Earning Her Stripes (Worm AU fanfic)

[Ack]

Earning Her Stripes

Part Thirty-Four: Stealing a March

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

Thursday Morning, September 23, 2010

March

The car could have used a good clean-out but May figured it would defeat the purpose of stealing one if she then turned around and took it to be detailed. She wanted to get to Brockton Bay today, not tomorrow or next week. Anyway, the trash in the footwell and the back seat didn't detract from its handling qualities, which she'd grudgingly accepted as adequate.

There weren't a lot of cars on Interstate 95, which was good because May had a destination in mind, and she wasn't interested in letting minor things like other cars or speed limit laws get in her way. So, as she whipped past the other vehicles at speeds the poor unfortunates that weren't her would call unsafe, she turned the radio to the jauntiest channel she could find and sang along with the songs at the top of her voice. Her mask was on the seat beside her as she drove, of course; she didn't want to damage the ears by creasing them against the roof of the car.

Also, she supposed it might not be the best idea to give Flechette advance warning by having people report seeing a rabbit driving a car down the interstate. The whiny bitch might decide to fuck her over by going back to New York, and then she would've wasted an entire trip. May had a constitutional aversion to letting Flechette win any of their encounters; it would only give her unrealistic ideas about where she came in the grand scheme of things.

Talking about people with unrealistic goals, she mused as she eyed the flashing red and blue lights in her rearview. The cop car had attached itself to her tail about two minutes back, just after she blasted through the I-495 overpass, and was gamely working to catch up to her. He probably didn't have a proper read on her license plate though, which was his good luck. That meant she didn't have to kill him, merely stop him.

Without taking her eyes off the road, she used her rapier to flick a piece of trash—a fast-food drink cup, long bereft of its contents—up toward her from the passenger-side footwell. She dropped the rapier on the seat and caught the cup, then swapped hands on the wheel and buzzed the window down. Flicking her gaze toward the cop car, she let the sequence of actions settle into her mind, then used her fingertip to emblazon a spiral trail of power into the side of the cup.

As the fuse began to burn down, she stuck her hand out the window and tossed the cup up and back. It flew through the air on the calculated trajectory, passed over the car that was between her and the cop car, and was sucked down into its downdraft. Although she lost sight of it then, she knew it would hit the ground and go under the police cruiser's driver's side front wheel at the exact instant that the explosive charge she'd instilled in the cup went off.

Which it did.

The detonation was muted by distance and wind-rush, but she caught a glimpse of the car tumbling end over end off the road into the ditch, rubber flaying off the stricken wheel. The cop might survive and he might not, but she didn't care either way. As far as she was concerned, he should've been smart enough not to chase after her when she had business to attend to. Anyone driving as flawlessly as she was, was clearly a cape; thus, someone to steer clear of.

She used the rapier to flick up another piece of trash, just in case, then settled back to keeping the car on the road and the speedometer in the triple figures. Nobody was going to stop her from messing with Flechette: not the PRT, not the Protectorate, and certainly not some underpaid county-mountie. The sooner people understood that, the better.

<><>​

Director Piggot, PRT ENE

Emily sighed and leaned back in her chair, then clicked the mouse to call up the confidential report that her best analysts had submitted regarding the Winslow destruction. She'd read it through more than a dozen times, looking over the arguments and finding no flaw in them. There were a few minor logical leaps—necessary, because the powers involved had never been tested under laboratory conditions—but the conclusions it reached were hard to refute.

Emily considered Taylor Hebert—Monochrome—to be one of the physically strongest capes she'd ever seen. She'd borne witness to Alexandria opening the entrance to Lord's Port again, and that display of raw power had both awed and disturbed her. Monochrome's double KO of Fenja and Menja, followed by choking out Lung, had to be on or near that level.

When considering the means/motive/opportunity triangle, the history of bullying that the girl had endured made for an ironclad motive. In a way, it was laudable that she'd chosen the site of the bullying rather than the bullies themselves for her retribution; Emily doubted that any of them would've survived if Monochrome had decided they needed to die. Opportunity was also a gimme: while Emily didn't know the full capability of Monochrome's powers, the girl was considered to have at least a minor Mover rating. Getting across the city and back again in less than an hour wouldn't be a problem for her.

The only sticking point in the whole affair was 'means'. Monochrome's powers seemed to involve a full-body force field that protected her utterly and gave her the strength to perform her deeds. Study of the limited footage available also seemed to indicate that she treated physics as an optional extra. If she could, for instance, extend that force field beyond her body, her strength might just be sufficient to pick the whole damn school up and toss it in the air, as Armsmaster had determined.

Emily would be the first to concede that it was a pretty big 'if'; the chain of logic was admittedly thin. However, the only other viable suspects she had in the matter were Leet (who had vehemently denied setting up anything of the sort, even when offered leniency) and Blockade (who'd had minimal motive to do so). While Blockade had been in the area with the rest of the Real Thing when Armsmaster showed up, Emily was disinclined to believe that she'd done it, mainly because Shadow Stalker would absolutely have dropped a dime on her former teammate without even needing to be asked.

The latter hadn't happened, so it was back to Monochrome as the primary suspect, assuming that the speculation about her powers was actually correct. However, not only was the aforementioned speculation unsupported by anything more than vaguely circumstantial evidence (much less the rock-solid proof Alan Barnes would demand if the PRT came at his youthful client again) but Emily wasn't even particularly inclined to go after her for it.

The basic truth of the matter was, the Real Thing were an unmistakeable force for good in the city. If they'd had to, the PRT and Protectorate could have taken down the Empire Eighty-Eight and the ABB capes, she had no doubt. But it would've been long and drawn out, there would've been unavoidable property damage and civilians getting hurt, and far too many of her troopers and capes would have suffered casualties as well, fatal and otherwise.

Likewise, the villains would not have surrendered easily, as proven by Kaiser's last-ditch effort to identify and either murder or co-opt Blockade. There would've been a target a mile wide on Emily's back, as well as on Paul Renick's and Armsmaster's; either to murder them outright or hold them hostage, depending on how well the PRT and Protectorate were doing at the time. Worse, while her sister lived out of state, Gesellschaft had a long reach when it needed to.

But all that hadn't happened. The cape contingent of the Empire Eighty-Eight was officially behind bars, as were Lung and Oni Lee. While both gangs had non-powered members (the Empire more than the ABB) they were fraying at the edges as the heroes and cops alike closed in on their bases of operation. It was a lot easier to dismantle something like that without villains getting in the way, a state of affairs she could definitely attribute to the actions of the Real Thing.

Beyond all that, the main reason that she was making zero moves on Monochrome (and had no immediate plans to do so) wasn't that she thought the girl's actions were reasonable. Yes, Taylor Hebert had been under extreme provocation, but that wasn't what stayed Emily's hand. Her core motive was pure pragmatism: if what she feared came about and outside villains arrived to claim their pound of flesh from the defunct Brockton Bay underworld, the PRT would need all hands on deck to squash any incipient resurgence of the Games.

And whatever else they were, the Real Thing were good at what they did.

With another sigh, she closed the file and clicked on the first unanswered email in her inbox. This had also been sourced in her overworked analytical department, though several grades less sensitive than the file she'd just been looking at. It was the latest of a series of reports covering cape activity within the city limits of Brockton Bay.

The Empire Eighty-Eight and the ABB had not been the only capes in the city by a long shot, merely the most troublesome. Aside from Uber and Leet and Coil (she still found the downfall of the latter to be hugely amusing) and ignoring the rogues, there were the Undersiders, Faultline's Crew and a few independent capes on both sides of the law. The report noted that the Undersiders were happily knocking over stash houses owned by the Empire Eighty-Eight and the ABB alike, stealing the money and leaving the drugs behind, while the Crew were apparently hunkering down and staying very quiet indeed.

In a way, she could admire the entrepreneurial spirit shown by the Undersiders; they'd seen an opportunity and were grabbing it with both hands. On a totally different level, while they were technically committing a crime, they were also locating stash houses that neither the BBPD nor the PRT had even suspected the location of, and removing money that the non-powered members of the gangs could have used to buy drugs or guns with. While legal confiscation would have suited her better, Emily was savvy enough to appreciate that they were wrecking the finances of both gangs, thus accelerating their ongoing disintegration.

This wasn't to say that they wouldn't be on the PRT's radar sooner or later, but they certainly weren't as much of a problem as some of the Empire Eighty-Eight capes had been, or the inevitable influx of new capes was likely to be.

Similarly, the PRT wasn't going to be focusing on Faultline's Crew for the moment. The Crew was extremely careful about not shitting in their own nest; they never committed Federal crimes, and made sure that all their activity happened on the other side of the state line. Inside Brockton Bay, they were the epitome of good neighbours, adhering to all the rules and regulations of running a nightclub, mostly making damn sure their bar attendants didn't serve alcohol to minors and that nobody sold drugs on the premises. Emily knew of at least four attempted stings where the ATF and other governmental bodies had tried infiltrating ringers to catch them out in one violation or another, but they'd all come to naught; Faultline was apparently very much on the ball.

Nothing in the report gave proof positive of any new capes within the city, but Emily knew they were out there, either sliding into the fetid pool that was her city's underworld or getting near to doing so. She hated that there was fuck-all she could do to stop them from just driving into the city or taking the bus, but until she got clearance to put up PRT roadblocks on every incoming highway (and she had considered it, however briefly) it was definitely going to be a case of playing catch-up.

Closing the report, she went onto the next email, which she belatedly realised was from Firebird.

---

Good morning, Director.

We've talked it over, and we think the best thing for all concerned is for us to make up for past misjudgments by cooperating with you as much as possible regarding the incoming villains.

Give us locations and names, and we'll go there and give them their marching orders. If an ass-kicking followed by a sojourn in the PRT's cells seems to be required instead, we can assist you in facilitating that as well.

Cheers,

Firebird (speaking for the Real Thing)

---

Emily read it through twice, noting the careful wording. Nowhere did Firebird actually admit to crimes, or even serious mistakes. 'Misjudgments' was a word that allowed for a lot of leeway.

Overall, it seemed, the Real Thing wanted to make amends in the most effective way: by taking action against a mutual problem. Given their previous track record, she was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. And having their prodigious throw weight on the side of the PRT was entirely preferable to having them standing off to the side, choosing not to participate.

She spent a moment typing up a brief reply agreeing to the proposal, then went on with her day.

Villains or no villains, the PRT ENE department wouldn't run itself.

<><>​

Lunchtime at Arcadia

Taylor

This time, I'd met up with Madison before Emma came out. We were seated under the shade of a tree, relaxing in companionable conversation, when I spotted her and waved. She waved back and came on over.

"Hey, guys." She grinned, waving her phone. "Guess what? She went for it."

"Well, there's a surprise," Madison drawled, unwrapping her hefty sandwich. "She'd have to be blind, deaf and brain-dead not to take us up on it, and I'm pretty sure she's none of the above."

"I dunno." I took a sip from my juice box before I continued. "If we'd managed to piss her off enough that she was more interested in fucking us over than getting the job done, I figure she'd say no."

Madison rolled her eyes. "In what possible universe would she feel justified in knocking back our assistance? I mean, shit, we handed the Empire and the ABB to her on a silver platter. We get the job done." She bit into the sandwich to emphasise her point.

"Well, not this one, obviously," Emma agreed. "But technically, I guess it's possible. Say, if Taylor was really a villain and we weren't there to make her look good." She gave me a cheeky grin.

I wrinkled my nose at her. "Oh, ha ha. I'm the one who makes you two look good, and you know it."

"Yeah, but we don't just look good." Emma struck a pose. "We look amazing."

<><>​

Flechette

As Lily strolled out casually through the Arcadia courtyard, she heard a burst of laughter from the three girls having their lunch under a nearby tree. They looked like they were a year below her; a pretty redhead and two brunettes, all clearly amused about something. It was nice to know some people didn't have anything more to worry about than grades and possible boy(or girl)friends. She moved on.

"Hey." Carlos met her at the gate as they slipped out. "You know those girls? I thought you hadn't been here before."

So he'd noticed her glancing in their direction. The guy was definitely observant. "No, I just looked that way when I heard them laughing. It's nice to know we can make a difference, you know? Because while we're out there, kids like that can enjoy life to the fullest."

"Wow, look who's the adult all of a sudden," he jibed with a smirk as they headed for the unmarked PRT van. "They aren't that much younger than us, you know. Year, maybe eighteen months, tops."

She snorted at him, then climbed into the back of the van. "Doesn't matter, and you know it. When you've got what we've got" —she meant powers— "the whole 'being a kid' thing doesn't mean much anymore. I've spent my entire cape life shuttling between duty posts, never having a chance to settle down in one place and put down roots. Add having your very own fucking nemesis on top of that, and a normal life's got even less chance of happening than usual." Sitting down in one of the seats, she reached for the seat-belt straps.

"Yeah, I heard something about that." Carlos frowned. "If this … what's her name, again? If she's so fixated on you, have you tried setting a trap for her? Once she's in custody, no more problem." He began fastening himself in as well.

Lily shook her head hastily. "No, bad idea. Her name's March, and she's really fucking switched on. Director Wilkins tried to trap her once. She sent half a dozen PRT guys, plus me and Adamant, to the hospital. I only took her rapier through the calf muscle, but for him she exploded half his armour and put him in a coma for a week."

"I think she'll find I'm a lot harder to put down than that," he said, apparently trying to be reassuring.

"What happens to you if she explodes your head?" she asked bluntly. "Not your helmet, your actual head. Nothing left from the neck up. I know you've got redundant biology, but exactly how redundant is it? Because I can promise you, she'll find a way to blow past those limits. Pun totally intended."

"Murdering Wards?" He frowned, apparently having difficulty with the concept. "She'll go that far?"

"She sees this whole thing as a game, and the name of the game is 'fuck with Flechette'," Lily explained. "No rules, except the ones she makes up on the spot. I'm the only one who can almost tag her in a fight. And everyone else, she dances around like it's been choreographed ahead of time. If anyone actually hits her and draws blood, she's likely to go full murderblender on them, just saying. And armour won't work, not against her."

"That's seriously wrong." He shook his head. "She won't get everything her way. Armsmaster's pretty good, for one. Kid Win says he's working on some kind of combat analysis software for his armour, though it isn't up and running yet. And Assault's nearly untouchable when he gets going. Also, Velocity should be able to literally run circles around her."

"You're still not getting it." She sighed, then tried again. "Combat is one of her powers. My Thinker ability gives me perfect rhythm, but with her it lets her predict and direct the movements of other people. That's what her name's all about. Marching in step. If her sword's charged up, she'll be able to anticipate where people are gonna be and intercept them. And when it's charged up, her sword goes through anything, just like my arbalest bolts do."

"Oh." To his credit, he didn't keep pushing. "So, um, what's she got against you? Or does she have something for you? Some sort of misdirected crush, I mean?"

"You tell me." She rolled her eyes. "We got our powers in the same cluster trigger, and she's been obsessed with me ever since. If she does just want to be my girlfriend, she's been going about it in the exact wrong way. She's toxic as fuck, and she's hurt too many people for me to be even slightly interested in her." Frowning, she cast about for a change of topic. "So, um, this new team, the Real Thing. Reading between the lines, Armsmaster and the Director are really impressed by them. Are they all that?"

She recalled the block of 'good steel', and its apparent impervious nature. If that was all they had going for them, March would surely figure out a way to get to them if they opposed her.

"They're still really new, like you said." Carlos tilted his head thoughtfully. "We don't have a lot of footage of them using their powers. Monochrome's even newer than the other two; she only showed up after Winslow got flattened."

"Actually, about that." Lily had been curious about the incident he'd referenced. "What really happened with Winslow, anyway? Was it a villain fight? Did it just fall down of its own accord? Someone cause an earthquake? Everything I've looked up says there's no official answer, but I was wondering if there was an unofficial answer that nobody was talking about."

Carlos chuckled dryly. "Throw a rock inside the PRT building on any given day and you'll hit someone with a brand-new theory. So far I've heard that it's an insurance scam, that Blockade did it with some kind of bullshit non-exploding bomb tech, that Leet was trying to teleport the building away but his teleporter malfunctioned and only sent it twenty feet up, that Shadow Stalker turned the foundations of the school to shadow, and that's all just skimming the surface. The truth is, nobody really knows. One day it was a technically intact high school, and the next it was a pile of rubble. Not even a ransom demand for any other buildings in the city."

"Huh." Lily went back to her previous line of thought. "Didn't Monochrome beat up on Lung or something, though? She's supposed to be really strong or something."

"Strong and fireproof," Carlos amended. "You're gonna need to see Armsmaster's helmet footage. Lung was on fire like everywhere, and she choked him out like it was a training exercise. I dunno how strong she is, but I know she's stronger than me. Blockade, too. I haven't seen what Firebird can do yet, but I'm not betting against her either, just saying."

