My Star Spangled Invisi-Gal [MCU/Dispatch] (Complete)

[Zetakille]

So question: the original Astral Pulse still is being passed around low-level gangs hands right now, like in canon, yeah?

 

[cliffc999]

That's a spoiler question. It'll turn up eventually.

 

[ChickenZero]

Nit pick here. I don't remember Robert seeing Chase as an Uncle type. I think he saw Chase more as the cool older brother/cousin type in their relationship.

 

[cliffc999]

Earth-Dispatch
Arrival: D Plus 47

"Please tell me you haven't entered this into any computers yet." Special Agent in Charge Davis implored her deputy.

"No ma'am." ASAC Washington answered. "I take it that I'm not going to be doing that?"

She looked back down at Steve Rogers' scores from the tactical assault course and back up at him. "Hell no. Hardcopy only, no duplication, single personal file, and no logging. And make sure you delete all the footage. If DoD ever got a sniff of these then we would never get their recruiter to stop camping our office for as long as Rogers was here. They would literally pitch a tent in the lobby." She whistled softly. "Have you ever seen anything else like this?"

"Ma'am, I haven't even heard of anything else like that." Washington acknowledged soberly. "But I'm still not sure that even we'll be able to recruit him. I could spot that they weren't eager to take even the temporary subcontractor position."

"That makes sense. She's the easy one to recruit; if we hook him then we hook her too, and if we don't then she won't. But Rogers…" She whistled out. "Basically his entire life to date has been defined first by his physical limitations and then by a military chain of command. He's barely in his second month of being really free to choose what he wants to do for the first time in his life, and he's just found someone he wants to share that life with. So right now he's emotionally primed to start pulling a Jack Reacher and just wander around enjoying his freedom from everything." Davis shrugged. "Well, if he chooses us then that will be his choice. But if he doesn't, it won't be because we either made him feel unwelcome or spooked him by pushing too hard."

"Understood." Washington nodded. "What did the all-agencies conference decide?"

"Follow me." she said, getting up from her desk. "The 1300 hours briefing is about to start, I'll get into it there."

"Everyone." Davis spoke from the podium in the briefing room a few minutes later. "Per the Attorney General's authorization, backdated to zero-hundred hours this morning the multi-jurisdictional task force 'Operation Duster' officially went active. The Bureau will be the lead agency of this effort, and I will be chief Action Officer for the task force. The primary objective will be the prevention of terrorist mass casualty events that are believed to be imminent in the greater Los Angeles area, and the secondary objective will be the location and apprehension of Elliot Connors, aka "Shroud", and his subordinates and co-conspirators."

"To briefly catch you up on what our sister agencies will be doing, the truck bomb already used and the explosives precursors purchases we've tracked gives ATF secondary jurisdiction." Davis continued. "So their war room and analysis center goes online parallel with ours and their people all get added to the legwork parade. DEA's primary contribution so far will be as a tactical reserve – all of their people with SWAT qualification are on one-hour alert cycle right now and sitting on their packed bags waiting for our call-up if we need them. Border Patrol is right behind them on the call-up list but for right now is primarily focused on increased scrutiny on all Customs frontiers in the district for certain types of shipments and components. In addition, they have three Predator drones assigned to their district for watching the border and I just called dibs on two of them. They're heading up here right now, and as soon as we get them they'll be taking watch-on/watch-off in a loiter over the LA area so that we'll have immediate access to overhead imagery whenever we need it."

"As for the National Guard, we haven't quite hit the threshold yet where they deploy but unless we're very fortunate it will be coming within the next several days. For right now the Adjutant General's office has warning orders out to the unit commanders to start rereading the contingency plans and preparing to execute them. And we mean all of the contingency plans. Multiple mass casualty events, coordinated bombing campaign, key infrastructure attacks, even mass evacuation if need be." She exhaled heavily. "This lunatic not only has all sorts of supervillain tech available and a genuinely frightening cyberwarfare capacity – and that reminds me, we're going to have to all switch to very strict data security protections and go practically back to hardcopy and word of mouth for the duration – but he's already gotten enough ANFO to build at least a dozen Oklahoma City sized bombs, and that's just what we know about. Maybe we're overestimating him greatly… but maybe we're not." she acknowledged professionally.

"When you say all the contingency plans, does that include Empty Quiver?" one agent asked nervously.

"Okay, not that one." Davis shook her head. "There are no even remote indicators at this time that Shroud has had any access to fissile material, so that's at least one blessing."

"Thank God." a nameless mutter floated around the room.

"Next up…" Davis continued. "Jenkins, I've had my head deep in the Shroud mess and nothing but for at least the past day. What's the current status on the SDN probe?"

"Preliminary sweep has turned up no active links to any of the flagged numbers or names relevant to the Shroud case." the other Assistant Special Agent in Charge answered. "On the other hand, our forensic accounting people cannot believe the preliminary results they're getting. Our White Collar Crime people and the Treasury are going to have a field day with all the crap that's churning up."

"Peculation?" she asked. "Embezzling?"

"Nope." He shook his head. "Right now it's looking like violation of mandated reporting requirements and Hollywood studio accounting writ large. You might remember that they had a board of directors shift and a limited buyout a few years ago? Well the new broom apparently decided that the prior profit margin just wasn't big enough, so they've started playing all sorts of games. The privatized hero companies are supposed to maintain a certain ratio of service capacity in reserve for actual superhero stuff as opposed to expending them on the non-emergency for-profit calls in order to keep their government charters, but SDN has been using every imaginable bureaucratic sleight of hand to shave the margins on those requirements for years. So essentially they're double-billing; the state and the county are paying them for a certain amount of service that they're only theoretically and not actually getting, as opposed to the substantially lower fees they'd collect as retainer for what the customer actually is getting. And then they run their people in the field like sled dogs to make up the difference, and then cook how they classify cases in the service logs to hide what they're doing. It's like… fuck, a cross between the Enron scandal and the bad old days before GPS trackers when basically every trucking company in the US was faking mileage logs to DoT, only with superheroes."

"How much of this can we prove in court?" Davis asked.

"After only a day of looking?" Jenkins said sardonically. "None of it, of course. I can't even take what we've got yet to a grand jury, let alone trial phase. I can only tell you what the preliminary sniff test makes me think might be going on. SDN has drawn enough layers of legal bullshit around everything that they're doing that it's the bureaucratic equivalent of the Berlin Wall. We can get through it, especially with the counter-intelligence aspects of the Shroud case giving us a way to get search warrants on some of this in a way that entirely bypasses the financial aspects, but it's going to take an irreducible minimum of time."

"When the press of urgency finally permits I have a young lady who used to work for SDN you need to speak to, as there's also at least one clear-cut case of privacy and labor law violations you can work with." Davis said. "But good job on getting even this much this early, and keep at it. The first priority is figuring out if it's safe for us to tell SDN about the Shroud case at all, though, because I really don't want to have to take on an entire supervillain crime syndicate just with assault rifles and one awkward squad of ex-villains and several independents."

"Understood ma'am." Jenkins nodded to her.

"Next up…" Davis continued.

* * * * *
​

"Is it always this boring?" Courtney pouted as she swung her feet in the air from where she sat perched on the edge of the cubicle desk.

"Every counter-terrorism case is the same." Steve answered her from where he sat nearby in an office chair. "The action phase only comes at the end of a lot of legwork and analysis." He pointed at the tall pile of paper sitting on the desk next to him. "Somewhere in that stack is a fact of genuine relevance to the case. It's almost a statistical certainty. The problem is finding it and picking it out from the million other data points buried in there that are completely irrelevant, figuring out how it hooks in to everything else you know, and doing all of that quickly enough it's actually still delivering useful intel instead of just being some analyst's hindsight memo six months after Shroud's already done."

"I don't really know anything about intel analysis and I have the attention span of a hummingbird." Courtney moaned. "Planting bugs this morning was kinda fun, but is there anything else I can be doing? Seriously, how can you sit still for all this? Are you even finding anything?"

"Just a few scattered references to some weird energy releases that don't seem to fit in with anything else we know, and a whole bunch of mundane stuff that probably doesn't mean anything." Steve acknowledged ruefully. "And I agree, this kind of work's not exactly fun. Still often necessary, though."

"Well, then just call me your angel of deliverance." SSA Sullivan broke in cheerfully as he walked up to their cubicle. "Customs has flagged a suspicious shipment coming through at Port of LA that dead-centers the pattern of Shroud's materiel orders, and the boss lady's authorized us to go do something about it. Time to suit up."

"Finally!" Courtney eagerly leaped to her feet as Cap secured his terminal and started gathering up all the papers he was working on to lock safely away. "What's going on?"

"Customs' computer search flagged a suspicious shipment currently sitting and waiting in a receiver's warehouse waiting for the customer to come pick it up later this afternoon." Sullivan explained as they headed down in the elevator. "So we're going to go sit on it and see who comes for it. There's several possible options from there depending on who shows up, ranging from bagging everybody at the drop to staying quiet and following the birdie all the way home. Idea on this one is you run out of costume and in tactical gear, so even if Shroud knows we're working the case now he hopefully still doesn't know that you're working it with us."

"Visi's powers are uniquely identifying, even if mine aren't so long as I'm not carrying the shield." Cap acknowledged. "Then again, her entire point is that you don't see her coming."

"Exactly." Sullivan agreed as they reached the basement. "Locker rooms are over here, we'll finish briefing on the way."

* * * * *
​

'Federal agents! Hands in the air, hands in the air!" Sullivan cried through his bullhorn.

The components shipment had been called for by just one rented truck and several anonymous Red Ring goons, so the decision had been made to just intercept the shipment and arrest everyone. If Shroud wasn't even risking one of his cell leaders on this pickup then the probability was too high that there would be at least one intervening stop-and-search for security's sake before taking the components to the main base, which ruled out following the truck back there or having Invisigal plant a tracking tag in the shipment.

And so they'd simply waited for the delivery truck to leave the shipper's warehouse and then cut it off in traffic with the armored Suburbans before it had gotten two blocks. Over a dozen agents in full tactical gear – as well as Captain America and Invisigal, both of them dressed in identical body armor and helmets – surrounded the several men in the panel van.

"Don't do anything stupid!" Cap called as he kept his assault rifle trained level on the driver's compartment. "You have nowhere to go!"

"Fuck!" the lead Red Ring goon swore as him and his fellows dismounted the truck slowly, the street lit in the evening twilight. "Okay, okay, don't shoot, we're not armed."

"Kneel down, hands behind your head." Sullivan ordered them.

"Nah, don't think so." One of the goons smirked. "We know your rules, cops. If we don't got guns or knives, you can't shoot us, right?" Their cybernetic implants began to grow red as the lead thug showingly cracked his knuckles. "So how's about we settle this mano-a-mano?"

"Fall back!" Cap ordered as he slung his rifle, and the FBI agents began to open up the distance. The thugs laughed and stepped forward, confident in their cybernetically augmented strength… only for the first one to go flying back into the side of the truck hard enough to dent the paneling, as Cap's kick caught him full in the chest and sent him into the air.

"The fuck?" the second thug marveled as Cap effortlessly parried his superhumanly strong punch and then trapped his arm and KO'ed him with his offhand. The third one barely had a chance to raise his fist before Visi jammed a hand taser into his neck from behind and laid him out, and the remaining two thugs who'd jumped off the back of the truck shrugged off several beanbag rounds from the agents' underbarrel launchers before Sullivan's flashbang grenade sent them staggering and set them up for Cap and Visi to finish their takedowns.

"Okay, this new 'enhanced agent' thing is working out really well for us so far." One of the subordinate agents congratulated the two ride-alongs as matters were efficiently trussed up in metahuman-rated restraints and tossed in the back of the prisoner transport. "We getting you guys permanently or is this just a pilot program?"

"They're still working on that." Cap temporized. "But I'm glad we were here, this would not have gone remotely as smoothly otherwise."

"If even the commonest street busts are turning into enhanced encounters, I'm going to have to talk to the boss lady about new rules of engagement." Sullivan agreed. "If not somehow getting a new issue of gear. But in the meantime, let's head back and get these guys processed… and then we've got another job to suit up for. The wiretaps picked up a cell meeting happening early this evening, and we're going to crash it."

* * * * *
​

"We're in costume for this one?" Cap asked as the approximately fifty Enhanced SWAT tactical agents all met up at the assembly point in the darkness of late evening.

"We're talking at least three superhumans in there plus maybe ten to twenty Red Ring cyber-goons." ASAC Washington agreed as he put on his own tactical helmet. You'll need the shield and Visi will need freedom to use her powers to the fullest extent.

"We've been cleared hot on the cybered-up ones, right?" A burly assault agent asked.

"Yeah." Washington agreed gravely. "The boss lady consulted with the US Attorney's office and DoJ has concurred – for the duration, active use or threat of use of their super-strength augments is now considered lethal force. We keep playing patty-cake like we used to and Shroud's guys will just swamp us and tear us apart."

"Understood." Another agent meaningfully patted his assault rifle.

Cap looked at Visi. "You sure you want to deploy for this one? I've done this before… you haven't."

"I can't sit out. You need me." Visi looked at Cap sadly.

The veteran soldier traded a meaningful look with the senior FBI agent, and they both nodded in acceptance of the inevitable.

"All right." Washington said. "This is the feed we're getting from the drone right now." Every agent there pulled up the relevant stream on their phone's or PDA's Bluetooth. "Infra-red is picking up all their signatures. The ones marked with yellow dots are rank-and-file, red dots are confirmed superhumans. First phase is Captain America and Invisigal takes out their rooftop sentries quick and quiet, then they signal when the rest of us can move in. Once we're in position we stack up here and here. Team One, we breach the doors and enter on this axis. Team Two waits until the noise starts, then takes the ram tank in through this wall and hits them in the flank. Team Three, you're strategic reserve, come in as called. Cap, Visi, you go in at the same time Team One does but you enter here and drop straight on their command element. Team leaders, make sure everybody understands that Invisigal will be running loose in this segment so don't have your axis of fire cross through that space because we won't be able to rely on seeing where she is. Any questions?"

"We leading off with tear gas?" Team One's commander asked.

"No point. We already know one of the augments Shroud can potentially have given his people acts as breathing protection." Washington answered. "So Team One leads off with flashbangs as they breach, everyone else uses them on hardened individual targets as necessary. Outside of that it'll all be our enhanced operators and our weapons."

After briskly answering the next few questions that there were, Washington finished. "All right. We've got the warrants signed, we've got the usage-of-force authorization, and we've got the assets we need. It's time to start making Shroud really feel the heat. Let's roll."

The invisible heroine climbed up over the edge of the roof and took out the first of three Red Ring cyber-thugs walking patrol on the warehouse roof without a hitch, clearing a gap in their coverage to allow Cap to climb up too. Running swiftly yet quietly around the edge of the roof, Cap readily downed the next two guards and then paused to look down through the skylight and check out the situation. Morphus and two costumed villains he didn't recognize were in the center of the warehouse floor, addressing perhaps fifteen more Red Ring cyber-thugs.

"Rooftop secure. The rest are all assembling, not alerted yet." Cap quietly said into his communicator. "Problem is, the cell leader is the one that's living gel – punching or shooting him is not going to do much good, and we don't have any exotic weaponry. Do we abort?"

"No." Washington decided. "If necessary, we'll let him run. These guys are planning a major raid on a bank tonight, we can't let it come off."

"Understood." Cap nodded. "Hold a minute. I'm sending Visi back to pick up some of your heavy breaching charges, I've got an idea for something I can try." He nodded to her and she immediately turned and started climbing back down to where the assembly point was over half a block away.

"Gonna try to blow him up?" she asked Cap as she returned with the charges.

"Something like that." Cap nodded.

"All right, we're in position. Get set… breaching in five… three, two, one-"

Cap was leaping down through the skylight, his shield on one arm and safely carrying Visi in the other, even before the breaching charges tore open the main warehouse door and multiple flashbang grenades landed amongst the assembled cyber-thugs to daze and disorient them. The Captain parried the energy blasts of one villainess with his shield as he absorbed the impact of the twenty-foot fall with his legs and Visi disappeared into nothingness as she leapt to the attack.

"FEDERAL AGENTS! DROP YOUR WEAPONS, DROP YOUR WEAPONS!" the bullhorn-equipped strike team leader blared even as the ram tank breached the warehouse wall and another SWAT team entered. One of the disoriented cyber-thugs pulled the trigger on his laser, sending a wild shot well over the FBI agents' heads, and then that triggered several more of them into firing. The warehouse echoed with the raucous blare of automatic weapons fire as the FBI men returned fire, and men began falling.

As the conventional troops began to bleed each other the cat-themed martial artist Visi had targeted staggered as she materialized just as her furious left hook tagged the side of his head, and she laughed and faded away again before his furious counterpunch could land. The villain staggered as she faded into view again, having dropped down low into a kneeling sidekick to his shin, then fell flat on his back as she leaned back on both hands and brought both heels flashing up into his descending chin.

Cap meanwhile had already downed the energy-controlling villainess by simply shield-charging directly into her and sending her sprawling, then slamming his other hand into the back of the shield and punching her in the face with the shield-flat yet again. He then turned and brought the shield up barely in time to parry a furious blow by Morphus, then leaped up on top of a nearby handrail and did an acrobatic flip over the charging blob-villain's head. In mid-leap he snatched one of the heavy breaching charges off of his belt, flicked the timer on, and jammed his hand wrist-deep into the villain's amorphous body.

The force of the oversized plastique charge was absorbed by Morphus' physiology, but still left the villain howling in agony as a goodly-sized chunk of his mass was explosively separated from him. Cap stepped back and raised his shield for cover as several of the FBI agents took their cue and began tossing more flashbang grenades at Morphus to stun and disorientate him. Wounded, confused, and seeing that most of his forces were already down, the blob-villain turned and fled for his life, shoving aside several hapless FBI agents as he ran for the wall-breach the ram tank had made and fleeing into the night.

"Let him run." Washington ordered. "We barely have anything that can hurt him, and nothing that could contain him if we caught him. Command, tag and track him with the Predator – if we're lucky he'll lead us back to Shroud."

"No such luck." The watch center back at the Federal building answered. "Blob boy was smart enough to think we might have an aerial unit available – he just ripped open a manhole cover and went into the storm drains. God only knows where he'll come up."

"Well, at least we caught this many." Cap sighed. "And stopped Shroud's latest big move in his fundraising drive. Visi, are you okay?"

