- Location
- California, USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Well, that was depressing. If that's what you were going for, good job.
Demons and Angels
- Thread starter Derek M
- Start date
- Crossover
- Location
- Beyond the Unknowable Veil
It's the evil mirror of Worm. It shows just what our favored lizards will repair. This gives us an idea of the scale (heh) of the problem.
- Location
- Maryland
Hm, well, not specifically. This was definitely a scene-setting chapter, however, giving a view of the world the Angels have discovered. I had thought my depiction of Sophia and her father would serve to humanize her and make her seem like a normal teenager.
This is Mirror Universe, though. If you're familiar with Star Trek, there is always a set of clues designed to point out just how harsh that world is. In the original series, Spock is literally torturing the transporter chief within minutes of Kirk and crew appearing on the transporter pad. Later series had to ramp up the evuls to make an impression, to the point where Empress Georgiou is feeding Michael Burnham a member of another sentient species.
I don't expect the whole fic to have this tone...but the setting is going to be darker from the start.
Rajvik_wolfboy
Wolf amongst the stars.
- Location
- Florida
Yeah this is the kind of world the Terran Empire could form from. Good writing, more please.
- Location
- Here
So, with Calvert as the PRT director, what does that mean for Piggot? Will she be playing the part of Coil this time around?
Personally, I always expected a Mirror Universe of Worm to be a lighter and friendlier setting, like the Silver Age comics were. One where Heroes regularly win and the agencies that deal with parahumans would be free of corruption and thus quite effective. In other words, a light reflection to the grimdark world of Worm....
Personally, I always expected a Mirror Universe of Worm to be a lighter and friendlier setting, like the Silver Age comics were. One where Heroes regularly win and the agencies that deal with parahumans would be free of corruption and thus quite effective. In other words, a light reflection to the grimdark world of Worm....
M. H. Fuzzball
Aperture Science-certified Horrible Person
- Location
- Sector 2814
But that world wouldn't have needed the intervention of Saurial's Angels...
Ace Dreamer
Verified Reality User
- Location
- Between The Unknown & The Known
Hmm... Keeping Metis away from Randy may take some considerable effort... Just how corrupt this version of Lisa is, and why she's 'Lisa', not 'Sarah', are 'fun' questions... And, we've yet to see if there's an Amy around...
Uber is someone else; whether Leet exists, or used to... I'm hoping Emily is around, and is being (undercover?) heroic... Maybe she's got powers from a good guy Cauldron???
Fun story!
Uber is someone else; whether Leet exists, or used to... I'm hoping Emily is around, and is being (undercover?) heroic... Maybe she's got powers from a good guy Cauldron???
Fun story!
Note, Mirror!Lisa is actually going by the name Sarah Livsey - it's entirely possible that she didn't actually adopt the "Lisa Wilbourn" pseudonym in this timeline. Or, alternatively, she was born Lisa Wilbourn, and Sarah Livsey is the pseudonym.
M. H. Fuzzball
Aperture Science-certified Horrible Person
- Location
- Sector 2814
Given this particular setting, it's possible that the elder Livseys are not in any condition to be looking for their wayward daughter...
- Location
- Maryland
Getting ready for bed, and the thought occurs to me that my follow-up story is actually making Worm into a darker version than canon. Somebody once asked me during Ship of Fools if I would be doing any more with the Warhammer 40k setting. I'm trying to imagine how dark THAT would get. The characters would all need flashlights permanently attached to their bodies just to see anything...
- Location
- Germany
- Pronouns
- He/Him
But - wouldn't that make them targets for all that roams in the Dark?
- Location
- Israel
Wait, does that mean that the entities have already found Negentropy and are trying to uplift humanity?! Holy shit that would actually be a funny story to read, misunderstood Entity let Fortuna stab her avatar and let them think she's dead all the while manipulating them to spread her shards so she can activate the uplift protocols.
Chapter 3: Engaging
- Location
- Maryland
Chapter 3: Engaging
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Brockton Bay, New Hampshire
Skitter could sense the inhabitants of the run-down house through her swarm, and she could tell they were Merchants. The street gang was notorious for their free use of various illegal substances, and the chemical smell and lack of hygiene were easy to detect. The house itself was a single story walk-up with a crawl-space for an attic, but there was a larger-than-average basement area. The basement area was probably where they expected to spend most of their time, and where they expected to keep their prisoners for trafficking. There were actually nine people inside the small house. Two were upstairs. These two had guns, and were probably supposed to be on guard, though they seemed to be lounging around. There were seven people in the basement and they had a mix of weapons. Two of the seven were stationary, though, and were possibly asleep, unconscious, or possibly restrained. There were several handguns and a shotgun in the basement, but they were set to the side. It was trivially easy for her to use bugs to jam up the mechanism. Skitter conveyed the information on the house's contents to the others.
"Pulse, do a loop around the block and make sure they don't have anybody on patrol or heading in-bound," she ordered. The large man nodded and took off at a jog. He could move like lightening when he was charged up, so he was ideal for checking their perimeter. The house was quiet for the ten minutes it took Pulse to return and confirm that the area was mostly empty. With that information, Skitter said, "All right. I'm going to send my swarm into the basement. You two take out the two upstairs. We can use the knock and smash. I'll head downstairs and put the fear of Skitter into them, and we can teach them not to stray into our territory." Merchants tended to be high, lazy, and poorly trained, so none of the three Undersiders were especially worried about the coming fight.
Regent walked up to the front door and gave it a knock. There was a muffled voice from inside, then Regent jumped to the side, and Pulse came barreling through at full speed, knocking the door from its hinges. The Merchant behind the door was slammed hard against the wall, and the spray of blood said he wouldn't be getting up again soon, if at all. Regent darted inside and jammed his taser scepter into the other stupefied guard, who was staring mouth-agape at what had just happened. The second guard dropped his machine pistol and spasmed to the floor. As he was lying there, Pulse came back around and punched down into the back of his head, knocking him unconscious.
Skitter, meanwhile, was swarming bugs of various kinds in through cracks in the walls. Even in January, there were enough bugs in the surrounding buildings to build up a sizable swarm. The gang had obviously tried to put out insecticide, but it was badly applied, and some of it was just stupid. Did they really think an insect controller would let her bugs climb into roach motels? Then again, those may have been there just for normal pest control, as the rooms weren't that clean. Regardless, there were more than enough roaches, spiders, and other insects pouring into the basement to cause the gang members to panic. They started reaching for weapons just as Skitter reached the basement stairs. One of them tried to bring the shotgun up to fire at her, but a couple of black widow bites made him drop the gun and stare in horror at the venomous spiders on his hands. She also had the ants and centipedes biting, and he probably thought that all of the bites he was feeling were more black widows. The other four Merchants in the room were too busy swatting at insects to even notice her when she walked into the room. That stopped when she walked up to the first Merchant, who was still staring at his hands, and smacked him in the side of the head with a security baton. The other four looked over at the sound, and their eyes widened in horror.
Using her swarm voice for effect, Skitter said, "Merchants aren't welcome in this part of town. I thought we made that clear last time."
One of the Merchants seemed to panic and ran at her. It wasn't clear if he was running to attack or to try to get around her and up the stairs, but she grabbed him nonetheless and slammed him face-first into the door jamb. He fell back and didn't move. That was enough for one of the other Merchants to pass out on his own, the smell making it clear that he had pissed himself before doing so. The other two just huddled away from the horrifying insect mistress. Frowning to herself inside her mask, Skitter took three quick strides over to them and knocked them unconscious with her baton. Then she went over to the door into the second room in the basement and opened it, only to find two terrified teen girls huddled together. They were handcuffed to the bedpost of a bed whose frame was attached to the wall and floor with steel bolts. She used insects to pick the locks on the handcuffs, and they dropped off, startling the girls further. Not wanting to deal with them, Skitter used her swarm voice again. "Now is your chance to run. Take it." With wide eyes, the two girls bolted out, screamed slightly at the unconscious gang members, and ran up the stairs. If they were lucky, then they would find somebody to help them. If they weren't...well, they were still probably better off than being held captive by Merchants.
Regent came down the stairs. He eyed the gang-members on the floor, then shook his head slightly. "There's nothing upstairs, other than the thirty bucks the two guys had on them. One of them had pills on him, but it was just Oxy." The union didn't deal drugs, so it was almost never worth taking as loot. The rare exception was the infrequent find of tinker-made drugs, some of which were quite valuable. Oxycontin was barely worth mentioning.
"Help me search down here," she said in her normal Skitter voice. The two went through the gang-members pockets, and then searched through the sparse furniture. They turned up slightly more than five hundred dollars in cash, the majority of which appeared to be an emergency stash. There was also a varied assortment of recreational chemicals, all of which got flushed -- mostly just to be petty.
"Shit, even their guns are crap," said Regent, looking over a cheap .380 semi-automatic that obviously hadn't been well maintained. He sighted down the barrel, ignoring the fact that he was aiming at one of the unconscious gangers, then made a disgusted noise and tossed the gun onto one of the couches, unfired.
Skitter just snorted. "They're Merchants, what do you expect? If you want good gear, you need to hit the Empire." The Nazis were more dangerous because they were better-equipped, but they were also more lucrative to loot for the same reason.
"Hey, we got a van pulling up outside," yelled Pulse from upstairs.
Skitter cursed to herself. The winter weather made it a lot harder for her to keep track of her surroundings. She could barely sense the vehicle pulling up outside thanks to ground vibrations. She motioned with her head that they were going up, and she and Regent both joined Pulse, who was looking out the window from behind blinds.
Outside, two Merchants jumped out of the cab of the rust-stained white Econovan. The driver ran to the side door and pulled it open, yanking toward the back. Out of the van stepped something that looked like a stout man covered in random debris -- the Merchant cape Mush. His power had something to do with armoring himself with garbage, though Skitter honestly didn't know if he had to use random crap or if it was just a Merchant thing. He was followed by two more Merchant's, though these two were each carrying a Kalashnikov-style assault rifle.