"Right." Lily fell silent then, leaning back in her seat as the van rolled through Brockton Bay. Although she suspected she hadn't left all her problems behind in New York, there were more than a few enigmas that could do with unravelling while she was here.

One way or another, it looked like she was going to have her hands full.



End of Part Thirty-Four

 

[woodzrox]

Thanks Ack!

 

[JohnWolfie34]

Oh, a new update! Jolly good!

 

[Avernus]

March to me is like Bakuda and Coil; a villain I thoroughly enjoy see getting stomped just because their attitude is just so smug and obnoxious I want to reach into the monitor and slap them.

 

[Ack]

Earning Her Stripes

Part Thirty-Five: First Contact

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



A No-Tell Motel on the Outskirts of Brockton Bay

March

May waited until darkness had fallen before she headed out to prowl the night. She'd purposely chosen the motel for its lack of security cameras—the people who frequented a venue like that rarely wanted video proof of their indiscretions—and the incuriosity of its staff. This meant she could stroll out to her stolen car in full costume, though again minus the full-head mask, and nobody would pay the slightest bit of attention.

The parking lot was just as discreet, tucked in behind the main building to make it harder for suspicious spouses and nosy private investigators to spot guilty license plates. As she got in the car and started the engine, she wondered how many other supervillains used places like this as ad hoc bases of operation. It was certainly something to think about.

Once she'd cruised out onto the main drag, she applied thought to the next part of her plan. I need to start acquiring minions. While she was very goddamn effective on her own, having a bunch of people marching to her beat was a potent force multiplier. This worked even for non-capes, which was good, because the villains in town she could potentially recruit to her cause were very few and far between at the moment.

Fortunately, the two biggest gangs in town had literally just had their cape leadership stripped away from them, meaning there were two pools of potential recruits waiting for her to show up and claim them. It was true that the larger of these groups had been members of a white-supremacist gang, but she was an equal-opportunity employer; if they were willing to forget about that part of their lives, so was she.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Step one: find a cop car.

<><>​

Monochrome

"Okay, so the Empire Eighty-Eight and ABB are falling apart by the day, but there's still a lot to do," Emma noted as Madison strode along the Boardwalk with me riding on one shoulder of the Blockade armour and Emma on the other. "We have ordinary crime, and there's always the chance of new villains coming to town."

"Yeah, Director Piggot seemed pretty sure that was going to happen," agreed Madison. "She's been doing this a lot longer than we have, so I'm not gonna second-guess her on that."

"Absolutely." I hitched myself a little higher and scanned up and down the Boardwalk; despite the fact that only the last fading glow of the sunset was showing over the hills to the west, the overhead street lighting was giving pretty good illumination. The only movement I saw was from people, mostly looking in our direction. "Seems like we've got enough respect around here that nobody's willing to pull any stunts while we're looking."

"That'll be down to you and Firebird." Even with the voice modulator, Madison sounded amused. "When you dragged that one purse-snatcher along the Boardwalk by his ankle, you got everyone's attention."

"Well, it was either that or by the scruff of his neck, and he was taller than me." I shrugged. "Besides, he called me some pretty nasty names when I stopped him. He needed to learn not to do that."

"I think that lesson was well and truly learned." Emma tossed one of her throwing discs in the air, then caught it again and snapped it back onto her arm bracer in one fluid motion. "Are we gonna patrol back along the Boardwalk when we get to the other end, or go somewhere else?"

I considered that for a moment. "The Boardwalk is pretty well covered by the cops and Wards as it is. We don't want them getting complacent elsewhere in town, so we'll move along and check out the Trainyards before we finish up tonight." It was a school night after all, which meant it'd be a good idea to get home before midnight, at least for me and Madison. Emma could get by on just a couple of hours of sleep, the big cheating cheater.

"I'm down with that." Madison's voice was full of satisfaction. They'd told me about the encounters they'd had with the Merchants while they were still building their reputation as heroes. Madison in particular had issues with drug dealers hanging around and harassing people. "If we can clean that area up and keep it that way, it'll make it easier to get the Port back up and running when the time comes."

"Absolutely." Emma waved to a couple of people who'd stopped to take a photo of us. "And if any of these villains do stick their heads up, we'll smack 'em down again. Because that's what we do."

That was my view too. "Damn right."

<><>​

March

Before she set out to acquire a cop car, March decided to modify her own ride to make matters more convenient. First and foremost, she needed to be wearing her mask when she encountered them, and the roof of the car made that problematic. With this in mind, she used her empowered rapier to slice away the roof, door pillars, window frames, and rear window, in chunks small enough for her to handle. After smoothing off the rough edges, she got back into her newly-converted roadster and began the hunt.

As far as she was concerned, a poor hunter went looking for the prey, a mediocre hunter waited for them, and a good hunter drew the prey to them. So she set out breaking the law in the most flashy and egregious way possible: by blatantly exceeding the speed limit, all the way through town. A speeding car combined an obviously illegal act, a chance to drive fast with the siren on, and the opportunity to yell at someone in the name of the law; by her understanding, it was catnip to the average police officer.

She picked up her expected tail just a few minutes later, after her third four-wheel-drift around a random corner. He was still a ways back, though, so she decided to make him work to catch up with her. From what she remembered of the map, the waterfront was just up ahead: a boardwalk along the shore, paralleled by a long boulevard called Lord Street.

She'd let him chase her until she found a nice quiet place to conduct business, then the chase would be over and the next stage in the plan would take place. This would possibly entail the cop dying, depending on how stupid he wanted to be. It would absolutely end with her driving off with her very own cop car, slightly used, one previous owner.

The reason she wanted a cop car was simple: police-band radio, with wheels attached. At some point, the remnants of the Empire Eighty-Eight and the ABB would try to supplement their current savings with some crime, petty or otherwise. Without their super-powered protectors, they would almost certainly fall afoul of the law.

Whichever cops responded would call it in, and she'd hear about it. Whereupon she would turn up and save the mooks from the cops, then make them the strongly worded offer to work for her. They would almost certainly accept; while she'd never worked for another cape in her life, she understood that the minion mindset never really went away.

And then, once she had her ducks in a row, she would start learning Flechette's roster times and patrol routes. Brockton Bay was smaller than New York, which meant it would be harder than ever for Flechette to hide from her.

She couldn't wait.

But in the meantime, she was in the process of actuating the first stages in her plan. It was never a good idea to look too far ahead and lose sight of the here and now. As the cop car closed in from behind, she threw the car into a howling, smoking drift that left four distinct black trails on the asphalt and took her around the corner onto Lord Street.

With a nice long straightaway ahead of her, she gunned the engine. The car began to accelerate again, just as she noticed the three capes off to the side, on the boardwalk itself. She whipped past them, leaving her with the image of a large blocky set of power armour carrying a costumed teenage girl on each shoulder, all three turning to look at her.

Unless one of them is a speedster, they'll never—

<><>​

Taylor

The car came around the corner behind us, rubber shrieking on asphalt, the burning smell borne to us on the wind. Just as we turned to look, it roared past us, already dangerously fast. Behind it, a police car screeched around the corner with siren wailing and lightbar flashing.

"Was that—" Emma began.

"—a rabbit driving?" I finished. It had certainly looked like it, with white fur, long ears, and a cute little round cap.

"Cape," Madison filled in grimly. "Database says March, out of New York. Also says she's dangerous."

"Got it." I gathered my feet under me and leaped.

I might have been inclined to allow the cops to deal with a speeder, but a cape doing the speeding was a whole other thing. For starters, capes were a lot less likely to tamely allow themselves to be pulled over and arrested. Plus, we'd just finished telling Director Piggot that we'd help deal with any new villains in town. March definitely qualified.

And if she thought she was dangerous? She hadn't seen dangerous yet.

She was doing twice the speed limit when I passed over her, but that was no big deal. I was going faster than her, and all I needed to do was get in front of her. She looked up at me as I rotated laterally in the air, going from head-first to feet-first, utterly ignoring minor matters such as wind resistance and aerodynamics.

The next bit was going to be a little tricky. I hadn't even had my powers for a day when Uber and Leet had hit me with a car, utterly wrecking it when I didn't give way in the slightest. This time, I wanted to do better.

Allowing gravity to notice me again, then telling it to notice me, I dropped out of the sky. The idea was to land on the hood of the car, envelop the entire vehicle (and her) in my personal protective field, then put my feet down on the road. Any amount of friction from my feet meant I could stop instantly; nothing within my protective field suffered from inertia or gravity unless I wanted it to. The car would stop on the instant, allowing us to take the unharmed perpetrator into custody, hand her over to the PRT and go on our way.

At least, that was the plan.

As I fell toward the hood of the car, March anticipated my move and swerved to get clear of me before I could drop that far. (She was, I would learn, very good at anticipating moves). What she didn't seem to expect was how fast I was accelerating downward. Increasing the value of g for myself was a somewhat niche trick, but it came in handy occasionally.

As it was, she peeled around me with more than a foot to spare, but not quite out of my reach. I made a hasty grab, and my fingers closed over the top of the front passenger-side door. The instant I made contact, I layered my protective field over the car and all its contents, and it stopped.

Unfortunately, her foot was still on the accelerator, so the engine was roaring and rubber was howling against asphalt. Using just the pressure of my fingers and thumb on the door, I gently lifted the entire vehicle until the back tyres were no longer in contact with the road. That got rid of part of the noise, but not all of it.

"Turn the ignition off and exit the vehicle, March!" I shouted over the bellow of the engine. "You're under arrest!" I didn't actually have the power of arrest, but I could sure as hell hold her until the people who did showed up.

The rabbit head was turned my way. I had to admire the workmanship that had gone into it. The thing could've been cartoonish but it actually looked realistic, if a six-foot rabbit could look realistic.

The rest of her costume was … hyper-militaristic, if that was a thing. Bright colours, fringed epaulettes, polished brass buttons, with the cap on top between the ears. It looked like a crossover between Alice in Wonderland and Gilbert & Sullivan.

"And which one are you supposed to be?" she asked. She eased off on the accelerator, but then I saw her pick up a long skinny sword from the passenger seat.

"I'm Monochrome," I informed her. "You need to put that down right now. It won't hurt me. Nothing can hurt me. And if you try, I'll take it away from you and tie it in a bow."

"Really." Then she stabbed me.

I was kind of expecting it (in a ha ha, what's she going to do with that, stab me? way) but mostly not, because I was holding the car a foot off the ground with one hand, and that sort of thing tends to breed caution in others. What I wasn't expecting was for it to actually fucking work.

Her lunge was faster than my eye could follow; Emma probably could've seen it coming in time to do something about it, but all I knew about it was a flash of silver straight at my chest. I fully expected it to attempt to hit me in the chest, but I did not expect my force field to simply pop like a soap bubble, nor did I expect the skinny blade with a very pointy end to be driven deep into my chest cavity.

I stared down at the embedded weapon, stunned.

This … this was actually happening.

I wasn't prepared for this.

Before I could do anything, she whipped the sword back out of my chest. I took one stumbling step back, then I was tumbling. I fell hard, but I didn't feel the ground. I simply … stopped falling. Staring up at the sky for a second, there wasn't a cloud in the sky, and remembering the weather forecast, I coughed around the wetness that filled my throat.

Rain, my ass.

I heard shots being fired, though they were muffled … like a long way away. My fingers were starting to get sticky, and I lifted my hand, staring for a few seconds at the red liquid that covered it. It took me a second to remember it was blood.

My hand got really heavy and I closed my eyes, but on an up note, my chest didn't hurt any more. In fact … nothing hurt…

I felt the shadow of someone or something falling across me, and then there were people screaming.

I just really wanted them to shut up so I could sleep.

The last thing I remember was the sound of fabric tearing, and thinking that a bandage wasn't quite gonna cut it …

<><>​

Firebird

Emma knelt tensely on the sidewalk, knowing her gloves were covered in blood but not giving a shit, as Panacea laid her hands on Taylor's unconscious body. Glory Girl stood back out of the way, apparently unconcerned regarding the outcome. With the assistance of the first-aid kit from the patrol car, Emma had managed to keep Taylor alive up until this point, but her vital signs had been really bad toward the end.

Madison had overridden Emma's demand for an ambulance, instead directing a call to New Wave, requesting Panacea's assistance. The call-out would cost four hundred dollars—her usual rate, plus double time for short notice and outside working hours—but Emma considered it cheap at twice the price. Glory Girl was apparently used to ferrying her sister around, and had gotten Panacea to them in less than five minutes (though to Emma, it had felt like much longer).

"Done," Panacea announced, settling back on her heels. "I've fixed the damage, and she'll be waking up in about ten seconds. She's going to need to have a full meal and rehydrate, to replace the blood she lost, but otherwise she'll be okay. What was it, some sort of bladed weapon?"

Emma stared as Taylor's eyelids fluttered open, a warmth spreading through her chest. Oh god, thank you. She's going to live. "Uh, yeah," she managed, trying not to ignore Panacea. "March carries a rapier. According to the database, she can cut through anything with it, and make things explode." It would've been good if Taylor had waited for Madison to reach that part of the entry.

"Hmm." Panacea frowned. "Well, from what I can see, whatever cutting power she had wasn't working. The blade scraped off a rib before it went into Monochrome's chest, which saved her from a much worse wound, possibly even a fatal one. Thanks to you, she didn't even suffer from anoxia." She gave Emma a brief smile. "When people do first aid properly, it makes my job so much easier."

"Ugh …" groaned Taylor. "What happened? How did she even do that?" Between one instant and the next, her force field came back, covering her from head to foot.

"Her blade can cut through anything," Emma informed her. "How do you feel?"

"Like I got stabbed with a blade that can cut through anything," was the tart reply. Taylor sat up, then finally registered Panacea. "Oh, hey. I'm guessing you're the reason I'm feeling a lot better right now?"

"Good guess." Panacea stood up, then dusted her knees off. "Looks like Crystal wins the pool."

"Pool?" asked Emma as she helped Taylor up; it wasn't like Taylor actually needed the assistance with her force field on, but there was a psychological element there.

"Yeah." Glory Girl rolled her eyes. "On which of you three was going to need Panacea's assistance first, the way you've been tearing through the local bad guys. I had my money on you."

"Did anyone have anything on me?" asked Madison curiously.

"Just Manpower." Panacea smirked. "He was so sure he was gonna win too, given how easy Tinkers are to hurt once they're out of their armour."

"Who'd you have your money on?" Taylor asked her. "And thanks, by the way. I really appreciate it."

"Oh, I wasn't allowed to be in on the pool." Panacea shook her head and snorted. "Something about a conflict of interest. Anyway, you're welcome. Glory Girl has your billing information?"

"I've already transferred the four hundred to your account," Madison assured her. "I'd apologise for dragging you out on a school night, but you don't seem particularly upset over it."

Panacea grinned. "Hah, no. Thanks to jobs like this, my college fund is really healthy, these days."

"And I get five percent for flying her here," Glory Girl added. "We'll probably get takeout on the way back. Win-win."

"Well, thanks anyway." Emma waved her hands vaguely, aware of the blood on her gloves. "See you around." She watched as Glory Girl expertly gathered Panacea into a bridal carry, then rocketed into the sky. "Okay," she said. "That happened."

"March's sword popped my force field," Taylor said, in an 'I want to speak to the manager' tone. "Nothing's supposed to touch my force field. How did she get a power like that?"

"I'm getting the impression that your power and her power cancelled each other out, but she was still holding a sharp piece of steel and you were soft squishy meat," Madison offered helpfully. Emma couldn't help noting that Madison's good steel would very likely protect her from any sword March wanted to point in her direction.

"Ugh, okay, fine." Taylor huffed in irritation. "How bad was it?"

"Pretty bad," Emma said candidly. "I had to give you CPR, before Panacea got here." She still recalled the taste of Taylor's blood in her mouth. It would likely be with her forever.

Taylor nodded slowly. "Got it. Thanks. Remind me to save your life sometime."

"Anytime." Emma tilted her head. "Go ahead, ask the question you want to ask."

"Okay, fine. Did you get her?" From the tone of Taylor's voice, she already knew the answer.

Madison shook the head of her power armour ponderously. "No. We were all concentrating on you. After you dropped the car, she got away in the confusion. But don't worry. We'll catch up with her again."

"And when we do," Emma stated with conviction, "she's gonna learn why she shouldn't mess with the Real Thing."

<><>​

Some Way Out of Brockton Bay

The party was dying down as Butcher leaned back in her chosen seat, watching her followers stumble about in search of booze, a bed partner, or somewhere to throw up. Hemorrhagia staggered up and flopped down next to her, holding a bottle by the neck. "Spree'ss so drunk, hee'ss havin', havin' a drink'n c'ntest with, with hisself," she announced out of nowhere.

"Wouldn't fuckin' surprise me." Nothing surprised Butcher anymore about the Teeth. So many members had come and gone, among the powered and non-powered members alike, that if she hadn't seen basically everything there was to see, one of her predecessors would have.

Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately) the layered powers that came with being the Butcher meant that she couldn't get drunk easily and she couldn't stay drunk at all. Which meant she was just drinking for the taste and the mild buzz.

