While this seems to be the "go" timeline, the altercation started fast after the signal without his men doing anything to initiate it, so it's reasonably likely that things played out almost exactly the same way in the "no-go" timeline.
- Location
- USA
Sarah. Please stop behaving foolishly and get rid of that damn phone with the video file. Not disposing of it immediately was already a risk; now that Lightstar has definitively said no, stop holding onto it.
- Location
- The House of Moon and Star
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I mean, it's a bit of a bad idea regardless, but I wouldn't call it a definitive no. Like, it was supposed to be, but he clearly couldn't manage to actually do definitive. And, well, Sarah clearly thinks she won't get caught, or perhaps that nobody will be looking. Given Renick's POV she's not even really wrong about that, at least when it comes to the side of the law.
And, well, this is absolutely something Coil would take advantage of, but she has no way of knowing that and he's got bigger problems at the moment anyway.
FaerieKnight79
Verified Pixie
- Location
- The Internet
I think that what happened with Oni Lee and Coil's men is that Calvert hadn't yet split the timeline when the ABB showed up. Remember, he'd been holding off to save his power for self preservation needs. They may have acted on their own initiative, thinking it was a case of "now or never". That, and that maybe Coil's Fake Dark would intimidate the ABB goons into retreating. The fact Danny was on hand too? Unexpected, unplanned for, and Calvert may not have any clue yet that his plans are coming undone and that he's in the cross hairs of a legendary assassin.
- Location
- Australia
If something is already happening when he splits time, it keeps happening in both timelines.
Coil's men were already on location.
The ABB were just showing up.
Oni Lee was teleporting into place.
Danny was already there.
The only thing that happened differently in the 'red light' timeline was that Frankoff and his men were just getting back in the cars when the ABB guy yelled out, and he went 'fuck it' and tried to put the wind up them. The rest of events played out exactly as in the 'green light' one.
What was that? Atropos in The Dark?
Good to see Fake Dark is dealt with. Now we get to sit back and enjoy Coil's panic as his plans went to complete shit because he had to get himself back into the PRT in some fashion and having to actually work bit his villain work in the ass. And poor Victor gets scapegoated for two of The Dark's actions. Too bad for him.
Heh, like I've said myself earlier in the thread and like Danny told Taylor in-story, the E88 made itself into the perfect target for that kind of frame or mistake. Making a fetish out of being bigoted and ruthless means that it's very easy to convince people that you've been bigoted and ruthless even if you weren't involved at all.
So Danny only needed minimal effort to get the PRT to blame the E88 for Shadow Stalker's killing, and the PRT came up itself with the idea of the E88 killing one of their own to frame New Wave because the E88 spent decades convincing everyone that they are the sort of people who'd do things like that. To the extent that the legendary assassin The Dark is considered the less likely perpetrator.
yannoshka
Thunda birb
- Location
- Smartarse cramschool
That is because The Dark is also reputed to be a consummate professional, and professionals have standards.
Standards like needing to have a damn good reason to kill - usually of a professional bent, and while we out of universe do know he had excellent reasons, PRT in-universe are not so blessed.
Not seeing any reasons Dark would have to personally go against SS, since they were operating under the false impression that they had the psycho ward on a leash, they would fall to Occam's razor that any connection as purely circumstantial.
As in The Dark killed a couple of E88 goonsquad for personal reasons, which he made no secret of, and SS unfortunately ended up as collateral in the fallout.
Occam's razor is nifty like that.
But one should never forget that the Razor only points out trends, and trends get buckled.
...
This ended up being fa longer than I intended, sorry about that gentlefolk.
The Dark, and Dog Breath of Doom
Generated in Automatic 1111.
Danny Hebert a tall skinny 45yo man, smooth shaven face, standing in shadows of a dark city alley at night, modern horror, clear glasses, short hair, balding, ((face: partially lit, partly hidden in shadows)), glint of light from glasses, menacing, deadly, dangerous, puppy on leash at his feet, half turned away from viewer
Negative prompt: lowres, 3d, cartoon, cartoon, painting, illustration, (worst quality, low quality, normal quality:2)
Steps: 42, Sampler: DPM++ SDE, CFG scale: 8.5, Seed: 421494580, Size: 512x768, Model hash: 72ae112621, Model: kkwIDEAL_v10, Version: v1.6.0-2-gb1d24c7d
Negative prompt: lowres, 3d, cartoon, cartoon, painting, illustration, (worst quality, low quality, normal quality:2)
Steps: 42, Sampler: DPM++ SDE, CFG scale: 8.5, Seed: 421494580, Size: 512x768, Model hash: 72ae112621, Model: kkwIDEAL_v10, Version: v1.6.0-2-gb1d24c7d
FaerieKnight79
Verified Pixie
- Location
- The Internet
Pockets!
I suppose that's one way to avoid the typical problems AI art has with human fingers. But I notice the leash is not connected to the dog's collar. The man is just holding the leash.
I suppose that's one way to avoid the typical problems AI art has with human fingers. But I notice the leash is not connected to the dog's collar. The man is just holding the leash.
Yeah, the AI has issues with "understanding" relationships between different elements of the composition, so the only reliable way to deal with things like leashes is to fix them in post. The above is a raw output from the AI generator. I generated a batch of 16 images and only two of them had a puppy at all. This was the better of the two.
FaerieKnight79
Verified Pixie
- Location
- The Internet
I notice it also seemed to take "balding+menace" and came up with "Walter White".
Nope, Coil split the timeline just before the ABB turned up:
So, Coils Mercenaries say "We're here!". Coil splits the timeline, sending "Geranium" in one, and… let's say "Rhododendron" in the other.
Then the ABB arrive, just as Coil's men receive the messages in both timelines
• Timeline "Geranium": Coil's men step forward, the ABB notice them and point them out, Oni Lee sees them being pointed out. Introductions are made, and it's Lights Out for Oni Lee and The Dim
• Timeline "Rhododendron": Coil's men stay hidden, the ABB don't notice them, and don't point them out, so Oni Lee doesn't spot them. This means that The Dark might not step in immediately either. If everything is going fine, then Oni Lee might leave to check on other groups, meaning that he doesn't get caught up in whatever happens next
Except that they weren't really hidden to begin with, and your critical step forward didn't even happen.
ThrawnCA
Carbon-based biped
- Location
- Australia
Nope, the ABB noticed and attacked them in both timelines; Ack already replied.
FaerieKnight79
Verified Pixie
- Location
- The Internet
Plus Danny was on hand anyway, and was going to be dealing with Fake DARK either way.
ThrawnCA
Carbon-based biped
- Location
- Australia
I feel like the impact of this question may have been diluted a bit by recent events.
Clearly, the solution is to off anyone responsible for that dilution, until people are confident that the person claiming to be the Dark is either truthful, or about to die anyway.
FaerieKnight79
Verified Pixie
- Location
- The Internet
I don't know, he'd just killed Coil's fake with ease. Then took out Oni Lee seconds later with even more ease. I'd imagine that would be terrfiying to those witnessing it. Between that and Lung claiming there is no such thing as The Dark, and that anyone claiming to be Dark should be shot? If I was the ABB members, I'd want to get the hell out of there with my life. The thought process is "Lung might kill me, but this terrifying man? He will kill me."
ThrawnCA
Carbon-based biped
- Location
- Australia
Not exactly. Oni Lee killed the fake, and then the Dark killed Oni Lee. So to the onlookers, it could look like a chain of people taking offence to each other's claims and killing each other, and they might then be wondering, "Okay, is this guy also a fake and someone will off him next?"
I mean, plausible, but then when nobody does...
(And really even if he was a fake it hardly matters to a bunch of normals who just saw him swat Oni Lee out of hand.)
- Location
- Australia
Not so much attacked as challenged. But the outcome was the same.
The psychological outcome is what's important here.
We have the fake Dark.
Oni Lee teleports in and kills the fake Dark. Result: Oni Lee is seen as scarier than the Dark.
Then Oni Lee goes after the real Dark, and dies. Result: The Dark is seen as being better than both the fake Dark and Oni Lee.
There is no doubt in anyone's mind that the real Dark would've easily offed the fake Dark.
FaerieKnight79
Verified Pixie
- Location
- The Internet
Which was quite true, probably. I mean, he pulled a John Wick and carved a bloody path through dozens of men, then for a hat trick offed both Cricket and Hookwolf with seeming ease. Just because Lung doesn't think Dark exists, doesn't mean the people working for him who've been around far longer then Lung believe the same.
- Location
- USA
Walter White can sound menacing when he wants, thanks to Bryan Cranston. So, nothing wrong on that end, if anyone wants to imagine how the Dark sounds when speaking. (In a partial nod to realism, however, White was deliberately written to be rather amateurish and clumsy in actually doing crime.)
Part Twelve: Into the Lair of the Serpent
- Location
- Australia
Are You Afraid of the Dark?
Part Twelve: Into the Lair of the Serpent
[A/N: This chapter commissioned by @GW_Yoda and beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]
[A/N 2: Apologies for the delay. Head and chest cold have been kicking my ass.]
A/N 3: I have noticed that the time-date stamps for the chapters don't actually reflect the passage of time as shown within the chapters. So I've gone back to fix them. This chapter is up to date (so to speak).]
Death's Head
We caught up with Coil's guys as they returned to his base. In other words, we got close enough for me to pick out the bugs I'd ordered to stay put in their vehicle.
They weren't quite fleeing, but they weren't exactly dawdling either. I figured Dad must have spooked them somewhat, having appeared out of nowhere as though their faux Dark's act had accidentally conjured him out of some eldritch dimension.