"I'm fine." Visi said soberly, staring down into the warehouse where the assault teams were efficiently handcuffing and restraining the cyber-goons who were still alive… and where the ones who had already fallen in the battle were either being given medical attention or marked for burial as needed.

"Come on." Cap said, leading her gently away. "Is this your first battle where anyone died?"

"Yeah." she said. "And I know that it wasn't just legal here, it was legitimate. They would have killed all of us in a heartbeat if they could. The ones pulling triggers were actually trying to. It's just…"

"It's just this was your first time." Cap agreed. "And that this wasn't what you ever did for a living."

"No it wasn't." she agreed.

"Standard procedure for cops and agents is they talk to the counselor after every incident like this, particularly after their first one." Cap said. "I'll ask Nick to arrange something for you when we get back."

"That isn't-" Visi cut herself off. "You really think I need one?"

Cap's embrace was her only answer, and the only one she needed.

* * * * *
​

Shroud turned away from the multiple-monitor bank in his office and leaned back in his swivel chair, steepling his fingers.

"Unacceptable." he intoned coldly.

"Yeah." Toxic said. "I guess those two didn't blow town after all. And we had fifteen million riding on that lab job, and nothing's gone right for us since."

"The revenue shortfall is serious, but the lack of confidence that the failures are starting to produce in my leadership is even more serious." Shroud intoned coldly. "Worst of all is the cause of these failures."

"From how you're talkin', I'm assuming that 'sheer bad luck' ain't a theory?" Toxic asked.

"No… although the Captain did his best to make it appear as such." Shroud said coolly. "But he tipped his hand regarding the shipment containing the backup mag-bottle components."

"The fucking FBI rolling up on Morphus' team meeting and him barely being able to get his ass out of there while we lost a whole crew in the process isn't the worst part?" Toxic asked incredulously.

"Toxic, precisely how do you imagine a dozen mundane agents overcame five cybernetically-augmented foot soldiers without using lethal force?" Shroud asked impatiently.

"You put it that way, then yeah." Toxic agreed. "Obviously the Captain was there too... but if he wasn't in costume then, then it ain't just him working the police scanner or getting tips from dispatchers, he's back in federal agent mode full-time or something. Boss, what the fuck are we stepping into? And how the hell are we stepping into it?"

"Captain America is responsible for all of our recent reverses somehow. I am certain of that fact." Shroud intoned coldly. "Things only started deviating from the plan after our manipulations released him and Invisigal from their obligations to SDN."

"But WHY?" Toxic said. "Him being here on a mission made no sense! Him only restarting that mission after he got fired makes even less sense-!" Toxic stopped as if he'd hit a wall. "Shit shit shit! There's one way this does make sense, but we'd completely overlooked it!" Toxic turned to look back at Shroud. "What if he was genuinely here trying to retire from whatever the fuck he used to do before… but then we ruined that for him?"

Shroud paused and blinked in furious thought, as multiple previously-unrelated or irrelevant data points suddenly assumed a new shape for him in his brain's analytical augmentation implants. "You… are correct." Shroud reluctantly conceded. "SDN and it's… mundanity, it's domesticity, was providing an escape for the Captain. An escape from a previous life that he had considered at least partly emotionally unsatisfying. Until our own actions voided that possibility for him while simultaneously revealing to him the existence of an enemy that he would perceive as similar to enemies he had fought before."

"So he goes right to the fuckin' FBI, who totally believe him because they have access to whatever classified service record he had that SDN didn't have access to, and now we're a major league counter-terrorism case." Toxic swore. "Boss, this is really not fucking good for us! Do you have any idea of how heavy the heat can come down when the Feds take the brakes off like this?"

"What is the progress on the primary objective?" Shroud ignored Toxic's panicked rant.

"We've almost got enough dominance into the organized crime networks of LA that the information we need will all have to flow through us." Toxic answered worriedly. "It's just a matter of days before we get what we need there. But the trick will be surviving that long."

"Then we must be prepared to ruthlessly triage as necessary." Shroud said. "As well as to repurpose old tools to new plans." Shroud stood up and walked outside his office, looking down into the assembly bay where his giant spider-mech was almost completely assembled. "I will take charge of the efforts to retool that for an entirely new scenario from what we had originally prepared it for. You will lead the probe necessary to determine where the Captain is getting the information to target his strikes against us from."

"Where do I even start looking for something like that?" Toxic asked matter-of-factly.

"There are two primary possibilities." Shroud said coldly. "And I will provide you with the plan for how to test them both simultaneously."

* * * * *
​

Author's Note: I managed to get in the 'Cap's firing range scores' gag that was requested. And 'I haven't even heard of anything like that' is of course a 'Tombstone' reference.

More seriously, the intersection of techno-thriller and superhero genre produces the inevitable result; eventually someone was going to have to shoot someone, and now people have to deal with that. Cap's long since used to it, even if he doesn't prefer it, but Visi – even though she wasn't directly involved with it – is going to have to adjust to it. And decide whether or not she can continue to live like this or not.

The non-Morphus villains here are non-canon nameless throwaways. Shroud's just getting to the 'recruit a lot of the muscle available in LA' stage.

And Shroud finally begins to clue in, even he's still adding two plus… well, to be fair, it actually is two this time. Cap's 'retirement' was not voluntary, and Shroud is still refusing to accept he actually is a dimensional refugee, but Toxic actually got the essential gist of it. The man's crude, but he's not stupid.

 

[Lillie Jones]

thanks for the chapter
Continue on
Cheers!

 

[deathzealotzero]

So. I have a question. Are we going to have anything else from the MCU? As that is why I have gotten into this story when I haven't played Dispatch. Still an interesting story.

 

[cliffc999]

So. I have a question. Are we going to have anything else from the MCU? As that is why I have gotten into this story when I haven't played Dispatch. Still an interesting story.

Click to shrink...

That is a spoiler. The ending will be Steve and Courtney returning to the MCU.

 

[shargle]

Author's Note: My problem in composing the upcoming 'Steve goes full SHIELD on the problem' bit is that since I am not actually an expert in counter-terrorism, I need to take extra care not to write the next part stupidly. Hence the slightly slower update rate while I work that bit out. But I can at least start the setup here, and I do.

Click to shrink...

You gave us this disclaimer two days ago... and have posted 19k words since?? What on earth does your ""normal"" release schedule look like??

Thanks for the (relentless onslaught of) chapters!

 

[cliffc999]

You gave us this disclaimer two days ago... and have posted 19k words since?? What on earth does your ""normal"" release schedule look like??

Click to shrink...

It's already completed on SB, I'm just migrating it over here.

 

[The Unicorn]

"When you say all the contingency plans, does that include Empty Quiver?" one agent asked nervously.

"Okay, not that one." Davis shook her head. "There are no even remote indicators at this time that Shroud has had any access to fissile material, so that's at least one blessing."

Click to shrink...

My first thought? If Shroud is the guy who invented the power source for Mecha-Man, I wouldn't assume he needs any fissile material.

"Nope." He shook his head. "Right now it's looking like violation of mandated reporting requirements and Hollywood studio accounting writ large. You might remember that they had a board of directors shift and a limited buyout a few years ago? Well the new broom apparently decided that the prior profit margin just wasn't big enough, so they've started playing all sorts of games. The privatized hero companies are supposed to maintain a certain ratio of service capacity in reserve for actual superhero stuff as opposed to expending them on the non-emergency for-profit calls in order to keep their government charters, but SDN has been using every imaginable bureaucratic sleight of hand to shave the margins on those requirements for years.

Click to shrink...

That's a good way to make SDN we see actually make sense.

"Nah, don't think so." One of the goons smirked. "We know your rules, cops. If we don't got guns or knives, you can't shoot us, right?" Their cybernetic implants began to grow red as the lead thug showingly cracked his knuckles. "So how's about we settle this mano-a-mano?"

Click to shrink...

This shouldn't have been jarring, but the sudden shift from Clancyesque investigation back to superhero tropes made it feel jarring. There's no way cops in RL would have that sort of rule, fists and feet can very much be lethal weapons even without them having been enhanced.

"Standard procedure for cops and agents is they talk to the counselor after every incident like this, particularly after their first one." Cap said. "I'll ask Nick to arrange something for you when we get back."

"That isn't-" Visi cut herself off. "You really think I need one?"

Cap's embrace was her only answer, and the only one she needed.

Click to shrink...

Very well done, also good battle scene.
Visi definitely needs a therapist, and not just because of recent events.

"Toxic, precisely how do you imagine a dozen mundane agents overcame five cybernetically-augmented foot soldiers without using lethal force?" Shroud asked impatiently.

Click to shrink...

Do you want a list? Because I can think of a bunch of ways for them to do so. The simplest would be a warning shot, but even with an actual fight, if they could arrange to split them up and pile 6 one 1 they could do so without any special equipment, with tasers, batons and similar it could be even easier not to mention sedative darts etc...

Not saying Shroud thinking that is unrealistic, and it does fit the superhero tropes, but...

"There are two primary possibilities." Shroud said coldly. "And I will provide you with the plan for how to test them both simultaneously."

Click to shrink...

I hope they manage to get Coupe out safely

 

[htgriffin]

Toxic stopped as if he'd hit a wall. "Shit shit shit! There's one way this does make sense, but we'd completely overlooked it!" Toxic turned to look back at Shroud. "What if he was genuinely here trying to retire from whatever the fuck he used to do before… but then we ruined that for him?"

Shroud paused and blinked in furious thought, as multiple previously-unrelated or irrelevant data points suddenly assumed a new shape for him in his brain's analytical augmentation implants. "You… are correct."

Click to shrink...

Head Minion seems to have the better WIS score here, he is almost dead on with mere meat for memory retrieval and computation power.

The sad part is that if they had worked things out earlier... they may still be in this mess, but at least Shroud would have made a mental note to have the HR nitwit offed for making things so much harder for them.

 

[Prince Charon]

Head Minion seems to have the better WIS score here, he is almost dead on with mere meat for memory retrieval and computation power.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, Shroud does come off as a 'super-high INT, low WIS' type, which is common for supervillains - but it's also pretty believable, because less extreme forms of it can happen in real life.

 

[shargle]

It's already completed on SB, I'm just migrating it over here.

Click to shrink...

That makes a lot more sense.

 

[deathzealotzero]

It's already completed on SB, I'm just migrating it over here.

Click to shrink...

Duh! I can't be the only one who immediately went to SB to read the entire thing, right? Now I actually want a sequel. Sigh.

 

[cliffc999]

Earth-Dispatch
Arrival: D Plus 48

The insistent knocking on his apartment door woke Robert a couple hours after midnight.

"Who the fuck is it?" he angrily yelled at the door as Beef woke up barking. "Seriously, the building had better be on fire! It's the middle of the night!"

"Open the door." Coupe's voice begged quietly. "You're in danger and we need to leave!"

Robert immediately snagged the taser from where it lay on the floor next to the plastic chair he slept in, then remembered he wasn't dressed and dropped it long enough to pull on his pants. Opening the door, he was face-to-face with an anxious winged heroine, A quick look around revealed the hallway was empty.

"What's wrong?" Robert asked her.

"Shroud's ordered your kidnapping." Coupe said worriedly. "I'm supposed to be scouting ahead for the rest – they're right outside! We only have a couple of minutes!"

"Did you warn the FBI?" Robert asked as Coupe led him swiftly down the hallway, his arms full of a struggling dog.

"I couldn't. This is the first moment I've gotten alone since Toxic originally called us in to brief us." Coupe said quietly as they went swiftly down the emergency stairwell.

"Send 'em a message now." Robert decided, and Coupe pulled out her burner phone to compose and send a text… only to stare alarmedly at the screen. Zero bars. No carrier.

"Damn it, there's no reception in here. I need to get outside-" Coupe began.

Robert drew a panicked breath. "My cell phone works in here just fine. If you're being jammed- shit! They sent you in first as a test!"

"I'll be damned, you actually caught onto the trap before you finished jamming your dick all the way into the sausage grinder this time!." Toxic's voice sneered from the stairwell landing above them. "I guess even old dogs can eventually learn new tricks… if you beat 'em hard enough."

"Robert, run!" Coupe immediately called as she sent a flurry of knives at Toxic. The acid villain sneered as they dissolved on his corrosive coating, and he flew unscathed through her barrage of fire down the stairwell and sent Coupe flying with a superstrong punch.

Robert dropped Beef and rolled under Toxic, heading back up the stairwell. "Is he seriously acting like the idiot girl in a horror movie and trying to get away from the bad guy by going up-?" Coupe's flying sidekick took Toxic in the jaw as he'd turned to stop and look mockingly back up at Robert, and he fell back and hit the stairs with his hips and his head. "Ow! Okay, that one's on me." Coupe grimaced in pain as Toxic reached up and caught her descending arm with his corrosive grip, scorching the metal of her armored bracer as he flipped her up and over his prone body to land face-first on the landing.

"My backup's gonna be here any minute, so you might as well-" Toxic sneered as he regained his feet and prepared to stomp the prone Coupe… only to fall back screeching and coughing as Robert hit him full in the face with a CO2 blast from the fire extinguisher he'd been going for at the top of the stairs. Temporarily blinded and staggering, Toxic then took the thrown fire extinguisher square in the forehead as Robert double-overhanded it with his full strength and sent the villain flying the full length of the stairwell to crash heavily into a heap at the bottom.

"Time to go!" Robert helped Coupe up before vaulting over the railing to land on the descending half of the stairwell. "Beef, come on boy!" The little dog ran eagerly back down to his master and Robert scooped him up. Coupe half-spread her wings and glided down the stairwell to where Toxic still lay prone at the halfway point, and came down to drop a vicious stomp kick directly into Toxic's face backed by the full momentum of her fall just as he was starting to push himself back up, sending his head crashing back down into the floor. Another furious heel stomp knocked the villain out.

Barely a minute later the two desperately fleeing heroes exited the stairwell at the bottom. "Which way?" Coupe asked.

"We split up." Robert decided. "You can't carry me while flying and you're much faster. Get to Cap and the others, tell them what's happening. As soon as I'm in my car I'll get to-"

Twin blasts of searing lightning struck the duo from down the hallway, knocking Robert unconscious and staggering Coupe through her protective costume. Coupe's hastily thrown knife was intercepted on its path to White Lightning's chest by the gel body of Morphus, who then simply stepped forward and enveloped the helpless heroine as her punches, kicks, and slashes did nothing to him. Cut off from oxygen, she soon went limp.

"Go find out what happened to Toxic." Morphus ordered his cohort brusquely as he picked up the limp Robert in his other arm. "Job's done, now we get clear."

"What about the dog?" White Lightning asked, looking down at the stunned Beef.

"Grab it and dump it back in the guy's apartment, I guess." Morphus shrugged. "What kind of asshole fucks with someone's dog?"

* * * * *
​

"At least one of you has been a considerable thorn in my side." Shroud's merciless, toneless voice came from the teleconference viewscreen that had been set up as the two heroes hung upside down by their ankles from chain hoists that had been rigged to the ceiling. The two heroes had been drugged unconscious, only to awaken already securely restrained and surrounded by an audience of curious villains and thugs. "But you will no longer be allowed to exercise that privilege."

"Fuck… off…" Robert gasped weakly from where he hung, tied hand and foot. "You couldn't even have the balls to come here and do this yourself… Elliot."

"Leave him alone!" Coupe insisted from where she was suspended almost ten feet away upside down from a hoist of her own, her arms and wings securely bound in chains. "He doesn't know anything!"

"Maybe not, babe, but it's still fun!" Toxic giggled sadistically as he slapped the beaten and battered Robert on one of his garish new bruises, making him grimace. "But you're right. Maybe we should be talking to you."

Robert looked away from Toxic at the dimly lit silhouettes surrounding him from where he hung over what looked to be the floor of an empty storefront in a dying strip mall. He recognized several of the villains who'd been assembled as an audience to his torture and Coupe's punishment, but there were more than a few unfamiliar faces.

"Do your worst." Coupe sneered at him. "Do you really think you know more about pain than my old teachers did?"

"Oh, torturing you is pointless." Toxic acknowledged. "But I still owe this asshole a little more for that fucking fire extinguisher. And you care about him, don't you? He's your friend." he sneered.

"What do you want." Coupe glared back at him.

"Maybe I want to take my acid-coated finger… and jam it deep into Roberto's eyeball until I'm melting through the back of his eye socket." Toxic's grin twisted into a sadistic rictus. "So maybe you should come up with a topic of conversation to distract me."

"Who are you reporting to?" Shroud intoned evenly from the teleconference screen that had been set up in the improvised interrogation chamber.

Coupe stubbornly set her lip, then winced as Toxic's hand drew nearer to Robert's eyeball. "The Captain. And the FBI."

"For how long?" Shroud inquired.

"… about two days." Coupe said resignedly after a long, thoughtful pause. "He made me an amnesty offer during the laboratory attack. I accepted, and deliberately 'lost' the vial to him."

"How did he know of the attack in order to be there at all?" Shroud persisted.

Coupe's silence was met with Toxic walking over to where she was struggling against her restraints. With a knowing look back at Robert, Toxic reached out to touch her throat with his corrosive fingers-

"Cap was working with me." Robert burst out. "When I got the alarm call I tipped him and Visi off privately in addition to what SDN authorized me to dispatch. He was lucky enough to be closer."

"When did the Captain starting working with the FBI?" Shroud asked.

"I'm not entirely certain." Coupe answered.

"Almost since the day him and Visi lost their jobs." Robert contributed. "Blonde Blazer made the introduction for him, she knew a guy at the local field office."

"Hmmm." Shroud considered.

"What kind of heat are the Feds bringin'?" Toxic broke in.

"You think they'd tell me?" Robert shot back.

Toxic walked back and started caressing Robert's hair, and the acid began to lightly singe the man's scalp as the acrid scent of burning hair filled everyone's nostrils.

"They had to talk to the Special Agent in Charge to arrange my immunity! That's as high as I know it went!" Coupe shouted hurriedly.

"So, major case then. But maybe not major major case, if we're lucky." Toxic wondered out loud.

"How do you contact them?" Shroud asked.

"… I have a dead drop for routine reports. Emergency messages are sent by text, from a burner phone." Coupe eventually said.

"This one?" Toxic held up the phone that had been taken from the unconscious Coupe's pocket.

