The Slippery Slope [Worm AU]

[Jade Isentry]

So Skidmark against Taylor and Now lung is about to burst in.
So I guess it's time to cue up yakety sax?

Click to shrink...

Ha. Now I'm going to have to start that when I read Ack's next installment.

 

[Ack]

Ha. Now I'm going to have to start that when I read Ack's next installment.

Click to shrink...

No, no, that's what you listen to when you read It Gets Worse.

For Slippery Slope, I recommend this song.

 

[Jade Isentry]

No, no, that's what you listen to when you read It Gets Worse.

For Slippery Slope, I recommend this song.

Click to shrink...

Oh my word. So true on both counts.

 

[Flareonflare]

On the whole fic, taylor feels ooc, or at least dumber than she is in canon and dumber than youve written her before

Taylor got sucked in wayyyyy too fast, i get she was in vulnerable position but weve seen how smart and driven and sure of her values she is but it takes two conversations to get her to start thinking racist things and saying them

its out of character, and racists have much sneakier recruitment pitches with way more dog whistles, maybe peter just didnt know the classic arguments and had to make do but seriously he didnt say enough to really convince anyone before taylor is all "maybe he IS right?"

racist arguments can be sneaky and appealing and it is easy for people to be convinced by them, but peter didnt actually use any of the ones that convince people, it barely took anything for taylor to take that first step and thats just weird for her

peter wasnt convincing enough to justify how fast taylor got sucked in, hes no jack slash, even kaiser in canon is more smooth and convincing and hes an ass

 

[Ack]

On the whole fic, taylor feels ooc, or at least dumber than she is in canon and dumber than youve written her before

Taylor got sucked in wayyyyy too fast, i get she was in vulnerable position but weve seen how smart and driven and sure of her values she is but it takes two conversations to get her to start thinking racist things and saying them

its out of character, and racists have much sneakier recruitment pitches with way more dog whistles, maybe peter just didnt know the classic arguments and had to make do but seriously he didnt say enough to really convince anyone before taylor is all "maybe he IS right?"

racist arguments can be sneaky and appealing and it is easy for people to be convinced by them, but peter didnt actually use any of the ones that convince people, it barely took anything for taylor to take that first step and thats just weird for her

peter wasnt convincing enough to justify how fast taylor got sucked in, hes no jack slash, even kaiser in canon is more smooth and convincing and hes an ass

Click to shrink...

There are two conversations which I put up there. More happened that I didn't cover. There is also a certain amount of passage of time.

Taylor was being totally ostracised by the people who should've been her peer group. Once Peter got her acceptance, he just sat and talked. He gave her companionship, friendship and (once she accepted the help of the Empire) a respite from the bullying, without demanding anything in return. At the beginning, he was just ... there. Not after anything, not pushing for membership. Just a friend. And she really, really needed friendship from someone. (Note that in canon, she not only accepted friendship from actual criminals, two days later she was robbing a bank with them).

What really pushed her over the edge was the fact that it was Sophia (a black girl) and the ABB (an Asian organisation) who had it in for her. It would take a saint not to at least consider thinking racist things in that situation and Taylor's not a saint.

Even now, at the latest point of the story, Taylor doesn't hate other races. She's just really open to the idea that some members of them are less.

You will notice that she turned down the first offer to come to a gathering. She was still unsure, then. The second one that she showed up to, so did Peter's ex. That could've gone badly, but with assistance from Othala and the chance to actually punish a bully, it actually cemented her further into the group.

 

[MadGreenSon]

There are two conversations which I put up there. More happened that I didn't cover. There is also a certain amount of passage of time.

Taylor was being totally ostracised by the people who should've been her peer group. Once Peter got her acceptance, he just sat and talked. He gave her companionship, friendship and (once she accepted the help of the Empire) a respite from the bullying, without demanding anything in return. At the beginning, he was just ... there. Not after anything, not pushing for membership. Just a friend. And she really, really needed friendship from someone. (Note that in canon, she not only accepted friendship from actual criminals, two days later she was robbing a bank with them).

What really pushed her over the edge was the fact that it was Sophia (a black girl) and the ABB (an Asian organisation) who had it in for her. It would take a saint not to at least consider thinking racist things in that situation and Taylor's not a saint.

Even now, at the latest point of the story, Taylor doesn't hate other races. She's just really open to the idea that some members of them are less.

You will notice that she turned down the first offer to come to a gathering. She was still unsure, then. The second one that she showed up to, so did Peter's ex. That could've gone badly, but with assistance from Othala and the chance to actually punish a bully, it actually cemented her further into the group.

Click to shrink...

It's cult indoctrination, basically. Except in this case, they didn't have to cut her off from other positive social interactions, she had none. She was thus supremely vulnerable to anyone willing to act as a sympathetic peer group. In canon, that was the Undersiders.

 

[MagicEater]

This first chapter was fucking painful to read, but has sone seriously good fucking writing.

 

[Ack]

The Slippery Slope

Part Twenty-Two: Everything Goes Sideways


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

[A/N 2: Warning: Empire character dialogue may contain racist terms and views. These views are not shared by the author.]

[A/N 3: As it's been three years since I posted to this story, here's the basic layout of the plot to date:

1: Taylor, backed into a corner by the bullies, has accepted membership in the Empire. Her boyfriend, Peter Ferguson, is Max Anders' nephew. He's been teaching her how to fight.

2: Shadow Stalker was caught red-handed with the locker stunt, and handed over to the cops by the Empire kids. This has caused Director Piggot no end of aggravation.

3: When Taylor and her father were attacked by Lung and the ABB, she triggered with the ability to detect and control machines at a distance. Activating her powers suppresses all emotion. Danny suffered brain damage and went into a coma. Victor also managed to piss off Glory Girl around this time.

4: She has formed ties with most of the team; Crusader, Victor, Othala and Rune especially. Victor has been working with Taylor to build her a set of armour to wear out and about.

5: Coil has been trying (and failing) repeatedly to get a handle on Taylor. He's since hired Circus to recruit Shadow Stalker, had a key to Sophia's ankle cuff smuggled into the PRT building, and used his moles in the Empire to determine where Taylor and the majority of the Empire will be at a particular time.

6: Lung has been informed (by Coil's men) of Taylor's upcoming armour test run through Merchant territory. Circus and Shadow Stalker will be at the same time infiltrating the Medhall building to abduct Danny, who is just recently starting to show signs of recovering from his brain injury, assisted by Othala's regeneration.

7: Lung and Oni Lee hate Taylor because the last time they encountered her, she blew Lung's arm off and beat the snot out of Oni Lee.

8: Skidmark and Squealer are reacting to the incursion by bringing her latest creation out to play. It's basically the worst possible thing they could've done.]

Now, onto the story …


Glory Girl

Vicky got up from where she'd been trying to decipher the chicken-scratches of her math homework and checked her alarm clock. Silently she donned her costume, rehearsing in her mind the excuses she would use if she were to be caught.

"I got bored and decided to go on patrol."

"It's only Friday night ... I've got plenty of time to finish my homework."

"I just heard somewhere that something was going to go down in Merchant territory on Friday night."

('Somewhere' happened to be a casual mention by Dean, but she would never admit that.)

"I'm just going to see what's going on, promise."

And she fully intended to keep that promise in the moment it was made. In Vicky's own mind, she was even-tempered and entirely rational at all times. It was everyone else who caused problems.

Slipping out her bedroom window, she took to the air and set out across the city.

<><>​

Taylor

When the Merchants tank came rumbling down the road, I was ready for it. There was a cloaking field to prevent people from seeing or hearing it, but my power ignored that altogether. Thus, I was able to assume positive control and disengage the power source—some Tinkertech affair that I neither understood nor tried to—from the drivetrain, bringing it to an abrupt halt. Likewise, when the driver attempted to attack me with any of the several guns mounted on the vehicle, I found it simple enough to prevent the mechanisms from working.

"Remote to Kaiser. I have a Merchants tank here. I believe there are Merchant capes inside. What should I do with them?"

Over the radio, I heard a very brief consultation. It ended just as the hatch on top of the tank began to open.

"Kaiser to Remote. Feel free to get rid of them."

"Understood. Lethal or non-lethal?" I hadn't intended to kill anyone tonight, but they did bring a tank to the party.

"If you can do it non-lethally, feel free. Otherwise … your choice."

Accordingly, I allowed the hatch to open all the way. A costumed figure started to climb out but when he was halfway out, I slammed the hatch into his back with all the force the hinge could muster. Then I swung the hatch back and did it again. He slid down into the tank limply.

As that was most likely Skidmark, it meant Squealer was in the driver's seat. Someone was still attempting to make the tank move, after all. I noted that there was a second hatch over her seat, as well as ejection mechanisms for both seats. I ensured the hatch would open, then triggered the ejection mechanisms. After they rocketed skyward, I closed and locked the hatches. Skidmark might have a rough landing, possibly fatal, but that would not be my problem.

That was when I 'saw' the new weapons appear in the midst of my allies, on the flying disc of metal. Grenades in a bandolier, as well as a pistol. Had I been capable of it, I would have gasped in horror. Instead, I powered up the Merchant tank's drivetrain, since it could move much faster than the armour I was wearing. As it thundered past, I leaped upward and grabbed the barrel of one of the guns.

In the meantime, I was also concentrating on the grenades and pistol. The latter was easy to prevent from working, but the grenades were trickier. Victor had explained to me that once the pin was pulled and the spoon released, a striker would be propelled down a metal tube by a powerful spring until it hit the percussion cap and start the time fuse burning. My power had no effect on springs, or on burning fuses. My only chance was to try to ensure the spoon didn't fly off or the striker didn't hit the percussion cap hard enough to set it off.

I knew who this was, of course. Oni Lee had once attempted to attack me while I was sitting in a car. I'd used the interior of the car to pummel him fairly convincingly, but now he was back for another attempt. And this time he was attacking my allies.

Decision: Oni Lee is too dangerous to allow to live. Kill him at first opportunity.

I still had more auxiliary units; as I sent the first one swooping back toward the disc, I took positive control of the second and had it latch onto one of the pre-prepared blocks of aluminum. The hatch in my 'shoulder-pad' opened, and the auxiliary unit took to the air. This one had no way of seeing where it was going, so I had it rise above the level of all the buildings in the area and move directly toward the other unit.

In that time, the number of enemy weapons in the area had doubled; I took this to mean that Oni Lee had teleported to beside himself, so that both versions could fight. As I 'watched', one of the Oni Lees began a ballistic arc to the ground below, while the one left behind on the disc activated a grenade. The spring was working hard to push the striker down the little tube (I still had no idea what it was called) to the percussion cap. I couldn't stop it, but I could slow it down. Fortunately, the force of the spring became weaker as it pushed farther down, so I was able to prevent it from striking with full force.

The grenade did not explode, but everyone on the disc began falling out of the sky anyway; not all at once, but in fits and starts. I 'saw' the armour that I identified as Crusader's lift into the air. The radio was alive with confused shouts, but the only one I could make out was Victor's voice: "Othala!"

Assumption: Something has disturbed Rune's concentration.

Assumption: Crusader is being supported by his ghosts.

Conclusions: Oni Lee has injured Rune. Something has happened to Othala.

I could not feel anger in that state, but the notion that Rune (and possibly Othala) had been hurt redoubled my intent to end his life. They were my allies and (when I was able to feel emotions) my friends. Also, they were not direct combatants. Attacking them with lethal force (I suspected Oni Lee knew of no other way to attack) was objectively wrong.

Then the camera unit arrived back at their location and I saw what was happening. The disc was now in free-fall, but nobody was on it. Crusader's ghosts were supporting himself, Kaiser and Rune (who hung loosely in their grasp). Menja, now on the ground, was thirty feet tall and still growing, while Victor was parkouring his way down the side of a nearby building.

"Where is Othala?" I asked. The disc hit the ground and bounced, but I paid no attention to that. There was a metal spike sticking out of the middle of it that hadn't been there before.

"Oni Lee teleported into the middle of us, stabbed Rune, then grabbed Othala and jumped off the disc with her," Kaiser reported. His voice was hard and clipped.

Conclusion: Anger. I could understand that. I suspected I would also feel angry, once I let my powers recede. I swooped the camera drone down toward where Othala lay in the street. It had no way of helping her, but I wished to gain an idea of her condition.

Observation: blood staining white part of costume.

Conclusion: injuries are severe.

Reinforced conclusion: Oni Lee has earned sentence of death.

"Where is Oni Lee now?" My voice was as level as ever. I would not get angry, for I was incapable of it. I would merely deliver justice.

"Motherfucker booked it." Crusader was panting as he had his ghosts lower himself and the others to the ground. "Hit and run. Fucking gook coward."

Observation: inflammatory wording, strained tone of voice.

Conclusion: anger.

I came around the corner and jumped off the tank as Kaiser landed on the ground and moved toward Othala. Victor was already bending over her. "Keep a lookout around!" shouted the leader of the Empire Eighty-Eight. "He might come back for a second try!"

"Lung!" yelled Menja, her size-magnified voice shaking the screen I was watching. I swivelled the camera unit to look at her, then turned it again to see where she was pointing. It was indeed Lung, larger than I had seen him before, with flames flickering around him. He was leaping from one building to the next, coming in for the attack.

Observation: This was not a random encounter from Oni Lee. He and Lung are in this area on purpose. This is a planned ambush.

Conclusion: They knew we would be here.

Further conclusion: We have been betrayed. This was a trap.

<><>​

Shadow Stalker

Fucking hell, I hope this isn't a trap.

Sophia stuck close behind Circus, her crossbow loaded and ready, just in case. They'd snuck in through the loading dock after Circus had pulled some chicanery with an electronic lockpick. Sophia had wanted to just phase through and open it from the inside, but Circus had vetoed that idea flat. "This is a supervillain base, remember. They know how to deal with power bullshit."

Your power is bullshit, Sophia had wanted to say but not quite been willing to voice out loud. The way Circus wore a skin-tight outfit without any pockets, yet could produce basically anything she wanted with a flip of the wrist was really, really aggravating. It wasn't like she had the stuff stored in her sleeves, which were also skin-tight.

But Sophia didn't want to get into an argument with Circus for several reasons, the main one not being that the smartass cape could make her feel stupid with a single raised eyebrow; at least, that was what she told herself. So she followed along behind, all the while wondering if she could get away with 'accidentally' shooting Circus once the job was done. Several times. Right in her smugly irritating face.

They moved on through the building, Circus consulting some kind of building plan on her phone as they went. This only served to raise Sophia's aggravation level. How did Circus know how to get a building plan? Why hadn't Sophia been given one as well? What if they got separated?

Still, the main aim here was to fuck up Hebert's entire life. Now that the worthless little queef had shown her true racist colours, it proved she'd been entirely justified the whole time she'd been pushing Hebert's face into the dirt, where she belonged. Hebert had been a neo-Nazi criminal all along, and criminals deserved punishment.

Circus stopped just short of a corner, and held up her hand in a fist. Sophia had seen enough war movies to know that meant 'stop', so she came to a halt and reflexively checked behind them. 'Six', or something, it was supposed to be called, wasn't it? She didn't know; she wasn't a soldier. Stupid war movies.

And then Circus was gone, around the corner, almost faster than Sophia could see. There was the sound of a scuffle, and she leaned around the corner herself. Circus had a security guard flat on the floor, with her knee in the middle of his back and his arms twisted up behind him. Shit, I never even heard him coming!

"Hi, there," Circus said in a conversational tone. "You can try yelling for help, but I've got your radio and there's nobody else on this floor, is there? So let's have a nice civilised conversation, where I ask the questions and you give the answers, and nobody gets hurt. Then I cuff you up—with your own cuffs, thank you very much—and we go on our merry way. You've clearly been overpowered by a cape, and you get drinks off your buddies for a few weeks for being tied up by a hot sexy supervillain. I might even get my colleague here to take a picture of us on your phone as a souvenir. How's that sound to you?"

He was a big man, brawny, with short-cut blond hair. Basically, the perfect Aryan type as far as Sophia understood things. But his size and muscle did him no good at all against the hold Circus had him in. Sophia knew how to apply a basic arm-bar, but this was a whole other level of painful-looking. He struggled briefly, then subsided.

"Fuck off, bitch," he grunted, one side of his face pressed flat to the linoleum. It looked smooth and clean, but Sophia knew he had to be finding every little bump and groove, every piece of lint and grit that the cleaners had missed, with his cheek. "Do what you want. You'll get nothing out of me."

"You know," mused Circus. "It's people who say things like that who break the fastest. It's like they think they're throwing an unbeatable bluff. But the funny thing about torture? Everyone breaks. Everyone. The stoic secret agent who endures a hundred volts running from his nuts to his nipples, and comes back with a sarcastic quip about how that was a shocking experience? Doesn't exist. Because he's too busy shitting and pissing himself, and trying to remember how to breathe again. And don't even talk to me about waterboarding. Trained CIA agents have volunteered for that one, to see how long they could go without breaking. Took 'em less than a minute to cry uncle."

The guard didn't even seem to be breathing anymore. Certainly he wasn't offering words of defiance. Sophia couldn't blame him; Circus had a way of speaking that caught the attention and ran away with it.

"I know what you're thinking to yourself," purred Circus. "You're thinking 'She doesn't have a car battery and a set of alligator clips', right? Well, you might be right and you might be wrong. I sometimes lose track of what I'm carrying around with me. Could I waterboard you? Sure, it only takes a handkerchief and a water bottle. But what if I don't have those, either? Whatever could I do?" She leaned close down to his ear, and the knife that was suddenly in her hand tickled his skin just beside his eye. From his violent twitch, he was fully aware of what she was holding. "Well, then," she breathed. "I suppose I'd have to get … creative."

Sophia caught the harsh reek of urine at about the same point as he started babbling, asking Circus what she wanted, literally begging her to ask him something, anything. It wasn't surprising; just the way she said 'creative' put chills down Sophia's back.

"Sh-sh-sh-shhh," Circus murmured, stroking the side of the knife over the bridge of the man's nose, where his eyes frantically crossed in an effort to follow it. "I just want to know one thing. Then you can just lie here and relax and wait to be found. Okay? Okay. So, here's what I want to know. Where are they keeping Hebert? The skinny guy, in a coma? What floor is he on?"

Sophia grinned behind her mask as she watched the guy's eye follow the wickedly sharp tip of the knife while Circus wove it in tiny figure-eights. As much as she disliked Circus, she hated the Empire even more, and watching one of those assholes crumble to pieces was fuckin' amazing.

The guy talked, of course.

<><>​

Medhall Building

Peter Ferguson

The worst part about dating a cape, Peter decided, wasn't the power imbalance. Any two people were imbalanced in some way; one would always be stronger than the other, one would always be smarter, and so on. The imbalance would never come up if neither one wanted it to.

No, what he really hated about this was the fact that Taylor would be going out with the rest of the Empire capes and facing danger without him at her side. He knew why it had to be this way; without powers, he would be at best vulnerable and at worst an actual liability as people (specifically, Taylor) put themselves in danger to save him. Even when her powers were active and she claimed to feel no emotions, he knew she would go the extra mile just to ensure his safety.

He was convinced Uncle Max and the others wouldn't let her get hurt—Victor had assured him the armour she was walking around in would withstand anything short of anti-tank ordnance—but still, the idea of her facing off against hostile capes who only had to get lucky once had him tasting bile at the back of his throat. To work off some of his tension, he'd been punishing the bag in the gym for awhile, but that was starting to lose its novelty. There were only so many ways he could hit it and pretend he was smashing in Skidmark's face, after all.

I know what I can do. Taylor read out loud to her father when she got the chance. The book series Peter had loaned her for the purpose wasn't to the taste of most of the Empire, except where it came to Thor and Odin being badasses, but he enjoyed the characterisation and sheer breadth and depth that had gone into the narrative. He'd already read the current one from cover to cover, but that didn't mean he couldn't go visit Mr. Hebert and read some more to him. Besides, Taylor could never get Avis' voice deep enough. In his opinion, anyway.

He took the time to shower off the sweat—just because Mr. Hebert wasn't able to respond didn't mean he couldn't smell body odour—and change into T-shirt and jeans. As an afterthought, he tucked the .380 P3AT in its low-profile holster into the back of his waistband, because it had been drummed into him: no matter how secure you think you are, your safety is ultimately your own responsibility.

This had been emphasized by the ABB attacks on Taylor, before she powered up. Once he got powers of his own (if he ever did) he would probably be able to leave it off. Until then, he'd been told to get used to wearing it.

Humming a tune that had gotten stuck in his head from the heavy metal music Hookwolf preferred to meditate to, he took the elevator to the level where Mr. Hebert had been installed. He wasn't sure whose idea it was to decorate the rooms with some of Hitler's paintings but they gave it a home-like air, even if the man had been more adept at politics than the visual arts.