Overall, it wouldn't have been a big deal...if they had Über, Bitch and Tattletale along. Thanks to Tattletale convincing her father to hold them back, they were at half-strength. She considered her options. They could try and draw them into the building, but there wasn't a lot of space for Pulse and Mush to duke it out without Regent or Skitter getting caught in the crossfire. They could make a break for it, but that would look like they were running, which would undo some of the work they put into intimidating the Merchants. She decided to split the difference. They could engage outside, then run if it got to be too dangerous. "Pulse, I want you to hit Mush as hard as you can. Regent, I'm going to distract the guys with guns, then you do your thing to throw off their aim. Once they're occupied, we'll close range and try and take them out, then help Pulse finish off the cape."
The other two nodded their acknowledgement, and Skitter summoned up as much of her swarm as she could. She formed them into two swarm clones, with fliers carrying the biting and stinging insects that were available at this time of the year in New Hampshire. Maybe she could convince her dad to retire to Florida someday? The swarms there could be killer. The door was kicked open, and the two clones ran out at the gunmen, who raised their weapons. The two from the cab had to grope for theirs in their waistbands. Regent made a gesture, and the two assault rifle wielders jerked their guns off to the side as they fired. The idiot to the right had his gun on full auto, the recoil of which combined with Regent's attack sent the gun almost straight up into the air. That was enough to let Pulse, who had built up a good charge, dash out at super-speed and smash Mush into the side of the van, to the sound of much cursing from the trash cape.
Skitter followed Pulse out the door at a slower rate of speed, running up to the rifle-holder who still had some control over his weapon and hitting him with her baton. She heard two gunshots, and turned her head to see that the two pistol-wielding gangers had both fired their guns while pulling them out, again thanks to Regent. One moron had actually shot himself in the leg while doing so and was rolling around on the ground in pain, though he was probably lucky not to have given himself an impromptu vasectomy. The other had dropped the gun when it fired unexpectedly and was desperately scrambling after it. Meanwhile, Mush managed to grab Pulse's arm and toss him off to the side, away from the fight with the gunmen.
Skitter quickly turned her attention back to the riflemen. She took two sidesteps and slammed her baton into the temple of the one who was just now pulling his rifle back down to point at something other than the sky. He collapsed in a heap, and she went back to the other and gave him another whack, this time on the back of the skull. This sent him to the ground. While this was going on, Regent had walked over to the loser trying to pick up his pistol and hit him with his taser. He then kicked both pistols into a nearby storm drain. Skitter picked up the rifle from the ground in front of her and tossed it back through the front door of the house, taking it out of reach.
She then turned toward where Pulse and Mush were wailing on each other, one with charged up fists, the other with bits of debris and trash, including something that looked like half of a cinder block. Unexpectedly, Mush dodged backwards, then charged forward, pushing Pulse toward a boarded-up store front that had been a shoe shop back when the neighborhood was wealthier and less abandoned. This turned out to be deliberate, as when Pulse was within a few feet of the painted-over display window, a large figure smashed through it with a burst of steam and hammered into Pulse from behind, eliciting a cry of pain from Skitter's teammate. Trainwreck must have come in through a back entrance and waited for the right moment to jump into the fight. The odd Case 53 tinker was encased in what looked like a set of steampunk power armor. He and Mush together were more than a match for Pulse. What was worse was that they weren't ideal opponents for her and Regent. Her bugs would have trouble getting through their protections, and neither she nor Regent would last in hand-to-hand with either of them.
She turned, startled, at the sound of a shot from behind. Regent had extended the knife blade from his scepter. It was his backup weapon, as the scepter took time to recharge. He had stabbed it through the back of the Merchant whose rifle she had forgotten about, stopping him just as he was about to shoot her in the back. The two brute Merchant capes and her almost fatal mistake with the gunman made up her mind for her. She whistled out the signal to retreat back to base. Pulse extended a good percentage of his charge to knock Mush and Trainwreck back, and then Regent made sure they each stumbled. The three of them took off at top speed, heading back toward the DWU compound. They could hear the clanging sound of Trainwreck trying to follow, but neither of the Merchant capes were known for their speed. They also probably couldn't drive the van armored up like that, and their other drivers were all incapacitated. Still, Skitter didn't relax until the compound was in sight and she could see Bitch's dogs patrolling along the outer perimeter.
When they went to report, her father wasn't pleased. "The Merchants were able to chase you off?"
Taylor shook her head. "The three of us weren't enough to fight off two brutes by ourselves. We needed the whole team."
"Mush isn't much of a brute," commented Sarah snidely.
Zephron narrowed his eyes. "I had Mush handled until Trainwreck showed up, too. They were expecting an attack." The man was rubbing his bruised ribs as he spoke.
Danny shifted his gaze between Zephron and Sarah. "This is not a good result for us. It makes us look weak."
"So we hit 'em again," said Taylor, "but this time we take everybody."
Her father glared at her. "And then you walk into another ambush. Jesus." He rubbed his hands through his hair. "No. I want the whole team here tomorrow. Skidmark is an overconfident asshole. If he thinks he has the advantage, then he's going to attack here."
"We can take them if you let us go out!" she insisted.
Instead of responding, he strode over to her and slapped her. She didn't cry out, but she did jerk back, and kept her eyes lowered from his face.
"I said," he said slowly and evenly, "that I want the whole team here tomorrow. I'll call your school and tell them you're sick. Do you understand me?"
She nodded her head.
He waved them away at that. "Go take Zephron and have Stevie look at his ribs." Stevie had been a medical corpsman in the Navy, and was the informal nurse for the union. As the group began to file out, Danny added, "And Sarah, she was right when she asked to take the whole team. That was a shit call on your part." Sarah's face turned grim, but she nodded and then left with the others.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Winslow High School
Sophia sat down at her usual spot in the cafeteria. To her relief, Taylor hadn't come to school today for unknown reasons. She didn't really care why as long as she didn't have to put up with her and her crew. Most of the others were too meek to try anything without Hebert. That led to a generally good morning, and she was in good spirits when she sat down next to her usual lunch companions, Macy, Miguel and Cass. Macy was a tall, almost too-skinny black girl, while Cass was a petite mixed-race girl who had a black father and a Chinese mother. She barely topped five-four. Both were on the track and field team with Sophia. Miguel, on the other hand, was a quiet kid who shunned athletics in favor of music. He had joined the three a couple of years ago almost by accident when the girls had intervened to stop a group of ABB from hassling him. They had found the artistic kid to be easy company, as he didn't seem to suffer from the typical teen-aged boy affliction that saw girls as either things to covet or as incomprehensible aliens. His eclectic tastes in musicians also meant he had a lot of interesting things to say about pretty much any genre of music, which was nice when the girls disagreed about such things. Outside of school, Macy was the only one Sophia regularly hung out with, mostly because Cass lived a long way away and Miguel's parents were a little odd about him having a social life.
"I'm just saying his last album was a lot better," said Cass. Sophia rolled her eyes at Cass and Macy rehashing the exact same argument for what must be the third time.
"I really don't get why you think that..." started Macy, but she paused when Tim, one of the members of the boys' track team, came over to the table. All four of them looked over at him, wondering what he wanted, seeing as it was the off-season.
Instead of just standing and talking, Tim grabbed the empty seat at the table and sat down. "Hey," he started. "I heard something you probably want to know about. You girls know Ricky Dasich?"
Macy frowned. "Yeah, he's in my trig class. Little Empire wannabe?" The kid was a stereotypical skinhead, junior branch.
Tim nodded. "A few of us were hanging out by the east entrance before school, and I heard him talking to one of his friends. He was complaining how Mike and the other E88 wanted him to prove himself before they'd led him join officially. The other kid said he should pick an easy target, and he mentioned Miguel here by name." He nodded his head toward the other boy at the table for emphasis. Miguel's eyes widened a little in alarm.
"Who was the other kid?" asked Sophia.
Tim shook his head. "I didn't see him. I just heard them talking around the corner, and I didn't recognize his voice. He used Ricky's name, though, so it was pretty easy to figure out who one of them was."
Macy looked at him skeptically. "You sure he wasn't just messing with you?"
The boy shrugged. "Not sure why he would. I don't think they knew we were there, and even if he had...Ricky's the kind of moron who thinks most white people think like him. I doubt he'd think any of us would try to warn Miguel. None of my friends can stand those Empire assholes, though."
After a moment when everybody considered what they had heard, Miguel smiled at Tim. "Thanks for telling me," said Miguel quietly.
Tim smiled. "No problem. Watch yourself, now, right?" When Miguel nodded, Tim got up and went back to finish lunch with his own friends.
"So what are we going to do?" asked Cass.
The four of them exchanged looks. Finally, Macy shrugged her shoulders. "I'm not sure there's anything we can do. It's not like telling the cops is going to make a difference." She fixed Migeul with a look. "Are you going to be safe going home on your own?"
"I...don't know. Probably, unless they attack me on the bus," he replied.
"No, that's not likely," said Cass. "My cousin is ABB, and he told me that most of the gangs treat the buses as neutral ground. Fighting on them gets too much attention and people start putting pressure on city government. If Ricky's trying to make a good impression, he isn't going to fuck that up."
Sophia looked at Cass in surprise. "Your cousin is ABB?"
Cass frowned. "He didn't have much choice in the matter. If you're Asian and live in certain neighborhoods, you're almost drafted."
"So you're good until the weekend, probably?" asked Macy, ignoring the byplay between Cass and Sophia. He nodded. "All right, we'll think of something before then."
The rest of lunch passed unusually quietly, as nobody seemed in much of a mood to make small talk. Sophia had to wonder, though, if there was something she could do. She thought back to her conversation yesterday with her father. She knew the last thing he wanted was for her to risk herself as a vigilante. She could defend herself if she was attacked...but that wouldn't help Miguel unless she spent all her time following him around. It also wasn't like she could explain why she was following him, and the skinheads weren't going to back off because she was around. They would probably see it as a bonus. Sophia shuddered a little. Maybe her dad would have a better idea?
When she got home after going to the gym that afternoon, her mother told her that her father wasn't going to be home until early in the morning. He was working an extra shift to make up for taking off yesterday. Sophia spent most of the evening browsing the Web in a desultory fashion, unsure what she could do, or what she should do.