"Yes." Coupe nodded slowly.

"How do you authenticate messages?" Shroud asked. "What is the code?"

"I don't." Coupe shook her head.

"She is lying." Shroud answered after a momentary pause. "Toxic."

The acid villain caressed Robert's eyelid with his thumb, raising a painful welt. "What's it gonna be, babe? Are we playing Truth… or Dare?"

"All right, all right!" Coupe shouted desperately. "I have to ask an irrelevant personal question in every message, about someone we both know! If it's all business then they know I'm talking with a gun to my head!"

"Toxic. Compose a message as follows-" Shroud rapidly dictated a brief yet concise statement about a meeting Shroud intended to conduct in person approximately eighteen hours from now at a location Robert didn't recognize. "End it by inquiring about the Captain's… relationship status with Invisigal."

"Oh, that leaves me so much room to play with." Toxic giggled as he typed. "But nah, if I asked any fun questions then they might suspect I wasn't actually Miss Serious here. Aaaand, done." He hit 'send' on Coupe's burner phone and the text was dispatched.

"The trap has been baited, and the necessary information obtained. And that brings us to the second purpose for this gathering." Shroud intoned.

"… damn it." Coupe slumped. "Robert, I'm sorry. I thought he might at least spare you… but apparently not."

Robert looked around at the assembled villains. "Oh, that's why the audience. To watch us be made examples of." he realized.

"Got it in one!" Toxic caroled cheerfully. "Especially the traitor here. Fuckin' seriously, babe, what the fuck were you thinking? You had an express train to easy street, and you gave it up for people who weren't even payin' you? Who'd already backstabbed you?"

"Oh, I got backstabbed by both sides." Coupe spat back at him. "But one of them at least apologized and tried to make it up to me."

"Yeah, well, they can carve that on your tombstone." Toxic giggled. "'At least we said we were sowwwwy!'" he mocked. "And just for that, you get to go last. Hey boss, what part of Mecha Putz here do you want me to melt off first?"

"Before we get started, I want a word with your boss." Robert glared upside-down at the viewscreen displaying Shroud. "What was even the point?"

"You. Your father. Chase. Your little team of misfits. All of you persist in the delusion that you can defeat evil by being 'good'. But there is no defeating human nature. You cannot stop evil… but you can control it." Shroud replied.

"No, I don't mean your schemes here in LA. That's just money, power, control, standard bad guy stuff. I get it." Robert scoffed. "I meant back in the day, when you shot my father. What did doing that even get you?"

"Your father cheated me." Shroud hissed angrily, leaning forward into the viewscreen. "And so I took my revenge upon him!"

"If even Chase had to admit that maybe something had been hinky back then, then I'm pretty sure Dad did cheat you." Robert acknowledged soberly to the shock of everyone present – Shroud most of all. "But even then, why shoot him? You invented the Astral Pulse." Everyone gasped again. "You needed Dad to actually turn your design into a finished product, because you needed a master precision engineer for the actual assembly, but the key theoretical insight that made the Pulse possible in the first place was all yours. Lord knows I've never been able to reproduce the damned thing, and you'd better believe I've been trying."

"You… are actually willing to acknowledge this?" Shroud's voice betrayed his shock even through his mask's electronic voice distorter. "Publicly, in front of your enemies?"

"Yeah… because like it or not, it's the truth." Robert sighed. "And if there's one thing I've learned from the Z-Team, it's that if you're not honest with yourself then you'll never have the slightest hope of un-fucking whatever fuck-up might happen to be your life. But the thing I just can't get is why you murdered my Dad… when all you'd have needed to do for your best revenge was outshine him."

"What?!?" Shroud sputtered.

"Y'know, for such a 'master planner' you really didn't stop to think it through back then, did you?" Robert bit off the words as if he were cutting a steel rod into segments with a torch. "All my Dad had from you was one Astral Pulse that he could never duplicate without your help. One shiny gizmo to run one suit of armor with and nothing more. But you had a working design that you could have gone and hired any other engineer of equal skill – and there's a lot more skilled gearheads out there then there are science geniuses – to help you put into production. You could have manufactured all the Pulses you wanted. Solved the energy crisis. Done more good than a thousand Mecha Mans ever could have. You could have become the most famous scientist in the world. Nobel Prize, place in the history books… and my Dad publicly exposed as the man who'd defrauded you, when you made yourself a bigger public benefactor than him." Robert snorted. "But instead you chose this, and now Robert Robertson II is a dead hero and Elliot Connors is just another villain. And this... this petty crime drama is as big as your ambitions will ever get."

"You have no conception of the boundlessness of my ambitions… or the capacity I will have to realize them!" Shroud ranted. "My technology places me one step ahead of you – of SDN, of the government, of everyone! I can calculate your moves a thousand places ahead while you all fumble in the dark!"

"Then you've probably already predicted the deal I'm going to offer you now." Robert said calmly. "But for the benefit of the others, I'll spell it out. Let Coupe go, and you can get whatever further revenge you can find against a dead man by torturing his son to death as slowly as you can manage."

"Uh, we can already do that anyway, rust-brain." Toxic looked incredulously at the ice-calm Robert. "And then her, right after you!"

"Not if he bites off his own tongue and bleeds to death." Shroud corrected Toxic. "Which he is threatening to do right now if I do not accept his bargain."

"Robert?" Coupe sputtered incredulously. "What- why would you even-?"

"Because I was your dispatcher." Robert looked at her resolutely. "It was my job to supervise you… and to make sure that you were given a fair chance to do your job, and receive all the support you needed. And I wasn't able to do that for you then, so might as well try again now."

"No!" Coupe protested. "I offer the same bargain in return. Let him go, and I will willingly submit to your tortures." She glared at Shroud. "You know my background – even if you doubt that he is capable of ending his own life in cold blood, you know that I am."

"Your offer is refused." Shroud said coldly. "Knowing that the legacy of Mecha Man – and also the legacy of she who betrayed me – will both end in nothing but despair, suicide, and failure will be more than sufficient revenge for me. Toxic, begin… and now let us see if either of them has the courage to actually carry out their threats. But I very much doubt that he-"

And then the world flared brilliant golden as a blazing meteor crashed directly through the roof to land thunderously upon the floor in a three-point crouch. The shockwave of her impact sent the nearest villains sprawling back as the world echoed a heroine's wrath.

Blonde Blazer stood tall and then raised slightly into the air between Robert and Coupe, staring directly at Toxic as her eyes glowed like miniature suns. Shroud opened his mouth to comment and she contemptuously flicked an energy bolt into the viewscreen, shattering it before the master villain could even speak a word.

"You might think that you have the advantage." Blazer stated as matter-of-factly as if she were holding a business meeting. "That if you all attacked at once, even I would fall eventually." Her lips drew back from her teeth. "But I still wouldn't go down easily or quickly. So all of you can leave now… or half of you can die here."

Toxic opened his mouth, but his words forever went unsaid as Blazer leaned forward slightly and pointed her finger at him. "And you would be the first to fall, no matter what."

A long moment passed as every villain in the room held their breath. Toxic's eyes flickered left and right, measuring angles, judging odds… and then his fists lowered.

"She's right." Toxic looked at his subordinates. "This isn't the time or the place. Everybody out the back, we've got to clear the zone before half the cops in town show up behind her."

"Don't let me keep you." Blazer scoffed as the villains backed away and then fled for their lives. After waiting long enough to be certain they weren't coming back, she turned and easily lifted Coupe and then Robert free from the hooks they'd been hung upside down from and helped them to the ground.

"How'd you find us?" Robert asked after Blazer had made sure both heroes were all right.

"Toxic didn't think to turn Coupe's phone off after he sent that phony message, and Cap called both me and the FBI as soon as he'd gotten the text." Blazer said. "The night duty officer at the FBI had access to their phone tracking algorithm and a recon drone, so finding this building and scouting it out only took us a couple minutes."

"Lucky us." Robert agreed. "You were just in time. A couple minutes later and Toxic would have started melting my face open."

"Then I'm glad I didn't stop for drive-through." Blazer tried to joke. "Are you sure you're all right?"

"Little banged up, but that's nothing new." he said. "Coupe, can you fly?"

"Yes." she answered, flexing her now unbound wings. "Where are we going?"

"Downtown, as soon as we can. Shroud gave away something important during his interrogation and monologueing, and we need to call a strategy conference as soon as possible." Robert decided.

"It's an hour before dawn, the people in charge won't be awake yet. Is it that immediately urgent, or can we stop to get you a change of clothes first?" Blazer asked.

"It's still that early? Thought I'd been out for longer." Robert wondered. "Well in that case, maybe some breakfast first."

"I'm sure they'll have something in the cafeteria." Blazer eye-rolled at Robert's macho stubbornness.

* * * * *
​

"Coupe, I want to apologize." Cap greeted her from where she was sitting in an interview room in the Federal Building being fussed over by a paramedic.

"What for?" Coupe asked him.

"Not pulling you out earlier." Cap shook his head. "You were exposed for almost four full days, and the safe window wasn't anywhere near that long. But they wanted you kept there until they finished locking in enough remote surveillance to get an attack warning, and I didn't argue strongly enough against that when I should have. And for the past day we didn't even strictly need to, but we were all so busy planning our own raids and operations that I just didn't think to revisit it and neither did anyone else." Cap slumped angrily against a nearby wall. "I screwed up, and that screw-up almost got you and Robert killed."

"You weren't the one making the decisions." Coupe shook her head. "And you certainly didn't intend for this to happen. Nor did Robert… or Blazer… or even the government, I would imagine." She gave a single, mournful chuckle. "I can barely even comprehend my own thoughts right now. Look at me, sitting here trusting people."

"You remind me of another woman I knew once." Cap nodded as the paramedic finished checking Coupe out and left. "Also a child soldier and an assassin, and also someone who escaped that life and became a loyal agent and then later a hero. She had a little trouble getting used to the whole 'trusting' thing too at first, or so she told me once. But once she finally accepted it was for real, it became a very acquired taste."

"Did she remain a hero, once she had finally become one?" Coupe asked sadly. "Because I didn't."

"Yes you did." Cap said. "I mean, look at where you're sitting now."

"I joined Shroud willingly." Coupe shook her head. "As soon as I thought I had been betrayed. I didn't even stop to think about how I could possibly have remained the better person. Having been cheated – or so I thought – allowed me to readily justify my immediate descent to the basest depths to myself." She snorted. "Much like Shroud himself did once."

"And that lasted maybe a whole day before you clued in, while Shroud is still stuck there and will be for the rest of his life. So the real question is, are you ever going to make the same mistake again?" Cap asked her simply. "Or are you smarter than that now?"

"I'm not sure I'll even be allowed to make mistakes again." Coupe shrugged. "What is my legal status at present, anyway?"

"That's the good news." Cap said, handing her the manila folder he'd been carrying. "They just got that from the US Attorney's office, it's a written commitment to granting you immunity. You'll still have to finish all the formalities of giving your statement, having your plea validated by the court, et cetera, but they can't legally back out now unless you break your end first."

Coupe stared down wonderingly at the sheet of paper in front of her. "But- I didn't even get them anything. Scraps of information at best."

"You got more than you give yourself credit for. But more importantly, you were willing to die to save Robert's life." Cap acknowledged. "And that definitely counts for something."

"He was equally as willing to die to save mine." Coupe shook his head. "I-I can't even process such a thing. How do you deal with that?"

"You thank God that you have friends like that, and then you thank Him again that they didn't need to." Cap replied simply.

"Where the bloody hell is she?!?" a furious voice echoed in the hallway.

"In here!" Coupe called out, and the door opened to reveal a frantic Punch Up wearing a visitor's badge and being trailed by a very nervous junior agent.

"And that is my cue to give you two a moment alone." Cap smiled as he stood up and strode to the door. "My advice?" he told the agent. "You'll probably want to station yourself on the outside of the door."

"Protocol requires that I keep the escortee in plain view at all-" The furious twin glares he got from both Coupe and Punch Up immediately silenced the escorting agent. "Yes sir."

"Come on." Cap said good-naturedly, and the two men stepped outside and left the reuniting couple alone.

* * * * *
​

"And that's what we know." ASAC Washington finished, as SAC Davis and the Special Agents in Charge for the other federal agency LA field offices and several other senior officials murmured to themselves around the conference table. "Shroud's power is apparently some type of probability calculation tech, but it has limits. Coupe was able to lie to him about the exact time of her recruitment, for example, apparently because the version of the story she gave was at least as probable a scenario as the actual recruitment had been."

"Which means further delay only works in Shroud's favor." the National Guard general said. "Everything he's done, all his operations, the pattern isn't just him building his resource base but also him deliberately picking fights with his probable opposition under controlled conditions. It's a reconnaissance in force."

"Normally the longer you drag something out, the more it just turns into attrition warfare." the Border Patrol SAC agreed. "Normally. But with this guy the more you fight him, the more he learns about your moves. Soon enough it gets to where you can't hope to touch him at all while he dances around you."

"Which implies that the only reason we've had as much success as we have to date is because we've had a surprise advantage." SAC Davis agreed. "An advantage that we are already losing."

"Also because the balance of forces still heavily favors us." the senior DEA agent put out. "And we can tilt that equation even further if we mobilize the Guard."

"Only in non-metahuman assets." ATF reminded them. "There we barely even have parity. What's the status on clearing the A-Teams, or getting independents or other allies?"

"I can guarantee myself, Phenomaman, maybe a couple of other A-listers I personally know, and my entire branch office." Blonde Blazer answered. "The real sticking point is SDN corporate. All it takes is one leak there to give Shroud advance warning we're coming and then it gets a lot bloodier than we'd like it to be even if we brought half the superheroes in LA."

"And we won't even begin to be all-clear on them in the next couple of days, let alone today." SAC Davis agreed. "As for networking with heroes directly by word-of-mouth and going unofficially…?"

Blazer shook her head. "Everybody I already listed are those who'd be willing to work with me even without SDN officially signing off on it. Most of the other people I'm acquainted with wouldn't want to risk their paychecks by taking 'uncleared work', even on government authorization."

"Seriously, what do you people even do over there?" DEA groused.

"Enough to be keeping our White Collar Crime people eating very well in future months." The FBI SAC agreed ruefully. "But we're getting sidetracked. You've all heard the analyses, you've seen the list of probable locations we've turned up from ELINT and overhead surveillance, and the old drydock that we tracked Toxic to from the site of Blazer's hostage rescue with the drone is almost certainly the current location of Shroud and the manufacturing facility he set up for whatever doomsday option he's been ordering all those components for. But that last piece of intel in particular will get stale in hours, not days. So ultimately the decision is, do we roll the dice now or hope for a sure thing later?"

"Normally I'd say 'later'… but not only are we on a lit fuse of unknown length with the potential truck bomb problem, but we just got through the explanation of how delay favors Shroud more than us thanks to his forecasting tech." ATF said.

"Agreed." DEA nodded. "Sometimes you just can't get a sure thing in this line of work, but you've got to go anyway."

Border Patrol and the National Guard also nodded.

"Very well then." SAC Davis agreed. "Nick, go tell all our people to start mustering. Gentlemen, your agencies already all know their place in the action plan – get your people ready to execute. Blazer, we'll need all the heroes that you can get us standing by and ready to move inside of three hours." She stood up and squared her shoulders. "I'll make the call to DC and then meet you all in the command center. Jasper," She nodded to the representative from the US Attorney's office. "Start the process on getting the warrants signed. Operation Duster goes into the final phase today."

* * * * *
​

Author's Note: Yes, me taking a shot at canon Shroud for being chickenshit enough to take a dog hostage was deliberate. *g*

During this fic sometimes I have felt lazy as an author, because the canon game gives me so many good moments that I feel like I'm just retyping them here. Blazer's hostage rescue is absolutely one of those moments, even if the context of it was obviously different here.

Amusingly, this chapter ended up becoming basically the Robert, Coupe, and Blazer show, with our principals reduced to background characters. Hell, I think this is the first chapter since chapter one in which Visi gets no appearance at all. But, the plot flows how it flows.

And now all I have to do is get through the climax… and then what comes after the climax.

Heh. "All." Those chapters are going to be bears to write. But still, at least I got this story into the home stretch. Sometimes an author doesn't even get that much.

 

[Marchewmen]

I think shoud going for dog was because who would he take anyway?

Chase, who wouldn't give a fuck and just took as many guys before he ran out of time?

BB, who... like how exactly.

Invisigal was his semi-plant, so why bother.

 

[ThedudeManBro]

I think shoud going for dog was because who would he take anyway?

Chase, who wouldn't give a fuck and just took as many guys before he ran out of time?

BB, who... like how exactly.

Invisigal was his semi-plant, so why bother.

Click to shrink...

Also Beef was the sole being that wasn't able to kick his entire scrotum out though his tonsils.

Elliot is a fucking bitch.

 

[cliffc999]

Earth-Dispatch
Arrival: D Plus 48

The wolf whistle broke into Steve's thoughts as he stripped down to his undershirt.

"Hey there." He turned to see Courtney ogling him appreciatively from where she was leaning against the wall of the small conference room he was changing in.

"Hey." Steve smiled back, and then deliberately half-turned to give his girlfriend a profile view.

"I kinda miss when I could make you blush." Courtney smiled at him saucily.

"Well, once it became something you'd had hands on familiarity with, kinda hard to be shy about you enjoying the view." Steve sassed her.

"I am losing my touch if you can score on me that easy!" she chuckled as Cap finished changing shirts and reached down to pick up his tactical vest.

"What's wrong?" Steve asked her quietly as he put on his body armor and raised his arms to let Courtney fasten the straps for him, then turned to help her start putting on her own.

"Was I that obvious?" Courtney sighed, dropping her mask of insouciance to give him a brief, worried hug.

"Your smile wasn't reaching your eyes." Steve nodded. "Nervous?"

"Your smile isn't reaching your voice." Courtney looked at him wisely. "And yeah, I am. They're gearing up like it's going to be Gulf War III, and so are we." She exhaled briefly. "Even I'm strapping on the armor, although I'm not weapons qualified."

"You've never been on an operation this big, but our piece of it will still be the same as always. We won't be doing anything we haven't done before." Steve assured her.

"No, I'll be doing at least one new thing." Courtney answered pensively. "The last raid we went on, the one where Morphus got away from us – they carried at least half a dozen of Shroud's mooks out of there in the morgue wagon."

"Thought you had a word with the counselor about that this morning." Steve asked.