The whimsical tone of his thoughts came to a screeching halt when he reached the open doorway of the anteroom to hear muffled voices up ahead. Neither of them belonged to Mary, the nurse who'd been charged with Mr. Hebert's care and feeding. And in fact, if he wasn't much mistaken, the foot protruding from beyond the doorframe was wearing the same style of sensible flat-soled shoe that Mary preferred.

"No, lift him from that side. Watch that cord, you'll get it tangled!"

"Fuck the cords, let's just get the old geezer into the chair and fuck off out of here!"

There was a sigh of aggravation. "No, if we just disconnect them, alarms will go off from here 'til Wednesday. I would've thought someone like you understood the concept of 'silent in, silent out'?"

"Well, I'm not a fuckin' nurse. How'm I supposed to know that shit?"

"Perhaps if you hadn't shot the actual nurse, I might've been able to get her to tell us which ones he needs."

"Yeah, and give her every chance in the world to set off the alarm herself. That'd work. Anyway, she's a fuckin' Nazi; what's it to you?"

"News flash, sunshine. Not everyone employed by a white supremacist organisation is going to be a Nazi, or even a racist. Okay, I think that's done it. Now get ready to lift from that side while I get the chair ready."

Reaching behind his back, Peter drew the .380 and backed up alongside the doorframe. Like any other teen, he was able to activate his phone one-handed, but the trouble was, this was happening right now, and God only knew what these people (who had potentially murdered Mary) were going to do with Mr. Hebert if they were left to their own devices. From the sounds of it, at least one of the pair didn't care about his well-being.

At least one of the voices sounded familiar, but he couldn't quite place it. He couldn't stop to think about it right now.

And who would he call, anyway? Uncle Max was out on a mission, and even if Kaiser had his phone on him, there was no way he'd be able to get it out from under the armour. Mr. Fleischer hadn't gone along, which meant he was hopefully in the building, along with Bradley, Melody and maybe Jessica. But if he backed off far enough to call for help without being heard, the intruders would have a head start, with a hostage.

Fuck it. It's up to me. Leading with the pistol, he glanced around the doorframe, just in time to see a stern-woman mask looking back at him. Fuck! It's Shadow Stalker! It's fucking Sophia Hess!

"Fuck! It's the boyfriend!"

He dropped into the Weaver stance, lining up with her centre mass. "Stalker! Show me your hands! Tell your friend to come out right now, or I will—"

She brought up a crossbow from behind her cloak. He fired twice, each flat crack assaulting his eardrums; the string twanged at the same instant, and he felt a burning line across the outside of his calf. Shadow Stalker fell backward out of sight, but in the instant before she vanished he saw red blossoming on the shoulder of her costume.

Green smoke billowed across the doorway, cutting off his line of sight. He backed off, pistol still lined at the doorway. Warm liquid ran down his ankle and soaked into his sneaker. Yanking his phone out of his pocket, he woke it up via muscle memory and hit Krieg's number.

"What the fuck?" Over the ringing in his ears, he vaguely heard Shadow Stalker's voice from inside the smoke cloud. "Fucker shot me!"

"Did he shoot you in the legs?" The other voice sounded remarkably unsympathetic.

"No, just the shoulder! Fuck, that hurts!"

"Then you can run. This is a wash. We have to get out of here."

"Not if we kill that little fucker!" Shadow Stalker sounded positively murderous.

Mr. Fleischer's abrupt tones came through over the phone. "Mister Ferguson. I hope you've got a good reason for disturbing me."

"Couple of people trying to kidnap Taylor's dad," Peter gasped. "One of them's Shadow Stalker. Dunno about the other one. I shot Stalker. And they know about the Empire!"

Krieg's voice went from annoyed to disbelieving. "What? What's happening now?"

"They've got smoke bombs. Green smoke. Other one's a woman. Dunno who." Aware he was leaving bloody footprints, Peter eased around the corner of the corridor, leaving just his gun and one eye covering the doorway to the anteroom. "I've backed off a bit. Dunno what—"

At that moment, two black spheres about the size of baseballs bounced out of the green fog. Peter instinctively ducked back around the corner, just before the balls exploded violently. He would forever swear that he felt shrapnel hum past him to embed in the wall opposite, and his ears stopped working altogether. He thought he screamed the word, "FUCK!" but he couldn't even hear that much.

Glancing back around the doorframe, he saw that the green smoke cloud was dissipating, and that the section of the corridor leading up to the anteroom had been utterly trashed. Acrid smoke, of the non-coloured variety, was starting to drift toward the ceiling, but he didn't think anything was on fire. That clearly didn't matter to the fire system, because at that point the sprinklers chose to kick into action.

His leg was really starting to hurt now, but he didn't care. Gun up and ready, he limped back around the corner and headed toward Mr. Hebert's room. He knew what Mr. Hebert looked like, and if anyone else came out of there, he was going to shoot the living shit out of them.

Just as the green smoke thinned enough to allow visibility, there was a thump and purple smoke started to billow in the anteroom. Instead of backing off again, he moved up, keeping off to the side. He couldn't overhear any more talking, but that didn't mean anything. The way his ears were ringing, they could've been playing the 1812 Overture complete with real cannons and he wouldn't have heard a thing.

As he reached the doorframe, there was a stirring in the purple smoke and a woman in a harlequin costume came out in a diving roll. He snapped a shot by reflex, missing high. Steel glinted as knives flew from her hand—where did she get those from?—and he was too busy dodging to improve his aim. One grazed his arm, and the other smacked into the doorframe right about eye level; he fired back twice, but she'd dropped another smoke bomb—blue, this time—and had vanished into the resultant cloud.

He didn't know if she was coming back, but from what she'd been saying before, he didn't think so. In any case, Shadow Stalker was still in there, as was Mr. Hebert, and he didn't trust her not to do something vindictive just to fuck with the Empire. He wasn't sure how many rounds he had left, but a quick check showed there was one in the chamber and that was good enough for him. All he needed was a clear line on her centre mass, and there would be no loss to Brockton Bay at all.

Taking a deep breath, he plunged into the cloud of purple smoke and out the other side. Stalker was in there alright, the shoulder of her costume shiny with blood, leaning over Mr. Hebert with a razor-sharp arrowhead just touching his throat. He couldn't tell if she was saying something or not, but she seemed the type to enjoy gloating over a helpless victim. I'll never understand why they ever considered her a hero.

He fired, the small pistol jolting back into his palm, but she saw him first and went to her shadow form. The bullet whipped through and punched a hole in the wall, but he wasn't watching that. He was watching the cloud of shadow. Mr Hebert seemed to be unharmed at the moment, but he knew that could change at any moment.

Going under the bed in the blink of an eye, Shadow Stalker reformed more or less in his face with the arrow still in her hand, stabbing upward toward his stomach. He couldn't fire because she was between him and the bed, and if she went to shadow, he'd hit Mr. Hebert. So he threw himself backward and sideways, straightarming the pistol and squeezing the trigger as fast as he could.

Bang. She flickered to shadow and back again. The wall above her head acquired a new hole.

Click.

He assumed her hearing hadn't been as compromised as his was, because the speed at which she reacted to the sound implied she'd heard it as easily as he felt it through his hand. In a motion that she had to have practiced, she whipped out a crossbow and slotted the arrow into place. Time seemed to stretch as Peter looked for an option, some way to get out of this. His gun was empty, and the way he'd fallen, only his wounded leg had leverage. Right beside him was Mary's body, the bloody hole in her chest all that remained of the arrow Shadow Stalker had shot her with. Slowly, almost teasingly, the crossbow came up to point at his face.

"Well, you're a fuckin' Nazi at least." She seemed gleeful at the idea. "I'm gonna kill you, and then I'm gonna kill Hebert's dad. So when your bitch Nazi girlfriend Hebert gets back, she'll see how you totally failed to protect him."

He stared at her unflinchingly. Fergusons didn't back down, and they didn't show fear to their enemies. "I passed on word that you were here. Whether you kill me or not, you're fucked."

"Bullshit." She chuckled grimly. "I've been in the PRT building all this time. You have no idea who I am. You can't fuckin' touch me."

His grin stretched across his face, all the more feral for the pain in his leg. "Emma came to me and told me exactly who you are, Sophia. She sold your sorry ass down the river, just to keep her family safe. The PRT might be able to protect you, but how are you going to tell them to protect your family? Your mom? Your brother? Your sister?"

Even through the eyeholes of the full-face mask, he saw her eyes widen, and realized he'd pushed her too hard. Her hand clenched on the crossbow.

His last thought before she pulled the trigger was to hope that he'd delayed Stalker long enough for his reinforcements to prevent her from murdering Danny Hebert.

The arrow came off the crossbow like a hunting falcon, launching itself toward his left eye. He flinched involuntarily, but after a few seconds with no impact he opened his eyes.

The arrow hung in the air between them, slowly inching its way toward him.

Oh, thank God.

<><>​

Circus

Getting out was a lot easier than getting in. Circus had palmed the security guard's swipe card, which dealt with the major problem of passing through locked doors without a lot of fiddling with an electronic device. Ducking into a storage closet, she pulled out an appropriate change of clothing and made the switch from 'hot sexy supervillain' to 'nerdy male computer programmer', complete with glasses and pocket protector.

It was the glasses, he decided as he waved to the security guards on the way out the front door. Nobody ever thought a supervillain would need to wear glasses. That, and they were looking for a woman in makeup and skintight bodysuit. Discreet shoulder padding and loose trousers gave him a totally different look.

Once he was free and clear, he pulled out his phone and texted Shadow Stalker.

Hey.

Nothing.

Hey. You clear?

A long pause, then a message popped up.

Yeah. Where can we meet?

A smirk curled his lip. That wasn't Shadow Stalker. He typed in his reply.

Same place as the first time. Fugly's, remember?

The answer was a lot quicker this time.

Yeah, I remember. I'll be there in half an hour.

He shook his head. They had Shadow Stalker, or she'd dropped her phone; probably the former. Either way, she was burned as an asset. Oh, well. Sucks to be her. Time to give the boss the bad news.

<><>​

Coil

Calvert's phone buzzed and he picked it up. It was a text from Circus. Moving unhurriedly, he opened it. With any luck, Hebert senior would've been acquired or killed, but that was a secondary priority to Lung seriously weakening the Empire to the point that Remote could be brought in or killed; whichever was easiest.

Mission went bad. We nearly got the guy, but some asshole interfered.

Hebert was fine, last I saw. SS is probably captive.

Imma go dark for a bit til they forget my involvement.

C

Under his mask, his lips pressed together in a tight grimace. Losing Circus' services for awhile would sting, although he had other resources to call upon. He'd been careful to ensure Shadow Stalker never got the slightest hint as to who was behind her extracurricular recruitment, so the Empire wouldn't think to come harassing his men for payback. It could definitely have been worse.

He hadn't actually given Circus orders to abandon Shadow Stalker in the Medhall building, but that was also a bonus for him. If they decided to go public with her having invaded their space, it would prove a huge PR backlash for the Wards and PRT in general. In fact, the more paranoid minds among them were likely to suspect PRT involvement anyway. And if they simply murdered her and got rid of her body in an unmarked grave, the PRT would be forever wondering what happened to her and the Empire would be focusing more on the PRT than on his own operations.

Whichever way it fell out, he was in the clear.

Life, he decided, was looking good.

<><>​

Taylor

Analysis: This is bad.

Observation: Lung is increasing in size.

Conclusion: This is very bad indeed.

Without pausing at the edge of the rooftop, covered in metal scales and wreathed in flames, Lung took a running leap and plunged into the middle of my Empire comrades. Menja sought to intercept him with her spear, but at the last moment, Oni Lee was literally in her face, blocking her view. I saw her lurch backward while I tried to line up a shot with the armed auxiliary unit. My power noted that he'd activated a grenade and shoved it down the front of her armour, so I set about preventing it from exploding.

For a split second, Crusader's ghosts converged on Lung to hold him in one place, but a burst of fire sent him stumbling backward, his concentration destroyed as he tried to beat out the flames on his costume. I strode forward; as the most armoured of all Empire capes there, I was the logical choice to combat Lung. But before I got there, Lung broke free of the wavering ghosts and pounced on Kaiser.

Menja seized Oni Lee and threw him away from her, giving my armed unit the chance to open fire. Five shots hit the tumbling demonic cape, but then he puffed into ash, leaving me to believe he was no longer—

My armour swayed as a weight landed on my back and my helmet. A black-gloved hand clawed at the armoured glass covering where my face would be if I were three feet taller, then a knife came into view, hacking at the clear covering. I swung my arm up and back, attempting to throw him off, but again his weaponry vanished in what I knew would be a puff of ash.

Kaiser screamed, his voice audible even within my armour, as Lung clawed away metal plates from his back. The Asian cape was now over ten feet tall, his flames lighting up the area all around. I took another step forward to put me in reach, then activated the chain. It whipped out across the distance that separated us and wrapped around Lung's arm. Setting myself—despite the disparity in size, I suspected we were much the same weight—I heaved, hauling Lung away from my commander.

Analysis: Based on previous actions, Oni Lee will focus on trying to neutralize or kill me.

Conclusion: He will be back.

Even as Lung tore at the chain, trying to loosen it or pull me off balance, the weight on my shoulders returned. My left arm snapped up, aligning in accordance with what my camera unit was showing me, and I triggered the telescoping spike up past the helmet of my armour. It lashed out, punching through Oni Lee's breastbone and out his back. Acting upon the assumption this was the original Oni Lee and not a teleport-clone, I continued the movement, flinging the man up and forward so that he flew off the spike and collided with Lung then flopped to the ground.

Lung looked around and down, at the feebly twitching Oni Lee. His features at this size were no longer human, and I thought I could feel the heat radiating from him where I was. I watched as his expression changed to one I could not decipher.

Analysis: Either anger or fear.

Further analysis: Fear very unlikely.

Conclusion: Killing Oni Lee has made him extremely angry.

Decision: This is a good thing. Anger leads to poor decisions.

Lung ceased trying to lever the chain loose at that point. Turning fully toward me and away from Kaiser, he started in my direction, attempting to use the chain to reel me in. I pretended to let that work, as Menja moved toward Kaiser behind his back.

Letting out a roar that I heard clear through the armour, he washed flame over me. I started feeling unpleasantly warm, but not painfully hot. Metal, as I knew well, was a good conductor of heat.

Mental note: speak to Victor about better heat insulation.

I pretended to resist being pulled in, right up until he gave a heave that should have dragged me into his grasp. At that moment, I lunged with my right arm outward, fist clenched. Just before I would have made contact, I triggered the telescoping spike from that arm. It met considerably more resistance when punching through his breastbone than it had with Oni Lee, but this time it had all the weight of my armour behind it. He staggered as I stabbed him through the body, but did not go down.

Analysis: Lung's regeneration allows him to survive potentially fatal wounds.

Conclusion: I will have to try harder.

At this range, the air inside the armour was getting unpleasantly hot, and I was beginning to sweat. I attempted to stab him again, with the spike from my left arm, but the angle was wrong and it skidded off his metal scales. He took hold of my armour's helmet with one hand and my right wrist with the other, and started to squeeze. His strength was considerable; I could feel the metal beginning to deform, the carefully machined moving parts losing touch with one another.

Analysis: Danger level increasing.

Conclusion: Disengaging would be optimum.

My camera-equipped auxiliary unit could see that my comrades were making use of my distraction, carrying Kaiser, Othala and Rune from the field. That was good, but now I needed a distraction of my own.

My armed auxiliary swooped down, lined up on Lung's body, and triggered a burst of tungsten darts. He grunted as they struck him, but his grip didn't loosen enough. It fired again, enough to shred an ordinary man from head to toe. Wounds opened in his flesh, but closed again almost immediately. He was now almost twice my height, with wings sprouting from his back.

Observation: Tungsten darts ineffective.

Suggestion: Use chain as an offensive weapon.

The heat within the armour was such that I was having trouble thinking. I took the chain, dropping links where they had been crushed in his fist, and reconnecting them to make a single length once more. Then I wrapped it around his neck and body, turned the tungsten blades, and activated them. Metal screeched and sparks flew, but Lung seemed more durable than a broomstick or a pistol. His regeneration was healing him faster than I could damage him. I attempted to spin up the back-mounted electrical generators, but something was wrong with them, and they could not get up to speed.

The silicone layer inside the armour was beginning to soften and ooze downward. I prepared myself for an all-out attack to get free from Lung. If this continued much longer, he would cook me in my own armour without ever laying a hand on me.

And then, suddenly, with a tremendous impact, he was gone. I found myself skidding sideways, my armour throwing up sparks from the asphalt. Swivelling my camera-equipped auxiliary unit, I managed to get a view of a hovering person on the heat-warped screen within the armour.

Observation: Glory Girl has attacked Lung.

Analysis: She does not know who I am inside the armour.

Conclusion: She believes me to be a fellow hero.

Lung surged to his feet, roaring something incoherent. I suspected that if I recorded it and played it back, it might be possible to decipher it as swearing. The armour remained uncomfortably hot and the right wrist was not responding properly, but I was still able to function. I made the chain leap off Lung and writhe back to me, where it reconnected to the end protruding from the arm port.

Glory Girl said something to Lung that I didn't hear.

Supposition: She's told him to leave or be beaten up.

Analysis: A display of solidarity will help back the threat up.

Stepping forward, I assumed the basic posture of readiness that Peter had shown me. In addition, I had the tank rumble up behind me and aim its guns at Lung as well.

Temptation: Open fire now, before he attacks.

Negation: That might trigger an attack. The armour needs to be improved and upgraded before facing him again.

Conclusion: Forcing him to leave now is the best option. Increase intimidation presence.

I took another step forward and caused the chains to whip around my armour threateningly. Both my auxiliary units took up station above me, aiming their respective cargoes at Lung. The tank moved six feet closer.

Abruptly, Lung turned and leaped to the top of the nearest building, clearing three storeys with ease. His wings spread and helped him glide at the top of the jump, though I could not tell if he was able to fly as yet. I stayed on guard in case this was a feint, but it did not seem to be the case.

Analysis: Lung is leaving.

Proposition: Glory Girl may be open to persuasion to ask Panacea to heal Othala, Rune and Kaiser, as their wounds were caused by ABB ambush.

Glory Girl turned to me. "Well, that was fun. Glad I got here in time to help you …" Her voice trailed off, then changed in tone. "You."

Observation: Eyes narrowing.

Analysis: She is looking past me, toward Victor.

Further analysis: anger.

Conclusion: She still holds a grudge against him for shooting Panacea.

Final conclusion: This fight is not yet over.



End of Part Twenty-Two

 

[Scopas]

Ah, excellent! Finally, after a multi-year wait, the promised Ack-brand clusterfuck (accept no substitutes) has come to pass! It's everything I ever dreamed of!

First, I'm very happy to see the return of this story. While the majority of your fics I've had the pleasure of reading have been creative and interesting takes on Worm, this one stands out to me as both the only E88!Taylor I can think of, and as a fairly realistic feeling tale of how a person can become a monster without noticing it. I don't claim to be any kind of expert on extremists groups or cults or whatnot, but I remember an interview with a member of "Hope Not Hate", a de-radicalizing group made up of former members of white supremacist groups and the like, where the guy said something about how you don't know how deep you're in until it's too late, because it all feels so natural, and it makes such good sense when you're in the wrong headspace. And as you pointed out before, Taylor's in the perfect headspace to be recruited - young, isolated, traumatized, borderline suicidal.

In regards to the actual events of the story, I'm pretty sure Skidmark's either dead or has a broken spine. Same goes for Squealer - ejection seats and hatches are far from delicate. As far as the death of Oni Lee goes, good riddance, and I found it interesting how you dealt with the discussions about grenade mechanisms. Informative and appropriate, without excess detail, while still indicating why Taylor can't simply no-sell them. Lung broke and fled easier than I was expecting, but... I dunno. Maybe the seed of fear from his previous defeat is yielding fruit.

As for Sophia - I do love how the entire plan fell apart because of her rampant unprofessionalism. 'Not a soldier' indeed. She killed a civilian and left the body visible, apparently was speaking in a normal or loud tone of voice during a kidnapping mission, and took time that ended up spoiling her assassination attempt by taunting a man in a coma about his death. Also amusing how her attempts to retroactively justify her atrocious conduct in light of Taylor's new-found allegiance sound exactly like the arguments made by RL racists. Her complete lack of awareness about being the single best recruiting tool the E88 could have asked for since Lung started kidnapping white girls and forcing them into sex slavery is quite amusing, in a fucked up way.