In a way, that was almost correct, even if all the essential details were wrong. The fact was, we had actually been there because of Coil's impostor. As for it being accidental … well, he certainly hadn't meant for us to show up, so that was technically accurate.
Under my careful direction, Dad got us closer behind the two cars carrying Coil's goons. There wasn't much traffic out and about, but we were able to break the line of sight enough times that they didn't suspect we were following them. Or rather, they weren't making urgent phone calls sending text messages, or looking in their rearview mirrors more than usual, so that was the conclusion I came to.
They drove into the parking garage they'd come from in the first place and got out of the vehicle while Dad and I pulled up outside. This time, I'd prepared more thoroughly; by the time they got to the base entrance, each mercenary was carrying a substantial load of bugs in hard-to-spot places. Equally important, the concealed keypad had tiny bugs perched on each key, so when one of them tapped in the entry code, I could write it down in my notepad.
Dad glanced at it, then got out of the car. "Wait here," he murmured, then ghosted into the shadows.
I knew where he was, of course. With all the bugs I'd been gathering in the vicinity, I would've had to be literally in a coma to not know where he was. I wasn't exactly comfortable with him going into the lion's den (or would that the snake pit?) alone, but we'd talked about it.
Several factors militated against me accompanying him. First, someone had to watch Chewie, and it would kind of ruin the implacable image if I showed up carrying a puppy. Second, he was used to working alone or with someone as well-trained as he was. Even with my powers and all the things he was showing me, I was little more than a talented amateur, and he didn't need the distraction that watching out for me would cost him. Third, one person could be twice as stealthy as two (see above about my relative lack of training). And finally, even if I stayed out of the action, it wasn't like I couldn't help him out anyway.
By the time he got near the keypad, I'd located all the cameras in the vicinity, and my bugs were doing what bugs do best: randomly walking over the lenses at the worst possible time. Even if someone were watching every camera with hawk-like attention (they weren't; my bugs had crap vision, but I could still use them to detect posture) they'd only see what I wanted them to see. Dad could ease up to the keypad and tap in the code I'd given him.
With a friendly beep, the apparently solid concrete wall slid aside, and Dad was in.
The Dark
As he stepped through the open doorway, Danny allowed himself a brief half-smile. Normally, this kind of incursion would've only been possible after extensive recon and information-gathering, and there'd be more than one person coming in. A hacker would be tapped into their electronics by now, taking over the cameras and looping footage as needed.
He didn't need any of that this time, because he had Taylor.
He kept the layout plan in his head as he moved through the base. His pistol was out and held low, ready to fire if necessary, but he was fully aware that even a suppressed shot (Hollywood had a lot to answer for) would echo forever in these concrete passageways. At the edge of his vision, he saw the swarm that had ridden in with him as it spread farther through the base, vastly augmenting Taylor's supply of insects already within the walls.
The sound of bootsteps came to him before the voices, echoing from around the corner leading to a side corridor. In the next moment, three fireflies lit up before him, blinking in a steadily increasing rhythm. He took a moment to see how Taylor had them arranged on the wall and nodded.
There was no place for him to hide, and he seriously doubted that any bunch of fifty mercenaries would be unfamiliar enough with each other's faces that he could pretend to be one of them. Likewise, the old 'hey, nice to meet you, I just transferred in' ploy, while surprisingly effective under certain circumstances, was likely to fall flat in less than ten seconds against people who were actually on the ball. Retreat was also off the table, mainly because he had a personal aversion to being shot in the back.
Which left exactly one option.
The human brain takes time to react to changing circumstances, especially when confronted with danger in what was previously considered a safe environment. Those untrained in dealing with crises may freeze altogether. At the same time, even well-trained individuals can take up to five seconds to register and react competently to danger from an unexpected quarter.
In a not entirely unrelated side-note, I find that when a smaller force takes a numerically superior one by surprise, the advantageous move is to go on the attack, as hard and fast as possible. Getting in among them gives you a target-rich environment and allows you the best chance of killing or disabling as many people as possible in the time it takes them to react to your presence. This attack also engenders a strong shock and awe aspect, which can only help your cause.
In situations like that, it's amazing how much you can get done in five seconds.
- from the collected notes of Daniel Hebert
Cued by the bugs, Danny went around the corner just before the three mercenaries reached it. They were all wearing body armour, including helmets with faceplates, but that wasn't really a problem. Absently, he considered the idea that Coil had somehow acquired some PRT gear and had it repainted for his guys. Nothing was sacred to the man, it seemed.
Independent from his musings, his body was already in action. The suppressor of his pistol went up under the helmet faceplate of the closest guard, and he pulled the trigger. Using a human head as extra sound muffling was something he'd done more than once; the auditory absorptive quality of brain matter was quite useful in his line of work.
As the bullet created a slight protrusion from the top of the helmet—Danny was glad he wouldn't have to be wearing that one, what with the mess that would now be splattered over the inside of it—he used his left hand to drive his knife point-first into the throat of the second guard, then ripped sideways. The concrete wall and floor beside the guard were painted red almost on the instant, which wasn't very surprising, seeing that Danny had opened up not only the man's windpipe but also his carotid artery and jugular vein. He'd live a little longer than the man Danny had shot in the head, but only by a matter of seconds.
The two bodies crumpled to the floor, and Danny surged forward over them to confront the third guard. This guy had had just enough time to realise that something Very Bad was happening, but not enough to figure out what to do about it, so he made the worst possible move. He tried to do two things at once: running (the natural instinct in that circumstance) and unslinging his rifle (which had evidently been drummed into him). As he backed up and turned, his fumbling with the rifle unbalanced him, and he tripped over his own feet; Danny would've taken him down anyway, but this just made the job easier.
He came down hard on the guard's back with his knee; holstering the pistol and dropping the knife, he grabbed the helmet with both hands and hauled it back with a slight twist. As the guard flailed beneath him, he pulled until he judged he'd reached the limit of travel for the luckless man's muscles and vertebrae, then essayed a sharp twist, yanking the guy's head around a good ninety degrees. There was a rending crack, and the guard spasmed and then went limp under him.
Taking up the knife, he wiped it off on the guard's sleeve—he'd be cleaning it properly later, of course, but congealing blood inside a sheath could make it hard to pull in a hurry—and sheathed it, then took up the guard's rifle. The cylindrical apparatus slung under the barrel wasn't something he'd seen before, though he had heard rumours that Coil's men were equipped with Tinkertech. Thoughtfully, he aimed it at the wall and pressed the square red plastic button on the side; a Tinker may have constructed it, but it was also intended for the lowest common denominator to use without issue—big red button equalled danger.
He was accompanied by a sharp smell of ozone and a pop of ionising air, an actinic purple beam shot out from the device and began to burn a hole in the wall. He let off the button and raised his eyebrows. Either that was the world's most aggressive laser sight, or Coil believed in equipping his men to do cape levels of damage when they were out and about.
He took up all three rifles and slung them over his shoulder, then headed in the direction of where Taylor's diagram had indicated the armoury would be found. The clock was now ticking. Those guards had been going somewhere, possibly to investigate why the door had opened and closed again, and whoever had dispatched them would soon be wondering why they hadn't checked yet.
Both he and Taylor knew that he was good, but every time he engaged with any of the opposition, there would be the chance that the noise of the conflict would just draw more into the fight. Forewarned, they would be much less of a pushover, and numbers would surely begin to tell. He preferred to avoid all that; he was a hitman, not some action hero.
The alarm had not yet sounded by the time he got to the armoury. Even before he stuck his head around the corner, he knew (thanks to Taylor) that there was a guard on the door, but nobody else in the vicinity. This, he figured, was probably standard procedure; if the alert had been given, there would be more than one at this important post.
He paused and passed his hand over his eyes. Then he unslung one of the rifles, rested his thumb lightly on the activation button of the laser, and stepped around the corner. Taylor was on the ball; even as the guard came into view, Danny could see the bugs clustering around the helmet faceplate, crawling up under it and utterly distracting the man at this crucial point.
He levelled the rifle and pressed the button, lancing the same actinic beam across the twenty feet that separated them, into the man's chest. The muted crack that resulted was quieter than either the rifle or suppressed pistol would have been; he dragged the beam sideways for half a second before releasing the button, causing the stink of burned meat to join that of ozone. As the guard fell over, Danny saw the scorched line in the concrete wall behind him, the beam having gone all the way through in less time than it took to think about it.
Hustling over to the guard, Danny determined that he was dead. Then he checked the armoury door; it was secured by both a card-swipe and an electronic keypad. Frowning, he looked down at the guard, fully aware that even if the man had been carrying the appropriate card, there was no way of coercing the code out of him now.
On the other hand … he looked thoughtfully again at the laser.
Coil
Thomas' phone beeped an alert. He stilled a frown; what was going on now? Affecting unconcern, he took it out and checked the screen.
The content of the message sent a chill down his back. Someone had just forced their way into the base armoury, damaging the lock in the process. This was a silent alarm, sent directly to him so as not to alert any turncoats to his knowledge of their perfidy. But the question was, who the hell was doing this behind his back?
He already knew about the loss of Frankoff, but he'd ordered his mercenaries back to base upon getting the news. According to the less than coherent report, both Oni Lee and someone they tentatively identified as the actual Dark had been involved. He'd wanted to hear the full story, face to face, before he made his next move in this matter. Especially, he wanted to find out what the hell was going on with this mythical bogeyman who had supposedly manifested for real.