"I did." Courtney said. "I just… years of street fights and skirmishes, against crooks and cops and superheroes. Months of hero patrols. Even the recent ops with you. But I never had to confront before that people sometimes die doing this. Even Robert only almost died that night. And now I'm all jitters because I can't think about anything else."

"Are you afraid that you might get hurt, or that I might?" Steve probed knowingly.

"You." Courtney admitted immediately. "Which is stupid because you're the most combat experienced person in this entire task force and you can just walk off being stabbed or shot and you're wearing advanced SWAT armor and carrying that shield, but-" She shook her head. "Look at me. Even back when I was screwing everything up I never hesitated to jump back in there and screw it up some more the next time, and now I'm a nervous wreck."

Steve gave her a hug and a forehead kiss. "It's not stupid at all. You're new to the idea of going into a firefight alongside somebody that you really care about, that's all. But you're smart and you're tough; you'll find your footing when you need to."

She trembled slightly in his arms. "You ever have that nightmare where you're sure that they only let you have something nice so that it would hurt more when you lost it right away later?"

"Yeah." Steve shocked her with his somber admission. "Having it a little right now, in fact."

"Oh." Courtney whispered softly. "I thought it was just me." she trailed off.

"It's a thing I've already had a lot of experience carrying." Steve acknowledged. "So it doesn't show much on my face anymore. Doesn't mean I'm not still feeling it though."

"But you're not even hinting that you'd like me to stand down, though." Courtney shook her head.

"I might be tempted to try… if I had the slightest belief you ever would." Steve admitted. "But no." he shrugged. "Not you."

"Yeah. And not you either." Courtney acknowledged, and then she whooshed out a breath. "It's barely been six weeks, and here we are. We really did this kinda whirlwind, didn't we?"

"We sure did." Steve agreed, and then cupped Courtney's chin in his palm. Her head tilted up and their lips met, softly and then urgently.

"When this case is over I don't want to do this anymore." she said after they broke apart. "Not heroing, not agenting… not fighting in general. Not for a while, at least."

"I think that's a good idea." Steve agreed. "We've got some money coming in from the government and we both like to live simply, it'll be enough for a while."

"And when my big windfall from SDN arrives then I can be a woman of leisure." She grinned crookedly at Steve. "I'd even have enough to hire a full-time housekeeper. Make him cook me dumplings every day."

"Or we get ourselves a motorcycle, ride around the country, see the sights." Steve counter-suggested.

"Sounds nice." Courtney agreed. "Did you know that I've never really been out of LA?"

"I've never really been to the West Coast." Steve acknowledged. "I had a talk with Flambae once about how he might like to try finding peace. Us taking some time to go try and find a little peace of our own? I'd love that."

"Lookin' forward to it." Courtney's adorable little smile lightly pierced Steve's heart yet again, before she leaned in to kiss him once more.

I love you. Her eyes shouted what her voice couldn't. Please stay safe.

Steve nodded once in somber reply to her entreaty. Love you too.

* * * * *
​

"Captain! Visi!" Flambae greeted the duo enthusiastically as they emerged from the SWAT van along with a squad of heavily armed agents. The assembly area for the raid against Shroud's suspected headquarters was almost two blocks away in an unused athletic field, and the entire parking lot and grounds were covered with men and women in full body armor and weapons loadout, ominous black Suburbans, and heavier armored MRAPs. Two of the largest vehicles even had remote-controlled weapons turrets, with 40mm grenade launchers in the mounts. Also present were Blonde Blazer, Phenomaman, and the Z-Team and several other heroes from the Torrance branch.

"Visi." Golem rumbled affectionately at her. "He been treating you right?"

Visi blushed amusedly. "Absolutely."

"Flambae!" Cap greeted him as the two men exchanged a hearty handshake. "How have you guys been?"

"Bitch, we're havin' to come in and work on a Saturday, how do you think we feel?" Prism laughingly answered for him.

"Seriously, though." Sonar laughed. "You guys left this Wednesday, and in barely four days we're already going to wrap it up? How much was SDN holding you back?"

"Hey, don't discount the contributions of maybe half the federal agents in Southern California." Cap pointed out amusedly. "Right now we just feel like the two little rocks that set off an avalanche."

"Oh yeah, as soon as they heard the words 'truck bomb' up there it was like Congress officially declared war or some shit." Visi nodded lightly. "You would not believe how much brass I saw at the last big meeting."

"There's even a drone overhead right now, would you believe?" Coupe said softly as she swooped in for a landing.

"Coupe!" Malevola greeted her enthusiastically as the Z-Team burst briefly into cheers. "You made it!"

"Aye, that she did!" Punch Up's voice broke in as he ran over from where he'd caught a ride in one of the other FBI vehicles.

"Are you guys FBI agents now or something?" Flambae nodded at the duo's government-issue tactical gear and Cap's full weapons loadout alongside his shield.

"Just subcontractors." Cap shrugged. "As soon as this case is over, the suits come off."

"You coming back to SDN?" Flambae asked.

"SDN's going to have a huge re-org coming in the near future." Visi answered. "Turns out all the corpo bullshit coming down from on high was because there was some serious friggin' in the riggin' going on up in the head offices, and after this whole Shroud terrorist mastermind thing wraps up the Fibbies' next big project is gonna be a white-collar crime investigation in the privatized hero industry."

"You guys will be fine." Cap reassured them. "In fact, your jobs will get easier in the long run when the rules all change back to something more sensible. But it's going to be interesting for a little while."

"So you ain't comin' back." Prism shook her head. "Makes sense. Sonar told us about how much settlement bucks Visi can be expectin' for what that dumbass from HR pulled. If I had that much comin' in and didn't also need to keep my job to keep my parole-"

"Which is something else the DA's office is going to be looking into." Coupe broke in quietly. "SDN corporate seems to have not been entirely compliant with the legal requirements there either - which since the breach is on them and not you means that you'll get the chance to renegotiate new and better deals like I did."

"Nice." Golem grumbled approvingly.

"Yeah." Visi reassured the team. "So you guys will be fine after this. And me and Cap… right now, we just want to take some time off. Explore what we've got going at our leisure. Take a damn vacation."

"Then make sure to send us a postcard." Flambae laughed gently. "Ah, but now the boss lady is coming. Looks like it's time."

Blazer swooped down gently next to the group. "It certainly is. Let's go, final briefing is starting."

All the heroes gathered by the command vehicle along with all the fire-team leaders for the small horde of agents that had gathered for the assault on the small private shipyard/drydock that was Shroud's apparent main base.

"All right." Nick Washington began. "Early this morning Toxic was traced to this location by overhead surveillance, and he hasn't left yet. Comm intercepts within the past hour have picked up several phone calls from this location from both Toxic and Shroud. Most of the calls were scrambled, but several were in clear – enough to confirm his presence here." Nick's expression turned sober. "There's no way that wasn't deliberate. There's no way that Shroud doesn't already know we're coming. He's calling us out to a showdown. The other teams are already hitting every Red Ring site we know or suspect across the city, but the main action is going to be right here."

"Do we know where all his fertilizer bombs are yet?" One of the senior team leaders asked after raising his hand to be called on. "Or is Shroud just trying to bait us all into his own version of Masada?"

"The National Guard contributed several remote explosive detection systems, like the guys in Iraq used to sweep the road ahead of convoys. We've done multiple overhead passes with the little drones and the chem sniffers." Nick answered. "Wherever his main explosives stockpile is, it doesn't seem to be here. Which doesn't mean that we aren't still risking stepping on smaller IEDs as we go in, because there's enough trace industrial chemicals from the old shipyard to hide that much. But at least there aren't ammo dump quantities laying around anywhere nearby."

"Probable opposition?" Captain America asked.

"Infrared signatures mark large heat concentrations in the target buildings." Washington nodded. "Furthermore, one of the reasons we started the raids on the secondary sites first is so that we could mark which superhumans were present on the other sites, and if we were really lucky draw out some targets from the main site if Shroud sent reinforcements." Nick shook his head. "He didn't, and if we assume that every Red Ring supervillain that we haven't already seen somewhere else is in that building, then our hero contingent is slightly outnumbered. And all of Shroud's inner circle people are on that 'probably here' list." Nick exhaled meaningfully and continued. "Plus, there's a large - and unknown - electromagnetic and heat signature waiting in the middle of that shipyard. Whatever hole card Shroud has yet to turn over – and it's certain that he has one, or else he'd already be running for the border – he's got it waiting."

"Conventional forces?" Blazer asked.

"There's maybe forty of them and almost a hundred and fifty of us." Nick answered flatly. "If it wasn't for the superhuman element, this would be a stomp. As is… we're going to need your people to go above and beyond today, or else the next step involves the full military option. And as much Shroud doesn't want to see that happen, we'd really rather not."

"Agreed." She nodded.

"So let's review the plan one last time." At Nick's signal, Prism used her powers to project a large holographic image of the basic layout. "We remount our vehicles and do the final ride in along this route, with our two superheavies plowing the road." He nodded to Blazer and Phenomaman. "Final dismount here, and these are our routes of advance. Golem will act like a minesweeper truck for the main column advancing here, flankers will advance here and here with air support from Blazer as needed. Our two heavy MRAPs set up here and here for fire support." Icons popped up on the holo map as Nick spoke. "Captain America takes the rest of the heroes ahead and kicks the main door in here, and we all come up behind and take up firing positions here and here. After that the bad guys get to let us know what their contribution will be, and it's back to basics from that point on – find cover, maneuver, and return fire."

"Rules of engagement?" The next seniormost agent asked.

"We have the state of emergency declaration." Nick answered. "So we don't shoot them if they're unarmed or surrendering – and remember, the cybernetically augmented ones count as 'armed' even if they're using bare hands - but that's the only point at which we stop shooting them. We'll make the bullhorn announcement when we kick the door, but honestly, the bad guys already know who we are. So don't even stop to challenge, just engage. Any other questions?"

Silence fall across the assembly.

"Then that just leaves us with our final contingencies." Nick said. "As I said earlier, Shroud is absolutely calling us out to a showdown. And while the man's crazy, he's not stupid. He's got a hole card in there that he thinks can win, even against these odds. If he didn't think that, he'd already be over the nearest border. And the only way we can find out what he's got is to go poke the bear and see what happens. So in addition to everything we brought with us we've got two further escalations – Closing Pitch, and Thunder Run. And I want to take this opportunity to remind everyone, especially our heroic auxiliaries, that if we have to call in Thunder Run then you need to get the hell out of the zone immediately. Don't stop to trade another punch with the guy in front of you, just run. Or else you'll be collateral damage, along with everything else near you. Everybody understand that?"

A murmur of affirmations rose from the crowd.

"Everybody ready?" he asked, to a louder chorus of yeses.

"Then let's roll." Washington pulled his armor's helmet on and fastened the chin strap and everyone else there in tactical gear did likewise. Prism dissolved the map display, and everybody loaded up.

* * * * *
​

A dull explosion brought the slowly advancing column to a halt yet again.

"Landmine." Golem grunted unnecessarily as he casually brushed off the debris. "That makes three."

"Movement on the rooftops!" one of the long riflemen on overwatch called, and two groups of Red Ring thugs showed themselves above the roofline flanking the advancing column. The snipers immediately began dropping targets as everyone huddled in place, and the flying heroes swooped in to start dealing with the ambush. Several wounded agents fell back to the casualty collection point as the last of the Red Ring riflemen went down.

"Jesus, it's turning into Black Hawk Down out here and we're not even at the door yet." One of the SWAT team leaders muttered. "Can we pick up the pace a little?"

"Resume advance." Cap ordered as they drew up on the final approach to the shipyard. Everyone tensed as they entered the open ground in front of the gaping double doors on the land side of the drydock, but no further ambushes were sprung. "Okay, we're standing by for door kick."

Blazer and Phenomaman floated silently down towards the assemblage of heroes spread out in loose formation on the ground, as the agents all drew up into fighting positions behind the cover available from the nearest buildings and concrete parking barriers. "Acknowledge ready for door kick. Execute at your discretion." Washington acknowledged.

"I'm covering the roof." Blazer's eyes never ceased sweeping the line of windows and the rooftop above the large cargo doors, looking for ambushes.

"Taking the door in three… two… one…." Phenomaman flew right up to the centerline of the two large doors, flexing as he prepared to tear them right off their hinges-

-before an enormous red beam of energy smashed through the door from the inside and sent the alien hero rocketing back into the adjacent dockside warehouse half a block away and then right back out the other side. The tremendous bwoooooong! sound of the energy cannon temporarily deafened everyone there, and Blazer turned back from where she'd watched her hapless teammate be ragdolled completely out of the action to gape in alarm at the massive mechanical shape now lumbering out of the warehouse.

Fully the size of a three-story building and wider than it was tell, the giant mechanical spider mecha stepped menacingly forth into the afternoon sunlight, the giant red circular firing port that it had just fired its main beam out of glaring like a baleful mechanical eye.

"And come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly." Shroud's voice mocked them from the mecha's PA speakers, as Toxic, White Lightning, Morphus, Khopesh, and several other Red Ring villains advanced from the dim interior behind the advancing mech, and the glowing red augmentations of dozens and dozens of Red Ring goons shone from the darkness behind them.

"Fuck." Nick swore from his plotting table in the command vehicle. "So it was a giant robot. We knew it was a possibility from the parts list of stuff Shroud had been buying, but-" He squared his shoulders. "Someone get me a status on both Closing Pitch and Thunder Run, now."

Blazer fearlessly swooped to the attack, only for the spider-mech to sidestep with a nimbleness that belied its size and catch her with a slashing side-sweep of one of its front legs, sending her sideways off the dock and out over the open water. Prism immediately fired the brightest dazzle attack she could at the cockpit window while Flambae bathed the mech's central sphere in the mightiest flame blast he was capable of. The Red Ring goons all started blazing away with their laser rifles as the small army of federal agents began firing back from their own fighting positions, and the long riflemen standing overwatch started picking targets and dropping them.

"Follow me!" Captain America called, and the remaining Z-Teamers unhesitatingly ran behind him to meet the charging villains. Toxic went straight for Invisigal, who flipped him the bird as she vanished and Cap feinted a swing at the acid villain, only to sidestep himself and switch targets to Khopesh as Punch Up advanced into the breach and took advantage of the opening to ram a powerful fist up into Toxic's defenseless groin.

"That's for almost meltin' my girl's face off, ya prick!" Punch Up shouted as he followed up with a ferocious series of blows.

Khopesh gaped incredulously as his energy scythes, which had never failed to cut anything before, spalled off of the shield as if he'd attempted to attack a tank with a foam rubber baton. His surprise was short lived as Cap then fed him the edge of the shield right into his teeth, then followed up his blow with a forward cartwheel kick that brought the full momentum of his outstretched leg down into the villain's teeth like a swinging axe.

White Lightning hit the ground choking as Visi reappeared out of nowhere to put her in a chokehold, then nimbly leaped free just before the villainess tried to shock her way out. Distracted, White Lightning wide open as Coupe's knives disabled both of their arms immediately before her furious flying punch sent the electric villainess sprawling. Coupe then looked up in alarm and frantically barrel-rolled to the side immediately before one of the mechanical spider's legs came crashing down where she'd been and impaled itself several feet deep into the concrete of the dock. All around and underneath the mech heroes traded blows with villains as they tried to dodge the massive hazard swinging and stomping and blasting all around itself, while the heavier hitters stayed on the main target.

"Jesus Christ, look at the size of that thing!" a voice broke in on the tactical net. "Command, Hammer One and Hammer Two are on the gunline. Are we go for Thunder Run?"

"Stand by, we're probing its defenses!" Nick answered back. "Missile teams, engage!"

The several squads of National Guardsmen who'd been setting up shoulder-fired Javelin anti-tank missiles acknowledged the command and fired. The ordnance acquired the targets and began their pre-programmed pop-up attack sequence, but the 'brilliant' missiles were effortlessly plucked out of the air by laser blasts from the secondary blasters mounted in the spider-mech's two front legs.

"No dice, Command!" the senior Guardsman replied. "That thing's got computer-controlled point defense and energy-weapon turrets!"

"You copy that, Hammer Flight?" Nick followed up. "Stay the hell out of range until we can cripple that thing's point defense at least, otherwise it'll be suicide."

"We'll still risk it if need be, but acknowledged." Hammer One acknowledged as the two A-10 ground-attack fighters from the California Air National Guard adjusted course to stay several miles offshore.

Golem looked up at the spider-mech from where he'd just finished throwing Morphus well out into the water and reached out to try and pin the nearest leg to the ground and hold the mech still. Explosions began to ripple all up down the mech's upper body as the two heavy MRAPs finished switching their weapons loadout to anti-armor loads and the fully-auto 40mm grenade launchers started trying to crack the mech open with HEDP rounds.

"Fall back! Open up to let the artillery have a chance!" Cap called, and the hero squad broke loose from the villains they'd been skirmishing with – many of whom were already downed – and headed back towards the rear defensive line. Emboldened by their enemies' retreat and too inexperienced with urban warfare to understand the trap they were charging into, the Red Ring thugs followed the retreating heroes into the open and were sitting ducks for the entrenched federal agents. A withering barrage of fire began to cut them down, and the remainder started throwing their weapons away and running for their lives.

The dazed Toxic looked up from where he'd been left curled up painfully on the ground by the retreating Punch Up to see the entire momentum of the battle shifting. "Yeah…" he grunted heavily to himself. "Sorta figured that would happen. Now-" He staggered to his feet and retreated back into the dimly lit interior. "-either the big play works or it don't. But either way, I'm fuckin' outta here."

Blazer swooped back in to attack, followed shortly by Phenomaman, but neither of them could land a solid hit. Impossibly nimble for a thing of its size the mecha turned direct charging attacks into glancing blows, or redirected the heroes' momentum away with precisely-timed parries from its forelegs. Another pair of anti-armor missiles were plucked out of the air by the mecha's point-defense programming, and the heaviest attacks of the heroes that were actually connecting were only doing chip damage at best.

"This was his big plan?" Flambae shouted as he barely sideswiped in time to avoid being slapped out of the air by one of the spiders' legs. "Put all that effort into building a giant robot and just step on everyone?"

"If it's stupid but it works, then it's still kicking our ass!" Visi fumed from where she was huddled behind cover, feeling as useless as a kickboxer in a giant robot fight.