"So where're we goin'nex'?" Hemorrhagia went to take a drink from her bottle, but it was empty. She looked drunkenly disappointed.

Butcher had been thinking about that. "Heard that Brockton Bay's been nearly cleared out of villains. Empire's gone, ABB's gone. Sounds ripe for us to go take a cruise back through our old stomping grounds."

Hemorrhagia blinked owlishly at her. "I nev'r been."

Butcher smiled; it wasn't a pleasant expression. "It's gonna be fun."



End of Part Thirty-Five

 

[Therandomestpersons]

Yeah, i figured something like that would happen. Big Oof for Taylor, but this is information thats significantly better to know 'now' then 'later' after all.

 

[edale]

I made a hasty grab, and my fingers closed over the top of the front passenger-side door. The instant I made contact, I layered my protective field over the car and all its contents, and it stopped.

Unfortunately, her foot was still on the accelerator, so the engine was roaring and rubber was howling against asphalt. Using just the pressure of my fingers and thumb on the door, I gently lifted the entire vehicle until the back tyres tires were no longer in contact with the road. That got rid of part of the noise, but not all of it.

Click to shrink...

If anyone caught that on film, then that shows the final piece to the puzzle to Taylor's power to explain how she destroyed Winslow...

 

[Ack]

If anyone caught that on film, then that shows the final piece to the puzzle to Taylor's power to explain how she destroyed Winslow...

Click to shrink...

It does, yes.

(Also, I spell 'tyres' in the British/Australian manner. The only words I tend to spell in the US manner in these stories are ones where the pronunciation is changed by the spelling, such as aluminium/aluminum, or where something's written down, such as in PHO segments.)

 

[Ack]

Earning Her Stripes

Part Thirty-Six: Breaking Step

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


March

Fully aware that the car she was driving was more than a little conspicuous, and not wanting Monochrome's battlesuited buddy to land on it—and her—with both feet, or turn her into a crater from a thousand feet up, May ditched it at the first opportunity. All the same, she argued to herself as she ducked through the alleyways of Brockton Bay with one eye on her backtrail, Monochrome had totally been asking for it. What kind of idiot just stood there after saying something like 'you can't hurt me with that'?

Especially if it turned out that yes, May could hurt her with that?

The look on her face when her force field popped? That was amazing. Though it was nothing compared to her expression when she actually got stabbed.

May's wrist twinged slightly, and she rubbed at it. There'd been a bit of a jar, a resistance, when she'd been expecting none at all, and her wrist had been set just a little off for the lunge. Must have been the force field, she decided. It held out for a split second before it popped. That's actually pretty impressive.

Still, Monochrome had taken May's blade through the chest despite her stupid force field, so that team was down to the powersuit Tinker and the chick in black with the funky arm-shields. May still wasn't sure of their names, despite the fact that Monochrome had known hers. It didn't really matter; if they came after her to capture her or avenge their fallen teammate (or both) she'd take them down just as easily. As far as she was concerned, battlesuits only provided visual cover.

Still, it was probably a good idea to lay low until the next night. They'd undoubtedly be scouring the city for her tonight, along with everyone who was willing to help. Tomorrow night, it would just be them, and Monochrome would still be dead.

May grinned as an idea came to her. If they give her a public funeral, I'll sneak in after and put 'Whoops' on her tombstone. I mean, how stupid can you get?

<><>​

Hebert Household

Taylor

Danny grimaced as he shook his head. "I'm not going to say that was a stupid thing to do, mainly because nothing else has been able to get through your force field. However, standing there and letting her stab you was remarkably short-sighted; just because nothing you've encountered can affect you inside the field doesn't mean there's nothing that will."

"Hear, hear," Rod Clements agreed. "As my Logic professor used to say, 'absence of evidence is not evidence of absence'. He looked Taylor over carefully. "Are you sure you're okay now?"

"Perfectly." Taylor felt confident enough to reply in the positive. "Panacea fixed me up just fine."

"She does good work, it seems," Alan Barnes agreed. "Well worth the four hundred I wired through to Madison."

"Yeah, she does." Taylor frowned. "Not to change the subject exactly, but with her quality of work, how the hell is she not snowed under, every hour of every day?"

Mr Barnes rubbed his chin with forefinger and thumb. "I don't know the full details, but I've heard any calls to Panacea for healing go through a smart semi-AI filter system, provided by some computer Tinker or other. She prioritises life-threatening situations and charges more for frivolous calls, like getting a splinter removed. Anyone who tries to swamp the system by calling multiple times gets dropped clear out of the queue; it can even tell if the same person is calling from different phones. And capes automatically get jumped to the front of the line."

"Don't you mean heroes, not just capes?" asked Emma curiously.

"No." Mr Barnes shook his head. "If a villain calls up and has the cash, she'll fix him up too. So long as he pays in good faith, he gets healed in good faith."

"But surely there would be a constant number of clients, even taking frivolous calls out of the equation," Taylor insisted. "I mean, there's always people in the hospital."

"That's because most hospital stays are multi-day affairs," Danny explained. "From what I heard, she dealt with a metric ton of chronic conditions, from asthma to allergies to emphysema, early on. Those were one-and-done. Cancer as well. Once you get the conditions that normally get handled rather than cured out of the way, the workload drops way off."

"Yeah," agreed Mr Clements. "The number of people actually going into the hospital on any given day is actually fairly low."

Mr Barnes chuckled. "The pharmaceutical companies hate her. She doesn't prescribe any drugs that they can jack the price on, and she reduces the need for people to take the ongoing maintenance drugs that they make a lot of their profit on. They tried threatening a lawsuit to bar her from healing people on some bullshit technicality, and Carol said, 'Bring it.' Our whole company was gearing up to go balls-to-the-wall for her. That went away pretty fast, especially after we started talking to the news services about it."

"Well, I'm just glad she was ready to come fix me at a moment's notice," Taylor said. "The question is, how do we fight March, if she can just pop my force field like that, and cut through anything?"

"I think we need to talk to the PRT again," Madison decided. "See if they've got anyone with any insights on going up against her. Until then, I'd suggest you stay at range, and either poke her with your staff or throw stuff."

"Well, I can definitely throw stuff at her." Cars, Taylor decided. I can throw cars at her.

Emma nodded. "I'll make that phone call."

<><>​

Flechette

Lily was working up a good sweat on the treadmill—just because her powers gave her perfect timing and good balance didn't mean she could coast on the fitness aspect—when Triumph stepped into view in front of her and waved to get her attention. Hitting the button to let it roll to a stop, she pulled out one of her earpieces. "What's going on?" she asked. "The gangs acting up?"

"No, actually." She was struck once more by the deep resonant quality of his voice. "The Director wants to see you about that cape who keeps giving you a hard time."

"What, March?" Just saying the name gave her a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. "Is she in town? Who's she hurt?"

"Yeah, she is, and it seems she ran into the Real Thing about an hour ago. Nearly killed Monochrome." He tilted his head toward the ceiling. "But you need to be having this conversation with Director Piggot, not me."

"Shit." She took a deep breath. "Okay, yeah, good point." Grabbing her towel, she stepped off the treadmill. "Do me a favour and let her know I'll be five minutes?"

"I can do that."

<><>​

Five Minutes Later

Director Piggot

Emily looked up at the tap on the door. "Enter."

The door opened, to reveal Flechette on the other side. Clad in civvies, the girl wore her tinted visor as a way to indicate who she was and hide her identity at the same time. "You wanted to see me, ma'am?"

"Yes." She waited until the door had closed behind the girl, then gestured to a chair. "Have a seat. Just so you're aware, this conversation will be recorded, as per PRT regulations." It was a warning she gave to every Ward, once. If they forgot thereafter, it was not her problem. "Now, you gave us some stringent warnings about March, as I recall."

"Yes, ma'am. Triumph said she nearly killed someone?" Flechette sat down, her shoulders hunched, as though she was expecting to be blamed for the incident.

"That is correct. Monochrome. Fortunately, her aim was a little off and Panacea is available at short notice, so she survived. As of ten minutes ago, the Real Thing contacted us for pointers on fighting her." She paused as Flechette opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again. "What?"

"Excuse me, ma'am, but March's aim is never 'a little off'. I've never known her to miss what she was aiming at because of random chance. Or even because someone dodged; she's stupidly good at anticipating which way someone's going to try to go to evade her."

"Hmm." Emily didn't doubt Flechette's word. She had more experience against March than anyone in Brockton Bay, as a matter of course, and second-guessing the experts was a sure-fire route to disaster. "I may have mis-heard what Firebird said. In any case, they fully intend to go after her again, so any suggestions for doing this would be well-received."

"Speaking frankly, ma'am, my first suggestion would be 'don't', but I suppose that's not going to fly."

"You are correct." Emily smiled thinly. "The Real Thing have shown themselves to be remarkably persistent, not to mention effective. Up until today, I wouldn't have bet against them when it came to dealing with a single cape. It appears that I—and they—miscalculated."

Just for a second, Flechette's expression clearly said 'no shit', but the girl was evidently too smart to express that sentiment out loud. "Can I talk to them? If I know what happened, I can maybe figure out where to go from there."

"That's something I can arrange, yes." Emily took up her phone, accessed Firebird's number, and pressed the icon to call it. While the call was still going through, she put it on speaker, then placed the phone on the desk between them.

The phone rang twice, then Firebird's voice came through. "Hello, Director Piggot. What's up?"

"I have Flechette here," Emily said. "She wants to talk to you about your encounter with March."

"Yeah, hi," Flechette added. "So, um, what actually happened? Because March doesn't miss. If she's going for the kill, you're dead. If she's really going for the kill, you explode."

"I'll let Monochrome explain it. All Blockade and I saw was the aftermath."

There was a pause, then Monochrome spoke. "She was in a car and I stopped her by picking it up. There was a sword, and I told her to put it down, but she just kind of leaned across the seat and stabbed me with it. It popped my force field and went through my lung. Firebird was able to keep me alive until Panacea showed up. What should I have done differently?"

Flechette frowned. "Well, as I told the Director, the best way to not get stabbed by March is not to get close to her. But that aside, you say it 'popped' your force field, as opposed to punching through it? Also, a lung shot is a bit sloppy for someone like March. If she goes for the chest, it'll be a heart shot."

"Yeah. My force field automatically comes on when something's likely to hurt me, and I've found nothing that can get through it, until now. As soon as her sword hit it, it vanished. Panacea says she might've been aiming for my heart, but her sword scraped off my rib before it went into my chest." Monochrome sounded distinctly aggrieved about this.

"Wait, that's not right." Flechette shook her head. "For her sword to disrupt a high-end force field, she had to have been empowering it, but if she was empowering it, it would've gone straight through your rib like a hot knife through butter. Zero resistance. I know this, because it's how my power works."

"I don't know what to say. That's what happened. One second I was fully protected, and the next there was a sword sticking in me. And if Panacea says it scraped off my rib, then I'm going to take her word for it."

Flechette sat back in her chair, rubbing her thumbnail across her lips. "Okay, that's … the only way I can see that happening is if there was some kind of weird interaction between her power and your force field."

"What do you mean, exactly?" Monochrome sounded interested, at least.

"Okay, look at it like this. My power—our power—goes through anything. From the sounds of it, your force field stops everything. So, what happens when the unstoppable force meets the immovable object?"

"But she stabbed me anyway." Monochrome had clearly been looking ahead to the obvious conclusion. "So the unstoppable force wins?"

"No, they cancel each other out," Flechette said patiently. "Her blade wasn't empowered anymore, but it was still sharp."

"I said that!" exclaimed a voice Emily recognised as belonging to the petite teen inside the Blockade armour. "Didn't I say that?"

"Yes, okay, you called it." Firebird's sigh was audible. "Sorry about that. Blockade dislikes being ignored when she's right about something."

"Wait." Flechette sounded startled. "That's a girl in the Blockade armour? I thought for sure it was a guy inside there."

"That's the general idea of having a voice modulator, yes." Firebird cleared her throat. "So, back to the topic of March. Thanks for verifying Blockade's theory. Now, how can we use that information to wreck March? Also, is her power likely to be able to damage good steel? I'd really rather not go into a fight against her, and find out I'm trying to hide behind the equivalent of a marshmallow."

"Hey, my force field is not a marshmallow!"

"True," agreed Blockade. "From the way it popped, it was more like a soap bubble."

"What?"

"Monochrome, hush. Blockade, stop baiting her. We don't know if your suit will even stand up to March yet. Flechette?"

"I can give you good news on that front at least." Flechette sounded pleased. "We tested the piece Blockade gave to Armsmaster. My power couldn't so much as get a grip on it. I've cut through tungsten carbide like so much fairy floss, and that 'good steel' just flat-out ignored me."

"Hah! Yes! I knew it!"

"Okay," Monochrome said. "So Firebird and Blockade will be protected against her. Got anything for me?"

Emily coughed into her fist to get their attention. "Actually, I just had an idea. Monochrome, have you considered the idea of defence in depth?"

"Um … not really? What does that mean?"

"From the footage I've seen of you in action, your force field doesn't have to be skin-level, correct?"

"Well, no. I can shape it out to an inch or so. Why?"

"Can you generate two separate force fields, one under the other? Because if her power is expended when she pops the first layer, it'll just be an ordinary sword when she hits the second one." Knowing they couldn't see her, Emily still gestured to illustrate the concept.

Flechette's eyes widened and she sat up. "That … could actually work. It takes a second or so to empower a weapon. Even if she keeps her sword in contact with you while she charges it up again—and trust me, she can totally do that—you can move the field outward and form another one under it, right?"

"Well, yeah." Monochrome sounded doubtful. "So it's as simple as that? Two force fields, one inside the other?"

"Oh, it'll be anything but simple." Flechette shook her head. "Once she figures out what you're doing, and she totally will, she'll go for your eyes or anywhere else she thinks you might not have total coverage. And she will keep trying."

"But she won't just be fighting Monochrome next time." There was steel in Firebird's tone.

"Damn right." Blockade sounded just as determined.

Flechette didn't look entirely convinced, but neither did she voice any concerns. "Okay, then. Just … be really careful, okay? She plays by her own rules, and those rules change whenever she feels like it. If she can bully you, she'll absolutely do it."

Firebird's chuckle forebode dire consequences for March. "We're thoroughly acquainted with that mindset, trust me."

"Well, if there was nothing else?" prompted Emily after a few seconds of silence.

"That's all we had, Director," answered Firebird. "Thanks for letting us talk to Flechette."

"And Flechette, thanks for the advice," added Monochrome.

"You're totally welcome. Glad I could help." Flechette nodded to Emily.

"Good luck. Ending call … now." Emily hit the red icon, then laced her fingers together and looked over her desk at Flechette. "Thoughts?"

"Well, they listened, I guess. To a point, anyway." Now that the call was over, Flechette was letting her doubts show in her voice. "I just … nobody's ever gotten the better of March. The best we've ever done is chase her off with overwhelming force, and she still got a few good hits in. Monochrome nearly died the last time because she was overconfident. What if what I told them isn't enough to beat her?"

Emily had seen exactly what the Real Thing could do when they had the upper hand. Now she was about to see how they went against a foe who had already beaten them once.

"I suppose we'll find out when the time comes."

<><>​

The Next Afternoon

Butcher

The convoy of vehicles trailed its way into Brockton Bay. They didn't draw a great deal of attention, being in relatively good condition and bearing legitimate license plates. This was because while the majority of the vehicles were stolen (the Teeth were not the sort of people to walk into a car showroom and actually pay money for their rides, don't be ridiculous) the plates had been swapped over for ones that had been taken off cars on the street. It wouldn't pass muster for an in-depth check on a given plate, but a simple check for license plates of stolen cars wouldn't show up either.

Seated in the passenger seat of the lead van, with most of her paraphernalia concealed in the back, Butcher looked around with interest. She'd never been here before in person, but one or two of her predecessors had, so she had their memories to tap into. In their professional opinion, despite a few new buildings, the place had gone downhill since Butcher and the Teeth had last graced the city with their presence.

Along with the capes, there were about forty mundane followers in the Teeth. She didn't have an exact number; every now and again they recruited new blood, or some idiot got shanked or left of their own accord. Although they could likely commandeer enough motel rooms to accommodate everyone, the Teeth didn't do motels. Like the 'travellers' of Europe and the UK, they tended to find a spot that nobody was looking too closely at, circle the wagons, and set up camp. If they could steal electricity (or anything else) while they were at it, all the better.

Following instructions from one of the past Butchers, she guided the convoy to the northern part of the city, rolling through mostly-abandoned suburbs toward their goal. Covetous eyes took note of boarded-up stores and strip malls; businesses that closed down due to bankruptcy or whatever often had stock left behind if there was no new place to take it to. Among their numerous talents, the Teeth were expert scavengers of things left unattended, whether it be for fifteen years or fifteen seconds.

"There," she said, pointing ahead through the windshield. "We'll set up there."