Thank you for the quality chapter, Ack. I hope this means that the story has been breathed back to life, and will be updated again before 2025.

 

[Robert Stadler]

One thing I'm confused about here - it seems as though Peter has triggered in this chapter, but Panacea told us in chapter 17 that Peter had no corona pollentia. Am I misunderstanding what happened?

 

[Scopas]

One thing I'm confused about here - it seems as though Peter has triggered in this chapter, but Panacea told us in chapter 17 that Peter had no corona pollentia. Am I misunderstanding what happened?

Click to shrink...

I don't think that Peter triggered - I think that was Krieg showing up. Remember, Krieg's power is influencing and directing momentum, so when the arrow comes to a halt, its because Krieg just showed up and canceled the forward momentum of the bolt.

 

[preier]

First, as always : thanks for the chapter, Ack.

Second:

The Slippery Slope
[A/N 2: Warning: Empire character dialogue may contain racist terms and views. These views are not shared by the author.]

Click to shrink...

Each time an author needs to explain that my hopes for humanity's future wither a bit more...

 

[Ack]

Ah, excellent! Finally, after a multi-year wait, the promised Ack-brand clusterfuck (accept no substitutes) has come to pass! It's everything I ever dreamed of!

First, I'm very happy to see the return of this story. While the majority of your fics I've had the pleasure of reading have been creative and interesting takes on Worm, this one stands out to me as both the only E88!Taylor I can think of, and as a fairly realistic feeling tale of how a person can become a monster without noticing it. I don't claim to be any kind of expert on extremists groups or cults or whatnot, but I remember an interview with a member of "Hope Not Hate", a de-radicalizing group made up of former members of white supremacist groups and the like, where the guy said something about how you don't know how deep you're in until it's too late, because it all feels so natural, and it makes such good sense when you're in the wrong headspace. And as you pointed out before, Taylor's in the perfect headspace to be recruited - young, isolated, traumatized, borderline suicidal.

In regards to the actual events of the story, I'm pretty sure Skidmark's either dead or has a broken spine. Same goes for Squealer - ejection seats and hatches are far from delicate. As far as the death of Oni Lee goes, good riddance, and I found it interesting how you dealt with the discussions about grenade mechanisms. Informative and appropriate, without excess detail, while still indicating why Taylor can't simply no-sell them. Lung broke and fled easier than I was expecting, but... I dunno. Maybe the seed of fear from his previous defeat is yielding fruit.

As for Sophia - I do love how the entire plan fell apart because of her rampant unprofessionalism. 'Not a soldier' indeed. She killed a civilian and left the body visible, apparently was speaking in a normal or loud tone of voice during a kidnapping mission, and took time that ended up spoiling her assassination attempt by taunting a man in a coma about his death. Also amusing how her attempts to retroactively justify her atrocious conduct in light of Taylor's new-found allegiance sound exactly like the arguments made by RL racists. Her complete lack of awareness about being the single best recruiting tool the E88 could have asked for since Lung started kidnapping white girls and forcing them into sex slavery is quite amusing, in a fucked up way.

Thank you for the quality chapter, Ack. I hope this means that the story has been breathed back to life, and will be updated again before 2025.

Click to shrink...

Lung left because a) Oni Lee is dead, b) Glory Girl packs a real punch and c) GG's fear aura is currently blasting on all cylinders. He's also wounded Kaiser, and Othala and Rune are either dead or critically wounded.

Skidmark and Squealer aren't in a good place.

One thing I'm confused about here - it seems as though Peter has triggered in this chapter, but Panacea told us in chapter 17 that Peter had no corona pollentia. Am I misunderstanding what happened?

Click to shrink...

I don't think that Peter triggered - I think that was Krieg showing up. Remember, Krieg's power is influencing and directing momentum, so when the arrow comes to a halt, its because Krieg just showed up and canceled the forward momentum of the bolt.

Click to shrink...

Peter hasn't triggered. Krieg got there in the nick of time.

 

[Darkarma]

Its back. I've been waiting for this one for years. Good chapter. Now the real question how committed is Vicky to the next fight?

 

[Ack]

Its back. I've been waiting for this one for years. Good chapter. Now the real question how committed is Vicky to the next fight?

Click to shrink...

She's still got quite a grudge built up against Victor.

 

[karay]

All that shitstorm and the other shoe has still yet to drop. Still an interesting experience.

 

[jumboseafood]

Now what nazi taylor is scarily plausible.

 

[Ack]

The Slippery Slope

Part Twenty-Three: Harsh Measures

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

[A/N 2: To repeat what I have said in previous chapters: I do not adhere to the white supremacist ideology. This fic is a thought experiment to see how someone could get dragged into it when faced with their recruitment techniques, especially when aided and abetted by a black girl repeatedly and maliciously (and unwittingly) pushing the victim toward such ideology.]

[A/N 3: If you're unsure about what went before, I've provided a synopsis at the beginning of the previous chapter.]

[A/N 4: Members of the Empire Eighty-Eight may express racist slurs and sentiments in this chapter. You have been warned.]

Clockblocker

"Hey."

"Hey."

"Hey."

Dennis barely looked around as the entrance to the Wards base slid aside and Triumph entered, along with Gallant. His casual wave was returned by the other two; Dean split off to head toward Kid Win's lab, where his armour was stored (he was wearing civvies and a domino mask at the moment) while Rory came over to the console desk. Dennis slid aside on the swivel chair so his team leader could look over the screens.

"Where's Shadow Stalker?" asked Rory as he leaned over to flick a trackball and scroll across one of the city maps. "Isn't she supposed to be backing you up on console duty?"

"Gym," Dennis replied idly. "No big. She's got a lot on her mind, because duh, and I'm good with her working out her tensions against the punching bag rather than being a big steaming heap of angst right here in the room. Besides, it's been totally quiet. Aegis and Vista have intercepted a grand total of two muggings down near the Boardwalk tonight. It's like the ABB and Empire have both decided to tell their guys to take the night off."

"Hmm." Rory didn't sound convinced. "You ever seen one of those movies where someone says, "it's quiet" and someone else says, "too quiet", just before all hell breaks loose?"

"Seen 'em? I love those type of movies." A moment later, the penny dropped, and Dennis realised what Rory was angling at. "Wait, you don't think—"

"I don't know." Rory rubbed his jaw. "With all the stuff that's been going down, I'd expect the Empire and the ABB to be puffing their chests out and putting on a show to prove they're both still in the game. Going silent like this doesn't sound like them. I'd be a lot happier if I knew what they were doing."

Dennis glanced at the alert button. Currently caged under a transparent plastic cover, hitting it would sound alarms at all levels of the PRT building. It was to be used only if the Ward on duty saw something that absolutely definitely required all hands on deck, no questions asked. He'd never actually seen it used, though he'd always harboured a sneaking desire to press it, just to see what would happen.

Or better yet, to have someone else press it, so he could enjoy the show without suffering the consequences.

"In a pressing-emergency sort of way?" he asked hopefully.

"Pfft, no," Rory replied. "Though I'd like to have everyone who's supposed to be here, actually here. You know, in case the Director decides to have someone audit our readiness or something. I'll watch the console; you go fetch Shadow Stalker."

This was something Dennis knew how to counter. "Ah, nope, sorry. I'm rostered on to the console, and here I stay. Besides, if I went up there and she decided to pull the whole 'you don't give me orders' crap on me, there's no way in hell I'd be able to actually force her to go anywhere."

Rory might have frowned, but it was difficult to tell behind the lion-face helmet. "Are you trying to wuss out of having to go up to the gym and tell her she's got to come back down here and pretend to do her job?"

If Dennis had been wearing the helmet that belonged with the rest of his costume instead of just a domino mask, Rory wouldn't have been able to see his smirk, but he didn't care. "Imma go with my version."

"Fine." Dennis would've bet his allowance Rory had just rolled his eyes. "I'll go up and get her. How long's she been up there, anyway?"

"Um …" Dennis shrugged. He hadn't taken notes. What do I look like, her personal secretary?

"For a guy with clocks all over your costume, you're not very good with time management, are you?"

Dennis tried to think of a comeback as Rory headed for the door, but all he could come up with was, "That's not what they're there for." Worse, the door closed again halfway through his witty reply.

Rolling his own eyes, he turned back to the console. When Rory brought Stalker down, she was going to assume he'd snitched on her from the very beginning, and the level of fuck-you in the room was going to rise by about a thousand percent. But there was literally no way he was going to be able to convey to her that he really, honestly, absolutely didn't give a fuck if she kept herself to herself all night without her either disbelieving him or taking it as an insult.

Which meant the night was due to take a sudden downturn in quality. Yay.

Dean strolled out of Chris' lab, now wearing his armour. "Where'd Rory go?"

"Up to the gym, to get Shadow Stalker." Dennis knew damn well Dean could see how he felt, so there was no point in hiding it. "She's gonna think I'm deliberately getting her into trouble, but he asked! How's that fair?"

"Hey, now." Dean patted the air placatingly. "She might not."

Dennis gave him a level stare and didn't even bother answering, at least not in words.

"Okay, yeah." Dean sighed. "I can maybe say something to her about it."

"Don't bother, man." Dennis shook his head. "She'll believe what it suits her to believe."

Dean nodded. "True. Though it would probably help if you didn't stare at her ass every chance you got."

Dennis spread his hands. "What can I say? She's got an amazing ass, and it doesn't help that Image stuffed her into the tightest costume they could find."

"Just because it's there doesn't automatically give you a license to stare at it," Dean said reprovingly. "She's a human being, not a piece of meat. Do you want to end up in another sensitivity course?"

"God, no," Dennis replied with a theatrical shudder. "I—"

"Triumph to console," his headphones suddenly crackled. "Which gym was Shadow Stalker supposed to be in, again?"

Holding up his finger in a 'wait one' gesture, Dennis spun his chair back around to the console. Selecting Triumph's radio channel so he didn't broadcast to the entire PRT network, he checked the screen and keyed the mic. "She's in the usual one, on level four. Her ankle-bracelet signal's loud and clear."

"Copy that." Triumph went silent again.

Dean pointed at the screen, indicating what Dennis had already seen; specifically, the locator in Rory's Wards phone. "He's in the level four gym." It was quite close to Shadow Stalker's ankle bracelet.

The difference between the ankle bracelet and the phones was that the individual Wards had the capability (bestowed after a gruelling legal clash with Youth Guard, years ago) to turn off the tracker function in the phones. Triumph usually left his on, while Shadow Stalker had always turned hers off.

"She's probably in the female locker rooms," Dennis decided. "At least, her bracelet isn't moving. Maybe taking a shower?"

"She's certainly dedicated to taking a long shower with plenty of soap after her gym sessions," Dean noted. "I wonder how long she's going to make him wait?"

Dennis snorted with laughter. "Until the water runs cold. Or he goes to find a female PRT trooper to go in there and roust her out for him. I guess it's one way to duck out of monitor duty."

"Heh, yeah." Dean idly reached out for the trackball attached to one of the screens Dennis wasn't using, and scrolled it sideways.

"Hey!" Dennis' rebuke was half-hearted at best. "How about you leave my settings alone until it's your turn for monitor duty?" Then he paused, looking at what had just rolled onto the screen, unsure of what he was seeing. "Hey, was Glory Girl rostered on for a patrol tonight?"

"Vicky? No. She said she was on tomorrow night." Dean was leaning in to stare at the screen as well. When he reached out to zoom the map image larger, Dennis didn't object. "That's … wow, that's up near the no-man's-land between the Empire and the ABB. Where the Merchants do their business, because they can. What's she doing up there?"

The icon denoting Glory Girl's Wards phone tracker was clear and bright on the screen, literally miles away from anywhere she should've been. Dennis shook his head. "I have zero ideas on that score, man. Maybe she took a fly around the city to clear her head?"

"Yeah, maybe." Dean frowned. "But I—"

"Triumph to console. I just found the ankle bracelet. Stalker's not here."

"What?" Dennis struggled to make sense of the words. "How did she—she can't slip an ankle bracelet, can she? I thought she had trouble with electricity."

"She does." Rory's voice held disbelief and anger. "It's been unlocked. She's escaped."

"Or she's loose in the building. With a grudge." Dennis knew exactly what he had to do. Reaching out, he flipped up the transparent cover.

"Clock—" But Dean was too late. Serious shit was going down. The time had come for all good men to stand up and be counted.

He hit the big red button.

<><>​

Remote

"Glory Girl, you need to stand down right now." I put all the assurance I could muster into those nine words. Translated through the voice modulator into a deep masculine tone, they held the best chance of making her back off.

If she didn't, if she grabbed Victor now, all indications were that she would utterly ignore Othala's gesture of sneaking into the hospital to heal Panacea. The least she would do was fly him off to be arrested and charged. I very strongly suspected that she intended to physically harm him in retribution for shooting her sister; given how she had reacted at the Boardwalk, a lethal outcome was not something I could rule out.

Victor is a valued ally. Allowing superhero 'Glory Girl' to kill him is extremely sub-optimal.

He couldn't run, and he couldn't fight her. Othala was critically injured, and Rune and Kaiser weren't doing much better, which reduced our options considerably. Crusader and Menja were attempting to sneak the wounded away, leaving my armour the only protection that Victor had. It was damaged from fighting Lung, but still mostly operational.

"No." Superhero 'Glory Girl's tone harsh. Fists clenching. Preparing for physical altercation. Conclusion: she intends to fight. "He doesn't get to walk away again. Amy's not here. There's no innocents he can threaten. He gets what's coming to him."

I tried again. "Othala healed Panacea. Now, Othala needs Panacea's healing. Can you put aside your enmity for the moment?" Use of emotional appeal may tip balance. "Please?"

Glory Girl shook her head. Gesture indicating firm negation, not confusion. Attempts to dissuade her are failing. Combat imminent. "Ain't gonna happen. Step out of the way, or I'll take your Tinker toy apart like a sardine can. Victor's mine, and nobody's going to stop me from getting to him."

She began to fly toward me, then jinked up and around, out of my arms' reach. Fortunately, I had my auxiliary units watching, so that I could see where she was. I whipped my chain upward, wrapping around her legs and binding her tightly, in an attempt to bring her to a halt. The sudden wrench to the rear unbalanced the armour, so that I was forced to take a step back and swing around, but at least the chain held firm.

"Hey!" she yelled, slowing dramatically but forcing herself onward, swinging back and forth at the end of the chain, not unlike a large and very angry balloon.

The chain was dragged out of the storage-drum on my back, link by reluctant link. I slowed her down as much as I could without risking the chain itself separating into its component parts. At the same time, it did not seem to be harming her in any way—what I had heard of her invulnerability appeared to be true—so I increased the pressure to the maximum I could exert, to ensure that she couldn't wriggle out of it.

"I will not let you hurt him," I intoned, while wrapping more lengths of the chain around her legs. To release herself, I reasoned, she would have to bend over and pull at the chain, and while she was doing that, she would not be flying toward Victor. "You have already tried to murder him once."

"Fuck you!" she screamed, and doubled back toward me. The release of the tension took me by surprise, and I had no time to react as she drew her fist back and punched the armour squarely in the middle of the faceplate.

Three things happened in very quick succession. The first was that she punched the 'helmet' clear off the armour with a screech of tearing metal; I jerked my own head out of the way just before the lower end of the periscope would have done me a serious injury. Second, the blow lifted the armour off its feet and sent it skidding backward. I was left relatively unscathed; the padding and safety belt within the armour protected me from more than the sensation of having been shaken up like a box of dice.

The third thing that happened was more dramatic than the other two. On the screen (still barely functional) in front of me, I saw blood blossom all over Glory Girl's legs as the chains cut into her. Before I could slacken off their grip, the wounds were so deep that the chains were out of sight.

The reason for this was obvious after a moment or so of thought: even though the cutting blades had not been spinning, they had still been pressing against her skin when I wrapped the chain around her. When her invulnerability cut out (I still did not understand why that might be) the blades cut into her legs and the chains tightened even more.

In an instant, the tide of battle had turned. Glory Girl crash-landed alongside the armour, apparently unconscious, blood pooling around her legs. I had no desire to harm her any further, no more than I'd had to begin with. My only intent had been to dissuade her from harming my allies.

Analysis: Superhero 'Glory Girl' has suffered severe injury, and has gone into shock.

Additional information: Allies 'Othala', 'Rune' and 'Kaiser' are also in stringent need of medical attention.

Conclusion: get all four to superhero 'Panacea' immediately.

The armour was barely functional by now, so I had it sit up and open its front. As I climbed out, I detached two sections of chain to wrap around Glory Girl's legs (without presenting the cutting blades, this time) and act as tourniquets. If we were to obtain healing services from Panacea, we needed Glory Girl alive. I did not know much in the way of first-aid, but I was reasonably certain that blood needed to stay inside the body to be of the most use.

"Jesus!" Victor's eyes were wide, his breathing rapid. "What the hell did you do?"

Physiological reactions of ally 'Victor' indicating high stress. Strong potential for temporary reduction in judgement.

"I accidentally injured her with the chain-blades," I said. Assume positive control of vehicle designated 'Squealer's tank'. Commence disassembly of upper chassis. "You need to contact New Wave immediately."

He looked around as two of the turrets fell off the tank with a sudden clang, then stared at me. "New Wave? Why?"

"Othala, Rune, Kaiser and Glory Girl all require immediate medical attention," I explained. It was fortunate that I was under the influence of my powers at that moment, or I may have screamed at him or tried to shake him. As it was, I merely reaffirmed my prior conclusion that his judgement was likely to be temporarily impaired. "Panacea is our best chance for their survival. I am readying Squealer's vehicle to transport everyone. You need to arrange for them to meet us on the way. Do you understand?"

He blinked, and focused on my face. "… right. Okay, yeah. Good plan. I'll get right on that."

It was not a 'good' plan. In point of fact, it was a terrible plan, with many potential points of failure, but it was also the only plan I could envisage that allowed for the possibility of Othala, Rune and Kaiser surviving the night. This was, of course, assuming that they were injured as badly as I suspected. Neither Oni Lee nor Lung had been pulling their punches, either in a metaphorical or a literal fashion.

Glory Girl would also need to survive the night, which I wasn't sure would end up being a point in our favour with New Wave. She had already shown a marked disregard for any kind of restraint when it came to her vendetta with Victor; if this were a learned behaviour from one of the adult teammates, we could easily be going into another battle. But in my estimation, the risk was worth the reward. Kaiser, Othala and Rune were all people I valued as both friends and teammates.

I had the armour stand up and move the last of the pieces of Squealer's tank off the base chassis, then rolled it forward. "Everyone, get on board," I said. It occurred to me that the people I was giving orders to had far greater seniority than I did within the Empire, but I was the person with the plan. "Crusader, have your ghosts lie down to act as a mattress for the wounded. Leave room for Glory Girl."

"What the hell?" asked Crusader, making a gesture which I interpreted as anger. "Why her? She was gonna murder Victor!"

"Because she is our only hope of securing Panacea's cooperation," I explained once more. "And Panacea is our only hope of healing Othala and Kaiser and Rune."

"This shit is so fucked," Menja complained as she climbed onboard the ad hoc transport. "How the fuck did everyone know we were going to be here?"

I had thought it was obvious. "We were betrayed," I said, using the chain to lift and move Glory Girl onto the mostly disassembled tank, depositing her carefully on the layer of supine Crusader ghosts. Under my control, the armour climbed on alongside Menja. "Someone who knew we were coming to this area informed Lung. He holds a grudge with me, just as Glory Girl does with Victor. Is everyone secure?"

"Secure as we're going to be." Victor was hovering over Othala again. "Goddamn it, her vitals are so weak."

I started the minimalistic vehicle rolling. There would be no need for engine, drivetrain, brakes or even steering, so long as I was in control. "Check on Glory Girl as well. She needs to survive this experience, or Othala will not."

"Geez, you're a cold one … ah." He gave me a glance. Expression: apologetic. Conclusion: ally 'Victor' temporarily forgot the emotional blanking that is part and parcel with my powers. "Sorry. I'll get right on that."

"Thank you." Decision: courtesy will assist in encouraging cooperation between allies. "Did you contact New Wave?"

"Yeah. Head straight down McIntosh Road. They'll meet us along the way." He drew in air between his teeth as he bent over Glory Girl. Involuntary vocalisation: concern. Conclusion: superhero 'Glory Girl' is more badly hurt than first assumed. Further conclusion: she is very badly hurt indeed.

"Understood." I slowed briefly to navigate the turn, then accelerated along the designated road.