"Ahhh, there we go." Shroud sighed with satisfaction as the spider-mech's central 'eye' glowed brilliantly red again as the main gun finished recharging. "Who should die first?" He chuckled evilly. "Rhetorical question, of course. There is only one proper choice."

Captain America stood tall, deliberately running to where the only thing behind him was the open ocean, as Shroud turned the entire mech to face him and locked in with the main gun. "I can do this all day." He scoffed.

"Admirable… but misguided." Shroud sneered, and Visi shrieked in alarm as the mech's main cannon – the giant particle beam that had sent the mightiest hero in Los Angeles flying away as if shot out of a cannon and knocked him unconscious for over a minute – unleashed its full devastating force all on a single man. The world flared red as Cap vanished from view in the searing beam…

… only to incredulously return to normal as the beam faded away to reveal the super-soldier standing there entirely unharmed, the Mighty Shield proudly thrust forward. The entire battle paused to gape at how enough firepower to cut a skyscraper down like a tree had just utterly failed to so much as shift the feet of a single man.

"IMPOSSIBLE!" Shroud gasped.

"We've got him surrounded, and his main beam has a three minute recharge! Hit him with everything we've got!" Cap ordered triumphantly, and all the gathered heroes swooped to the attack.

Cap waved up to Blazer as she swooped in over his head and tossed her the shield, and with an eager grin on her face she flew forward as an invincible battering ram, turning the glancing hit on the dodging mecha into a wicked slash down its flank as the shield's invincible edge was driven by her strength deep into the layered armor like a hot knife into butter. Cap turned to see Visi tapping him on his shoulder, eagerly holding up a satchel charge, and with a smile he grabbed her and tossed her up towards the bottom of the mech's central sphere as she snuck past Shroud's defenses invisibly and rematerialized just long enough to stick the charge on the bottom hatch and yank the fuze. She dropped back down into Cap's waiting arms and Blazer dropped the shield back down to him just in time for Cap to raise it as cover against the blast overhead. Sonar swooped in as the blast temporarily rocked the mecha enough to make it momentarily drop its defenses, flanked by Coupe, and the two of them eagerly tore into what gaps had been opened up in the mech's armor to start cutting into what wires they could reach. Waterboy then soaked down the exposed and severed wires, causing them to spark and short circuit furiously.

Shroud fell back slightly, the mech leaking smoke from several seams as it began to accumulate damage, but the danger was hardly over yet. Flambae was brought crashing down to earth as one of the slashing spider legs finally connected, and Golem barely saved Prism and Malevola from being incinerated by the mech's secondary laser turrets. Malevola managed to teleport on top of the mech and damage it further with her magic greatsword, but had to immediately leap free again before Shroud sent her flying with a violent heave of mecha acrobatics.

"He's adjusting to our attacks!" Blazer shouted as the momentum began to shift again. Despite the heroes having only one target to concentrate fire on now, Shroud was only doing better as the fight dragged on. More and more often the heroes began to miss entirely, and more and more Shroud was connecting with blows and blasts and staggering and exhausting them. "And he's about to finish recharging, and he won't be stupid enough to shoot at the shield this time!"

"Retreat!" Washington ordered. "All agents, fall back to the rear!"

"It's like we figured!" Cap agreed. "Once the opposition turns over its hole cards, Shroud has everything he needs!" He exhaled heavily. "But the good news is, we've just made him turn over his last hole card-"

"-and we haven't." Blazer agreed, smiling.

"Everyone, it's Closing Pitch!" Cap called into the mike. "We're doing it now!"

"Acknowledge Closing Pitch!" Washington ordered. "Popping smoke now!"

Blazer and Phenomaman helped carry the non-flying heroes clear of the zone as the supporting grenadiers switched from anti-armor to smoke rounds, covering the entire battlefield in zero-visibility hot fog. Everybody with super-strength started throwing what large chunks of anything they could reach, occupying Shroud's point defense with incoming threats that he had to monitor and engage. Prism flooded the smoke with holographic decoys of herself and the others, further distracting Shroud and extending his target-tracking capabilities to their utmost limit

"Okay, he's distracted and blind! This is your window!" Cap called into his radio-

-and Shroud, already extended to his limit of action dealing with all the incoming attacks and with half his sensors cut off by the smoke, failed to notice in time as the latest hero to arrive roared down out of the sky and spiked the spider-mech's central body with a massive grappling hook. The heavy anchor cable attached to the hook snapped taut as a winch furiously reeled in, yanking the hero right down out of the sky to crash directly into the top of Shroud's mech -

-and the blazing blue energy blade emerged triumphantly from the fist of the Mecha Man armor and, driven by the full power of Robert's furious descent as augmented by the grappling hook, cored directly through the nigh-invincible metal hide of the mech and into the main engine compartment.

"What was that you were saying about being 'a thousand steps ahead', Shroud?" Robert mocked him from his own armor's cockpit. "Don't seem to have predicted this, have you?"

"The Astral Pulse!" Shroud shrieked. "YOU have it?"

"Nah, just running on a couple of the shitty prototypes hotwired in parallel and a bunch of surge capacitors." Robert replied matter-of-factly as all the heroes wolfpacked Shroud's beleaguered and pinned mech with every attack they had. "I'll be lucky if this setup lasts for ten minutes before I short something out. But you'll be lucky if you're still alive in five."

"Give it up, Shroud!" Blazer shouted as her and Phenomaman dug their fingertips deep into the rents already made in the armor and tried to peel the sphere open, while Mecha Man kept battering it with his energy blade and heavy blasters. "Just hit your ejector seat! I can already see your engines starting to catch fire! If you keep this up much longer-!"

"To the last, I grapple with thee." Shroud quoted as he dragged the grappling Mecha Man with him towards the edge of the dock, step by struggling step. "From hell's heart I stab at thee-"

"I'm getting some anomalous instrument readings- shit, his pulse reactor's destabilizing!" Robert shouted. "He's going to blow!"

"Get him the hell out of here!" Blazer shouted, as Shroud deliberately drove his mech's legs deep into the concrete of the dock and engaged his anchor clamps. Malevola desperately used her portals to sever one leg as Mecha Man slashed another, and Blazer and Phenoaman combined their strength to sever a third-

"Too late, heroes." Shroud's voice mocked as his mech's destabilizing core built to critical mass. "For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee-"

"Everybody hit the dock!" Cap ordered. "Crack open the cement!"

All the heroes present switched from attacking the anchor points Shroud had driven into the concrete pier to smashing the concrete itself, and the last attachment finally came free. Mecha Man flared all his thrusters to full emergency overload and tackled Shroud's spider mech right off the pier and out over the open ocean, the two mechanical titans grappling with each other to the very end.

"Robert! No!" Blazer screamed in agony as she tossed the severed mecha leg she had been burdened with aside - and then the ejector seat that Royd had built into the latest iteration of the Mecha Man armor deployed. Robert's escape system blasted him out the back of the armor and well into the air as Shroud's spider-mech detonated in a giant red fireball of plasma underneath him. Robert's dangling, parachuted form helplessly floated in the air as the fireball welled up to engulf him - and then Phenomaman pulled him free at the last moment, speeding them ahead of the shockwave and back towards shore.

"Thanks, man." Robert said dazedly. "Oh, and I'm really sorry for kissing your girl."

"You are a worthy hero, and did not deserve such a fate." Phenomaman acknowledged Robert amiably. "And I… was not the man who could make her happy, and she deserves to be. But you are that man, and I wish you both well."

"Thank you so much." Blazer flew up to encompass both her ex and current boyfriend in a tearful hug. "Both of you."

"Hah." Flambae sighed with satisfaction as the entire team drew up together on the dock to stare out at the smoking, roiling water where both suits were now nothing but vapor and fragments. "Well, I guess you're not a bitch after all." He greeted the arriving Robert.

"It took this much to finally convince you?" Robert rolled his eyes at him. "I only had to lose my armor again a second time!"

"You think Shroud's really dead?" Visi stared out over the ocean into the late afternoon sun. "Or did he have an ejector seat like you did?"

"Drone team, did you have imagery of that event?" Washington queried the tactical net.

"We're doing the instant replay now." they answered. "We've got high-resolution footage of the whole thing – and, that's a negative, Command. Unless he was invisible or going straight down into the water, nobody got out."

"Harbor Patrol, we need you to come in and start a search of the water. Michaels, remount four of your tactical squads in the Suburbans and have them do a walkdown of the shore both north and south of here for at least a mile each way, coordinate with local PD for the rest. If Shroud did get out, then I don't want him going far." Washington ordered. "Hammer Flight, secure from station and return to base. Looks like we don't need any air support today after all."

"Glad to hear it, Command." Hammer One acknowledged as the two fighter planes turned and flew for home. "Nice job down there, guys."

"Maybe he's dead, maybe he's not." Cap nodded. "But either way, he's lost everything he's built up. All of his people are either captured or fled. And nobody in Los Angeles will follow him again, not after he's flopped this hard and wrecked every crime network he touched. Whether dead or fugitive, now he's just an old man with a calculator in his head and an antique gun he can barely shoot."

"Yeah." Visi breathed out in awe. "Holy shit. We won."

"We certainly did." Blazer agreed sunnily, as her and Robert stepped up alongside. "I'm sorry about your suit, though."

"Ehhh, SDN can afford it." Robert tossed off amusedly. "After all, the contract to help me rebuild it specified that the contract wasn't executed until a successful test flight was completed."

"Are you saying that I have to pay for another one?" Blazer pretended to pout, and everybody laughed.

"Well, maybe not right away." Robert conceded with a chuckle. "But hey, it's not like either of us is going anywhere."

Phenomaman nodded to them both and flew off, and both couples each grabbed their loved one and began kissing them in the light of the early sunset, as the rest of the Z-Team cheered and catcalled and the agents all around them traded amused smiles.

"And tonight, the drinks are on me!" a gleeful Punch Up yelled as him and Coupe smiled at each other, and everybody burst into cheers at that.

* * * * *
​

An elderly man with thin steel-framed glasses and neatly trimmed gray hair and beard unplugged the interface cable from his head and rubbed his weary, aching eyes. Around him in a dingy basement lair lay multiple hastily-assembled computer terminals, servers, and switchboxes.

"Boss?" Toxic's voice came from the cellar stairs.

"Down here." Elliot Connors answered.

"The remote control setup worked, then." Toxic greeted his master. "They thought you were in the mech the whole time."

"And now they'll believe I'm dead. Even the most paranoid of them will believe I'm fleeing and powerless." the unmasked Shroud acknowledged.

"Uh… not to be the bearer of bad news, but kinda aren't we all those things?" Toxic agreed. "I mean, look, you know I'm with you to the end. I was up for lethal injection when you made me part of your escape plan, and that's exactly what I'm going back to if they ever catch me. And Lord knows every other gang in LA is kiiiinda pissed at me right now, and you even worse. So even if I wasn't the kind who'd play straight with you as long as you played straight with me – and you have, and I am – I'd still stick it out, 'cause where the fuck else am I gonna go?" Toxic shrugged. "But that doesn't change facts, and the facts are that we are fucking done. Your escape plan is gonna get us out of town with our asses intact, but that's all we're gonna keep. We've lost everything else."

"On the contrary." Elliot's beaming grin shocked Toxic to his core. "We stand to gain everything."

"Have you fried a circuit, boss?" Toxic asked concernedly. "Because-" He stopped and blinked in realization. "No fuckin' way." he said slowly, his voice awestruck.

"Entirely fuckin' way." Elliot grinned back. "The last piece of intelligence that I needed came in from our networks right less than two hours before the heroes arrived. The plan to do a crash takeover of as many of Los Angeles' crime networks as we could so as to have the broadest access to the information necessary for our ultimate goal came through… and several days ahead of the predicted schedule." He chuckled. "Normally I despise luck, but when it works out for me? I'll take it."

"So we know where it is?" Toxic agreed eagerly.

"We know where it is." Elliot confirmed. "And once we obtain the Astral Pulse then all of our losses to date will be entirely irrelevant. So for now we shall lay low and let the heroes enjoy their victory." Elliot began to laugh evilly. "Because I cannot wait to eventually give them their prize."

* * * * *
​

Author's Note: And so, the big mecha battle finally happens. Hope it didn't disappoint.

And yes, Shroud's just a goddamned cockroach, isn't he? But at long last his scheme makes sense – it was everything the Feds had analyzed plus a giant push to finding the Astral Pulse again as soon as he could, and he was willing to make everything else expendable towards that one goal.

Kudos to the posters who suggested a way to get Mecha Man in the fight one last time, I hadn't originally thought of the 'let's do a suicide run with the Proto-Pulses' idea but it really worked out for me.

 

[Lillie Jones]

thanks for the chapters

 

[htgriffin]

"You have no conception of the boundlessness of my ambitions… or the capacity I will have to realize them!" Shroud ranted. "My technology places me one step ahead of you – of SDN, of the government, of everyone! I can calculate your moves a thousand places ahead while you all fumble in the dark!"

Click to shrink...

Translation: "It has been made clear I wasted a decade and a half of my life because I let vindictiveness overrule cold calculation, but am too much of an egomaniac to admit such in public."

 

[cliffc999]

Poster 'The Kijs' on SB contributed this meme in honor of chapter 22:

Spoiler: How The Fight Went Down

 

[Ceartugarda]

We're about to see Shroud at his maxim, aren't we? because Mechaman does NOT have the pulse this time, that's for sure.

 

[ProfessorP.Hardraad]

Just binged the whole thing. Moar. I need moar.

 

[cliffc999]

Earth-Dispatch
Arrival: D Plus 50

"You're certain?" Special Agent in Charge Davis asked the two people standing in front of her desk that Monday morning. Steve and Courtney had spent the entire remaining weekend writing up their statements and helping officially close out their participation in the case, and now it was time to muster out.

"Yes ma'am." Steve Rogers nodded soberly to her after him and Courtney traded confirming glances. "It was a privilege to work with you, and we're glad that we could help resolve the case as quickly and relatively without cost as we did. But…" He shrugged. "This just isn't what we want to do. Not on a permanent basis."

"I deeply regret to hear that, Captain. Both personally and professionally. But I understand your decision, and our door will always remain open. To either of you." she nodded.

"Thank you." Steve nodded. "We'll keep it in mind."

"I still can't stop wondering if Shroud is actually dead." Courtney fretted. "I mean, that was definitely one big explosion, but-" She shook her head.

"Guys like that? If you haven't found the body or at least a big enough piece of the body, then you can never be sure." Steve agreed.

"Absolutely." ASAC Washington nodded. "Granted, an explosion like that wouldn't leave any traces to find in the first place, so our complete lack of a corpse so far proves nothing. But we're certainly not cancelling the APB or the Interpol Red Notice. Seriously, we found enough bombs at the secondary sites to blow up half of Los Angeles... and plans to do exactly that in some kind of demented terror campaign. The terror alert out for Shroud is never expiring after that. So even if he is still alive, he's still on notice."

"If." Courtney agreed meaningfully.

Nick continued more reassuringly. "That having been said, there hasn't been a whisper of a trace of him all weekend. Or Toxic, who we do know survived the battle and evaded capture."

"And in the distinctly more pleasant category of news, here's what we owe you." SAC Davis withdrew a pair of envelopes from a file folder on her desk and handed them over. "Compliments of the US Treasury, and thank you for your service as government contractors."

"Not that you might not be called on to testify later, but that's for later." Nick said. "For right now, you're free to go."

"Good luck, both of you. With whatever you choose to do." Davis stood to shake their hands.

"Farewell, ma'am." Steve answered for both of them. "And good luck closing out the case."

"Oh, we'll be eating out for months on the busts we've made this weekend." Davis smiled. "And so will everybody else on the follow-ups from this case, whether federal, state, or local. Shroud's crime blitzkrieg over the past several months seems to have sucked more than half the organized super-crime in LA into his orbit… and now it's all imploded along with him. So with the thanks of a grateful nation, well done. For both you and all your friends still at SDN – the honest portions of it, at any rate."

The duo finished their goodbyes and left the SAC's office, to be greeted at the door by the second of the two agents they'd originally met when first approaching the FBI.

"Come on, I'll walk you to the door." SSA Sullivan greeted them.

"Thanks, Tom." Nick greeted him. "My desk is swamped right now. I can't spend a minute away from it that I don't really need to."

"Yeah, been a lot of that going around recently." His fellow agent joked back, and the two now-freelance heroes followed Tom into the elevator.

"Invisigal – Courtney – I want to apologize." he broke the silence as they headed down.

"For what?" Courtney asked him confusedly.

"For the last time we'd worked together, and how it ended." Tom shook his head. "Back then we just took your testimony, threw you a bone for it, and then kicked you right back out the door without even trying to act like we could offer you a hand up." He slumped dejectedly. "I was the evaluating agent who'd decided to write you off as incorrigible, and as recent events have more than proven I was entirely wrong to have believed that." He shook his head. "If I hadn't made a snap judgement then… hadn't let myself get so offended at how you were acting that I didn't pay enough attention to what was really going on underneath… well, the fact is that I did. And that my doing so is why several more years were wasted for you, years that are my fault."

"I really don't think they are." Courtney reassured him after a brief pause. "Because you were right. I was fuckin' hopeless back then. I didn't even begin to trust anyone… least of all myself." Her voice turned soft and sad. "If you'd tried offering me a life-line back then, I'd have thought that it was just you running a con… or else giving me a gift-wrapped invitation to try and con you. And then you'd have been right back at square one anyway, when I took your opportunity and pissed all over it."

Steve laid a reassuring hand on Courtney's shoulder but remained silent as Tom probed. "I don't think so. Seriously, just look at you now. We had to have missed something."

"You're asking me for mature introspection?" Courtney chuffed a laugh. "Really not what I'm famous for. But… I think it only started for me when I did my last job for Shroud. When for the first time in my career I couldn't just grab and run, but was forced to actually stick around and look my victim in the face, to see 'em get hurt and almost die… and know that they hadn't done anything to deserve it. When I finally couldn't pretend to myself anymore that what I was doing was just 'victimless crimes' or 'getting my own back'." She chewed her lip. "But even that realization only got me as far as finally hating how I was living and wanting to do something else. It didn't make me able to actually succeed at doing it. Because even after I quit stealing I still couldn't let myself believe that I might ever not be a worthless fuck-up… not until this guy came along." She cocked a thumb at Steve. "It's just impossible to not trust Steve, even when he's telling you something that you'd never believe coming from anyone else."