But now on top of that, someone in his employ had betrayed him. He couldn't figure it out. Had this brand-new Dark spooked them so badly that they would rather turn on him?
Oni Lee was dead, and so was his faux Dark; there was no option to change that. He'd simply carried on from where he was, having his troopers follow a different patrol route in each of the timelines. Now he was starting to wish he'd held back a timeline, because it seemed the loss of Frankoff was having knock-on effects that he'd failed to anticipate.
Exactly what had happened still had to be figured out, but he was absolutely going to get to the bottom of that, too. His power was all about making the right choices (for his own personal well-being, naturally), so he needed to learn where he'd gone wrong with that one.
The most irritating aspect of all this was that the breach of the armoury was happening in both timelines, so he couldn't actually rule out an arbitrary outside factor. Actually, that was the second most irritating aspect; most irritating was the fact that he couldn't simply choose to cancel the entire expedition, and keep his base armoury unscathed. That ship had long since sailed.
"Commander Calvert?" asked the driver in both timelines. "Is everything okay?" It seemed he hadn't been as good at concealing his emotions as he'd thought he was.
In the first timeline, he shook his head. "No. We're heading back to the PRT building, now."
In the second, he nodded. "Yes. Continue the patrol."
Dipping out halfway through the patrol would draw unwelcome attention, but he could use that timeline to determine exactly what the fuck was going on, then drop it for the second timeline where he could deal with the problem using his newfound knowledge.
In the meantime, he did the only thing he could at the moment: he sent a message in both timelines, activating the alarm system with the specific code that indicated the armoury was compromised. This would vector the guards currently on duty toward the armoury (he assumed the sentry who had been guarding it was either complicit or dead) and potentially deal with the problem before he even got there. Even if they didn't, they would gather information that he could hopefully use.
The Dark
Danny heaved the door open, careful not to touch the smoking remains of the lock, and was five steps into the armoury before the alarm went off. Taylor wasn't alerting him with her bugs, so he figured he had a little time to play with, though the clock was definitely ticking loud and clear now. Looking around, he catalogued what he had to play with.
Pistols, there. Rifles, there. Ammunition, there. Laser modules on charge, there. Grenades, there.
He wasted no time in idle meanderings; re-slinging the rifle he'd used to kill the man outside, he played the undermounted laser from the second one over the other racked weapons. The harshly crackling beam, its ozone stink even more pronounced in the confined area, sliced through metal and plastic like a hot knife through warm butter. The only things he spared were the charging laser modules and the hand grenades: the former because he couldn't be sure that being cut in half by a laser wouldn't make their batteries explode, and the latter because he had his own plans for those.
He gathered up what he needed, and spent about thirty seconds ensuring that the next person to open the armoury door would receive a rather terminal surprise. Then he moved on, farther into the base. While he could have acquired one of the helmets to provide a little head protection, not to mention a moment of confusion on the part of any one he ran into, he decided not to. He had several reasons for this, but mainly because Taylor could provide more confusion than any disguise ever could.
He made good time, only having to duck into a side-passage once (on Taylor's recommendation) to avoid a bunch of guards going in the other direction. The clock in his head was ticking ever louder now, and he knew that if he wanted to achieve what he'd come down here to accomplish, he'd need to get it done sooner rather than later. So he kept going, planning out his moves in advance so he wouldn't have to stop and think once he got there.
Taylor warned him with a bunch of bugs just before more guards came around a corner right in front of him. This time, he didn't bother with suppressors or knives; he just brought the rifle to his shoulder and started shooting, one bullet per faceplate. Two and a half seconds later, they were all down and he was hurdling their corpses, moving faster now.
He knew the previous group had reached the armoury when the deep rumbling BOOOOM echoed through the corridors, sifting down concrete powder from the ceiling and making the floor shake underfoot. This was what happened when a single frag grenade wedged in the door set off a few more just inside; it appeared that the laser modules (which he'd stacked around the live grenades) were just as explosive as he suspected them to be. Almost at the same time, a hot wind blasted through the tunnels, followed by the sound of collapsing concrete.
Good thing there's more than one way out of this place.
A moment later, he came onto the open area he'd seen on the plan. There were catwalks above and crates below. None of the mercenaries he saw appeared to be armed, but that didn't mean there weren't weapons in their close proximity. Still, he'd gone loud, so it was time to show off a little.
"Tell me something!" he bellowed. "Are you afraid of the Dark?" As he spoke, he let the rifle fall on its sling and prepped an incendiary grenade, which he hurled toward the stack of crates. A second grenade, this one of the fragmentation variety, went toward an interesting-looking electronic console on the lower level. Stepping aside for a moment to allow the shrapnel from the latter to harmlessly pass him by, he kept an eye on his potential adversaries.
The crates were on fire and the console was a shredded mess after the grenades went off, so he started along the catwalk at a run. When one of the mercenaries pulled a pistol, Taylor surrounded the asshole's head with a swarm of stinging insects, so his first shot went wild. Danny put him out of everyone's misery with a single rifle shot to centre mass, then kept running.
Halfway to the next exit, he made a detour to another locked door. The laser on the third rifle burned through the lock, though it was somewhat sturdier than the armoury door, and he tossed in a frag and an incendiary grenade before he kept going. If, as Taylor strongly suspected, this was Coil's office, then the man was going to have to redecorate everything before it would be usable again.
He shot two more guards before he reached the other exit. The door was locked down, but that merely meant he would have to use the laser from the third rifle to carve his way through. He'd just begun when the quality and sound of the flashing lights and sirens echoing through the base altered noticeably. This was, he suspected, in response to the double explosion in Coil's office, though he didn't know what it meant.
Then the recorded message started playing. 'Base self-destruct activated. You have one minute to evacuate. Base self-destruct activated. You have fifty-five seconds to evacuate. Base self-destruct activated. You have fifty seconds to evacuate …'
Danny blinked, honestly surprised. In the twenty years he'd been dabbling in the cape scene, this was literally the first time he'd come across a supervillain base with a self-destruct mechanism. Coil, he decided, had been reading far too much lurid cape fiction.
He finished carving the lock out of the door and heaved it aside, then ducked into the tunnel beyond and started running. While he could run in pitch darkness (and had done so before) there were a series of muted lights in the corner of the roof of the corridor, allowing him to just barely see where he was going. Behind him, he could hear the countdown steadily progressing, and he set about putting as much space between himself and the base as possible.
The stairs were a welcome sight, but the metal trapdoor at the top was not, especially when it refused to move. He used the last of the battery power from the second and third lasers to carve it into sections, then stepped aside to let the glowing metal pieces fall down onto the stairs. As he emerged into the night air, he saw the headlights of the car coming around the corner, and smiled.
Taylor, of course, had been tracking him the whole way through, so when he started leaving by another way, she'd come to meet him. He was pleased both by her initiative and the fact that the driving lessons he'd been giving her were bearing fruit so early. Waving to her, he headed for the gate.
By his personal clock, the self-destruct had ten seconds to go, so he simply shot the lock away, shoved the gate aside, and dived into the back seat. "Drive," he said urgently. "The place is about to blow."
"Got it." Taylor sprayed gravel in a half-circle, then applied pedal to metal in no uncertain fashion. In the front passenger seat, Chewie yelped in surprise at the sudden acceleration. Danny ignored him, counting down in his head. Five … four … three … two … one …
They were a hundred yards away and still gaining ground when Danny felt the first juddering rumble through the suspension of the car, not unlike an earthquake he'd once experienced. Peering out through the rear window of the car, he thought he saw the ground split open here and there then close again, but the audible aspects of the self-destruct—a bunch of explosives seeded through the very structure of the base, if he wasn't much mistaken—were a lot more subtle than the palpable side of things. However, the half-constructed building was less fortunate about matters; Danny saw it sway and then begin to topple. That, at least, made a considerable amount of noise when it hit the ground.
"Holy shit," she said with admirable calm once the last of the echoes had died away and they were driving smoothly on the road once more. "How did you pull that off, exactly?"
"Built-in self-destruct," he said briefly. "Coil's the worst type of supervillain. He does what he thinks supervillains should do, without ever considering why he's doing it, or even if he should."
"Well, that's a thing." Without needing to be told, Taylor pulled over to the side of the road. The rifles went into the trunk, and Danny got into the driver's seat while Taylor joined Chewie in the passenger seat. "So, what are we doing next?"
"Right now? Home, for sleep." He glanced over at her. "Once Coil starts to regroup, we hit him again. Rinse and repeat. Wear down his resources."
"Until he sticks his head up where you can put a bullet in it?" Her tone didn't sound like she was guessing.
"Precisely." He set the car in motion. "I don't have a lot of rules, but your mom and I put a lot of work into that name. Nobody messes with it and lives."
Taylor scratched Chewie behind the ear, just the way he liked it. "Damn right." She paused, frowning. "Wait a minute. If I were him and I figured I was being targeted, I'd be inclined to set a trap at some point. How do we know he doesn't have a Thinker on speed-dial, so he can plan ahead of you?"
"He does." Danny smiled coldly. "Or rather, he did, until recently. Remember the Undersiders?"
"Yeah, but—" It only took her that long to get his point. "Tattletale? She's his Thinker?"
"That's my guess, yes. When we were talking to them, everyone else was very respectful, but she was utterly terrified of us. With her talents, she would have picked up the fact that I had zero intention of harming them if they played straight with us. So … why was she petrified with fear?"
Taylor stroked Chewie slowly as she answered. "Because she'd done something that she thought was likely to get her killed."