Very shortly, we were travelling at a speed that was not only well in excess of the posted speed limit, but would have been grossly unsafe for anyone not in personal control of each individual aspect of the vehicle in question. Wind whipped past us, causing me to squint behind my glasses, but I was literally unable to care at that moment. All that mattered was getting our wounded to Panacea.

<><>​

Lady Photon

A Little Earlier

Sarah didn't recognise the number on the phone as she picked it up, but that didn't mean much. If it was a would-be con artist or snake-oil salesman with an opportunity that New Wave "just couldn't afford" to let slip away, they were in for a rude surprise.

And if it happened to be yet another Youth Guard rep looking to earn their spurs by ferreting out irregularities about how New Wave's kid capes were handled, they were due for an equally unwelcome revelation. After the last round of harassment, she'd taken her complaint up the chain to the very top echelons of the organisation, and quietly suggested that they back all the way off before she used her connections to open an equally stringent level of investigation into some of the less ethical means Youth Guard were rumoured to use. Since then there'd been only crickets, which was just the way she liked it.

Her thumb swiped the answer icon as she put the phone to her ear. "Hello?"

"Hello, Lady Photon. Please do not hang up. Glory Girl is badly hurt, and urgently needs the assistance of Panacea."

She sat upright on the sofa, gripping the phone so hard her fingers hurt and the plastic creaked. "Who-who is this?" she managed to ask.

There was a hesitation, but before she could speak, he was talking again. "This is Victor, of the Empire Eighty-Eight. I know how it sounds, but—"

"Victor?" Rage flooded through her, reducing her voice to a venomous hiss. "If you've—"

"It wasn't my doing." The conviction in his voice brought her up short. "I swear to you on all I hold dear, this is not a trick or a trap. Glory Girl is badly injured, and so are Othala, Kaiser and Rune. All four of them require Panacea's aid as soon as possible. We are bringing Glory Girl to you right now, as a show of good faith. Will you undertake not to attack us when we meet up?"

Her eyes went out of focus as she thought rapidly. "We can meet you on the way. Where are you coming from, and who's with you?"

"We're about to leave Merchant territory, near the old Archerville cinema complex. Travelling by road. Our unwounded are myself, Menja, Crusader … and Remote."

Unconsciously, she nodded, though she wondered about the third name. "I'll be bringing Laserdream and Shielder, and Panacea of course. Come along McIntosh Road; it's quickest."

"That works for us. Hurry." Sarah heard the stress in his tone as he spoke the last word; paradoxically, this reassured her more than anything else that he was on the level. Someone as self-assured as Victor always tried to portray himself would never put on an act like that deliberately.

"On our way." She ended the call, then broke one of her own rules, levitating straight up out of the chair. "Kids! Emergency call-out! Go-go-go!"

Neil leaned through from the kitchen. "What? What's going on?"

"I'll call you and explain on the way," she said rapidly, then looked around to where Eric and Crystal were hurrying down the stairs, carrying their costumes. "No time for those. We're going in civvies. Every minute counts. Come on!"

Turning, she dashed for the door, wrenching it open and lofting into the air as soon as she was outside. "But what about Dad?" asked Crystal, following along behind.

"And how come it's so important we don't even have time to suit up?" chimed in Eric.

"Victoria's been hurt," Sarah said, dropping back a little so she could put a force field around all three of them, then accelerating as hard as she could toward the Dallon house. "Call Amy and tell her to come outside right now. We're on the clock, and we have zero time to waste stopping and explaining it to everyone."

Crystal nodded and started dialling, but Eric wasn't so easily shut up. "But what about Dad? Couldn't he help too?"

"Villains are bringing her to us," Sarah said crisply. "They don't want an ambush. I'd prefer to have fliers, in case they try an ambush. And I don't want people along who might start a fight when there's no need for one."

"Huh?" Eric looked puzzled for a second. "Oh, you mean Aunt Carol."

Sarah nodded. "Yes, but you didn't hear that from me."

Crystal put her hand over her ear as she kept talking. "Okay, yeah, just come straight outside. No, don't bother robing up. Mom's in a tearing hurry. She'll laser the hinges off the front door if you're not outside when we get there. Okay, good. Good. See you shortly." She ended the call. "Amy's got the message."

"Good. Did you tell her about her sister?" The last thing Sarah wanted was Amy passing that little tidbit on to anyone. Sarah loved Carol dearly, but she did not need her sister going off the deep end.

"Nope. Figured I'd leave it up to you to tell her." Crystal's tone held a distinct flavour of 'better you than me'. It still suited Sarah nicely.

"Excellent." Sarah peered ahead at a familiar-looking house. "We're nearly there. Eric, I'm going to drop the bubble. You fly down and grab Amy, then we'll keep going."

"Roger that." Eric tossed off a salute of some kind, then dived for the Dallon house as soon as Sarah released her force field. The front door opened as he descended; he barely had to slow down as he activated a bubble around her, then reversed course again.

Sarah started off with Crystal in tow, but a little more slowly than Eric's top speed. He caught up soon enough, and she put a force-field bubble around them all. Then she reshaped it with comfortable seating for all four of them, and made it much more aerodynamic.

"Okay, what the heck is going on here?" Amy, currently clad in pyjamas, looked a little more dishevelled than normal. "Crystal wouldn't tell me anything over the phone."

Sarah's phone rang; when she saw it was Carol's number, she declined the call. That's an argument I'm having later, not right now. "Okay, so I got a phone call just now from Victor …"

As the force-field construct raced on through the night sky, she told them what she knew, and they formulated a plan of action.

<><>​

Remote

I held to the centreline of the road, swerving neither to left nor right. The heavy tyres with which Squealer had outfitted her mechanical monstrosity (caterpillar tracks had apparently been too complex for her this time) thrummed over the potholed asphalt; I adjusted the suspension on the fly, smoothing out every last jolt and bump so that our progress was silk-smooth despite our headlong rush.

Menja sat at the back of the tank chassis, anchoring the makeshift mattress of Crusader ghosts, which clung to each other, as well as me and Justin at the front. Victor knelt next to the four wounded capes, checking on each in turn. While I could understand his lingering a little longer over Othala on an intellectual level, pure pragmatism indicated that Glory Girl should be getting most of his attention, for the very good reason that she was the ticket to getting the others healed at all.

But just as I was opening my mouth to mention this to him, Menja pointed. "There!"

Perhaps half a second later, Victor cried out desperately, "We're losing Othala!"

I couldn't help him—not that I had the expertise—so I concentrated on bringing the vehicle to a safe and steady halt. The most I could do apart from that was to move several lengths of my chain into place under her for support before she sank too far into the 'mattress' of Crusader ghosts.

The spearhead-shaped force field that Menja had spotted came swooping down as she waved her spear wildly. Two fliers detached from it and took up an orbit above us; I figured these were Laserdream and Shielder. The last flier would then be Lady Photon, carrying Panacea. It was a good solid defensive array, which suggested to me that they did not intend to attack without provocation. Still, I remained alert.

"Othala is dying!" I announced as the force field opened. "Please stabilise her first!"

Intent: commanding tone to get attention and pass on vital information. Use of courtesy more likely to engender cooperation from nominal enemies.

Unlike the previous time I had engaged with New Wave, I could not afford to stop using my powers. This was a high-danger scenario, and I might need to go on the offensive or defensive at any time. Fortunately, the fliers were not attacking. I remained cautious.

<><>​

Panacea

Amy had occasionally wondered what her reaction would be when she saw Taylor Hebert again. She'd been more or less railroaded into healing people, then been shot in the leg for her pains. (Yes, she knew it was Vicky's fault she got shot, but it still hurt, and it never would've happened without Taylor's intrusion into her life). Would she thank the other girl for the new insights she had into her life? Punch her in the face? Or should she try to extricate her from the Empire Eighty-Eight?

Dragged out on this sudden mission—still in her pyjamas, no less—the last person she'd expected to see was the Hebert girl. Certainly, she'd wondered who the new member was; 'Remote' didn't offer much in the way of hints as to what their powers were. Eric had jokingly suggested that they could probably change TV channels at a distance. But as Aunt Sarah let Amy down onto the odd vehicle—a chassis frame, wheels, and not much else—there she was.

The immediate impression Amy got was of someone who had aged years in the short time since their last meeting. There was no trace of apprehension or fear, just a supreme self-confidence. Someone who knew exactly what they were doing.

"Othala is dying!" Taylor Hebert announced. "Please stabilise her first!"

Abruptly reminded that she was there to save lives, Amy turned her attention to the wounded. They were resting on an ad hoc mattress of Crusader ghosts, and yes, Othala was sinking into it, while Vicky (despite her legs being covered with what looked like fresh blood) was still being supported by it. She recalled from her briefings on the Empire Eighty-Eight that the spectral minions created and controlled by the Empire cape could only interact with living beings. This meant that armour and force fields were irrelevant to them … but it did mean that Vicky was still alive.

Without hesitation, fully aware that she was surrounded by villains who could kill her with relative ease, Amy knelt beside Othala and put her hand to the woman's exposed neck. She exerted her power, trying to reach some spark of life, but there was nothing. Rolling Othala onto her back, Amy went through a dozen chest compressions, then pinched her nostrils shut and exhaled air into her lungs.

If I can restart something …

Nothing. Her body remained blank to Amy's power.

"I'm sorry," she said, looking at Victor. Rumour had it that the two were in some sort of relationship. "I can't help her. She's gone."

An instant later, she was looking into the muzzle of Victor's pistol. "Try. Harder," he grated.

Lady Photon, still hovering above the vehicle, tensed, but it was Taylor Hebert who spoke. "Victor, stop. She tried. Allow her to assist the others."

Amy hesitated, glancing sideways at the Hebert girl, who hadn't moved. How's she going to stop him?

"She barely did anything!" protested Victor. "She has to try again!" There was real pain in his voice.

"No." Taylor Hebert shook her head. "She tried. Panacea, he will not harm you. Please assist the others."

"What are you doing?" shouted Victor, as he moved his pistol away from Amy's face. "Remote, stop that, or by God I'll—"

Holy shit, is she Mastering him? Amy began to wonder exactly what powers Taylor Hebert could bring to bear.

"Nobody interferes." The two words may as well have been carved into stone. "That was the deal. Panacea, please see to the others."

Jolted into action, Amy scrambled over to see to Vicky. To her profound relief, her sister was still alive, but any longer would've made it touch and go. Her blood pressure was so low it was terrifying; Amy closed her wounds, noting the chains acting as ad hoc tourniquets, then started ruthlessly breaking down body tissues to replenish her blood supply. Vicky's brain cells showed a worrying amount of oxygen starvation, along with what looked like a concussion and bruising down one side, but she could only deal with some of that.

Her sister was alive. Everything after that was a bonus.

Once she was sure Vicky was stable, with plenty of oxygen-rich blood circulating through her brain, Amy gave Aunt Sarah a thumb's up and moved toward Rune. The girl had apparently been stabbed—Amy pondered the wisdom of wearing a costume so heavy on the reds and blacks that it was hard to see where wounds were—but she'd only suffered moderate internal bleeding, and might have even survived to reach a hospital. Amy fixed the damage and scavenged the blood, but left her unconscious for the moment. The fewer awake villains I have to face, especially after I couldn't save one, the better.

"Full recovery," she said out loud. "She'll be fine."

That seemed to get a relieved reaction from Menja—Amy wasn't entirely sure what the naming convention was with that—but Amy was already moving on to Kaiser. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Aunt Sarah's force field scooping Vicky up (more importantly, none of the villains were objecting to this) and then she placed her hand on one of the few parts of Kaiser's back that hadn't been shredded or seared.

This was absolutely the work of Lung. She'd seen it before. Kaiser's back armour had been clawed away with brute force, then Lung had tried his best to rip the Empire Eighty-Eight leader's internal organs out through his spine. Fortunately for the man before her, the ABB villain had clearly been interrupted before he could get too far, but the spinal damage was extensive, and she could see burn marks extending from first degree all the way through to third.

The first thing she did was get rid of the damage to his internals, and flatten out the system shock he was currently experiencing. Then she healed the burned tissue, regenerating it into healthy cells once more. A few more touches, then she renewed the skin on his back.

"He'll live," she said, kneeling up. "Lung more or less severed his spine, and inflicted internal injuries and serious burns. I healed the burns, fixed his internals, and reconnected enough nerves so he won't be incontinent, and he'll maintain sensation and circulation in his lower extremities. But he'll never walk again, sorry."

"What?" That was Crusader. "No! Fix him!"

"Yeah." Menja chimed in. "You can heal him all the way. Do it!"

Amy felt her heart thundering in her chest. "You called me in to save him. This isn't a charity thing. Kaiser will live a long and healthy life. He'll just have to do it in a wheelchair. I didn't damage his spine; I just chose not to fix it all the way."

"And Othala? Did you choose to let her die because she's our healer?" Victor's voice was full of pain.

"No." Amy shook her head, tears beginning to spill down her cheeks. "She was already gone before I got here. I would never just let someone die. It's not who I am."

"But you'll let Kaiser be a cripple?" Crusader's tone was full of anger. "What is this, payback for hurting your sister? For Victor shooting you that time?"

"I believe so," agreed Taylor, her voice deadpan. "She would consider it justified. This would be a viable way of taking Kaiser off the board while still adhering to the terms of the agreement."

"Fuck the agreement!" snarled Menja, readying her spear. The tip looked very sharp indeed. Amy swallowed, her throat suddenly dry.

In the next instant, lasers lashed down, slicing the haft of the weapon in half. At the same time, a force field snapped into place around Amy and yanked her upward. She looked around at her aunt's face as they ascended rapidly. "I think that was as good a time as any to pull you out," Sarah noted.

Amy nodded shakily. "Totally."

Eric and Crystal, shields both active, moved in close to Aunt Sarah's bubble. "We can totally take them," Eric said. "What do you say? Go for all the marbles?"

Amy shook her head. "No. We agreed not to attack them, and I want to stick to that, at least. Let's just go."

"I agree," Aunt Sarah said, and opened a portal in the bubble. "Come on in, kids."

Within moments, the Empire contingent was left far behind. Eric and Crystal stared with unabashed curiosity at Vicky as she lay on the force-field bed Aunt Sarah had made for her. "Is she going to be okay?" asked Eric.

"I … I don't know," Amy confessed. "There's some brain damage. She may come out of the coma today, or next week, or never. But she's breathing on her own, and I'm pretty sure the eating reflex is still intact. So … we'll just have to wait and see."

"And those Empire assholes did this to her?" Crystal, normally the peacemaker of the pair, clenched her fists in anger. "We should go back and—"

Amy shook her head tiredly. "It wouldn't solve a damn thing. I love her as much as you guys do, but they've lost people as well. Othala's dead, and Kaiser's going to be stuck in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. This isn't a contest. Everyone loses."

In the back of her mind, she was vaguely aware that there'd been a time when Vicky suffering an injury like this would've had her seething with rage and pursuing the Empire Eighty-Eight until they were all appropriately punished. However, since her encounter with Scapegoat, she'd gone over her old worldview with a fine-tooth comb, and found much of it to simply not matter anymore. In fact, she was so chill these days that she'd actually taken up singing in the shower, to Vicky's (and Mark's) amusement and Carol's annoyance.

Long story short: wreaking disproportionate vengeance in Vicky's name just didn't hold the same appeal as it had before.

We're even. For now.

<><>​

Remote

Less than a minute after the New Wave heroes had flown out of sight, Rune coughed and stirred. "Ugh …" she mumbled. "What happened?" Slowly, she sat up and looked around.

"Lots of stuff," Menja said before I could think of something suitably comforting to say. "We got ambushed by the ABB, you got stabbed by Oni Lee, then shit really went sideways. How do you feel?"

Rune patted her torso. "Uh … not bad, actually. No pain, no bruising that I can feel. Why do I feel so good?"

"Because Panacea healed you," Crusader cut in. Analysis: Ally 'Crusader' speaking in harsh tone. Conclusion: Angry with me. "But—"

"Panacea?" That was Kaiser's voice. We all turned his way—I glanced, then got my eyes back on the road—to see that he was moving his head, looking around. "Two questions: if Panacea healed me, why don't my legs work? And how did you get her to heal me at all? Also, a third question: if it was Panacea who healed me, what is Othala's status?"

Victor, who was cradling Othala's body across his lap, lifted his head without speaking. Tears were tracking down his face. Expression: sadness.

Kaiser paused for a long moment. "Oh, no." Tone: unhappiness.

Crusader moved in alongside Kaiser. "Oni Lee killed her, then Remote killed Oni Lee."

"And Panacea?" asked Kaiser.

Menja took up the tale. "Glory Girl came in just before we chased Lung off, and went for Victor. Remote stopped her. Somehow she got through Glory Girl's invulnerability, and hurt her really bad. So we called New Wave in, and traded Glory Girl for Panacea's healing." She looked over at Victor. "Othala didn't make it to the exchange."

"And my legs?" asked Kaiser pointedly, leaning on one arm so he could slap his unmoving lower limbs with the other hand.

I spoke up. "We did not specify the bargain closely enough. All that was on my mind was saving your lives. Panacea carried out the terms as agreed, but refused to repair your spine all the way."

"We could've forced her—" Crusader snarled. He looked sideways at me.

Expression: anger. Conclusion: Believes I let him down by not insisting that Panacea complete the healing.

"No," I said. "We could not have. She carried out the letter of the agreement. If we had attempted to harm her, Lady Photon and the other two would have killed us all with minimal effort."

Kaiser looked from Crusader to me. "Lady Photon? The other two?"

"Yeah," Crusader said. "Laserdream and Shielder. It's like Remote says. They could've carved us up like Christmas turkeys if they'd wanted." Tone: reluctant agreement.

"I see. And Oni Lee is dead now?" Tone: optimistic.

"Sure as hell." Menja nodded toward me. "Remote shish-kebabed him, and threw him in Lung's face. No ash in sight."

"Good." Tone: satisfaction. "Let's get back to base. We have retribution to plan."

"Who against?" asked Crusader, as I made the vehicle pick up speed. "Panacea, for fucking up your legs?"

"No." Kaiser shook his head. "From the sounds of it, she did exactly as asked, and not an inch more. I can respect that. No, we will be going after Lung, and whoever told him where we were going to be." He pushed himself to a more upright stance. "I can survive without working legs, but betrayal that costs us one of our own is something I will not countenance."

Victor nodded, and spoke up for the first time since Kaiser had regained consciousness. "Damn right."



End of Part Twenty-Three

 

[PHSYCODELIC]

I've been waiting for this one to update!

... Completely forgot what was going on though. Guess it's time for a re-read.

 

[Ack]

The Slippery Slope

Part Twenty-Four: Regrouping

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

[A/N 2: To repeat what I have said in previous chapters: I do not adhere to the white supremacist ideology. This fic is a thought experiment to see how someone could get dragged into it when faced with their recruitment techniques, especially when aided and abetted by a black girl repeatedly and maliciously (and unwittingly) pushing the victim toward such ideology.]

[A/N 3: If you're unsure about what went before, I've provided a synopsis at the beginning of Part 22.]

[A/N 4: Members of the Empire Eighty-Eight may express racist slurs and sentiments in this chapter. You have been warned.]

Remote

We were only a few minutes into our journey back toward the Medhall building when Kaiser asked the obvious question. "Has anyone contacted the others about this situation?"

"No," I said. "We were busy. My armour's electronics were severely damaged by Lung. Menja and Crusader do not carry phones in their armour. Victor was tending to the wounded."

At the mention of his name, Victor looked up from where he was holding Othala's body. Even behind the identity-concealing helmet, I could see tears welling from his eyes. When he spoke, his voice was ragged. "Can I just have one goddamn minute to mourn my wife?"

Analysis: extreme grief.

Prediction: I will feel the same when I drop my power.

Observation: Othala was a valued teammate and a good friend.

Conclusion: Lung needs to die for his part in this, as does whoever betrayed us.

"I'm sorry for your loss," Kaiser said more quietly. "Please pass me your phone. Mine's been destroyed. I need to alert those back at home base about the situation." He did not mention the name 'Medhall', for obvious reasons.

With quick, jerky motions, Victor took his phone out and handed it to Kaiser. I heard the soft beeps as Kaiser unlocked it—he knew Victor's PIN, along with everyone else's, for situations such as this—and made the call.

"This is Kaiser," he said once the call went through. "The exercise went bad. We—" He paused for a long moment. "What? What happened? Was it the ABB?"

<><>​

Medhall Building

Krieg

"No, it wasn't the verdammt ABB," snarled James. "We were attacked by Circus and Shadow Stalker. They killed Hebert's nurse, and damn near got him too. Young Ferguson wounded Stalker, and raised the alarm, but Circus got away. I managed to subdue Stalker. We've got her in electrified restraints right now, as per the information about her vulnerabilities. What's happened with you? Why are you calling on Victor's phone?"