Before bed, she spent a few minutes going through her clothing, trying to find something that would conceal her identity. Ultimately, she had to settle for black jeans, a black hoodie, leather winter gloves and a dark blue bandanna. It was a shit costume overall, but it would probably keep anybody from recognizing her if she needed to hide her identity. She set the clothing aside in a spare gym bag and tried to go to sleep.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Thursday, January 13, 2011
St. John's, Newfoundland
"Why are you sending me down there?" asked Anya irritably. She was standing in the teleportation room with Metis and William.
Metis looked at her with a toothy grin.
Anya waved disdainfully at her. "Don't give me that look. I've dated people with more teeth that that!"
Now the black lizard actually chuckled. "William had the suggestion that we try a locator spell for Richter while we're in his home, and you're the best witch on the team right now."
"You can't get Willow, or one of her students?" asked the currently-brown-haired girl. "I'm not exactly in practice."
"They're in the middle of a minor apocalypse, and you should be more than capable of a simple locator, Anya," said William with a little frustration in his voice.
"That's not the point! When you folks asked me to help, it was supposed to be mission support and money management, not risking my life looking for missing people on evil mirror worlds! I've got things to live for now that I'm finally having sex with somebody with proper depth perception again." she said crossly.
Metis looked at her, and her smile vanished. "Your husband is going to be fine, you know. He's a lot more sturdy than he used to be, and that's not counting his axe and amulet." Anya's husband, Xander Harris of Sunnydale, California, had saved his future wife's life right before falling through a dimensional rift. Through a variety of odd circumstances, he ended up meeting the Family and being gifted the hand-me-down axe of Thor, the god of thunder, and an amulet that protected him against magic that used to be in the hilt of the sword of the king of Atlantis. Between Family healing tech and his artifacts, he was more dangerous than most of the things he fought.
Her glare softened a bit, then she simply said, "Fine. You want the Mallachi Life Ward version, right? Something to see if the guy is still alive?"
"That would be ideal, thank you," replied Metis. Anya went to stand on the teleporter, and the lizard triggered the transport, making her vanish.
"What was that all about?" asked William. "She's not usually a skittish one." He tacitly ignored the odd comment on depth perception.
"It's the first time she and her husband have been apart for any length of time since he disappeared and came back, and she both misses him and is annoyed with herself for being so dependent," replied Metis. "She's also a little afraid one of them will get hurt, though she knows that isn't nearly as likely as it used to be."
William considered that. "Hunh. You know, you should work as a therapist."
With a smirk, she replied, "It's been suggested before. There are a number of reasons why it's a bad idea."
Down in Andrew Richter's old living room, Anya was looking around at the furnishings. She was distinctly unimpressed by the Spartan decor. Apart from being ugly, it made it harder to find things to use as the focus for her spell. She needed items he that held some meaning to him, or that he interacted with regularly. She assumed that the various spy devices scattered throughout the house had already registered her appearance, so she didn't want to waste too much time. The fake fireplace mantle held two pictures in frames. One was of an elderly couple. The other was of a cat. Making some assumptions based upon his taste in decorating, she grabbed the cat picture. Then she wandered over to the bookshelves against the back wall and started looking for something that had seen some use. The best bet was a worn and well-thumbed catalog, which she at first thought was from a toy company, but turned out to be filled with various weird future science gadgets. It seemed to be the most referenced book on the shelf, with worn spots on the cover.
Nothing else really seemed that personal on the ground floor, so she climbed the stairs to the second floor and went into his bedroom. If anything, that room was even more depressing. There was nothing interesting under the bed or hidden beneath the mattress. A search of the mostly empty dressers yielded a single pair of socks with a hole in the big toe and a pair of boxer shorts covered in flowers. It reminded her of the kind of shirts her husband used to wear in high school. Semi-reluctantly, she pulled the hopefully-washed underwear out with pinched fingers. She then sat cross-legged in the middle of the bedroom and poured out a circle of salt and sand from a pouch she had in her pocket. The shorts, the photo and the catalog all went into the circle. Two cheap birthday candles provided the flame aspect, and then she began chanting. The spell itself wasn't terribly difficult, and it also didn't call on any specific greater power. The second aspect made it useful when you were in a foreign plane or dimension and weren't sure which powers were available. The drawback to the spell was that it only gave you a sense of direction and a distance, rather than an exact location. On the plus side, it also let you know the overall level of health of the target in a general sense.
There was a brief flash of amber light, which presumably the spy cameras also caught. The result appeared as runes in the sand and was...slightly surprising. "Huh," she muttered. "You really have gone someplace strange, haven't you Mr. Richter?" Tapping her communicator, she said in a louder, clear voice, "All right, I've got everything I need here." With another flash, she dematerialized and reappeared back on the ship.
"Did you get a position on the guy?" asked William.
She shook her head. "No, he doesn't seem to be on the planet. He's alive, though."
"Interesting," said Metis. "Well, let's leave them something else for the watchers to examine." She popped open a panel on her armor and pulled out a stuffed animal. There was something written on the side in black ink. She put the toy on the floor in the teleportation zone and beamed it down to the house.
William snorted a laugh. "They'll either panic or be confused as hell at that."
"Why not both?" replied the lizard with a grin.
Slightly more than seven minutes after Anya disappeared, a brilliant streak of light in the sky heralded the arrival of the superhero known as Legend. Reforming out of his laser-like breaker state, he surveyed the grounds around Richter's house and the surrounding land. There was no movement, which wasn't surprising if the intruder either was or was working with a teleporter or tinker, as she appeared to be from the spy camera footage. He had exceedingly keen eyesight, so he was confident he was alone on the property. He might not have seen somebody with a Stranger power, but they theoretically had monitoring for that on-site already.
He swiftly moved down to the bedroom window of the house below, and quickly had the screen off and the window open, as it wasn't locked. Inside, he examined the pile of items in the center of the floor. There were Richter's old things, what looked like a pile of sand, and some partially burnt birthday candles like you would see at a child's party. The last bit sent a slightly unexpected wave of sadness through him, but he pushed it down. He pulled out some evidence bags from the belt of his costume and collected everything, being careful not to touch any of it on the off chance that it was dangerous. When that was done, he carefully replaced the window screen and closed the window.
Moving downstairs, he traced the strange woman's steps. Other than the things she had taken for the strange little ritual, nothing was disturbed. However, in the living room where she appeared, there was a small stuffed animal on the floor. After staring at it briefly, he put that in another evidence bag to take with him, shaking his head a little at how nonsensical it was. Why the hell would somebody leave a stuffed dragon with a PHO address scrawled on the side of it in black marker? Frowning, he said, "Doorway to Contessa," then stepped through the portal and left the house in silence.
The house was quite far away, so Cherish watched through the tinker tech scope as Legend arrived and entered the house. Putting the scope down, she then watched his actions inside the house through the cameras hidden throughout the residence. She watched him gather up everything left behind and look through the house for anything else of note. When he finally vanished through a portal, she picked up her mobile phone and hit a pre-set number.
"Papa, Legend showed up just as we expected. He collected everything the woman left, then disappeared into a portal." She paused to listen, then continued. "Mostly he was curious and confused. There was a brief wave of sadness when he noticed the stuffed dragon, for some reason. I don't believe he had any idea who she was or why she was in the tinker's house." If anything, he had appeared as perplexed by the situation as she was.
There was another pause as she listened to the phone. Then, in a surprised voice, she said, "You don't want me to stay? What if she comes back?" Another pause. "Very well. I'll meet up with Guillaume and we'll head back to Ottawa...I love you too." She smiled fondly as she disconnected the call.
It was odd. Whatever that woman did, her father seemed to think she had finished her task and wouldn't be back. Perhaps the maudit Chaudron would have more insight into the matter? It was unlikely that she would find out in any event. With a shrug, she began to pack up her gear so she could go and meet with her brother. If she turned up again in Canada, then the Guild would look into it.
She paused, looking over the transmissions from the house. Did that stuffed animal mean what she thought it meant? How could it? If it did...was it some kind of trap? Was the woman looking for Andrew Richter, or something else? There were too many unanswered questions...
Worriedly watching for any signs that her stalker was nearby, she considered her options. The safest bet was to try and get someplace reasonably safe, and then send messages to her contacts before sending an instant message to the PHO account written on the stuffed dragon. Her friends could check on any reply...and deal with the consequences if it was a trap.
If it wasn't a trap, then hopefully they could advise her on next steps. That decided, she made ready to leave. She had to keep moving if she wanted to avoid capture...or worse.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Friday, January 14, 2011
Winslow High School
The morning was sunnier, but still cool. The sunshine made the trip to lovely Winslow a lot more pleasant, although Sophia was still nervous about seeing Taylor again. After getting off the bus, she kept her eyes open as she went into the school, but there was no sign of Hebert or her crew. Instead, Miguel was waiting for her at her locker.
"Miguel? Are you OK?" she asked. He looked really nervous for some reason, as well as over-tired.
"Sophia, you remember what Tim said yesterday?" At her nod, he said, "Well, I kept a lookout when I was going home. There were two guys who looked like Empire thugs watching to see what bus I got on."
Alarmed, she asked, "Did they follow you?"
He shook his head. "No...but it's not like it would be hard to find my address in the phone book. I think they wanted to see my daily route."
She frowned. That was a bad sign. "Can you stay late after school tomorrow?"
He grimaced. "My mother doesn't like me to be late. She has to take care of my abeula, and I help her when I get home."
Sophia considered that. "Maybe...all three of us could take the bus with you? They might leave you alone if they see you're with a group? I'll ask Cass and Macy when I see them in class. We can talk about it at lunch."
"It would make me feel better," he admitted, "but I don't know if it will be enough."
She patted his arm. "We'll figure something out. Don't worry."
He seemed slightly relieved, and went off to go to his own locker. After he left, Sophia began fretting about the situation. She knew she had options the other girls didn't...but that meant risking discovery as a cape. That would put her family at risk. Could she really live with herself if her inaction let Miguel get hurt, or maybe even killed, though? By the time the bell rang for home room, she didn't have any real answers.