"That was my read, yes." Danny felt a surge of pride at how well Taylor was coming along. "Now, the only thing that's caused us any problems recently is the impersonation gambit. My guess is that she suggested it to him, then got a horrible surprise when we showed up on her doorstep. For all she knew, I'd figured it out ahead of time, and was there to shoot her right in the head." He paused significantly. "The question is, why would a Thinker suggest such a risky course of action to her boss?"
Taylor only took a second or so to get it. "She hates him. Wants him dead. Especially considering all the information she gave us on him. Which means she isn't working for him willingly."
"That would be my conclusion, as well." He bared his teeth in a smile as he drove. "Even if he contacts her, the last thing she's going to give him is a straight answer."
Leaning back in the seat, Taylor snuggled Chewie to her. "Mwahahaha."
Throwaway Timeline
Coil
Thomas Calvert had been in and around military or military-adjacent command structures for more than a decade; in this time, he had acquired a better than average command of profanity in its many and varied forms. Having seen the slightly-subsided area of ground where his base had once been, he found himself lost for words. No matter what he might have said, it would have been inadequate for the situation.
The survivors stood before him, all fourteen of them. They represented a twenty-eight percent survival rate of the men he'd had stationed in the base. That was shocking by any metric, or it would've been if he actually had any kind of investment in their well-being. As far as he was concerned, they were mercenaries; if they got killed, they were taking a hit that otherwise might have gotten to him, and he didn't have to pay them anymore after that.
"The Dark? Really?" He was still having trouble coming to terms with the idea that the imaginary bogeyman of Brockton Bay had actually shown up to express an opinion on his methods. "How do you know it was him? How many were with him?"
One of the men, who went by the nickname of Fish, seemed to have broken his left arm from the way he was holding it. "He yelled out that thing about being afraid of the Dark, just before he chucked the grenades in your office, and shot Creep and Senegal. Then all the alarms started going off about the self-destruct. You never said anything about a self-destruct!" He stared at Calvert accusingly.
"Certainly I did. You got a warning, didn't you?" Thomas was starting to get a clearer picture of what had happened, and why the self-destruct had been triggered. Two grenades going off in the confines of his office would certainly stand a good chance of activating it. Also, he'd gotten a message on his phone, announcing the destruction of the automated console tasked with keeping the lower levels pumped clear of water. Even if the built-in explosives hadn't gone off, the rising water levels would've rendered the base unliveable all too quickly. "You didn't say how many men were with him."
"Nobody." It was Pritt. "Just one man." He spat to one side. "Except it was the Dark. The real Dark. He got in through the garage entrance and waltzed around us like we weren't even there. Nobody got a shot off in his direction, and he killed everyone who tried to point a gun at him."
"Yeah," agreed Fish. "Fuck this shit. I never signed on to go up against someone like that. I'm gone. We're all gone."
"Don't be so hasty." Thomas considered the ways to turn them back to his side. Greed was a good start; they were mercenaries, after all. "I can pay you all triple what you were making before. Call it permanent danger pay."
"Nope." Pritt pulled his pistol and levelled it at Thomas. Four of the men with him did the same. "All this? This is because you decided to get cute with someone else's rep. Frankoff and the others are dead because you pulled this shit and because you built the fucking base to explode like some stupid supervillain's wet dream. I lost good friends down there. Fuck off and die."
"Ten times." Calvert tried once more.
He wasn't sure who fired first, but the bullet caught him in the upper chest. His morph suit had nothing resembling ballistic cloth in it, and he was already falling before the other shots hit him. He sprawled on the ground, still conscious but already bleeding out, as Pritt stepped up and prepared to kick him in the face.
At this point, the timeline was a dead loss, so he dropped it, then split off from his current line. They'd returned to the PRT building in this one as well, though the patrol had been over by that point. Unfortunately, his assigned patrol route was nowhere near where his base had been, so he hadn't been able to officially investigate it.
Fortunately, there was a debrief ongoing in Conference Room A, where he could find out more about what had happened.
"So, this is what we have," reported the duty officer, a Lieutenant Holloway. "Approximately thirty minutes ago, reports started coming in about subterranean explosions toward Midtown. Our own seismographs also picked up the traces, and pinpointed them enough to vector troops in that direction. When they arrived, they found a large area of subsidence and a collapsed building."
"Casualties?" asked Porton, another strike squad commander.
"None from the building, thankfully," Holloway acknowledged. "It was a construction site, half-built. But according to a suspicious person we picked up near the site, the subsidence was apparently due to a large underground base, belonging to none other than Coil. He'd rigged it to blow, and the charges went off tonight."
"Fucking supervillains," muttered someone else in the room. There was a murmur of agreement.
Although Holloway had to have heard it, he chose not to react. "According to the person, he was a member of a fifty-strong mercenary force Coil had kept quartered in that base. Some of the others apparently got out, but he doesn't know how many. Most of them, he says, are probably still under the rubble."
Calvert decided to ask the question, if only to find out what the PRT knew. "Did he say why the self-destruct was triggered?"
Holloway tilted his head slightly. "He gave an explanation, but it's entirely unverified at this point."
"This is Brockton Bay," quipped Assault from the back of the room. "Hit us with it."
Holloway half-shrugged to acknowledge the point. "He says it was the Dark. Apparently, the man walked in through a code-locked security door, blew up their armoury, killed a bunch of their guys, blew up Coil's office, then left through another exit despite the base being on hard lockdown. If the guy found a big red button marked 'Press to blow base up' then he probably hit it on the way past, just because he could."
"Christ," muttered Armsmaster, a rare sign of emotion from the normally professional hero. "Did he say why? The man you've got in custody, I mean."
Holloway seemed about to answer, but Assault got in first. "I bet I know why."
"If you were going to say, 'fake Dark', then you are entirely correct," Holloway responded. "When prompted, he volunteered the information that the recent apparent actions of the Dark regarding an armoured-car robbery were due to a false-flag operation run by Coil to increase his personal power in the city. That man is now dead, reportedly murdered by Oni Lee earlier tonight, just before the real Dark killed Lee himself. We found the bodies right where our informant said they'd be."
Assault nodded. "The Dark wasn't after Lee. He was after the impostor. But Lee had to try to kill him, and that's always a losing proposition when it comes to the Dark."
"That tracks," agreed Armsmaster. "Once the impersonator was dead, Coil's men probably retreated straight back to base. The Dark followed, gained access to the base, went looking for Coil, failed to find him, set off the self-destruct either deliberately or accidentally, then left again."
"Just like that." Battery shook her head. "Just how good is this guy, anyway?"
"Twenty years of matching up against the worst of the worst that Brockton Bay could offer, without any discernible powers," Assault reminded her. "The Dark's the one who knocked the Nine off their perch and sent Jack Slash to the Birdcage in a wheelchair, remember? We're just lucky he doesn't take contracts on capes, or target the PRT."
Dauntless seemed to have a problem with that statement. "So, what was that thing where he killed Hookwolf and Cricket, if it wasn't him accepting a contract on them?"
Assault met his gaze. "That was personal. Totally different situation."
"You seem to know a lot about the man and his motives," observed Velocity, his tone not quite accusatory but definitely edging that way.
"Yeah." Assault wasn't backing down. "I do."
Deputy Director Renick usually let these briefing sessions run on their own momentum, but now he stepped forward with his hands raised. "Enough. Now, the Dark is definitely a person of interest to us, but for the moment we have higher priorities. In order of importance: first, excavating Coil's base, given that there might still be men alive down there. Second, vetting all officers who will be having any kind of contact with the Empire capes in custody, to make sure there's no moles to give them a chance to break out. Third, patrolling in and near ABB territory, to make sure they don't do anything stupid because of Oni Lee's death."
"You think they will, sir?" asked Assault.
Renick sighed tiredly. "When you've got a read on what goes through Lung's mind on a daily basis, be sure to let me know."
Lung
One thought was going through Kenta's mind. Whoever and wherever this supposed Dark is, I will find him and kill him.
He did not shout, or rage, or throw fire around willy-nilly, because he was Lung, and that meant he had to command his men. Such was the power of his personality that he did not have to so much as raise his voice for people to scurry to do his bidding. Right now, his bidding was simple.
"Tell me again. Everything you saw. Everything you heard."
Leaning back in his chair, he listened to their account yet again, filling in small gaps from the previous narratives. The picture, as he built it up, was simple. There had been a false Dark, whom Oni Lee had engaged and killed, but another one had appeared and murdered him in turn.
Oni Lee had been very, very good at what he did. His power had given him an almost unbeatable tactical command of the battlefield, given that nobody knew where he was going before he got there. He should have appeared in the perfect spot to kill the new 'Dark' before the man had the chance to react to his presence, but somehow he had missed his strike, and been shot in the same instant.
Kenta still didn't truly believe in the legend of the Dark, but he had to wonder: if the dead one was an impostor employed by some gang or other, who was the newcomer? Oni Lee had killed one with ease, but had fallen to the other equally swiftly.
Whoever it is, he vowed again, I will kill him.
"Pass the word," he said carefully. "Lung is not afraid of the Dark. If he wants me, he can come and get me. I will be waiting."
If nothing else, that should silence those who doubted his strength of purpose.
Wednesday Morning, January 12
The Dark
For a midwinter day, it dawned brightly if not early. Danny decided to resurrect a habit from earlier days, and dug his running shoes out from the fossilised strata at the bottom of his wardrobe so that he could go for a morning jog. Minutes later, clad in equally long-unused sweats, he was puffing his way along the sidewalk in a mediocre attempt at a good pace.
