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Becoming the Dawn [Worm/Pokemon] Celestial Menagerie inspired

Reader mode
Turncoat said:
I wouldn't call it boring at all, I just didn't expect Purity and wasn't sure what to think about her inclusion. But that's about it from me.
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Ah. Just to be clear Dawn fucking hates Purity and they will never be friends. I know there's a lot of Woobie Purity in the fandom but this fic is not going that direction.
 
Nice. Hate that Purity is getting even that much from the MC, screw the Nazi bitch. She's far too much of a hypocrite for me to ever root for her. Glad to hear its not going woolie Purity route

Btw @BravelyFlying, would the situation be different if she had confirmed it was a Master or a Thinker? A lot of fics play off the MC encountering Lisa in her civies but that has to be a major breach of the Rules right? Using her power to sniff out weaknesses and vulnerabilities like that.
 
Kolarthecool said:
Hate that Purity is getting even that much from the MC, screw the Nazi bitch.
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Unfortunately she's the most powerful blaster on the east coast that isn't Legend and has a body count. Objectively Piggot made the right decision of just healing her so she'd leave.
Kolarthecool said:
Btw @BravelyFlying, would the situation be different if she had confirmed it was a Master or a Thinker?
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If she was a Master than the plan would've something like 'Evacuate the area and then send in the PRT agents trained in anti master protocols and not a woman who just started being a hero today and the ward whose not allowed to fight.'

If she was a thinker then it'd be 'minimised contact. Reduce vectors of information and then have local security escort them out.

They can't really arrest them because being a parahuman is ultimately not a crime. Existing is a public space with a thinker power is not a justifiable reason to reveal that your newest hero can unmask capes.
Kolarthecool said:
A lot of fics play off the MC encountering Lisa in her civies but that has to be a major breach of the Rules right? Using her power to sniff out weaknesses and vulnerabilities like that.
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Not really. Dawn is ultimately a hero she trades privacy for resources and teammates. Enemies knowing her powers is the cost of those things. Just like everyone knows what Dauntless does or Vista's manton limit.

She had no reasonable expectation of privacy at the public petting zoo she advertised.

It's kind of the difference between a 'hot' cape and a 'Cold' cape in India. She's a hot cape with hot cape benefits, she doesn't get to also have the benefits of being a cold cape. It's why she can't be a Protectorate member and use poison types.

That said she doesn't have to reveal every card up her sleeve, just some.

For Lisa even if she was in the crowd learning all she could that's not breaking any rules. That's her power it's literally her job to gather info on her enemies.

If she used say Dawn non existent civilian identity to blackmail her that would be breaking the rules. But if she learned about it and did nothing with it then it's fine. Dragon knew about Taylor for months and it's only when she did something with it that it became an issue.
 
hell ye, Purity redemption(?) that still shows her dark side, even if it isn;t redemption I still her being used since she is strong and useful. Good characterization plus good use of semi filler chapter. Excited for next 1
 
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Finds this and like it so far,have a few sticking points for me like them wanting to take her pokemon or the lack of payment because let's be honest. A healer should be getting a minimum 250k off the rip but I get why it was glossed over. The kayden thing was interesting direction but im here to see what happens.
 
Svn0one said:
... is it Ponyta?
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Ney, but Ponyta is one the 'Pick immediately' list.
TheToFu said:
have a few sticking points for me like them wanting to take her pokemon
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It's less them taking her Pokemon and more them borrowing Hattenna so they can doing the healing part for Dawn freeing her time so she can train and focus on things in Brockton Bay.
TheToFu said:
A healer should be getting a minimum 250k off the rip but I get why it was glossed over
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That's just the base Salary aka what she gets for sitting in her ass and doing nothing. Heroes get bonuses whenever they do any non mandatory PR events, Crisis points, capture villains or participate in S class events.

And it's big money too, Dauntless made $130,000 for guest staring in a tvshow one time and it's actually one of the reasons that lead to his divorce.
 
Cross posting this from SB as I feel like it sums up my thoughts on Purity pretty well.
While I'm not going to dispute Daryl Davis his methods unfortunately don't work for a known murderer that can destroy buildings.

Even if Purity, debatably, wants it to be better she's got no path to redemption or, at least, one she'll accept. Because even if she stops being racist that's of cold comfort to the families of the people she murdered.

The only real way she can meaningfully atone in societies view is by accepting responsibility for her actions by going to the birdcage and that's not going to happen.

Purity situation reminds me a lot of a PHO Sunday characters Diamond tooth. To paraphrase he was a cape that was stranded in Australia after attempting to join a villain group and now can't leave the country with his expensive costume.

And a commenter completely summed up his situation in a way that encapsulates my views on Purity

"From my perspective it sounds like you've already lost the ability to get out of this with everything you want. So now you have to choose what you're comfortable not getting. You could give up on your expensive costume and fly away right now. You could give up your secret identity and go to the PRT. Or you could sacrifice all reason and common sense, and throw yourself on the mercy of supervillains." - Glaistig_Painway

Purity has multiple contradicting desires that prevent her from ever redeeming herself. There is just no world where she: stays out of jail, keeps custody of her daughter, gets to continue her mission of cleaning up the bay, is no longer associated with Max, is forgiven for her crimes and gets to still be friends with her nazi buddies.

Because as a result of her decisions she's lost to ability to get all those things - If she ever had the ability in the first place.

She can at best pick two and even that's an ask. So she just … doesn't make a decision. Which is an understandable response but in the end prevents her from ever truely trying to be better.
 
Becoming the dawn 1.4
"I'm going," I said with a forced smile on my face that would make All Might proud, "Don't get involved."

Purity gave a tentative nod clutching her purse with one hand and the now redundant crutches in the other. We both knew she wouldn't be here when I got back.

That was all I needed to turn on my heel and jog out disabled bathroom and into the corridors that all malls shoved their bathrooms in. I breathed a sigh of relief, the air somehow better now that I didn't have to share it with a Nazi.

The hand that shook Purity's felt slimy and did my best to ignore it as I kept a steady pace to stop myself from bowling kids over if they came around any corners. Following in my steps my mon trailed behind, physically they might've been as strong as a person but they were still less than one feet tall and couldn't keep pace with my much longer legs.

I dismissed both of them. Hatenna was too important to risk right now, I still needed her for Dinah and Impadimp was…well, Impadimp. He'd been remarkably well behaved for Purity but I didn't trust him to stay that way without the easy source of negative emotions that was Hatenna. Instead bursting from a light in front of me Rowlett jumped landing on my shoulder talons gripping tight to remain on. Razor sharp feathers ready to be shot out at a moment's notice.

I wished I didn't have to consider that as an option. But Uber and Leet were Coils men, the people he sent undercover to Bakuda and who he used to try to kill Skitter with.

And I just revealed I could unmask capes.

I wasn't sure if he knew, wasn't sure if he was even Brockton Bay right now. A phone book told me that Thomas Calvert lived in Boston and I knew that he travelled between the upper-east coast cities frequently. For all I knew he was in New York or something.

Whatever this was, it wasn't an assassination. Coil didn't roll like that, would never be so risky even in a disposable timeline. This had to be something that just coincidentally happened on the same day I met Purity.

The curse of being famous I guess.

But that didn't mean whatever he had planned was any better. After all, he still owed Cauldron a favour or two.

Fidough appeared from the same flash and yipped as she ran beside me her croissant like tail wagging.

"You good out there Triumph?" I asked into my radio.

His response took a few moments too long and when it came his voice was panting, "Leets got some kind of freeze ray, non lethal and his minions need to spray some water on you first but if you can't break it you're pinned. Got me, got Charlie squad. Managed to blast myself free but the others are stuck."

Charlie's squad was the PRT team that was the unofficial Wards babysitters and the team that represented the first two letters in PRT. They were nice people, with shiny suits and the latest gadgets meant to attract the people that couldn't trigger or wanted to be Batman.

I couldn't judge, I mean who didn't want to be Batman.

But it made sense they were targeted first, they might've been PR guys but they still had containment foam.

"Fuck. What about the kids?"

"Evacated. Kind of."

Kind of?

Making it out of the corridor that led to the bathrooms I could see what Triumph meant. Crowds of people were moving away from the playcenter in waves, a tide of families and friends keeping together so they wouldn't lose each other. But they weren't running for their lives.

No, as Security guards were trying to direct people away and towards the exits. Instead, despite the villains attacking everyone went up the escalators in order to get a good view from the second floor.

I glanced at the crowd. There wasn't a single person here in the mall that looked scared. Nervous maybe but they weren't terrified. Instead all I could see was people pulling out their phones and recording it like this was some kind of live performance.

It hit me that this was what Tattletale meant before everything went to hell. The Game, what she called Cops and Robbers. This wasn't an attack by monsters, this was just some clout chasing by two losers that were going to get their asses kicked.

They'd go home with a story, maybe brag to their friends how they saw a cape fight in person, maybe they'd donate to Uber and Leets website. But the important thing was that they got to go home in the end.

"I see what you mean. The important thing is they're safe and out of the way. Your orders, Director?"

"Triumph, try to free Charlie team if you can but your safety is the priority, flee if you need to. You're not a member of the Protectorate yet and until then the same rules for Wards apply. Dawn you're not cleared to fight Villains by yourself but an exception will be made here. Use your monsters to scout what other tinker tech they have and prevent them from escaping. Backup is fifteen minutes away, you just have to delay till then."

Piggot's voice was calm and professional, not even holding a trace of her usual dislike of me in it. It was like that the barely hidden bigot Piggot was gone and in her place was Lady, the woman who'd survived Ellisburg.

There were a lot of reasons to hate Piggot but I couldn't lie to myself and say she wasn't good at her job. Knowing that she was the one holding the reins on this brought me a measure of relief that wouldn't be there if I had to make the calls myself.

"Got it boss," I said as I sent a command to one of my pokemom, "Triumph take Falinks and work with them to get Charlie squad-"

"No," he cut me off, "Give me Duraludon,"

I hesitated wondering what he meant. Falinks would've been faster and he should've known that. He read my files. Was he making a mistake?

No, he was the one with eyes on the fight, it must've been for a reason.

"Okay," I said, sending the order. From my tenuous link with my Pokemon I got the sense that a white and gold blob had started talking to one of them but I couldn't make out anything else, even with four of my pokemon in the same place I couldn't see any clearer.

"Be careful. They've got about four minions spread out looking for you."

Road clear of any people I tried to sprint as fast as I could to the petting zoo but only after a long moment that I realised that wasn't going to happen, as with burning lungs that felt like someone shoved hot pokers through them I ran out of breath before I even got halfway there and it was all because of my costume.

The knight part of my costume might not have been real plate armour but it was still professional body armour woven with chainmail to stop bullets and blades with all the weight that it implied. I'd exercised regularly but that was more counting calories and slimming down then putting on muscle, I just wasn't built for this.

Worse, these were new boots and I hadn't broken them in. The heel kept shaving at the back of my ankle so badly that I wouldn't be surprised if it was bleeding.

The realisation that I wasn't strong enough for the job I've always dreamed of pressed deep on some old and barely faded scars that my conversation with Purity had pulled open. It was humiliating to the point that it burned.

As if I needed another reason to hate my body.

So instead of getting there as fast as possible but dead tired I slowed down to a medium jog. Breathing through my nose all I could smell was yeast as Fidough ran ahead of me, barking her head off like she was a guard dog and not a pile of dough with legs.

She made it around the final corner that led to the pens before those barks changed into a cry of pain as a meaty boot kicked her in her face sending rolling along the floor. It took her a moment to stand up on her shaky legs.

"What the hell!?" I heard a man's voice yell around the corner that sounded just as startled as I was. From the same man I heard as he pulled a cord and a motor started, the smell of petrol in the air.

A spray of water like that from a pressure washer shot out from around the corner. But when it hit Fidough it might as well have been napalm as the spots it hit turned goopy, streaks of dough fell off her body in chunks as large as a child's hand.

With one shot he almost killed Fidough.

Without slowing down Rowlet jumped into my waiting hand and I tossed him forward like a shot ball. He flew through the air less like a bird and more like a lawn dart. Twirling through the air he threw his feathers at the person around the corner.

The man yelled something else that I couldn't understand as by the time I got around the corner Rowlet had already jumped him, pelting him with kicks that kept him to the floor.

"Get this fucking thing off me!" He yelled at me covering his neck with the back on his hands and he curled up in a fetal position.

Further up in the middle of the pens Hakamo-o was fighting a giant muscled man in a red and gold body suit who was to my surprise managing to not get his ass kicked. Whenever he was hit the man bent around it like a tree in the wind. Aipom was fighting three guys in spandex and despite being only summoned yesterday she was holding her own, using Quick Attack to keep her distance, a combination of Tail Whip and Sand Attack to create openings before she took advantage of them with Stab boosted hits.

Triumph was using Duraludon who was digging into the thick ice that coated Charlie team as a shield as he shouts waves of concussive blasts at a guy in a Megaman costume who shot balls of snow at him. When both blasts met in the air it was a draw with neither blast overpowering the other.

Instead they stallmated, the snow falling out of the sky while absorbing enough of the energy that it barely tickled Megaman who could put more down range than Triumph and wasn't giving him the time to charge up a stronger blast.

Falinks Protect would've bought him that time but I couldn't see them anywhere. They were completely missing from the battle and it worried me. I couldn't sense that they were dead so where were they?

I wanted to run there immediately and help but I had to secure this guy first. Didn't want to get sucker punched by him later.

The man on the floor was in a green skintight suit, like a very basic power ranger costume, on his head was a motorcycle helmet with a red dot drawn in the middle of the visor and next to him on wheels was an actual pressure washer.

Not Uber or Leet, just a minion.

It took a second for me to realise who he was cosplaying as due to how shit his costume was but after a moment I realised he was a Sniper Joe, a basic goon from Megaman that was the equivalent to a Kooper Trooper or Goomba.

Glancing at the pressure washer it looked just like the kinds you see at a hardware store as I couldn't see anything that looked like a tinker had messed with it. But then again I wasn't a tinker so I couldn't say, on the back of it was a bright jerry can with a garden hose that siphoned it into the intake valve.

Sniffing the liquid that came out of it all it just smelt like regular tap water.

And yet it almost killed Fidough in one shot. It must've been because she was made out of dough. If Fluffy was enough to give the pokemon that had it a supereffective weakness to fire type attacks then being a walking sack of bread was enough for the same to be true for water.

And she wasn't the only one of my pokemon that was weak to water. I was starting to piece together Coils' plan. Water for Fidough and Duraludon, ice for Rowlet and Hakamo-o. He wanted to embarrass me, even if I won the fact that if two of the least respected villains gave my pokemon so much trouble it would almost nullify any win I'd get.

"Hands behind your back," I said, reaching into a pouch and pulling a round, metal slip. The man didn't comply but that was fine because I was going for his legs anyway.

Stepping on the back of his thigh, just above the knee I looped the slip around his kicking ankle and pulled a line of metal cable from it, spotting a nearby fire extinguisher I wrapped the cable around it and pressed a button on the slip.

The cable retracted, dragging the man across the floor and tying him to the wall. Even if he managed to pull himself free he'd be dragging the fire extinguisher with him. The tie was just one of those inventions that happened when superheroes had been around for two decades. It was meant to tie someone two to four stories up in the air like Spider-Man so that the PRT could get them but since I didn't have time for that so an impromptu ball and chain would have to do.

"Fi, do, do," my doglike pokemon whined half her face glooping onto the floor. The smell sickeningly sweet.

I clenched my teeth at the sight. Even if I wanted to, Hatenna couldn't fix this and would probably make it worse. Fidough dissolved into a burst of red light as I returned her to the mental box all my extra pokemon were kept.

Something bubbled in the pit of my stomach, a cauldron of anger brewing at the duo for getting one over on me.

Already I was one mon down with another missing. In the back of my mind I reached and poked at the growing charge trying to get a sense for how long it'd take to fill. It was only an hour away from being full.

There was nothing to do but bear it. She wasn't my strongest anyway. As long as Hakamo-o was on the field it didn't matter how many of the others they defeated.

I just couldn't imagine Hakamo-o losing.

One minion down I reported it to the console and jogged forward into the play pen and it felt like I was stepping into the colosseum. The shadow of the mall faded leaving me standing in the light that streamed down from the windows on the roof, above the second story wrapped around like an octagon where various kids were watching down on me. I couldn't hear what they said when they saw me, the noise blurring together and drowned out by the blood pumping through my ears.

Instead all I could focus on was Megaman.

He wore something thicker than a bodysuit, a blue coverall that was a size too small showing off what he must have thought was an impressive muscle suit he was wearing beneath it and the very stuffed crotch section.

On his head was a blue helmet like mine that extended to cover his eyes with a thin black visor. Over his right arm was a large cannon barrel that was obviously tinkertech. Slung over his back was a canvas bag.

Everything about him was wrong and pissed me off. Megaman was supposed to wear spandex not coveralls, his face was supposed to be completely bare so the visor just made him look like a shitty Judge Dread knock off. It was a half assed effort and wouldn't get a passing grade on reddit.

It wasn't the worst cosplay I'd ever seen. I'd seen grown ass men dressing like V-tubers before. But it was lacking something, it felt like the soul was missing.

The golden snitch that hovered over his shoulder marked which member of the dynamic loser duo he was, if the cannon hadn't already.

Leets head turned towards me hearing as I charged at him despite how much it ached, just to break the deadlock. But despite looking away his aim didn't suffer as he kept sniping at Triumph with unnerving accuracy.

"Took you long enough to show up," Leet complained with a nasally voice, "What kind of hero no shows at her own event? You ruined our plan."

I don't care shut the fuck up.

He reached into his canvas bag and pulled out a water balloon. With a single hand he tossed it at me, the balloon more accurate than I expected from someone like him. My boots squeaked on the floor as I tried to juke it.

Rowlet launched a quill at it. The balloon burst in the air, spilling water all over the floor and creating a large puddle between him and me.