On the way to the class room, she did finally see Hebert, but the girl seemed to be deep in conversation with Emma about something. Madison and the other hangers-on weren't around. Sophia quickly moved on to avoid drawing attention to herself.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Brockton Bay, New Hampshire
Skitter could sense the inhabitants of the run-down house through her swarm, and she could tell they were Merchants. The street gang was notorious for their free use of various illegal substances, and the chemical smell and lack of hygiene were easy to detect. The house itself was a single story walk-up with a crawl-space for an attic, but there was a larger-than-average basement area. The basement area was probably where they expected to spend most of their time, and where they expected to keep their prisoners for trafficking. There were actually nine people inside the small house. Two were upstairs. These two had guns, and were probably supposed to be on guard, though they seemed to be lounging around. There were seven people in the basement and they had a mix of weapons. Two of the seven were stationary, though, and were possibly asleep, unconscious, or possibly restrained. There were several handguns and a shotgun in the basement, but they were set to the side. It was trivially easy for her to use bugs to jam up the mechanism. Skitter conveyed the information on the house's contents to the others.
"Pulse, do a loop around the block and make sure they don't have anybody on patrol or heading in-bound," she ordered. The large man nodded and took off at a jog. He could move like lightening when he was charged up, so he was ideal for checking their perimeter. The house was quiet for the ten minutes it took Pulse to return and confirm that the area was mostly empty. With that information, Skitter said, "All right. I'm going to send my swarm into the basement. You two take out the two upstairs. We can use the knock and smash. I'll head downstairs and put the fear of Skitter into them, and we can teach them not to stray into our territory." Merchants tended to be high, lazy, and poorly trained, so none of the three Undersiders were especially worried about the coming fight.
Regent walked up to the front door and gave it a knock. There was a muffled voice from inside, then Regent jumped to the side, and Pulse came barreling through at full speed, knocking the door from its hinges. The Merchant behind the door was slammed hard against the wall, and the spray of blood said he wouldn't be getting up again soon, if at all. Regent darted inside and jammed his taser scepter into the other stupefied guard, who was staring mouth-agape at what had just happened. The second guard dropped his machine pistol and spasmed to the floor. As he was lying there, Pulse came back around and punched down into the back of his head, knocking him unconscious.
Skitter, meanwhile, was swarming bugs of various kinds in through cracks in the walls. Even in January, there were enough bugs in the surrounding buildings to build up a sizable swarm. The gang had obviously tried to put out insecticide, but it was badly applied, and some of it was just stupid. Did they really think an insect controller would let her bugs climb into roach motels? Then again, those may have been there just for normal pest control, as the rooms weren't that clean. Regardless, there were more than enough roaches, spiders, and other insects pouring into the basement to cause the gang members to panic. They started reaching for weapons just as Skitter reached the basement stairs. One of them tried to bring the shotgun up to fire at her, but a couple of black widow bites made him drop the gun and stare in horror at the venomous spiders on his hands. She also had the ants and centipedes biting, and he probably thought that all of the bites he was feeling were more black widows. The other four Merchants in the room were too busy swatting at insects to even notice her when she walked into the room. That stopped when she walked up to the first Merchant, who was still staring at his hands, and smacked him in the side of the head with a security baton. The other four looked over at the sound, and their eyes widened in horror.
Using her swarm voice for effect, Skitter said, "Merchants aren't welcome in this part of town. I thought we made that clear last time."
One of the Merchants seemed to panic and ran at her. It wasn't clear if he was running to attack or to try to get around her and up the stairs, but she grabbed him nonetheless and slammed him face-first into the door jamb. He fell back and didn't move. That was enough for one of the other Merchants to pass out on his own, the smell making it clear that he had pissed himself before doing so. The other two just huddled away from the horrifying insect mistress. Frowning to herself inside her mask, Skitter took three quick strides over to them and knocked them unconscious with her baton. Then she went over to the door into the second room in the basement and opened it, only to find two terrified teen girls huddled together. They were handcuffed to the bedpost of a bed whose frame was attached to the wall and floor with steel bolts. She used insects to pick the locks on the handcuffs, and they dropped off, startling the girls further. Not wanting to deal with them, Skitter used her swarm voice again. "Now is your chance to run. Take it." With wide eyes, the two girls bolted out, screamed slightly at the unconscious gang members, and ran up the stairs. If they were lucky, then they would find somebody to help them. If they weren't...well, they were still probably better off than being held captive by Merchants.
Regent came down the stairs. He eyed the gang-members on the floor, then shook his head slightly. "There's nothing upstairs, other than the thirty bucks the two guys had on them. One of them had pills on him, but it was just Oxy." The union didn't deal drugs, so it was almost never worth taking as loot. The rare exception was the infrequent find of tinker-made drugs, some of which were quite valuable. Oxycontin was barely worth mentioning.
"Help me search down here," she said in her normal Skitter voice. The two went through the gang-members pockets, and then searched through the sparse furniture. They turned up slightly more than five hundred dollars in cash, the majority of which appeared to be an emergency stash. There was also a varied assortment of recreational chemicals, all of which got flushed -- mostly just to be petty.
"Shit, even their guns are crap," said Regent, looking over a cheap .380 semi-automatic that obviously hadn't been well maintained. He sighted down the barrel, ignoring the fact that he was aiming at one of the unconscious gangers, then made a disgusted noise and tossed the gun onto one of the couches, unfired.
Skitter just snorted. "They're Merchants, what do you expect? If you want good gear, you need to hit the Empire." The Nazis were more dangerous because they were better-equipped, but they were also more lucrative to loot for the same reason.
"Hey, we got a van pulling up outside," yelled Pulse from upstairs.
Skitter cursed to herself. The winter weather made it a lot harder for her to keep track of her surroundings. She could barely sense the vehicle pulling up outside thanks to ground vibrations. She motioned with her head that they were going up, and she and Regent both joined Pulse, who was looking out the window from behind blinds.
Outside, two Merchants jumped out of the cab of the rust-stained white Econovan. The driver ran to the side door and pulled it open, yanking toward the back. Out of the van stepped something that looked like a stout man covered in random debris -- the Merchant cape Mush. His power had something to do with armoring himself with garbage, though Skitter honestly didn't know if he had to use random crap or if it was just a Merchant thing. He was followed by two more Merchant's, though these two were each carrying a Kalashnikov-style assault rifle.
Overall, it wouldn't have been a big deal...if they had Über, Bitch and Tattletale along. Thanks to Tattletale convincing her father to hold them back, they were at half-strength. She considered her options. They could try and draw them into the building, but there wasn't a lot of space for Pulse and Mush to duke it out without Regent or Skitter getting caught in the crossfire. They could make a break for it, but that would look like they were running, which would undo some of the work they put into intimidating the Merchants. She decided to split the difference. They could engage outside, then run if it got to be too dangerous. "Pulse, I want you to hit Mush as hard as you can. Regent, I'm going to distract the guys with guns, then you do your thing to throw off their aim. Once they're occupied, we'll close range and try and take them out, then help Pulse finish off the cape."
The other two nodded their acknowledgement, and Skitter summoned up as much of her swarm as she could. She formed them into two swarm clones, with fliers carrying the biting and stinging insects that were available at this time of the year in New Hampshire. Maybe she could convince her dad to retire to Florida someday? The swarms there could be killer. The door was kicked open, and the two clones ran out at the gunmen, who raised their weapons. The two from the cab had to grope for theirs in their waistbands. Regent made a gesture, and the two assault rifle wielders jerked their guns off to the side as they fired. The idiot to the right had his gun on full auto, the recoil of which combined with Regent's attack sent the gun almost straight up into the air. That was enough to let Pulse, who had built up a good charge, dash out at super-speed and smash Mush into the side of the van, to the sound of much cursing from the trash cape.
Skitter followed Pulse out the door at a slower rate of speed, running up to the rifle-holder who still had some control over his weapon and hitting him with her baton. She heard two gunshots, and turned her head to see that the two pistol-wielding gangers had both fired their guns while pulling them out, again thanks to Regent. One moron had actually shot himself in the leg while doing so and was rolling around on the ground in pain, though he was probably lucky not to have given himself an impromptu vasectomy. The other had dropped the gun when it fired unexpectedly and was desperately scrambling after it. Meanwhile, Mush managed to grab Pulse's arm and toss him off to the side, away from the fight with the gunmen.
Skitter quickly turned her attention back to the riflemen. She took two sidesteps and slammed her baton into the temple of the one who was just now pulling his rifle back down to point at something other than the sky. He collapsed in a heap, and she went back to the other and gave him another whack, this time on the back of the skull. This sent him to the ground. While this was going on, Regent had walked over to the loser trying to pick up his pistol and hit him with his taser. He then kicked both pistols into a nearby storm drain. Skitter picked up the rifle from the ground in front of her and tossed it back through the front door of the house, taking it out of reach.
She then turned toward where Pulse and Mush were wailing on each other, one with charged up fists, the other with bits of debris and trash, including something that looked like half of a cinder block. Unexpectedly, Mush dodged backwards, then charged forward, pushing Pulse toward a boarded-up store front that had been a shoe shop back when the neighborhood was wealthier and less abandoned. This turned out to be deliberate, as when Pulse was within a few feet of the painted-over display window, a large figure smashed through it with a burst of steam and hammered into Pulse from behind, eliciting a cry of pain from Skitter's teammate. Trainwreck must have come in through a back entrance and waited for the right moment to jump into the fight. The odd Case 53 tinker was encased in what looked like a set of steampunk power armor. He and Mush together were more than a match for Pulse. What was worse was that they weren't ideal opponents for her and Regent. Her bugs would have trouble getting through their protections, and neither she nor Regent would last in hand-to-hand with either of them.