I've really been letting myself go these last couple of years, he admitted to himself as he stopped at the halfway point, wheezing rather more than he should have been. But that, of course, was because he'd been thinking there was no longer a place in the world for everything that the Dark represented.
The events of the past few days had clued him in that he couldn't have been more wrong. When he'd hung up his shoulder holster and allowed his cover identity to enfold him so completely that it became his actual life in every way that mattered, he hadn't been doing the right thing by Taylor. He'd been hiding from the world.
He saw now that the pact he and Anne-Rose had made between themselves, as idealistic and high-minded as it sounded, had enabled the current situation in a roundabout fashion. Immersed in the role of being Danny Hebert, he'd kept his head down, paid no attention to anything but maintaining the Dockworkers Association and putting food on the table … and letting Anne-Rose's death numb him into ignoring all the tiny warning signs about the bullying. If he'd still been operating as the Dark, he would've kept an eye on all that shit, and stomped on it hard the moment it reared its ugly head.
Well, no more.
He wasn't entirely sure how he would've handled it at the time, but going after the little shits that had targeted Alan and Emma would've been a good start. That would've put Emma in a better headspace so that she wouldn't have thrown away her friendship with Taylor so readily. And if he needed to drop by and have a quiet word with a certain wannabe vigilante, about the wisdom of choosing her targets very carefully indeed, he could've done that too.
As a result, Taylor would've been happier, Emma would still be in the picture, and Sophia Hess would still be sniping assholes with her moronic little crossbows rather than decorating a slab in the PRT morgue. Danny didn't give a damn about Sophia, but he'd had some regard for Emma when she was still Taylor's friend. He and Alan had known each other for years, after all; it was solely on the strength of their longtime acquaintance that he'd even chosen to give Alan the chance to save Emma's life.
As he let himself in through the back gate, he sighed. Shit had gone sideways in no uncertain terms, and a lot of it was due to his own choices. I really have to start doing better.
The back door opened to his key, and he smelled the bacon and eggs even before he stepped inside. Taylor was at the stove, frying up a breakfast that immediately had his stomach rumbling. "Morning, Dad," she greeted him brightly. "Have you been running?"
"Stumbling, mostly," he agreed. "I was thinking we could extend your training, and make a regular habit of it. Fitness is surpassingly important when an unwanted quiver in a trigger finger means the difference between a hit and a miss." He headed for the stairs. "I'll be down after I shower and change."
Just as he started upstairs, his phone rang. He pulled it out and checked the number. "Madcap."
"Hi. Just thought I'd pass on profound thanks for all our guys who made it back alive because you told us exactly when and where to find all the Empire assholes."
It was a nice gesture, but Danny was reasonably certain that Assault had more to say. "You're welcome. Was there anything else?"
"Yes, actually." Assault hesitated. "We found a body near an Empire safehouse. A Larry Peterson. Dragged out of the safehouse and shot execution style. You never gave me a straight answer for if you were working again."
Danny easily translated the unasked question in his head. Assault wanted to know if he'd accepted a contract to kill Larry Peterson. If he admitted that he had, there was just one potential culprit for taking that contract out, and it rhymed with View Save.
As the Dark, he didn't have many rules, but an ironclad one was that if the customer paid promptly (Lady Photon had done so) their secret was safe with him. "No comment. Tell the Director she needs to understand that I don't talk about my jobs, or even whether a job was mine or someone else's."
"This won't be getting back to the Director. I'm just asking out of morbid curiosity."
That might even be true, but rules were rules. "I can neither confirm nor deny." He paused for a beat. "Do you have any other leads?"
"Only that the Empire might've sacrificed him to drive a wedge between the PRT and New Wave, why?"
"You might want to follow that one up. Don't give the Empire one last fuck-you."
"Understood." Assault ended the call.
Danny pocketed the phone and kept going up the stairs. He hadn't actually lied to Assault, but with any luck the ex-villain would tell his bosses to look elsewhere for the truth about the demise of Larry Peterson. Or it might not even get that far, if he'd been telling the truth about his morbid curiosity.
Humming a tune that had been popular twenty years ago, he went into his bedroom for fresh clothing, then headed for the bathroom.
Assault had posited the question about whether he was back or not. After due consideration, he believed he had the answer to it. Yeah, I guess I am back.
A new day was dawning, in more ways than one.
End of Part Twelve
Part Twelve: Into the Lair of the Serpent
[A/N: This chapter commissioned by @GW_Yoda and beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]
[A/N 2: Apologies for the delay. Head and chest cold have been kicking my ass.]
A/N 3: I have noticed that the time-date stamps for the chapters don't actually reflect the passage of time as shown within the chapters. So I've gone back to fix them. This chapter is up to date (so to speak).]
Death's Head
We caught up with Coil's guys as they returned to his base. In other words, we got close enough for me to pick out the bugs I'd ordered to stay put in their vehicle.
They weren't quite fleeing, but they weren't exactly dawdling either. I figured Dad must have spooked them somewhat, having appeared out of nowhere as though their faux Dark's act had accidentally conjured him out of some eldritch dimension.
In a way, that was almost correct, even if all the essential details were wrong. The fact was, we had actually been there because of Coil's impostor. As for it being accidental … well, he certainly hadn't meant for us to show up, so that was technically accurate.
Under my careful direction, Dad got us closer behind the two cars carrying Coil's goons. There wasn't much traffic out and about, but we were able to break the line of sight enough times that they didn't suspect we were following them. Or rather, they weren't making urgent phone calls sending text messages, or looking in their rearview mirrors more than usual, so that was the conclusion I came to.
They drove into the parking garage they'd come from in the first place and got out of the vehicle while Dad and I pulled up outside. This time, I'd prepared more thoroughly; by the time they got to the base entrance, each mercenary was carrying a substantial load of bugs in hard-to-spot places. Equally important, the concealed keypad had tiny bugs perched on each key, so when one of them tapped in the entry code, I could write it down in my notepad.
Dad glanced at it, then got out of the car. "Wait here," he murmured, then ghosted into the shadows.
I knew where he was, of course. With all the bugs I'd been gathering in the vicinity, I would've had to be literally in a coma to not know where he was. I wasn't exactly comfortable with him going into the lion's den (or would that the snake pit?) alone, but we'd talked about it.
Several factors militated against me accompanying him. First, someone had to watch Chewie, and it would kind of ruin the implacable image if I showed up carrying a puppy. Second, he was used to working alone or with someone as well-trained as he was. Even with my powers and all the things he was showing me, I was little more than a talented amateur, and he didn't need the distraction that watching out for me would cost him. Third, one person could be twice as stealthy as two (see above about my relative lack of training). And finally, even if I stayed out of the action, it wasn't like I couldn't help him out anyway.
By the time he got near the keypad, I'd located all the cameras in the vicinity, and my bugs were doing what bugs do best: randomly walking over the lenses at the worst possible time. Even if someone were watching every camera with hawk-like attention (they weren't; my bugs had crap vision, but I could still use them to detect posture) they'd only see what I wanted them to see. Dad could ease up to the keypad and tap in the code I'd given him.
With a friendly beep, the apparently solid concrete wall slid aside, and Dad was in.
<><>
The Dark
As he stepped through the open doorway, Danny allowed himself a brief half-smile. Normally, this kind of incursion would've only been possible after extensive recon and information-gathering, and there'd be more than one person coming in. A hacker would be tapped into their electronics by now, taking over the cameras and looping footage as needed.
He didn't need any of that this time, because he had Taylor.
He kept the layout plan in his head as he moved through the base. His pistol was out and held low, ready to fire if necessary, but he was fully aware that even a suppressed shot (Hollywood had a lot to answer for) would echo forever in these concrete passageways. At the edge of his vision, he saw the swarm that had ridden in with him as it spread farther through the base, vastly augmenting Taylor's supply of insects already within the walls.
The sound of bootsteps came to him before the voices, echoing from around the corner leading to a side corridor. In the next moment, three fireflies lit up before him, blinking in a steadily increasing rhythm. He took a moment to see how Taylor had them arranged on the wall and nodded.
There was no place for him to hide, and he seriously doubted that any bunch of fifty mercenaries would be unfamiliar enough with each other's faces that he could pretend to be one of them. Likewise, the old 'hey, nice to meet you, I just transferred in' ploy, while surprisingly effective under certain circumstances, was likely to fall flat in less than ten seconds against people who were actually on the ball. Retreat was also off the table, mainly because he had a personal aversion to being shot in the back.
Which left exactly one option.
<><>
The human brain takes time to react to changing circumstances, especially when confronted with danger in what was previously considered a safe environment. Those untrained in dealing with crises may freeze altogether. At the same time, even well-trained individuals can take up to five seconds to register and react competently to danger from an unexpected quarter.
In a not entirely unrelated side-note, I find that when a smaller force takes a numerically superior one by surprise, the advantageous move is to go on the attack, as hard and fast as possible. Getting in among them gives you a target-rich environment and allows you the best chance of killing or disabling as many people as possible in the time it takes them to react to your presence. This attack also engenders a strong shock and awe aspect, which can only help your cause.
In situations like that, it's amazing how much you can get done in five seconds.
- from the collected notes of Daniel Hebert
<><>
Cued by the bugs, Danny went around the corner just before the three mercenaries reached it. They were all wearing body armour, including helmets with faceplates, but that wasn't really a problem. Absently, he considered the idea that Coil had somehow acquired some PRT gear and had it repainted for his guys. Nothing was sacred to the man, it seemed.