I twisted, Rowlet holding a wing out to bleed the momentum from my charge, us managing to stop just before the puddle.

It might've looked like water but it just as easily been something he'd tinkered up. Withdrawal had liquids that didn't obey Newton so there was a chance Leet managed to do something similar that he hadn't shared with his goons.

Rowlet tossed another quill at him but the blaster turned ninety degrees bending at the barrel and shot another snow ball at it. The grass quill didn't have the same power as one of Triumph's shouts and the snow barreled through it like it wasn't even there flying through the air straight at Rowlet.

I blocked it with my gauntlet, the ball splattering into pieces. Strangely even if it was through layers of protection it felt lukewarm. Was it not real ice?

His cannon automatically turned and fired at Triumph but it didn't matter.

"Crud," Leet said in realisation before he was knocked off his feet by a wave of sound. The second he spent firing at me was enough time for Triumph to charge up a stronger blast.

For about a metre or whatever the American equivalent was the nerd tumbled across the ground. The water balloons he still had in his back burst, soaking him in the same liquid he'd thrown at me. But since the canvas bag was waist height so when it burst, it, well.

It looked like he pissed himself.

The golden snitch fluttered above him, capturing in all the gory details.

"Leet!" Uber yelled. He wore a comically large body suit coloured red and gold, he was big but not in a muscular way. Instead, like Popeye, parts of the suit were just swollen and bulging while beneath the suit was a normal, if lanky, person.

But the most eye catching thing about him was the large, extended metal chin that was as long as his head was tall.

A chin I recognised.

Shit.

Uber jumped but it was more like he fell upwards. Ten, twenty, thirty feet went by but he just kept rising till his head was almost hitting the glass windows on the ceiling above. He hovered there for a moment but I didn't stay to watch.

I already knew what was coming.

Instead I ran desperately towards Triumph and the trapped team. Seconds felt like minutes and the distance felt like miles. Even with burning lungs as I jumped over one fence I knew I wouldn't make it but I wouldn't be able to forgive myself if I didn't try.

The clanging of scales behind me was the only warning I got as two arms that were as strong as oak picked me up into a bridal carry and leapt forward. My stomach lurched as with six short leaps Hakamo-o covered more ground than I could manage in a minute of sprinting.

Over his shoulder I saw Uber slam into the ground with enough force to create an impression on the ground. There was no noise that followed, no bright light. The only hint of something coming was the puddle Leet created rolling across the ground like it was being pushed by the wind.

Hakamo-o's arms opened, dropping me onto the floor in front of Triumph. Pain burst through my tailbone from a hard landing. My ass apparently being the least armoured part of me.

Glowing white hexagons formed in front of Hakamo-o's outstretched arms like planes of glass. It was Protect one of the moves he got when he evolved. Those glass planes joined together creating a wall without gaps not that it mattered as it just went around the barrier. A wave of pressure washed over me pushing indiscriminately. Fences smashed into the barrier as I rolled backwards like I was under the tide of a wave, only half remembering to tuck my chin into my neck and slam my hands on the floor to break my fall like Miss Militia taught me.

I heard glass shattering and the shrieks of the kids on the second floor. With a growing dread I waited for those shrieks to turn into screams of pain but instead they transformed into cheers and heckles.

In the dozen or some people I thought I could hear a kid mocking Leet for pissing his pants while another was yelling at me 'Hit the fucking gym you fatass,' which I wasn't going to lie to myself.

That hurt.

"Dawn," Triumph said, shaking my shoulder.

"I'm fine," I grimaced as I pushed myself off the floor. My back and everything lower hurt just as badly as my pride did and my pride was feeling pretty bruised right now, "Today fucking blows."

We were getting our asses kicked by the worst Capes in the city. If it was the Undersiders or Faultlines Crew I'd understand but them? It made me angrier than I thought possible. A pride I didn't know I had struck, I was dumped in the deep end with the strongest and walked away with what I considered a victory only to wade my way into the shallow end, my feet touching the bottom and still flounder.

If I had a charge I would've said to hell with it and evolved Hakamo-o. See how they'd deal with a pseudo.

"You're telling me," one of the PRT squad said. They looked like Mr. Freeze gazed in their general direction. Ice clung to their feet, pinning them to the floor where their heavy gear had down the rest leaving them splayed out on the ground where the ice had fused their jackets to the floor, others had been quick to pull their jackets off and were able to prop themselves up before the ice had got their gloves.

"Eh, it could be worse," another said.

The ones with the containment foam sprayer had unsurprisingly gotten the worst of it with thick layers covering every limb with special attention paid to the sprayers. Thick groves were carved into it by Duraludon thinning it out some but a precision machine he was not and he was only able to shave parts around their chest to free up their breathing.

Though if this was them after Duraludon had chipped away at them I didn't want to imagine how frozen they'd be at the start.

"Really, how could this be worse?"

"It could be your hand that's on my ass."

"Well my hand is on Rodrick's dick so maybe I do wanna feel your ass instead."

Chuckles broke from the frozen soldiers, a warm laugh in all of them as they acted like this was just a casual day at the office. I suppose for them this was. No one had died yet, no one was going too and the only man eating monsters was on our side.

This was Cops and Robbers. So why was I taking this so seriously? Why was I so mad that a couple of C-listers were kicking my ass. It meant nothing, in six weeks I'd have an entire team of Armsmaster level Mons and I could wipe the floor with them, in a couple months I'd have literal Gods.

So why did I care so much then? I could only think of one reason.

Because I wanted to be a Hero.

And Heroes always won.

I reached back and straightened the plume coming out of the back of my helmet. Glancing at Uber I saw he had taken the chance to go for Aipom that had been keeping his minions out of the fight.

Aipom was able to keep out of his grasp by climbing up a pillar but that gave the Minions the chance to catch their breaths and wash the sand out of their eyes.

"Leet's got an aiming system on that freeze gun, even if he doesn't see it coming it'll try to snipe any attack going his way. Uber got an invisible shaker blast wave when he stomps, Fast but it's telegraphed with intervals in between, he gets a four but we'll play it safe and assume a five. Triumph your thoughts?" I recited everything I saw speaking to the team and Piggot just as much as I was talking to him.

Triumph's face fell in a well practiced focus. Behind his visor his eyes flicked to mine before they left me so fast I wasn't sure if he picked what I was saying. Five was the maximum I'd still be allowed to fight them. Once you got into the Plus Six levels on the threat rating that's when even the Junior Protectorate members were held back in favour of the people with more fights under their belt.

If he disagreed with my assessment I'd have no choice but to begrudgingly take the loss.

And I really, really didn't want to take this loss.

"Uber's got a brute rating," He informed me of something I hadn't really seen, "he's not strong or tough but he's weightless and he rolls with the punches so hits that land don't have bite to them. Nothing the foam can't handle so that's Brute 3, Mover 2 since I don't think he can go anywhere but up. However I disagree with his shaker rating."

I bit my lip, "What about it?"

Don't do this to me man.

"It's Leet tech," he explained, "The more he uses it the larger the chance it explodes on him and if that happens while he's in the air," he trailed off but I got the picture. He wouldn't risk that happening so another blast as large before was unlikely.

"Shaker three then?"

He nodded.

"Understood Dawn. Backups nine minutes away, keep the villains occupied until then."

"Same plan as before. Work on getting them free while I distract them till back up arrives. I'm taking Duraludon with me."

Even as I said those words I knew they were a lie. I didn't plan on only being a distraction - I wanted to win. I was going to win.

"Got it," he said, "I'll support where I can."

"Good. Do you know where Falinks is?"

"There," he pointed at their pen and the tube tunnels they'd be playing with the kids in. Their horns poked out the tops like a shark fin in separate parts of the tunnels. The fins were running around frantically as they tried to regroup but since they were all running trying to find each other that just met they roamed the tunnels just barely missing each other as they ran in circles.

No-one ever said they were smart but that was just embarrassing.

I didn't return them. It was better to keep them as a trump card against Leet and they weren't any more precise than Duraludon.

"Wish me luck," I said standing up and straightening my dress.

Charlie team and Triumph said their affirmations as I walked forward with both Dragon types beside me. In the shadow of the towering Steel type and with the clanging scales of my strongest I felt as confident as I could be. We stepped over broken fences and scattered kid safe padding. Most of it was damaged but not broken, the only exception being the Wii and the TV that had smashed into two pieces by the blast.

Hakamo-o growled as we passed it. A hiss trapped in his throat that reverbated through his thick, golden neck armour.

There was no way to hide my approach from the two villains so I didn't bother. Instead I leaned into it by making Hakamo-o stamp his feet and shake his arms as we walked like the beginning of his namesake as he worked up, boosting his strength for the coming fight.

As we got close Uber with his gaggle of minions around him walked to stand beside Leet who stood there mean mugging us.

"So I finally get to talk with our city's newest Princess. I was starting to think you were in another castle," Uber said, crossing his arms. God he sounded so lame. He used his power to give himself a perfect narrator's voice. The kind Duke Nukem would've been proud of but the effect was underpinned by the fact that by going out of his way and using his power to do that in the first place just made it just reek of insecurity instead.

"Really calling her a Princess?" Leet snarked as he waved his cannon around at all three of us, "With how she hides behind all her animals I think she's more of a Dixie."

His voice had a certain nasalness to it. A nastiness that compared to when Purity called me a Dyke. It forced me to remember that for as much as we both loved video games this was a man that beat hookers with a baseball bat.

There were three ways I could've responded to being compared to a monkey.

The first was the Dark Knight approach, all growls and menace. Dismantle them as a warning to the other villains not to mess with me or my city.

The second was the Man of Hope's approach. I'd give them my biggest disappointed stare and tell them how much they let me and everyone in their lives down by acting the way they have. How they squandered their potential for good.

I wanted to pick that option. I had so many dreams of what Leet could do with Dragons' help. He'd been given more options than really anyone not wearing a green cloak but I knew he'd never take it. I didn't need to have read the story to know he'd never take it. He'd lash out thinking I was looking down on him and maybe he'd be right.

But that option was doomed to fail because I was not Superman. I didn't have the weight of power and a rep of a paragon behind me. I will get there but not today.

So that only left the last option.

I adjusted my posture to be more casual, a smirk that would have Tattletale jealous pulling across my face.

"Someone that doesn't understand a thing about Megaman does not get to make video game insults," I shot back with my nastiest tone, "You think for a duo whose whole thing is video games you couldn't mess that up but I suppose that was too high a bar for you."

The last option was the Web-slinger route. Be as annoying as humanly possible while backing out all the shit you talked.

Leet bristled, his shoulders hunched as he shot me a filthy look visible even through the visor, "And what do you know about our mission."

"I know you're doing a pretty shit job of it considering you're dressed as Megaman and yet you're working with a Robotmaster. Seriously Gutsman? Couldn't you have picked someone cool like Flashman?"

"Who else gives me the chance to have this glorious chin," Uber said, completely unbothered by the jab, rubbing the aforementioned body part.

"You're not the problem here," I said changing targets, "It's your loser partner that's ruining this, why the hell are you Megaman Leet? What happened to 'A sense of Justice beyond any compare?' He would never work with Robot Masters. Protoman is right there dude and he's worked with Doctor Wily before - What're you seriously gonna tell me you've never heard of Breakman before?"

"Of course I have!" he snapped back.

I snorted, "Sure, I totally believe you. Not."

Leet gritted his teeth taking a step forward but Uber just grabbed him by the shoulder,

"Don't let her get to you," Uber said.

"I bet you only know those names because your boyfriend played the games."

I just laughed in his face.

"I could say the same about you, Leet."

"Shut up," he roared, raising his cannon to aim at me. Rowlet snapped two feathers at him and the blaster automatic shot at the knives overpowering them like it had before them like it had before.

Uber raised a leg but couldn't react in time as Duraludon smashed a fist into his chest. There was a sound like a tire being hit with a hammer as his muscle suit jiggled like wobbling jelly as he was pushed off the ground gaining about half a Duraludon in height before he fell slowly at the rate of seconds when it should've been in a heartbeat.

Hakamo-o's tail lengthed in a sheath of purple energy and with a twist of his hips he slammed the tip against Duraludon's back. Whatever Uber was expecting I could guarantee it wasn't a forty kilo, leering steel type being launched at him with his arms wide like he was going for a bear hug.

Duraludon caught Uber dragging him along for the ride as they two floated to the other side of the mall.

"I think he's left behind you Leet," I mused.

"I said shut up," he snapped before he shot a look at one of the minions. The one he glared at aimed a hose at us as the other two split. One dragged a pressure washer over to where Duraludon had pulled Uber while the other rushed me. A spray of water rushed over the top of them as me and my pokemon spread out into a sort of upside down triangle with me at the furthest point.

That triangle widened as both Pokemon jumped in opposite directions to avoid the water, giving enough of a gap that the Sniper Joe could run between them without getting hit by either mon. I suppose given the choice between fighting the four foot tall martial artist dragon that could smash through a piano and the knife throwing owl it was only natural he went for me.

I made a mental note to never use this formation again.

He turned out to be a she as I discovered when she threw herself at me in a rugby tackle. I tried to dodge but she was faster, slamming her helmet into my stomach while she grabbed at the back of my thighs.

My second fall of the day was remarkably gentler as my armour cushioned it. Sniper Jane got into the mount a second later and smacked a fist I barely felt into my chest while her mother pushed my head to the side forcing me to look away.

Drawing back on what Hannah had taught me, Falinks appeared on either side of us as I released them. They cheered their little feet stamping in the ground.

But before they could help, their leader the Brass issued an order and they ran to my feet ignoring the woman trying to beat me to a pulp and formed a line. I couldn't see why but the sound of Protect going up was familiar at this point and I could hear a spray of water hitting against a wall.

"This is for that stupid monkey!" she screamed completely ignoring the new Pokemon as she kept hitting me in the same spot. She wasn't a weak woman and I felt each hit but it was dulled by the layers of protection. In this moment as I weathered the blows I felt distinctly relieved that for how much it annoyed me I was wearing armour worth more than some peoples cars.

And this was the part of hero work I had trained for.

With my padded elbow I wedged into the tender part of her knee and used to like a crowbar to push it away enough to get my leg free. She tried to adjust by pressing down even harder on my face but I grabbed that and managed to slide it off me. She fell and just barely managed to catch the floor with her elbow. Using my newly freed shin I pressed it against her ribcage and pushed with my hips tossing her forward into a half roll.

I managed to do it not because I was suddenly a Jiu-jitsu master and more that she spent the last ten minutes being beat up by a teddy bear sized monkey.

"Stay down, the money can't be worth this," I said out of breath. I ordered Falinks to stand guard around the woman as she laid on the ground as I staggered to my feet just in time to Leet aim at Hakamo-o the glass panes of a recent protect shattering to the floor.

The gun hissed the tip freezing over with an icicle. A heartbeat later exploded into a cone of dense ice. The spread was wide enough that Hakamo-o couldn't dodge even if he tried to. So he didn't, arms extended he risked the double protect and got it, the hexagon barrier appearing in front of him thinner and smaller than it usually was.

Would it have done anything if it had hit? I wasn't sure. Hakamo-o was totally bulletproof but it was still ice, or at least something similar. I suppose it was better to be cautious and not risk it.

"I'm getting really sick of that," Leet hissed.

"Pretty sure Uber's feeling the same about you," I called out tauntingly.

"Stuff it!" He aimed at me. Three shots were fired and while I managed to block the first two there was no way to dodge the third or fourth.

Snow blasted at me aimed straight at my mouth. I managed to close it just in time as the top layer of my lipstick, wetted by the moisture from my breath, froze together.

I lurched back hands going to my mouth as I tried to pull my lips apart. My gauntlets were too wide and not having enough of a grip I opened my mouth as hard I could. The top layer of make up and skin peeling away as I spat it to the floor. Blood dripped down my lips and all I could taste was copper.

"Mo-o!" Hakamo-o roared lept towards Leet, tail swiveling like a whip he struck leet across the fattest part of his thighs. Leet grunted in real pain as he was knocked to the floor.

Hakamo-o leered at Leet, his reptile jaws barely an inch away from the villain's head. But despite that even through the pain Leets lips twisted into a smirk and I saw why. There was water dripping off the dragon type's tail forming a small puddle beneath it.

Leet's legs were soaking wet, so when Hakaomo-o struck him some of that transferred onto his tail.

Before I could order Hakamo-o away, Leet fired at the puddle. It froze instantly, ice travelling up the tail in fractals that swelled around the limb in a way that broke physics to form a cage that bonded him to the floor.

Hakamo-o bellowed, a dragonic cry that echoed through walls of the mall boosting the sound like an amphitheatre. My strongest reared back his head giving me time to shoot an order not to kill him as Hakamo-o lashed out with a violet headbutt aimed straight at the blaster.

The gun tried to kill Hakamo-o shooting him right in the eyes but my dragon wasn't level 40 for nothing and even as his eye froze over he smashed his crown scale down denting the gun and with his teeth ripped the barrel off it like one cracked a carrot in half.

A spark flashed in the barrel, a bright light not unlike the one created by my power and when Leet heard it he let out a panicked yell. He scrambled backwards out of the reach of my pinned pokemon trying to get the blaster off his arm but the dent had broken it shut and he wasn't strong enough to tear it off.

It was as I was staring at his face full of genuine fear as he clawed at his own invention that I remembered one crucial fact about Leet.

His shard was trying to kill him.

Damnit.

I might've hated him for everything he'd done and everything he stood for but I wasn't willing to let him die.

I ran forward as fast as my feet would allow.

"How do I get it off you?" I asked the second I got close. I crouched down so that I was eye level and grabbed his arm with the blaster pointing it down at the ground between us.

"What?" he asked voice frantic as he tried to shake me off him. He grabbed onto my arm with his good hand trying to push it off.

I just gripped on tighter.

"How do I get this off you safely?" I asked once again with a firmer tone. The snitch hovered nearby as if waiting for the chance to watch Leet die, with who was really behind the camera it wouldn't surprise me if it was.