She turned, startled, at the sound of a shot from behind. Regent had extended the knife blade from his scepter. It was his backup weapon, as the scepter took time to recharge. He had stabbed it through the back of the Merchant whose rifle she had forgotten about, stopping him just as he was about to shoot her in the back. The two brute Merchant capes and her almost fatal mistake with the gunman made up her mind for her. She whistled out the signal to retreat back to base. Pulse extended a good percentage of his charge to knock Mush and Trainwreck back, and then Regent made sure they each stumbled. The three of them took off at top speed, heading back toward the DWU compound. They could hear the clanging sound of Trainwreck trying to follow, but neither of the Merchant capes were known for their speed. They also probably couldn't drive the van armored up like that, and their other drivers were all incapacitated. Still, Skitter didn't relax until the compound was in sight and she could see Bitch's dogs patrolling along the outer perimeter.
When they went to report, her father wasn't pleased. "The Merchants were able to chase you off?"
Taylor shook her head. "The three of us weren't enough to fight off two brutes by ourselves. We needed the whole team."
"Mush isn't much of a brute," commented Sarah snidely.
Zephron narrowed his eyes. "I had Mush handled until Trainwreck showed up, too. They were expecting an attack." The man was rubbing his bruised ribs as he spoke.
Danny shifted his gaze between Zephron and Sarah. "This is not a good result for us. It makes us look weak."
"So we hit 'em again," said Taylor, "but this time we take everybody."
Her father glared at her. "And then you walk into another ambush. Jesus." He rubbed his hands through his hair. "No. I want the whole team here tomorrow. Skidmark is an overconfident asshole. If he thinks he has the advantage, then he's going to attack here."
"We can take them if you let us go out!" she insisted.
Instead of responding, he strode over to her and slapped her. She didn't cry out, but she did jerk back, and kept her eyes lowered from his face.
"I said," he said slowly and evenly, "that I want the whole team here tomorrow. I'll call your school and tell them you're sick. Do you understand me?"
She nodded her head.
He waved them away at that. "Go take Zephron and have Stevie look at his ribs." Stevie had been a medical corpsman in the Navy, and was the informal nurse for the union. As the group began to file out, Danny added, "And Sarah, she was right when she asked to take the whole team. That was a shit call on your part." Sarah's face turned grim, but she nodded and then left with the others.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Winslow High School
Sophia sat down at her usual spot in the cafeteria. To her relief, Taylor hadn't come to school today for unknown reasons. She didn't really care why as long as she didn't have to put up with her and her crew. Most of the others were too meek to try anything without Hebert. That led to a generally good morning, and she was in good spirits when she sat down next to her usual lunch companions, Macy, Miguel and Cass. Macy was a tall, almost too-skinny black girl, while Cass was a petite mixed-race girl who had a black father and a Chinese mother. She barely topped five-four. Both were on the track and field team with Sophia. Miguel, on the other hand, was a quiet kid who shunned athletics in favor of music. He had joined the three a couple of years ago almost by accident when the girls had intervened to stop a group of ABB from hassling him. They had found the artistic kid to be easy company, as he didn't seem to suffer from the typical teen-aged boy affliction that saw girls as either things to covet or as incomprehensible aliens. His eclectic tastes in musicians also meant he had a lot of interesting things to say about pretty much any genre of music, which was nice when the girls disagreed about such things. Outside of school, Macy was the only one Sophia regularly hung out with, mostly because Cass lived a long way away and Miguel's parents were a little odd about him having a social life.
"I'm just saying his last album was a lot better," said Cass. Sophia rolled her eyes at Cass and Macy rehashing the exact same argument for what must be the third time.
"I really don't get why you think that..." started Macy, but she paused when Tim, one of the members of the boys' track team, came over to the table. All four of them looked over at him, wondering what he wanted, seeing as it was the off-season.
Instead of just standing and talking, Tim grabbed the empty seat at the table and sat down. "Hey," he started. "I heard something you probably want to know about. You girls know Ricky Dasich?"
Macy frowned. "Yeah, he's in my trig class. Little Empire wannabe?" The kid was a stereotypical skinhead, junior branch.
Tim nodded. "A few of us were hanging out by the east entrance before school, and I heard him talking to one of his friends. He was complaining how Mike and the other E88 wanted him to prove himself before they'd led him join officially. The other kid said he should pick an easy target, and he mentioned Miguel here by name." He nodded his head toward the other boy at the table for emphasis. Miguel's eyes widened a little in alarm.
"Who was the other kid?" asked Sophia.
Tim shook his head. "I didn't see him. I just heard them talking around the corner, and I didn't recognize his voice. He used Ricky's name, though, so it was pretty easy to figure out who one of them was."
Macy looked at him skeptically. "You sure he wasn't just messing with you?"
The boy shrugged. "Not sure why he would. I don't think they knew we were there, and even if he had...Ricky's the kind of moron who thinks most white people think like him. I doubt he'd think any of us would try to warn Miguel. None of my friends can stand those Empire assholes, though."
After a moment when everybody considered what they had heard, Miguel smiled at Tim. "Thanks for telling me," said Miguel quietly.
Tim smiled. "No problem. Watch yourself, now, right?" When Miguel nodded, Tim got up and went back to finish lunch with his own friends.
"So what are we going to do?" asked Cass.
The four of them exchanged looks. Finally, Macy shrugged her shoulders. "I'm not sure there's anything we can do. It's not like telling the cops is going to make a difference." She fixed Migeul with a look. "Are you going to be safe going home on your own?"
"I...don't know. Probably, unless they attack me on the bus," he replied.
"No, that's not likely," said Cass. "My cousin is ABB, and he told me that most of the gangs treat the buses as neutral ground. Fighting on them gets too much attention and people start putting pressure on city government. If Ricky's trying to make a good impression, he isn't going to fuck that up."
Sophia looked at Cass in surprise. "Your cousin is ABB?"
Cass frowned. "He didn't have much choice in the matter. If you're Asian and live in certain neighborhoods, you're almost drafted."
"So you're good until the weekend, probably?" asked Macy, ignoring the byplay between Cass and Sophia. He nodded. "All right, we'll think of something before then."
The rest of lunch passed unusually quietly, as nobody seemed in much of a mood to make small talk. Sophia had to wonder, though, if there was something she could do. She thought back to her conversation yesterday with her father. She knew the last thing he wanted was for her to risk herself as a vigilante. She could defend herself if she was attacked...but that wouldn't help Miguel unless she spent all her time following him around. It also wasn't like she could explain why she was following him, and the skinheads weren't going to back off because she was around. They would probably see it as a bonus. Sophia shuddered a little. Maybe her dad would have a better idea?
When she got home after going to the gym that afternoon, her mother told her that her father wasn't going to be home until early in the morning. He was working an extra shift to make up for taking off yesterday. Sophia spent most of the evening browsing the Web in a desultory fashion, unsure what she could do, or what she should do.
Before bed, she spent a few minutes going through her clothing, trying to find something that would conceal her identity. Ultimately, she had to settle for black jeans, a black hoodie, leather winter gloves and a dark blue bandanna. It was a shit costume overall, but it would probably keep anybody from recognizing her if she needed to hide her identity. She set the clothing aside in a spare gym bag and tried to go to sleep.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Thursday, January 13, 2011
St. John's, Newfoundland
"Why are you sending me down there?" asked Anya irritably. She was standing in the teleportation room with Metis and William.
Metis looked at her with a toothy grin.
Anya waved disdainfully at her. "Don't give me that look. I've dated people with more teeth that that!"
Now the black lizard actually chuckled. "William had the suggestion that we try a locator spell for Richter while we're in his home, and you're the best witch on the team right now."
"You can't get Willow, or one of her students?" asked the currently-brown-haired girl. "I'm not exactly in practice."
"They're in the middle of a minor apocalypse, and you should be more than capable of a simple locator, Anya," said William with a little frustration in his voice.
"That's not the point! When you folks asked me to help, it was supposed to be mission support and money management, not risking my life looking for missing people on evil mirror worlds! I've got things to live for now that I'm finally having sex with somebody with proper depth perception again." she said crossly.
Metis looked at her, and her smile vanished. "Your husband is going to be fine, you know. He's a lot more sturdy than he used to be, and that's not counting his axe and amulet." Anya's husband, Xander Harris of Sunnydale, California, had saved his future wife's life right before falling through a dimensional rift. Through a variety of odd circumstances, he ended up meeting the Family and being gifted the hand-me-down axe of Thor, the god of thunder, and an amulet that protected him against magic that used to be in the hilt of the sword of the king of Atlantis. Between Family healing tech and his artifacts, he was more dangerous than most of the things he fought.
Her glare softened a bit, then she simply said, "Fine. You want the Mallachi Life Ward version, right? Something to see if the guy is still alive?"
"That would be ideal, thank you," replied Metis. Anya went to stand on the teleporter, and the lizard triggered the transport, making her vanish.
"What was that all about?" asked William. "She's not usually a skittish one." He tacitly ignored the odd comment on depth perception.
"It's the first time she and her husband have been apart for any length of time since he disappeared and came back, and she both misses him and is annoyed with herself for being so dependent," replied Metis. "She's also a little afraid one of them will get hurt, though she knows that isn't nearly as likely as it used to be."
William considered that. "Hunh. You know, you should work as a therapist."
With a smirk, she replied, "It's been suggested before. There are a number of reasons why it's a bad idea."
Down in Andrew Richter's old living room, Anya was looking around at the furnishings. She was distinctly unimpressed by the Spartan decor. Apart from being ugly, it made it harder to find things to use as the focus for her spell. She needed items he that held some meaning to him, or that he interacted with regularly. She assumed that the various spy devices scattered throughout the house had already registered her appearance, so she didn't want to waste too much time. The fake fireplace mantle held two pictures in frames. One was of an elderly couple. The other was of a cat. Making some assumptions based upon his taste in decorating, she grabbed the cat picture. Then she wandered over to the bookshelves against the back wall and started looking for something that had seen some use. The best bet was a worn and well-thumbed catalog, which she at first thought was from a toy company, but turned out to be filled with various weird future science gadgets. It seemed to be the most referenced book on the shelf, with worn spots on the cover.