Independent from his musings, his body was already in action. The suppressor of his pistol went up under the helmet faceplate of the closest guard, and he pulled the trigger. Using a human head as extra sound muffling was something he'd done more than once; the auditory absorptive quality of brain matter was quite useful in his line of work.
As the bullet created a slight protrusion from the top of the helmet—Danny was glad he wouldn't have to be wearing that one, what with the mess that would now be splattered over the inside of it—he used his left hand to drive his knife point-first into the throat of the second guard, then ripped sideways. The concrete wall and floor beside the guard were painted red almost on the instant, which wasn't very surprising, seeing that Danny had opened up not only the man's windpipe but also his carotid artery and jugular vein. He'd live a little longer than the man Danny had shot in the head, but only by a matter of seconds.
The two bodies crumpled to the floor, and Danny surged forward over them to confront the third guard. This guy had had just enough time to realise that something Very Bad was happening, but not enough to figure out what to do about it, so he made the worst possible move. He tried to do two things at once: running (the natural instinct in that circumstance) and unslinging his rifle (which had evidently been drummed into him). As he backed up and turned, his fumbling with the rifle unbalanced him, and he tripped over his own feet; Danny would've taken him down anyway, but this just made the job easier.
He came down hard on the guard's back with his knee; holstering the pistol and dropping the knife, he grabbed the helmet with both hands and hauled it back with a slight twist. As the guard flailed beneath him, he pulled until he judged he'd reached the limit of travel for the luckless man's muscles and vertebrae, then essayed a sharp twist, yanking the guy's head around a good ninety degrees. There was a rending crack, and the guard spasmed and then went limp under him.
Taking up the knife, he wiped it off on the guard's sleeve—he'd be cleaning it properly later, of course, but congealing blood inside a sheath could make it hard to pull in a hurry—and sheathed it, then took up the guard's rifle. The cylindrical apparatus slung under the barrel wasn't something he'd seen before, though he had heard rumours that Coil's men were equipped with Tinkertech. Thoughtfully, he aimed it at the wall and pressed the square red plastic button on the side; a Tinker may have constructed it, but it was also intended for the lowest common denominator to use without issue—big red button equalled danger.
He was accompanied by a sharp smell of ozone and a pop of ionising air, an actinic purple beam shot out from the device and began to burn a hole in the wall. He let off the button and raised his eyebrows. Either that was the world's most aggressive laser sight, or Coil believed in equipping his men to do cape levels of damage when they were out and about.
He took up all three rifles and slung them over his shoulder, then headed in the direction of where Taylor's diagram had indicated the armoury would be found. The clock was now ticking. Those guards had been going somewhere, possibly to investigate why the door had opened and closed again, and whoever had dispatched them would soon be wondering why they hadn't checked yet.
Both he and Taylor knew that he was good, but every time he engaged with any of the opposition, there would be the chance that the noise of the conflict would just draw more into the fight. Forewarned, they would be much less of a pushover, and numbers would surely begin to tell. He preferred to avoid all that; he was a hitman, not some action hero.
The alarm had not yet sounded by the time he got to the armoury. Even before he stuck his head around the corner, he knew (thanks to Taylor) that there was a guard on the door, but nobody else in the vicinity. This, he figured, was probably standard procedure; if the alert had been given, there would be more than one at this important post.
He paused and passed his hand over his eyes. Then he unslung one of the rifles, rested his thumb lightly on the activation button of the laser, and stepped around the corner. Taylor was on the ball; even as the guard came into view, Danny could see the bugs clustering around the helmet faceplate, crawling up under it and utterly distracting the man at this crucial point.
He levelled the rifle and pressed the button, lancing the same actinic beam across the twenty feet that separated them, into the man's chest. The muted crack that resulted was quieter than either the rifle or suppressed pistol would have been; he dragged the beam sideways for half a second before releasing the button, causing the stink of burned meat to join that of ozone. As the guard fell over, Danny saw the scorched line in the concrete wall behind him, the beam having gone all the way through in less time than it took to think about it.
Hustling over to the guard, Danny determined that he was dead. Then he checked the armoury door; it was secured by both a card-swipe and an electronic keypad. Frowning, he looked down at the guard, fully aware that even if the man had been carrying the appropriate card, there was no way of coercing the code out of him now.
On the other hand … he looked thoughtfully again at the laser.
<><>
Coil
Thomas' phone beeped an alert. He stilled a frown; what was going on now? Affecting unconcern, he took it out and checked the screen.
The content of the message sent a chill down his back. Someone had just forced their way into the base armoury, damaging the lock in the process. This was a silent alarm, sent directly to him so as not to alert any turncoats to his knowledge of their perfidy. But the question was, who the hell was doing this behind his back?
He already knew about the loss of Frankoff, but he'd ordered his mercenaries back to base upon getting the news. According to the less than coherent report, both Oni Lee and someone they tentatively identified as the actual Dark had been involved. He'd wanted to hear the full story, face to face, before he made his next move in this matter. Especially, he wanted to find out what the hell was going on with this mythical bogeyman who had supposedly manifested for real.
But now on top of that, someone in his employ had betrayed him. He couldn't figure it out. Had this brand-new Dark spooked them so badly that they would rather turn on him?
Oni Lee was dead, and so was his faux Dark; there was no option to change that. He'd simply carried on from where he was, having his troopers follow a different patrol route in each of the timelines. Now he was starting to wish he'd held back a timeline, because it seemed the loss of Frankoff was having knock-on effects that he'd failed to anticipate.
Exactly what had happened still had to be figured out, but he was absolutely going to get to the bottom of that, too. His power was all about making the right choices (for his own personal well-being, naturally), so he needed to learn where he'd gone wrong with that one.
The most irritating aspect of all this was that the breach of the armoury was happening in both timelines, so he couldn't actually rule out an arbitrary outside factor. Actually, that was the second most irritating aspect; most irritating was the fact that he couldn't simply choose to cancel the entire expedition, and keep his base armoury unscathed. That ship had long since sailed.
"Commander Calvert?" asked the driver in both timelines. "Is everything okay?" It seemed he hadn't been as good at concealing his emotions as he'd thought he was.
In the first timeline, he shook his head. "No. We're heading back to the PRT building, now."
In the second, he nodded. "Yes. Continue the patrol."
Dipping out halfway through the patrol would draw unwelcome attention, but he could use that timeline to determine exactly what the fuck was going on, then drop it for the second timeline where he could deal with the problem using his newfound knowledge.
In the meantime, he did the only thing he could at the moment: he sent a message in both timelines, activating the alarm system with the specific code that indicated the armoury was compromised. This would vector the guards currently on duty toward the armoury (he assumed the sentry who had been guarding it was either complicit or dead) and potentially deal with the problem before he even got there. Even if they didn't, they would gather information that he could hopefully use.
<><>
The Dark
Danny heaved the door open, careful not to touch the smoking remains of the lock, and was five steps into the armoury before the alarm went off. Taylor wasn't alerting him with her bugs, so he figured he had a little time to play with, though the clock was definitely ticking loud and clear now. Looking around, he catalogued what he had to play with.
Pistols, there. Rifles, there. Ammunition, there. Laser modules on charge, there. Grenades, there.
He wasted no time in idle meanderings; re-slinging the rifle he'd used to kill the man outside, he played the undermounted laser from the second one over the other racked weapons. The harshly crackling beam, its ozone stink even more pronounced in the confined area, sliced through metal and plastic like a hot knife through warm butter. The only things he spared were the charging laser modules and the hand grenades: the former because he couldn't be sure that being cut in half by a laser wouldn't make their batteries explode, and the latter because he had his own plans for those.
He gathered up what he needed, and spent about thirty seconds ensuring that the next person to open the armoury door would receive a rather terminal surprise. Then he moved on, farther into the base. While he could have acquired one of the helmets to provide a little head protection, not to mention a moment of confusion on the part of any one he ran into, he decided not to. He had several reasons for this, but mainly because Taylor could provide more confusion than any disguise ever could.
He made good time, only having to duck into a side-passage once (on Taylor's recommendation) to avoid a bunch of guards going in the other direction. The clock in his head was ticking ever louder now, and he knew that if he wanted to achieve what he'd come down here to accomplish, he'd need to get it done sooner rather than later. So he kept going, planning out his moves in advance so he wouldn't have to stop and think once he got there.
Taylor warned him with a bunch of bugs just before more guards came around a corner right in front of him. This time, he didn't bother with suppressors or knives; he just brought the rifle to his shoulder and started shooting, one bullet per faceplate. Two and a half seconds later, they were all down and he was hurdling their corpses, moving faster now.
He knew the previous group had reached the armoury when the deep rumbling BOOOOM echoed through the corridors, sifting down concrete powder from the ceiling and making the floor shake underfoot. This was what happened when a single frag grenade wedged in the door set off a few more just inside; it appeared that the laser modules (which he'd stacked around the live grenades) were just as explosive as he suspected them to be. Almost at the same time, a hot wind blasted through the tunnels, followed by the sound of collapsing concrete.
Good thing there's more than one way out of this place.
A moment later, he came onto the open area he'd seen on the plan. There were catwalks above and crates below. None of the mercenaries he saw appeared to be armed, but that didn't mean there weren't weapons in their close proximity. Still, he'd gone loud, so it was time to show off a little.