Spree, who was driving at the time, peered at the building. It was well-kept, though the signs saying 'temporarily out of service' and 'coming soon' were weathered and worn, which was what had gotten Butcher's attention. The important part was that it was roomy enough for the Teeth to all find somewhere to crash, and make the place their own (mainly involving breaking stuff and tagging all available surfaces, because this was the Teeth).

"What about the boat?" he asked, indicating the ferry that was tied up at the dock.

"Oh." Butcher grinned lazily. "We'll take that too."

<><>​

March

Operation: Find A Gang was now on its second day with no appreciable progress, which irked May slightly. By this time she'd usually at least made some connections and was moving into the active recruitment phase, but teaching Monochrome the essential lesson of 'yes I can hurt you, you idiot' and then evading pursuit had cost her the night. She hadn't seen or heard anything about the moron's death on the news, but they were probably just trying to figure out how to spin it in a positive light.

To change things up, she'd boosted a motorbike this time and started cruising the streets, looking for trouble. It wasn't like she was being especially subtle, riding around in full costume and all. Just one cop car was all she wanted; surely they'd pull her over and try to arrest her, and then she'd have a cop car.

Rich end of town or poor end of town? Mentally, she flipped a coin. Causing problems in the affluent areas tended to draw more than one unit, whereas she was likely to only get one cop car at a time in the low to middle class suburbs.

Despite the fact that she could take down any number of cops, they might delay her long enough for the heroes to show up, and they'd probably still be holding a grudge over Monochrome. So while she was fully aware that it might take a bit longer, the coin came down on 'poor end of town'.

It took her less time than she'd thought to leave the nice side of town and hit the shitty region. Half the street-lights were smashed, there were areas where potholes outnumbered normal sections of street, and the general air of decrepitude made her want to gag. But she reminded herself that she'd made this choice, and she never made bad choices.

So she kept going, taking corners almost at random, gradually working her way farther north. Sooner or later, she figured, she would run into either a cop car or someone she could recruit as the first member of her Brockton Bay gang. Either one would be good.

<><>​

Grue

"I gotta ask, are there any that we haven't hit?" As they strolled along the sidewalk toward Lord Street, Alec seemed to be inquiring more out of mild curiosity than from actual greed. "Because we've made bank over the last few days."

"Oh, there's a few," Lisa admitted. "But they're the low-end ones. Not worth our time."

"Need to think about moving on anyway," Rachel threw in.

"What's the rush?" asked Brian, concerned. He was still working on getting full custody of Aisha so that when he left town, she could legally come with. Failure to cross the t's and dot the i's on this could see her dragged back to Celia and him being charged with kidnapping. "I thought the PRT wasn't focusing on us yet."

"They aren't." Lisa looked at Rachel, frowning slightly. "You know something we don't."

"Yeah. I was out walking my dogs earlier, and I saw a bunch of assholes setting up camp in the ferry terminal. They were dressed like the worst type of bikers and had a cape walking around with a stupid big gun, with spikes and skulls and shit hanging off her." Rachel shook her head. "Too close to the loft. They'd find us sooner or later, then they'd harass us because assholes love to do that sort of shit."

Lisa stared at her. "Spikes and skulls and a big gun? Are you sure?"

Rachel glared back. "Of course I'm fucking sure. I'm not fucking blind."

"Motorbike," Alec warned them, stepping away from the edge of the sidewalk. So did Brian; some bikers loved to clip pedestrians, or do even more stupid shit. Then he turned to look, and did a double-take.

The girl in the rabbit mask and the gloriously overdone militaristic costume pulled up alongside them. Brian noted the rapier hanging off her belt, but didn't see any ranged weapons. He also picked up on the fact that the ignition lock of the bike was busted, which meant she had not acquired it in any kind of legal fashion.

"Hi," said the newcomer brightly. "My name's March. How would you like to be part of the newest, most kickass gang in Brockton Bay?"



End of Part Thirty-Six

 

[Finsdale]

Paige, I mean Brian NO, just no!

 

[edale]

...I kinda see this developing into Butcher!March... Which, to be fair, I've never seen nor heard of before.

 

[Ack]

Earning Her Stripes

Part Thirty-Seven: Escalation Marches Onward

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



Friday Afternoon, 24 September 2010

Grue

"That's an interesting offer," Lisa said chirpily before Brian could put in his demurral. "Totally sorry, usually not this much of a ditz, but what exactly have you done before? I don't think I've seen you in the news or anything."

Brian froze in his tracks. Lisa never, ever admitted to not knowing anything, and he wouldn't have thought she would call herself a ditz even with a gun to her head. This wasn't just a red flag, it was Victory Day celebrations in Palace Square in St Petersburg. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Rachel begin to open her mouth, and he smacked her hand with his. She gave him a confused look, but kept quiet.

"Me? I've kicked ass, is what I've done." The woman in the rabbit-head mask sounded far too pleased with herself. "Seems to me you're suffering from a sudden lack of talent in the supervillain sector, so I've come in from New York to take the job. Of course, supervillains need minions, and you four look like you could handle that for me just fine. What do you say?"

Alec's head came up, but Brian nudged him and he shut up too. There was something going on here, and Brian was happy to let Lisa handle it until shit went sideways.

Lisa never lost her chirpy demeanour. "Oh, yeah? Whose ass have you kicked? Anyone famous?"

"Flechette's, any number of times." March seemed to figure out that they didn't know who she was talking about. "Oh, and you know Monochrome? The one who took down Lung? I put her in the morgue yesterday. Just in case you're wondering if I'm all that. 'Cause I am."

"Hmm." Lisa still didn't sound like herself. Brian paid very close attention to what she was saying. "I was just thinking that Monochrome was kind of popular. Due to, you know, taking down Lung. It might get a bit dangerous for us if we started working for you. I mean, not that I'm averse to the money. What sort of benefits would we get?"

"Well, apart from having a kickass boss—that is, me—who'll never steer you wrong, and the money, not a lot," March admitted. "But that's a shitload more than you'd ever get from any other villain. Tell me I'm wrong."

"Well, no, you're not wrong," Lisa said, so enthusiastically that Brian was almost taken in. "Me and the guys, we're all in on the idea of working for another supervillain, especially one as badass as you." With her left hand, out of March's sight, she wrapped her thumb over her pinky, leaving three fingers sticking out.

"What, really? You've worked for other villains?" March sounded a little surprised at that. "How many have you got in this town, anyway?"

Lisa grinned. "More than you'd expect. Anyway, we were just now talking about how great it was to work for Coil, and how we'd love to work for someone just like him. You've heard of Coil, right?" One of her fingers folded in. Two.

Brian controlled his breathing, trying not to let his tension show. He wasn't sure what kind of vibe Lisa had picked up from March, but whatever it was, it had to be bad. Even Alec and Rachel had picked up on it by now, and were waiting for his move.

"Not really." March's tone was dismissive. "Small-timer, is he?"

"Well, he's not one of the high rollers, and he's behind bars right now so there's that," Lisa pretended to admit. "But working for him was as easy as three two one, go!"

Brian already had darkness building in his palms, and Lisa's final countdown gave him his signal. On 'go', he unleashed a torrent of it all over March, yanking Lisa back out of it as the cloud built up. Then, just to make sure, he stepped into the cloud and side-kicked the motorcycle to knock it over.

It didn't go over at first, but then March's knee spasmed and it fell over on top of her. He distantly heard her screaming obscenities as he bolted for it.

Lisa was already running; Brian caught up after twenty seconds or so. Alec and Rachel were pacing her, the former laughing under his breath.

"She's batshit cray-cray, isn't she?" he asked between panting breaths. "Reminds me of some of my family."

"Totally cuckoo," Lisa agreed. "Rachel, she's likely to come after us. We're going to need the dogs."

"Don't tell me what to do," Rachel snapped back. "Anyway, I'm already doing it."

"Think she really killed Monochrome?" asked Brian. "I mean, what sort of asshole just comes to town and starts killing off heroes?"

"The Slaughterhouse Nine or Butcher and the Teeth type of asshole," Alec said immediately.

Lisa glanced over at Brian. "She believes she did," she said soberly. "Whether she actually managed it or not is immaterial. The Real Thing will absolutely want to come down on her like a ton of bricks."

Brian had seen footage online of what happened when Blockade came down on someone like a ton of bricks. It hadn't been pretty. Up until now, the Real Thing had acted with unfailing restraint, when they could easily have permanently maimed their adversaries or even simply killed them. If Monochrome was dead, or even badly injured, this was likely to change.

He strongly suspected that March and any of her associates would be wise to leave town immediately, before the vengeful heroes caught up with them. From the way the Real Thing had mopped the floor with the Empire Eighty-Eight and the ABB, March would stand no chance at all.

Right now, the trick appeared to be convincing her to look elsewhere for minions.

They slowed to a stop at the corner, looking back at the gradually dissipating cloud of darkness. Rachel was still growing the dogs, which were about waist-high by now. Alec began to ask something, but Brian shushed him. "She's got the bike off her," he reported, watching as the masked woman picked the motorcycle up—no mean feat, that—then swung her leg astride and kicked over the engine.

A moment later, it emerged from the last of the darkness, and the rabbit mask turned to zero in on them. "Shit," said Lisa. "We gotta go. Now."

As if to underline her words, the rapier came out of its sheath to point at them, and March's words echoed down the street. "You cocksuckers! I'm gonna—"

The rising engine note of the motorbike drowned out her voice, but Brian wasn't listening anymore. Hustling around the corner with the others, he clambered onto Brutus and grabbed hold of a couple of convenient bone spurs. The dogs, jolted into action, galloped across the street, still growing as they went, then leaped up and started climbing the wall.

Seconds later, the bike swept around the corner, the tyres howling as she pushed it past its operational limits, yet still managing to hold the road anyway. Leaning down without slowing the motorcycle, March scooped up something from the roadway and hurled it with a flick of the wrist. A second later, the wall above Angelica erupted outward with an explosion, gouging a crater from the brickwork and blasting shrapnel in all directions.

Shrapnel blasted in all directions. Rachel was shielded from most of it by Angelica's body, but Brian was fairly sure she caught a hit on the knee. He was equally unlucky; a razor-sharp shard of brick ripped into his left shoulder, sending a wave of agony through his body and rendering the arm useless. Desperately, he clutched the bone spike with his right hand, knowing that if he fell, his darkness would not cushion his fall in the slightest.

Cracks radiated ominously outward from the blast point, and a piece of the wall came away in Angelica's claws. If they tried going any farther upward, Brian knew, it might just give way altogether.

"Get back down here, or the next one takes your head off!" Seated on her now-idling bike and brandishing her sword, March's entire posture indicated that she was remarkably pissed off; her tone of voice merely underlined the matter.

"The fuck was that?" yelped Alec.

"She empowers things with explosive energy." Lisa sounded unhappy about this. "And yeah, she's accurate enough to do it."

"Ideas?" asked Brian, gritting his teeth to keep from crying out with the pain. "If we move sideways, with darkness …" It would be difficult, but even a little bit of cover could go a long way.

Lisa grimaced. "She'll keep track of us anyway. She's got a Thinker power, too."

"Fucking grab bag capes." Alec sounded as pissed off as Brian had ever heard him; that is, not very.

"So, what do we do?" Rachel was also pissed off. "We can't go up, we can't go sideways, and I'm not surrendering to that assmunch."

"Only one option," Lisa decided. "We go down, but Brian covers the street with what darkness he can, Alec slows her down, and we bolt for it as soon as we hit street level."

"You got three seconds!" yelled March, clearly losing patience. "Three! Two!"

"Go!" Lisa snapped. She turned Brutus's head and he jumped back down to the street, missing March by a few yards. Angelica went next, the jolt as she landed nearly causing Brian to pass out from the pain. As March revved the motorbike's engine, they galloped off, with Brian doing his best to trail a swathe of darkness behind them. With the injury to his arm, he was less than successful at this, and March was able to hold fast to them.

"Slow her down!" he shouted at Alec.

"I'm trying! She's compensating!"

"How is she compensating for your power?"

"She just is! You want to go back and ask her?"

Brian gave up on that discussion as being pointless and turned his attention to Lisa. "What's the plan? How do we lose her?"

"Keep running!" Lisa pointed northeast. "That way!"

"Dogs can't run forever!" Rachel butted in.

"She's right!" Brian hung on tight, trying to ease the jolting on his shoulder. "Running's just a stopgap! We need to lose her somehow!"

"Don't worry! I've got a plan!"

As the dogs galloped onward and the psycho on the motorbike clung stubbornly to their tail, Brian could only hope that the plan was a good one.

<><>​

Taylor

There wasn't anyone nearby in the park, but I stood watch anyway while Madison accessed the Blockade armour. Emma waited on a rooftop nearby, out of sight, already in costume. Using the tiny pair of binoculars she carried on her utility belt, she was scanning the area, making sure nobody was sneaking up on the two of us.

"You know," I said conversationally, "it would make life a lot easier for all of us if you could make that thing stealthy, so you could take off and land without scaring every bird in a one-mile radius. Like with, I don't know, anti-gravity."

Madison paused in the act of climbing into the half-open suit, and looked back over her shoulder at me. "Quick question. At what point did I ever give the impression that I build stuff that can go stealthy?"

I shrugged. "The camouflage when it's all closed up?"

"That's not stealth. That's just sitting there and pretending to be something else. Stealth is looking like it's not there at all." She finished climbing into the suit and it closed up around her then stood up. Her next words came out via the external speakers. "And even if I could do stuff like anti-gravity, it would still be loud. Just like I can't miniaturise stuff like Armsmaster can. It's how my power works. I can do many things, but subtle isn't one of them."

"Okay, yeah, you have a point." I let my force field flow over me, practicing with the double-layered idea—for a non-cape, Director Piggot certainly had some useful ideas for powers—so that if (when) ran into March again, she wouldn't be able to just drop my force field willy-nilly. Then I jumped lightly onto the suit's shoulder and grabbed the handhold that was waiting for me there. "Ready."

"Copy that. Three, two, one, ignition." As she spoke the last word, the suit's thrusters came on and it blasted skyward, Madison easily compensating for my (admittedly negligible) weight on the suit's shoulder. We angled over toward the building where Emma was waiting for us. As she climbed across, I jumped over to grab my staff from where she'd been keeping an eye on it for me. Jumping back, I took hold of the handgrip again.

The radio earpiece was already in place, so I tucked the staff under my arm and moved a little bit of force field aside to turn on the radio itself. "Okay, guys," I said. "So, how do we find March so I can pummel her into the ground for stabbing me?"

"This might be a red herring," Madison reported, "but there's a report that's just come in about a maniac on a motorbike with a rabbit mask and a sword chasing a bunch of teens on giant dogs."

I shared a puzzled glance with Emma. "That sounds like March, alright. But why would she be chasing the Undersiders?" There weren't so many capes in the city that a report of 'giant dogs' would cause confusion, after all.

"I have a suggestion." Emma grinned. "How about we add that question to all the others, after we've kicked her ass but before we hand her over to the PRT?"

I grinned back, opening a hole in the force field so she could see it. "That sounds like an excellent plan. Where is this?"

"The report said up near the old ferry terminal."

"Let's go kick some bunny butt, then."

"Way ahead of you."

<><>​

Grue

Brian didn't figure out Lisa's plan until it was way too late to pull the ripcord and abort it, which was almost certainly why she hadn't explained it to them in detail. Of course, they had no idea how good March's senses were, so talking about it risked giving her a crucial heads-up. It was just that he would've preferred some kind of advance warning.

The plan, as far as he was aware, was simple in essence: bore right through the middle of the camp that Butcher and the Teeth had set up, and scrape off March along the way. If she wanted minions, she could poach them off of Butcher. There were undoubtedly nuances of which he was unaware, but that was the gist of it.

Overall, it wasn't a bad plan. It held the distinct downside of pissing off Butcher and the Teeth (who were infamous for their total lack of self-control when angry, and for being angry all the time) and March (who was already gunning for them). However, with any luck, one of their problems would take care of the other, and they were reasonably adept at evading those enemies irritated enough at them to come after them personally.

If Butcher killed March and then decided to be angry at the Undersiders for leading her to the Teeth, it would probably be a good time to leave town, or at least keep their heads down until the feral gang decided Brockton Bay was boring, and left town of their own accord. It wasn't like they were lacking in spending money, after all. Brian's bank account was looking quite healthy right about now.

"Ready!" called out Lisa. She turned Brutus's head so he changed course, and gave him the signal to speed up. Brian and the others followed suit, pulling away from March. She didn't waste time opening the throttle to regain the ground she'd lost, but by then it was too late.

They thundered down a narrow side-street, then burst out into the parking lot surrounding the ferry terminal. A bunch of cars and SUVs, most of them showing signs of hard use, were set up here, with camp chairs, mobile barbecues, and a general 'moving in for the duration' atmosphere. It would've been a lot more wholesome if he hadn't also seen the Teeth, with their post-apocalyptic chic and multitude of weapons.

