of their guys, blew up Coil's office, then left through another exit despite the base being on hard lockdown. If the guy found a big red button marked 'Press to blow base up' then he probably hit it on the way past, just because he could."

"Christ," muttered Armsmaster, a rare sign of emotion from the normally professional hero. "Did he say why? The man you've got in custody, I mean."

Holloway seemed about to answer, but Assault got in first. "I bet I know why."

"If you were going to say, 'fake Dark', then you are entirely correct," Holloway responded. "When prompted, he volunteered the information that the recent apparent actions of the Dark regarding an armoured-car robbery were due to a false-flag operation run by Coil to increase his personal power in the city. That man is now dead, reportedly murdered by Oni Lee earlier tonight, just before the real Dark killed Lee himself. We found the bodies right where our informant said they'd be."

Assault nodded. "The Dark wasn't after Lee. He was after the impostor. But Lee had to try to kill him, and that's always a losing proposition when it comes to the Dark."

"That tracks," agreed Armsmaster. "Once the impersonator was dead, Coil's men probably retreated straight back to base. The Dark followed, gained access to the base, went looking for Coil, failed to find him, set off the self-destruct either deliberately or accidentally, then left again."

"Just like that." Battery shook her head. "Just how good is this guy, anyway?"

"Twenty years of matching up against the worst of the worst that Brockton Bay could offer, without any discernible powers," Assault reminded her. "The Dark's the one who knocked the Nine off their perch and sent Jack Slash to the Birdcage in a wheelchair, remember? We're just lucky he doesn't take contracts on capes, or target the PRT."

Dauntless seemed to have a problem with that statement. "So, what was that thing where he killed Hookwolf and Cricket, if it wasn't him accepting a contract on them?"

Assault met his gaze. "That was personal. Totally different situation."

"You seem to know a lot about the man and his motives," observed Velocity, his tone not quite accusatory but definitely edging that way.

"Yeah." Assault wasn't backing down. "I do."

Deputy Director Renick usually let these briefing sessions run on their own momentum, but now he stepped forward with his hands raised. "Enough. Now, the Dark is definitely a person of interest to us, but for the moment we have higher priorities. In order of importance: first, excavating Coil's base, given that there might still be men alive down there. Second, vetting all officers who will be having any kind of contact with the Empire capes in custody, to make sure there's no moles to give them a chance to break out. Third, patrolling in and near ABB territory, to make sure they don't do anything stupid because of Oni Lee's death."

"You think they will, sir?" asked Assault.

Renick sighed tiredly. "When you've got a read on what goes through Lung's mind on a daily basis, be sure to let me know."

<><>​

Lung

One thought was going through Kenta's mind. Whoever and wherever this supposed Dark is, I will find him and kill him.

He did not shout, or rage, or throw fire around willy-nilly, because he was Lung, and that meant he had to command his men. Such was the power of his personality that he did not have to so much as raise his voice for people to scurry to do his bidding. Right now, his bidding was simple.

"Tell me again. Everything you saw. Everything you heard."

Leaning back in his chair, he listened to their account yet again, filling in small gaps from the previous narratives. The picture, as he built it up, was simple. There had been a false Dark, whom Oni Lee had engaged and killed, but another one had appeared and murdered him in turn.

Oni Lee had been very, very good at what he did. His power had given him an almost unbeatable tactical command of the battlefield, given that nobody knew where he was going before he got there. He should have appeared in the perfect spot to kill the new 'Dark' before the man had the chance to react to his presence, but somehow he had missed his strike, and been shot in the same instant.

Kenta still didn't truly believe in the legend of the Dark, but he had to wonder: if the dead one was an impostor employed by some gang or other, who was the newcomer? Oni Lee had killed one with ease, but had fallen to the other equally swiftly.

Whoever it is, he vowed again, I will kill him.

"Pass the word," he said carefully. "Lung is not afraid of the Dark. If he wants me, he can come and get me. I will be waiting."

If nothing else, that should silence those who doubted his strength of purpose.

<><>​

Wednesday Morning, January 12

The Dark


For a midwinter day, it dawned brightly if not early. Danny decided to resurrect a habit from earlier days, and dug his running shoes out from the fossilised strata at the bottom of his wardrobe so that he could go for a morning jog. Minutes later, clad in equally long-unused sweats, he was puffing his way along the sidewalk in a mediocre attempt at a good pace.

I've really been letting myself go these last couple of years, he admitted to himself as he stopped at the halfway point, wheezing rather more than he should have been. But that, of course, was because he'd been thinking there was no longer a place in the world for everything that the Dark represented.