He paused as he glanced up at me, the visor held no trace of humanity in it but the clench tightness at which he held my arm told me everything.

Leet took a deep breath, drawing a wince when the same light flashed in the barrel brighter than it was before.

"Your owl thing, have it cut here and here," he said, tracing a line where the blaster connected with his costume. I did what he said Rowlet hopped over from where he was beating on the Sniper Joe jumped on my shoulder to get a good look at it.

Rowlet pulled at his bowtie and a green grass like feather slipped free. He held it in his wing, the feather thrumming with power that was like Hakamo-o's Dragon Tail and using that he sawed down on the coverall.

The sleeve got loose and I pulled hard, the canon sliding off his arm like a bracelet two sizes too small. Leet winced but held his breath.

"Toss it!" He shouted the second he was free. Turning I threw it as hard as I could over to where Fidough's pen used to be. It smashed into the ground with a thud, the cannon whined as it and flashed some more before it died down.

I spoke into my radio, "Director please be advised that there's unstable tinker tech in the middle of the play-"

Rowlet's wing snapped wide and Leet cried in pain behind me. Looking behind I saw three quills embedded in Leet's hand and another through his boot. Seeing as there was no way Rowlet would just attack someone out of no-where that left only one reason he did that.

"Did you seriously just attack me after I saved your life?" I asked incredulously.

Hakamo-o growled.

Leet cringed, "...No?"

I was very tempted to kick him in his stupid, dumb, idiot face but through the power of good, justice and the Superman way I was able to hold off that thought long enough to pull out another cable tie and slipped it around his arms and ankles.

If they were a little tighter than they needed to be then that was due to my inexperience and not any personal vendetta.

I kept an eye on the other side of the battlefield as I worked to secure Leet, the combination of Rowlet and Falinks enough to secure the rest of the minions and Hakamo-o was within head but range to make sure Leet didn't try anything else.

Duraludon flinched as the goon sprayed him with a bucket load of water giving Uber the chance to land a violent drop kick that hit like a truck knocking him back five paces. My pokemon tried to fight back by raising a club and bringing it down on Uber's head but it was so sluggish he might as well not even bothered.

Uber evaded it easily with an admittedly pretty sick spin flip yelp as Aipom lept from one of the pillars and smashed right into his stomach glowing white with energy. It didn't hurt him but it knocked him spinning through the air where a Triumphs blast slammed him against a pillar.

Duraludon ran to take advantage of the opening but the goon just hosed him down again and the dragon recoiled trying to get away from it. The goon just turned following Duraludon so the nozzle never left him and Duraludon reluctantly, and dare I say demoralised, walked through the water to get to Uber flinching the entire way.

I bit my lips, tasting blood from the torn off skin.

Duraludon was aquaphobic, very aquaphobic. It was something we tested in Boston but I hadn't realised it affected him so badly. He looked like he wanted to be anywhere but there and it was only my orders that kept him from fleeing.

Damnit, I was gonna have to replace him if his evolution didn't get rid of that weakness.

That realisation hit me hard, bumming me out. I liked Duraludon, he was my favourite but I couldn't risk using him if a water gun could take him out of the fight. Nevermind using him against Levithan.

Leet grunted as I finished tightening the clasps on but I really couldn't be fucked to care.

A light shone behind me so bright it felt warm. Alongside it came a sound like I was standing in front of an air turbine echoed through the mall. A sound I recognised.

It couldn't be.

I turned my head and saw that Hakamo-o was bursting with lights from every colour. A glow that engulfed him completely. A light I'd already seen once.

In the lights there was a blob that morphed. Scales shifted till they were hanging off the body, the arms and tail extended almost doubling in size and changed its posture so that it was leaning forward like a gorilla on its knuckles. Even through the light and ice I could see as the tail grew four sets of three scales each larger than the one before it till the final ones were as large as cymbals.

The light faded leaving spots in my eyes and when I blinked them away standing before me trapped in the ice wasn't Hakamo-o anymore.

"Kommo-o," he greeted me, rubbing the ice off his face with his claws so that he could stare at me with red slitted pupils on white eyes. He glanced down to the ice on his tail and snorted. With an almost effortless heave he pulled his tail free and smacked it down on the ground, ice shattering across the floor.

It wasn't just him. A shadow stretched across the floor and Rowlet emerged out of it like one stepped out of an elevator. Shadow Sneak, a move he shouldn't have until I invested another charge in him. Across the mall metal scraping screeched and turning my gaze to the source I saw it was Duraludon sharpening his arms against each other, metal shaving flying away and leaving the arms longer and sharper.

Hone claws. Another move one of my pokemon shouldn't have till I invested another charge in him.

It finally clicked and I wanted to laugh. I felt so stupid for not realising it in the first place.

Pokemon could gain levels through battles. That was the whole point of Pokemon battles in the first place, growing stronger through trials and overcoming them.

It only happened after I defeated Leet so that meant, what? That each villain was worth a charge for my Pokemon?

Hehehe, Bitchin.

It was being rewarded for something I was already going to do but I wasn't going to complain. In fact I was gonna make a shrine in the corner of my room because it made me that giddy.

"Rowlet, Haka- Kommo-o," I corrected myself. The snitch floated around all three of us in dizzying moves trying to capture all the details, "Deal with Uber."

The two nodded and Rowlet disappeared into his shadow zipping across the ground at speeds I couldn't track. Kommo-o however just jumped and in a single bound smashed the pressure washer that the Sniper Joe was using to keep Duraludon at bay with his tail.

Rowlet emerged and fired a machine gun burst of glowing sharpened leaves at Uber, cutting holes in his jiggling suit. Maybe Uber could've fought back but that option was tossed out the window when Aipom threw sand in his eyes and both dragons grabbed Uber and pinned him to the floor. No matter how strong Leets tech was when a combined weight one hundred and twenty kilos of dragon was pressing down you weren't moving till they let you.

"Shit," Leet groaned, laying his head on the floor, defeated, recognizing the same thing I had.

I'd won.

As if to demonstrate that fact Rowlet burst into the same rainbow light that Kommo-o just emerged out. I was too far to see how he morphed through the light but when the lights stopped standing there was a bird double the size of what it was before, the only thing it had in common with its previous form was the green bowtie it had around its collar.

Dartrix.

A pokemon so narcissistic that it would flee from a battle if it ever got dirty.

I smothered a groan.

Goddamn it.




The freezing cold water hit me in the face like a truck. Wincing I made sure to press deeper into the floating ball as my lips went numb. A second later the feeling returned and I ran my tongue over where the skid had torn and found it smooth like I'd applied a fresh coat of lip gloss.

Hatenna directed the lump of water over the rest of my body but it was of little use. I wore too many layers of armour for it to soak through properly. Though fortunately when I took off my boots and socks the freezing cold water was just what I needed to fix my aching feet.

My boots had, in fact, rubbed the back of my heel till it bled. My fault for not wearing thicker socks I guess.

"So is that water safe to drink?" Triumph asked. He leaned against the wall of the back of the PRT van with his helmet off, his dirty blond hair matted down with sweat. On his face was a small domino mask and clutched tight around his shoulders was Aipom.

It seems she had a favourite human now.

It was a good question that I didn't have an answer for so I just shrugged, "It probably is. Why?"

"Throat feels itchy after shouting so much."

The tip of Hatenna's witch-like hat glowed a deep pink as a small water bottle's worth of water split off the large floating bubble and flew over to Triumph.

"Thanks."

"Don't drink it, just rub it into your neck," I advised, "It'll soak through your skin just fine that way."

Triumph although I supposed he was just Rory right now did as I said rubbing the water on his throat like he was massaging in a cream shivering at the cold and numbness as he did so.

Once he was done the water floated out the back of the truck where Hatenna dropped it on the grass. Normally it would've evaporated in seconds, disappearing in the blink of an eye and it was still doing that but because of the Sea Incense wrapped around her neck courtesy of Aipom the Life Dew it was noticeably slower.

The incense was something Triumph had found clutched in Aipom's hand after we wrapped up everything at the mall. We arrested the two villains, handed over the dangerous Tinker Tech to Armsmaster and left for our appointment at the Alcotts.

I wasn't shocked to learn that Pickup still worked the way it did in the games though I'd admit I hadn't really expected it too. Did this mean that Pickup was how I was supposed to get Mega Stones or Z-crystals? They counted as held items but I wasn't sure, it didn't feel right and there was a lot about my power I still didn't know and having one question answered just gave me a dozen more.

I wasn't even sure if I was going to remember this soon enough. For all I knew I was in a throw away timeline and everything that happened at the mall would disappear by the end of the day.

"How's it looking?"

I looked at the Alcott home. It was a two story house built out of white mason stone, with slanted gothic roofs and surrounded by a lush green garden with a single apple tree and an old iron fence around the property. A rich house but not gaudy, old money.

Charlie's squad now freed from the ice walked in and out the house like ants through a hive. Through the open doorway I saw the team captain as she talked with Dinah's mother in the hall with the young girl watching on the stairways.

Officially Charlie squad was here to investigate a potential break-in, at least that's what they'll be telling the neighbours. Really they were there to hide anything I could use to identify Triumph's family to protect his identity while also showing the rich taxpayers of Brockton Bay the PRT took their safety seriously.

Two birds, one stone.

"They're almost done."

"You know, somehow hearing those words isn't the relief I was expecting."

I glanced at Rory and my look must have said something because he sat up to explain.

"It's like…When you're a kid you have all those family events there's always that one Uncle that is always there but you never really talk to? He's at every Christmas but when it's your birthday he's the last to arrive and first to leave so you spend so little time with him that he feels like a stranger, just one you're related to."

"My mom had six brothers, I sorta get that."

"Yeah," he nodded, "But you get older and you find out that it's because he could have a stroke or heart attack at any moment and your parents didn't want you getting too attached."

I hummed, "Then he just becomes the uncle you expect to die."

"Sounds kinda messed up when you put it like that but yeah. Now I have to shuffle some things around in my head now that he won't," he paused, "Well now that he probably won't."

Pessimistic but he was sadly right. Until I stopped Gold Morning and the Endbringers everything was a big fat maybe.

"I'm sorry about Challenger by the way."

"What?"

"About what I said about the Endbringers. I didn't mean to imply her death was a good thing."

Rory shook his head.

"You didn't Purity was just being a…" he paused trying to find the right words.

I smiled, "You can say bitch in front of me. I've said worse."

"Being the word you just said. Besides, Challenger would probably agree with you. She was that kind of Hero."

"Sounds like you need to tell me about her sometimes."

"I'd like that," he said, rubbing the ears of Aipom who giggled with a smile wider than a banana, "And if you ever want to talk about some of the other stuff you said I'm always here to lend an ear."

My eyes flicked away from Rory.

The Captain who'd been talking with Mrs Alcott gave me a thumbs up.

"They're ready. Sure you don't want to come?"

"Can't. The best way to keep a secret identity is not to let everyone who has a reason to brag know you're a hero."

That's sad.

It was always the part I hated about Superheroes, the drama regarding secret identities. It was annoying when Spider-man had to deal with it and it was sad here. J.J.J and New Wave was right, going maskless was more fun. Though, I couldn't say shit. It wasn't like I had anyone I needed to worry about anymore.

I said goodbye and picked up Hatenna in my arms who took it without complaint. The tip of her hat tickled my nose as it drooped low, barely having the strength to hold itself up.

Today had been tough on her. Well, it had been tough on me but it had been torturous for her. Between the mall with all its crowds and the bathroom with Purity it was the equivalent of chucking a kid with sensory issues in a Metallica moss pit.

I'd thought she'd handled it well all things considered but I was beginning to think that she really hadn't and like Duraludon pushing to keep fighting despite the water he was afraid of so much it had been my orders that kept Hattenna from fleeing and that bothered me.

My Pokemon weren't real. They had no flesh nor blood and they were the embodiment of their Pokedex entries and natures more than they were sentient beings but that didn't mean I liked them being in pain.

I walked through the door into the hallway. The Squad captain whose name I really should learn one of these days gave me a nod and directed me into a small sunroom where Dinah's parents were waiting for me though their daughter was nowhere to be seen. In the corner of the room there was a christmas tree with tons of presents underneath.

It shocked me that it was a real chopped down tree. I thought they were fake everywhere and the real tree was just something that only happened in movies but that might've just been the Australian in me.

"Good evening," I greeted the two of them sitting down, "Mrs and Mr Smith was it?"

They both frowned at the names but a glance at the Captain who nodded had them doing the same.

"Yes I suppose we are. Not too sure about all the secrecy however," Mr Alcott said, adjusting his glasses. He wore chestnut framed ones to match his brown hair, with thick dork like lenses and a sweater that reminded me of a Ned Flanders kind of man.

He didn't look like the kind of man that could drop dead of a heart attack at any moment but he was on that transiting point between one chin to two with a stomach that wasn't paper thin either.

His wife dressed simply too, for her tax bracket anyway, wearing a white chiffon gown with a gold necklace and a matching gold bangle around her wrist. She had blonde hair that was in a bob style that went a little below her chin.

"Don't complain," Mrs Alcott admonished her husband.

"It's alright," I said to the woman before I addressed Mr Alcott, "I understand how you feel, I can tell you it's not fun on my end either. Just know it's for your protection and mine, people can get desperate when it comes to their health. In the very, very unlikely event the PRT has a data breach we don't have someone coming after you trying to steal whatever cured you."

Notably they didn't really have a huge reaction to that. I guess when you had their net worth the threat of being robbed or kidnapped was nothing new.

"So how does this work? Details were sparse," she asked.

"Technically it's already started. Hatenna here passively heals ailments and conditions around her. As we speak and over the next thirty minutes or so your husband's arteries are being cleaned from all the plaque that's been building up in them as well as any other conditions he's got. After that's done Hatenna will splash him with a water that has regenerating properties - While it won't fix his heart that'll help with the strain that it's been put under."

Hatenna probably could've used her newly acquired Heal Pulse to do it instead but I wasn't going to even try to justify using untested powers on a civilian to Piggot.

"I see," Mr Alcott said scratching the corner of his chin with the face of a man that very much didn't, "Powers are as complex as they are miraculous."

"Other conditions?" Came from the wife.

I shrugged, "STD's, blood conditions, Alzheimer's, crippling migraines or just general headaches. Anything bad that you're not born with or isn't an injury with really."

Healer was a really fucking powerful ability. Perfectly created by a God to go 'Nu-uh' to pretty much everything. Though most of it was just cartoons being cartoons or aura bullshit in the case of Ash I wasn't surprised that people in the Pokemon world were Superhumanlite with almost unlimited access to nurses with this power and more.

It made me grateful to Hatenna that for all the thousand and Pokemon there were, I got to have one of the few that can truly help people as my first.

"Enna," my pokemon whined, pushing herself into the couch to escape my feelings. It spoke at just how exhausting today had been that she hadn't instantly started crying.

"I know it's easier said than done but try to keep calm. Strong emotions are stressful to Hatenna here."

"But it'll cure me?" Mr Alcott asked, looking at the Christmas tree with the eyes of a man that had lost all hope and was finally seeing a glimmer for the first time in a long while. His wife reached over and grasped his hand in her own.

How long had he been suffering? Forced to be a stranger even to his own family. How many Christmas' had he wondered would be his last.

Too many.

I nodded feeling the weight of those years, "Yes. It'll cure you."

He took a deep breath as I pulled my phone out, set a timer for 30 minutes and placed it down on the table.

"I suppose I should put on the kettle if we're going to be here for a while. Coffee?" Mrs Alcott said, pushing herself off the couch.

The Captain and I declined.

She left leaving us four to say nothing to each other until she came back five minutes later with two mugs for her and her husband joining in the same awkward silence that she left behind.

It felt rude making small talk when he was grappling with his feelings so all I could do was run my fingers over Hatenna's witch hat.

They hadn't reacted when I mentioned headaches so I supposed that meant she hadn't triggered. I wasn't sure how to bring it up.

My eyes wandered over to the presents under the tree. There was no name tag on any of them but there was a lot for a family with one kid. Was Dinah a spoiled kid? So much of her had been tainted by Coil that she was barely the same person then she was at the start. Some part of me hoped she was. Kids were meant to be spoiled.

The charge that had been building all day filled and a shiver ran down the back of my spine. It was like an alarm you never set went off and it surprised me every time.

Grateful for the distraction I retreated into my power and after a moment of consideration to just put the charge into one of the Pokemon I already had I opened the literal gacha that was my chance for new Pokemon.

Please be good. Please be good.

That nebulous power in the back of my mind split into five distinct blobs.

The first felt like something beaten into shape with a hammer. Molded or molted till the impurities were gone leaving the multi-limbed, multiple eyes creatures to skitter on through the ground. Steel and Bug.

It was a good combination and I looked into it further only to find that there were no shapes that it could become or would come from. A single stage evolution. There were only two Pokemon that could be and I felt disappointed when it was the worst option.

Like hell I was getting stuck with a Durant.

The second was even. It had the same multieyed, multi limbed shape to it but it had a noxious feeling to it, like the bile in the bottom of my stomach as I leaned over my toilet fingers down my throat. Another Bug with the Poison type. It took me a moment to place it since there were just so many pokemon it could be but eventually I managed to clue together that it was Dustox.

There were some Pokemon that I was willing to break the rules the PRT put on me. This was not one of them.

The next gave me a jittery feeling but nothing more. A Monoelectric, I felt the shapes it could become and something tugged me in opposite directions. Three-stages with one ability that never changed - Something that gave me the feeling of swimming through the air and never being able to touch the ground.

Electross.

For a moment I considered it but thought better of it. It needed a stone to evolve and unlike an anime, zapping someone was very likely to kill them. It wasn't something I could use and still be a hero.

The fourth was Mabosstiff, which I actually would've considered if it wasn't for the last one.

Water. Would gain the flying type later and had a Mega that gave it the dark type. Gyarados.

I was hesitant to pick that one. As cool as they were, they were one of the few Pokemon with a confirmed bodycount and were so devastating that they were basically a pseudo legend in reputation.