"Sounds like you should maybe consider a career as a counselor, Captain, not as an agent." Tom joked to him.

"I'm almost beginning to wonder." Steve chuckled. "But if you're asking for my opinion, Courtney, I think that even with everything I or anyone else could do, in the end it ultimately still had to come from inside you - and it did." He shrugged. "Maybe it didn't happen earlier because you just weren't ready until recently. Maybe these things take an irreducible amount of time, no matter how hard people try to do it faster. I'm not sure. But I am sure that the main credit belongs to you and not me. And that even if I'd never come here you'd still have gotten there on your own. Possibly not quite as quickly or as easily, but you'd have gotten there."

"Well, I'm just glad that I never had to find out." Courtney answered Steve lovingly.

"If either of you ever needs a friend on the force, you've got my number." Tom shook both their hands as they stepped out into the lobby. "And good luck to both of you – in whatever you choose to do." He quirked a smile. "As long as it's legal, that is."

"Goes without saying." Steve smiled back. "Stay safe, Tom."

Steve and Courtney stepped out of the Federal building in downtown LA and breathed in the bright morning air. "So, where do we go first?" Courtney asked.

"The bank, to cash these paychecks." Steve decided. "And then I think we should head to a car dealer and start looking at motorcycles."

* * * * *​

Courtney laughed and deliberately rubbed the cotton candy on the tip of Steve's nose as retaliation for how he'd just dabbed some on hers. "You do know that 'I'm going to Disney Land' is a meme, right?"

"But we had free tickets!" Steve protested piously. "We couldn't just waste them!"

"I don't know what SDN's head office was thinking, emailing those comp passes to everybody involved in the Shroud case 'as thanks for their efforts'. As if that's going to make me any less likely to sue them." Courtney grabbed a napkin from her pocket and wiped the cotton candy off her nose and then Steve's as they both walked along through the lunchtime crowd at the famous theme park in Anaheim. "Still, doesn't mean I'm not going to take the free stuff and run."

"I thought you were giving that kind of thing up." Steve observed with a butter-wouldn't-melt-in-my-mouth tone of voice.

Courtney burst out laughing, immediately followed by Steve's more gentle chuckling. "But at least I waited until the rightful owner gave it to me this time, so, progress!"

"What do you want to do first?" Steve asked her as they strolled away from the concession stand and deeper into the park.

"Space Mountain." Courtney decided immediately. "I've heard about it my whole life, and now I finally have a chance to see it."

"You've never been here before? It's been right down the road from you the entire time." Steve asked curiously.

"Well, obviously the gene donors would never bother taking me." Courtney sighed. "As for why not come here myself later?" She looked up and around at the entire innocent, cheerful venue. "Just… didn't seem to be any point, I guess. Not if I was just by myself."

"Well, that's certainly not a problem for you today." Steve smiled down at her. "And… I'd like it to stay that way. For a very long time."

"I'd like that too." Courtney replied softly, and leaned further into Steve's arm as it came up around over her shoulders as they got into line at the attraction.

* * * * *​

Courtney and Steve stood in the early evening twilight staring disgustedly at the motorcycle that had stubbornly refused to start no matter how much Steve had fiddled with the engine. "Fuckin' seriously?" she swore. "We just bought this thing!"

"Oh, the dealer's definitely paying for a warranty repair." Steve agreed firmly as he pulled out his smartphone to call for a tow truck and an Uber. "Okay, our ride should be here soon."

"Eh, it was still a great day even with the annoyance." Courtney agreed. Soon enough the tow truck company came and loaded up their motorcycle for its trip back to the car dealer, and Courtney and Steve got into the back of the Uber that arrived for them shortly afterwards.

"Where we going?" the driver asked them.

"SDN Torrance branch." Steve answered.

"Need to pick up your, uh, thingy, from Royd?" Courtney asked him as the car set into motion.

"Yeah, Robert and him couldn't stop begging me for a chance to study it after they saw it, uh, stop that thing at the docks." Steve answered vaguely as they both glanced at the driver. "And I needed a place to store it securely while we went out anyway, so why not?"

"And we can catch a ride on from there, no problem." Courtney agreed. "Hey, isn't Robert's housewarming party later tonight?"

"It is." Steve acknowledged. "I helped chip in for a new couch, Mandy will be bringing it. What are you getting him?'

"Bluetooth speakers." She pulled out a small package from her amusement park swag bag. "Saw 'em in the gift shop, thought he'd like some for his tunes."

Steve looked up and noted a peculiarity about their route. "Excuse me, why are we taking the coast road?" he leaned forward to ask the driver politely. "It's a little out of the way."

"Traffic alert says the stoplights are blinking red all down 5th​ Street, so if I took the direct route there we'd be stuck in stop-and-go for longer than if we just detoured around." The driver answered reasonably, as he held up his smartphone so Steve could see the flash notice on his traffic app. "Traffic computer must have blown a fuse or something."

"Ah. Sorry." Steve apologized.

The driver nodded back matter-of-factly. "Nah, it's good when people ask questions. Most accidents happen when people aren't alert."

"I guess we're not the only ones having technical problems today." Courtney snarked.

"I guess not." Steve answered philosophically. "But if minor stuff like this is the worst that's going on for us, then we're still having a pretty good day."

"No kidding." Courtney agreed enthusiastically. "It is so nice to finally be out of crisis mode for a whi-"

And then, as if tempting fate, a brilliant blue flash from the bridge windows of a freighter moored adjacent to the road that they were driving down suddenly brought every car on the road to a halt. The area went dark for several hundred yards around as all the street lights flared out and all the nearby buildings went dark.

"What the hell?" their Uber driver cursed as he barely stood on his brakes in time to avoid hitting the car in front.

"Electromagnetic pulse." Steve noted crisply as he took in the situation. "Courtney, is your phone dead?"

"Fried." she said, looking at the blank screen. "Yours?"

"Likewise." Steve said, and the driver also held up his blank and dead smartphone.

"So, uh, what now?" their driver asked. "And what the hell even happened? I thought EMPs only came from, like, nuclear bombs and shit."

"Somebody is apparently doing reckless experiments with super-technology on board that ship." Steve noted, as he dug into his wallet for a hundred-dollar bill. "And while I've no doubt the authorities will get here soon enough, they don't know exactly where in this whole area the trouble is centered while we do. So before somebody over there gets away…" Steve trailed off.

"I guess we're back on the clock." Courtney agreed ruefully as Steve paid the driver. "Thanks for the ride."

"What, you guys cops or something?" their confused driver asked them as they both left the car.

"Or something." Steve agreed. "Stay safe."

The two heroes trotted swiftly over to the pier, taking care to stay out of easy view of anyone onboard the ship. Cap and Visi set their swag bags carefully down out of the way and cased the situation.

"I haven't heard any engine noises and we haven't seen anyone get off, so unless they're paddling a canoe they're still on that ship." Cap noted. "But whoever they are they have to know that they just attracted a lot of attention, so they'll be as nervous as a cat up a tree."

"I scout ahead?" Visi asked.

"Yes, but first we both get on that ship. You trigger something, I can't support you from in here."

"So we both walk all the way across that open gangplank?" Visi shook her head. "Only one of us turns invisible."

"So we don't use the gangplank." Cap shook his head. "Climb on."

Visi looked down incredulously from where she was perched piggy-back on Cap's shoulders as her boyfriend literally ran up the mooring line tying the freighter's bow to the shore, balancing on it as easily as if it were a level sidewalk. "This is so cool." she whispered.

"Well, they say work that you love isn't really work at all." Cap agreed amusedly as they crept onto the silent forecastle. "Sealed." he whispered as they tried the nearest hatch on the forward superstructure.

"Bad guy's lab is up at the top of the rear tower thingy anyway." Visi nodded. "Okay, I don't see anybody moving topside so we can try creeping a little closer down the side there."

"Cargo hold's open, we can look down from here." Cap agreed, and a minute later they both whistled softly as they peered down into the blackened expanse.

"Are those laser turrets?" Visi whispered incredulously at the rows of deactivated weapons mounts spaced evenly around the inside of the cargo hold, mounted high up on the walls where they'd turn the entire hold into a killing floor.

"Automated sentry guns for interior security." Cap noted. "Looks like their fire control's been fried by the EMP as well. This isn't a normal ship, it's like a HYDRA laboratory that floats or something."

"If it's a bad guy lair, then where's the bad guys?" Visi looked at Cap alarmedly.

"Either waiting to ambush us, or else already taken out by something else on this ship even more dangerous than they were." Cap said worriedly. "This is the point at which it's usually best to call for backup."

"Except our phones are bricked." Visi reminded him. "And if we go back ashore, whatever or whoever this is gets away scott free."

"Marine radio." Cap decided. "The emergency backup gear will probably be old-fashioned enough it didn't have microchips to fry – and more importantly, it would have been stored while turned off and also run on batteries. So all we'd need to do is turn one on again and voila, we can call the Coast Guard."

"Where would they keep 'em?" Visi asked.

"If this were a Navy ship I'd know where the survival kits are supposed to be, but there's no guarantees a civilian vessel would be equally as thorough about precautions." Cap nodded. "Only place that we could find one for sure would be the radio room… which is right up there alongside the bridge." He nodded at the superstructure tower the EMP flare had originally come from.

"Now I go invisible and scout ahead." Visi insisted firmly.

"I could try climbing up the outside of the superstructure and in through the bridge windows." Cap suggested.

"Then you're a sitting duck for any sniper sitting anywhere within half a mile of this place." Visi shook her head.

"No backup, blacked-out ship, and now we're splitting the party." Cap sighed. "This deal is getting worse all the time."

"Oh, if only we could leave a garrison here." Visi completed the Star Wars meme.

Cap shrugged helplessly and they both crept into the bottom level of the superstructure.

"Emergency generator for the bridge." Cap noted the clearly marked stencils on one nearby hatch. "Let's see if I can restart it." Moving cautiously and keeping a lookout all around the duo entered the auxiliary engineering space and after a minute of work, Cap managed to get the power back on. Dim emergency lighting flickered into place all through the superstructure.

"Okay, now there'll be power for the main radios as well – assuming any of that gear survived." Cap said.

"Yeah, but if any bad guys are still conscious after that boom now they'll know-" Visi shrugged. "Still, we couldn't not do it, we needed the lights just to see where we're going."

"Hopefully they'll think one of their own guys did it." Cap said. "I'll wait here to ambush whatever damage control crew they send, you head up there and scout it out. If there's few enough we can take them-"

"-I step back and enjoy watching my boyfriend punch more bad guys." Visi grinned. "But if the odds suck too hard, then we do fall back."

Visi kissed Cap for luck and then went transparent, as she headed up the nearby stairs towards the upper superstructure. Cap took up an ambush position across the hall from the generator room and waited.

A distant sound of footsteps along the metal deckplates made him tense. Someone was coming-

A single disreputable looking goon with a thin brown crewcut and dressed in stained blue coveralls came fumbling his way down the passage, mumbling indistinctly to himself under his breath. The man stopped in apparent confusion at the generator room door already being open, then shrugged and stepped inside. Cap stealthily stepped forward to take his clear shot at the man's unguarded back-

-and at the last second the man turned around and flicked his hand directly at Cap's face, spattering him with searing caustic drops he'd somehow conjured out of nowhere. Cap's blink reflex was just barely quick enough to save his vision, but even so enough of the searing acid had gotten past his eyelids to leave him half-blinded and trying to squint painfully through floods of tears. A super-strong kick caught the temporarily defenseless super-soldier square in the chest and ragdolled him right back out the door and across the hall to land flat on his back in the opposite compartment.

"Surprise!" Cap heard Toxic's voice gloating cheerfully. "Didn't expect me to hit so hard, didja? But I've had an upgrade since the last time we met. I'm more juiced than I've ever been!" Toxic laughed triumphantly. "And I'm not the only one!"

Several decks above Visi stopped as she thought she just barely heard faint noises from below, and then resumed her movement after a careful pause to look-and-listen. The corridors of the ship were disturbingly empty – whatever supervillain crew had been using this place for a lab site had apparently already evacuated. Which was absurd, as her and Steve would have seen them leave, unless they were all hiding out belowdecks-

After a careful pause to renew her invisibility Visi came out onto the bridge level and began a swift yet thorough sweep of the hallways. Nothing visible, no movement, no suspicious sounds- and there was the armored steel hatch clearly labelled 'Radio Room'…

Below decks, the blinded Cap hurriedly kipped-up to his feet and charged forward to meet Toxic's rush. Ignoring where he thought the acid villain might be, he instead ran to grasp where he remembered the edge of the compartment's open hatch had been and with his full strength he slammed it shut as hard as he could. As Cap had hoped, the villain's pause to gloat had meant the was still only in the process of entering the room despite the time Cap had needed to recover, and so the swinging steel hatch slammed directly into Toxic's face with Cap's full strength.

"Mmmph!" the acid villain screamed in rage as he was sent reeling back into the hallway and chipped several teeth. The blinded Cap knew he'd have only a moment before Toxic resumed his rush, and fighting an opponent at least as strong as himself and who had flesh-melting acid skin was a bad enough idea even when you could see. But if he could-

A vigorous leap brought Cap's hands level with the ceiling, and his rapidly flailing arms managed to find the overhead pipe he'd been hoping to grasp. Rapidly sliding his other hand down the pipe until his fingertips found the protrusion he'd been hoping for, Cap firmly grasped one of the nozzles of the overhead sprinkler system and snapped it right off the firemain pipe with his full strength. The downpouring water cleared Cap's vision enough for him to see that Toxic had just re-entered the room, and rather than kick at the villain the dangling Cap instead swung forward from where he hung on the piping to clasp both ankles around Toxic's neck and pull the villain sprawling forward into the compartment to be flung heavily into the far wall.

Cap dropped down, twisting nimbly in mid-air to face off against Toxic as the villain regained his feet, and the acid villain's face twisted in alarm as he realized that not only was he trapped in a small compartment with Cap between him and the door, but the water flooding down from the broken sprinkler system was washing away enough of his acid coating to neutralize his advantage. And just as his plight really began to sink in, Cap leapt furiously to the attack without a further word.

With clenched fist raised, Visi rounded the corner of the hatch and stepped into the radio room. Several lights dimly flickered on nearby panels, the emergency generator having restored power to some of the systems. She noted in passing that the gear was indeed mostly antiquated models as Cap had anticipated, with the oldest components dating from the analog era and thus very likely to still be functioning now that power had been restored after the EMP. After a final look around to make sure nobody was lurking in ambush, she reached out to switch on the radio-

-and was knocked to the floor, barely conscious, by the electrical shock trap that had already been wired into the panel.

"Ungggh!" Toxic grunted in pain as his brawling punch was swiftly parried. Cap trapped Toxic's punching arm by twisting it up in his own and then lifted Toxic bodily off his feet to literally bounce him off the ceiling and leave him prone on the floor. Toxic gritted and concentrated on activating his flight powers, rocketing right up off the floor to tackle Cap into the bulkhead, then throwing a furious flurry of punches into his momentarily stunned opponent.

Toxic crumpled over in pain when Cap's furious heel stomp almost broke his foot, and then Cap used the momentary opening to swing Toxic around into a furious bear hug from behind and bore down with his full strength. Toxic screamed in rage and took off flying again, starting to slam the hero bodily off the walls and ceiling as he left Cap with absolutely no leverage to control Toxic's movements anymore now that his feet were off the ground.

Grunting at the impact as Toxic furiously flung himself backwards against the wall again and again, Cap gritted his teeth at the watered-down acid stinging his forearms and chest through his slowly dissolving leather jacket and crushed the villain's ribcage as hard as he could, trying to compress his chest and cut off Toxic's breath.

"You don't know to rig an EMP like that. If you're here, Shroud's here!" Cap spat grimly.

"No duh, steroid brain!" Toxic sneered back in-between gasps for air. "And you won't believe- what he's got planned- for that backstabbing little bitch-"

Expertly timing his move, Cap bent backwards and deliberately went along with Toxic's motion just as the villain tried to slam them both back up against the wall yet again. Flipping Toxic up and over him in a devastating reverse suplex, Cap had the acid villain turned upside down and slammed back into the steel bulkhead with the both the full force of Cap's muscles and his own momentum. Stunned, Toxic posed no effective resistance as Cap straightened up and swung Toxic back around like cracking a whip to dash the villain's skull against the steel deckplates. Cap then hauled him up by the throat and slammed his back against the bulkhead while his other hand wound up for the most desperate haymaker he'd ever thrown, and the punch took Toxic square in the head and solidly compressed the villain's already multiply-battered skull between Cap's indomitable fist and the hull of the ship. Thoroughly concussed, with an almost certain skull fracture, and extremely unconscious, Toxic fell as limply to the ground as a spilled sack of rice.

The electrical lights all flickered as a distant cry of pain sounded through the chip. "Courtney!" Cap cried in alarm, and pausing only long enough to pull the armored compartment hatch shut from the outside and jam the handle of a fire axe taken off a nearby wall mounting through the hatch wheel to jam it shut and trap Toxic in the improvised steel cell, Cap frantically ran for the stairway and up the decks to the bridge.

Visi regained alertness just in time to see Shroud plucking her inhaler out of her jacket pocket. Still dazed from the electric shock, her attempt to punch him was only met by an effortless jab from the cattle prod Shroud held in his other hand which sent her right back down to the radio room deckplates, teeth helplessly chattering.

"Did you truly delude yourself that you could escape my vengeance, Courtney Doe?" Shroud mocked her. "Or that your knight in shining armor would ride to your rescue yet again? You are a petty parasite, forever propped up only by the effort of others. You lie and you steal and you take, but you never produce. You never give."

His only reply was Courtney's weakly upthrust middle finger.

"You will not die just yet." Shroud mocked the defenseless woman coolly, as he withdrew the antique revolver from within his long jacket. "First you will live just long enough to know that-" A slight beeping from Shroud's pocket interrupted him, and he swiftly withdrew a remote control just long enough to raise an eyebrow at the readout. "Ah, Toxic has been defeated, and now he rushes to your rescue."

"If you start running… maybe you can live long enough to jump out the window before he catches you." Courtney grinned defiantly up at him from the floor.

"That will not be necessary." Shroud mocked her, entirely unconcerned. "Three… two… one…"

Courtney's defiant expression fell away to horror as the sound of several explosive charges detonating echoed thunderously from the nearby stairwell.