"Tell me something!" he bellowed. "Are you afraid of the Dark?" As he spoke, he let the rifle fall on its sling and prepped an incendiary grenade, which he hurled toward the stack of crates. A second grenade, this one of the fragmentation variety, went toward an interesting-looking electronic console on the lower level. Stepping aside for a moment to allow the shrapnel from the latter to harmlessly pass him by, he kept an eye on his potential adversaries.
The crates were on fire and the console was a shredded mess after the grenades went off, so he started along the catwalk at a run. When one of the mercenaries pulled a pistol, Taylor surrounded the asshole's head with a swarm of stinging insects, so his first shot went wild. Danny put him out of everyone's misery with a single rifle shot to centre mass, then kept running.
Halfway to the next exit, he made a detour to another locked door. The laser on the third rifle burned through the lock, though it was somewhat sturdier than the armoury door, and he tossed in a frag and an incendiary grenade before he kept going. If, as Taylor strongly suspected, this was Coil's office, then the man was going to have to redecorate everything before it would be usable again.
He shot two more guards before he reached the other exit. The door was locked down, but that merely meant he would have to use the laser from the third rifle to carve his way through. He'd just begun when the quality and sound of the flashing lights and sirens echoing through the base altered noticeably. This was, he suspected, in response to the double explosion in Coil's office, though he didn't know what it meant.
Then the recorded message started playing. 'Base self-destruct activated. You have one minute to evacuate. Base self-destruct activated. You have fifty-five seconds to evacuate. Base self-destruct activated. You have fifty seconds to evacuate …'
Danny blinked, honestly surprised. In the twenty years he'd been dabbling in the cape scene, this was literally the first time he'd come across a supervillain base with a self-destruct mechanism. Coil, he decided, had been reading far too much lurid cape fiction.
He finished carving the lock out of the door and heaved it aside, then ducked into the tunnel beyond and started running. While he could run in pitch darkness (and had done so before) there were a series of muted lights in the corner of the roof of the corridor, allowing him to just barely see where he was going. Behind him, he could hear the countdown steadily progressing, and he set about putting as much space between himself and the base as possible.
The stairs were a welcome sight, but the metal trapdoor at the top was not, especially when it refused to move. He used the last of the battery power from the second and third lasers to carve it into sections, then stepped aside to let the glowing metal pieces fall down onto the stairs. As he emerged into the night air, he saw the headlights of the car coming around the corner, and smiled.
Taylor, of course, had been tracking him the whole way through, so when he started leaving by another way, she'd come to meet him. He was pleased both by her initiative and the fact that the driving lessons he'd been giving her were bearing fruit so early. Waving to her, he headed for the gate.
By his personal clock, the self-destruct had ten seconds to go, so he simply shot the lock away, shoved the gate aside, and dived into the back seat. "Drive," he said urgently. "The place is about to blow."
"Got it." Taylor sprayed gravel in a half-circle, then applied pedal to metal in no uncertain fashion. In the front passenger seat, Chewie yelped in surprise at the sudden acceleration. Danny ignored him, counting down in his head. Five … four … three … two … one …
They were a hundred yards away and still gaining ground when Danny felt the first juddering rumble through the suspension of the car, not unlike an earthquake he'd once experienced. Peering out through the rear window of the car, he thought he saw the ground split open here and there then close again, but the audible aspects of the self-destruct—a bunch of explosives seeded through the very structure of the base, if he wasn't much mistaken—were a lot more subtle than the palpable side of things. However, the half-constructed building was less fortunate about matters; Danny saw it sway and then begin to topple. That, at least, made a considerable amount of noise when it hit the ground.
"Holy shit," she said with admirable calm once the last of the echoes had died away and they were driving smoothly on the road once more. "How did you pull that off, exactly?"
"Built-in self-destruct," he said briefly. "Coil's the worst type of supervillain. He does what he thinks supervillains should do, without ever considering why he's doing it, or even if he should."
"Well, that's a thing." Without needing to be told, Taylor pulled over to the side of the road. The rifles went into the trunk, and Danny got into the driver's seat while Taylor joined Chewie in the passenger seat. "So, what are we doing next?"
"Right now? Home, for sleep." He glanced over at her. "Once Coil starts to regroup, we hit him again. Rinse and repeat. Wear down his resources."
"Until he sticks his head up where you can put a bullet in it?" Her tone didn't sound like she was guessing.
"Precisely." He set the car in motion. "I don't have a lot of rules, but your mom and I put a lot of work into that name. Nobody messes with it and lives."
Taylor scratched Chewie behind the ear, just the way he liked it. "Damn right." She paused, frowning. "Wait a minute. If I were him and I figured I was being targeted, I'd be inclined to set a trap at some point. How do we know he doesn't have a Thinker on speed-dial, so he can plan ahead of you?"
"He does." Danny smiled coldly. "Or rather, he did, until recently. Remember the Undersiders?"
"Yeah, but—" It only took her that long to get his point. "Tattletale? She's his Thinker?"
"That's my guess, yes. When we were talking to them, everyone else was very respectful, but she was utterly terrified of us. With her talents, she would have picked up the fact that I had zero intention of harming them if they played straight with us. So … why was she petrified with fear?"
Taylor stroked Chewie slowly as she answered. "Because she'd done something that she thought was likely to get her killed."
"That was my read, yes." Danny felt a surge of pride at how well Taylor was coming along. "Now, the only thing that's caused us any problems recently is the impersonation gambit. My guess is that she suggested it to him, then got a horrible surprise when we showed up on her doorstep. For all she knew, I'd figured it out ahead of time, and was there to shoot her right in the head." He paused significantly. "The question is, why would a Thinker suggest such a risky course of action to her boss?"
Taylor only took a second or so to get it. "She hates him. Wants him dead. Especially considering all the information she gave us on him. Which means she isn't working for him willingly."
"That would be my conclusion, as well." He bared his teeth in a smile as he drove. "Even if he contacts her, the last thing she's going to give him is a straight answer."
Leaning back in the seat, Taylor snuggled Chewie to her. "Mwahahaha."
<><>
Throwaway Timeline
Coil
Thomas Calvert had been in and around military or military-adjacent command structures for more than a decade; in this time, he had acquired a better than average command of profanity in its many and varied forms. Having seen the slightly-subsided area of ground where his base had once been, he found himself lost for words. No matter what he might have said, it would have been inadequate for the situation.
The survivors stood before him, all fourteen of them. They represented a twenty-eight percent survival rate of the men he'd had stationed in the base. That was shocking by any metric, or it would've been if he actually had any kind of investment in their well-being. As far as he was concerned, they were mercenaries; if they got killed, they were taking a hit that otherwise might have gotten to him, and he didn't have to pay them anymore after that.
"The Dark? Really?" He was still having trouble coming to terms with the idea that the imaginary bogeyman of Brockton Bay had actually shown up to express an opinion on his methods. "How do you know it was him? How many were with him?"
One of the men, who went by the nickname of Fish, seemed to have broken his left arm from the way he was holding it. "He yelled out that thing about being afraid of the Dark, just before he chucked the grenades in your office, and shot Creep and Senegal. Then all the alarms started going off about the self-destruct. You never said anything about a self-destruct!" He stared at Calvert accusingly.
"Certainly I did. You got a warning, didn't you?" Thomas was starting to get a clearer picture of what had happened, and why the self-destruct had been triggered. Two grenades going off in the confines of his office would certainly stand a good chance of activating it. Also, he'd gotten a message on his phone, announcing the destruction of the automated console tasked with keeping the lower levels pumped clear of water. Even if the built-in explosives hadn't gone off, the rising water levels would've rendered the base unliveable all too quickly. "You didn't say how many men were with him."
"Nobody." It was Pritt. "Just one man." He spat to one side. "Except it was the Dark. The real Dark. He got in through the garage entrance and waltzed around us like we weren't even there. Nobody got a shot off in his direction, and he killed everyone who tried to point a gun at him."
"Yeah," agreed Fish. "Fuck this shit. I never signed on to go up against someone like that. I'm gone. We're all gone."
"Don't be so hasty." Thomas considered the ways to turn them back to his side. Greed was a good start; they were mercenaries, after all. "I can pay you all triple what you were making before. Call it permanent danger pay."
"Nope." Pritt pulled his pistol and levelled it at Thomas. Four of the men with him did the same. "All this? This is because you decided to get cute with someone else's rep. Frankoff and the others are dead because you pulled this shit and because you built the fucking base to explode like some stupid supervillain's wet dream. I lost good friends down there. Fuck off and die."
"Ten times." Calvert tried once more.
He wasn't sure who fired first, but the bullet caught him in the upper chest. His morph suit had nothing resembling ballistic cloth in it, and he was already falling before the other shots hit him. He sprawled on the ground, still conscious but already bleeding out, as Pritt stepped up and prepared to kick him in the face.
At this point, the timeline was a dead loss, so he dropped it, then split off from his current line. They'd returned to the PRT building in this one as well, though the patrol had been over by that point. Unfortunately, his assigned patrol route was nowhere near where his base had been, so he hadn't been able to officially investigate it.
Fortunately, there was a debrief ongoing in Conference Room A, where he could find out more about what had happened.
"So, this is what we have," reported the duty officer, a Lieutenant Holloway. "Approximately thirty minutes ago, reports started coming in about subterranean explosions toward Midtown. Our own seismographs also picked up the traces, and pinpointed them enough to vector troops in that direction. When they arrived, they found a large area of subsidence and a collapsed building."
"Casualties?" asked Porton, another strike squad commander.