Over the phone, Kaiser sighed. "It's as I feared. We've been played for fools. They knew when and where we were going, and arranged for a two-pronged attack. We were ambushed by Lung and Oni Lee. I'm sorry to say Othala is dead and I was … badly injured. If it weren't for Remote, we would've been a lot worse off."

"What do you mean, 'badly injured'?" demanded James.

"He tore my spine up and inflicted serious burns. Glory Girl showed up and helped chase him off, but then attacked us as well, focusing on Victor. Remote stopped her, but accidentally inflicted grave injuries on her. We managed to parlay that into treatment from Panacea, by bringing Glory Girl to her. Unfortunately, Oni Lee had inflicted mortal wounds on Othala before Remote killed him, and she passed before we reached Panacea's position. Rune was also injured, but is fully healed. Panacea saved my life, but nobody thought to require me to be whole and hearty, and so I was left paralysed from the waist down."

Reaching out James found a chair and sagged into it. "Scheiße," he muttered. "What a clusterfuck. You're right, of course. This had to be planned. But by whom? Shadow Stalker is a Ward, for fuck's sake. Circus is a mercenary, working for the highest bidder." The Empire had never retained Circus' services, mainly because nobody could tell if the queer little freak was a man or a woman, but that was beyond the point right then.

"True. I could maybe see Circus working for Lung if the money was good enough, but Stalker? What's in it for her? Wait, are you sure Stalker didn't just chase Circus into the building or something?" It was a cogent question; unfortunately, it was also one that James had looked into.

"One hundred percent. Stalker killed the nurse with an arrow, like she used to carry back before she was in the Wards. Young Ferguson overheard them talking about loading Remote's father into a wheelchair. From the references she made, she was fully aware that this is the home base of the Empire. And if she couldn't abscond with Hebert, she was going to kill him, specifically to mess with Remote's head."

"Okay, okay, that actually tracks. Shadow Stalker used to bully Remote. Hates her with a passion, more so since Remote joined us and ended up out of her reach. Any idea if she knows Remote triggered and is now one of our capes?"

James shrugged. "Fifty-fifty on that. But even if she learned about Medhall being the Empire home base on her own, which I sincerely doubt, how could she bring Circus in on this? There's no way in hell she could afford Circus' rates, and I can't see Circus hitting us just on principle. Mercenaries can't afford principles."

"I hear you. Also, where does the ABB come into this? I can see them acting on a tip-off, but who has the pure tungsten carbide cojones to tip Lung off about us, hire Circus and feed Stalker enough information to make her break the law this hard when she's already on thin ice?"

"Someone who already knew who we are and where we are," James said slowly. "Someone who wanted to weaken us by attacking from the shadows, so to speak. I don't know if it was their idea or Lung's to go after Othala, but losing her hurts us badly. And a successful abduction of Hebert would have given Remote a serious case of divided loyalties at best, once they began blackmailing her with his well-being."

"Has anyone tried questioning her yet?" There was no doubt as to who the 'her' referred to.

"Not seriously. She tried to claim that the PRT would be kicking the door down any second now, but she wasn't carrying anything that was set up to send a homing signal. Just an ordinary phone, that I've since removed the battery from, after getting photos of recent text messages."

"And Ferguson and Hebert?"

"Unharmed. Well, mostly. Ferguson took an arrow-graze to the leg, but he'll be fine. Hebert was untouched, entirely due to Ferguson engaging Stalker personally until I got there."

"Well, that's one good thing. How badly injured is Stalker?"

"Ferguson got her in the shoulder with a .380, a through-and-through. It's been bandaged to halt the bleeding. I don't think any bones were broken. It certainly won't kill her."

"Good. Lock the whole building down until we get there. I have some questions to ask, and I will be expecting answers." A world of malice was sunk into that statement.

James nodded. "Count on it."

<><>​

PRT Building

Deputy Director Renick

Paul Renick liked to think he was a reasonable man. Ten years older than Emily Piggot, he'd been a forensic accountant before being tapped as the Deputy Director of the ENE department of the PRT. Later, he'd fallen into the role of the ad hoc supervisor for the Wards. Everyone had their side to the story, and often just having an authority figure lend a sympathetic ear was all that a troublesome teenager needed.

There had been occasions when he'd had reason to doubt that attitude, but never more so than right now. He paced back and forth in the Wards part of the PRT building, staring down at the two items that lay on the coffee table between the couch and the gaming console. First was a gym bag, open, with a towel and regular exercise gear within. Second, and much more damning, was an ankle monitor, unlocked and open. Still flashing its 'secure' light, despite being unlocked and open.

"Can anyone explain to me how this could have happened?" he asked, pointing at the ankle cuff. "I thought those things broadcast an alert if they were unlocked, or at least stopped broadcasting the all-clear signal."

Henderson, the PRT head of security, cleared his throat while still standing at attention. His visor was closed, but his whole attitude made it clear he was sweating bullets. "Uh, sir, there's two different keys for that make of monitor. One shuts off the signal if it's unlocked. The other doesn't, and only gets used for very specific circumstances. Nobody outside law enforcement's even supposed to know about the second type."

"Yes." Paul didn't raise his voice, but Henderson flinched anyway. "Well, given that somebody does, I want a list of names for people in this building who do. We need to find out who did what, and that person in a cell, before we lift lockdown."

"Sir, yes, sir," responded Henderson. Paul heard him mumbling inside his helmet. Leaving him to it, Paul turned to Henderson's second in command. "What about her phone? Isn't there a tracker in that?"

"Her phone was confiscated as part of her suspension," Aegis offered.

"Wait." That was Vista. She winced as Paul swung his attention to her. "Shadow Stalker had two phones. I saw her handling a different one, once. And there wasn't one in her room."

"Two phones." Paul looked at Aegis and Kid Win, then at the PRT personnel he'd called down to the Wards section. "Did anyone else know about this? Do we have a number for it?"

Henderson's 2i/C turned to the rest of the security detail, silently interrogating them. One by one, each shrugged or shook their heads. "No, sir," he replied. "It's news to us."

"Well, I suggest you begin by figuring out how to track down that phone's location. Dismissed." Paul nodded to Vista. "Thank you." Turning, he started to leave the room in the wake of the security detail.

"Wait, sir." Aegis stepped forward. "What's happening now? Will we be going after Shadow Stalker? What's going to happen to her?"

Paul stopped and turned back to address the Wards, while the security detail kept going. "Nothing's going to happen to her until we find out what's already happened. Once we know where she's gone and what she's done, then we'll know the exact size of the hammer we need to drop on her. You all need to sit tight while the lockdown is in place. Once it's lifted, you carry out your duties as normal. If you, or any of the others who aren't here, see her while you're out on patrol, call it in immediately, then follow instructions as given. Is that understood?"

"Yes, sir." Aegis nodded firmly. "Understood."

Paul paused, wanting to get upstairs and start the search running properly, but knowing there was more to be said. "None of this is your fault, son. Not one of you is to blame, here. You all chose to follow the rules. She did not. You will not be penalised for her misdeeds. You're all damn fine Wards, and my report to Director Piggot will reflect as such."

With that said, he swivelled on his heel and headed for the door. One of his Wards had gone off the reservation in a big way, and it was the PRT's responsibility to locate her and bring her back in.

Shadow Stalker, where the hell are you?

<><>​

Dallon Household

Lady Photon

"I can't believe you didn't tell me about this!" shouted Carol.

Sarah didn't look around as she concentrated on moving Victoria upstairs via a force field without bumping into anything. "I didn't tell you, because I knew you'd react exactly like this."

"You could've brought me along! Those Empire monsters have to pay for what they've done to my daughter!"

Amy had to have picked up on Carol's wording, but she didn't even react. Sarah still noted it, though. "We were under truce. They swore they didn't mean to harm her, and they had wounded as well. Othala is dead, and Kaiser's a paraplegic."

"The word of a villain." Carol's voice was bitter. "They deserve whatever happened to them, and more."

"Victoria shouldn't even have been there." Sarah stated the truth flatly. "I have it on good authority that she was given orders not to engage with any Empire capes—especially Victor—without direct permission from a senior Ward, Protectorate member or PRT officer. Fighting Lung, she might have skated on. Turning on the Empire, with Victor there, after chasing Lung off? That went against everything she was told to do."

Carol's jaw jutted out stubbornly. "She's a hero. Heroes fight villains."

Mark put his oar in at this moment. "Hon, I hate to say this, but a truce is a truce. They contacted us, and Vicky is at least alive because of that."

His wife stared at him, probably because she still wasn't used to his new active attitude. "Why are you taking her side? Vicky nearly died because of those monsters! She's still in a coma!"

"I'm not taking her side," Mark reminded her patiently. "I'm reminding you of the facts, because you're not listening to Sarah. In case you forgot in the heat of the moment, Vicky's not a member of New Wave anymore. She's a Ward. In fact, she's a Ward because she already went over the line with the Empire. With Victor, even. And Wards are supposed to follow orders."

Carol pressed her lips together. They all knew it was true. "So, what happens now?"

Sarah cleared her throat. "I've already tried to contact the PRT, but there's some sort of crisis going on and the building is locked down. Only the highest-priority calls are getting through, and New Wave apparently doesn't command a high enough priority." Sarah manoeuvred Victoria in through her bedroom door and deposited her on the bed. Eyes shut, breathing regularly, she looked like she was simply asleep.

"But if you'd told them it was about Vicky—" Carol stopped. "Oh."

"Yes. Oh." Sarah was absolutely certain Carol would have encountered the concept of 'slow-walking' critical information so it arrived too late to be of use, especially in the legal world. Not that she suspected her sister of such perfidious practices, but stories abounded of less-than-ethical prosecutors suppressing exculpatory evidence to enhance their conviction rate. This wasn't quite in the same ballpark, but it was similar enough.

"Okay. Okay, okay, okay." Carol ran her hands through her hair, then stepped back out of the room, leaving the door open. "We can get out ahead of this. If Vicky wakes up before the PRT comes out of lockdown, do they even need to know that this happened? I mean, are the Empire likely to complain to them about Vicky?"

Some small part of Sarah's mind wanted to giggle about the idea of the Empire Eighty-Eight submitting a formal complaint about the conduct of a Ward. But it wasn't even remotely funny; if they'd chosen to sue New Wave over Victoria's attempt to outright murder Victor, it could have gone very badly. "In this case … no, I don't think so," she said slowly. "She ended up just as badly injured as they did, and they're more likely to be focusing on Lung, for his part in crippling Kaiser. I personally suspect they're just going to want to walk away and lick their wounds, Othala's death notwithstanding."

"But we can't just let them get away with …" Carol paused. "Fuck."

Sarah nodded soberly. Carol had just figured out the catch-22 in all this. If New Wave publicly announced that the Empire had put Victoria in a coma, this would also highlight the fact that she'd engaged them against orders. She was already on thin ice; even if she recovered completely from the coma (something Sarah still didn't know enough about to judge) she would likely be sent on to juvey as punishment for breaking her probation.

"But … what if she doesn't wake up on her own?" Carol suddenly looked twenty years older.

Sarah put her arm around her sister's shoulders and pulled her into a hug. "Then we'll deal with that problem as it comes."

<><>​

Remote

Now that we were in contact with Medhall, Krieg sent a truck to retrieve us. We rendezvoused with it in a dimly lit side street, and I helped get Kaiser on board the vehicle. Once we were on the way, I figured out how to climb out of the (somewhat damaged) armour, and took a seat of my own.

The discussion about how we were going to deal with Lung had run to its end, but another topic had been raised; specifically, the situation with Circus and Shadow Stalker invading the Medhall building in search of my father. Even approaching the subject from an objective point of view, it seemed remarkably unlikely that the two attacks were unrelated. I could see Skidmark and Squealer turning up as a natural consequence arising from our attack on their drug-infested area, but not a mercenary villain and a disgraced so-called hero joining forces to abduct an injured civilian from a heretofore hidden location.

Unfortunately, this led onto the next conclusion. Shadow Stalker was known to be violent and impulsive, so it was exceedingly unlikely for her to be the brains of this operation, or even to have taken any serious part in the planning for it. From the way Circus had abandoned her, she was at best a disposable patsy with zero useful knowledge.

Proposition: Whoever tipped Lung off is the person who betrayed us.

Situational analysis: Without Oni Lee as backup, he is still powerful but much more vulnerable.

Conclusion: If we can capture Lung and force him to talk, we can then kill him afterward.

Of course, such planning was contingent on successfully capturing Lung. Until then, we had to be content with the conspirator we actually had on hand.

Given Shadow Stalker's involvement in the whole situation, I was quite ready to find out exactly what she did know.

Whether she was willing to talk or not.

<><>​

Deputy Director Renick

The number of people in the loop about the secondary key system of the ankle monitors was dismayingly large. Paul himself had only been unaware of it because he'd never been personally involved in that side of things; it was noted in the Standard Operating Procedures manual, in an appendix he hadn't had reason to peruse up to that point. Well, now I know.

And so did most of the senior officers, the strike squad commanders, and so forth. Paul scrolled through the list, hoping against hope that a name would jump out at him, but no such thing happened. He hated being in charge during dynamic situations like this; lacking an instinctive understanding of where to push hard and where to ease off, he worried constantly about chasing the wrong rabbit down the wrong hole. He was far more at ease with a page full of numbers, and time to analyse them to the last decimal place.

His phone rang, and he snatched it off the desk. In passing, he recognised the name of the man he'd set to chasing down Shadow Stalker's number. "Yes?"

"Sir, we may have something. Shadow Stalker had outside contacts in her civilian identity. If she texted or called those people, their phones will have her number in them. Permission to go offsite and retrieve a phone for analysis."

He caught his breath. That could actually work. "Uh … do you have names? Locations?"

"Emma Barnes is the name we have on record. Daughter of Alan Barnes, who represented Shadow Stalker at the hearing that placed her in the Wards."

"Good. Do it. Uh, wait. We're going to need a search warrant … hmm. Hold for the moment. Send me Alan Barnes' phone number."

"Yes, sir."

A moment later, his phone beeped with an incoming text message. When he opened it, it was the phone number he'd requested. "Okay, I'm going to hang up now. I'll keep you in the loop."

Now, this was something he could do. He wasn't a hard-ass like Emily, but he was actually pretty good with people, or so he liked to think. Tapping on the number, he made the phone call.

It rang a few times, which didn't help the growing tension in his guts, but eventually it was picked up. A drowsy voice mumbled, "This is Alan Barnes. Can it wait until morning?"

"Mr Barnes, this is Deputy Director Renick of the PRT." Paul made his voice crisp without being officious or overbearing. "I have an important question for you, which might just save someone's life."

He could hear the extra wakefulness in Alan Barnes' voice when the man answered next. "Question? Whose life? What's going on?"

Paul took a moment to compose what he was going to say next. One wrong word, and they'd be doing this the long way. "Your daughter Emma is friends with Shadow Stalker in her civilian identity. We're both aware of that identity."

"Um." He seemed to be searching for words. "Emma said somethin' 'bout cuttin' ties. Since th' thing at Winslow. Hasn' been near her since."

"Understood." Honestly, Paul could not blame the girl. With the amount of trouble looming over Shadow Stalker right now, she was so radioactive she'd set off Geiger counters from halfway across the city. "Emma's not in trouble from this, I can guarantee it. We just need Shadow Stalker's personal phone number."

"Her number?" Alan Barnes seemed to be still waking up. "Why do you need that?"

Now he had to word things carefully. "We believe she's been in contact with dangerous individuals, and we need that number to find out more."

Barnes hesitated. "Send me a text promising that you're not going to use anything on that phone against Emma, and we can talk."

"Absolutely." Paul had no interest in anything but the whereabouts of Shadow Stalker. Quickly, he dashed off a text declaring that Emma Barnes would not be prosecuted for any information found on Sophia Hess' personal phone.

"Thanks. One second." There was some disjointed mumbling, then finally a text popped up on Paul's phone. It was the cell-phone number of Sophia Hess, as forwarded from the phone of Alan Barnes.

"Thank you, Mr Barnes," Paul said sincerely, but the call had already ended. He shrugged, then texted the number onward.

With any luck, it would give them a solid lead on Shadow Stalker's location. He was no field officer, but he could still contribute in his own way.

<><>​

Kaiser

"So, was it hard to crack her phone?" Max was still getting used to the wheelchair, but he had enough upper-body and core strength to be able to sit like he was merely resting for a moment instead of being unable to rise.

"Funny enough, no." Krieg held up the cell-phone, which was an older model, scuffed and well-used. "Stupid child never put a password on it."

"Probably couldn't figure out how to spell 'duh'," Hookwolf grunted from where he leaned against the wall, arms folded. He hadn't said much since they'd gotten back, and nothing at all about Remote's role in the night's losses, but Max had seen the expression in his eyes when he glanced at her. Unless they unearthed the architect of their betrayal soon, harsh words (or worse) would likely be forthcoming, and he'd only be able to protect her so much.

"I took photos of recent texts before I pulled the battery," Krieg began to scroll through his own phone, a somewhat newer model. "They're remarkably devoid of useful information. Two nights ago, she sends a text to a new number, just saying 'I'm in'. Thirty seconds later, she gets a text back from the same number, to be on a particular rooftop at midnight last night. Just after midnight ticks over, she sends 'S here. Where r u?'. And then tonight, at around the same time you were prepping to go out, she gets another text. 'T minus thirty minutes. Same place. C'. Thirty minutes later, she gets one last text. 'Took your time.' Then nothing until after we got hit. That's when I got the phone and tried to set up a rendezvous. 'C' said Fugly's and I agreed."

"Circus," Max said at once. "It has to be." He felt a dull surge of anger toward the mercenary cape, but a necessarily greater one toward whoever had steered Lung and Oni Lee toward Remote's debut. "Did anyone show up at Fugly's?"

Krieg shook his head. "The men I sent say no. They stayed some distance away, but nobody even came close to the place. Velocity zipped past once, but that was probably unrelated. I didn't realise until I went through the messages that they already had a different meeting spot arranged."

Max nodded. It had been worth a try, but he hadn't held great hopes for the ruse. "Was there anything else on her?"

"Yeah." Victor held up a small key. His eyes were red-rimmed and his voice cracked from time to time, but he was entirely focused on the moment. "Taylor found this in her bra." The girl had searched Shadow Stalker under Victor's instruction. Stalker had objected strenuously, to the point they'd had to gag her. The search had proceeded anyway; despite Remote's ongoing lack of emotion, she had been extremely thorough. Max got the impression Victor had nominated Remote for the role of searching Shadow Stalker because if he got the chance to put his hands around the little black bitch's throat, he would not be able to stop squeezing until she was dead, and they needed her alive for the moment.

Crusader leaned forward and peered at it. "What's that supposed to open?"

There was a pause, then Remote spoke, her voice entirely free of inflection. "When I searched Shadow Stalker, I saw the impression of a band around her left ankle, but not around the right ankle. I wondered if it was significant."

"Ankle monitor," Victor said. "Taylor, you're a fucking genius. She was in deep shit from the Winslow incident, to the point that they had an ankle monitor on her. They were probably working on lining up all the ducks so they could finally do what they should've done years ago and punt her into juvey."

Max nodded. "That makes a great deal of sense. It also explains why she was approached; with the level of animosity I understand she holds toward Remote, a feral animal like that wouldn't need any encouragement at all to break her boundaries and come after Remote's father."

Crusader sat back again. "I'm just surprised that they're actually going so far as to punish her. Don't poor defenceless 'minorities' automatically get a pass with that sort of thing?" He added the air quotes with his fingers, because he was annoying like that.

Max smiled grimly. "That was our doing. Or rather Taylor's and young Ferguson's. When they caught Stalker red-handed like that, and the Empire was the one to hand the black criminal over to the police, we embarrassed them immensely. So they've undoubtedly decided to make an example of her, to keep the other token minorities in line." It was what he'd do, after all.

"Makes sense." Victor tapped the key against the table. "I'm seeing the shape of what happened here. Tell me if anything sounds off to you. Shadow Stalker is sitting in the PRT building and someone smuggles in the key for her ankle cuff. This also includes a note with a phone number and an offer to get back at Taylor for her imagined transgressions. She texts back an acknowledgement, and they reply with instructions to meet. The meet with Circus goes through, she gets instructions face to face, goes back. Comes out tonight, meets up with Circus again, and hits Medhall."

"Yes, but who ordered it?" asked Max reasonably. "Who's paying Circus for all this? And how did they manage to smuggle the key and note into the middle of the PRT building? If she was in a cell, they wouldn't have had the ankle monitor on her, so she was probably in the Wards area, which is two basement levels underground. Someone had to have serious clearance within the building to pull that off."