But I had to pick them. Today had been a lesson in how weak my Pokemon were to water and a month an Endbringer was going to attack. I didn't know which one, in Worm it had been Ziz but if it was Levithan then half my team would be useless.

I needed something that could be useful against both and a water flying type was just that.

Hesitantly I picked Gyarados feeling the presence of Magikarp appear in the back of my mind watching through me like glass.

At least I liked Aquaman.

Mr Alcott glanced over my shoulder and said in a quiet tone, "Go to your room sweetie."

I followed his gaze and saw a girl slowly making her way down the stairs. She wore a little elf shirt with a Santa hat on and clutched under her armpit was a large textbook.

I tried to put on my blankest face as I saw the girl that killed Taylor in more ways than one. She was so small.

"But I need help with my homework," she said.

Her father raised an eyebrow at her, "Homework during the winter break? I think I need to have a discussion with your teachers if they're overworking you this much."

"Not real homework," she said, "Just some revision for next year."

"And I'm sure this sudden studious nature of yours has no relation at all to the Hero joining us today?"

Who talks to an eleven year old like that?

Was it just a rich people being rich thing? Probably. Then again there were thousands of Capes out there that had to dig deep into the dictionary to find a unique name so maybe that just had a knock on effect on the words people used.

"...No?" Dinah lied lamely.

"You were told to stay in your room while they're here. You don't want to interrupt their work," Dinah's mother said.

"All they're doing is sitting around doing nothing."

"That," Mrs Alcott said with the emphasis only a mother could, "Is not important here. You were told to wait upstairs Sweetie, please just go to your room and we can talk about this later."

She frowned, "You're hiding something, again."

The accusation hit her parents like a slap across the face.

I was reminded that them hiding things from her was the source of her original trigger. I wasn't sure if I could blame them but Dinah clearly felt different.

"That's not important right now."

"Yes it is."

"Go to your room now Dinah," Her mother said, not noticing the slip.

"No, I want to know what's going on," Dinah said with a voice full of emotion.

Hatenna tried to bury herself deeper into the couch, a soundless scream muffled into the pillow. I frowned, noticed what I was doing and forced myself to calm down. Hattenna had been through this twice today and I refused to let it happen a third time.

Her mother opened her mouth to speak.

"Okay everyone I think this is getting a little heated," I said, talking over whatever she was going to say.

Maybe it was the authority that my costume gave me or the reminder that they had guests in the house but just by speaking they fell silent and listened to me.

Dinah clutched her book while her mother took a long hard sip of her coffee.

As stupid as it was I felt like they both were blaming me for the argument, as if I was the cause of it and not the underlying problems being the root of it all.

I glanced at the phone using the time to organise my thoughts. If it was my kids I would've told her the truth, hell I was thinking of telling her the truth now. That her father was dying but I was going to fix him, to give her that at the very least.

But I couldn't. I was constrained by the boundaries of being a stranger in their home, by the boundaries of being a hero and the boundaries of being a technical medical professional.

"Do you know what my power is Dinah?"

"You make those monsters right? I saw them on tv."

"I can summon my friends, yes. Would you like to meet them?" I offered, "We can go to the backyard and take some photos with them."

Dinah frowned.

"That sounds like an excellent idea," her father said, a hand laid over his heart.

Mrs Alcott gave a small nod.

"Sounds great," I said standing up and walking to the backyard. Dinah and the Captain trailed behind me without a word.

The backyard was smaller than I thought, a pool and the white tiles that surrounded it taking up a third and a large oak tree with a lot of limbs taking up the other third. A layer of snow covered the ground but not deeper than the soles of my boots.

I rubbed a thumb over my lips unconsciously.

"We're here," Dinah said, "Let's just get this over with."






"Higher! Higher!" Dinah shouted in glee as Kommo-o tossed her up into the air. A small child might as well have weighed as much as a bag of grapes to him as when he let go she flew.

She rose through the air till she was high enough that she could've stood on the roof of her house with her tippy toes. A moment of weightlessness before gravity pulled her back down where Kommo-o leaped to meet her with arms wide open. The power of Sky Uppercut enveloped the two of them so that when they landed the only thing that was hurt was the grass beneath them.

"Again!" she begged the dragon type but he shook his head before he jerked his head at me and let her down gently.

"My turn," I said, taking my chance to leap into my dragon's arms where he caught me in a princess carry.

Sarah was right being a princess felt so fucking cool.

I stuck my tongue out at the kid as Kommo-o snorted, the crown scales tittering and jumped. The wind whistled and all I could feel was a dizzying lurch as Kommo-o - To style on a preteen - did a triple back flip through the air.

I regretted it immediately. It felt like I was in the middle of the dryer and the entire time I had no idea which way was up or down until Kommo-o let me down, a claw on my shoulder to keep me upright.

A familiar nausea came and went as I pushed down the urge to throw up.

"The crowd waits with baited breath for the judges score," I said looking down at the three girls.

"Four out of ten. You look like you're about to puke" she snarked in the way only little kids could.

"Then it's a good thing you're here. I can use your T-shirt as a rag and nothing would change."

She scrunched her nose, "That's gross."

Kommo-o led me over to the base of the tree where I sat down, head resting against the wood as I took a deep breath.

Dinah followed me with twigs and snow crushing under her feet until she grabbed onto the lowest, thickest branch and with practice motions pulled herself up to sit on it with her feet dangling like a kid on a pew. Her face flush from the exercise.

"So why are you here?" She tried to ask casually.

My lips quirked, "Interrogating me when I'm off balance. You're quite the little detective."

"Don't do that."

"Do what?"

"Talk down to me like I'm a little kid," she huffed, "I'm sick of it."

"Sorry, old habit," I said, "How do you want me to treat you then?"

She crossed her arms, "I want you to tell me the truth."

"I'm sorry but I can't," I shook my head, "You'd have to talk with your parents for that."

"They never tell me anything."

"I know."

"My dads dying."

Her eyes lingered on me waiting for a reaction that never came.

"You know," she accused.

I nodded, "I do."

"So is that 's why you're here. A visit from a hero to cheer up the girl whose dad is going to die. I hear they do that a lot when a kid has cancer."

"Those are called crisis points and no I'm not here for that. You were told to wait in your room, remember."

"Then what are you doing here?"

I sighed, "I can't tell you."

"Typical."

I pushed myself off the ground and climbed a different branch so that we were eye level. I laid across the tree limb like a lounge and Kommo-o shifted, arms out ready to catch me if it broke.

It was pretty uncomfortable. It wasn't a thick branch and I had to cross my ankles together to get a good balance on it, but it was necessary. I wanted this to turn from an interrogation into a conversation.

"What do you know about your fathers condition?"

"It's his heart. Something is wrong with his heart. Dad takes this medication called… Something. I found a bottle and I looked it up."

I hummed. Smart kid.

"It said he's only got a seventeen percent chance of living. Last year it was twenty-four. I…didn't find anything for the year after but I'm smart enough to know it's not getting better."

She ducked her head down, hair falling like curtains to cover her face. She sniffled and in the cold it came out snotty. She rubbed it off on her green shirt.

It was one thing to know that she would trigger because of those damning numbers, it was another to have the girl in front of me crying because she thought she was going to lose her father.

Damn the shards. I could see why she got the powers she did and it disgusted me.

But there was something wrong with what she was saying. I read up on her fathers disease and talked to doctors about whether or not Hatenna could cure it.

And never once did I hear those odds.

I licked my lips trying to find the right words to say.

"Dinah… What exactly do you think is wrong with your father?"

She sniffed, "He's got cancer. I dunno the stage."

My eyes rose behind my helmet. As bad as Coronary Heart Disease was, it was not cancer.

I reminded myself that for however smart Dinah was, she was still an eleven year old girl trying to diagnose someone from the internet. After this I'd have to talk with her parents about spilling the beans.

"Dinah," I said in a gentle voice, "I need you to look at me please."

Her hands wiped her eyes but when she looked at me they were still glossy.

"Listen I can't tell you what's wrong with your father, legally I just can't. However, I can tell you with zero percent doubt and one hundred percent honesty that he doesn't have cancer."

I paused letting her absorb that.

A glimmer of hope dawned on her face.

"He's not going to die," I said softly.

She sniffed, "You promise."

Slowly I took off my gauntlet undoing the straps with deliberateness. Dinah stared wide eyed at the tattoo on my arm. Before I reached out a single pinkie finger extended.

"I promise," I said, "Cross my heart and hope to die."

"You forgot the thousand needle part."

"Well I don't like needles."

"Then don't break your promise."

Slowly she reached out and wrapped her own around mine. Her hands were so terribly small but she held on with a tightness that would make a man cry.

I wasn't strong enough to protect the world from Zion, wasn't strong enough to defeat the Endbringers nor the numerous villains. All I could do was save this one kid's childhood.

"I promise Dinah. He'll be okay."

And for today, that was enough.



  • Day 27: Magikarp
  • Hakamo-o evolves into Kommo-o (Pseudo legendary whoo!)
  • Rowlet evolved into Dartrix. Lv 20
  • Falinks lv 10 to lv 20
  • Fidough lv 10 to lv 20
  • Duraludon lv 10 to lv 20
  • Aipom lv 5 to lv 15
  • Uber and Leet, more like Unter and Pwned.
  • Dinah gets to have a happy christmas
  • Coil has an unhappy christmas
MVP: Aipom
 
PRT Files - Kommo-o
Author's Note: This includes some stuff Kommo-o will get but doesn't have access to right now. * will be used to show that.




PRT Files: Dawn. (Master 7. Trump 9 Nine x Infinity)

-Subfolder: Subject 3 'Kommo-o ' (Brute 5-7-8. Striker 4. Blaster 4. Mover 4-6. Master 3.)

Note: Previous names: Jangomo-o. Hakamo-o.

Age: N/A

Height: 5'03"

Gender: N/A (Dawn has been observed referring to it as a 'he' but no discernible sexual characteristics can be identified. Assumed to be personification and not indicative of sex.)

Weight: 78kg or less.

Appearance: Kommo-o is a bipedal monster that possesses features similar to the extinct dinosaur Theropoda. Covering its body are thick overlapping golden scales that are both durable and flexible.

Capabilities: The upper limits of physical abilities and durability are impossible to define in field situations as Kommo-o possesses numerous abilities that either boosts it or weakens its capabilities when used.

These abilities include:

  • The ability to shed scales lowering its weight to increase its agility without any reduction in durability.
  • The ability to injure itself severely by slapping its stomach, pumping its muscles and boosting its strength by a great amount.
  • The ability to shed scales to produce a powerful sonic blast at the cost of reducing its durability.
  • The ability to harden its skin to an iron-like durability.
  • *The ability to perform a fifteen to twenty second dance that increases its speed and physical offense.
  • *The ability to perform a Haka, injuring itself and boosting all its capabilities.
However a baseline assessment can be made. Kommo-o is strong enough to knock over a dumptrunk, fast enough to run at 50 kilometers an hour, leap three stories, five with a running start and is largely immune to projectiles to an arbitrary degree.

Testing revealed that Kommo-o (Then called Jangmo-o) possesses the ability to completely nullify or deflect any projectile going above an indeterminate speed or possessing above an indeterminate weight no matter where the projectile hit it. In theory this means a low weight, low velocity projectile could affect Kommo-o but because of the subjects innate durability the degree between 'Sufficient to hurt Subject 3' and 'Slow and light enough to go under its projectile negating power' is impossible to determine with conventional ammunition- If they don't overlap in the first place.

Additionally Kommo-o is immune to sound based powers and any particulates such as thermite, poisonous powders and simple dust obscuring its vision. It also has the ability to conjure a protective forcefield roughly twice the size of itself that lasts for a few seconds. Every attempt to summon this field after the first is less and less successful however requiring a recharge period.

Offensively Kommo-o's bag of tricks is smaller though no less effective. It has the ability to stand still for a period of time and then retaliate with twice the amount of damage it took within that amount of time. Hit opponents with its tail that knocks them back until colliding with an obstacle while coating them in a protective layer to prevent them from being injured. *The ability to produce various sound blasts. *Let out a war-cry that fills those that hear it with fear weakening their ability to fight or stare at them with a gaze that induces mild Runners dystonia like symptoms.

[Note: Physical capabilities liable to change as in the future]

Disposition: Kommo-o is a serious and effective fighter that takes the protection of its generator and assigned personnel seriously. It is unlikely to misbehave, roam or make a nuisance of itself.

Those that are temporarily assigned Kommo-o should note however its ritual of performing a prefight dance meant to intimidate its opponent will prevent it from participating in any stealth operation and that once a fight has begun Kommo-o will be extremely reluctant to retreat from the fight.

Public suitability: Yes.

Future Plans:

With its transformation to its final evolution, the discovery that each of Dawn's monsters that participated in the defeat of a parahuman receive a boost in power equivalent to a days charge and Kommo-o's sheer effectiveness as one of Dawn's more powerful monsters indicates that it is likely to participate in future battles it has been decided that more charges invested into Kommo-o will be redundant.

As such there are no more plans to invest any more daily charges into Kommo-o at this moment.

Armsmaster Notes: Everything said about Subject 4 applies to Subject 3 except with the negatives and positives accentuated. Its disposition makes it a poor squadmate when the situation requires descalation but is a valuable ally when the situation has progressed past that point.

However with its inherent immunities I feel it would be wasted remaining solely in Brockton Bay whose villains it does not have a distinct advantage over. Instead I believe that just like Subject 1 has been assigned as a transferable medic it should be assigned as a strike force against villains possessing sound or projectile based powers such as the Red Choir in Kennet, Rhapsody in New York and Clamshell in Seattle.

If it succeeds in subduing the villain then it grows stronger and if it doesn't the Protectorate gains intel and loses nothing due to Subjects 3 inherent immortality.

On a more personal note Subject 3's immunity to sound based attacks is valuable if able to be replicated by Tinkers and implemented into Dragons drones. If possible this would allow Dragon to no longer be hampered by Slaughter House 9 member Shatterbird freeing allowing Dragon to assist in any future engagements with the Nine.

[Restricted access: Level Four Clearance and above]

Subfolder - Threat assessment: Subject 3 - High threat.

Note: As each monster's threat becomes more exponential and complex the more monsters there are, the full threat assessment of Dawn and her full squad of six manifested monsters are located under her own threat assessment. This document is to address Subject 3 only and will operate under the assumption that Subject 3 is the sole combatant.

Kommo-o's complete immunity to ammunition, containment foam and intercity missiles make it a threat uncontainable by the PRT and must be handled by the local Protectorate.

With a Threat rating of 7 all conflicts with Kommo-o must be done in teams of three at minimum. It is mandatory that the local Protectorate Leader - Armsmaster - must be present when dealing with such a threat.

Unfortunately Kommo-o is completely immune to two members of the local Protectorate powers (Miss Militia, Triumphs), resistant to another's (Dauntless) and outside the scope of one's ability to engage (Velocity) limiting the team of possible heroes to Armsmaster, Assault and Battery.

Local assets are approved to be asked for assistance. The hero team New Wave has three members that are a better match up against Kommo-o (Manpower, Lady Photon and Laserdream) and a reward of up to $25,000 can be awarded in order to gain their cooperation.

If unwilling to assist, heroes from other cities can be assigned to address the threat. If he can be spared, Legend is the ideal Hero to deal with Kommo-o though his assistance should never be assumed as a guarantee.

Without the ability to predict the future Protectorate rosters or other cities' crises a perfect team can not be determined however flying artillery, Aerokentics, Ice generators and Alexandria packages are preferable.

Heroes that possess the power to shunt Kommo-o into another dimension, teleport it away or otherwise temporarily remove it from the battlefield are forbidden from using their powers on Kommo-o - Giving it time to increase its capabilities is not an option.

One member of the squad must always be on the offense against Kommo-o at any given time to ensure that its protective barrier is recharging and prevent it from increasing its capabilities. Confirmation of the protective barrier use must be acquired before any significant attack is launched.

One member of the squad must maintain distance from Kommo-o to prevent all members from being launched away by its tails effect.

If Kommo-o manages to boost its capabilities significantly all Heros are instructed to evacuate, wait for the boost to die down and then continue the fight.
 
I assume you only use Pokemon in the rolls, and the fake Pokemon that exist in Celestial Menagerie aren't part of the rolls here, right?

In a way, I would be curious how she would react to something she has no idea about, but with this being Pokemon story, I doubt this is what you look for.
 
Garganator said:
I assume you only use Pokemon in the rolls, and the fake Pokemon that exist in Celestial Menagerie aren't part of the rolls here, right?
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Yeah just Pokemon and not Fakemon. I did think of having this story be a regular CM fic but having read a few fics myself having to pause and look up was just too annoying.

With just Pokemon everyone knows what they look like and what they can do. No need to waste time explaining it or have people crawl through twenty different wiki's.
 
Genilea said:
I'm surprised body press isn't included in the pet analysis. I guess dragon dance speed blitz is scarier than unstoppable iron defense body press since getting even more bulletproof isn't quite as scary
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Doesn't have body press unfortunately. That's a TM and they only have their level up learnsets.
 
Genilea said:
Would the PRT see body press as a threat?
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Honestly no, it's just another fighting move to them. The way to combat it is the same with every other fighting move - Don't get hit.
Genilea said:
If she ever gets Porygon, would she be able to reverse engineer Pokemon tech?
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Not really, Porygon was created by Pokémon Tech but that doesn't give it anything useful to reverse engineer Pokémon tech.

Porygon however is one of the few Pokémon that if rolled immediately will change the direction of the story. Just not in that way.
 
Neat, Porygon is a wold cras since it cna uave old devon files on it etc for poke tech or knows how about standard repair manuals/protocols thta give insight into poketech. a bit predictable but still cool so i wouldn't mind either way. What made you update again, just getting dree time or...?
 
I like the concept but not how much of a pushover our main guy is.
 
Becoming the dawn 1.5 New
"The PRT owes you an apology Dawn," were not the words I expected to hear from Director Piggot. I just stared at her.