"None from the building, thankfully," Holloway acknowledged. "It was a construction site, half-built. But according to a suspicious person we picked up near the site, the subsidence was apparently due to a large underground base, belonging to none other than Coil. He'd rigged it to blow, and the charges went off tonight."
"Fucking supervillains," muttered someone else in the room. There was a murmur of agreement.
Although Holloway had to have heard it, he chose not to react. "According to the person, he was a member of a fifty-strong mercenary force Coil had kept quartered in that base. Some of the others apparently got out, but he doesn't know how many. Most of them, he says, are probably still under the rubble."
Calvert decided to ask the question, if only to find out what the PRT knew. "Did he say why the self-destruct was triggered?"
Holloway tilted his head slightly. "He gave an explanation, but it's entirely unverified at this point."
"This is Brockton Bay," quipped Assault from the back of the room. "Hit us with it."
Holloway half-shrugged to acknowledge the point. "He says it was the Dark. Apparently, the man walked in through a code-locked security door, blew up their armoury, killed a bunch of their guys, blew up Coil's office, then left through another exit despite the base being on hard lockdown. If the guy found a big red button marked 'Press to blow base up' then he probably hit it on the way past, just because he could."
"Christ," muttered Armsmaster, a rare sign of emotion from the normally professional hero. "Did he say why? The man you've got in custody, I mean."
Holloway seemed about to answer, but Assault got in first. "I bet I know why."
"If you were going to say, 'fake Dark', then you are entirely correct," Holloway responded. "When prompted, he volunteered the information that the recent apparent actions of the Dark regarding an armoured-car robbery were due to a false-flag operation run by Coil to increase his personal power in the city. That man is now dead, reportedly murdered by Oni Lee earlier tonight, just before the real Dark killed Lee himself. We found the bodies right where our informant said they'd be."
Assault nodded. "The Dark wasn't after Lee. He was after the impostor. But Lee had to try to kill him, and that's always a losing proposition when it comes to the Dark."
"That tracks," agreed Armsmaster. "Once the impersonator was dead, Coil's men probably retreated straight back to base. The Dark followed, gained access to the base, went looking for Coil, failed to find him, set off the self-destruct either deliberately or accidentally, then left again."
"Just like that." Battery shook her head. "Just how good is this guy, anyway?"
"Twenty years of matching up against the worst of the worst that Brockton Bay could offer, without any discernible powers," Assault reminded her. "The Dark's the one who knocked the Nine off their perch and sent Jack Slash to the Birdcage in a wheelchair, remember? We're just lucky he doesn't take contracts on capes, or target the PRT."
Dauntless seemed to have a problem with that statement. "So, what was that thing where he killed Hookwolf and Cricket, if it wasn't him accepting a contract on them?"
Assault met his gaze. "That was personal. Totally different situation."
"You seem to know a lot about the man and his motives," observed Velocity, his tone not quite accusatory but definitely edging that way.
"Yeah." Assault wasn't backing down. "I do."
Deputy Director Renick usually let these briefing sessions run on their own momentum, but now he stepped forward with his hands raised. "Enough. Now, the Dark is definitely a person of interest to us, but for the moment we have higher priorities. In order of importance: first, excavating Coil's base, given that there might still be men alive down there. Second, vetting all officers who will be having any kind of contact with the Empire capes in custody, to make sure there's no moles to give them a chance to break out. Third, patrolling in and near ABB territory, to make sure they don't do anything stupid because of Oni Lee's death."
"You think they will, sir?" asked Assault.
Renick sighed tiredly. "When you've got a read on what goes through Lung's mind on a daily basis, be sure to let me know."
<><>
Lung
One thought was going through Kenta's mind. Whoever and wherever this supposed Dark is, I will find him and kill him.
He did not shout, or rage, or throw fire around willy-nilly, because he was Lung, and that meant he had to command his men. Such was the power of his personality that he did not have to so much as raise his voice for people to scurry to do his bidding. Right now, his bidding was simple.
"Tell me again. Everything you saw. Everything you heard."
Leaning back in his chair, he listened to their account yet again, filling in small gaps from the previous narratives. The picture, as he built it up, was simple. There had been a false Dark, whom Oni Lee had engaged and killed, but another one had appeared and murdered him in turn.
Oni Lee had been very, very good at what he did. His power had given him an almost unbeatable tactical command of the battlefield, given that nobody knew where he was going before he got there. He should have appeared in the perfect spot to kill the new 'Dark' before the man had the chance to react to his presence, but somehow he had missed his strike, and been shot in the same instant.
Kenta still didn't truly believe in the legend of the Dark, but he had to wonder: if the dead one was an impostor employed by some gang or other, who was the newcomer? Oni Lee had killed one with ease, but had fallen to the other equally swiftly.
Whoever it is, he vowed again, I will kill him.
"Pass the word," he said carefully. "Lung is not afraid of the Dark. If he wants me, he can come and get me. I will be waiting."
If nothing else, that should silence those who doubted his strength of purpose.
<><>
Wednesday Morning, January 12
The Dark
For a midwinter day, it dawned brightly if not early. Danny decided to resurrect a habit from earlier days, and dug his running shoes out from the fossilised strata at the bottom of his wardrobe so that he could go for a morning jog. Minutes later, clad in equally long-unused sweats, he was puffing his way along the sidewalk in a mediocre attempt at a good pace.
I've really been letting myself go these last couple of years, he admitted to himself as he stopped at the halfway point, wheezing rather more than he should have been. But that, of course, was because he'd been thinking there was no longer a place in the world for everything that the Dark represented.
The events of the past few days had clued him in that he couldn't have been more wrong. When he'd hung up his shoulder holster and allowed his cover identity to enfold him so completely that it became his actual life in every way that mattered, he hadn't been doing the right thing by Taylor. He'd been hiding from the world.
He saw now that the pact he and Anne-Rose had made between themselves, as idealistic and high-minded as it sounded, had enabled the current situation in a roundabout fashion. Immersed in the role of being Danny Hebert, he'd kept his head down, paid no attention to anything but maintaining the Dockworkers Association and putting food on the table … and letting Anne-Rose's death numb him into ignoring all the tiny warning signs about the bullying. If he'd still been operating as the Dark, he would've kept an eye on all that shit, and stomped on it hard the moment it reared its ugly head.
Well, no more.
He wasn't entirely sure how he would've handled it at the time, but going after the little shits that had targeted Alan and Emma would've been a good start. That would've put Emma in a better headspace so that she wouldn't have thrown away her friendship with Taylor so readily. And if he needed to drop by and have a quiet word with a certain wannabe vigilante, about the wisdom of choosing her targets very carefully indeed, he could've done that too.
As a result, Taylor would've been happier, Emma would still be in the picture, and Sophia Hess would still be sniping assholes with her moronic little crossbows rather than decorating a slab in the PRT morgue. Danny didn't give a damn about Sophia, but he'd had some regard for Emma when she was still Taylor's friend. He and Alan had known each other for years, after all; it was solely on the strength of their longtime acquaintance that he'd even chosen to give Alan the chance to save Emma's life.
As he let himself in through the back gate, he sighed. Shit had gone sideways in no uncertain terms, and a lot of it was due to his own choices. I really have to start doing better.
The back door opened to his key, and he smelled the bacon and eggs even before he stepped inside. Taylor was at the stove, frying up a breakfast that immediately had his stomach rumbling. "Morning, Dad," she greeted him brightly. "Have you been running?"
"Stumbling, mostly," he agreed. "I was thinking we could extend your training, and make a regular habit of it. Fitness is surpassingly important when an unwanted quiver in a trigger finger means the difference between a hit and a miss." He headed for the stairs. "I'll be down after I shower and change."
Just as he started upstairs, his phone rang. He pulled it out and checked the number. "Madcap."
"Hi. Just thought I'd pass on profound thanks for all our guys who made it back alive because you told us exactly when and where to find all the Empire assholes."
It was a nice gesture, but Danny was reasonably certain that Assault had more to say. "You're welcome. Was there anything else?"
"Yes, actually." Assault hesitated. "We found a body near an Empire safehouse. A Larry Peterson. Dragged out of the safehouse and shot execution style. You never gave me a straight answer for if you were working again."
Danny easily translated the unasked question in his head. Assault wanted to know if he'd accepted a contract to kill Larry Peterson. If he admitted that he had, there was just one potential culprit for taking that contract out, and it rhymed with View Save.
As the Dark, he didn't have many rules, but an ironclad one was that if the customer paid promptly (Lady Photon had done so) their secret was safe with him. "No comment. Tell the Director she needs to understand that I don't talk about my jobs, or even whether a job was mine or someone else's."
"This won't be getting back to the Director. I'm just asking out of morbid curiosity."
That might even be true, but rules were rules. "I can neither confirm nor deny." He paused for a beat. "Do you have any other leads?"
"Only that the Empire might've sacrificed him to drive a wedge between the PRT and New Wave, why?"
"You might want to follow that one up. Don't give the Empire one last fuck-you."
"Understood." Assault ended the call.
Danny pocketed the phone and kept going up the stairs. He hadn't actually lied to Assault, but with any luck the ex-villain would tell his bosses to look elsewhere for the truth about the demise of Larry Peterson. Or it might not even get that far, if he'd been telling the truth about his morbid curiosity.
Humming a tune that had been popular twenty years ago, he went into his bedroom for fresh clothing, then headed for the bathroom.
Assault had posited the question about whether he was back or not. After due consideration, he believed he had the answer to it. Yeah, I guess I am back.
A new day was dawning, in more ways than one.
End of Part Twelve