Remote cleared her throat. "I have been thinking about that. It requires three significant assumptions to be made, but there is only one logical contender. Coil."

Hookwolf blinked. "What, really? The snake costume dude?"

"What are the assumptions that need to be made?" asked Max thoughtfully. He noted that Victor wasn't objecting, and in fact seemed to be seriously considering the idea.

"First assumption," Remote said, in that eerie robotic voice. "That there is not some entirely hidden player within the Brockton Bay underworld, working undetected by everyone. Second assumption. Coil has a Thinker power, or access to some other resource, that has allowed him to uncover the inner secrets of the Empire Eighty-Eight without anyone finding out until now. Third assumption. Coil either is, or can give orders to, a moderately high-ranking member of the PRT."

There was silence in the room after she finished speaking. Max glanced at Victor, then at Krieg. Both looked a little stunned, which wasn't surprising after that particular bombshell. Crusader just looked like he'd kicked a puppy and it had bitten his leg off.

"Jesus Christ, girl, you know how to hand out the big hits." Victor ran his hands over his face.

"That's if it's true," scoffed Hookwolf. "Sounds like a whole lot of nothing to me." He gave Remote a challenging stare. "You got anything to back that up?"

"Wait, wait," interjected Victor. "Let's not go off half-cocked. I can accept the first assumption right now. The other two, if they're true, would explain so fucking much."

Max made another connection in his mind. "Coil uses regular mercenaries, doesn't he? It wouldn't be a huge stretch for him to have Circus on his payroll too."

Victor nodded. "Okay, so if what Remote is surmising is true, Coil's the man whose throat I need to get my hands around. How do we go about verifying it before we go all-out after the man?"

Max knew what he meant. Coil had a reputation for being slippery as hell; even more so than that irritating little gang of smash and grab artists, the Undersiders. And if he was behind this, he'd be taking more precautions than normal.

Remote spoke up again. "As I see it, Shadow Stalker will know little to nothing. She will only have met Circus. We need to lay our hands on either Circus or Lung and question them, and I doubt very much that Circus will be doing anything visible for the time being."

"Yeah, the little freak would've gone underground, all right." Victor steepled his fingers. "Finding Lung won't be hard. Capturing him, more difficult. Questioning him … yeah, that won't be fun at all."

Remote shrugged. "Build me the correct armour, and I will capture and question him. Then, once he is out of the way, we target Coil."

"Whoa, whoa, dial it back a bit there, T-bird," Crusader objected. "Lung's way too tough. He tore up your armour before, he'll do it again."

"And that is what he thinks, too." Remote's tone never shifted. "But I have fought him twice. I know which tactics work against him, and which ones do not. In addition, he now faces two huge disadvantages. First, he is used to having Oni Lee at his side to harass his opponents, but I killed Oni Lee. Second, the armour he faced tonight was not optimised to take him down. I hurt him with what I had, but I can do much more than that. With the right equipment, I can destroy him."

"Hah!" Hookwolf bellowed a bark of laughter. "Shit, girl, you don't think much of yourself, do you? Even ramped up as hard as I can go, I still gotta back off from Lung when he gets too big. He'll melt your armour to a puddle, and fry you inside it. Go back to the little leagues, where you belong."

Victor shook his head. "Brad, you weren't there. You didn't see her going up against him. Even as distracted as she was, she could've won if things had gone just a little differently. In fact, she was doing so well that when Glory Girl showed up, he decided to pull back rather than keep fighting. And then when Glory Girl turned on us, Taylor won, even in damaged armour."

"I concur," Max said. "Remote, Victor, build that armour. The ABB and Coil have hit us hard. It's time to hit back."

"Hell, yes!" Crusader pumped his fist in the air. "Remember fucking Pearl Harbor! Let's nuke those slanty-eyed fuckers!"

Max smiled coldly. That particular instance hadn't been in his mind, but it would do. However, there was just one more matter to take care of, and he was the wrong man for the task. "Remote."

"Yes, sir?"

"Go to Peter. He will need to see you."

"Yes, sir."

"And while you're there ... turn your power off."

This time, there was a slight but noticeable hesitation. "... yes, sir."

Back straight, she left the room.

<><>​

Remote

As I entered the room where Peter awaited, he looked up from the book he was reading. "Oh, thank God!" he gasped, putting his book to one side and levering himself to his feet.

I looked at the bandage on his calf and the way he favoured that leg. "How badly are you injured?" I asked. "Krieg did not seem to consider it very serious."

"Just a nick," he tried to claim, though I could see it was more than that. "Shadow Stalker's arrow got me on the way past. It only started really hurting once it was all over. How about you? Are you okay?"

"A few bruises and minor first-degree burns," I admitted. "I need to speak to Victor about a more heat-resistant insulator within the armour. Nothing that requires medical attention. How is my father?"

"Oh, he wasn't harmed at all, thankfully." He put his arms around me and gave me a hug. "Though for a few moments there, I really thought my number was up. Stalker shot an arrow at my head, but Mr Fliescher got there just in time and slowed everything down. Including her. Then he shot her with a taser, and we rigged up electrified restraints before she came to."

"That's good." I stood there for a moment. "Peter, I need to warn you that I will be dropping my power in a few seconds."

"Oh." His arms tightened around me. "Was it really bad?"

"Othala died. Kaiser and Rune and Glory Girl nearly died. I fought Lung and killed Oni Lee. I suspect that I might become hysterical and irrational."

"Okay, okay, right. Come on, I'm going to sit back in this armchair, and you're going to sit on my lap."

"That sounds uncomfortable and awkward, for you. You will not be able to get away from me."

"Doesn't matter." He led me back to the chair, lowered himself into it, then guided me onto his lap. I suspected that it was indeed somewhat awkward for him, but he showed no signs of wishing to evict me. "Okay, I'm ready."

I considered briefly going to my room and locking the door so that I might weather the storm of my emotions where nobody could see, but it was too late. His arms were locking me in, and it would be rude of me to push him away. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath …

… and let it all go.

Taylor

While I was comfortably numb behind the protective walls of my power, I could intellectually ponder the loss of a good friend such as Othala without the slightest discomfort. But once I dropped the power, allowing the daggers of loss and grief to stab deep into the soft underbelly of my emotions, all the pain in the universe roared down upon me. I let out the breath I had taken in a long wail, howling my anger and agony to the four winds.

Peter held me tightly, even as I struggled and flailed against his grasp. I beat on his chest with my fists, my eyes flooding with tears and my screams tearing my throat ragged. Every last emotion that had banked up within me over the last few hours came out at once; the anger, the fear and the sorrow. He absorbed the impact of them all, murmuring words of comfort into my uncaring ears while he stroked my hair.

The storm eventually passed, as storms do, leaving waterlogged wreckage in its wake. Peter's shirt was a total mess, soaked with my tears and smeared with my snot, but he was still holding me steadfastly as I cried myself out. As I came around to myself again, I realised that he was still comforting me with his voice, as he had been the whole way through. It hadn't mattered much to me then, but it certainly did now.

"I'm sorry," I whispered, feeling his arms around me as a comforting refuge rather than a prison for my anguish. "I've got to be the absolute worst girlfriend ever. No reactions, then all the reactions."

He chuckled warmly. "Trust me, Taylor, I'll take you over every other girl I know. With you, I know exactly what I'm getting."

Now, how could I argue with something like that?

<><>​

Saturday Morning, February 19, 2011
PRT Building

Director Emily Piggot's Office

"You had a busy night last night, I see." Emily sat down, pulling her chair in carefully. "Give me the highlights."

Renick took a deep breath. "Someone slipped Shadow Stalker a key to her ankle monitor, and she made a run for it."

"Shit." Emily contained her reaction past that first word. "Do we have a lead on her location?"

"No." Renick looked even unhappier. "We got a line on her second phone, but its last cell-tower ping was in the Downtown district. No GPS, because it was shut all the way down before we started looking. But we found texts that indicated collusion with an outside person. She got the key two nights ago and sneaked out twice on successive nights. A couple of the texts were signed with the initial 'C'."

Emily frowned, thinking. "Could be something, could be nothing. Not many cape names in this city start with C." Somehow, she doubted it was Clockblocker.

Renick nodded. "We're looking into that, and into who knew about keys that unlock ankle cuffs without setting off an alert."

"Well, I did," Emily informed him. "Most PRT officers do." She paused. "Wait, are you saying it was someone in this damn building who passed it to her?"

"That's what it's looking like," he confessed. "None of the security footage we've got of her show contact with any non-PRT affiliated personnel."

"God dammit," she growled. "Moles in my goddamn building. Do we have anything else?"

"We pulled a phone number off the texts, and checked those records," Renick informed her. "It's also shut down, so probably a burner. Tower pings indicate it was only used in the Downtown area. It was used to send texts to and from two phones; Stalker's and one other."

"Which is also a goddamn burner, no doubt," Emily predicted. "Did you get anything useful?"

"Not 'crack the case' useful, but definitely 'build a picture' useful." Renick paused, apparently to gather his thoughts. "The exchanges between the other phone and 'C' read as someone getting a go-ahead from the boss to carry out a pre-planned action. 'C''s texts read like they're recruiting Stalker for ... well, for whatever it is. The other phone also pinged only in that same area. However, the last exchange between 'C' and Stalker was interesting. 'C' tried to contact Stalker a couple of times, then when she answered they set up a meet, which 'C' described as the last place they'd met, being Fugly's. Except neither phone was anywhere near there, and the one meeting place described in the texts was only a couple of blocks from this building."

"Any idea what Stalker was being recruited for, or why she'd be so stupid as to accept?" Emily shook her head in disbelief. "She had to know we'd find out sooner or later."

"If there's anything the last ten years has taught me," Renick said somberly, "it's that teenagers consider themselves infallible and immortal. And that's before you factor powers into the mix."

"I wish I could prove you wrong." Emily leaned back in her chair. "What do you think that last exchange was about? A coded message, or someone else got hold of Stalker's phone?"

"I tend to favour the latter," Renick decided. "Which means she either dropped it, or she was captured by whoever she was needed as muscle to hit."

"She used to carry razor-sharp arrows for those crossbows of hers," Emily reminded him. "I would be totally unsurprised to find out that she still had caches of the damn things all over the city. As soon as we get a report of someone with an arrow wound, we'll know who she hit, which will probably be also who's got her. What else is there?"

"There was a big fight up at the Trainyards, just like the rumour said. What the Merchants call their territory. Lung was involved. Lots of rubble and scorch-marks and blood on the ground." Renick took a deep breath. "Word on the street is that Oni Lee is dead, and Lung is pissed. Also, Skidmark and Squealer got caught up in it, Squealer's latest tank was trashed, and Skidmark's dead. Coroner says extreme blunt force trauma to the back and head. Squealer's apparently in hiding, or building a new tank. One of the two."

"Jesus." Cape battles were a fact of life in Brockton Bay, but fatalities were uncommon. "Skidmark and Squealer killed Oni Lee?"

"What witnesses we have, who swear they were miles away at the time but heard it from a friend of a friend, claim there was a giant robot on site as well."

"Of course there was." Emily wanted to curse. "Were any of Stalker's arrows found on site? Any evidence she was there at all?"

Renick shook his head. "None so far."

"Good." Emily's lips thinned in an approximation of a smile. "So it's probably entirely unrelated."

"That's what I was thinking, yes."

"Fine. I'll take it from here. Go home and get some sleep."

"Yes, ma'am."

<><>​

Dallon Household

Panacea

Amy sat at Vicky's bedside. Her sister lay still, breathing steadily. She was as healthy as Amy could make her ...

... almost.

While Amy had ensured that Vicky's brain was once more receiving a healthy supply of blood, and that there were no more ongoing problems within her skull, the damage had been done. Between the initial blood loss and the other injuries she'd taken, her brain had been deprived of sufficient oxygen for a dangerous amount of time. Her body twitched when prodded, and flinched when Amy nipped skin between her fingernails, but she remained unconscious no matter what stimuli were applied.

The trouble was, Amy could see where the damage was, and she knew exactly how to fix it. It would be easy. Too easy, in fact.

Years ago, when Amy had first gotten her powers, Carol's admonitions had led her to set herself a rule that she'd never broken. I will not do brains. Not because they were hard to understand, or to affect, but because everything in there was so interconnected that changing one small part would risk changing the whole; turning the person into someone else.

At that time, she'd still been buying into the bullshit notion that if she did absolutely everything by The Book (being the set of rules that Carol had established for her, yet hadn't actually told her about) then at some point she would gain her mother's approval and they would be One Happy Family. Since then, she'd become more and more cynical about the whole thing, while being unable to break away from the habits she had set for herself, such as walking to the hospital in the middle of the night. And of course she had pined hopelessly after Vicky, while at the same time hating herself for being such a fucking pervert.

All that had changed, the day after Victor shot her in the leg.

She'd always 'known' she was entirely free to use (or not use) her power any way she felt like. But now, she knew it. Gone were the midnight walks to the hospital; instead, she got a good night's sleep, and awoke refreshed and ready to roll. Yes, she still dropped in occasionally after school, but she didn't feel obligated to do so. It was just a thing she did because she felt like it. As for kowtowing to every last whim of Carol's, that was definitely a thing of the past. Best of all, Mark was actually being a proper dad these days, and backed her up when Carol tried to push her.

But now, as she sat over Vicky, she found herself wrestling with that one last rule. No brains. Never brains.

There was a step at the bedroom door; as Amy looked up, Carol entered. She didn't pull another chair over to sit next to Amy. Instead, she stood there, looming over the both of them.

"Why?" she asked, almost harshly.

"I'm sorry," Amy said, knowing the question was intended to make her feel guilty, but refusing to let it happen. I've done nothing wrong. "What exactly are you asking about? Why did my sister go out and take on the Empire when she knew she shouldn't have? I'd say Vicky's motivations are a closed book to me, but that bit's easy. She hates the Empire, and she really hates Victor, for shooting me. Why did the Empire bring her back to us when she was the one who attacked them? Because they had injured too, and they actually lost Othala on the way. Why did I heal them? Because that was the deal. Or were you asking about a more esoteric aspect of the universe?"

Truly, not being constantly worried about what Carol might think of her was intensely liberating.

As Carol stood there, fists clenched, Amy fancied she could hear the tendons creaking from the strain they were under. "No. I was asking why you have not. Healed. Her. Brain. Injury. Yet." The last word landed in the conversation like an anvil.

"Oh, that bit's easy." Amy looked up at Carol. "Free will, mainly."

Tension twanged in the room as Carol stared at her with growing outrage. "Free will? Free will? You're a healer! It's what you do! And she's your sister! Why, in God's name—"

"Not my free will, or at least, not entirely," Amy interrupted. "Though I have to say, 'it's what you do' kinda robs me of my agency. Can we not say that anymore? Thanks."

Carol glared at her with enough ferocity that Amy was kind of glad she didn't have eye lasers. "If not your free will, then whose?"

"Vicky's." Amy considered adding a duh, but refrained on account of wanting to maintain the moral high ground. "If I fix her brain, I will almost certainly make changes that alter the way she sees the world, or even the way she thinks. The Vicky we get after the fact will not be the exact same Vicky we had yesterday. Are you willing to go there?"

"She'll still be my daughter, in every way that counts." Carol glowered down at Amy. "Make what changes you need to. Just fix her."

"Sure, in a second." Amy stood up to face her. "But before I do, answer me this. Why did you yell at Mark and Aunt Sarah for literally having mental problems removed when at the same time you're okay with Vicky not being precisely the same if I just fix her at all?"

Carol stared at her, as though entirely unable to comprehend the question. "Mark and Sarah were alive and well before. Vicky is in a coma. There's no comparison."

"You're half right," Amy countered. "Mark and Aunt Sarah were alive, but they certainly weren't well. Aunt Sarah's been living with PTSD for the last twenty-plus years. Mark's been a chronic depressive for longer than I've been around. Now they're not only alive, but they're happy to be that way, for the first time in literally decades. And yet, you're still pissed at them, while at the same time urging me to do something that's got a non-zero chance of turning Vicky into someone who's not Vicky. Can't you see the hypocrisy in that?"

"You don't understand." Carol's anger seemed to have gone beyond shouting to a frozen rage. "Scapegoat changed them. They're not like they used to be. I don't recognise them anymore."

You should. I do. But Amy knew that was because she always tried to see the best in Mark and Sarah, while Carol was apparently content with seeing the worst. "And you don't care if that happens to Vicky, just so long as you get her back?" She kept her voice even, trying to get her point through to Carol.

"No!" The shouting was back. "I don't!"

Slowly, Amy nodded. "Well, so long as we all know where your priorities lie."

Leaning over Vicky, she cupped her sister's face in her hands. Vicky's biology became crystal clear to her once more, and she went to work. Working as carefully as she knew how, she rejuvenated the damaged brain matter and slotted it back together so as to allow the spark of consciousness. Vicky's personality would've been likewise fragmented, but all the pieces were there, so Amy reassembled those as well. And if a hypothetical observer had remarked that she introduced just a shade more caution to her sister's future thought processes, she would have told them to mind their own damn business.

After all, Carol didn't care if Vicky wasn't exactly the same as before, so it was all good, right?

All in all, it took less time than she expected and more time than she hoped. Stepping back, she dusted her hands off theatrically. "Done," she announced. "And just by the way, you're welcome."

Vicky's eyelids fluttered and she opened her eyes. Next, she yawned and stretched, then looked around. "Huh," she said with a thoughtful frown. "What did I miss?"

"Not a lot," Amy said. "Imma get breakfast. Want some?"

"Uh, sure!" Vicky bounced up from the bed, and landed on her feet. "Wow, I'm totes hungry. That robot really did a number on me."

"Come on, you can tell me all about it." Amy grabbed her by the hand and towed her from the room, leaving Carol staring after them.

She'd still get yelled at later for her 'attitude', but it wasn't like she cared anymore.



End of Part Twenty-Four

 

[preier]

Yeah... That title really applies to a lot of people and situations, doesn't it?

As always, Ack, thanks for sharing your stories.

 

[Sto Odin]

Not sure if this is my favorite of your ongoing stories, Ack, but it's definitely the one I appreciate the most. Tragedies that I enjoy reading are extraordinarily rare finds, but this one qualifies.

I was kind of hoping Amy's subplot would be a non-tragic counterpoint, and I guess we'll see if she can keep her footing now.

 

[Zackarix]

As hypocritical as Carol may be, I find it difficult to blame her. After all, her daughter was in a coma.

 

[Jade Isentry]

Wow. Lots of comeuppance and/or much-needed life lessons incoming for various characters that canonically need it/them. I really hope we get another update soon.

 

[Ack]

Wow. Lots of comeuppance and/or much-needed life lessons incoming for various characters that canonically need it/them. I really hope we get another update soon.

Click to shrink...

That will happen when it comes up on the voting round once more.

 

[Jade Isentry]

That will happen when it comes up on the voting round once more.

Click to shrink...

Voting round? I feel out of the loop here. When and where is this voting, and what is it voting on?
Edit: Oh wait. That link in your signature. It's the vote on which story people want to see next. I get it.

 

[Ack]

Voting round? I feel out of the loop here. When and where is this voting, and what is it voting on?
Edit: Oh wait. That link in your signature. It's the vote on which story people want to see next. I get it.

Click to shrink...

That's the one.

 

[Ack]

The Slippery Slope

Part Twenty-Five: Backlash

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

[A/N 2: Reminder for the reader that Taylor is a member of the Empire Eighty-Eight in this fic, and may express racist views that the author does not share.]



Saturday Morning, February 19, 2011

Remote

I walked the damaged suit into Victor's workshop. He was already there, machining parts for later use, his movements sharp and precise. Glancing around at me, he nodded briefly, then went back to his work.

There was none of the banter from when we'd been assembling this suit the first time around, which I understood. While my power was down, I had wept for Othala as a dear friend, but she had meant even more to him. He did not have the capability of cutting off all emotion as I did, so he was working through it in his own way.

As he put the angle-grinder down and raised his goggles, I saw the dark circles under his eyes but I said nothing. It was not my place to raise a concern in this matter. If I believed he was pushing himself to the point that he would incur self-harm, then I would inform Kaiser of this conclusion so that the matter could be addressed on the proper level, but I would not attempt to correct Victor's behaviour myself.

Mourning, after all, was an important element of dealing with loss, and everyone mourned in their own way.

As I began to disassemble the suit, he came over to observe and assist me. "You said something about stopping Lung from melting the suit. I'd be interested in hearing your ideas on the subject."