With her back framed by her office's glass window giving her an orange tint where the setting sun shadowed the mountains she didn't look like she'd been replaced by a stranger but with powers you'd never know.

As tempting as it was to ask her to tell me today's code I bit my tongue and let her continue.

"While not to the same degree as the Wards, the Protectorate is meant to be the safer alternative for heroes. Despite this, our lack of opsec put you in a position where a villain not only learned confidential information but actively sought you out and for that as your Director and representative of the PRT I apologise," Piggott said and to her credit she actually did seem sorry, in the swallowed a lemon sort of way.

I shrugged, "Worked out fine in the end."

Between Coil, Tattletale and the small dozen of god-like thinkers I never expected to have any privacy and I preferred Purity over Contessa. Well, only barely. And I could fully admit this was a unique situation; the Mayor being the father to your Ward captain meant some wires would've got crossed.

"It didn't," she said, giving me a firm stare that had me straightening my back. I never knew that someone so fat could have a look like that, "A villain saw your face Dawn. A villain with close ties to a gang that has killed heroes in the street before. While we've tried to accommodate your insistence on secrecy this is no longer just about you, if you have any family that can be targeted then I insist you tell me so I can arrange protection for them."

"Ah. Well good news then, I don't have any."

"Is that so?" She asked. Her brow furrowed slightly, a crack in her stony exterior at how little I seemed to care.

Maybe if I had a different power I would've been more broken up about that but when I'd eventually get Hoopa and Celabi I knew I'd get home eventually.

"Yeah. I know you think I'm crazy for abandoning everything and all that but trust me I haven't given up that much."

"I see. That's good news I suppose," she said taking a deep breath, "Then let's move onto the real issue. Just what the hell were you thinking Dawn?"

Though she didn't raise her voice, the sudden change in her tone made me feel like she did. Sitting behind her large desk made out of the same metal as a bank vault she seemed to loom.

Reflexively I glanced over my shoulder half expecting to see a growling dragon I'd have to calm down, but there were only the grey walls of her office. I'd returned them because having a monster out that could smash through steel out during a meeting with your boss wasn't a good look. Even when you didn't know her history with monsters.

"'In and out' those were your own words. And yet, despite them, you brought a monster that feeds off negative emotions into your meeting with a dangerous villain, who you then proceeded to provoke yourself. Your reckless actions put everyone in that mall in danger and you're lucky no children will need funerals because of how you acted."

Her words were something I knew were coming and yet they still hit me like I'd been punched in the gut. She was right, I could admit that. Looking back on it all without the fear and anger clouding everything I had been reckless and that led me to doing some stupid shit that could've got kids killed.

I took a deep breath and exhaled. I didn't regret what I did but that didn't mean I was proud of them either.

"You're right, Director," I said, "But only about my actions. I shouldn't have engaged with Purity like that, shouldn't have let myself get drawn into an argument I knew was pointless. That's on me and I'm prepared to take responsibility for that. But Impadimp? He was necessary to keep myself safe and Hatenna calm. "

"And the fact that it gained illegally obtained intelligence on Purity was a coincidence then?" She asked as if daring me to disagree.

A part of me wanted to play dumb but I knew that would only make her opinion of me even worse. How Parahumans avoided responsibility was just one of the many reasons she hated them after all.

And to be honest, so did I.

"No, I won't say I brought Impadimp solely to do that but since I was bringing him anyway I figured I might as well use him."

"You thought wrong," she said bluntly, "What did you even expect me to do with this information, Dawn? Were you hoping that we'd go arrest her while she's in her home? At her job? I shouldn't need to tell you that the fact your monster can identify villains is something that needs to be kept under seal."

I thought about it for a moment before I shook my head.

"No, with her threat rating that'll just put people in danger. Even if we succeed, that'd escalate things in the city and across the country if how we learned this ever went public. The Empire would want blood, and with the support they get from white supremacists across the globe, that will get deadly."

Piggot hummed, "Then what would you do with this then?"

Her tone gave me pause.

She didn't sound angry, instead it was like she was evaluating me and whatever she was looking for I needed to give her. I wasn't ready to take on Coil right now, even with Kommo-o.

"I'm not sure how we'd get a warrant but you can't be a gang member for over a decade and not have connections. If we steal her phone or maybe bug her apartment we can use that to hopefully put the hurt on the white supremacists. Unlikely I know but it won't hurt to try…" I trailed off trying to figure out what more I could say.

What was it that Piggot would want to hear? Morals or effectiveness?

I knew the answer. This was the woman that firebombed teenagers.

"If we even need to do anything like that. She has a kid now, she said it herself. If she wants to stay in her life then if she agrees to flip on her former gang it might get her that."

Her lips curled, "The PRT is not in the business of giving deals to murderers."

I knew that.

Assault and Sophia only got their deals because of extenuating circumstances, Assault's power not being recognisable and that they both didn't have bodies tied to them.

Purity didn't have any of those things. She'd been a gang lieutenant for years with the most recognisable power in the world. There was no world where she got to go on the straight and narrow, her only options were more crime, the Birdcage or getting trapped in a grey boy bubble tortured for an eternity not even knowing her daughter had been shot.

A hell any mother would do anything to avoid.

I knew that.

The tiles on the floor shone in patchy spots from the lights reflected from the ceiling. The dull pink from the window mixed with them till it looked almost like the back of a lady bug.

In the floors I saw the reflection of a woman in armour. A line in the tiles cut through her helmet warping it so that her helmet looked like it had a tree trunk growing out the front of it.

"Never said we had to follow through on our end."

Piggot took a moment to digest that. She was a very still person and it made me even more aware of how my fingers tapped the back of my thigh because she made me feel like every moment was too much.

She sighed.

"Dawn, you put me in a difficult situation here. Initiative is something I praise in my capes but the recklessness you showed is something unbecoming of a member of the Protectorate and a hero," Piggot said after a moment, "It is our job to bring order to chaos but going about it without caution or training is how people die Dawn. What if Purity saw what your monster was doing in the mirror? What if she actually attacked you? Your plan was halfbacked and relied on luck more than actual competency. As punishment for your actions I'm forced to fine you the entirety of the reward money you were meant to receive for capturing Uber and Leet."

I blinked slowly, surprised I asked, "There's a reward?"

I hadn't heard anything about that but thinking about it I wasn't sure why I was surprised, the government just loved throwing money at capes. The jacuzzi in my room was the embodiment of that.

"Protectorate heroes receive a bonus for every villain you capture, another for when they make it to their court date and sentencing. For Uber and Leet the combined reward was eleven-thousand dollars. Additionally you will be undergoing fifteen hours training on how to manage your emotions and a psych evaluation."

That's it?

I'd been expecting to never be allowed to patrol for the rest of the year or something like that. Money I didn't even know I was getting and some training felt too easy, like I was getting off with a slap on the wrist.

Except Piggot would never allow that. She was not a 'Spare the rod' kind of woman. Even if I respected her I could admit she was a hard bitch that would never like me.

"Do you understand your punishment as I've laid it out Dawn?" Piggot asked.

I nodded slowly as it dawned on me.

She couldn't punish me, not significantly at least. It wasn't even unique to me but it was the fact that the Protectorate was built to gargle the balls of Capes so they wouldn't leave. Wage docking or mandatory training was the most she could do in this time and if she went too far I could just transfer departments.

And with my powers there was no one that wouldn't take me.

I wasn't sure how I felt about that. It helped me here but getting special treatment just because I was a cape felt wrong.

"Yes Director. It won't happen again."

"No," Piggot said, "it won't."



Sweating sucked. No matter how much my parents told me it was natural growing up I was the kid that always had to spray herself with deodorant on the hour between classes because the thought that other people could smell how much I stunk kept me up at night.

I was better now but as I held the bar above me, my arms straining under the weight I couldn't help but wonder how much I reeked.

Sixty Kilo's pressed down like tons as I lifted it up and down, a burning sensation spread throughout my body and all I could focus on was the coldness of my skin where drops of moisture chilled me down. They felt like ice tickling me with how hot my body was running.

Every part of my body hurt but it felt good to get moving again and to push out the feelings that my meeting with Piggot left me with.

In my chest felt like my heart was playing the bongo's while my lungs were getting pounded into mochi but I was doing better than I would've before I came to Bet. An hour around Hatenna was enough to cure you of almost anything and no one other than some people at the asylum had spent more time around her than me.

I wasn't Captain America, I wasn't even fitter than particularly lazy weekend warriors but given enough time and training I knew I could become something worthy of being called a brute.

I couldn't wait for that day. My power was great but hiding behind my Pokemon wasn't what I wanted.

I wanted to be on the frontline, a bastion that held back the tide, a voice everyone looked at too and an unstoppable behemoth that only gave you the option of getting out the way.

A shaking ran through my bicep, the only warning before the muscles in my arm just gave up and the bar slipped through my hands.

"Ommo-o," Kommo-o growled as he caught the bar easily like another might lift a pencil before it could slam into my chest. Gently he put it back on the rack as I pushed myself up to nurse my arm.

I shook it and I could barely feel it as it wobbled limply from my shoulder drained of all energy. It felt like any moment I'd look down and see it shriveled up worse than what Crocodile did to Luffy.

Hattena with only a hint of a sniffle extended a bubble of Life Dew and let it sprinkle over me. For once as it chilled through my skin it felt as refreshing as the name implied.

The life force water soaked through my gym clothes and my body to repair the damaged muscles beneath. When the tingling went away I flexed my arms feeling the muscles beneath coil tighter than they had before.

With Aegis on the Wards the local Protectorate was used to abusing powers to squeeze every drop of muscle out of the body that they could, so when they had a hero that could heal they took full advantage of that shit.

Training to failure was a method where you exercised till you physically couldn't anymore. What I was doing was the so-called Legend method of training till my body broke and then healing so I could do it all over again compressing days of exercise into a couple of hours.

It hurt. God did it hurt, but after how useless I felt in the mall I was willing to deal with it if I meant I wouldn't be so weak in the future.

Kommo-o grunted as he handed me a sports drink. Chevalier cherry with a small graphic of the man lifting his sword like a weight.

I grimaced, I hated sour things.

But I drank it anyway because I was not up to walking across the entire gym to go get something else from the fridge and sending one of my Pokemon to do that felt like too much. As I finished my drink I tapped my work out into an exercise tracker on my phone and minimized the flashing warning that popped up meant for people that couldn't heal. I also ignored the meal tracker app telling me to eat a horse load of calories to make up for what I would've burned if not for Hatenna.

Usually I'd have a personal trainer with me but the amount of people that were qualified to instruct me when I was using Hatenna was so low they might as well be nonexistent.

The sound of footsteps on mats had me glancing at the man who was walking my way. He was tall with perfect dark blond hair, green eyes and biceps that looked like he spent every day chopping wood, like the CW Green Arrow. He wore a simple PRT shirt like everyone that worked here did, grey sweatshorts and black safety boots and he had a phone that he was slowly tapping away at.

He looked vaguely familiar.

"Hey," I said, tilting my disgusting drink at him. The man slowed down and after a glance at the five foot tall bulletproof punch dragon gave a nod back as he slipped the phone back into his pocket.

"Hey Dawn," he said back as he leaned across a rack. As he did his black boots glowed and crackled with yellow lightning greeting me as one cape did to another. Scales clanged softly behind me as Kommo-o reached down and picked up the two of the heaviest weights available, lifting them easy with his superhuman strength. An acknowledgement as much as it was a warning.

"Thought you were on holiday Dauntless?"

Dauntless' lips pulled into a small smile, like the kind of sexy country farmers had on book covers, "My kid's at a friend's house tonight so I thought I'd catch up on my reps. I don't really have a good gym at home like the one here."

I glanced at his arms that were thick enough that I could wrap my hands around them and my fingers wouldn't even touch, "Doesn't look like you've been missing any days."

"I wouldn't say that but I always manage to squeeze one in when I can."

I wanted him to squeeze something else.

Hatenna's mouth opened about to cry and quickly I returned her back into the box before she could. Dauntless's boots crackled briefly before they powered down when the light faded.

"Ignore that," I told him and he slowly nodded. A burning that wasn't from the workout flushed over my face and I felt so embarrassed. Of all the things to provoke Hatenna my horniness would've been certainly one of all the things of all time. All I wanted right now was for the earth to swallow me whole and Behemoth to drop kick me into another dimension, I could handle Digimon or Yugioh or anywhere else as long as that wasn't here.

"Ignored," he agreed to my relief, "So heard you took down Uber and Leet. Congrats, Tinkers are tough to handle."

My lips twitched at the reminder of how much I kicked ass yesterday.

"In this case they were less tough and more frustrating," I said. Especially when they had a thinker telling them all my weaknesses so they could counter pick their gear.

Looking back on it all I was lucky Aipom was fast enough to handle the Sniper Joes otherwise Leets frost gun wouldn't have been a larger issue. I'd need to get a good fire type or ice type to cover that weakness.

Though I'd have to wait on that. Right now I was focused on building a base of good, reliable Mons before I had to worry about things that were unlikely. Right now all I had were Kommo-o and Duraludon while the rest were… Eh.

"You still won in the end which is all that matters, I lost my first two fights so trust me you can take the praise," he said.

I snorted. Like he barely counted as a Cape with the amount of charges he started with.

"Well since you're twisting my arm here I guess I can take that praise off you. Since it's clearly weighing you down," I joked.

"Thank you," he played along and breathed an exaggerated sigh of relief as he wiped his sweatless brow, "I thought my back was gonna break."

"Your welcome citizen, it's just another day in the life of a hero. Now I'm off to rescue puppies from trees."

"Puppies? I thought you were supposed to rescue cats?"

I shook my head, "Sadly Scion already rescued all the cats stuck in trees so all that's left are the puppies."

Dauntless laughed and it was a good laugh. The kind I could listen to for hours.

I realised what ran through my mind and stifled a groan. Holy shit did I need to get laid.

An alert came through my phone. It was a message from Hannah to meet in the breakroom.

"Sorry got to go Dauntless, Miss Militia needs me."

"You can call me Shawn," Dauntless said as he pulled out his own phone and checked his messages, "Looks like I'm coming too. Do you mind if I go with you?"

Ah so that was his name. That had been bothering me.

"Sure, just stay twenty feet away till I can put some deodorant on."

Shawn agreed and helped Kommo-o put away the weights as I wiped the bench clean. After that we both ducked into our respective lockers to freshen up. I didn't have time to have a proper shower but a quick wipe down with the wet towel, some new clothes and deodorant left me tolerable at the least.

Well, that and releasing Hatenna again so she could spray me down with aromatherapy before I sent her back to the box.

Surprisingly Shawn wasn't waiting for me when I came out of the lockers smelling like flowers but I figured out why when Dauntless walked out in his full gear with his arclance over one shoulder.

He wasn't flying through the air now but just seeing him reminded me of how I first saw him floating in the sky. My first real experience with powers other than my own.

"Shit was I supposed to change into my costume?" I asked.

I hadn't received my backup costume yet and my current one was in the armoury for some maintenance. Batteries in the radio and trackers had to be switched out, scratches needed to be polished away and the crash foam had to be checked for cracks. I'd do it myself but until I received notarized training on that I wasn't qualified to handle my own armour according to the insurance companies.

Even on Earth Bet they were the bane of my existence.

"No, but it's good to always be wearing your costume when you can," Shawn twisted his hands in a 'so-so' manner.

We walked together the halls and side by side it became obvious just how much taller than me he was. I wasn't a very tall woman and he was large enough that my eyes were just barely in line with his collar.

Which is why it was obvious when he kept glancing at me with the way he had to crane to get around the peripherals of his helmet.

And here I thought we weren't gonna mention it.

"You can ask," I said.

He glanced at me "I'm trying to think of the best way to word it."

"I can pinkie promise not to be mad if that helps."

"No need to go that far," he said, cracking his neck, "I just wanted to know if everything is going alright for you. The last time I saw you…"

Was when I'd been homeless and just got my power. Not exactly the best look.

"I'm doing fine," I reassured him, "Don't think too hard about when we first met. It wasn't that bad."

I didn't really feel comfortable saying I'd been homeless when it sucked for all of a day before I got Hatenna and even then I'd been able to stay safe at a shelter.

It hadn't been fun, but others were suffering worse and didn't even get to become a hero out of it.

"And now everything's fine. I have the job I've always wanted with a bitchin set of powers. My life's great now."

He smiled, "I'm glad to hear that Dawn. If you ever need to talk to someone I'm open and if it's something you want to keep private I can recommend a secure therapist if you want."

"I'll keep that in mind," I said politely.

We made our way to the break room and rather than wait for the scanners to work we both glanced up at the camera that covered the door and used our powers. Dauntless floated off the ground, his shield slowly growing while I summoned Aipom to climb over my shoulder.

A buzz echoed as the door opened with a click as Hannah, her bandana doing nothing to hide her smile, let us through.

Inside was a typical breakroom made special by the golden streamers that hung from the spelling the words 'Congratulations Dawn.'

Triumph and Velocity were sitting down on a small couch next to two cardboard cut outs Assault and Battery who were in New York for the holidays. They stood when the door opened and joined Armsmaster around a small cake with six unlit candles and a pile of pizza boxes. Aipom giggled when she saw Triumph and ran to him, climbing up his body like a tree to sit on top of his head.

Triumph looked to be doing better after I healed his uncle. Like a weight had been lifted off his shoulder he was all smiles as he scratched Aipom. I was glad to see it, Rory was a good man that deserved nothing but the best.

"Whats all this?" I asked.

Miss Militia smiled the corners of her eyes crinkling, "A party to celebrate your first fight. An old Protectorate tradition."

She glanced at Dauntless conspiratorial like and it had my hackles rise. Come to think of it during my entire lifting sess I actually hadn't seen him in the gym.

"You weren't here for a workout," I accused.

Shawn didn't say anything in his defence which was enough of an answer. He really did come in on his night off just to celebrate my first fight.

My hand rubbed the back of my neck as Hannah gently led me over to sit down in front of the cake.