"Bitch!" yelled Lisa, pointing at where two cars were set up almost nose to nose, at an angle to each other. "Make that a barrier!"

Rachel didn't argue or ask for clarification, instead slowing Angelica so that the others surged ahead. They barrelled through the ad hoc campsite—it looked like they'd started to colonise the terminal itself, which meant someone would have to be cleaning up quite a mess, later—and leaped over the two cars. Angelica spun around as she touched down, claws tearing up chunks of asphalt; under Rachel's expert command, she head-butted the closer car, skidding it sideways to close the gap between it and the next one.

Brian glanced over his shoulder to see Rachel turn Angelica again and power after them, even as the Teeth yelled and milled around, reaching for weapons. Behind her, March spotted the problem far too late. She'd been accelerating, which made it a lot harder to turn, and even hitting the brakes merely meant that the collision wouldn't be as damaging.

The crash as the bike hit the cars was audible all the way over where they were; now that they were safely past the Teeth (and able to see if any of the capes decided to aggress on them) Lisa pulled them to a halt. It seemed March had been thrown from the bike, but from the way she got up, the worst she'd suffered was bruising. Of course, she was now surrounded by a pissed-off supervillain gang, so things were likely to get a whole lot worse for her.

"Fuck," Brian muttered. "Are we going to have to rescue her?"

"Shit, no." Lisa shook her head. "She was literally going to murder us for not doing what she said. And you heard her: she's already attacked and maybe killed Monochrome."

"Fuck her," Rachel growled. "She blew up the wall right in front of Angelica. Might've hurt her." She massaged her leg, where a little blood was showing through her jeans.

"So what happens now?" asked Alec. "Do we wait around or just ride off into the sunset?"

"We wait," decided Lisa. "Whoever wins, I want to know about it. I especially don't want to assume she's out of the picture, and have her kick in the door tonight."

Brian nodded. "Good point."

<><>​

March

Those motherfuckers are going to pay for this. Them and their little doggies both.

May climbed to her feet, pleased that she'd managed to maintain a hold on her rapier. "Okay," she announced. "I'm gonna be taking one of your cars, so—"

"Unless you're Alexandria in disguise," a woman said from behind her, "that's not fuckin' happening. And if you are Alexandria in disguise, fuckin' excellent. I've been wanting to kick your ass for years."

May turned, taking in for the first time the theme of the clothing that those around her were wearing. These were not, she belatedly realised, the basic vagrants or travellers she'd first assumed them to be. There was far too much leather, chainwork and spikes for that.

The woman who'd stepped up to challenge her either carried on the theme or was the inspiration for it. Tall and imposing, she wore spikes and skulls—that actually looked real, not plastic—and carried both a fucking great minigun and a bow slung across her back. It all clashed horribly, but looking at her, May wasn't totally sure it was a good idea to call her on it.

"I'm not Alexandria," May stated boldly, deciding that what the fuck, she'd gotten into this while looking for a gang to recruit, and here was one ready for the taking. "I'm better than her. My name's March, and if you all come to work for me, I'll show you how a gang really operates."

The general roar of laughter pissed her off, but she didn't kill anyone quite yet. If this bitch in front of her was running the show, then she was the primary target on May's hit list. If not … she'd keep. Or she'd bend the knee, one or the other.

"Is that fucking so?" The woman took a few steps closer. "We've got a fairly liberal approach to leadership around here. You want to run the show, you just have to kill me." Holding out her hand, she made the classic 'come at me' gesture.

"Yeah, right." May kept an eye out as far as she could with her peripheral vision. She was getting an idea of this bunch, and she was pretty sure she could predict their movements, but there was a lot of them. "I gank you, the rest of your assbitches dogpile me on the spot. Try again."

"Not how it happens." Goddamn it, the woman was confident. "You kill me, you're in charge here. Of course, that's not how it's gonna happen. You come at me, I'll rip you apart and we all get a good show."

"You?" May started moving, pacing out the perimeter of an invisible circle. Her adversary mimicked her, so they maintained the same distance, slowly circling each other. "Not on your best day. Nobody's even come close to beating me one-on-one."

The woman smiled viciously. "Well, then. It looks like this is your day to learn something new."

<><>​

Grue

"Um," muttered Lisa. "This may have been a mistake."

"Mistake?" Alec snorted. "This is gonna be better than pay per view."

"Explain," Brian ordered.

Lisa took a deep breath. "That's Butcher she's facing, and it looks like they're about to get into it, one on one. If Butcher wins … well, there's a mess to clean up, and that's about it. But if March wins …"

Brian got it then. "She becomes the new Butcher, with her own damn gang, and still pissed at us. Oh, shit." A chill chased up his spine. "How likely is that to happen?"

Lisa shook her head. "So close I can't call it."

Alec summed up the situation succinctly. "Well, fuck."

"Yeah."



End of Part Thirty-Seven

[A/N: Yes, evil cliffhanger is evil. Mwahahaha.]

 

[Itisn1tmyname]

Sooo... Emma's thing is Balance, right?

If she kills Butcher, would her power balance out the voices in her head?
And, would the PRT trust her; "I totally have it under control, swear!"...? xD

 

[Barbaric_Bob]

Thinkers being unable to see the fucking obvious
Check
like Jesus Christ who wouldn't know the general murder hobo biker gang with those rules?

 

[Therandomestpersons]

Lisa looking at March: I wouldn't touch that crazy with a 39 and a half foot pole.

Also, March vs Butcher sounds like quite the time. I'm betting on the butcher though, purely because March is a self-entitled dickweed and such individuals do not deserve to get major power boosts. She's also already batshit crazy, so the whole 'legion of asshole voices' thing probably wouldn't do much.

 

[TheCuriousGuest]

Will March even be able to handle other voices besides her own?
Pretty sure they'd riot against her as she's wanting the Teeth to join her, instead of join and leading the Teeth in conquering other gangs...

I hope Butcher wins, just a little teleporting around with various other abilities before she can build up her attack and she's dead, whether from the teleport or the follow up attacks it's unlikely she'd last long after already trying to recruit, chase and kill the Undersiders.

Not to mention the 'unknown' Butchers powers could have some Thinker immunity/resistance, along with other counters/boosts that aren't obvious enough to be seen.

And that's if no one else arrives or interrupts... Who don't want a Butcher with March's attack.
Like if Alec messed with her when she was about to act/attack and she could compensate in time... It's in their best interests that March dies, Butcher doesn't care for them, but March has a grudge/tantrum.

 

[Avernus]

Sooo... Emma's thing is Balance, right?

If she kills Butcher, would her power balance out the voices in her head?
And, would the PRT trust her; "I totally have it under control, swear!"...? xD

Click to shrink...

IMO, whether they trust someone who inherits the Butcher's power without being taken over probably depends on how long they manage to keep inheriting the Butcher's power hidden. If they find out right away they'll almost certainly assume the Butcher will take over and the person is deluding themselves if they say otherwise. If they keep it hidden for a long time on the other hand the PRT has a good chance of taking the claim seriously since one thing the Butcher isn't, is subtle; if somebody has spent, say six months with the Butcher's powers without acting like the Butcher I expect people will be at least provisionally willing to believe the parahuman host is in control.

As an aside, my favorite idea for an in-control host for the Butcher is Imp. I just have this image of the "voices" going catatonic because they paradoxically both can't be aware of her thanks to her power, while also being unable to not be aware of her due to being in her head. Plus, an exploding teleporter that other people can't be aware of or remember is funny.

"Where the hell did all these craters come from?"

 

[Billbo baggins]

I see that this is a worm fic does it get pretty dark or just shonen levels of meh at best?

 

[Ack]

I see that this is a worm fic does it get pretty dark or just shonen levels of meh at best?

Click to shrink...

It starts out pretty dark-ish, but never gets grimderp.

 

[Ack]

Earning Her Stripes

Part Thirty-Eight: Fight!

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



Monochrome

If anyone had told me before all this started that I'd ever get used to roaring through the air on the shoulder of a massive powersuit piloted by one of my ex-worst-enemies, alongside my other ex-worst-enemy, I would've told them that they'd gotten a bad deal out of the Merchants.

(Sophia didn't count as an ex-worst-enemy. She was still very much a current enemy, though incarcerated and exceedingly unlikely to escape. Which was good, since she'd already gone after Dad once, and I didn't want to have to kill her if she tried again.)

As it was, holding onto the grab-handle with one hand and the good-steel staff with the other, this kind of transport seemed almost normal to me now. Emma was less comfortable with it than I was, I figured due to the fact that I could fall that distance and not worry about it, whereas she would have some issues. Not deal-breakers, exactly—I recalled how she'd dive-bombed in through my bedroom window—but it would certainly be problematic for her.

"That's weird." Madison's modulated voice came over my radio earpiece. "There's a bunch of people camped near the ferry terminal."

"Camped?" I asked. "Who's camping there?"

The massive headpiece shook from side to side. "Sorry, I can't pick out many other details. Though the Undersiders are on site. I can see the dogs."

"How about March?" asked Emma over her own radio link. "Can you see her?"

"Nobody on a motorcycle. I guess we'll figure it out when we get closer."

"Or we could ask Tattletale," Emma suggested. "I've heard she has all the answers."

I wrinkled my nose. Tattletale did have that rep, but while I'd never actually met her, or even seen her in action, she also had the rep of being smug as fuck. I had a congenital dislike for smug people, mainly due to my experiences with Emma and Madison before they'd had their change of heart. "Maybe."

"Oh, shit."

"What?" I asked, at the same time as Emma did.

"I just got a better view. It's Butcher and the Teeth, and March is going head-to-head with Butcher."

I met Emma's eyes. Again, we said the same thing at the same time.

"Oh, shit."

<><>​

Grue

Brian didn't have Lisa's ability to pick out someone's entire life story and motivations after talking to them for thirty seconds, but he was good at fighting. Reading someone's moves and what they were likely to try was second nature to him now, and both Butcher and March were giving him plenty to go on with.

To cut a long and involved story woefully short, it wasn't looking good for March.

While she was faster than Butcher and she had greater reach overall with that rapier of hers, they were each apparently able to anticipate the other's moves enough that neither could tag the other properly. Except that March was smaller and couldn't take any kind of solid hit, Butcher had a few dirty tricks up her sleeve that it seemed March hadn't learned yet (which Brian filed away for future use) and of course, Butcher didn't need to touch March to inflict pain on her, when and where she felt like it.

Oh, and they were both sandbagging to make it look good before the inevitable takedown: Butcher more than March, but it was still a mutual thing. March believed that not only she could win but that she would win. All she had to do was stop holding back at just the right moment.

Unfortunately for her ambitions, he was reasonably sure Butcher was going to get bored with this and lower the boom on her first. It wouldn't be as dramatic or impressive as March was intending to be when she made her move, but it would be thoroughly lethal.

And that was when he heard the thunder.

<><>​

March

May saw the punch coming long before it connected, and went to pirouette out of the way. The rapier was charged up enough to take Butcher's hand off at the wrist, but the colossal bitch sent a spasm of agony through her arm, causing it to fly off target. Instead of missing altogether, Butcher's fist grazed May's face and ripped away part of the rabbit mask, sending her off-balance and unable to twist away from the follow-up boot. The hard-shell toe took her solidly in the ribs, and she felt several of them break as she sprawled on the filthy, cracked asphalt. Her rapier skittered out of her grasp, gouging chunks out of the asphalt.

She tried to use her momentum to roll to her feet, but the damage to her body prevented her from getting farther up than one knee. Shaking her head, she did her best to dispel the dizziness from the hit to her face. Butcher packed a punch like a freight train; May knew she was going to have one hell of a bruise on her cheekbone, and that was the least of her injuries. Blood dripped from her nose and she swiped it away with the back of her hand as she eyed where her rapier had ended up. She tasted more blood in the back of her throat.

"Go ahead," Butcher invited her with a vicious grin. "Pick it up. I dare you."

May could tell from every line in her body, from her power's analysis of Butcher's style, that the leader of the Teeth would never allow her to reach the rapier. I should've blown her head off earlier. But she'd have time to yell at herself later. Right now she needed to focus, if she was going to get out of this alive.

With a thunder of thrusters and a tremendous impact of metal on asphalt, the party was well and truly crashed; May was bowled over by the jetwash as the massive battlesuit came in for a landing close enough to be actually intruding on the fight. But she didn't care about that. Even as Butcher reacted to the sudden entrance, May found her footing and kicked off toward where her rapier rested in a groove of its own making.

Butcher definitely had some kind of Thinker power going on, because she reacted to May's move, far faster than she should have. But even as agony flared through her body, May's hand found the rapier and she gave it the full treatment. Her roll continued and she ended up on her back … and threw the rapier, point first.

She could have targeted Blockade, or Firebird, or even the black-and-white figure her disbelieving eyes made out on the shoulder of the powered armour. But May didn't play; she knew who she had to take down, and the rapier flew straight and true. For her part, Butcher was a fraction of a second too late in realising the true extent of the danger, because May hadn't thrown her weapon up until now, and the rapier wasn't burdened with the usual limitations due to gravity or air resistance.

It crossed the intervening distance in a fraction of a second, then Butcher teleported with her usual fiery detonation, ending up a dozen yards away. She stood there, swaying, the blade of May's rapier punched in through her right eye and out through the back of her head. "Th'nk … th's'll … k'll … me?" she slurred. "G'nna … sh'v … th's … up … y'r—"

Her hand had been slowly, cautiously reaching up to the protruding hilt of the weapon; just as she got a good grip on it, the fuse finally ran down. The entire rapier, plus everything it was in contact with … exploded.

It was a good solid detonation, one that relieved Butcher of everything from her clavicles on upward, and showered everyone within twenty yards with bits of gore. Her body, remarkably, remained standing for a few more seconds, swaying back and forth until May almost expected her to pop a new head out of the gaping, grisly hole at the top of her torso. Then it crumpled to the ground like the proverbial puppet with strings cut.

Fuck, yeah. I win.

<><>​

Monochrome

Madison was in the middle of yelling for Butcher to stand down—even as the woman had a sword through her head—when matters took a turn for the worse. The sword exploded, as did the head, removing the woman who'd once been known as Quarrel from the position of 'current Butcher' and relegating her name to the list of previous holders of that title. I hadn't expected that to happen, or anything like it. Neither, apparently, had she.

I figured I'd hold the 'splitting headache' jokes for later, if ever.

"Eww," Madison said over the speakers. "Ew, ew, ewww."

It wasn't hard to see the reason for her disquiet. When Butcher had lost her head, a thoroughly organic spray had gone out in all directions. Emma had had the presence of mind to use the suit for cover; I hadn't, but it was possible to use my outer covering field to discard the … stuff … that had hit me, and generate another one under it. Madison had no such options, and good steel had no particular bio-organic repellent qualities.

I could totally see her building some in for the next iteration of the suit, though. And I was pretty sure she was going to be steam-cleaning this one. For someone who could chug an entire can of soda then belch the first few lines of the national anthem, Madison was oddly fastidious about some things.

"March!" Emma warned, and I tore my eyes away from the crumpled remains of the former Butcher. Because I was under no illusions as to who was the current one.

Through the hole in her mask, I saw March smile as she got to her feet. She showed no signs of the beating she'd been taking just moments before, and I saw her hand scrape the asphalt, gathering a bunch of material. By the time she got to her feet, it was already forming itself into another rapier.

"Not March," I said. "Butcher."

The new Butcher's head turned as I said this, and I saw her concentrate on me. My view of her flickered a few times as my field cut in for full protective coverage; from what, I wasn't sure. She hadn't actually moved, but from what I understood, Butcher didn't need to lift a finger in order to hurt someone.

"O …" she said. "I ha … … mit tha … … pressed. Mo … … ple I kill tend to stay dead." My hearing blanked out at the same intervals as my vision, chopping away parts of her words.

"Meh," I retorted, carefully making sure that my protective field was indeed double layered everywhere I could make it so, even down to a finely-gridded double layer over my eyes and ears. "I got better."

She tilted her head to look more closely at me. "Well, that's irritating." I was pretty sure she wasn't talking about me not being dead, or at least not just that. "And why can't I see whoever's in that damn suit? Do you have someone remotely controlling it?"

"Why don't you come over here and find out?" Madison had evidently gotten over her upset about the mess on her suit. Or maybe she just wanted to use Butcher's rabbit mask to clean off her suit. I could never really tell with her.

"Okay," murmured Emma over the radio link. "This is really bad. We can't risk killing her, because if we do, one of us becomes the next Butcher."

I looked over at where Butcher stood with her rapier at the ready, and kept my voice down. "And in the meantime, she's already tried killing me once, and I doubt having all the other Butchers in her head is actually improving her mental stability."

"Haha, yeah, no," Madison agreed over the link. "So what do we do? Pull back, or go all-in?"

Emma was looking around. "Undersiders are bugging out. We need to plan and prep."