Nothing else really seemed that personal on the ground floor, so she climbed the stairs to the second floor and went into his bedroom. If anything, that room was even more depressing. There was nothing interesting under the bed or hidden beneath the mattress. A search of the mostly empty dressers yielded a single pair of socks with a hole in the big toe and a pair of boxer shorts covered in flowers. It reminded her of the kind of shirts her husband used to wear in high school. Semi-reluctantly, she pulled the hopefully-washed underwear out with pinched fingers. She then sat cross-legged in the middle of the bedroom and poured out a circle of salt and sand from a pouch she had in her pocket. The shorts, the photo and the catalog all went into the circle. Two cheap birthday candles provided the flame aspect, and then she began chanting. The spell itself wasn't terribly difficult, and it also didn't call on any specific greater power. The second aspect made it useful when you were in a foreign plane or dimension and weren't sure which powers were available. The drawback to the spell was that it only gave you a sense of direction and a distance, rather than an exact location. On the plus side, it also let you know the overall level of health of the target in a general sense.
There was a brief flash of amber light, which presumably the spy cameras also caught. The result appeared as runes in the sand and was...slightly surprising. "Huh," she muttered. "You really have gone someplace strange, haven't you Mr. Richter?" Tapping her communicator, she said in a louder, clear voice, "All right, I've got everything I need here." With another flash, she dematerialized and reappeared back on the ship.
"Did you get a position on the guy?" asked William.
She shook her head. "No, he doesn't seem to be on the planet. He's alive, though."
"Interesting," said Metis. "Well, let's leave them something else for the watchers to examine." She popped open a panel on her armor and pulled out a stuffed animal. There was something written on the side in black ink. She put the toy on the floor in the teleportation zone and beamed it down to the house.
William snorted a laugh. "They'll either panic or be confused as hell at that."
"Why not both?" replied the lizard with a grin.
* * * * *
Slightly more than seven minutes after Anya disappeared, a brilliant streak of light in the sky heralded the arrival of the superhero known as Legend. Reforming out of his laser-like breaker state, he surveyed the grounds around Richter's house and the surrounding land. There was no movement, which wasn't surprising if the intruder either was or was working with a teleporter or tinker, as she appeared to be from the spy camera footage. He had exceedingly keen eyesight, so he was confident he was alone on the property. He might not have seen somebody with a Stranger power, but they theoretically had monitoring for that on-site already.
He swiftly moved down to the bedroom window of the house below, and quickly had the screen off and the window open, as it wasn't locked. Inside, he examined the pile of items in the center of the floor. There were Richter's old things, what looked like a pile of sand, and some partially burnt birthday candles like you would see at a child's party. The last bit sent a slightly unexpected wave of sadness through him, but he pushed it down. He pulled out some evidence bags from the belt of his costume and collected everything, being careful not to touch any of it on the off chance that it was dangerous. When that was done, he carefully replaced the window screen and closed the window.
Moving downstairs, he traced the strange woman's steps. Other than the things she had taken for the strange little ritual, nothing was disturbed. However, in the living room where she appeared, there was a small stuffed animal on the floor. After staring at it briefly, he put that in another evidence bag to take with him, shaking his head a little at how nonsensical it was. Why the hell would somebody leave a stuffed dragon with a PHO address scrawled on the side of it in black marker? Frowning, he said, "Doorway to Contessa," then stepped through the portal and left the house in silence.
* * * * *
The house was quite far away, so Cherish watched through the tinker tech scope as Legend arrived and entered the house. Putting the scope down, she then watched his actions inside the house through the cameras hidden throughout the residence. She watched him gather up everything left behind and look through the house for anything else of note. When he finally vanished through a portal, she picked up her mobile phone and hit a pre-set number.
"Papa, Legend showed up just as we expected. He collected everything the woman left, then disappeared into a portal." She paused to listen, then continued. "Mostly he was curious and confused. There was a brief wave of sadness when he noticed the stuffed dragon, for some reason. I don't believe he had any idea who she was or why she was in the tinker's house." If anything, he had appeared as perplexed by the situation as she was.
There was another pause as she listened to the phone. Then, in a surprised voice, she said, "You don't want me to stay? What if she comes back?" Another pause. "Very well. I'll meet up with Guillaume and we'll head back to Ottawa...I love you too." She smiled fondly as she disconnected the call.
It was odd. Whatever that woman did, her father seemed to think she had finished her task and wouldn't be back. Perhaps the maudit Chaudron would have more insight into the matter? It was unlikely that she would find out in any event. With a shrug, she began to pack up her gear so she could go and meet with her brother. If she turned up again in Canada, then the Guild would look into it.
* * * * *
She paused, looking over the transmissions from the house. Did that stuffed animal mean what she thought it meant? How could it? If it did...was it some kind of trap? Was the woman looking for Andrew Richter, or something else? There were too many unanswered questions...
Worriedly watching for any signs that her stalker was nearby, she considered her options. The safest bet was to try and get someplace reasonably safe, and then send messages to her contacts before sending an instant message to the PHO account written on the stuffed dragon. Her friends could check on any reply...and deal with the consequences if it was a trap.
If it wasn't a trap, then hopefully they could advise her on next steps. That decided, she made ready to leave. She had to keep moving if she wanted to avoid capture...or worse.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Friday, January 14, 2011
Winslow High School
The morning was sunnier, but still cool. The sunshine made the trip to lovely Winslow a lot more pleasant, although Sophia was still nervous about seeing Taylor again. After getting off the bus, she kept her eyes open as she went into the school, but there was no sign of Hebert or her crew. Instead, Miguel was waiting for her at her locker.
"Miguel? Are you OK?" she asked. He looked really nervous for some reason, as well as over-tired.
"Sophia, you remember what Tim said yesterday?" At her nod, he said, "Well, I kept a lookout when I was going home. There were two guys who looked like Empire thugs watching to see what bus I got on."
Alarmed, she asked, "Did they follow you?"
He shook his head. "No...but it's not like it would be hard to find my address in the phone book. I think they wanted to see my daily route."
She frowned. That was a bad sign. "Can you stay late after school tomorrow?"
He grimaced. "My mother doesn't like me to be late. She has to take care of my abeula, and I help her when I get home."
Sophia considered that. "Maybe...all three of us could take the bus with you? They might leave you alone if they see you're with a group? I'll ask Cass and Macy when I see them in class. We can talk about it at lunch."
"It would make me feel better," he admitted, "but I don't know if it will be enough."
She patted his arm. "We'll figure something out. Don't worry."
He seemed slightly relieved, and went off to go to his own locker. After he left, Sophia began fretting about the situation. She knew she had options the other girls didn't...but that meant risking discovery as a cape. That would put her family at risk. Could she really live with herself if her inaction let Miguel get hurt, or maybe even killed, though? By the time the bell rang for home room, she didn't have any real answers.
On the way to the class room, she did finally see Hebert, but the girl seemed to be deep in conversation with Emma about something. Madison and the other hangers-on weren't around. Sophia quickly moved on to avoid drawing attention to herself.
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Ace Dreamer
Verified Reality User
- Location
- Between The Unknown & The Known
I think that should be 'their'.
Things are developing... Interesting switches... Magic working on a world with no obvious evidence that it should is really quite surprising! Though, I guess Anya could be carrying something which helps that, as well as being from a universe where magic does work.
- Location
- Maryland
Correct. Fixed that.
- Location
- england
I know this is nothing to do with the story itself, but when I hover my mouse above the listing for the story in the Wom sub-menu, it claims that there are 99 threadmarks.
Is Saurial playing tricks or something?
Is Saurial playing tricks or something?
- Location
- California, USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The thread is collected with the original Ship of Fools thread. You're seeing combined number of threadmarks across both threads.
Chapter 4: Meetings
- Location
- Maryland
Chapter 4: Meetings
Friday, January 14, 2011
Winslow High School
Macy, Sophia, and Miguel were waiting for his bus at the stop down the street from the school.
"You don't have to escort me home. I can take care of myself," said Miguel.
Macy shook her head. "It's fine, Miguel. You're our friend. Cass would be here too, but she has a much longer trip home and her parents had something for her to do tonight."
With some concern, he replied, "But I don't want you two to be targeted by the Empire, too."
As the bus pulled in, Sophia answered, "You're not targeted by the Empire. You're targeted by a bunch of racist kids who want to be Empire because they think it's cool. They won't be so brave against a group."
The three teens got on the bus using their student bus passes. It was only a twelve-minute ride to Miguel's neighborhood, with only one stop in between. He actually lived a little closer to the school than Sophia did -- close enough to walk if the weather was nice and he left a little early. The weather today was not so warm to make that appealing, though.
The two girls noticed that there were a couple of teens hanging around near the bus stop at their destination. They must have cut out early or skipped entirely to get there before the three of them. Macy commented, "The kid on the right with the earring is Ricky." Neither of the two punks acted like they noticed the three teens getting off the bus, but Sophia thought they seemed a little too casual about it (assuming that was a thing and not just Hollywood pretense). She kept an eye on them until they were around the corner.
At the door to Miguel's apartment building, he turned to them. "Thanks for this. I would invite you in, but...well, my family gets upset at unexpected company."
"It's OK," said Sophia, with Macy nodding her agreement. "We just wanted to see you home." Both girls knew that the boy's family was a little unusual.
He smiled at them again, then went inside with a wave. They noticed that the security doors didn't seem to be working properly, as he was able to go inside without any kind of key. That was a little worrying, but it wasn't something they could do anything about. The two left to walk back and wait for the bus.
As they turned the corner, they noticed that the two kids from earlier were still there, but now they weren't alone. There were now four more men, and these didn't look like high school kids. They were in their twenties and had clear signs of being Empire 88. There were jacket patches, visible tattoos, and all four had either buzz cuts or shaved heads. One of them noticed the two black girls walking to the bus and stared at them. He continued to stare at them as they waited until the next bus arrived.
"I don't like the look of that," commented Sophia.
Macy bit her lip. "Should we call the police?"
Sophia grimaced. "And tell them what? Some Empire members are standing on a street corner?" The police had enough to do around Brockton Bay that they weren't likely to do even a drive-by for something like that, especially in that neighborhood.
Macy pulled out her phone. "I'm going to text Miguel. Maybe his family can protect themselves if they try anything."