"You faced the foe, you held the line," Velocity started singing something that had the same cadence as the EDF song. He threw an arm over Triumph's shoulder, the two of them swaying, "The Protectorate shines this time!"

Oh no.

My hands trailed up my face to cover my mouth as the heroes that had fought monsters that threatened the entire world, that have faced villains of the worst kind, sung the worst song I've ever heard.

"Boots on the ground, hearts of steel. You showed the world our Zeal!" They chanted with smug grins on their faces. To his credit Velocity had a frustratingly good voice and Triumph used his power to make a staccato of low impact shouts that sounded just like the drumming.

Hannah the traitor held up a camcorder that captured everything in its cringe glory.

"Raise your voice, let the city hear. Our courage drives away all fear! Through the fire, through the fight, we guard the weak, we strike the night!"

"Aimpom! Om! Om! Om!" The monkey joined in the fun waving her giant hand that glowed like a star, infused with energy.

"Side by side we hold the day! No villains stands, no soul will sway! So lift your head, the dawn is near, Your first battles done, the path is clear. With iron hearts and banners high, Protectorate stands, we unify!"

I wasn't sure when I started giggling nor when that turned into outright laughing. The energy was infectious and surrounded by everyone the camaraderie was something almost tangible.

I could see why Taylor wanted this. It might've been more fun to be a villain but the people that chose to be heroes were just the best.

"You guys are assholes," I said, wiping the tears out of my eyes when they were done.

"Sorry not sorry," Triumph said, "If I had to suffer through it after my first fight so does everyone else."

Shawn and Armsmaster both nodded in agreement.

"Hey now I just love singing," Velocity said leaning back with his arms behind his head.

I rolled my eyes.

"Please tell me that's not the actual Protectorate cadence."

"It is," Armsmaster said in a grim voice, "People try to get it changed every year but it never happens."

"I'm sorry but I'm gonna have to quit. I just can't be part of a team with such a lame ass theme song."

"I understand. We've all thought about it."

"If you wanna blame someone, blame MM over there. She's the one that wrote it," Velocity said pointing at her.

Betrayed I turned over to Hannah who leaned against the kitchen bench with her arms folded not even having the grace to look ashamed. Over her shoulder the gun broke into a warping spasm of green and fog and when it reformed it was a M60 that she quickly swapped into a knife and sheathed.

"I am at worst ten percent responsible for that song," she said with the voice of a woman who had to defend herself for her entire life, "If anything it was Hero's fault for telling a bunch of Wards to write a song and expecting it to turn out well."

"Hey at least it wasn't as bad as it could have been," Triumph said, "Imagine if it was up to Clockblocker to compose it."

There was a pause as that horrifying scenario ran through our minds.

"You saying that makes me morbidly curious to hear what he could come up with," Dauntless said.

"It can not be worse than what Mouse Protector originally came up with."

The name sounded familiar and it took me a few moments to place it. She was one of the two people that would become part of Murder Rat, the fused monster created by Bonesaw.

Just another name to slot into the list already full of names like Taylor, Carlos, Dean, Eric, Amy, Victoria, Noelle, Ashley, Tanya, Byron, Kenzie, Emma and countless more.

A herculean task maybe but one that was up to me to accomplish. Daunting maybe but I'd already saved one kid from a fate worse than death so I knew I could do it. Was going to do it.

"So since we're on the topic, I've always wondered - Who was your first cape fight Miss Miltia?" Triumph asked as he opened up the pizza box and put a couple greasy slices on a paper plate, "I mean were there any real capes thirty years ago?"

Triumph going for the food seemed to signal the others to take theirs and I leaned out of the way as and passed a box of Hawaiian over to Dauntless and Pepperoni to Velocity.

Wordlessly Triumph offered me the paper plate sending waves of familiar complicated feelings to swell in the pit of my stomach. Hesitantly I resigned myself to forcing myself to nibble on it only for a long purple hand to reach down and steal the pizza off the plate.

With a giant grin the monkey scarfed down the food by rolling it up into a little ball and biting into it like it was a berry.

I couldn't help but let out a small, grateful chuckle at the sight.

"I've only been a cape for twenty-five years Triumph," Miss Militia corrected and for I had to take a brief moment to digest the fact that Hannah had been a Cape for almost longer than I'd been alive, "And there were but the scene was different - The culture was different. I never fought real battles till I was in the Protectorate. When I was a Ward, neither the PRT nor the internet existed so we didn't have the resources to really track down Villains like we do now and the ones we could Hero took care of."

She shrugged, "So unless you count spars my first fight would've been… Skin Serpent? He was a villain that could walk through people and use them as portals to exit out of other people. Nothing pepper shots couldn't solve."

"That poor villain," Triumph said with a hopefully exaggerated shudder.

"I wish I had that option when I fought Lee my first time," Velocity said, biting into his pepperoni. Just like the first time I met him he ate like he was starving, ravenously devouring the pizza like he thought we were gonna steal it from him.

Dauntless snorted, "He beat the stuffing out of you."

"My bruises had bruises," Velocity agreed unbothered.

"You didn't walk away from your fight with Blackball looking any better," Armsmaster said and I couldn't help but notice that he hadn't taken a slice of pizza. Instead he was eating his own meal of chicken and rice out of a small tupperware container. It didn't even have any spices on it.

Lucky bastard.

Shawn laughed conceding the point as everyone jeered at him.

I felt a smile grow on my face. It was fun sitting around sharing war stories, both the good and the bad. The vibe was so easy going that I knew that even if I lost against Uber and Leet they wouldn't have cared. Ribbed me for it definitely but there wouldn't be any bad feelings about it.

After all, we were all on the same team here. These were the people that had my back and I had theirs. I wouldn't say I loved them like family or something lame like that but knowing that someone was in my corner was a nice feeling I couldn't lie. Might not be the Justice league or the Avengers but I was grateful nevertheless

"You can't say that and not share your first fight, Armsmaster," Hannah said faux sternly, "I remember hearing it was a complicated one."

Armsmaster paused mid chew before swallowing, "True," he said, putting down his fork and as he wiped his mouth with a napkin, "For needed context when I joined the Protectorate we had only four departments across America. That led to an abundance of Capes in each that necessitated compartmentalisation into smaller teams with singular focuses - Similar to how New York still operates.

"One of those was the rapid-response strike team led by Alexandria, I was chosen to help develop the PRT playbook against Tinkers, back when we were still known as Artificers."

"Artificers?" I asked curious.

"A defunct classification for a Cape whose power revolves around external objects," Hannah explained as next to her Shawn, mouth full with pizza, just pointed to himself.

"When we deployed it was for serious situations," Armsmaster continued his story, "My first deployment was in Provo, a town near Salt Lake. An expanding, multi block sized forest of oak trees appeared within the middle of town. At the time, we thought it was a plant manipulator but we'd later discovered that it was a complete reality overwrite Shaker. The first time the Protectorate ever encountered one."

Everyone winced when he said that. The rule that had been drilled into my head was never, ever, be in a Shakers area at all and reality overwrites was the most power a shaker could be. Labyrinth, Cretan or Nursery and her pregnancy tendrils came to mind.

"What was the effect?" Triumph asked.

"If you stopped moving for longer than eight and a half seconds, tendrils of wood would emerge from the nearest surface and ensnare you."

Which when you'd only discover the moving rule after you've already broken it meant you were basically fucked unless you had a teammate or the right power to free you. Even if you figured it out armour wasn't light and having to always be on the move, never getting a chance to catch your breath would exhaust anyone.

"With Alexandria staying behind to free the trapped civilians, I along with the rest of the strike team advanced into the forest. We determined that, given the multiple banks and credit unions within the forest boundary, it had to have been robbery. To locate the villain as quickly as possible we split up to search separate banks."

"Only instead of one villain, there were three."

"A shifter who could transform into a rolling blob of malleable flesh that went by Yeenoghu, a striker who created two superimposed and overlapping clones of himself. One existed two seconds forward in time and the other two seconds behind. He called himself Breguet but we renamed him to Urmakare because of copyright issues. Then finally the shaker Bunyan."

Beyond the shaker they didn't exactly sound the toughest but I knew better than to underestimate powers. Skitter was just the bug girl until she went for your eyes like they killed her mom.

"I dealt with Urmakare and Bunyan, but Yeenoghu knocked me over and I quickly found a flaw in my armour. The fall broke an actuator and without both arms I couldn't push myself off the ground. I was as helpless as a turtle on its back. Thankfully, my backup appeared and took him down before he could do any more damage," Armsmaster said, surprisingly without bitterness. Instead he seemed almost fond as he recalled his first fight and the flaws in his armour. Fourteen years, I suppose, was long enough to get over it.

"Eh it happens," Velocity said with a shrug, "Your power feels invincible and then you get punched in the mouth by a man in an oni mask and you realise it's not perfect."

"It sounds like you really need to talk to someone about Lee."

Velocity looked up at the ceiling, his helmet reflecting the light from above.

"Probably," he admitted.

"Wanna come over for a barbecue tomorrow?"

"Eh, sure."

Velocity's words made me think back to the mall and everything I had thrown in my face about my power. Anticipation, the weakness to water some of them had and how my Pokemon could level without a charge.

It made me painfully aware about just how little I actually knew about my power. There were just so many game mechanics that I wasn't sure how they translated into real life. I'd lucked out with Pickup but I wasn't sure if I could keep relying on luck.

"I get what you mean," I grouched, "I feel like every time I think I know what my power does two more questions pop up."

"At least not all bad," Triumph said, "sometimes when your power surprises you it's a good thing. Hakamo-o evolved in the middle of the fight and that helped didn't it?"

I tilted my head as I considered the point. As vague as my power was there wasn't anything that could be called a negative that I found. The randomness maybe - But even then I still could choose what I wanted. It wasn't just that as well; the levels I could get by investing a charge into one of my mons, my complete lack of a range limit, the weak connection I had to them and the absolute obedience I could enforce on my pokemon if I needed to.

They were useful features that felt like they were purposely put into my power for my benefit. Maybe they had been.

"Fair," I said.

Dauntless shifted in his chair, crossing a leg over his knee, "So what's the deal with that? If you don't mind me asking."

"I'm an open book dude. My current best guess is that whenever I beat a cape in a fight, any mon I have summoned gets a boost equivalent to a single charge. It happened after I beat Leet and again when I beat Uber."

Velocity silently mouthed the word 'mon' to himself.

"Plus Aipom here sometimes makes items too," Triumph said gesturing to Aipom,

"Per monster and per cape?" Dauntless asked like the idea was absurd to him.

"It could just be your power getting stronger when you're stressed," Hannah offered an explanation, "It's not unusual."

"I wouldn't be sure about that Militia," Dauntless said, "The same happens to me but at best it shaves a couple hours off till my next charge. It's nowhere near the equivalent of twelve extra charges."

Sixteen actually.

While they didn't fight Hatenna and Impadimp were out when Triumph was attacked and so they got the same levels as everyone of my pokemon did.

"True," Armsmaster said, "That's a boost in power far beyond any recorded sechen range," he scratched the scruff of his beard, "Normally I'd say the power testers could handle this but it's unlikely it'll be anytime soon with Christmas holidays."

"If they could even test something like this," Velocity pointed out, "if it only works when she beats a cape then the only people that could actually test that is, well, us right?"

"Yeah but if it only works when she beats a cape… Then that means we're gonna have to fight her to test it," Triumph said.

Well, that was certainly an idea.

It wasn't Pokemon without rival fights after, and I really couldn't lie to myself and say I didn't want to show off Kommo-o.

"I mean," I said to the room full of capes as I slowly rose out of my chair, "I'm down if you're down."



I shivered feeling the cold December air brush over me leaving goosebumps in their path. No-one ever said the PHQ was warm and it had me pulling tighter on my blanket as the fight progressed.

My pokemon growled as he leapt over the stretched bolt of lightning and dashed towards Shawn who floated in the air above the PHQ an easy four or five stories in the air. He'd likely be higher too if it wasn't for the forcefield that covered the sky.

The Rig didn't have anything that could be called a Danger Room where we could practice our powers. Space on the PHQ while not exactly a luxury wasn't plentiful enough to dedicate an entire room for solely spars. So instead we were on the roof where a second smaller bubble covered the helipad and marked the arena.

Apparently it was supposed to be used in case of a hostile takeover of the PHQ by flying in but personally if someone was willing to fly past the first forcefield and intercity missile turrets I think they deserved to have the base.

Shawn swiped the stretched lance at Kommo-o and due to the spears breaker state where it didn't have to worry about either weight or air resistance meant that when he swung it was impossibly fast.

But that didn't mean diddly squat to the pale hexagonal wall that the dragon summoned which stopped the lance in its tracks. Instantly Kommo-o responded by gripping tight onto the spear and yanked on it, hard.

I couldn't hear what Shawn said as he was pulled down into an uncontrollable spiral but I was sure it wasn't PG. He managed to recover by retracting the spear and getting his feet under him stabilising his flight just in time to expand his own crackling shield as Kommo-o slammed his feet into the ground and leapt into the air to punch a glowing red fist into it like he was Captain Falcon.

The shield didn't dent under the blow, it wasn't that kind of forcefield. Instead as the limb got closer Kommo-o's fist began to visibly slow like two opposing magnets trying to get closer and when they finally connected the golden scales on his hand vibrated with enough force to tear away from the skin and pushed Kommo-o back.

It reminded me a lot of Shinra Tensei, albeit massively weaker. Still a forcefield made out of a repulsive force would've been something tough to deal with.

For someone that wasn't Kommo-o that was.

Instead of falling, Kommo-o summoned the white panes of Protect underneath him and used that as a platform to leap towards Dauntless once again.

Kommo-o smacked his fists together, the scales up his arms rattling with a royal purple energy as with a flick of large tambourines on the end of his tail Kommo-o let loose a point blank Clanging Scales right at Dauntless.

The sound waves infused with dragon type energy fired in staccato bursts with the wave that came after always larger than the wave that came before and when they hit the shield like an oscillating drill the sound waves vibrated through the shield which sizzled like an acid eating away at the dragon type energy.

I wasn't sure why. Maybe it was the fact that the sound waves had no mass or charged particles to be affected by the repulsive force or Dauntless' shard simply went out back for a smoke but Dauntless's forcefield was torn apart like fingers through a spiders web while still damping the attack enough that it didn't take him out of the fight.

No, Kommo-o grabbing Dauntless by the ankles did that instead. Dauntless tried to fend him off but his boots weren't strong enough to combat the extra eighty kilos of weight dragging them to the floor.

They fell in a tumble of armour and limbs. Dauntless scrambled to bring his weapon to bear only for Kommo-o to place a closed fist on the back of his neck. A killshot if there ever was one.

"Damn," Velocity said, handing Hannah a ten dollar bill, "I could've sworn Dauntless had that."

Triumph shook his head, "I told you not to take that bet, man."

"How was I supposed to know it could jump like Jordan?"

"The fact that Miss Militia was willing to make a bet in the first place. She only ever gambles when she's sure to win."

"Not always," Hannah lied so obviously that even I knew she was full of shit.

Triumph just gave her the most powerful side eye that a man in a lion's helmet could possibly give.

Armsmaster coughed into his hand breaking up the argument. He tapped on a keyboard lowering the bubble and letting Dauntless hobble to us.

"Welcome to the losers squad man," Velocity greeted.

"Hey at least I lasted longer than ten seconds," Shawn groaned as he limped over to Hatenna and pulled off his helmet and boots, letting her hose him down with Life Dew. He shivered in the cold and I handed him my tinfoil blanket that I stole from a liferaft.

I really needed to get a fire type one of these days. I'd kill for a Blaziken or Charizard right about now.

Shawn gave me a thankful smile that did things to me as he took the things I handed him. Hatenna opened her mouth and I quickly imagined paint drying.

"And I lasted longer than all of you combined."

"Didn't win though," Triumph muttered.

A sound like a bag of coins being shaked had me turning my head over to Kommo-o who walked on his knuckles to us. His tail swayed in the air as he glanced over the four at the four capes he defeated with a calm, almost bored look. When his gaze met Triumph he gave him and only him a slight nod of his head before turning to me.

I held back a frown. While it was true Kommo-o probably could've beaten all of them even at the same time that kind of snub would've set off the wrong kind of Cape.

Kommo-o settled into a karate stance, legs open wide, completely planted into the ground and his arms pushed forward, claws extended like a mantis. Purple wisps poured off his body in the halfway state between fog and energy. Around his mouth and claws they were compacted and almost tangible.

Almost was the key word as when Kommo-o tried to move the effect broke, puffing into a cloud of smoke.

Kommo-o frowned as much as he was able to with no lips and shook his head at me. Outrage was a no go which meant he hadn't leveled up from beating Shawn. Legs wrapped around a nearby flag pole Aipom did the same and showed me her three empty hands. That too was a no go.

Admittedly, even though I expected it, I was a little disappointed that pickup didn't work like I wanted it to. Being able to reliably get evolution items would've opened up my list of usable Pokemon.

"Didn't work," I reported to Armsmaster, "I think we can safely say that in order to get that boost it has to be an actual battle with real stakes. Not a spar."

"Maybe," he grunted back as he tapped something on the console, "Or the opponents weren't challenging enough for it to count."

I snuck a glance at said opponents worries about how they felt about that and Miss Militia just gave me an unbothered 'what can you do?' gesture. Which I supposed was a fair response from the woman-who-shoots-bullets that just finished getting her ass kicked by the dragon-immune-to-bullets.

"We could wait for Assault to get back?" I suggested. Not that he'd last any longer than anyone else. Even if his power worked on Dragon type energy Kommo-o had a move to get around immunities like his.

"Why? I'm here," he asked, extending out his hand. In the middle of his palm an outline of his halberd appeared in a flash of blue light, holographic in a way. Within the outline components started to appear from thin air to fill in the empty space binding together like atoms to form his completed weapon.

I wasn't going to point fingers but I'm pretty sure he stole that off Emiya.