I hated the idea of retreating. Since I'd gotten my powers, I hadn't taken one step back from a challenge. Deep down, I knew that if I vetoed the idea, Emma and Madison would back me up all the way. I didn't know how we were going to beat March/Butcher plus the rest of the Teeth, but I'd been playing a lot of things by ear and coming out on top. And I really wanted to beat her face in (why yes, I did bear a grudge for her sticking a sword in me).

But if Madison had learned how to be pretty damn inflexible herself when she had to, and Emma could read every aspect of a potential fight before it ever happened. If they both thought we should perform a tactical retreat, especially since the only potential near-innocents in the area were already leaving on dog-back, then it was probably a good idea to at least consider it.

"Ugh, dammit," I muttered. It still didn't feel right, but I was learning that going with my gut was not infallible. "Go. Let's get out of here."

<><>​

Butcher

May grinned inside her damaged mask. She wasn't quite sure what she was going to replace it with, but the whole new selection of powers she now had access to definitely gave her a bunch of options. The ability to always hit vital areas definitely looked useful.

Well, fuck. That sounded like Butcher's voice, inside her head. I didn't see that coming.

Nicely done, kid, agreed another voice. Is it just me, or are they getting younger?

Meh, don't give a shit, a third interjected. Hey, kid, those heroes are about to get away. You gonna do something about it, or you just gonna stand there like a fucking moron?

If you just shut up, I might be able to concentrate. Belatedly aware that she was talking to all the previous Butchers, May focused on collapsing her freshly manufactured rapier into undifferentiated matter then making three throwing blades out of it. She infused all three blades with energy and threw them. Even though she was hampered by Monochrome simply vanishing off her special senses as soon as she did this, and the overly-chunky battlesuit just not showing up with any life at all, she did it all the same. She'd taken down Monochrome before, and she would totally do it again.

The blade destined for Monochrome hit her and exploded; the force field popped, only to reveal another one inside the first. Monochrome didn't seem to have any problem weathering the explosion.

If anything, the blade aimed at the powersuit did even less. It hit the metal armour, but instead of carving through or setting it up to explode, the blade was just … ignored. There was a sharp detonation that didn't even leave a charred spot, and that was it.

May still wasn't sure of the name of the red-headed girl, but neither did she care all that much. There was no weird force field or bullshit powered armour, so she was fair game. The blade curved in, aiming straight for the redhead's carotid arteries, nice big targets that basically guaranteed the target bleeding out catastrophically in front of everyone.

It was a good first kill as Butcher.

Or it would have been, if the girl hadn't blocked the knife, bringing up a wrist-mounted shield almost faster than the eye could register and literally knocking the thrown knife away. Before she could curve it back around, it exploded in midair, well away from anything it could actually do damage to.

Before May could grab more material, the thrusters kicked in at full strength, accelerating the battlesuit upward, along with its two passengers. May tried to hold where she was and do something else—maybe broadcast pain, maybe inflict wounds—but the blast of hot air knocked her ass over teakettle, sending her sprawling on the ground. She could feel her busted ribs grating together, though the pain had gone away; she could, she knew, ignore it selectively.

Getting to her feet, she shaded her eyes as she watched the powersuit accelerating up and away. Would've been nice to kill them, but making them run with their tails between their legs is almost as good.

"Well, then," she announced, dusting her hands off as she turned to the capes and minions watching her. "It seems I'm the new boss around here. Anyone got any objections about that?"

"Fuck, no," asserted a woman with tiny force-field shards dancing around her. "That was badass as fuck. Vex, by the way."

"Animos," offered an ordinary-looking guy.

"Spree."

"Hemorrhagia."

"Reaver."

May's smile widened as she looked around at the small army that she'd just inherited. Mine. They're all mine.

Ours, you mean. One of the voices in her head interjected. You aren't shit without us, kid, and don't you forget it.

May laughed out loud. "Trust me," she said to both the previous Butchers and the Teeth surrounding her, "you ain't seen nothing yet."

<><>​

Grue

"Fuck," muttered Lisa as the dogs bolted down the street. Nobody was chasing them, which Brian considered to be a minor miracle. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."

"What are we gonna do, Tats?" asked Alec, sounding actually worried for once. "Because that didn't look good at all."

"No shit it didn't look good." Rachel's tone was blunt as ever. "That fucker is the new Butcher, and she's got a grudge against us."

"We're leaving town," Brian decided. "Now. Today. This afternoon. We're going back to our places, grabbing everything we can stuff into the back of a car, and fucking off."

"But my console," whined Alec. "My games. Can't we get, you know, a moving van or something?"

"Those things take time to arrange," Lisa snapped. "And do you really want one of the Teeth to see it coming in, and follow it right to the loft? Fighting our way out of town, especially with March leading the charge against us, is a losing proposition. We would die."

Her response didn't shut Alec up—that would've required a major miracle—but it did reduce his objections to a mild grumble.

Brian was left to consider one other problem.

What am I going to do with Aisha?

<><>​

PRT Building

Director's Office

When Emily's phone rang, she picked it up before looking at the caller ID. Firebird.

She frowned. They'd already contacted the PRT to do with Flechette; her understanding had been that they were going to be locating March and coming down on her with all the considerable throw weight at their disposal. Considering their previous track record, she fully expected them to be successful, which was why she was expecting them to appear in person and drop off the young miscreant into the PRT's custody.

Maybe they're too busy to make the trip in?

Whatever the reason, she knew she wouldn't learn it until she answered the damn phone. Thumbing the Accept icon, she held the phone to her ear. "You've got Piggot."

"Director, I've got problematic news." Despite audible wind-rush, Firebird spoke clearly, with no wasted words. "Butcher and the Teeth are in town, up near the ferry terminal. March challenged Butcher and killed her."

"March is the new Butcher?" Emily's eyes went wide at this news. It was bad enough that Butcher had come back to Brockton Bay, but for her to get mixed up with March? That girl had been problematic as it was, especially given her obsession with Flechette. Now, if this report was correct, she had command over a whole bunch of psychotic capes, and ten times as many unpowered mooks eager to perform whatever atrocities she ordered them to carry out. "What are your plans now?"

Firebird ignored the rhetorical question and focused on the legitimate one. "Right this second, we're pulling back to regroup and reconsider. The Teeth should be no real challenge, but we need to figure out how to lock down Butcher and take her out of the game. I'll let you know when we've got that sorted."

Slowly, Emily nodded. "Understood. Keep me posted." She ended the call and carefully put the phone down. Then she turned to her computer and clicked the email icon. Setting the message to deliver to all department heads, and all members of the Protectorate and Wards, she began to type.

URGENT. READ IMMEDIATELY. URGENT.

<><>​

Flechette

Lily's phone beeped with an incoming email at the same time as Aegis' did. She paused, lowering her arbalest instead of shooting a chain-line across to the next rooftop, and pulled out the phone. Aegis dropped to the rooftop next to her and did the same. "Wonder what's going on?" he mused as he woke the device up. "They only send out mass-mails when … whoa, shit."

Whoa, shit, indeed. Lily felt the breath catch in her throat as she saw the name March, then carried on to where it said what she'd done. Dropping to sit on the building parapet, she read the email through twice more, hoping desperately that she'd misinterpreted what it was saying.

"Oh, my god," she whispered. "No way. She couldn't. Could she?" But she knew she was just shouting at the darkness. March could have, and evidently had, done what the email bluntly spelled out.

"Okay," Aegis said once he'd assimilated the contents of the mail. "I'm calling it. They'll be contacting you soon enough to get back to the PRT building, so we're cutting the patrol short and heading back right now."

"They … might not?" she ventured.

"Hah, yeah, as if." He snorted. "You, out here right now, when we have no idea where the Teeth are? The Director might be a hardass, but she's not going to risk you getting hurt like that. And even if she is, I'm not. Let's go."

Lily nodded. His logic was sound, and the Wards had standing orders to cut short any patrols that felt unsafe anyway.

As they headed back over the rooftops, she couldn't help but worry. Is she going to be March with the powers of Butcher, or Butcher with the powers of March?

She knew which one she'd prefer. Unfortunately, what she preferred and what she got were quite often two different things.



End of Part Thirty-Eight

 

[Avernus]

As they headed back over the rooftops, she couldn't help but worry. Is she going to be March with the powers of Butcher, or Butcher with the powers of March?

Click to shrink...

The first, then the second I'd bet, given the Butcher's history. So far everyone who has killed the Butcher has ended up as another Butcher.

March doesn't have any powers likely to let her resist ending up Butcherized; she's just too arrogant to even consider it could happen to her. Thus her deliberately killing the Butcher in the first place. And the fact she isn't even worried about it even with literal voices in her head. But the Butcher Shard isn't required to defer to her ego.

That said Flechette is correct to worry, both because the process isn't instant and because it's not like the Butcher is nicer than March.

 

[Jannika]

Still boring villain

 

[Barbaric_Bob]

And the always hit what you aim for has become always have good aim with the downgrade to the next host

Simple geometry

 

[ChiChi]

Through the hole in her mask, I saw March smile as she got to her feet. She showed no signs of the beating she'd been taking just moments before, and I saw her hand scrape the asphalt, gathering a bunch of material. By the time she got to her feet, it was already forming itself into another rapier.

Click to shrink...

Ummm what was that? is that a butcher power I don't remember?

That said Flechette is correct to worry, both because the process isn't instant and because it's not like the Butcher is nicer than March.

Click to shrink...

It's not about the Butcher being nicer than March but in Flechette's mind the Butcher has no reason to care about Flechette while March is obsessed with her but she's misunderstanding how each next Butcher becomes the next Butcher it's not because the previous personality takes over control of the new body but rather because all the old personalities would drive the new host insane if they don't take up the mantle until they do

 

[Avernus]

Ummm what was that? is that a butcher power I don't remember?

Click to shrink...

Yes, it's a canon power.

The ability to reshape unrefined matter (earth and sand) into objects (VIII).

Click to shrink...

Butcher had time to string her bow before she had to teleport out of the way, appearing on top of a building with a vantage point of the battlefield. She knelt, touching the rooftop, and reformed the stone into arrows.

Click to shrink...

 

[Neko Tamo]

Right, want to start out by saying you have another good 'un here Ack. Though knowing you that is hardly surprising. The wiring, (no) typos, plot, characterization... all great

The plot hook was great too and ofc what got me reading. The scheme by the three stooges went exactly as you'd expect, but also not. I thought all of them would be rooming with Sophia right now if you know what I mean. But M and E are all buddy, buddy with Taylor.
I am not sure I like that BTW, feels too much like a fix it fic. And that is a bit of a running theme with this story but I'll get back to that. I had first thought that Madison and Emma's heel face turn was due to them not being able to square their heroics with actively destroying a girl's life and plotting to finish off what was left. But the story seems to actually be pushing the angle that it is their powers changing their personality. Which makes it kind of pointless from a character development standpoint, if more realistic than those two stinkers actually changing Or Emma at least, Mads was probably never as bad which she showed later.

Anyway things work out well for them at every turn, but when you hit Calvert with "rocks fall everybody dies" I had to groan at that. Arguably the only local villain who could scheme around their overwhelming power. And he falls without them having to do a thing or facing any challenge.

Honestly while I enjoyed my read so far, the whole mess with the vials and fallout was that good, if March hadn't seemingly stepped up to the plate and given them a challenge I might have stopped reading.

Like I get it, the Coil thing is so unlikely that it screams Contessa. Her or someone like her meddling behind the scenes is likely what explains the highly unlikely string of events. If I had to take a stab at it I'd say Manton not going off the reservation put Cauldron, and the world in a better position. So now Contessa can not only ensure there is a world after Zion but also that the world is not a total shitheap going there.
And I get that, but Contessa and people like her are a walking plot device for all that they are canonically part of the story. And that's not satisfying at all unless played for laughs or something.

So yeah fun story, I do like the angle you took and I still want to see where this goes. But hopefully it goes hard and tests the Realness of the Thing. I suppose besides Butcher March there is also everyone's least favourite fish coming soonish so I have that to look forward to. Really curious what a heroic Siberian can do to that thing.

Anyway keep up the good work Ack! You really are a great writer and your output is prodigious. I am especially looking forward to Slippery Slope being updated soon but that's far from the only one

 

[Ack]

Right, want to start out by saying you have another good 'un here Ack. Though knowing you that is hardly surprising. The wiring, (no) typos, plot, characterization... all great

The plot hook was great too and ofc what got me reading. The scheme by the three stooges went exactly as you'd expect, but also not. I thought all of them would be rooming with Sophia right now if you know what I mean. But M and E are all buddy, buddy with Taylor.
I am not sure I like that BTW, feels too much like a fix it fic. And that is a bit of a running theme with this story but I'll get back to that.

Click to shrink...

Yes, it is actually a fix fic. This is deliberate.

I had first thought that Madison and Emma's heel face turn was due to them not being able to square their heroics with actively destroying a girl's life and plotting to finish off what was left. But the story seems to actually be pushing the angle that it is their powers changing their personality. Which makes it kind of pointless from a character development standpoint, if more realistic than those two stinkers actually changing Or Emma at least, Mads was probably never as bad which she showed later.

Anyway things work out well for them at every turn, but when you hit Calvert with "rocks fall everybody dies" I had to groan at that. Arguably the only local villain who could scheme around their overwhelming power. And he falls without them having to do a thing or facing any challenge.

Honestly while I enjoyed my read so far, the whole mess with the vials and fallout was that good, if March hadn't seemingly stepped up to the plate and given them a challenge I might have stopped reading.

Like I get it, the Coil thing is so unlikely that it screams Contessa. Her or someone like her meddling behind the scenes is likely what explains the highly unlikely string of events. If I had to take a stab at it I'd say Manton not going off the reservation put Cauldron, and the world in a better position. So now Contessa can not only ensure there is a world after Zion but also that the world is not a total shitheap going there.
And I get that, but Contessa and people like her are a walking plot device for all that they are canonically part of the story. And that's not satisfying at all unless played for laughs or something.

Click to shrink...

To be honest, I just wanted Coil out of the way. I've disposed of him in every way possible so far, and he wasn't even a real danger in this iteration, so sometimes shit just happens.

So yeah fun story, I do like the angle you took and I still want to see where this goes. But hopefully it goes hard and tests the Realness of the Thing. I suppose besides Butcher March there is also everyone's least favourite fish coming soonish so I have that to look forward to. Really curious what a heroic Siberian can do to that thing.

Anyway keep up the good work Ack! You really are a great writer and your output is prodigious. I am especially looking forward to Slippery Slope being updated soon but that's far from the only one

Click to shrink...

Thank you.

Butcher!March is going to be a tough nut to crack. Also, Leviathan, whee.

 

[Avernus]

To be honest, I just wanted Coil out of the way. I've disposed of him in every way possible so far, and he wasn't even a real danger in this iteration, so sometimes shit just happens.

Click to shrink...

Also, it was in part his own fault, not mere bad luck. As I said after that chapter it's an innate risk of his practice of using "safe" and "throwaway" timelines that at some point he'll guess wrong and disaster will strike in the supposedly safe timeline. Heck, at least it wasn't a fatal throwaway timeline, then he'd just be dead.

 

[Ack]

Earning Her Stripes

Part Thirty-Nine: The Teeth Go Marching On

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



Grue

Brian fast-walked along the pavement, then went up the stairs to the front door of the apartment building, taking the steps two at a time. He knew Butcher probably hadn't followed them to the alley where he'd gotten off Brutus, but he was also fully aware that the clock was ticking and there wasn't a huge amount of leeway before she started combing the city for the Undersiders. As Alec had said, she was clearly cray-cray, and totally struck him as the type of person to hold onto a grudge far beyond its use-by date.

He buzzed himself into the building, then dashed for the elevator. While he usually took the stairs—fitness was a way of life, not an occasional choice—there was no time right now, and he suspected in the back of his mind that he might just need to save his strength for later. It let out on his floor, and he headed down the corridor to his apartment.

The TV was blaring some kind of mindless music as he let himself in, and he allowed himself a minor sigh of relief. "Aisha!" he called out as he headed into the lounge area. "Grab your go-bag! We need to leave!"

"What?" Aisha looked around from where she was indulging in dance moves of her own invention. "Go-bag? Where are we going?"

His next sigh was a lot more aggravated. "I've told you and told you that you need to have a bag packed and ready to go at a moment's notice! And can you turn that off?"

"Yeah, but since when do I listen to you?" At his pointed glance, she reluctantly picked up the remote and turned the volume down by about half. "And what's this all about, anyway? You've totally ruined my dance video."

He followed her line of sight, and saw the phone propped up where it could record her somewhat innovative (to use a generous phrasing) dance moves. Striding over to it, he shut it off, then tossed it to her. "A go-bag's essential for if you ever have to just pick up and run. Brockton Bay's always been a dangerous city, and now it's even more dangerous. We have to go, now. Soon. Today."

"I know what a go-bag is, doofus." She put her hands on her hips. "I've totally got one. I mean, kinda got one. Mostly. Anyway, the Empire assholes have been taken down and out, so why are we running now?"