The events of the past few days had clued him in that he couldn't have been more wrong. When he'd hung up his shoulder holster and allowed his cover identity to enfold him so completely that it became his actual life in every way that mattered, he hadn't been doing the right thing by Taylor. He'd been hiding from the world.

He saw now that the pact he and Anne-Rose had made between themselves, as idealistic and high-minded as it sounded, had enabled the current situation in a roundabout fashion. Immersed in the role of being Danny Hebert, he'd kept his head down, paid no attention to anything but maintaining the Dockworkers Association and putting food on the table … and letting Anne-Rose's death numb him into ignoring all the tiny warning signs about the bullying. If he'd still been operating as the Dark, he would've kept an eye on all that shit, and stomped on it hard the moment it reared its ugly head.

Well, no more.

He wasn't entirely sure how he would've handled it at the time, but going after the little shits that had targeted Alan and Emma would've been a good start. That would've put Emma in a better headspace so that she wouldn't have thrown away her friendship with Taylor so readily. And if he needed to drop by and have a quiet word with a certain wannabe vigilante, about the wisdom of choosing her targets very carefully indeed, he could've done that too.

As a result, Taylor would've been happier, Emma would still be in the picture, and Sophia Hess would still be sniping assholes with her moronic little crossbows rather than decorating a slab in the PRT morgue. Danny didn't give a damn about Sophia, but he'd had some regard for Emma when she was still Taylor's friend. He and Alan had known each other for years, after all; it was solely on the strength of their longtime acquaintance that he'd even chosen to give Alan the chance to save Emma's life.

As he let himself in through the back gate, he sighed. Shit had gone sideways in no uncertain terms, and a lot of it was due to his own choices. I really have to start doing better.

The back door opened to his key, and he smelled the bacon and eggs even before he stepped inside. Taylor was at the stove, frying up a breakfast that immediately had his stomach rumbling. "Morning, Dad," she greeted him brightly. "Have you been running?"

"Stumbling, mostly," he agreed. "I was thinking we could extend your training, and make a regular habit of it. Fitness is surpassingly important when an unwanted quiver in a trigger finger means the difference between a hit and a miss." He headed for the stairs. "I'll be down after I shower and change."

Just as he started upstairs, his phone rang. He pulled it out and checked the number. "Madcap."

"Hi. Just thought I'd pass on profound thanks for all our guys who made it back alive because you told us exactly when and where to find all the Empire assholes."

It was a nice gesture, but Danny was reasonably certain that Assault had more to say. "You're welcome. Was there anything else?"

"Yes, actually." Assault hesitated. "We found a body near an Empire safehouse. A Larry Peterson. Dragged out of the safehouse and shot execution style. You never gave me a straight answer for if you were working again."

Danny easily translated the unasked question in his head. Assault wanted to know if he'd accepted a contract to kill Larry Peterson. If he admitted that he had, there was just one potential culprit for taking that contract out, and it rhymed with View Save.

As the Dark, he didn't have many rules, but an ironclad one was that if the customer paid promptly (Lady Photon had done so) their secret was safe with him. "No comment. Tell the Director she needs to understand that I don't talk about my jobs, or even whether a job was mine or someone else's."

"This won't be getting back to the Director. I'm just asking out of morbid curiosity."

That might even be true, but rules were rules. "I can neither confirm nor deny." He paused for a beat. "Do you have any other leads?"

"Only that the Empire might've sacrificed him to drive a wedge between the PRT and New Wave, why?"

"You might want to follow that one up. Don't give the Empire one last fuck-you."

"Understood." Assault ended the call.

Danny pocketed the phone and kept going up the stairs. He hadn't actually lied to Assault, but with any luck the ex-villain would tell his bosses to look elsewhere for the truth about the demise of Larry Peterson. Or it might not even get that far, if he'd been telling the truth about his morbid curiosity.

Humming a tune that had been popular twenty years ago, he went into his bedroom for fresh clothing, then headed for the bathroom.

Assault had posited the question about whether he was back or not. After due consideration, he believed he had the answer to it. Yeah, I guess I am back.

A new day was dawning, in more ways than one.



End of Part Twelve
 
Coil's already lost his biggest advantage, the base and his mercenaries; he's not a combat Thinker, after all. Ironically in large part due to his own melodrama, the Dark wouldn't have been able to outright blow the place up even if that had been his intention without Coil himself literally setting it up beforehand.

I suspect the upcoming interactions between him and the Undersiders will be interesting. It probably won't be long at all before he suspects Tattletale set him up, but he no longer has nearly the advantage over her that he did. I'm sure he'll also try to get them to take the Dark on, which they definitely won't do.
 
The Dark is back, in more ways than one. Happy to see more of this fic!
 

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