It had been a thorny problem. Though we weren't making a point of saying so, this iteration of the suit was being designed with the specific aim of permanently removing Lung from consideration. However, in order to achieve this, we first had to prevent him from immobilising the suit and killing me inside from the sheer heat. Practically speaking, I would die long before he melted it into a puddle (in Hookwolf's ignorant terminology) and I wanted to prevent that.

"Would it be possible to run water in ductwork throughout the suit and pull heat away, like the radiator system in a car?" I asked. "The suit is fairly robust as designed, so it doesn't need to be kept cool, just cool enough. If this is combined with improved heat insulation, I believe I would be able to continue to act long enough to disable and kill him."

He frowned, an expression I associated with deep thought. "That should be possible, yes," he agreed. "It'll mean a little more bulk, which would normally require re-engineering the power system, but luckily we don't have that problem here." A sharp nod toward me seemed to denote approval, but then he paused. "At some point, you're going to have a tank full of boiling water, because Lung never runs out of heat. How were you going to radiate it away fast enough?"

I'd had ideas about that too, so I told him.

For the first time, he smiled.

<><>​

Lung

Last night was a disaster.

Kenta sat alone in his chair, built of fire-resistant materials and reinforced to take the weight for when he sometimes bulked out. Taking up a bottle of sake—one of his few indulgences—he drank from it, then put it down again. As proud as he was, he could not force the events of the previous night into any shape that equalled 'victory'.

The ambush had been perfect. Lee and he had come upon the Empire Eighty-Eight contingent and taken them by surprise. The first strike, on the Trump called Othala, had worked perfectly. Far too many times, she had caused him problems by healing the various members of the Empire.

But then Hebert, the machine controller, had appeared and turned the tide of the battle. She had dealt Oni Lee a fatal wound, and actually injured Kenta a couple of times. Her interference had prevented him from finishing off Kaiser once and for all; even with the damage to the power armour, she was a formidable enough foe that he had not wanted to face her and Glory Girl simultaneously.

At the time, he'd felt that he had done enough damage to the Empire Eighty-Eight. Kaiser had been badly hurt, perhaps enough to kill him. Othala had been stabbed and dropped to fall to her doom. Rune had also been stabbed, but Lung didn't know exactly where Oni Lee had gotten her.

If Othala was dead (and as skilled in medical issues as Victor could be, he surely could not work miracles) then the Empire was now severely hampered, with Rune still suffering a stab wound and Kaiser dead or dying. But all that did not match the fact that with Oni Lee, the ABB had lost half its cape roster. And if Othala had (against all odds) survived, then Rune and Kaiser might well be hale and hearty by now.

And Oni Lee would still be dead.

Kenta's anger seethed within him, aimed partly at the Empire Eighty-Eight (particularly Taylor Hebert, who had driven him off twice now) and partly at Coil, for thinking to use him as a catspaw while suffering none of the consequences. The Empire was still his target of choice; he had the measure of the Hebert girl's suit now, and was sure he could destroy it (and her) at their next meeting, especially with Kaiser and Rune out of commission. But once he had rendered them harmless, then there would be a reckoning with Coil.

Nobody uses me as a playing piece.

He took another long drink from the bottle before the heat radiating from him set the alcohol on fire. This didn't matter to him; he just kept drinking until the bottle was empty, then he hurled it across the room to smash against the wall.

Tonight, he decided, he would go into Empire territory and destroy them once and for all, starting with Taylor Hebert.

<><>​

PRT Building, Director's Office

Director Emily Piggot

"You wanted to see me, Director?"

Glory Girl stood in front of Emily's desk, not quite at attention but fairly radiating good intentions all the same. She was neat and tidy, hair brushed and costume freshly ironed, every inch of her giving the impression of an earnest young superhero.

Emily didn't trust it for an instant.

"Why, yes." She hit a couple of keys on her laptop to bring up the windows she wanted, then looked up at the girl. "I would just like to clarify a few matters, such as your whereabouts last night from about eight PM onward."

"I wasn't on duty last night …" Glory Girl ventured.

"I'm aware." Emily allowed a little acid into her tone. "However, as part of your probationary membership in the Wards, you're not supposed to go on patrol without having another Protectorate or Wards cape along as your supervisor."

Glory Girl blinked. "I thought that probationary status thing was all just a formality."

"Formalities still have to be observed." Emily gave her a level stare. "Now, with the understanding that your phone tracker was active last night, kindly give me a run-down on your movements last night."

She already had Glory Girl's movements up on the screen. What she wanted was the girl's explanation for them. Given her knowledge of certain other things that had happened the previous night, this promised to be an interesting interview.

Glory Girl had what might have been deemed a reasonable poker face in most situations; the 'oh shit' expression was there and gone almost too fast to register. But Emily had been playing the game longer than Glory Girl had been alive, and for much higher stakes than the girl was used to. To put it bluntly, she was done with this shit. "In your own time," she invited, in a tone that meant stop stalling.

"Uh … I'd heard somewhere there was going to be something going on with the Merchants, up near the Trainyards." Glory Girl paused, then went on. "I wasn't going to do anything, just check it out, and call it in if necessary."

Heard somewhere. Right. Emily would've bet a large chunk of her pay that the 'somewhere' was the Wards common room, and she'd probably heard it from one of her fellow Wards. At a guess … "Gallant told you, didn't he?"

For Glory Girl's sake, Emily hoped that she never sat down to play poker for money with any of the hard-bitten troopers in the building. With tells like that, they'd skin her alive inside of ten minutes. "Uh, no! I mean … maybe?"

Emily sighed at the look of concern on Glory Girl's face. "Don't worry. He's not going to be in trouble over this. Wards are supposed to share information … and act on it wisely." She waited until she saw the barb sink in before she continued. "So, walk me through what actually happened when you got there."

Glory Girl took a deep breath. "Well, I didn't see the Merchants, but I did see Lung fighting some guy in a power-suit. It looked like there'd been a battle. Members of the Empire Eighty-Eight were there, some were down, and so was Oni Lee."

Emily made a go-on gesture. "So, what did you do?" The 'guy in a power-suit' sounded like the report of a giant robot, which was an interesting correlation.

"What could I do?" Glory Girl spread her hands apart, palm upward. "Lung was ramped up pretty hard, and it looked like the power-suit guy was going up against him and the Empire. His armour looked pretty beat up, too. So I body-checked Lung, to give him the message to back off." She paused, then her shoulders slumped. "Lung left, then … well, I found out the hard way that the power-suit guy was actually with the Empire. We got into it, and he cleaned my clock. Somehow, I found my way home afterward."

"You got into it, and he cleaned your clock." Emily leaned forward in her chair. "That sounds remarkably devoid of details. Who started the fight, you or him? I only ask because if the Empire had injured as you said, they'd be unlikely to initiate hostilities with a new arrival."

"I don't remember who started it." Which, in teenage-speak, meant 'I started it, but I'm not going to admit it'. "I was fighting him, and he grabbed my legs with some kind of mechanical tentacle and I punched him in the helmet … and the next thing I remember, I'm waking up this morning and heading down to breakfast with Ames. So, I'm guessing he got in a good hit on me, they all backed off while I was loopy, and I made it home on autopilot."

"Autopilot. Right." Emily turned her laptop part-way around. "You see that? Your phone tracker shows you moving directly along McIntosh Street at about five miles per hour faster than your best flight speed. We have reports of a strange low-slung multi-wheeled vehicle with capes on top, including a giant robot, moving at very high speed along McIntosh in the exact same time-frame. Do you have any kind of explanation for that?"

Glory Girl blinked, long and slow. At Emily's best guess, this was a sign of genuine confusion rather than an attempt at evasion. "I honestly have no idea, Director. Like you said, I just can't fly that fast." She leaned across the desk, eyeing the line on the map. "And it stops there, then heads straight back to my house."

"It does. And you have no memory of what happened?"

"After I went to punch the power-suit guy in the head, none at all."

Emily turned her laptop until the screen faced her again, then leaned back in her chair. In her personal opinion, the Dallon girl was telling the truth about not recalling the anomalous trip along McIntosh Street. "Very well. What I want you to do is write up a complete report of everything you saw and heard and did last night, from the moment you left home to the point you woke up in bed. Everything. Put enough detail in, and I might be able to overlook your unauthorised activities." She paused, thinking. "Actually, one more thing. You didn't happen to see Shadow Stalker while you were out and about, did you?" It was a long shot, but long shots had paid off before today.

Glory Girl shook her head, frowning. "No. I didn't see her at all. Isn't she supposed to be confined to base?"

"Yes," Emily said heavily. "She was. Now, go write your report. Hand it in to Triumph when it's done. All the detail you can remember. Who was down, who was injured, all of that. Also, what you recall of the power armour. If the Empire has a proper Tinker, then this can only mean trouble."

"Yes, ma'am." Glory Girl nodded hastily, then scuttled out of the room.

Emily sighed as the door automatically closed behind her. Even after the illuminating talk with Glory Girl, there were still mysteries to be unravelled about the previous night. Not least was, where the hell is Shadow Stalker?

<><>​

Shadow Stalker

Where the hell is the PRT?

Sophia was honestly starting to worry, though she'd never admit it even to herself. She'd never been captured before (at least not by villains) and the Empire Eighty-Eight was just about the worst possible group she could see herself being held by. The horror stories about what they'd done to black girls and women (and men) were legion; some of those, she could even verify.

So far, though her treatment had been merciless and unpleasant, it hadn't gotten as bad as it might. This was a good thing, if the barely contained rage she'd felt radiating off the Empire capes was any indication. The only person who'd been allowed to come into physical contact with Sophia was—to her personal shock at the time—Hebert herself.

But it wasn't the Hebert Sophia had known and enjoyed casually slapping around at Winslow. This was a different girl, as unalike as night and day. There had been no emotion in her eyes, even when she'd asked whose idea it was to abduct her father. It had been creepy as fuck, like talking to a robot wearing her face and programmed with her voice.

Sophia had been braced for physical torture, but although the suggestions for making her cooperate (or 'breaking her in') had been as vomit-inducing as they were plentiful, Victor himself had vetoed them. The skill-thief's burning gaze had terrified Sophia far more than it should have. He'd simply asked questions; not about the PRT or anyone's secret identities, but about whether it was Coil or someone else who had hired her to break into the Medhall building.

She'd spilled her guts, though she didn't actually have a lot to say. Circus had left her well and truly in the lurch, so she felt zero compunction in telling them everything that had happened from the moment she'd gotten the key onward. Her only pushback had been when Victor suggested that Coil was behind the whole plot, but that was only because she hated the idea of dancing to someone else's tune.

It wasn't as though she'd joined the Wards of her own free will, after all.

However, as she couldn't muster any real reason for it not to be the case, and he'd reminded her that Circus only worked for money, she'd admitted that the original note had mentioned 'certain interests' that were willing to pay a lot for Hebert's father. That had been a good incentive, but the chance to get revenge on Hebert herself had sealed the deal. So, while it may well have been Coil behind the whole thing, she didn't know and honestly barely cared.

Still, this hadn't improved her position noticeably. On the other hand, it hadn't gotten any worse. She was still locked in a ten-by-ten cell with an extremely rugged cuff wrapped around the same ankle that the tracker bracelet had been attached to. The thick electrical cord that acted as her tether also ensured that she couldn't just go to shadow form and get out of there.

A noise came from the door, and she tensed. Was this it? Have they finally come to throw me to the wolves? She grimly prepared to die before submitting to whatever they had planned for her. If I can't kill them, I'll make them kill me.

But when the door opened, it was just Hebert, still with that blank expression. When Sophia looked into her eyes, something ancient and not at all human looked back. She stepped into the cell; behind her, the door swung shut and locked firmly.

"So, you come to slap me around?" Sophia was determined to not let them see her sweat. "Ask some more questions about Coil and stuff?"

"No." Hebert may as well have been declining an invitation to go to a boring movie. "I have one question. Even though you were promised money to abduct my father, why were you preparing to kill him before you were interrupted? You know he does not follow the cause of the Empire Eighty-Eight, and never has."

Sophia managed to muster a sneer. "Because of you."

Hebert looked at her for a long moment. "Explain."

Wow, she can't even get mad at me now. "Sure. I accepted the whole deal to fuck with you, personally. I don't give two shits about your dad, but I couldn't get to you. Hurting him hurts you. So if I couldn't take him away, I was gonna make sure you couldn't have him either."

"I have a second question." Hebert continued to survey her with that eerie robot gaze. "Why? What is your reason for wanting to hurt me?"

It was weird that this was the first time this specific question had come up. She'd assumed that they already knew by now. "Everyone's got their place. Your place is below me, in the fucking dirt. You wouldn't stay down there. So, I had to teach you your place. End of."

"I see." Hebert turned to leave, then paused. "If you were not black, you would make a very effective Nazi. Your views are very similar to theirs."

"I'm nothing like you!" Her voice was harsh in her throat as she screamed the words as loudly as she could.

"Yes, you are. But I think Kaiser prefers you to be black and doing what you do. Your actions have made you a more effective recruiter for the Empire Eighty-Eight than any of us could ever be. I know I would not be here if not for you. So, thank you for that."

The monotone words struck home harder than a hundred shouted curses. Before Sophia could muster a response, the door opened and Hebert left the cell. It swung closed and locked again with another series of definitive clicks.

She'd been telling the truth. As much as Sophia wanted to deny the words, she suspected Hebert was unable to lie while in that state. The deadpan delivery just made it worse, puncturing her illusions and bringing home to her exactly how badly she'd screwed up in every possible way.

Arching her back, she let out a long and guttural scream. "FUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!"

<><>​

Taylor

Victor looked up as I re-entered the workshop. "So, how'd it go with Stalker? What did you want with her, anyway?"

"Better and worse than I expected." I sighed. "Thought of a question I wanted to ask her."

"And how'd that go?" He turned toward me and waited expectantly.

"Well, I asked her why she was gonna kill Dad …" I related the conversation as best I could recall it.

By the time I'd finished, he was chuckling darkly. "Well, you're not wrong. Bet she wasn't pleased. Way to knock the props out from under her."

I shrugged. "It was only the truth. What are we going to do with her, anyway? I mean, yes, she's a dangerous cape and a murderous black bitch, but I'm uncomfortable with the idea of lowering ourselves to her level and just killing her in cold blood. Not if there's another option."

Victor folded his arms. "I assume you're not suggesting we just pat her on the head and let her go. She knows far too much."

"Well, no, that's true." About the only thing that would exceed the speed of light would be how fast Sophia snitched to the PRT about the Empire being based in Medhall. "It's kind of a pity, though. She really is a great recruiter." A funny thought occurred to me, and I chuckled. "Now, if Hollywood had it right and a bop on the head could consistently induce memory loss, we could send her out to keep on pushing people our way. I'd even volunteer to be the one to smack her upside the head."

"There'd probably be a line-up for the privilege, but no." He shook his head. "A hit to the head can produce a great many effects, even amnesia, but not reliably. However …" His eyes went distant for a moment. "Wait a second. You might be on to something there."

"I am?" This was news to me; I'd just been joking around. "What am I on to?"

"A possible option. I'm going to have to think about this." He slapped me on the shoulder and gestured toward the rebuilt suit. "In the meantime, look it over. With the suggestions you made, as well as a few ideas I came up with, I think you've got a much better chance of taking down Lung."

I allowed my power to wash over me, submerging myself in its comforting embrace. Every mechanical device around me sprang into detail, and I focused on the suit. Most of its working parts were quite familiar to me, having been salvaged from the original model, but a few things were new.

Assume positive control: suit.

It came to life, stepping forward off the stand Victor had been using to work on it. I could see it, inside and out, and I catalogued the improvements and differences. "You removed the generators to make room for the water tanks."

He nodded. Analysis: agreement. "Yes. Electricity didn't seem to have much effect on him, and we don't want potential leaks and electrical short-circuits getting to you in the middle of a battle. It saved a bit of weight."

"Understood." I had one of the cutting chains extend so that I could examine it more closely. My initial impression turned out to be correct. "This is a little larger than the original version."

Another nod. "Lung's hide is pretty tough, especially when he starts growing scales. We lost a few blades due to wear and tear, so I figured fewer blades but larger would let you cut all the way through arms and legs … or necks."

I was entirely in favour of removing Lung's body parts until he gave us the information that we needed. Then, of course, I would kill him. He was an ongoing danger, not just to the Empire Eighty-Eight, but to all of Brockton Bay. Objectively speaking, and I was capable of seeing the world in no other way while using my power, his execution should count as a public service.

Open suit. At the mental command, the suit knelt down and the front opened up. I climbed in and settled myself into the padded interior. Victor had replaced the damaged tablet screen, placing it into a more robust frame and better heat insulation. Close suit. It buttoned up, encasing me in steel from all directions. The periscope came easily to my eyes, giving me a good view of the outside. "Testing. Testing." I could hear the modulated voice on the outside.

"Yeah, that works." Victor looked up at the suit. "What do you think?"

"It is responsive, and the modifications seem to be appropriate to the task." I had the suit turn in a complete circle, then worked the arms to the limits of their sockets. "The tungsten flechettes did not seem to have a great deal of effect when I used them last. Why did you keep them?" In the shoulder compartments, the attack drones waited with their aluminum blocks full of flechettes.

"You did some damage to him with them." He spread his hands. Analysis: attempting to get his point across. "I was thinking, if you mag-dumped them into him at relatively close range, you could really tear chunks out of him."

His point was valid. I had been relatively sparing with my shots, before. When facing Lung on his own, I would not have to be.

I spent the next few minutes discussing the other modifications with Victor. They worked well enough under test conditions, but only time would tell how effective they were in the field. He was optimistic, however, and I considered the engineering to be sufficient for my needs.

When I left the workshop again, I was satisfied that we were as ready as we could be.

<><>​

Taylor

"Hey, Dad!" I made sure to put a smile on my face as I entered his new room. The last thing I wanted was to make him think I didn't want to see him. "How are you feeling?"

He didn't answer, of course, but I was pretty sure I could see his eyes following me from under half-closed lids. The new nurse nodded respectfully to me, and I nodded back. I was sad that Mary had been killed by Shadow Stalker—by Sophia, for fuck's sake!—but I was also pleased that Mr Anders had found another nurse for Dad.

Mary, as far as I knew, had been a loyal follower of the Empire Eighty-Eight, unskilled in combat but willing to help the team where she could. Stella—she was wearing a nametag—was younger and more muscular than Mary had been, and a quick flash of my power revealed that she was wearing a concealed firearm in the small of her back. Peter had told me that she was ex-military, trained as a combat medic as well as all the skills she'd need to take care of Dad.

I approved of the precaution; only an idiot would continue to leave civilians unguarded in a sensitive location if the enemy had already gotten in once and shown willingness to harm or kill them. And Mr Anders was no idiot.

It was true that Sophia was the one who'd murdered Mary (and Circus had castigated her over it, according to Peter) and that we currently had Sophia in lockdown, but that did not mean we could relax. While Circus was probably going to be (unsurprisingly) keeping her head down for some time, there was no guarantee that Coil wouldn't come after Dad again with another cape (or two, or three). Which was why Dad was now in a different location, there were several extra layers of electronic security between him and the outside world, and Stella had access to an assault rifle stored behind an inconspicuous panel.

"Good morning, Miss Hebert." Stella didn't know I was Remote, but she did know I was very important to Mr Anders, so that was good enough. "Your father is resting comfortably. When I told him you were coming to see him, he seemed happy."

"Thanks. I'll call you if I need you." As she silently left the room, I drew a deep breath and looked down at Dad. This was the time I needed my power the most, to stop myself from breaking down into tears when I saw Dad every day, but I could not and would not cheat like that.

While I was growing up, he'd been one of the most important people in my life. He'd always been there (well, nearly always) and once Mom passed away, I needed him more than ever. Even when I disagreed with him, I loved and respected him, and I always looked for his approval in everything I did.

(He hadn't been thrilled when I joined the Empire Eighty-Eight, but he'd come around to accepting that as well.)

And now … I was having to be the strong one. Helpless in a hospital bed, with a hose feeding oxygen into his lungs (they'd told me that his breathing reflex had been impaired by the brain damage), he was the one who depended on me. While Othala was healing him, he'd been improving incrementally, day by day. But now with her death, even that was gone.

The world had been good. Things had been getting better. I'd had hope for the future.

But then Coil had decided to stick his nose where it didn't belong. Lung and Oni Lee had ambushed us; Kaiser was stuck in a wheelchair, and Othala was dead. Circus and Sophia had infiltrated the building and murdered Mary. It was only because of Peter that Dad was still alive.