"Zero." Shroud finished icily. "I did underestimate him before, several times, but it is of no matter. My trap today was perfectly planned. Perfectly baited. And perfectly executed. And it made sure to incorporate redundancies, one of which the Captain has just encountered." Shroud chuckled. "I hate you both, you know. Even more than Mecha Man now. Him for having been the catalyst for all my defeats, and you for having unaccountably been the worthless whore that he was inexplicably besotted with and the only reason he stayed here at all! But now you will die helpless and alone, with the last thought echoing in your otherwise empty mind that the man you love has also done the same." Shroud chuckled. "I calculate that the Captain will still have survived that explosion. He will still be heroically dragging himself up those stairs, inch by painful inch, desperate to save you in time."

Courtney was kicked back down to the deckplates as she unsteadily tried to rise again, and then her eyes opened wide in horror as Shroud dropped an unpinned smoke grenade on the deck directly adjacent to her.

"And he will never arrive. I will make certain of that. Just as you will certainly die here, choking on your own pathetic weakness. Good-bye, Courtney. We will not speak again."

Gasping and choking, Courtney curled up on the floor in despair as she felt the passages in her lungs spasm shut. Her vision began to dim as she knew, she just knew that the minute or two of residual oxygen in her blood would be the last breaths she ever drew, just as Shroud would go back downstairs and finish off the weakened Steve, because even he would barely be able to move after walking directly into that many land mines-

Her palm slammed flat on the floor as she pushed herself upright. Get up, Courtney. Get on your fucking feet! Because if you can't save Steve… then you can damned well avenge him!

Forcing back her panic and growing unconsciousness on sheer willpower, Courtney frantically looked around the compartment. Know where the bad guys are… know the terrain…

Hatch closed. Won't have enough strength or time to finish opening it. Barely a minute of oxygen left. Need to restart my breathing- but the compartment's full of smoke- and where there's smoke there's fire-

The saying echoed incongruously through Courtney's head, leaving her blinking at the irrelevancy of it – before her eyes opened in realization. Focusing her gaze with fanatic determination on a little orange-painted box hanging on the compartment wall, she shakily stepped towards it, desperately marshalling all her failing strength and fading vision to hopefully reach it before- but she was already starting to black out-

Cap shakily regained consciousness, still bleeding from his nose and one ear from the force of the concussive blast he'd just taken. Shroud had left multiple IEDs taped in strategic locations on the stairwell walls and then covered up with duct tape and gray spray paint, almost entirely invisible in the dimly lit gloom until it was too late. The motion-sensitive proximity fuse discreetly glued to the overhead had left no tripwire or trigger that he could have seen, and while his superhuman resilience had gotten him through a confined-space explosion that would have turned an unenhanced person into a dying sack of flesh pulp without even any broken bones, he was still heavily concussed, badly bruised over most of his body, and looking at hours of recuperative time even with his regeneration before he'd be in fighting shape again.

And he didn't have minutes, let alone hours. Shroud stood gloating at him safely out of reach at the top of the stairway, the heavy revolver in his hand levelled directly at him.

"Before I kill you, there's one thing I'd like to tell you." Shroud chuckled. "She's going to die first, choking and suffocating, and the very last thought that echoes thorough her despairing mind will be that you failed to reach her in time."

"Swear to God… I will end you." Steve slurred half-consciously. "I've met Nazis… I hated less than you…"

"The Nazis." Shroud scoffed. "That delusional madman only dreamed of conquering the world. I will succeed at doing so."

"You… and half a million other idiots… all the same. And you all… never getting close." Steve slowly, painfully, dragged himself facedown up another step.

"You never comprehended my true plan." Shroud scoffed. "Controlling the crime of Los Angeles? Why would I care only about a petty sandbox? It was a means to an end, nothing more." Shroud gloated. "This end." He proudly tapped the brilliantly glowing capsule inset into in the interface socket on the side of his head with one finger. "Even with the lesser pulse reactor capsules I could construct, my predictive technology still granted me intelligence greater than any other human who had ever lived. But with the true Astral Pulse, I see everything. It's all there. Every permutation, every outcome. I could see exactly how to manipulate you and her into this trap, every faultless step occurring exactly according to my design. And I can do the same to Robert, and I will. And after all those who have wronged me have suffered, I can go on to do the same to the world."

"So shoot me then." Steve defiantly gasped, still barely able to raise up to one knee. "Use up all the bullets you got left. I'll still have enough gas left in the tank… to take you with me."

"Your beloved is dead now." Shroud's words chilled Steve's blood. "Her maximum possible survival window has just expired." He levelled the revolver at Steve's face. "One bullet for you. The last one for Robert. Good-bye, Captain Amer-"

And the words died in Shroud's throat with a helpless gasp as a set of invisible fingers plucked the Astral Pulse directly out of his cranial socket, while Courtney's other hand rapidly yanked Shroud's arm upwards and twisted his wrist enough to make him drop the gun.

With a contemptuous shove to Shroud's back the materializing Courtney sent the elderly man, still mentally paralyzed from his sudden loss of nigh-omniscience, sprawling face-first down the stairs to land almost nose-to-nose with Steve. The villain and the super-soldier both looked up to see a triumphant Courtney standing on top of the stairs, the blue-gleaming Astral Pulse held high in one hand… and the plastic bag of a maritime-issue Emergency Escape Breathing Device, a self-contained head-sized sack attached to a fifteen-minute oxygen capsule, firmly pulled over her head.

Steve began to helplessly chuckle as he took in the entire situation, and then he grinned weakly up at Courtney. "…I had 'em on the ropes."

And for a long minute, the stairwell was filled with nothing but tearful embraces and laughter.

* * * * *​

"You're sure you don't need to go to the hospital?" SSA Sullivan asked Cap as the paramedics finished cleaning out his various cuts and scrapes and tut-tutting at the several chemical burns spotting his hands and arms. Behind them, the despondent Elliot Connors slumped nigh-catatonically in his restraints as he was loaded, unresisting, into the back of a police vehicle. Toxic's still-comatose body was being loaded into the back of an ambulance, surrounded by heavily-armed agents, as the dockside parking lot was positively full of blinking lights and emergency vehicles.

"Eh, I'll walk it off." Steve waved his concerns away. "By this time tomorrow you won't even see any marks."

"Give it up, Tom." Courtney said affectionately. "We've still got a housewarming party to get to tonight, and no way are we missing it."

"One thing I can't figure. How the hell did Shroud's prediction tech blow the trap with Courtney so badly?" the agent asked.

"The thing about equations is, if you don't have any numbers to plug in then even the best calculator in the world can't get you any answers." Steve said. "Shroud's 'perfect plan' could take into account every factor he knew or could even logically guess at – but apparently he didn't know the slightest thing about ships or sailing, or else he'd have accounted for the fact that every seagoing vessel stashes emergency breathing gear in almost every critical compartment. It's the only way the crew can get out of confined spaces like that in case of a fire without dying of smoke inhalation. What I don't get is how Courtney knew about it. I got taught basic shipboard damage control in SHIELD training, but she was never in the Navy or anything like it."

"Remember that battleship movie I made you watch a couple nights ago?" Courtney giggled. "You spent half the movie ranting about how unrealistic the procedures were and how the plot would never have worked on a real ship. And at the last minute I remembered what you'd said then about oxygen gear."

"Oh no." Steve moaned as he despairingly facepalmed. "Are you saying that letting you torture me with that thing is ultimately what saved my life? I am never getting control of the TV remote back, am I?"

"Never." Courtney gloated viciously, and everybody laughed.

"Well, that closes the case." SSA Sullivan shook his head. "Talk about a standout entry for America's Dumbest Criminals. That guy had everything he'd been going after already in the palm of his hand and a free and clear escape route, but instead he does this. If he hadn't deliberately stuck around to try and personally get back at you and the others, nobody would ever have caught up to him."

"Tolkien said it best." Steve shrugged. "Evil will oft evil mar."

"Ain't that the truth. Well… thanks again. Captain." He chuckled. "Oh, and it occurs to me that since you officially signed out of government employ this morning and were private citizens just now, you two are eligible for the reward that was posted yesterday for Shroud's capture."

"Wait, you'd posted like a million dollars for him." Courtney blinked. "He was in Ten Most Wanted territory!"

"Two million. And you can come by the office tomorrow to pick up the check. Again." Tom chuckled.

"I pick the motorcycle this time." Courtney immediately insisted.

"That's entirely fair. You caught the bad guy." Steve agreed.

"Can I give you guys a ride anywhere?" Tom asked as they stood up to leave.

"Robert's apartment." Steve said. "We're late for the party. Oh, and if you want to come, I think they'd be glad to have you."

"Thanks, but I'm going to be working late tonight." Tom turned them down cheerfully as he turned to look at where Shroud's prisoner transport had recently left the lot. "But thanks for the collar. Nick's gonna flip when he hears he missed this."

After a short ride the agent cheerfully bade the disheveled pair of heroes farewell, and they headed up the stairs to Robert's apartment.

"Sorry we're late." Steve greeted the room full of partygoers as they all turned to look in shock at the battered and scraped duo.

"Shroud lured us into a deathtrap on the way here, we had to hero our way out of it." Courtney tossed off unconcernedly. "Y'know, the usual."

"You two simply can't stay out of trouble for a minute, can you?" Blazer fussed at them. "You're sure you're all right?"

"We're fine." Steve assured her. "And Shroud and Toxic are on their way back to prison… and this time, neither of them is ever going to be leaving. FBI's hauling them off right now."

"You have got to give me the whole story." Robert greeted them both enthusiastically. "But we can do that later. For right now, come in and sit down before you fall down."

"Why didn't you call us?" Flambae broke in. "You tried to tackle him all by yourselves? Idiots!" he cursed them affectionately.

"That was the first thing we thought of, but he jammed our comms." Courtney said. "Really, it wasn't a bad trap. Shroud put a lot of effort into it."

"Which is why you will hurt yourselves laughing when you hear how he fucked it up at the end." Steve broke in cheerfully. "Seriously, it was the biggest pratfall I'd ever seen in my life. He was so busy focusing on me he drastically underestimated Courtney, and she left him not knowing which way was up."

"Then congratulations." Chase greeted Courtney warmly, as she blushed. "And since there's no fool like an old fool, let me take this opportunity to publicly admit that when it came to you, I didn't know what the fuck I was talkin' about." He shook Courtney's hand warmly. "You did good. I'm happy for you." He looked around at the Z-Team. "God help me, I'm even startin' to think you dipshits might not be entirely worthless." he groused. "It's senile dementia finally catchin' up to me, I'm sure."

"So, I'm assuming you lost my housewarming gift in this deathtrap." Robert tried to joke.

"Yeah, the EMP he used trashed the speakers I was going to get you." Courtney smiled as she withdrew her hand from her jacket pocket. "But I still managed to snag a little knickknack for you as a replacement. I hope you don't mind."

Robert stared down in awe at the blue-glowing Astral Pulse sitting on Courtney's palm. "Holy shit. How did you find it?"

"Shroud found it." Steve answered for her. "Turns out his whole 'take over the crime in LA' plan was just to get himself enough contacts and resources to turn the whole town upside down searching for it. Apparently he turned up the lead he needed right before the big raid we did – that's why he put so much effort into faking his death and pulling out. Everything else was expendable."

"And after he'd almost won everything, then the dumbass fucked up and delivered it right to us." Courtney laughed as Robert held up the Pulse and stared at it wonderingly.

"Now I really am going to have to pay for a new suit." Blazer tried to joke.

"Yeah." Chase agreed, his face melancholy. "I guess Mecha Man really does ride again in the end."

Robert stared resolutely down at the Astral Pulse… and then turned and tossed it to a surprised Royd, who barely managed to snag it out of the air by reflex. "Maybe later. But for right now, I've got a different idea." He looked up at the whole assembly. "When Shroud had me captive, I taunted him with having been such a dumbass that the only thing he could think of to do with the Astral Pulse was obsess on it as a singular tool of petty revenge instead of taking his design and mass-producing it to help solve the energy crisis or other things."

"I remember." Coupe nodded quietly. "Really, you were quite vivid in your wording."

"So I'd be kinda a hypocrite if I just went back to doing the same thing myself." Robert looked at Royd. "Our Proto-Pulse experiments had already managed to solve every gearhead problem regarding the Pulse's assembly. The only thing we were never able to crack - that we were never going to crack – was the one missing key insight on the science genius end." He smiled at Royd. "But now that we've got the original to work with, you think that we can put that on your workbench and reverse-engineer it to finally solve the last piece of the puzzle?"

Royd grinned back wildly. "I tink that I really want us to try."

"Robert?" Chase looked at him wonderingly. "You really giving it up?"

"No." he shook his head. "But I am willing to put it on hold while we finish the more important part first. That's not a sacrifice, that's just patience." He drew Chase into a reassuring hug. "Two generations of Mecha Men died in that suit. I know you were always terrified that I'd be the third – that you never wanted me to climb back into that thing in the first place. And now that I'm not alone anymore, I finally understand why. So maybe I'll live in that suit again later on, or maybe not. But even if I do then I'm going to live in it, not die in it."

Everybody pretended to ignore Chase sniffling in joy as he hugged his unofficial nephew tightly

"And that's what you'll be doing tomorrow." Blazer gently insisted as she drew Robert into her embrace away from Chase's. "Because for tonight… I really want to dance."

"Hell yeah!" Prism cheered. "I brought the tunes, so let's put that shit up!"

Everybody gleefully hit the improvised dance floor as Prism queued up a song on her playlist and the music started.

I wake up exhausted, even in the morning
Like I'm made out of decaf, I'm barely running
Oh, and I hate parties
It's just too many bodies
I don't like small talk, I'm always leaving early

Steve and Courtney fell into a world of their own as all the other couples at the party did likewise, and even the singles cheerfully paired off to share a dance. Their eyes met as the next chorus spoke directly to their hearts.

Then I met you and my eyes changed
And now you're in my eye range, I'm gunning for you
You changed my heart in a big way
Now every day's a celebration and I wanna say

When you're around, it's already alright
Already alright, like a radio
I'm tuning into you
(I'm tuning into you)
You're turning me on
(You're turning me on)

* * * * *​

Author's Note: In the draft version, Steve saved Courtney in the end. But now that the story's fully evolving, it worked out so much better when I did it the other way around. Steve's been coming in clutch for everyone throughout the whole story, so now she finally gets to be the one who comes in clutch for him. (Thanos) Perfectly balanced, as all things must be.

Yes, the Avengers quote is deliberate. Courtney didn't even get it from Steve, that never came up in conversation. She just thought it anyway. Truly some things are timeless even across alternate timelines.

You can of course see how Shroud baited them into the trap with the free tickets and the traffic hacking and all. (Also, Toxic had poured sugar in their gas tank). He had the Astral Pulse running at full power through the whole sequence, he could predict them perfectly. Right up until the part where he got his ass kicked by his own tunnel vision and ignorance, just like Shroud always does.

And also because your author actually did use to be in the Navy and was pleased as punch that his knowledge of obscure damage control procedures finally had a practical use for the first time in decades. Because the EEBD is indeed a legitimate piece of gear that military ships ubiquitously have laying around in wall boxes practically everywhere. Not sure if civilian ships do IRL, never been on one, but for purposes of this story they do.

And so Robert finally gets the Astral Pulse back… but only after he doesn't need it anymore to be complete. So while he will rebuild the suit eventually, he'll get the important stuff taken care of first.

Chase ends up not getting his big hero moment, because when you introduce big changes to a narrative's setup you pay the price of not being able to perfectly reproduce all the stations of canon. But honestly? He doesn't need to kill himself proving that he's a hero in this fanfic, anymore than my Courtney needed to catch a bullet to prove herself. They've already proven themselves, so I'll just let them be happy instead. Chase lives to see Robert let go of his self-destructive obsession and find happiness and a new life without even having to abandon his old legacy as the price of that, as well as finally find acceptance in himself and receive closure for his old guilts, and that will make him happier than a dozen magic amulets. So the tragic last ride of Track Star, while epic, is also not necessary here and so I gladly sidestep it.

The song at the end is 'Radio' by Bershy, which is indeed the song that plays in the game at Robert's housewarming party. So I pay homage to the game by using it here.

And here we are. The big bad is finally defeated and the day is saved. All that's left now is to find out which sunset our heroes will ride off into. Should be only a couple more chapters and we'll be done.

 

[cliffc999]

On the SB thread, poster 'The Kijs' contributed another meme in honor of chapter 23:

"Courtney, nearly passing out, briefly has an out of body encounter with Clint Barton."

Spoiler: You Are An Avenger

 

[htgriffin]

With a contemptuous shove to Shroud's back the materializing Courtney sent the elderly man, still mentally paralyzed from his sudden loss of nigh-omniscience, sprawling face-first down the stairs to land almost nose-to-nose with Steve. The villain and the super-soldier both looked up to see a triumphant Courtney standing on top of the stairs, the blue-gleaming Astral Pulse held high in one hand… and the plastic bag of a maritime-issue Emergency Escape Breathing Device, a self-contained head-sized sack attached to a fifteen-minute oxygen capsule, firmly pulled over her head.

Click to shrink...

1. Gi. Bloody. Go.
2. It has already been made clear that failure to prioritize continues to gnaw on someone's scrotum and not in the fun way.
3. Courtney's powerset does in fact heavily lend itself to deception, ambush, theft, backstabs-literal-and-otherwise, etc. Being convinced using them for Evil was obligatory was the whole abusive formative years thing.

 

[The Unicorn]

And here we are. The big bad is finally defeated and the day is saved. All that's left now is to find out which sunset our heroes will ride off into. Should be only a couple more chapters and we'll be done.

Click to shrink...

Not sure what to hope for. On the one hand Steve and Courtney going to the Avenger-verse after beating all their enemies sounds like a great way to fuck up all of Hydra's plans, on the other a story that ends with Captain America settling down to some perfectly mundane civilian job would be a great twist.

 

[Zetakille]

Oh that's an absolutely PERFECT way for Shroud to go out. Not with a bang, but a whimper, all fueled by his hubris and tunnel vision.

 

[shargle]

Because the EEBD is indeed a legitimate piece of gear that military ships ubiquitously have laying around in wall boxes practically everywhere. Not sure if civilian ships do IRL, never been on one, but for purposes of this story they do.