Giving them some forewarning was a start, but Sophia was worried that it might not be enough. She pulled out her phone and brought up a map of the neighborhood. There wasn't much here...but she did see something that gave her an idea. When the next bus finally arrived, she said to Macy, "You go ahead. I've got to check something out."
"Are you crazy?" asked Macy, clearly wondering what her friend was thinking.
Sophia just pushed her friend toward the open door. "Trust me. I'll be fine."
Reluctantly (and to the slight annoyance of the bus driver), the other girl slowly got on the bus. As it pulled away, Sophia used the cover of the bus to dart into a nearby alley. It wasn't particularly clean and smelled foul, but it was out of sight of the gang members and it led to another street that held the shop that had caught her attention on the map. The alley also happened to be empty, luckily for her. It wouldn't do to get mugged on the way to trying to stop an assault. On the next street was a thrift shop. The shop was locked up tight with metal sliding doors covering the windows, as it was only open three days a week and Friday wasn't one of those days. Keeping an eye on the street, Sophia walked over to the shop, then stepped into the alley that ran beside it. Just as she hoped, there was a back entrance off the alley. This was locked up tight as well, of course, but doors were no longer much of an obstacle for her.
The inside of the shop was dark, though bits of light did filter in through the cracks around the security doors. There was a dim orange glow from a lava lamp sitting on the counter that somebody had neglected to turn off. It was close enough to a stack of unfolded clothes that she thought it was a wonder that the place hadn't burned down already. She actually moved the pile of clothes, not wanting a fire to start while she was in the process of robbing the place. She didn't really want to rob the place, but she also didn't feel like exposing her identity as a cape to the Empire thugs threatening her friend's family.
The shop wasn't particularly well-equipped, but what it did have was a plethora of old clothes -- clothes that she could use to hide her identity. Searching quickly, she found a pair of faded black jeans that would fit her and provide more protection than her current skirt and tights. She also found a black turtleneck that was slightly too small, a pair of black leather gloves, a dark blue hooded sweatshirt that had the logo of a triple-A baseball team in New York, a dark maroon scarf to cover her lower face, and a cheap black domino mask from a half-missing Halloween costume. Overall, she looked more like a homeless person than a superhero, but you couldn't tell what she looked like with the hood up. Her most useful find was behind the sales counter. There was a black aluminum baseball bat and what felt like a half-empty can of cheap pepper spray. Putting her original clothes inside a canvas shopping bag, she exited back into the alley. She hid her bag behind a dumpster in the alley, wincing a little at the odor, and hurried out to look for the thugs.
It said something about Brockton Bay that not one person appeared to notice or react to somebody with a covered face walking on the street with a baseball bat in her hand. To be fair, it said more about the neighborhood than the city overall. She likely wouldn't have gotten away with it on the Boardwalk or in front of the PRT building. Regardless, Sophia quickly headed to where the group of Empire thugs had been talking near the bus stop. Her anxiety increased when she saw they were no longer there, and she rapidly began walking toward Miguel's building. As she turned the corner, she saw the last of the gang members entering the front door through the broken security doors.
She broke into a sprint. She knew Miguel and his family lived on the third floor, so it would take them time to call the elevator or take the stairs. Fighting in a narrow hallway or stairwell would make it easier to take on six people at once...hopefully. There was a small little voice in the back of her brain saying that she was being an idiot, but there was also an atavistic thrill at the idea of getting into a fight. The latter was clearly winning.
Three of the older gangers were visible in the hall. The other three had entered the stairwell at the end of the entrance hall. The flickering exit sign over the door implied a fire exit as well. Maybe if she attacked quickly, the others would make a run for it? She broke into a sprint, raising the bat for a sideways swing. The hall was barely wide enough to swing it, though she could cheat a bit with her powers. The bat swung through an arc, the very tip of it going shadow as it passed through a box containing a fire extinguisher, and impacted the side of one of the ruffians. He cried out and fell to the side, his hand holding his ribs...which were undoubtedly bruised if not broken.
"What the fuck?" said one of the other two in the hall. The other started reaching in his pocket for something. She jumped forward and jammed the tip of the bat into his nose hard, causing him to stumble back and cry out. The vocal one tried to grab for the bat, only to stare in shock as it phased to shadow and passed through his hand and wrist. "We've got a cape!" he yelled to the others in the hall. He stepped forward and took a swing at her. Sophia phased and stepped through him, then used the butt of the bat to slam into the back of his head. This pushed his head into the wall, and he fell down insensate.
The one with the bruised ribs was pulling himself to his feet using the wall, and he turned to face her. With a snarl, he launched himself bodily at her. She jumped up and phased to shadow, leaping through him. She tried to twist in mid-air but stumbled a bit on the landing. He tripped over the leg of his unconscious friend and fell down again. Rushing over to him, she brought the bat down on his back, knocking him to the ground. He groaned in pain and stayed down.
Behind her, the older gang member from the stairwell came out. He had a hunting knife in his hand and was watching her warily. She held the bat in a guard position, and the two advanced toward each other. As he swung the knife, she moved as if to block it with the bat, but instead phased to shadow and let the swing pass through the bat. Her opponent clearly was expecting a block and lost his balance from the lack of resistance. She pushed the bat forward like a staff and slammed it into his face. The blow stunned him, and it gave her plenty of time to bring the bat down on his head. He fell to the ground and the knife dropped from his hand.
Sophia turned and phased through the doorway into the stairwell. The two teens from Winslow were in there...Ricky and his unnamed friend. The friend looked at her phasing through the door, yelled, "Fuck this shit!", and bolted for the fire exit. Ricky, on the other hand, pulled out a snub-nosed revolver and started shooting. She could feel it as the six bullets passed through her shadow state. When the gun was empty, he continued pulling the trigger manically. She stepped forward and slammed the bat into his face twice. He stood there for a second with a puzzled look on his face, then fell forward into unconsciousness.
She turned back to the doorway to the entrance hall, only to find that one of the older Empire members had come in through the door while Ricky was shooting, and was lying on the floor bleeding out from two bullet holes in his chest. His nose was also bleeding, which meant that he was probably the one who had been reaching for a weapon, and she could see a switchblade in his hand. She frowned. The gun had probably been meant for Miguel or his family as part of some kind of initiation, so she didn't feel too badly for the one who was shot. The gunshots meant that somebody would call the police, however, and they would likely be showing up eventually. Miguel's family was probably safe for now, so that meant it was time to go.
The alley behind the fire exit was empty. Ricky's friend must have kept running when he got outside. From there, it wasn't hard to go back to where she had stashed her clothes. She packed her outfit and weapons in the same bag and headed for the bus. She didn't hear the sirens from the police until she was riding the bus on her way home.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Saturday, January 15, 2011
The Palanquin
It wasn't until almost ten in the morning that Mel got around to checking her messages. Last night had been a late one. Some idiot had tried to start a fight in the main club room. He was drunk, else he probably wouldn't have done so right in front of Gregor. The Case 53 was more than a little intimidating. Unfortunately, the idiot had also had two slightly less drunk friends that took exception to Gregor manhandling him out the door. The resulting mess had sent one of the idiots to the hospital and required hours of cleanup. PHO came up, and she saw that she had three personal secure messages. That was highly unusual. Secured messages generally meant professional cape business, and it was rare for her to get three of them in a single week, never mind overnight. She opened the first.
HideAndSeek: There was an unexpected visitor in SJN. They implied knowledge they shouldn't have and left contact info. I'm sending them to you to validate. I'm also calling in a favor. Expect visitors. Teleporter involved.
Well...that was interesting. SJN was St. John's, Newfoundland, and in this context, it meant somebody was snooping around Richter's old house. Having a teleporting cape explained how they got in and out before the PRT, the Guild, or anybody else showed up to take them into custody. She opened up the next message.
DocRock: Bringing team to BB on the morning of the 16th thanks to a mutual Northern friend.
Mel's eyes widened a bit. That visit in Canada must really have stirred up some things if they were coming to town. That was probably the favor referenced in the first message. Hopefully, they would at least try to be discreet.
The next message, combined with the first two, made her worried.
SoleSurvivor: Orders from the CD to keep your place under surveillance.
She frowned. As Faultline, she had managed to get through quite a large number of difficult situations. Having plain-clothed PRT in her club on a weekend filled with high-profile visitors wasn't the most difficult chore she had ever had, but there was an annoyingly high chance of something unexpected happening. In this kind of company, "unexpected" could quickly turn into, "explosive." It would be better to force a change of venue. If her backup was going to be here tomorrow morning, then she could set something up at an alternate site that was prepared in advance. Picking up the phone on her desk, she pressed one of the preset numbers. After four rings, Carl picked up.
"Hey, Mel, what can I do for my favorite business partner?"
Mel could hear noise from the kitchen in the background. "As far as I know, Carl, I'm your only business partner."
"Just proves me right, then."
Mel smirked. "Carl, I need to use the basement room tomorrow afternoon. Around two."
There was a pause. "Do I need to close the place down?"
"I would rather you didn't, actually. This is low profile."
"And this will be a quiet meeting?" he asked. It was a fair question. Anything involving capes had the potential to boil over into something dangerous.
"The Doctor and his team are going to be providing security, so we'll make sure it stays quiet," she replied.
This led to a much longer pause. "Well, shit. All right. Let me know if anything changes."
"Of course. Thanks for this."
He scoffed. "You own half of this place, Mel. You don't have to thank me."
She smiled. "Nevertheless, thank you anyway." After he acknowledged her comment, they ended the call.
"Something happening tomorrow?" asked Mark for the door to her office.
She looked over at him. He was older than she was, but he carried his age better. His face looked maybe a decade younger than his actual age, even with the signs of stress that came from a violent and troubled life. It was quite a contrast to her own sharp features. People always said she looked older than her years. It was amusing that the combination made them look like they were the same age when there was more than a decade between them.
"Take a look at this," she said, motioning toward her computer screen.
Mark, the cape known more popularly as Flashbang, walked over and looked over her shoulder. The normally calm and polite man uttered a rather vile expletive.
She laughed. "You have a way with words, but I can't argue with your summation."