He paused for a moment to gather his thoughts. "Okay, in reverse order, this is not about the Empire. It's a lot more dangerous than that. Second, what do you mean by 'kinda got one'?"

She gave him a medium-intense stare of disbelief. "What the fuck would be more dangerous than living in the same city as fuckin' Hookwolf? Especially since him and Lung got the living shit smacked out of them by the Realest Thing that ever hit this city?"

Briefly, he considered yelling at her to do as she was told, but common sense reminded him that Aisha hadn't acceded to that sort of thing since … well, ever. If raised volume had been the secret to her obedience, then their father would've done well with her. As it was, Aisha was the world's champion at digging in her heels when she figured she was being railroaded in something. And if he just went into her bedroom and grabbed her go-bag, she would rightly see it as a violation of the fragile trust he'd been working to build up between them over the last few months.

Which meant that he was going to have to do something he'd sworn he'd never do. No matter how badly this was going to turn out (and he didn't foresee any kind of good outcome) it would be worse if he didn't. He just hoped she wouldn't take the revelation as badly as he feared.

"I'm going to need to back up a little on this one," he began carefully, aware that time was passing. "You're aware that I don't always earn my money doing things on the up-and-up, right?"

"Psshhh, duh," she scoffed. "You're Grue, of the Undersiders. I figured that shit out about one day after you moved me in here with you. Coming home late at night, limping your sorry ass around on the day after a heist, pretending your ribs weren't sore? I'm bad at schoolwork an' shit, not fuckin' blind."

"Ah." Impressed despite himself, he blinked. "I knew you weren't blind, but … okay, yeah, you got me. When were you going to tell me that you knew? It would've made life a lot easier if I didn't have to sneak around in front of you all the time."

She rolled her eyes. "Why do you think I didn't tell you? Watching you tiptoe around and pretend nothing was wrong was funny as fuck."

Yup, that's Aisha all over. "Okay, then. Well, I was out with the other Undersiders—"

"Wait," she interrupted him. "Do I know the others? Have I met them?"

He shook his head, trying to keep her on track. "No, you haven't. Like I was saying, I was out with them, but not in costume—"

"So, which of them are you banging?" She gave him a wide, ingenuous stare. "Purple chick or the dog girl? I mean, purple chick doesn't leave anything to the imagination, but I bet dog girl could keep up with you in the gym."

"I'm not banging either one of them," he gritted. "It wouldn't be—"

"What, you're banging twink-boy?" Aisha took a step back and raised her eyebrows appraisingly. "Way to be inclusive, big bro. Never thought you had it in you."

"I'm not banging anyone!" he shouted. "And will you please stop saying 'banging'?"

She let out a tiny snerk of amusement. "You're the one saying it more than me."

For fuck's sake. He was normally better at this than preventing Aisha from getting under his skin, but she was on fine form today. "Okay, nothing of that sort is happening in the Undersiders. But that's not why I told you I'm Grue."

She hitched her butt on the end of the sofa. "Not that I'm interested, but sure, I'll bite. Why'd you tell me?"

He took a deep breath. "Because sometime in the last few days, a fucking psychotic called March came here from New York, and about an hour ago she tried to recruit me and the others."

From the way Aisha's gaze shifted, she figured out the rest almost immediately. "And when you said no, she decided to wreck your shit. So, what's the big deal? You and your little play group aren't exactly the Triumvirate, sure, but you can still kick ass and take names. Kick hers and drop her off at the PRT building."

"Because Butcher was also in town, and one thing led to another, and now March is the new Butcher, and she's still pissed off at us. It's not the Empire who'd like to drag us out into the street and murder us gruesomely. It's the Teeth." He gave her a hard stare, willing her to understand. "And that's why we've got to leave town today."

"Uh, that's on you, big bro, not me." Aisha held up her hands, palm out. "This March bitch don't know me from a hole in the ground. I'm staying right here."

"I'm the one who pays the rent for both of us," he reminded her. "And you aren't old enough to legally reside here alone, even if you were pulling in enough cash to keep up the payments."

"So, I'll live somewhere else." She gestured at the nearest window. "Not with Dad or Celia, that's for fuckin' sure. But there'll be places I can go."

"Even with the Empire and ABB gutted, Brockton Bay will never be a place where it's safe to just live on the street, and you know it. Get your go-bag. We're leaving." He knew that taking her with him without having gained proper legal custody of her had its own legal pitfalls, but that wasn't exactly something he was dwelling on at the moment. There were no good options, so he was working on the least bad one that he could see.

She rolled her eyes. "That's what I've been trying to tell you. I haven't got a go-bag."

Metaphorically, he skidded to a halt. "What do you mean, you haven't got a go-bag? I know I stood there while you packed it."

Her huff of irritation almost made it sound as though he was the one at fault. "Yeah, but you made me pack the stuff I liked best. So when I needed my shit, I unpacked again."

"So how much is currently packed? No, wait. Just go pack it now. Please." The last word felt like it had been dragged out of him by one of Rachel's dogs, but without it, his request would've been far more likely to elicit a raised middle finger.

As it was, she gave him a patented Aisha look. "Why? Like I said, I'm not going anywhere."

"Well, I am." He was fast running out of patience. "And like it or not, I'm the only adult you know who's willing to put up with you for more than fifteen minutes at a time without either making you do push-ups or trying to get you high to shut you up."

Finally, she seemed to stop and actually listen to what he had to say. "Well, motherfucking cocksucking shitballs."

That was basically Aisha-speak for 'okay, fine, you're right', though she'd never say those specific words to him or anyone else. Brian nodded to her. "Go-bag?"

The sigh she heaved was more resigned than aggravated. "Okay, fine, I'll go pack a damn go-bag."

His smile was very carefully calculated to not look smug or condescending, because Aisha could pick either one up at a hundred paces in the dark. "Thank you."

As she headed off toward her room, Brian pulled out his phone. His go-bag was under his bed ready to grab and bolt with, but first he had to send a warning text.

After all, he didn't want Aisha and Lisa killing each other on their first meeting.

<><>​

Butcher

May finished cutting away the bottom of the mask and neatening up the torn edges, then slipped it back on. She spun the razor-sharp knife on her finger, then deconstituted it and reformed it as her trademark rapier. The sshhhk as it slid into its scabbard was music to her ears.

While her predecessor had rocked the whole multicannon and bullshit oversized bow thing, May didn't lean in that direction. Quarrel had been the archer, not her, and stupidly big guns were for insecure guys making up for lack of dick size.

Hey! That doesn't even make sense! Quarrel sounded less pissed off with being dead than with the insinuation May was making, which was kind of funny.

Well, it does, kind of. This was another one of the internal voices, who seemed to share May's amusement with the whole situation. Is there something you've been trying to tell us, with that gun?

Oh, shut the fuck up. Quarrel wasn't seeing the joke.

Someone cleared their throat behind her. "So, uh, boss? What happens now? Whose shit do we kick in?"

Boss. I like the sound of that. She smiled as she turned to the cape who'd spoken, who turned out to be Vex. "Well, we've got several targets. The little shits on the big dogs lied to my face and said they were interested in working for me. We are gonna find them, drag them back here, and give them the choice to either get jumped-in to the Teeth or die."

She actually didn't much care either way, but nobody said no to March. And nobody especially said no to Butcher. From the rising murmur of anticipation among the Teeth, they seemed to share her attitude in that regard.

"Then there's those three heroes that showed up just before, the Real Deal or whoever they're supposed to be. I already killed Monochrome once. When I gank someone, they stay dead. So, we're gonna find them, and I'm gonna make sure it sticks this time. And then there's one more."

She looked around at the Teeth, and the minions beyond them, all just waiting for her word to go out and cause mayhem. This was where she was supposed to be, what she was supposed to be doing.

"See, there's this one Ward, called Flechette, who thinks she's all that …"

<><>​

Flechette

The itch between Lily's shoulder blades refused to go away even when she and Aegis reached the roof of the PRT building. It only started to abate once she was in through the roof doors and going down in the elevator. Flanked by Aegis, she stepped out on the top floor and headed for Director Piggot's office.

The Director raised her head when Lily entered. "Ah, good. You're here. I've been in contact with Director Wilkins, and a chopper is on the way to pick you up."

Lily had been expecting this, and even looking forward to it, so she surprised everyone including herself when she impulsively said, "No, ma'am."

"What?" blurted Aegis, then hesitated as Director Piggot gave him a sharp look. "Sorry, ma'am. I'll shut up now."

"Thank you." The Director placed her hands on the desk and leaned forward to give Lily a hard stare. "Perhaps you would like to expand on your reasons for saying that."

"Yes, ma'am." Lily took a deep breath. "Sending me back to New York wouldn't help me in the slightest. Just on her own, March kept me on the back foot without even really trying. And now that she's the Butcher, she's got even more people doing what she wants, so she can screw me over at a moment's notice with far less effort than before. And anyone getting in her way is likely to get seriously hurt."

Piggot's expression was stony. "Yes. The longer you stay here, the more chance my troopers will get hurt or killed, trying to deal with your problems."

Lily knew she had to tread carefully. "Technically that's true, ma'am, but the Real Thing is a significant aspect here as well. You've seen how Blockade's good steel ignores my power, which means it'll ignore March's. In my opinion, the Real Thing is our best chance of beating March-as-Butcher. I think we should bring them in on this, share all the insights we have with each other, and work together to bring her down once and for all. Because with March in charge, the Teeth just became a whole magnitude more dangerous, for everyone. Not just for me."

Slowly, thoughtfully, the Director leaned back in her chair again. "You raise an interesting point of view. Aegis, your thoughts on the matter?"

Put on the spot, Aegis blinked a couple of times before he answered. "I, uh, I don't have the experience with March that Flechette has, but I've read the files on her and the Butcher. March managed to be a real problem for Flechette in New York, just working with random capes and normal criminals. This latest development creates a really problematic synergy on top of that. So yeah, I agree with Flechette. This needs to be dealt with sooner rather than later, and if the Real Thing are willing to help, we should definitely bring them in on it."

"March nearly killed Monochrome," Director Piggot reminded him. "Apparently her force field isn't proof against March's power. They aren't the be-all and end-all that you might think they are."

"They don't have to be." Lily was encouraged by Aegis' support. "The Real Thing might only be able to slow her down, but that's more than most capes can do. Also, the Teeth are likely to be a real problem if we can't deal with them either first or at the same time, and the Real Thing are good against heavy hitters in general."

"Hmm." Piggot rubbed her lower lip with her thumbnail. "Alright, I'll call them in and you can talk tactics. Be aware that I will not greenlight any course of action that I consider ill-advised."

Lily nodded, feeling a rush of relief. "Thank you, ma'am."

<><>​

Monochrome

We landed on the roof of the PRT building in a roar and a rush of thruster-wash. As Madison cut the jets, I looked over at Emma. "Is it just me, or do we keep ending up here?"

"It's not just you." Emma jumped lightly down to the ground, and turned to face the two people who were waiting for us outside the roof entrance. "Director Piggot, good to see you again. And I'm guessing you're Flechette."

"That's me." The costumed girl stepped forward. "And you're the only three people I know who've managed to take March on and walk away."

I grimaced as I landed beside Emma. "I wouldn't say that I exactly walked away, the first time."

"Monochrome, right?" At my nod of confirmation, Flechette smiled slightly. "You survived the first time because your power slowed her down a little. As far as I can tell, you clashed with her again just this afternoon, and came away without a scratch."

"Director Piggot's double-layer idea worked perfectly," I admitted. "March—well, Butcher—threw an exploding blade at me that should've by rights shredded my chest and opened my ribcage up like a book. But because I had a second layer, I was fine."

The Director nodded. "I'm glad to hear something's going right, but we can't get complacent about it. Flechette, you're the person with the biggest stake in making this version of the Butcher go away, and you know the most about her. Real Thing, you've got the best chance of helping us get there. I just want them out of my city for good, and I've got the power to authorise whatever shenanigans you come up with. So, let's start figuring things out."

<><>​

Butcher

Right now, the Real Thing and the PRT will be trying to figure out how to bring me down. I mean, it's what I'd do if I was them. But they won't. They can't. If they didn't manage to pull it off before I became Butcher, there's no way in hell they can do it now.

Want to be careful about that, warned one of her internal voices. Famous last words of way too many supervillains: "there's no way they can beat me".

Yeah, agreed another one, the original Butcher. I thought that, back in the day. Doesn't matter how good you are, someone'll come up with a work-around, or just keep hitting you until you go down.

Yeah, but you aren't me. All these people who follow you because you're so fucking edgy and violent? By the time we take on the Real Thing and the rest of those assholes, I'll have them working together like a fucking Swiss watch. It's called being a force multiplier.

Yeah, yeah, we'll see.

May bit off her internal retort and looked over at the member of the Teeth who was trying to get her attention. "Yeah, what is it?"

"It's the people with the dogs," the guy reported. "We found 'em."

May grinned viciously. She'd sent out several cars full of her people to look for the four teenagers who had spat in her face. Even this early in the piece, her power was working on them, allowing her to direct and guide their actions far more efficiently and effectively than any of the other Butchers had been capable of. And now it seemed her ploy had borne fruit.

"Pass the word back," she said, coming to her feet fluidly. "Slow them down, and get me a location." The rest of her capes wouldn't be able to keep up with her teleport jumps, but that was fine. She wouldn't need them to help take down a bunch of ungrateful assholes. This was something she could handle all by herself.

<><>​

Grue

Lisa looked out the car window at the traffic going by. "We've got a problem."

Brian wanted to snap at her, but held it back. It wasn't her fault that Aisha had spent way too long packing her go-bag, then wanted to take three bags instead of one. Up until she'd spoken, he'd just been happy that they were in the car at last and heading out of the city.

"What kind of problem?" asked Alec before Brian could. "PRT? Protectorate? Rogue mime clowns?"

Well, okay, he wouldn't have asked that last one.

"None of the above." Lisa sounded tense instead of smugly confident, which told Brian there was a real problem. "There's a couple of cars that are deliberately slowing us down."

"Knew we should've taken the dogs," Rachel said predictably. "Traffic is stupid."

"I know, right?" Aisha chimed in. "I'd be happy to ride a dog out of here."

"Too conspicuous, in case Butcher came after us again," Brian pointed out, not for the first time.

"I'm pretty sure these are actually the Teeth." Lisa didn't sound happy about it, which Brian didn't blame her at all for. "Brian, we need to evade."

"Toward or away from where Rachel's got the rest of her dogs?" Brian eyed the next intersection as the ratty car jockeyed its way in front of them again.

"Toward," Rachel said immediately.

"Away from," Lisa contradicted her.

"We're not fucking leaving my dogs behind!"

"And I never said we were, but we have to lose this tail! Brian, turn right! Alec, put that driver out of position!"

"Thought you'd never ask." Alec peered out through the windshield, and the car in front of them abruptly swerved to the left, T-boning a large van. "Whoops."

Brian hauled the wheel to the right, and they passed the stricken car by. As he kept up the turn, they made it around the corner to the right, honking horns and bellowed profanity trailing behind them. "What now?" he asked tensely.

Up ahead, in the intersection they were about to enter, there was an explosion of flame and thunder; when it cleared, Butcher was standing there. Brian would've gone so far as to say that she looked pissed.

"Left!" screamed Lisa, and Brian instinctively followed her instruction.

Basic survival instinct told him to floor it; a moment later, an explosion in the road behind rocked the car. "Where to?" he yelled. "She's just going to keep chasing us!"

Lisa grimaced. "Never thought I'd be saying this, but … the PRT building. It's our only chance."

"You're nuts." Alec hung on as Brian hauled the car around another turn. "Certifiable."

Lisa gave him a raised-eyebrow look. "But am I wrong?"

His shoulders slumped. "Dammit."

<><>​

Butcher

May stood in the road and watched as the car headed for the PRT building.

That's right, you ungrateful assholes. Just keep running. You'll never get away.

All according to plan.



End of Part Thirty-Nine

 

[Ack]

Earning Her Stripes

Part Forty: Round Three

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



Flechette

Lily watched as the PRT troopers erected a marquee over Blockade's massive powersuit. There was a certain efficiency in their movements that told her they'd done this before. "So, what's this for?" she asked. "It's not exactly a secret that there's someone inside that armour."

After a chnk-chnk-hsss noise, the armour opened up, and a petite teenage girl, maybe five feet tall, climbed out. "True, but it is a secret that I'm not some big hunky guy. Hi, nice to meet you at last." She offered her hand; as Lily shook it, the power of her grip was quite impressive.

"Okay, yeah, that is a point." Lily watched as the armour folded itself up into a solid metal box, then a holographic overlay shimmered into focus, making it look like a steel-bound wooden crate. She suppressed a snort of amusement as she read the large sticker that appeared to be plastered over one side: 'KEEP OUT. PROPERTY OF BLOCKADE. THAT MEANS YOU, DIRECTOR.'.