I frowned, "I'm not sure that's a good idea. You're-"

At a disadvantage.

"-Your tech might get damaged," I said changing what I was going to say when I saw the look on his face.

He barked a laugh like he'd heard that warning a thousand times before.

"My tech doesn't break," he said walking in the ring with a confidence I didn't feel. Kommo-o's gaze followed him, talons clenching into fists.

But you do.

I sighed if he wanted to become Defiant a little early I wasn't going to stop him.

Kommo-o followed after him, dripping with the water Hatenna splashed on him, the scales on his arms healing with every blink. Stepping onto the helipad the bubble closed behind him thankfully silencing the Haka that he started to perform.

"So who do you think is gonna win this one?" Velocity asked.

"Why are you asking? Planning on losing more money tonight?" Dauntless snarked.

"Just curious if we're gonna see Armsmaster beaten for once."

Hannah shook her head, "Doubtful. Dawn's monster is strong, yes, but when it comes to close quarters combat Armsmaster is the second best in the Protectorate period. The gap between him and Cheviliar isn't huge either."

"I dunno speaking as the only person here that had to fistfight that thing I got the sense he's more powerful than he's shown," Triumph disagreed, glancing at me.

"He's one of the strongest I'll ever get access to," I explained simply. He wasn't an Ubers mon and without a Z-crystal he was probably one of the weaker Pseudos but he was still a Pseudo-Legendary with all the power that implied, "But does that mean he can beat Armsmaster?"

I wasn't sure.

Defiant with his Nano-thorns, Combat Analyzer and Dragon improved suit I was reasonably confident could win against Kommo-o depending on how that interacted with his Overcoat ability but I wasn't sure how this Armsmaster without any of those would fare. I didn't want to underestimate him, he was one of the most competent heroes of all time and he was still a man that has survived dozens of Endbringer fights but Fighting still beat Steel.

"We'll see," I said, focusing on the fight.

Armsmaster held steadfast not even moving an inch as Kommo-o finished his haka that would've sounded like a metallica concert compressed into one five foot dragon. Instead as his helmet expanded to cover his entire face he raised the tip of his halberd that was longer than Zach Edey was tall and pointed it at Kommo-o.

The dragon gave Armsmaster a single acknowledging nod before he leaped towards the man with a jump that was more horizontal than vertical. Kommo-o launched at car speeds only in a split second used his tail to pull himself back to avoid getting a halberd through the stomach as Armsmaster clicked a button and the halberd extended to become two, almost three times longer.

Armsmaster didn't hesitant to take advantage and stepped forward doing a couple fast thrusts. He must've had some sort of motor to help him because he attacked five times where a normal man would just barely manage one.

Kommo-o bobbed his head like a boxer taking advantage of his serpentine neck and short frame to evade at impossible angles with the slightest of margins, the blade never once scratching him. After a few more thrusts I saw as he figured out the tempo and on the tenth thrust uppercutted the head of the polearm.

The weapon shot up till it hit the top of the bubble dragging Armsmaster arm with it as he teetered off balance trying not to lose grip on his halberd. Kommo-o seeing the opening launched forward once again.

"Badmove," Velocity murmured, his breaker form giving a strange echo when he talked.

Armsmaster proved him right as his halberd segmented in ten different places and he slammed his halberd down. The segmenting made the halberd act like a chain whipping the axe head so fast I didn't even see it till it bounced off Kommo-o's Protect.

This time the speed at which the halberd moved the rebound actually did pull it loose out of Armsmasters hands where it fell to the floor.

Only Kommo-o instead of taking advantage just gave Armsmaster a look that had the hair on the back of my arms stand up even when it wasn't directed at me.

Armsmaster's shoulders moved up and down like he was chuckling and the polearm on the floor disappeared in a flash of blue light reappearing in his hands point poised to skewer Kommo-o if he had taken the opening. It was bait and I suspected that every bit of Armsmaster floundering had all been bait too.

Kommo-o arched his neck and howled a soundless scream. Noble roar? Screech? I wasn't sure but Armsmaster didn't even flinch, which only only meant one thing.

"He's immune to sound attacks," I sighed, not even sure I was surprised really.

"Most of them, yeah," Triumph confirmed, "With defences like his it'd be easier to say what he isn't immune too."

Which meant he probably had some sort of visual filter built into his mask to block Leer and Scary Face too. That might actually be a problem, Kommo-o had no range outside of those types of moves and that halberd left him no way of reliably closing the distance without taking a hit even with Protect.

Annoyingly it turned out the ancient method of poking someone with a very long stick was used for a reason. It was hard to fight when you were massively outranged.

So when Kommo-o stepped back and started pulling off scales with a determined look on his face I wasn't surprised. Nor was I when Armsmaster immediately took advantage of the time it took to set up to stab the footlong blade into the soft part of Kommo-o's stomach. The only reason it didn't pierce straight through him was that Kommo-o managed to stop it by hooking his foot over the hammer head and holding it in place.

That didn't stop Armsmaster from twisting it in his gut though.

Blood didn't fall out of the wound. No, instead it was instantly vapourised by the greenish, purple haze that coated the axehead and burned bright enough to put spots in my vision.

Plasma.

Shawn whistled, "There's not a lot that could survive that. Armsmasters really not holding back, he wouldn't even use that against Lung."

"Well Kommo-o is created by my power, it's not like he's a real person," I pointed out.

If there was anything that could be called a weakness to my power that was it. Every cape held back a little, it was just how the game worked. Hannah didn't shoot people's heads off, Velocity didn't slit people's throats faster than they could react and the villains did the same, because people dying just made everything worse.

But Pokemon weren't people and no-one was going to hold back against them.

Kommo-o was too badass to scream and just gritted his teeth as he finished pulling off some of his scales to lighten the load. When he was done he slammed his foot into the axe pushing the blade out of him.

When he was free didn't run straight towards Armsmaster. Instead with his lightened body he glided over the floor like a surskit on water using his talons like ice skates to zigzag around the helipad.

Before he wouldn't have been allowed in school zones but now with his speed doubled he was pushing highway speeds. Armsmaster retracted his halberd to its usual length and ran towards Kommo-o matching his stride.

When they got close Kommo-o dipped to the side at the last second dodging a thrust to punch at Armsmaster like an out-boxer but Armsmaster just dropped onto one knee ducking under the blow and sweeping at Kommo-o's legs with his axe.

The dragon jumped over it with a sideflip and when he landed he lashed out with a sweep of his tail. Armsmaster stuck the halberd into the ground and extended it once again with enough force that the pole carried him into the air and away from the tail.

Keeping the momentum Kommo-o twisted to swipe his tail again at the same spot intending to hit Armsmaster when he fell to the ground but Armsmaster held the pole under him and it stopped in the air like it was frozen.

That was Clockerblockers power. I'd forgotten he had that.

Like a gymnast Armsmaster used the frozen weapon as a swing to deliver a heavy kick to Kommo-o's jaw. The dragon didn't try to dodge and just slammed his crown scales into leg as he gripped tight onto it with his talons and pulled Armsmaster right off his makeshift swing.

Kommo-o twisted fully intending to slam Armsmaster face first into the ground but a black liquid poured out of the hero's knee. At first I thought it was blood but when it coated Kommo-o's hands Armsmaster just seemed to slip out of his grip no matter how hard his talons raked on Armsmaster leg.

Armsmaster landed in roll and sprung to his feet just in time for the dragon to give him a punch in the side just above the kidneys. Armsmaster flinched and spun it back with a crackling palm strike that Kommo-o leaned out of the way off.

Behind them the Halberd fell to the floor.

They exchanged some more blows and I was beginning to understand the beauty of Kommo-o's build. His arms were easily twice the span of a human's so that gave him a massive range advantage over Armsmaster when it came to strikes. Kommo-o could easily throw punches all day and receive none in return. His legs were similarly built for combat with how they were tucked back behind his body making it almost impossible to go for his legs and his tail acted like a whip batting at Armsmaster where his guard was low going for weak points like his knee and temple.

Armsmaster ate a dozen hits that could've pulverised concrete till finally Kommo-o clenched his fist, the veins bulging and a red glow radiated from around his entire arm.

Armsmaster knew what was coming and tried to block it by crossing his arms but it was no use and faster than ever before Kommo-o leaped so hard the helipad beneath his feet dented and used that force to deliver the mother punches below his guard and aimed directly at Armsmaster elbow.

Only for the fist to smash into a pile of blood and broken claws as it stopped dead in its tracks when it hit, unable to move Armsmaster even a single inch due to the time freeze tech in his armour.

That might actually be a problem.

Blood spurted out of Kommo-o's hand which was made worse when Armsmaster reached out, grabbed it and clenched down, trapping him. Kommo-o slammed his face into Armsmaster accomplishing nothing except splitting his own forehead open. Hitting an immovable object did that.

Behind him the halberd that fell to the floor started shifting on its own. The shaft twisted till it was more of a rifle. Kommo-o's head flicked in its direction telling me he at least heard it before the purple plasma coated the blade again and it fired, shooting the spear head forward like a harpoon with the head still connected by a chain.

Would it still count as a melee weapon like that or would bulletproof nullify it? I wasn't sure and neither was Kommo-o as he summoned the shell of Protect around himself to block it. The second the barrier starting to form Armsmaster let go and jumped back, summoning a second Halberd to his hand.

The harpoon off the barrier landing in the corner of the helipad. The Protect broke and instantly a three meter tall pillar of purple flame shot out of the Halberd in Armsmasters hand.

My skin prickled as even through the barrier it was hot enough that it could've given me a sunburn if it lasted even a second longer.

The fire dissipated and standing in the middle Kommo-o was alive but not unharmed. He looked like a shitty scarecrow with his torso burnt a soot black and his scales so hot and bright that they looked like a sword being forged, glowing with the colour of straw.

Despite being a Dragon the flesh beneath his scales cooked as the scales that conducted heat so well continued to burn him like a hot brand being pressed against his skin.

"Fuck," I whispered under my breath.

It was the perfect one-two punch. The harpoon to bait out Protect and the flames to burn him when it broke. Now Kommo-o's attack was halved and he had to deal with the continuous damage it did.

My eyes narrowed. It was too perfect actually.

I glanced over at the harpoon and the back of my brain tingled. The way he used it reminded me so much of Leet's snowball launcher and how when we weren't sure if Bulletproof would block it Hakamo-o defaulted to blocking with Protect.

Which meant he either watched the livestream and planned that, or he had his predictive software and that planned this. I leaned towards the second.

It made sense. Nanothorns was a megaproject which meant he would've had to finish any other projects way before he fought Leviathan.

My head turned to the others. Triumph's face was white as he watched the fight, Hannah and Velocity leaned against the railing while Shawn sat back holding a squirming Hatenna in his arms as he wrapped a blanket around the two of them.

Each of them had fought Kommo-o before Armsmaster and each of them had attributes as fighters that Armsmaster did as well.

It clicked and I couldn't help but shake my head in amazement.

He had everyone get their ass kicked first so he could get data for his simulations. Honestly I respected the hustle, that's the kind of tower of babel shit I expected from Bet Batman. I wasn't even sure if he was actually testing my power anymore or just wanted to show us why he got paid the big bucks.

"Hey Dawn," Triumph spoke up, "Do you think we should call it here? With those injuries there's no way he can win now."

He was right about that. Kommo-o was probably going to lose. It was a tough fight before he got burnt and now it was even harder.

And yet.

Even through the pain of being burned alive Kommo-o smiled as much as a lizard could. He gave Armsmaster a respectful nod from one warrior to another and settled into his fighting stance. Armsmaster across from him did the same, bringing both Halberds to bear.

Kommo-o was having fun. It felt wrong to call it quits now.

"Nah," I said rubbing my arms, "Kommo-o can still win this. He just has to go plus ultra is all."

"What?"

Do it.

Kommo-o didn't hesitate. As if he was waiting for the order he brought up his arms and slammed them into the stab wound, beating it like a drum. He roared as each hit opened the wound, more and more blood falling to the ground where it turned into light after a second. With each hit Kommo-o's muscles swelled and his spine stretched so much that he gained a foot in height.

He got on all fours like an actual lizard and ran at Armsmaster, clawing at the ground to pull him faster. Armsmaster leaped ten feet into the air as his halberd shifted once again, the axehead retracting till and it became more like a flail on a chain.

Armsmaster swung one of them using the rotation of his jump to give all the hurt he could. As it swung it became apparent that Clockblocker wasn't the only ward Armsmaster copied as the flail warped, stretching to grow even larger than a wrecking ball.

Kommo-o reared back his arm to punch it away but cautious I sent an order to do something else. He adapted quickly by changing his stance, extending his arms to either side of him with the tips of his claws growing with a purple power.

Just the moment before the wrecking ball would've hit him he slashed at it knocking the ton of steel back and carving away chunks of it like Kommo-o hit it with a power saw instead. Not a second later it exploded with a pulse of bright light that had he had simply punched it would've gone off in Kommo-o's face.

Armsmaster retracted the flail back quickly and used the second halberd to fire grenades around the arena that exploded into thick smoke. Armsmaster landed somewhere in it and I could guess his strategy. Either he was planning on stalling by hiding in the smoke and taking advantage of the fact that he could see with his tech and Kommo-o couldn't or he was baiting Kommo-o into lowering his defenses even further by forcing him to use a Clanging Scales to clear it.

I chose the third option.

From in the smoke a purple light emerged like a star in the night sky. It swelled, growing brighter and brighter as it formed into the shape of a tail almost thirty feet long and as thick as a human torso. The scales on the end of the tail similarly grew to match. Before I called them cymbals but now they were the size of full on gongs they'd put on the front of temples.

"Brace yourself," I warned everyone as I grabbed onto a nearby pole with a death grip.

When Kommo-o swung his tail a tornado followed behind. The barrier blocked many things but air was not one of them and despite bracing myself I nearly fell over the hardest gale of my life pressed down on me. It stole my breath and my ears ached something fierce as those goosebumps got ten times worse. It was so cold it felt like ice was dragged up and down every part of my skin and unable to keep them open my eyes squeezed shut.

An impossibly strong hand gripped my shoulder keeping me upright as a familiar crackle had the feeling of being Dorothy lessen.

I took a deep breath, grateful to have air in my lungs again. I blinked my eyes open and not trusting my voice gave Triumph who held his hand on my shoulder a grateful nod as Shawn lifted up his dinner plate sized shield, the glowing forcefield covering all of us to slow down the wind.

"Thanks," Velocity said, voice normal to Hannah who had a vice grip on his collar and another on the railing.

Lucky bastard.

Hannah didn't have the chance to reply as Kommo-o ran at the now visible Armsmaster. Another pillar of purple fire was fired at him but Kommo-o, already burnt, saw no reason to dodge and just leapt through it claws bared.

Armsmaster reacted with the reflexes of a man that has fought Leviathan countless times before and his first halberd that split down the middle to become a mancatcher the he pushed down on Kommo-o's claws the weapon snapping over his hand and redirecting it to the floor in a tai-chi like fashion while the second shot forward in a textbook thrust.

Kommo-o just headbutted the halberd away, knocking it out of Armsmasters hands and putting him off balance. Where before it was bait this time it was genuine and Armsmaster couldn't recover in time as Kommo-o shoulder checked him.

Armsmaster was tossed down hard enough that he bounced off the ground. He managed to recover back landing on his feet but there was a visible dent in his chest.

As Kommo-o pulled off the mancatcher that had snapped onto his wrist it split leaving behind a shackle the size of a watch. It glowed yellow and started pulling Kommo-o's arm to the floor like a magnet but Kommo-o just flexed the muscles in his arm and just that was enough to rip it in half with how his arm swelled.

Armsmaster's gauntlet glowed with a similar yellow light and the halberd that Kommo-o disarmed off him floated back into his hand. Wasting no time he swung it and now with both arms on the weapon this time it was faster.

It bounced off the white panels of Protect and Kommo-o swiped back with a tail of enormous size. Armsmaster blocked it with an immovable halberd and was able to endure the wind it caused.

They exchanged more blows just like that but I knew they were both on a time crunch. Kommo-o was inevitably going to faint from his burns and Armsmaster couldn't use his Clockblocker tech much more. Freezing one of the fundamental dimensions wasn't easy on the battery.

They'd have to make a decisive attack soon.

But they wouldn't, or more it was more like they couldn't. Kommo-o didn't know how close to zero the battery was, if he even knew what a battery was, and Armsmaster couldn't without baiting out Protect first and even then that'd be risking the double Protect.

So they were stuck in a stalemate where they were evenly matched and their only choice was to slowly whittle away at each other.

But how to break the tie? It felt impossible when his combat analyser had already seen every move Kommo-o had.

Well, there was one that he hadn't seen yet. A move that didn't care about resistances and one that you couldn't dodge.

But it was risky. The Pro's were good but they came with an equally bad downside. One bad enough that if taken advantage off would just hand Armsmaster the win.

A risk I would have to take.

Fuck it.

Bide.

Kommo-o paused as he got the order in the middle of rearing back one arm to punch frozen Armsmasters head off before he leapt back to the edge of the helipad landing in a sort've seiza pose. Kommo-o clasped his hands together making a small bridge with his third claws creating a hole for his two equivalent of indexes to push through as his thumb claws pointed to the sky like he was about to cast a ninjutsu.

Maybe he was because when he finished the hand sign a white aura emanated from him covering him like a coat of paint. It pulsed with every heartbeat, bits flaking on the edges to float around him.

Sitting there in that pose even as his skin melted off Kommo-o gave off the feeling of stubborn patience with quiet dignity. A soldier that could endure anything without complaint.

Armsmaster flicking his time tech off hesitated. It was only noticeable because it lacked that machine-like efficiency that he embodied in his every move.

But that split second of hesitation was enough. Because when he decided to attack by flipping his halberd and slamming the hammer down on Kommo-o's shoulder it was too late as the white aura darkened with a reddish tint that beamed towards Armsmaster.