No doubt Circus had reported back to Coil what they'd found out before vanishing into whatever hole they'd pulled in on themselves. Which meant he had an indeterminate amount of information about the Medhall building itself, but (hopefully) no proof of the identity of any given Empire Eighty-Eight cape. Sophia had been captured by Mr Fleischer as Kreig, but Circus had long since fled by then, so Coil wouldn't have that information.

Nobody thought for a second that Coil would stop coming after Dad. We didn't know what his turnaround time was to hire a new cape and brief them, or even how loud or quiet the next incursion was likely to be. Which was why Victor and I (mainly Victor, with some input from me) were building my next suit as fast as we could, so I could go after Lung.

It was, in my opinion, a bit of a long shot, but the fact remained that Lung had to die anyway. He had no doubt given the order for Oni Lee to kill Othala, and he'd personally crippled Mr Anders and tried to kill him. With Oni Lee already dead at my hands, that would leave the ABB without cape leadership and ready to be rolled up once we were in a position to do so.

If we could get answers out of Lung (I had my doubts; he seemed the stubborn type) about Coil, we could act on them. Otherwise, we'd have to fall back on plan B, which had the downside of being exceedingly tedious but was otherwise hard to beat. Fortunately, while my power was running, I was immune to tedium.

Pulling my chair to the side of the bed, I took Dad's hand and squeezed it. To my delight, there was a faint but detectable return pressure. I squeezed again; he returned it.

"So yeah," I said chattily, still holding his hand. "Circus got away, but we captured Shadow Stalker. Would you believe she's Sophia Hess? Literally a school bully, and she was pretending to be a superhero." I snorted derisively. "Diversity hire, more like. I could've told them she was a thug from the get-go. I mean, it's got to mean something when in a town this size there are at least two black villains, and the only black so-called hero is a murderous bitch who should've been shoved into juvey long ago and left to rot. But instead, they overlooked all that and paraded her around in the Wards. Well, I bet they're feeling pretty stupid now."

He squeezed even harder at that, which I took as agreement. Letting go his hand to rest on the covers, I took up the book from the nightstand and opened it to the bookmark. They hadn't moved the bookstand in here yet, but I could cope. Settling back in the chair, I cleared my throat and started reading out loud.

<><>​

Greg

The blindfold was tight around Greg's eyes, but he tried to control his nerves. He'd agreed to this. He'd asked for this. When Kelly had come back to him and said there would be a test, he'd just asked when and where.

Well, the 'when' was now, and the 'where' was … well, he didn't know where he was, because he'd been driven here with the blindfold on. Any attempt to Sherlock Holmes his location from the turns and stuff would've gone out the window in about thirty seconds flat, because he just didn't know Brockton Bay well enough to pull that shit off.

All he knew was that he was indoors, because there wasn't any bright light shining on the blindfold, and it felt cooler than normal. It was a kind of echoey space, but that didn't actually cut down on the number of places it could be. After Lord's Port got shut down, the number of empty and abandoned warehouses in the district had made it a mecca for minor villains and would-be vigilantes, or so Greg had heard.

Suddenly, the blindfold was pulled off his face. He blinked, looking around to get his bearings. The light in the building was dim, with only a couple of the overhead fluorescent lights illuminating the scene, but he could see fairly well anyway.

This was not necessarily a good thing.

Crowded around him were guys and girls, some he recognised and some he didn't. A lot of them had shaved heads and tattoos; all were looking at him with some degree of curiosity or interest. Some had sneers on their faces, which correlated fairly well with the ones he recognised.

"Everyone!" Kelly's voice rang out from a little distance away. "This is Greg Veder! Some of you know him as a bit of a dick, and that's reasonable, because he is one! But he's asked if he can join the Empire Eighty-Eight, and I've got my reasons for letting him try! So, everyone who doesn't think he should get in, line up between me and him!"

A bunch of the people, ones Greg didn't know, shuffled out of the way, but quite a few more stepped in to take their places. These ones he knew, alright. It seemed they recalled him as well, but not in a fun way.

Once everyone had ceased moving, Kelly spoke up again. "Okay, then. Greg, all these people between me and you have some sort of grudge with you. You want in, you gotta get past them. Go!"

Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Greg had never seen so much flat malevolence being projected at him at once. He seriously wanted to piss, but right now peeing himself was probably one of the few things that could make this situation actually worse than it was. He took a deep breath. "Okay, before we do this, I just want to say, I'm totally sorry for all the shit I ever said about you guys."

If he'd been expecting anyone to relax and step out of line, he was doomed to be disappointed. One boy cracked his knuckles. Another spat off to the side.

I can walk away, or I can do this. There was no third option. And if he walked away, he'd never be able to look any of these guys in the eye again. Or Taylor, for that matter.

It was the thought of Taylor being disappointed in him that galvanised him into action. Wrapping his arms around his head to protect his face, he clenched his eyes shut and lunged forward. Whether he succeeded or failed, he just wanted to be able to know at the end of the day that he'd tried.

The first punch bounced off his right forearm but then someone hooked him in the ribs, driving the air from his lungs. He stumbled onward, weathering punches and shoves, not even sure that he was going the right way anymore but unwilling to lower his arms and look.

Another shove, coinciding with a kick to his shin, tripped him; he landed on all fours, opening his eyes by instinct. They were yelling now, and he saw kicks coming from all directions. He scrambled onward as more blows found his arms and body.

Gathering his legs under him, he staggered to his feet, only to meet a fist coming the other direction that caught him in the mouth. Down he went again, landing heavily on his back. He was barely able to breathe by now, and he curled up in a foetal position to try to shield himself from the worst of it.

After a moment, the punishment abated. He fought for breath as he uncurled and looked around to see them staring down at him. Kelly was there, in full view, only a few yards away.

As he tried to come to his feet again, they closed in once more. Slaps and punches and kicks assailed him from all sides, but he lurched toward his goal. Someone tripped him, but this time he just kept going on all fours until he ran into a pair of legs that didn't move aside and didn't try to kick him.

Looking up, he saw Kelly's face, and a hand extended downward. He gingerly accepted it, and Kelly hauled him to his feet. There were bruises on his face and body, he knew, and he was wobbly on his feet, but he'd made it.

"So, you still want to join?" asked Kelly.

Greg nodded. "Yeah. I do."

Kelly had to raise his voice to be heard over the cheers and shouts of congratulation. "Good. You get a week to think about it, then next Saturday's your final initiation." He clapped Greg on the shoulder. "Well done, Veder."

He knew he didn't have to think about it. This was what he wanted. As he was repeatedly slapped on the back by the others—a far cry from the punches and kicks he'd been enduring just moments before—he knew he'd never felt more alive.

Taylor's going to be so proud of me.

<><>​

Taylor

Tammi and I were talking quietly with Peter—Dad had drifted off to sleep a while ago—when Justin opened the door and leaned into the room. "Lung's been spotted," he reported, keeping his voice down. "He's got a couple dozen of his people with him, and he's burning shop-fronts. They say he's calling out for the Tinker bitch to stop hiding and come face him."

"Oh, he is, is he?" I came to my feet. It didn't matter that I wasn't actually a Tinker, nor was I trying to hide from him. He was wrong in every possible way about me except one (that I was a girl) and I was still pissed at him.

"Taylor, you don't have to do this," Peter began. "The last time you faced him—"

"The last time I faced him, I hadn't known I was going to fight him, and I hadn't prepped for it." I leaned over Dad and adjusted his covers slightly, then kissed him gently on the forehead. It was Lung's fault that he was in that bed, so I was going out to get some payback.

Justin stepped back out of my way as I exited the room and waited for the other two to follow me out before I closed it. "We've got your back, you know that. You don't have to do this alone."

I looked him in the eye. "I appreciate it, but we both know your ghosts can barely touch him. He literally heals their stab wounds faster than they can stick him with their spears. Besides, he tore up Kaiser last time out while I was right there. I need to show Brockton Bay that that shit doesn't fly."

"You know Hookwolf's gonna want a piece of him, and Stormtiger too." Tammi was hustling along at my shoulder. "And I wouldn't mind dropping a firetruck or two on his fuckin' head."

"They've had their chance." My jaw was set. "And he's too good at dodging when he's ramped up. If we beat him by dogpiling him, we'll just look like little bitches, and there's always the chance he'll get hold of someone and tear them apart like he tried to do with Kaiser. We need him focused on me."

"But he nearly wrecked your suit, the last time," Peter protested. "I saw what it was like, afterward. It was a mess."

"A lot of that was Glory Girl," I reminded him. "Victor and I saw what worked, and what needed work, and he's reinforced the suit. Lung's the whole reason Dad's in a coma, and Othala's dead. I know how to hurt him, and I'm pretty sure I can kill him."

There was worry in Tammi's eyes as she faced me outside the elevator down to Victor's workshop. "Okay, if you're sure. But I'll have your back anyway."

"We both will," Justin added. "All the way there and back again."

"Thanks," I said, then hugged them both. Better friends, I couldn't ask for. "I appreciate it." Then I gave Peter both a hug and a kiss; just because he wasn't a cape didn't mean he couldn't support me. His love meant more to me than anything in the world.

He held me tightly for a moment. "Please, come back safe."

I squeezed him back. "Damn right I will." The elevator doors opened, and I stepped inside. "Time to go kill a fucking dragon."

<><>​

Remote

Even wheelchair-bound, Mr Anders was showing that his will was unbent by his injuries. Hookwolf and Stormtiger were, as predicted by Rune, demanding that they be unleashed on Lung instead of me. He was adamant, however, which didn't do their equilibrium any good.

"You've gotta be shitting me!" Hookwolf raged over the radio link that we were all currently sharing.

I was almost alone in the back of the truck that was conveying me to where Lung was perpetrating his rampage and proving our point that he didn't deserve to live another hour longer. Outside the suit, Victor was looking his handiwork over and ensuring that he hadn't forgotten anything at the last moment. I could've put his mind at ease—my power could analyse the makeup of the suit down to the last screw, bolt and ball-bearing—but I suspected he needed this to keep his mind off the upcoming battle.

"I assure you, I am not." In contrast, Mr Anders was coldly precise. "You have not seen Remote in action. She is the only member of the Empire Eighty-Eight to have successfully driven off Lung twice, out of two encounters. Her suit survived the first encounter largely intact, and Victor assures me he's improved on its capabilities since."

"Fucking bullshit pretend Tinker tech," scoffed Stormtiger. "It's not real Tinker tech. No force fields, or brain lasers, or even real lasers. That's what you need to fight Lung. Not some kid in a puppet suit."

I keyed the radio mic. "No, what you need to beat Lung is an awareness of how to take away his strengths and get past his defenses. You've just been trying to fight him. I intend to kill him."

"Big words." Hookwolf's voice was a sneer. "There's no way you can do this on your own."

"You never laid a hand on Oni Lee, in all the time you were fighting him," I reminded him. "I broke his arm in our first encounter, and killed him in our second one. Now it's Lung's turn."

"Ooooooohhhh," Crusader broke in. "Daaaaaaamn."

"Enough," Krieg snapped. "Kaiser says this is Remote's show, so this is Remote's show. Unless you have something constructive to say, don't say anything at all."

"We're nearly there." Victor's tone was calm and measured. "Reports say Lung's on the next block."

"I will be getting out here," I said, taking control of the truck and pulling it to the side of the road. At my command, the rear doors opened and the clamps holding the suit in place disengaged. "Feel free to distract his men. Lung is mine."

"Copy that." Flying overhead on a new metal disc, Rune had a large number of pieces of metal she could use as projectiles at a moment's notice. "Go kick that overgrown lizard's scaly metal tail right up his ugly ass."

"In the figurative sense, I intend to do just that." Performing that act literally seemed a little unrealistic, but I understood the gist of what she was trying to convey.

I climbed down out of the truck, and headed in the direction of where I understood Lung to be. While the suit wasn't as fast as the truck, its legs were longer than mine so I could still maintain a reasonable speed. As I ran, I popped both auxiliary units and sent them skyward; one to give me a better picture of the situation, and the other to act as flying artillery.

The camera came online, sending its images to the tablet before my eyes. As I watched, Lung sent another gout of flame roaring into a shop-front. People burst from the open doorway, some of them on fire. I did not feel anger, because I could not, but I knew he needed to be stopped.

"This is Remote. Engaging."

I sent the armed auxiliary unit down in a steep dive toward Lung. He looked up more quickly than I had expected, but that did not help when the flechette launcher began firing on him. Wary of his speed in dodging, I did not loose every single flechette in a single shotgun blast, but instead I started shooting them at him, at a high rate of fire.

He was already ramped up, more than we had hoped but less than we feared. A few of the flechettes sparked off his tough metal scales where the angle of incidence was inconvenient, but the rest blasted chunks out of him. Lightweight they may have been, but the flechettes were hitting at extreme velocities, far higher than an assault rifle could deliver them.

As Victor had advised, I emptied the entire 'magazine' into him, blasting the armour clear off his right thigh and some of his stomach and chest. He staggered backward, blood boiling out of the injured area, though he was very clearly not out of the fight yet. A burst of flame reached out for the auxiliary unit, but I danced it out of the way and headed it back toward my suit, where a reload awaited.

"Coward!" I heard him bellow. "Fight me face to face, not with machines!"

At that moment, I came around the corner. "As you wish," I said over the suit's speakers. The auxiliary unit landed, discarded its empty block, and latched onto another one. In the meantime, I was closing with him. The flechettes had never been meant to win the battle for me, just soften him up.

Lung's followers saw me and opened fire with everything from low-calibre pistols to high-velocity assault rifles. This, then, had been his plan; to lure me out and then have his minions execute me with massed gunfire. It was as cowardly and underhanded a plan as he had accused me of. Had I been capable of feeling emotions, I might even have been offended.

Victor's handiwork showed its worth, however; although the cacophony of the ricocheting bullets was audible even through my noise-cancelling earpieces, not a single round got through, or even did any noticeable damage to the suit. I expressed my lack of concern for the bullet storm by not even reacting to it, never deviating in my path toward the man who had briefly been my nemesis before I became his. When I was just a few yards away, he opened his mouth and I saw flames billowing up out of his throat.

I turned to narrow my profile down. While the suit had its heat-reduction ductwork, it was better not to be struck by flame at all. Accordingly, I braced myself and brought up my left forearm in a classic blocking motion; unfolding from the back of it was a lightweight aluminum framework covered in the same kind of ceramic heat tiles that they'd used on the Space Shuttle, back when it was still in use.

The blast of flame hit the shield and splashed outward from it. Flimsy though it was—a thrown knife probably would have penetrated it with ease—it weathered the massive heat spike with little in the way of problems. Only a few parts of the suit were contacted by the raging inferno, and the ducted water pulled the heat away quickly.

Armed with the new block of ammunition, the auxiliary unit took to the air again. In the meantime, Lung's followers seemed to be either reloading or standing back to see what happened next. Nobody wanted to get between him and his chosen prey.

As the rush of flame died down, I stepped forward, folding the shield away. Lung came for me then, blazing with fire and steel talons spread to rend me limb from limb. I lashed out with the chain from my right arm, the reel on my back spinning as it dispensed the jointed metallic tentacle.

It wrapped around his right thigh where the first burst of flechettes had shredded away the protective scales, then I turned the blades into the correct alignment—heavier than the first iteration, they were able to support more sawteeth—and started them spinning. At first they had trouble getting a purchase on his scales, then they chewed their way through. Lung clearly didn't like the idea of this; temporarily abandoning the attempt to get at me, he grabbed the chain with both hands and yanked hard at it.

I wasn't sure whether he was trying to reel me in or break the chain, but neither one was in my plans. The blades where he was holding the chain started spinning as well; as it turned out, the scales on his palms and fingers weren't nearly as durable as those protecting his thighs. In less than a second, he was devoid of any working fingers. The chain around his thigh was also still tightening by the second, the high-speed blades tearing through his muscles and into the bone like an out-of-control chainsaw, only more so.

When the blades broke through the bone and the leg separated, he was perhaps as surprised as his minions. I was also a little surprised when I realised part of the already-cut muscle had begun to reattach, but that was easily remedied by expanding the circle of the chain again. Wrapping around the severed limb, the chain tossed it off to the side.

However, Lung was not that easy to put down, in any sense of the phrase. Balancing on one leg, aided in this by his tail and his one remaining saurian tridactyl foot, he vomited a blast of flame at me, followed up by an overhand smash with both his hands (from which the fingers were still growing back). Unfortunately for him, I saw the move coming and reacted the way Peter had trained me; grabbing his right wrist in both hands, I twisted away from his left hand and performed a reasonable shoulder throw. The flame washed over me before I'd completed the move, but the ductwork was performing its job effectively, pulling the heat out of the metal surrounding me.

Lung smashed down onto his back, and I swooped the armed auxiliary unit in for a strike. Keeping him on the ground seemed like a good idea, so I directed one burst at his left knee, the flechettes chewing through it until only muscle and sinew held it together. Paradoxically, they would have punched straight through a baseline human, but as Victor had calculated, Lung's denser flesh caused the kinetic energy in the high-velocity rounds to blast fist-sized chunks out of his body, like heavy-calibre bullets striking wood or stone.

He burst fully into flames then, but it did him no good. I walked the next burst up over his stomach and chest to his head, ripping aside scales and bones and exposing his heart and lungs. By now he had lost his mask, and the last shots in the burst tore off half his jaw and part of his skull.

Bereft of working legs and with nothing that he could really use for hands, he still did his best to get up and keep fighting. His wounds would have killed any normal man ten times over, but Lung was no quitter. Were I capable of admiring anything at that point, I may have admired his stubbornness and tenacity.

Of course, it wouldn't have changed the outcome in the slightest.

He hit me with a third blast of flame, raising the temperature of the water in my storage tanks to near boiling. It was getting uncomfortably warm within the suit, but it still wasn't as bad as it had been during my previous combat with him. Besides, I had plans for that water.

My chain flicked out and wrapped around his right arm, just above the elbow. Bright metal scales, stained with blood, flew off in all directions as the cutting blades engaged and began to tear into his arm. With the amount of damage I was doing to him, his regeneration was starting to falter, but still he fought on.

The water reservoir on my back was much more than a simple tank. Using pumps and valves, I separated out the live steam from the still-liquid water, then directed each into its own section. As he tried again to douse me with flame—it seemed he had trouble learning that his big move wasn't working so well anymore—I activated a heretofore quiescent nozzle mounted alongside my right wrist.

Steam pressure, building all the time from the heat pouring into the system, propelled high-temperature (but still liquid) water out of the nozzle in a cutting jet. Emerging with sufficient speed and energy to slice solid steel like butter, it lopped off his left arm at the shoulder with barely a pause, carving through scales, flesh and bone alike.

At the same time, the cutting chain chewed through the scales and muscle of his right arm and set to work on the bone. The blades, tough as they were, had been worn down by the stellar work they'd performed so far, so they were taking a bit more time. That was fine by me.

I knelt down alongside Lung, and reached inside his open chest to take hold of his beating heart in my mechanical grip. "Tell me one thing, and I will make this quick," I said to him. "Who betrayed us? Who sold us out?"

With his one good eye (the other had been blasted to ruin and beyond by the last burst of the auxiliary unit), he glared up at me, then a chuckle that was more akin to a death-rattle forced its way from his throat. He tried to spit at me; I would later find spatters of blood on the suit's 'visor'. "Coi … ugh …" he rasped, his speech distorted by his own power mutation and the loss of half his jaw. But it was enough. Coil.

"Thank you," I said, and released his heart. Then I sliced his head off with the water jet, leaving a three-inch channel in the roadway under his neck. It rolled free, and I picked it up.

As I rose to my feet, I looked around. The members of the ABB he'd brought along were no longer there, except for a few prisoners being held tightly by Crusader's ghosts. Others lay wounded or dead in the roadway, victims of Crusader and Rune.

I held up Lung's head for them to see. "Lung is dead," I announced. "The ABB is no more. Spread the word." Then I turned and started back toward where the rest of the Empire Eighty-Eight contingent awaited me.

I knew this was no time to be complacent. Even with Othala and Kaiser avenged, we still had to figure out how to take the fight to Coil. But I had faith in Victor to figure out something.

And someday, preferably soon …

… Coil would face me too.



End of Part Twenty-Five

 

[Zackarix]

I forgot that Taylor encouraged Greg to join the Empire as well. It really emphasizes that Taylor is dragging down others with her, even if she doesn't realize it.

 

[Jade Isentry]

I was a bit relieved when that fight went about as expected, without unneeded complications or surprises. (Almost) no plan survives contact with the enemy.

Poor Mr. Hebert. Conscious, but watching helplessly as his daughter just keeps losing her way more and more.

I'm getting distinct (Dark?) Professor X vibes from Kaiser at this point.

That was the best and most effective wrecking of Sophia's worldviews I can remember ever seeing.