Click to shrink...

They do.
Comparing military ships to commerical ships in terms of safety equipment gives you some pretty strange results.

On the one hand the navy regularly flouts international laws and regulations that would make regular mariners lose their licenses, including things like carriage requirements for safety gear.
On the other hand military ships have about 25x as many crew as a comparable commercial ship, so they have people on board whose primary purpose is inspecting and maintaining the same equipment/systems they're skimping on.

 

[cliffc999]

Earth-Dispatch
Arrival: D Plus 64

"My mind rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work!" Courtney quoted Sherlock Holmes amusedly.

"I'm fine." Steve protested. "Really."

"I've seen you fidget less while gearing up for full-scale assault missions against giant robots." Courtney retorted as she leaned back in the conference room chair at SDN. "We've been on vacation for barely two weeks and already your knuckles are starting to itch."

"Now you're making me sound like Punch Up." Steve eye-rolled gently.

"Who's sounding like Punch Up?" Blazer asked as she entered the room, trailed by the attorney she'd recommended to Courtney over a week ago and who had been willing to represent her on a contingent-fee basis.

"So, how's it looking?" Courtney asked him.

"If you wanted a settlement from SDN's corporate headquarters, you could easily get it today." Mr. Payne, one of the most feared litigators in the entire Los Angeles area, nodded at her. "But as I recall your instructions, you did not."

"Crucify 'em with dull nails, then skin and salt the hide." Courtney confirmed viciously.

"Ah, I do so love a client who understands." Mr. Payne chuckled. "However, I am legally required to submit their written settlement offer to you before you reject it, so here you are." He handled over several neatly printed sheets, as well as an itemized list of bullet points summarizing the offer in plain English clipped to the front on a Post-It note.

"Hmph." Steve raised an eyebrow. "The last time I saw that many zeroes on a check, it was paying for a new fighter plane."

Courtney's lip curled in scorn. "Oh, look at this. Here they're offering a full confession of responsibility, but at the end of the list they sneak in a non-disclosure agreement that means I can't tell anyone they so much as admitted to double-parking a company car without forfeiting every dime they offered me."

"That's typical." Blazer frowned. "Hollywood has been burying its scandals under money piles for decades."

"Indeed." Mr. Payne nodded. "To almost any sufficiently large institution, the money they lose paying off a disgruntled plaintiff is far outweighed by the revenue they do not lose from an unfavorable verdict in the court of public opinion."

"Well, they're certainly not getting any cooperation from me in that regard." Courtney said. "So tell them we'll-"

"Boss?" Malevola stuck her head in the door, looking worried. "We have a situation."

"What's wrong?" Blazer asked.

"A strange sorceress just portaled right into the middle of the cafeteria during lunch hour." Malevola looked soberly at Captain Rogers. "And she says she wants to see him."

Barely two minutes later everyone was downstairs and facing off against the sorceress in question. She was a middle-aged woman, shaved completely bald, and dressed in a rich yellow robe with a black belt and wearing an elaborate filigree amulet containing a glowing green gem.

"Captain Rogers." she greeted him. "I am very glad to have finally found you."

"Have we met?" Steve asked her seriously.

"No." she shook her head. "But we do share a homeworld." Everyone there took a deep breath in shock, and Courtney clung desperately to Steve's arm. "I am the Ancient One of Kamar-Taj. I am one of the foremost mages of Earth; the Earth that we were both born on. And I have come to take you home."

"Fury had that kind of favor to draw upon?" Steve asked dully. "Or are you a friend of Thor?"

"The Director of SHIELD has very little idea that I even exist, and I would ask your future cooperation in keeping it that way." the Ancient One answered. "And while I am slightly acquainted with the Odinson, it is not at his behest that I have come."

"How do we even know you're for real?" Courtney challenged her. "I mean, yeah, you're talking about stuff from Steve's birth world… but even I know the references you're making, because he's told me and other people about them here."

"A valid question, Miss Doe." Courtney turned paler at the Ancient One's casual revelation of her name. "And as tokens of my sincerity, I stopped to gather several things before I came here."

Her one hand dipped inside her robe and came out with an incongruously mundane brown paper bag, identical in appearance to any ordinary person's lunch. Steve took the bag and upended it on a nearby table, and a set of dog tags and a metallic disc less than a foot wide with a glowing blue circular ring in the middle fell out.

Steve held up the dog tags and stared at them, pale-faced and almost sweating. "These are my original dog tags from World War II. The last time I saw them, they were in an exhibit at the Smithsonian. But this…" he held up the disc. "Is one of Tony's Arc Reactors. You could maybe fake the first – even if you'd have had to go to my world anyway to look up my old serial # - but nobody except Stark knows how to make one of these." Steve turned the Arc Reactor over and over in his hand. "How did you even get your hands on this, and do you have any idea how frantic he's going to be looking for it?"

"Magic." the Ancient One answered matter-of-factly. "And yes, he is likely to be rather upset as soon as he discovers it is missing. Which he hasn't yet, so you can simply return it to him before he does."

"You said that you were glad to have finally found me." Steve looked at her gravely. "Which implies that you were looking for quite a while. So you're not talking about a trip you can make easily or casually. It took you effort to pull this off."

"Were it not for the artifact I bear, I would not have been able to make the journey at all." the Ancient One agreed. "And to answer the question you did not ask; yes, this would be a one-time journey. After you leave here, you would not be able to return. Even the Bifrost does not reach this far across the dimensional gulf, and I would not essay this strenuous a sojourn again without a greatly compelling need."

"Which means if I go back with you, I'm leaving here for good." Steve looked at her, and then down at the pensive Courtney at his side. "Did you tell them back home that you'd found me?"

"I have kept my own counsel upon this matter." the Ancient One said.

The entire tableau held their breath waiting for Steve's answer, and for a long minute he stood with his eyes shut, breathing heavily with indecision. Finally his eyes opened and fixed on the Ancient One again.

"No thank you, ma'am. I… I do miss the people I knew there. Sometimes a lot more than I'm willing to admit. But I'm sure that they've already buried me and grieved for me. And I- I'm finding something new here." Steve answered her with an effort. Courtney gave an explosive sigh of relief. "So let them keep thinking I'm dead, and soon enough they'll be at peace… and so will I."

"Such an answer was not unexpected." the Ancient One nodded to Steve compassionately. "And I entirely appreciate the weight of the decision that you have just made." Her head shook slightly from side to side, and she continued in a much graver tone of voice. "Unfortunately, you will not really have a choice."

"I'm sorry, could you repeat that?" Blazer asked mildly as her aura flared to full power and every other hero in the cafeteria brought their powers or weapons to readiness. "Because I'm certain I didn't hear you correctly."

"That is not what I meant." The Ancient One looked at her. "I have no intention of using force, and it is not I that will compel the Captain to return. It is the press of events that will, and his own conscience." Her level gaze met Steve's own, and something within him quailed in anticipation. "By virtue of my office and the powers that I wield, it is given to me to see at least some possibilities of the future. And while the future is always in motion and destiny is often malleable… that is under normal circumstances." Her voice thickened with sorrow. "I cannot see clearly ahead beyond the next several years, but the shadow of doom still lays long on the years beyond. The power that lay behind the attack of Loki, behind the Chitauri invasion – that power will come for Earth again. And so far the threats that you have seen have been but the vanguard, the merest tithe of its true strength. When the master of the Chitauri at long last comes for our world, it will take all of Earth's mightiest heroes to turn him back. Should any significant one among their number – let alone their best leader – be absent, or be divided against the other… then we will lose." She looked away from the dumbstruck Captain, sparing him the weight of her gaze. "And the Chitauri's master will not be the only threat of the future. There are many more enemies to come, both foreign and domestic." She deliberately quoted the end of the Army officer's oath of commissioning.

"You're lying." Robert glared at her suspiciously. "Not that a world being in danger is such an unbelievable thing, but in that you only brought this up right after he told you 'No thanks'. That's exactly what someone would say if they were trying to manipulate a man like him."

"What need would I have to lie, Robert Robertson?" the Ancient One stared levelly back at him… and then suddenly the force of her aura pressed upon the entire room.

"Shit!" Malevola swore, her sword almost falling from her hands as she flinched backwards. "Guys? That woman is the single strongest Order mage I have ever even heard of, let alone seen! She could wipe almost everybody here!"

"I get it." Flambae nodded as the Ancient One's aura withdrew. "If you wanted to just force him back, you are powerful enough that you could have just shown up when he was alone and kidnapped him. You wouldn't need to play any mindgame."

"Also, Order mages have to maintain a certain respect for the truth. Which doesn't mean that those types don't still all like to have their secrets and agendas… but they risk a whole lot if they ever openly break their sworn word." Malevola explained. "Do we have your sworn word that you're not lying about this?"

"By the Vishanti, I swear that what I have said to Captain Rogers today is no lie." the Ancient One immediately agreed.

"Damn." Blazer acknowledged sadly. "So you really are telling the truth that he has to go back or else his homeworld is doomed… and you did it here and now because wanted all of his friends here to understand why he had to leave us."

Steve Rogers was almost entirely deaf to the conversation, as he had been since the Ancient One had delivered her warning. Tears leaked from his eyes as he forced himself to confront the truth – his pleasant sojourn in this world, the siren-like call of freedom from care and duty, had only been an illusion and a temporary respite. As much as he might wish otherwise, ultimately the world – his home world – needed The Captain more than Steve Rogers needed… needed…

"I've got to put her in the water! Right now I'm in the middle of nowhere, but if I wait any longer a lot of people are going to die." His own words echoed to him from the depths of his own worst memory… the day he'd had to leave Peggy behind forever… the day he was now reliving, but even worse.

"I-I'm sorry, Courtney." He gasped, and she gathered him helplessly into her arms as he sobbed openly into her shoulder. "I'm so sorry… but I have to go." His voice broke.

"Of course you do." Her voice came to his ears, sweet and soft and so, so damnably steady despite her own anguish. Steve's heart broke even further at how she must be feeling, and what a killing effort she must be making to keep even a hint of her own grief out of her voice-

"And I'm coming with you." His eyes snapped open as she finished speaking.

"Courtney?" Steve gasped incredulously, still uncertain of what he'd heard.

He looked down to see her smile – that same adorable, sweet little smile that had first attracted him to her, that he'd always thrilled to see every time since – and no tears in her eyes at all. "Did you really think that I'd let this be good-bye?" she asked him. "The day we met, you told me that you wanted me to be your first choice." She kissed him once, softly, and then looked back up at him endearingly. "And you will always be mine."

"I can transport two as readily as I can one." the Ancient One agreed with a smile. "But understand that this decision will not be reversible. If you choose this path, you will leave your own homeworld behind forever."

"I've got no family." Courtney shrugged simply. "And while I'll definitely miss my friends, Steve's more important."

"Hell yeah, sister." Prism agreed soberly. "A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do!"

"Your precious people are what matter the most." Coupe nodded in agreement. "And you sacrifice whatever you have to, in order to keep them."

"We'll miss you." Blazer said simply. "Both of you."

"I-I still can't believe this is real." Steve floundered. "Courtney, are you sure?"

Courtney looked at him as if he were a dunce. "Of course I'm sure!" Her voice softened. "I love you."

"… I love you too." Steve whispered into her hair as he pulled her into his arms again. "Thank you, Courtney. I couldn't have- I just couldn't have."

"Do they have to leave right away, or can we get a day or two to help put their affairs in order?" Robert asked the Ancient One.

"An opportunity to rest for a bit before the journey back would actually be welcome." the Ancient One agreed amiably. "We shall depart on the morrow."

"There's gonna be a lot of paperwork to get through before then." Chase agreed. "Decidin' where and to who to leave your things, sellin' your stuff…"

"I'll need to get her file together so those SHIELD people back where Steve's from can have something to work with regarding setting up her identity there." Robert said. "Although I'll probably be in such a hurry that I won't be able to get her entire arrest record or criminal history in there. Eh, it'll probably be fine." He smiled.

"You will be able to provide for her over there, I trust?" Blazer asked Steve in her 'Mom' voice. "Seeing as how she'll be leaving behind most of her assets and have an entirely uncheckable employment history, much like you did when you arrived here."

"I have Army retirement pay more appropriate to a full bird colonel on top of my SHIELD salary." Steve answered her. "And that's before we even start to get into some other people I know back home. Even before she finds her own work, she'll never want for anything."

"One minor concern." Mr. Payne unexpectedly broke in. "If my client is about to permanently depart the known universe, she will not be available to appear in court. Which would void the pending litigation."

"Damn it." Blazer swore. "Not that she can take the money with her where she's going, but the idea of them getting away with it is horrible."

Steve was struck by a sudden thought, and began to smile crookedly. "Actually… I just had an idea."

* * * * *​

Earth-Dispatch
Arrival: D Plus 65

"And, done." Mr. Payne said with satisfaction as the final signature hit the papers.

"Thank you - and your client, of course - for your cooperation, Mr. Payne." SDN's Vice-President of Legal gratefully accepted his copy of the settlement agreement, and all the other SDN corporate officials in the boardroom openly sighed in relief that SDN could survive the upcoming crisis merely with a very expensive settlement payment – the majority of which they could offload on their malpractice insurance – as opposed to the PR and legal disaster they were facing if this had gone to a courtroom and faced actual discovery. "It is very good for all parties concerned that we were able to settle this amiably."

"Oh, quite." Mr. Payne smiled thinly. "I can say in complete truthfulness that I have never had a more satisfying legal experience outside of a courtroom in my entire career."

"What deposit arrangements would your client prefer for her payment?" the VP of Finance asked him.

"You can just void the check." Mr. Payne surprised him. "She won't be needing it."

"But… but we're talking about thirty million dollars here." The CEO of SDN sputtered.

"Oh, we're entirely aware." Blazer smirked from her own seat at the table.

"Does… does she wish it donated to charity?" the VP of Finance asked him, still confused, as the VP of Marketing suddenly turned green as a horrible suspicion began to dawn on him-

"Ah, no." Mr. Payne smiled like a shark. "For the record, the settlement payment need not be made because as per the settlement agreement, violation of the accompanying NDA voids payment and requires reimbursement of all already paid funds. And as I already have instructions from my client to immediately place any and all documentation from this case into the public record, the NDA's penalty clause is of course activated as of today. So the good news is, you don't owe us a dime. The bad news, of course, is that all of your dirty laundry is about to become headline news."

"But- but 'all the documentation' includes the signed statements of responsibility that were insisted upon!" Legal sputtered.

"Goodness, you're right! It entirely does!" Blazer agreed, her voice sugar-sweet with malice.

"But we're facing multiple Federal investigations!" the CEO roared at Legal. "And now they'll practically have signed confessions of our guilt!"

"Not practically. Literally." Mr. Payne's grin only grew wider.

"Blazer, you have to stop this!" the CEO begged her. "The corporation- we'll go out of business! All of our work will be undone!"

"SDN will be fine." Blazer shrugged off his concerns. "The corporation's services – the core services, not the things you obsessed over – are too valuable to too many people for them to go without for long. The government, as well as the investors, won't let the corporation implode." She shrugged. "They will insist on a complete change in management and substantial revision of policy, of course… but given that your management and your policies almost led to the entire city of Los Angeles going up in flames and SDN becoming a hollow mockery of itself, somehow the thought of that happening just completely fails to break my heart."

"There is no way you can reconcile your duties as an SDN management employee with your cooperation in this! I could find a dozen perfectly legitimate reasons to fire you!" Legal thundered.

"Oh, right, I forgot!" She reached into the pile of papers in front of her on the table and pulled one out to slide it over to the CEO. "That's my resignation." She pulled out a thin stack of other papers and also handed them over. "And those are the resignations of several senior members of the Torrance branch's management staff – including Robert and Chase and Royd – and the entire Z-Team, who are gladly availing themselves of their new and renegotiated plea bargains to finally get shut of the coercive employment contracts that SDN was forcing them to take otherwise!" She shrugged. "Oh well!"

"But- but what will you do?" the CEO gaped at her. "SDN has been your entire hero career! And- and-"

"Well, my boyfriend is about to help invent cold fusion in the next few months – and no, SDN doesn't own a single piece of the R&D for that, because all rights to the Astral Pulse remaining exclusively Robert's regardless of how much help SDN facilities or employees helped him in reconstructing his suit was iron clad in his original employment contract – so, I really don't think I'll go hungry." Blazer shrugged. "Particularly not given that I not only have substantial savings, but a couple of friends of mine donated their million-dollar rewards from the US government to the cause of funding Robert's new tech startup. Which will almost certainly be sponsoring a new corporate hero team under my leadership."

"Payne!" Legal sputtered. "You were working on contingent fee! You're losing out-!"

"Oh dear, however will I survive the loss of my share of the thirty million dollar settlement fee." He drawled ironically. "Certainly not by offering to represent all of the many other employees you have allegedly harassed and defrauded in many and diverse ways in a class action lawsuit for a sum next to which the offered settlement to Miss Doe will look like peanuts." He chuckled. "Much less a class action lawsuit where my victory would be nigh-inevitable if I simply subpoena'ed myself, seeing as how your own signatures on your own statements of responsibility would be a very substantial preponderance of the evidence in any such case." He chuckled. "If you even have time to appear in court to defend yourselves there, given the many and diverse criminal trials you may potentially be attending in the near future on a rather appalling list of federal charges."

Blazer chuckled softly. "So yes. I believe that the proper legal term for what is about to happen to you is 'We get the gold mine, and you get the shaft.'' She stood up and Mr. Payne along with her, and they began gathering up the papers into their briefcases.

"What kind of person forfeits this much money?" Legal sputtered. "What is Invisigal even going to be doing?"

"The only appropriate answer I could make there is 'There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.'" Mr. Payne quoted Shakespeare.

"Good day, gentlemen." Blazer smirked at them all, and they both left the senior executives of SDN helplessly sitting amongst the metaphorical ash and ruins of their own mismanagement.

"Robert? It's all done." Blazer said into her phone as she left the SDN building. "Has the farewell party started yet? It has? Then tell them I'm on my way."

* * * * *​

Author's Note: And so we do the wrap-up segment for Earth-Dispatch so that our readers know how the various plot arcs there close out, and yes, that is indeed Steve's and Courtney's FBI reward money that they dumped over to help Robert's new fusion tech startup. (And yes, Sonar is handling the business side of that thing for them.) After all, they don't need the money where they're going.