He tried to block it by freezing his armour again but the light just passed through the invincible armour like it wasn't even there. Battery drained, he unfroze and Armsmaster staggered hand going to his shoulder.

Slowly he managed to recover and gripping tight onto his halberd with a single hand brought it high in the air. Kommo-o just stayed kneeling on the floor as he stared forward with resolute eyes. He knew trying anything else was pointless when he was going to faint from his burns in moments anyway.

With a heave Armsmaster brought down the axe cleaving Kommo-o from shoulder to hip. Kommo-o split into two pieces but before his body could hit the ground Kommo-o broke into a thousand different fragments of purple and red light.

The light rushed towards me and when it touched my chest it absorbed through my skin leaving it feeling tingling as it pushed somewhere deeper within me, deeper than even my organs were. When the last of the light was gone I felt a presence in the back of my mind settle in next to the others who were watching through my eyes.

It'd take a couple hours for Kommo-o to be fully healed. Though that wasn't quite the right word, it was more like he was a damaged computer file that was getting restored to a previous state.

"Hey Miss Militia," Rory said, voice quiet as he stared at the battle that Kommo-o lost. His hand gripped my shoulder and I felt his heartbeat as it pulsed through his fingers. It was racing.

"Yes Triumph?" She asked with a levelled voice. A flash of green caught the corner of my eye and I glanced over at her weapon as it transformed into a flamethrower that she unconsciously put on.

Her green eyes stared long and hard at the space where Kommo-o used to be. When the bubble lowered everyone's gazes locked onto Armsmaster as he started hobbling over to us, a hand braced against his shoulder.

They knew the implications of just what that meant as well as I did. Kommo-o might've lost, but that didn't mean I had. With his battery drained would he be able to deal with Falinks? With Duraludon? All of them at the same time?

How would've the fight changed if Kommo-o had support to buy him time to set up? if Hatenna cured his burns and healed him as he fought? The answer was obvious.

Which made us all consider just who else Kommo-o could beat.

"If Kommo-o fought Hookwolf or Lung, do you think he'd win?" Triumph asked, voicing the question we all were wondering.

It took Hanah a long moment to answer, "Honestly, that is a question that I'm not sure of the answer to."

"And if it was Kommo-o and Armsmaster together?"

Velocity chuckled leaning against the railing, "I think we'd know how that'd go. Something tells me we're going to be very busy next year."

Shawn huffed, "But it'll be worth it."

"Definitely."

It took all of my effort to keep my face straight and not start cackling my head off like a smug bitch. I knew I was powerful and now they knew it too. I just didn't want to rub it into their faces though.

The talking quieted down as the barrier that surrounded the helipad lowered allowing Armsmaster to step through halberds over his shoulder with a satisfied grin on his face. My nose crinkled as the smell of burnt hair and metal hit me. Comics never mentioned that detail about plasma.

"Good fight," Hannah greeted him and reached forward to take the halberds off Armsmaster who handed them over without hesitation. Hannah held them over her shoulders with the same ease she lifted bazookas.

"Congratulations for winning," Triumph followed up.

"Thank you," Armsmaster said, a little breathless. He was panting heavily as he came down from the fight jitters and exhaustion. His beard wasn't as glorious as it usually was, the faceplate had pressed down on it scrunching it in parts but it did nothing to hide the proud grin that grew on his face.

"Your time stasis tech has improved," Velocity noted impressed.

"Are you mad you didn't bet on him?" Dauntless asked as he unslung his Arclance and pointed it at Armsmaster, slowly extending the crackling spear out. Armsmaster wrapped a gauntlet around it and the lance visibly dimmed as the gauntlet glowed with golden circuitry lines.

"Not as much as I wanted it too," Armsmaster answered Velocity. His gaze passed over the other capes before they fell to me.

"Nice moves out there. You really gave Kommo-o a run for his money," I said honestly as I glanced down at the massive fist sized dent in his breastplate, "You need the Hatenna magic treatment?"

He nodded, "Yes, but it can wait till I'm in my lab. Has there been any change with your monster? Scanners couldn't get a good read."

I shook my head not even having to think about it, "None. For good and bad it looks like he can only get stronger through winning an actual fight. Though thankfully we don't have to worry about him getting weaker cause he lost."

"That is good news," he said with a serious tone, "Are you able to tell when it's going to be summonable again?"

"Just gonna need a couple hours or so. Probably a little after I wake up tomorrow."

He glanced back at the rest of our team, "Well then, as productive as this has been we should get ready for after dark patrols. Miss Militia's on tonight with Velocity as emergency relief. Dauntless, Triumph get some sleep, you've got the first light patrol followed up by crisis events. Dawn, I need to speak with you."

Everyone nodded and started saying their goodbyes to each other as we got ready for the night ahead. Pulling Aipom into my arms I made my way over to Hannah and Rory.

Aipom waved cheerily to the both of them with her third arm as we got close before jumping out of my arms and landing on the ground between us.

"Hey," I said to Hannah, "If you're patrolling tonight do you want Aipom to come with you? She's agile, fast and hits harder than she looks if that matters."

"Pom-Pom," Aipom begged Miss Militia, falling to her knees.

Hannah considered the pleading monkey for a moment before she shook her head, "I don't think that's wise until we have the procedures for loaning your monsters in place. Though, thank you for the offer."

I shrugged, "That's fair, just means there's more for me."

"And me," Triumph said, reaching a fist out for Aipom to bump, "Trust me you're missing out Miss Mililita."

"I might be, but it's better to be safe than sorry."

"Well in any case good luck on your patrol," I said, extending a hand, "And thanks for tonight."

Instead of taking my hand Hannah reached in to clasp my forearm in a warrior's greeting, "It was a pleasure Dawn, I look forward to seeing what comes from you."

"Same here," Triumph said, giving me the same dap up that Miss Militia had, "Tonight was fun. It's not often we get to do stuff like this but now that we have a healer on the team, I could see us doing this more often. If this is how New Wave trains then I'm not surprised they have such good teamwork."

"Well if we're gonna do that we should include Wards."

"Maybe," Triumph thought it over, "I know I'm not their captain anymore but I know they'd love that. Although we'd have to see what Renick thinks about it, he's the one in charge of the Wards."

I nodded and finished saying my goodbyes to the rest of my team who all left with an optimistic mood, a feeling I shared. I might've met them before but that was as the new girl. Tonight was the first time I felt like a member of the team.

I'd gotten info on Purity, I'd beaten Uber and Leet, healed Dinah's dad and Kommo-o had mopped the floor with almost everyone here. I'd earned their respect and if every day was as fun as today was I knew I'd have no regrets joining the Protectorate.

Even if Piggot was a bitch.

"So Armsmaster," I said when everyone had left for their shifts, "Let's get you fixed up."





Armsmasters lab wasn't what I expected. The word lab made me think of white walls with a sterile vibe to it but the lab was cozy. The heater had been left on giving it the perfect temperature that I could walk across tiled floors without shoes or socks without being cold. The walls were covered in posters of all kinds; Sports, bands and Protectorate members galore giving it a touch of humanity to the space.

Metal working machinery was crammed next to an ergonomic desk covered in monitors which was in turn crammed next to a minifridge and single bed that had unmade silken sheets tossed about. Above the bed on the ceiling a projector displayed a map of Brockton Bay with street names and landmarks dotting it.

Along the back of the rooms between spare suits and halberds on a rack was a corkboard covered in photos of a smoke-covered Armsmaster sharing a beer with fire fighters. Another photo was a news clipping of him in Kyushu pulling people out of the blackened water.

I glanced away from the photos to the man himself. He was out of his armour with his back to me, it was bruised with patches of purple and yellow littered across his ribs like a star map. On his collar there was a raised bump between his neck and shoulder where the broken bone jutted up under the flesh.

They weren't the only injuries, they were just the most recent. His body was a canvas of skin grafts, scars and divots where spoonful chunks were missing from his body. Each told the story of almost a decade and a half of being a cape. The true story underneath the games and PR.

Slowly they were washed away by Hatenna's Aqua Dew. The life infused water painting over his back and leaving unmared skin behind as the water disappeared.

Armsmaster grunted and stretched hard enough for his back to pop in multiple parts. He tested the limits of his body like a machine, twisting each limb in every motion possible to get the new specs on them. I can't say I minded the free show, he was the fittest man I'd ever seen with abs I could grate cheese on.

When he was done he nodded in satisfaction as he threw on a loose white shirt with a hole wide enough to get over his helmet and turned to me.

"Thank you," he said as pushed a rolling chair my way with the ball of his foot.

Old football instincts had me catching it with the ridge of my toes.

"It's what I'm here for," I shrugged it off sitting down in the chair. It was a little short for me so I played with the pedals till we were at eye level, "Now what was it you wanted to talk about?"

"A lot of things; your monster, your encounter with Purity as well, but I mainly want to talk to you about your role in the Protectorate going forward."

My eyebrow rose, "The Protectorate plural, not the Protectorate ENE?"

He nodded, the tinted visor of his helmet and the hints of the man underneath it showing me how serious he was.

"How powerful a cape is hard to quantify," he started and it came out of nowhere that it left me feeling confused and curious on where this was going.

"Threat ratings and power testing are good for paperwork but they don't capture how difficult some powers are to handle. I've seen weak sounding powers devastate and I've seen strong powers countered to the point they were barely an inconvenience. This is why there's not an official ranking of Protectorate heroes, because such a list could never account for circumstances and reality."

"And unofficially?"

"You don't need a list, not when you can look at a map and see the biggest cities in the country, the ones with the largest parahuman populations are being run by the Triumvirate. The ones below that are managed by our best," He huffed, "Brockton Bay isn't New York or Los Angeles or even Philadelphia but it is a cape city through and through and one of the biggest in the country."

"Every day I'm proud to be the one managing it, because I know I earned it. I've sacrificed more than you could possibly imagine and my position is the acknowledgement of how hard I worked for it."

His lips fell flat as he looked at me, "And today a rookie almost beat me."

A sob followed by footsteps echoed through the room as Hatenna ran to the bed digging into the silk sheets to hide under the covers. I ignored her as I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms staring at him.

Briefly I wondered if I was going to have to kick his ass. Kommo-o might've been resting but the rest of my Pokemon working together could manage an Armsmaster out of his armour.

"Are you expecting me to say sorry?" I asked curtly.

"God no," he immediately said as he rubbed at his beard, "If anything I'm glad. The exact number of full time Protectorate members is classified but whatever number you're thinking of, halve it and halve it again. We're outnumbered and we need every body we can get. That's why we were willing to ignore your… issues and accept you in the first place, even before we knew you were a healer. Because you brought six capes with you when you joined. Only now it's apparent that you're just not six parahumans-in-one, you're potentially six very powerful parahumans-in-one person and the Protectorate needs that."

His words hit me like a flashbang to the face. Not because they weren't true but because there wasn't even a trace of bitterness in his voice. He sounded happy even. Armsmaster, the man that broke the truce for a shot of glory, sounded happy that his subordinate was as strong as he was.

That was something I never expected. I joined expecting him to hate my guts because I was like Dauntless, better even.

Had I misjudged him? Pulled a Danvers and let his future actions taint my view of him? I wanted to think I was better than that but I wasn't sure if I could trust myself on that front. I knew better than anyone how I got when children were involved.

"And I think you know that too," he said pointing a finger at me, "That's why you made that deal with the Director isn't it? You knew that you'd be wasted only healing."

I sighed, running my fingers through my short hair. It was pointless to lie now that I knew he had his combat analyser, which meant he definitely had his lie detector.

"I had a feeling, yeah. I couldn't put a number on how powerful I was but I knew Jangmo-o was strong, knew that there were others in the same tier as him and knew that there's others even stronger than Kommo-o. But I knew if I said that without evidence no-one would've believed me."

Armsmasters jaw slightly tightened at the mention of Pokemon even stronger than Kommo-o before a deep breath unclenched it.

"You were right," he admitted, "We wouldn't have."

I leaned forward in my seat, "So then what does this change?"

He sighed as he stood out of his chair and beckoned me to follow him. He walked over to his computer that booted up, the screen showed a map of the United States covered in red dots. I wasn't very familiar with America's geography but I could tell that each dot represented Protectorate departments. Surrounding them were hazard symbols that littered across the country.

"Do you know why, despite being the largest parahuman organisation in the world, no-one's jumping to offer reinforcements when a department needs assistance?" Armsmaster asked.

It was an easy question with an even easier answer.

"Because everyone's got their own shit to deal with," I said, "Every city has their own Purity's and Lungs to deal with and taking time to help another city is time they aren't managing their own problems."

Even as a junior member I had access to the non classified stuff and reading those files was a lesson on just how hard things were across the country. A hive tinker down in Seattle, Bastard son in Detroit, the Fallen in the south, the heavyweights in New York, on top of the countless number of crooks that were wandering from city to city all painted the picture that while Brockton Bay's troubles were above average, that didn't make them special.

It was to the point that I think there was some unofficial ritual where every new hero in the Protectorate looked at their cities files and despaired for all of a minute before they read Las Vegas's file and suddenly their city didn't look so bad after all.

"You're not wrong but not completely right either," he said, "A city won't implode because a handful of capes were loaned out for a week. It might, however, if that handful of capes that were loaned out and came back with broken legs that benched them for two months. Or worse."

On the screen Armsmaster clicked a button that brought up a list of numbers with injuries next to them. I knew from the dreadful paperwork I had to deal with that each number correlated with a Cape, from either side of the law.

Cancer, limbs ripped straight off, backs broken leaving everything below the waist permanently paralysed and various forms of brain damage the list went on and on till it got to the bottom and showed it was only the first page out of a ninety-nine plus.

"Every time I get requests for reinforcements I turn them down for the same reason - The chance that one of my capes will be out of action is just too great," He said, "That's one of the reasons healers are so valuable. They grease the bureaucratic gears enough that operations deemed too risky without one might get the green light. But it's not perfect - Even if every third cape was a healer the Protectorate would still struggle to distribute reinforcements."

"Why?"

"Because before we're heroes, we're human. Commitments like families or university means heroes can't drop everything to go fight a war in another city. Even if a hero is willing, there's only so many times you can ask that of them before they get bitter about it," He paused, "That is if there is even a request in the first place. Which brings me to the final point on why reinforcements are rarer than they should be. It's simply a bad look to ask for them."

I hummed, not really surprised, "Let me guess; To your bosses it looks like you can't handle the job you were assigned, to the citizens you look ineffectual and to the villains you look weak. That about sum it up?"

Armsmaster sighed, "Yes. That's exactly it. Capes are attention grabbing by design. When reinforcements are sent, they absorb all of the good attention that any successful operation garnered and leaves the home department fending off the question of why reinforcements were needed in the first place. So most leaders and Directors, for better or worse, prefer not to ask and just work with the resources they have."

The worst part was I couldn't even blame them. Cape life was theatre at its very core. The masks, the code names, the costumes and sometimes even voices were picked to convey an image to the world. As the face of Capes in America, the PRT was always designed to lie that they had capes under control and every crack in that was a chance for things to get as bad as things got in Perpetuity. They needed to look in control perhaps even more than they actually needed to be in control.

"I see," I said hand on my chin, "Well I think we both know where you're going with this. My monsters don't have any of those issues; even beyond Hatenna they're expendable so we don't need to worry about their safety, they don't have human baggage and they're not capes so they're not gonna get the credit for any op. That makes them perfect for sending them as shock troops against villains or backup in the case of an emergency."

Armsmaster nodded as he leaned against the table.

"Exactly. With your range, I believed your power was suited for this role even before we discovered what happens when one of your monsters defeats a villain. But learning that only reinforced that idea in my mind. Dawn, believe me when I say no other cape can do this like you can. Not even Dragon," he said, "This helps you too. By assisting other departments you strengthen your monsters and earn a reputation with little risk-"

"Dude," I cut him off, "I'm a hero, you don't need to convince me to help people. Just tell me how and where and I'll do it. I won't let you use all of them but one or two will be fine."

Still that didn't mean he was wrong. This would help me. The more capes I defeated the faster my Pokemon leveled up which meant more charges I could use to roll against the gacha gods for more chances to get a legendary. It took twenty of the fuckers to get Giratina which meant a full team of six to beat Scion with will take months to even a year to get them all.

Armsmaster flashed me a warm smile.

"If we want to promote you to the departments across the country, we're going to need something tangible to show to the Directors your value. We need a victory," Armsmaster explained. When he saw the look on my face, he added, "Our spar won't count. They know the difference between practice and real combat."

"Fortunately you didn't lose your fight with Uber and Leet, but capturing them won't mean much to the directors. You need something bigger."

He wasn't wrong. As much as PR was essential to being a cape, wins were the most important thing when it came to rep. Big victories and a reliable track record was key, so much so that it's one of the reasons Cauldron offered the Nemesis Program.

"I get it. But if I need a big name, who are we targeting?"

Armsmaster clicked his mouse and brought up two very familiar casefiles on the screen. My eyes widened. Shocked, I glanced at him wanting to see any hint that he was kidding and he was completely stonefaced.

"I know Kommo-o's powerful and all man but don't you think you're setting your sights too high?"

Armsmaster chuckled, "It's not just the new firepower that you and Triumph bring that made me select them. Their recent conflict and some developments in Parahuman studies shed some light on their weaknesses that I know we can take advantage of, especially if we leverage that 'deal' you made."

"Still to pick them?" I shook my head in numbed amazement, "Fuck me dead mate. You've got balls."

"Scared?"

"Excited," I responded.

And I was. The more I thought of it the more eager I got. This was the kind of thing I became a hero for. The nerds were fun but these were real villains that needed to be taken down. I could take out a hundred Uber and Leets and not have the same impact on the bay that taking these two down would have.

His smile stretched to show all teeth, "Good. Because by the end of January, Lung and Purity will be in the Birdcage where they belong."

And I had only one possible response to that.

"Bitchin."
 
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Colin is based, as always. Once again, he continues to prove why he's the best character in Parahumans.

Making spars not count for EXP is interesting- it's so it can't be cheesed that way, I assume?
 
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