"Very funny," Director Piggot observed dryly. "I suggest we go downstairs to Conference Room A, while I make a call. If Butcher's not already on the move, she will be soon. I need to get a status update so we can make our plans accordingly."

Monochrome nodded. "I know the way if you want to take care of that. Come on, guys."

As Piggot got out her phone, Lily followed Monochrome and the others into the elevator. It went down a few floors while the Director exchanged a few terse words with the person on the other end of the call, then seemed to listen intently. The call ended just as Monochrome opened the door into the appropriate conference room.

"We may have a problem," the Director stated. "Operations just got a call from Tattletale of the Undersiders. Butcher is chasing them, so they're coming here."

"Oh, for fuck's sake," muttered Firebird. "They're the ones who hooked March up with Butcher in the first place. Why is nothing simple around here?"

Director Piggot snorted. "Welcome to my life."

"Okay, so what do we do?" Monochrome's costume rippled, increasing her apparent bulk one moment then lying flat to her skin the next. Lily had no idea how that worked, but it definitely seemed to be superior to her own. Except for the fact that it only worked in black and white and shades of gray, of course. "Do we intercept her while they're still on the way here, or wait until they reach the building?"

Blockade looked around at the conference room, then focused on the screen at the far end of the room. "Can you bring up a city map on there, with the locations of the Undersiders and Butcher on it, as well as the Teeth?"

Lily hadn't even thought of that. Trust the Tinker to come up with a tech solution.

Piggot seemed to have the same thought running through her head, with the way her eyebrows hitched up. "I can definitely call around, see if my people can make it happen."

"In the meantime," Firebird said, grabbing a chair and spinning it around so she could sit on it with her hands clasped around the back, "let's talk fight strategy. We know what March's powers can do. Butcher's super-strong, she teleports, and she jumps into your head if you kill her. What else can she do?"

The Director ticked off points on her fingers. "Her ranged shots never miss, she can cause pain and inflict wounds in people just by thinking about it, she can target people through walls, and she can apparently send people berserk, also just by thinking about it."

Blockade nodded at each point. "Super-strength isn't really a problem, I can deal with the teleportation, and I've got ideas for the rest of it."

Lily stared at her while Piggot got onto her phone. "What do you mean, 'ideas'? You've run into March twice. Monochrome nearly died the first time, and you retreated from her the second time. I've seen your good steel and I've been getting told how Monochrome's force field is all that, but I'm starting to wonder if you're as amazing as Director Piggot seems to think."

"I was absolutely overconfident the first time, for sure." Monochrome put her hand on Lily's shoulder. "That was my bad. I've learned from the experience, and she can't hurt me that way again." She glanced over at Firebird. "You, she can hurt. I'm thinking you deal with the other capes. Intercept them before they can get to her, and take them off the board, yeah?"

Firebird wrinkled her nose. "Much as I hate to admit you're right, you do have a point. What are you going to be doing in the meantime?"

"For the moment, we slow her down." The petite teen cracked her knuckles, the sound echoing in the room like muted gunfire. "To properly stop her, I'm going to need some workshop time. But we can definitely put a hobble on her right here and now."

"Workshop time?" Lily knew she shouldn't be pushing back, but she couldn't figure out where Blockade was going with this. "What kind of a weapon are you going to use against her? Did you want to kill her, and have her end up in your head?"

Blockade rolled her eyes. "Honey, I've already got a gun that could evaporate her, if I turned it up to its highest output. But that wouldn't help, so I'm not going to use it. I've got something else in mind. I've just got to make it first."

"You said 'for the moment, we slow her down'." Director Piggot put her phone away. "How do you intend to do that?"

Firebird pointed at Blockade. "You're thinking you and Monochrome for the main event, me and Flechette for the tail-enders?"

"That's the idea I've got," agreed Blockade. "If we're careful, we can handle whatever Butcher can throw at us, until we can put the slowdown in place."

"You grab, I apply, yeah?" Monochrome looked thoughtful. "I'll have to go triple or quad layer, just in case."

"Whoa, whoa, wait," Lily objected. "What are you guys even talking about? The tail-enders?"

Firebird nodded. "Yeah. I could probably deal with them myself, but I can always use competent backup. You in?"

Director Piggot cleared her throat. "You are aware, are you not, that you aren't the only capes in the city? You're definitely getting more backup than just Flechette."

"Not for Butcher," Blockade said hastily. "The Teeth, sure. The more the merrier. But if anyone other than Monochrome or me goes after her, she'll kill them."

The screen at the end of the room flared to life, and blinking dots showed up, superimposed on a map of the city. They were more or less in sequence, progressing toward the PRT building. Each was marked with a label, which would've been useful if all present hadn't known who they represented.

"Okay, then." Firebird stepped up off the chair and indicated the middle dot. "Butcher's close behind the Undersiders, but she's some distance ahead of the rest of the Teeth. I'll take whoever Director Piggot is okay with me having and make sure they never catch up. Blockade, Monochrome: give her hell."

Blockade nodded. "Damn right." She raised her right hand and gave Firebird a high-five on the way out of the room, while Monochrome did the same with her left hand.

Lily watched them go, then turned to the Director. The older woman nodded to her and made a quick call. Moments later, the PA system kicked into action. "All on-duty capes …"

<><>​

Butcher

May grinned savagely as she teleported yet again. A passing car was blasted away from her by the resultant explosion, but she didn't give a fuck. Nor had she ever; it was everyone else's job to stay out of her way, not hers to worry about them.

As the flames cleared, she saw the crappy ride the Undersiders were using as it vanished around yet another corner. She could've caught up with them a lot faster, but this pursuit had never been about catching them. It was about stampeding them to where her other prey awaited. Two birds, one stone, et cetera and stuff.

They probably thought they were outsmarting her by always keeping out of direct line of sight. This meant they didn't know about her ability to see their vital points even through buildings, and had likely forgotten about her ability to charge a projectile and send it through any obstacle. Really, they were dead already; she just had to pick when she pulled the trigger on them.

She teleported again, to the intersection where they'd turned. Once more, they were making a hasty right to avoid her. But this time, it was different. A twinge of danger alerted her half a second before the roar reached her ears; she looked up to see the bulky powersuit as it swept into view over the rooftops.

Any idea she might've had that it wasn't there for her was immediately dispelled as it changed course, angling downward and performing an end-over-end manoeuvre so that it could slow its descent with its leg thrusters. It was right about then that May realised the suit had a passenger, a familiar black-and-white patterned figure crouched on the suit's shoulder.

The sense of danger grew stronger, though May had no idea why. When she'd first encountered Monochrome, she'd either killed or badly injured her, and Blockade had run from her on their second meeting. Whatever they could do to her, she could do ten times as bad to them.

"Butcher." It was Blockade. "Stand down and surrender and we'll see you're treated properly."

"Haha fuck you." May hadn't spent all this time herding the Undersiders toward the PRT building just to be distracted by two heroes she could find and kill at any time. Leaning slightly to get a viewpoint on the next intersection around Blockade's bulk, she triggered the teleport. Flame erupted as she arrived, but as they subsided, she realised she was staring at Blockade's midsection from a distance of about six inches.

Her awareness of danger flared high, and she instinctively teleported a dozen feet back, just as Monochrome landed a dropping elbow strike where she'd been standing. It didn't quite reach the asphalt, but the blurred quality of the move bespoke extreme speed. Any faster, May suspected, and the strike would've generated a sonic boom.

Damn. I would've felt that for sure.

Even with the physical separation, she was still feeling a distinct sense of peril emanating from the pair, and she wasn't sure why she hadn't been able to teleport past Blockade. It was probably some Tinkertech shit built into the suit, but it didn't stop her from teleporting away, just past. And she could work around that.

"I'm gonna kill you both, you know that, right?" She scooped up two handfuls of what had previously been asphalt, and formed them into throwing blades. Blockade was easy to predict, but Monochrome seemed to drop in and out of her awareness. This didn't matter; it just meant she'd have to try harder.

Monochrome shook her head. "We had other issues to deal with then. Now we're back."

"Your funeral." The blades in her hands powered up nicely, but she held off on throwing them. Both Blockade and Monochrome were hard to target, mainly because the power that let her see the perfect place to shoot someone was glitching in and out with them. However, she had another trick up her sleeve.

It was a lot easier to hit someone if they were screaming in agony on the ground, so she unleashed a wave of pain toward the two heroes. Nothing happened for the longest time, then Blockade spoke up. "Are you actually doing something, or are you just constipated? Because this is getting a little bit awkward."

While it was technically possible for a Tinker to program a suit to not show any outward sign of what the pilot was doing, Monochrome wasn't in a battlesuit. The trouble was, like Blockade, she was giving absolutely no indication of what should have been happening.

May gritted her teeth and changed tactics. "I'll show you awkward." Being able to withstand pain was a relatively common power, especially among Brutes and the like, but actual wounds were another thing altogether. Her lips drew back to reveal a savage grin.

Neither hero so much as twitched.

"Wait," Blockade said after another few seconds. "I'm not sure if I know the rules here. Is it supposed to be our turn? Were you waiting for us?"

May dropped that power too. They were cheating somehow, but that was something she could account for. Once she spent a little more time fighting them, she'd be able to model them well enough to step past their best shots and still nail them where it hurt, cheating powers or no cheating powers.

"Okay, fine." She flexed her fingers, the blades sticking out between them, ready to throw. "So you can block my ranged stuff. Let's see how you do close-in. Monochrome, I seem to recall that you kinda suck in that regard."

Monochrome said nothing, but made a come-at-me gesture.

May obliged.

<><>​

Armsmaster

Colin guided his bike through the back streets of Brockton Bay, closing in on the currently-known location of the Teeth. Crouching on the back of the bike, in a posture Colin would've considered impossible to maintain without actually holding on, Firebird had her arms half-spread. As far as he could tell, she was using the discs clipped to her forearms as airfoils to keep herself steady and stable, and in fact seemed to be marginally improving the handling quality of the bike while she was at it.

They weren't the only heroes on the road. Flechette was riding behind Miss Militia in a somewhat more conventional fashion, and a PRT van was following along with Assault, Battery, Triumph, and Aegis on board. Colin didn't truly think they needed all those numbers to beat the Teeth, but he wanted to beat them quickly. If Butcher caught wind of the fight and doubled back, the chances of someone getting hurt would escalate dramatically.

He checked the HUD and activated his helmet radio. "Up around the next corner. We'll pull up there and intercept them."

"Copy that," the PRT trooper driving the van responded. Miss Militia simply looked across and nodded to him.

He slowed for the corner; Firebird, predictably, sustained her position on the back of his bike. The blinking dot on the HUD was just coming up on the other end of the block as he stepped off the bike, Firebird having vacated her position before he'd quite come to a halt. Flechette and Miss Militia got off the other bike as the van doors opened and the other four capes emerged.

The car holding the cape contingent of the Teeth accelerated as it approached their position. Colin readied his halberd, preparing to take out a tyre as it went past, but Flechette acted first. Her arbalest came to her shoulder and she shot a single aluminum dart into the engine block, seizing it solid and bringing the whole vehicle to a juddering, grinding halt.

The Teeth piled out of the car, ready to do battle, and Colin went to meet them.

<><>​

Monochrome

I wasn't totally sure what Butcher had been trying to do, but no punches or blades had been thrown. Something had been going on, given that my protective field had cut me off from the world totally for seconds at a time; I just didn't know what it was. Still, it hadn't affected me (apart from shutting me off from the world) or Madison, so that was a plus.

On the other hand, it seemed she was finally willing to come to grips with us. This was exactly what we wanted, so I made the classic beckoning gesture I'd seen in a dozen bad kung-fu movies, and she came at us. Or rather, she faked coming at Madison, then teleported right into my face.

Trying to maintain separate layers of force field over my skin was mentally taxing, to say the least. One, I could handle without even thinking about it, and two were still easy. Three layers were on the difficult side, and four were about all I could handle without standing dead still and concentrating on nothing else.

It was also a good thing that I'd fixed on this course of action before the fight started, because she was fast. I'd just registered that she was heading for Madison before she vanished and appeared next to me, and the blade in her left hand was already slicing at my eyes. My outer force field popped, and she stabbed me up under the ribs and tried to slash my throat before I pushed my last field out and rebuilt the ones under it.

At the same time, I tried to grab her, but between her natural speed and my distracted state of mind, she teleported away before I could lay a hand on her. The explosion of flame was on top of Madison's armour where the arms didn't reach; Butcher emerged from it with her blades already grinding and sparking at Madison's armour plates.

"Shit, what kind of metal is this?" she demanded as she gouged at the suit with the points of her knives. "I can cut anything but I'm barely scratching the finish, here."

"It's called good steel, bitch." Even through the electronic distortion, Madison's tone was heavy with derision. "I'd offer to make you a knife made out of it, but I don't accessorise losers."

"I'll show you who's a loser." Butcher stabbed her blade toward a gap in the plates. "This thing can't be totally made of that good steel shit. I get contact with that, I blow your whole little tin can apart with you inside it, asshole."

Thinking quickly, I reached out and grabbed the powersuit's leg. When I exerted my power, the suit became entirely impervious to all harm; even the rubber seals became ten times as durable as before. Up above, I heard the knife grating against the good steel, even as the rubber hoses that led from upper arm to lower arm quietly unclipped from the detachment points at the bottom end.

"Oh, come on," Butcher muttered. "Light the fuse already, goddamn it."

Madison had kept the hoses from the first iteration of her suit as a fuck-you to anyone who thought they could exploit a weakness by ripping them off during a fight. The first time, I hadn't been there, but Emma had cheerfully told me how Madison could guide them to point wherever she liked, and blast live steam through them. This was exactly what she did now.

Butcher had apparently been distracted by her attempt to disable the suit, and a double helping of steam to the face at close range did her no favours whatsoever. It was true that she was somewhat more durable than the norm, but that only goes so far. She teleported fifty feet away, clawing at her eyes, and I went after her.

She could apparently still see, even though her face was bright red and starting to swell, and my eyesight blinked out a few times. The thing was, I knew exactly where she was, and during the blackouts, I just kept running. I had to get her back to Madison, and if I gave her half a chance to think about what was happening, I'd never get her there.

As I came up to her, she lashed out at me with her rapier, again aiming at my eyes. During the sensory blackout, I grabbed at her with one hand and the rapier with the other. There were only two layers of force field on my hand, and it popped both of them and cut my hand before I reinforced the layers again. But I had hold of her with my other hand, and I slammed her into the ground with as much force as I dared.

When I picked her up again, she was still alive but she looked kind of dazed from having her face steam-cleaned just before headbutting some good solid Brockton Bay asphalt. That was good enough for me; turning on the spot, I hurled her back toward Madison. I kept hold of the rapier, though; the fewer weapons we let that bitch keep, the better.

All our teamwork had paid off; Madison fielded her like I'd tossed her a ball in the back yard. One large good-steel-plated hand closed around Butcher's arm, and she was going nowhere after that. As an external storage container opened in the side of the armour, Madison reached in and took out a collar similar to the ones we'd deployed on Shadow Stalker, Oni Lee and Crusader.

"What the fuck?" Butcher demanded. She scrabbled at the hand that held her, but her bare fingers weren't about to do much. Even so, I watched her trying to trace spirals and lines on the metal components, with exactly zero effect. "Let me go, you son of a bitch!"

"How about no." Madison held out the collar toward me as I strolled toward them. "Would you like to do the honours?"

I grinned. "Totally." Accepting the collar, I opened it up then closed it around Butcher's neck. The closure was a simple spring-clip, except that the spring itself was made of extremely high-tensile steel, unable to be reached from the outside, and requiring force comprising multiple tons per square inch to compress it. I could remove it, of course, but nobody else could. As the latch snapped into place with a noise like a gunshot, I grinned. "Enjoy walking everywhere, bitch."

<><>​

Flechette

The Teeth came out of the car looking for a fight, but Lily wasn't inclined to give them one. Neither was Firebird, apparently. Vex's razor-shards were only just starting to spread out when a hard-thrown disc bounced off her head, then caromed off Animos' before ending up back in Firebird's hand. Both slumped to the ground, out for the count.

Reaver was coming for the heroes when Flechette coldly and without a moment's hesitation put a dart through his knee. Panacea could deal with that injury later; for the moment, it wasn't lethal, and it would take him out of the fight. Hemorrhagia and Spree were the only two left, the latter popping out copies faster than the eye could count, when Battery zipped up to the incipient crowd and unleashed a widespread electrical burst. Stunned, they went down, the copies fading out of existence.

Hemorrhagia looked at the heroes arrayed against her.

Assault and Aegis cracked their knuckles and popped their necks, in unison. The latter also drifted upward into the air, just to make the point that he could.

Armsmaster's halberd blade began to glow ominously.

Miss Militia racked the slide on a very large shotgun.

Triumph cleared his throat.

Slowly, Hemorrhagia put her hands up.



End of Part Forty