He just shook his head. Tomorrow was going to be interesting.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The Angels were all gathered in the conference room again with Sammy and Metis. The AI was giving a briefing.
"We received a message at the PHO account Metis scrawled on the stuffed animal we left at Richter's. It simply said, 'Go to the Palanquin in Brockton Bay; ask the owner about the Canadian computer industry.' The owner of the Palanquin is a cape known as Faultline. Unlike some of the other capes in this world, Faultline seems on the surface to be similar to the versions known in the mirror realities. She's a mercenary who takes a particular interest in helping Case 53 capes. If anything, Case 53's in this world need the help even more than in the other worlds, so perhaps she's somewhat more altruistic than mercenary," said the transparent bear image.
"Perhaps, but I wouldn't expect it to be that simple," added Metis. "This mirror reality is more like the mirror in a funhouse, with plenty of distortions."
"What can we expect at the Palanquin?" asked Vala.
The AI avatar opened a window with a list of capes. "Faultline's Crew in this world is slightly different from in the other two. The most surprising addition is Mark Dallon, a.k.a. Flashbang. In Skitter's and Saurial's realities, he's part of the group New Wave with his wife, daughters, and his sister-in-law's family. Here, his wife is dead, he never adopted Amy Dallon, and his daughter is in the Wards. The Pelhams appear to live in Philadelphia. His power allows him to create bouncing grenades of varying force made of light constructs." Sammy brought up the image of a cape in a dark costume and a welder's mask. "Faultline herself is the leader of the team, and she has the ability to make a hole or cut in any substance. The sole exception we've discovered is EDM."
Next, there came a picture of a team, the majority of whom appeared clearly inhuman. "Her team includes Gregor the Snail, a Case 53 who is a walking chemical factory; Newter, another case 53 who is an extremely agile fighter and whose skin and body fluids contain a powerful hallucinogen; Spitfire, a woman who is essentially a living flamethrower; Shamrock, who uses low-powered clairvoyance and telekinesis to appear lucky; and Whippersnap, a Case 53 who is excessively thin and has super-speed."
"What about Labyrinth?" asked Metis, who was familiar with the alternate versions of Faultline's Crew.
Sammy shook her head. "Elle Larsson is still confined to a sanitarium for problematic parahumans in upstate New York."
"Tough team, nevertheless," said Vala.
"We're not planning on fighting them, though," commented William, the former vampire. "We're still trying to find out what happened to that Richter fellow, right?"
Flint snorted. "Doesn't mean it won't happen, though." William acknowledged that with a nod.
"Isn't the whole city filled to the brim with super-heroes and super-villains?" asked Faith. "Seems like we could run into almost anybody."
The AI nodded. "There are a large number of capes of various moral and ethical persuasions. There are three major parahuman gangs -- the Empire 88, led by Kaiser, the Asian Bad Boyz, led by Lung, and the Archer's Bridge Merchants, led by Skidmark. You all have summary documents in your in-boxes describing the various powers and abilities possessed by each gang. The Undersiders are a less well-known gang. While it isn't publicly known, they are actually affiliated with the local Dock Workers' Union. Their membership includes Skitter -- a mirror version of Taylor Hebert almost certainly. Given how effective she has proven in two different universes, my suggestion is that you try to avoid the Undersiders if at all possible."
"I second that suggestion. Both versions of Taylor that I have met are exceedingly dangerous," agreed Metis seriously. While Saurial was of course the definition of an unstoppable force, there was evidence that Skitter was well on her way to becoming an insanely powerful warlord and master-class cape prior to her introduction to the Family.
"What about the government capes?" asked William.
"The local PRT Director is a man named Thomas Calvert. In both mirrors, he was secretly a super-villain known as Coil. He was a precognitive with the ability to model two different future paths and keep the one he preferred. It is unclear what his powers in this reality are...or even if he has any. The Protectorate team and Wards are similar to what we've seen elsewhere, though there are variations. Battery doesn't appear to exist, and there's evidence that a male cape with similar powers is a member of the Undersiders. Triumph also doesn't exist and has no obvious analog. Two known rogues from the mirror have joined the Protectorate here, Parian and Circus, the latter of which goes by the cape name, 'Jester,' in this reality. Armsmaster, Miss Militia, Velocity, and Assault are also members. Dauntless was a member, but he was killed in a fight with the Empire 88 six months ago."
"The Wards are also different. The group is missing both Vista and Shadow Stalker, but includes Glory Girl, Timestop, known as Clockblocker in other worlds, Morph, a tinker who appears to be this world's version of Kid Win, Galant, Aegis, and two precogs who aren't field capes -- Hunch and Foresight. The former is a Case 53 that was part of the Boston Ward team in the mirror universes, and the latter is a young girl who might be this universe's analog of Dinah Alcott, although her officially-reported abilities are more limited than would be expected."
"If the PRT here has access to two capes with precognitive abilities, then it is surprising that they aren't more dominant," commented Seven. "The ability to predict the future is a significant tactical and strategic advantage."
Metis frowned. "Thomas Calvert in the other universes fancied himself as a chess-master. He played all of the gangs against each other, with the eventual goal of running both the legal and illegal sides of Brockton Bay as a modern-day feudal lord. It's likely that his ultimate plan isn't obvious, and he could very well be playing a longer game with most of his moves concealed."
"So how do we want to run this? Who's going in to make contact with Faultline?" asked Vala.
"I think Flint and Faith should go in on the ground," said the large black reptile. "Both are capable of taking serious hits. The rest of us can be ready to provide backup as necessary. It may even turn out to be a simple conversation without any violence." Metis noticed with a grin that everybody looked highly skeptical of that, even Sammy's avatar. "It has happened before, you know. Saurial even had a cordial meeting with Lung, once."
"I believe that was after Kaiju threatened to eat him if he didn't behave himself," replied Sammy. "I don't believe that we should use the Family as a baseline for assessing likely events. Things tend to skew rather drastically in their favor, for reasons I have yet to quantify."
"Perhaps Metis should go, then," suggested Seven.
"While we want to draw attention," replied Metis, "we probably don't want to draw that much attention at this time. My presence would probably be enough to draw the entire Protectorate down on us. I think there are a lot of things going on here behind the scenes, and I want to know more before we trigger a confrontation like that."
Sammy nodded. "While I have no doubt about your ability to win a fight with the local capes, I'm not certain we want to deal with this universe's Triumvirate, not to mention Scion. It also isn't clear how we should deal with them. For all we know, the mirror version of Scion may be completely benevolent." Of course, if that wasn't the case, then she might get a chance to use the massive coaxial cannon that Vectura built into the Smug Advocacy. She couldn't deny being curious to see how effective it would be against a Scion analog.
"I guess that means we get to see what Flint looks like when he's all dressed up," commented Faith with a grin.
The man in question simply shifted his form so that he appeared to be wearing a tuxedo, complete with black tie. He smirked and raised an eyebrow at her.
She looked him over critically. "Might be slightly dressy for clubbing in the Bay."
With a shrug, he shifted again into a slacks-and-blazer combo that looked more appropriate. "I'm flexible."
"Is anybody else jealous of people who can make clothes appear from nowhere?" asked Vala.
Anya, Faith, and, strangely enough, Metis raised their hand, followed shortly by both Seven and William. Flint simply smirked, while Sammy rolled her holographic eyes.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Later that evening, Flint and Faith were walking uphill toward the Palanquin. Flint was dressed as before, while Faith had a black mini-dress which should have been too cold for the evening weather. It was eight o'clock, so the line to get into the club was still relatively short. On a Saturday night, that still meant a ten-minute wait. The bouncers at the door wanded them with metal detectors, but neither of them was carrying anything that would set them off. On the off chance that they needed anything heavier than fists, the rest of the team could teleport it to them.
There were at least three different dance floors inside. One on the ground floor had a live DJ who seemed to like an eclectic mix of pop-style dance music, while the second had a preset mix of electro and techno. The upstairs floor was slightly quieter and had a much more elaborate bar. The bar was clearly the focus on this floor, whereas downstairs they were mostly adjuncts to the dance floor. There was also a second-floor lounge that had a variety of well-dressed folks talking, drinking, and smoking. It was clear that the rules about drug use were fairly lax, though that was probably to be expected in a club owned by a cape team that included a couple of walking chemical factories.
"You noticed the watchers?" asked Flint sotto voice after they had done a transit through all the rooms.
Faith nodded. "At least three undercover."
"Four," he replied. "The last one is really good -- guy with the green shirt at the lounge bar."
"So what do you think?" she asked. "Gregor is in the lounge. We can try talking to him."
Flint frowned. "They're watching him, though. They know something is going to go down here. If we're lucky, it has nothing to do with us."
She laughed. "Yeah, right. Let's talk to the bartender in the techno room. He didn't look as busy, and it's loud enough in there to cover the conversation."
The two headed back down to the ground floor. Flint was tempted to go to sand form and try and do some reconnaissance in the non-public areas of the club, but it wasn't clear if the group here were allies or enemies, and potentially pissing them off before finding out was unwise. When they got to the bar, they waited patiently until the bartender finished fixing a pair of mixed drinks for a couple of college-aged girls. Finally, he turned his attention to them. "What can I get you?"
Faith smiled at him and asked, "We're looking for the owner. We were told she had some advice for us about the Canadian computer industry." She felt a little silly asking for something in spy code like that, but it was what the message had said.
The bartender paused for a moment, then said, "Let me check on that for you." He went to the back of the bar and picked up a phone handset. After saying a few words, he came back and told them, "Somebody will be with you in a moment. Would you like something to drink on the house?"
"Jack and Coke," replied Faith.
Flint shrugged. "Give me whatever you've got in a local brew."
The bartender smiled at him. "We have one that we get through one of the dockside bars. It's quite popular." Flint just nodded, and the bartender fixed their drinks.
After a few minutes of waiting without saying much, a red-haired woman in a green dress came out onto the floor and came over to them. "I'm sorry, but the owner is indisposed at the moment. She did give me this for you, however." She had in her hand an envelope made of high-quality paper. "I believe you'll find everything you need in here." Her smile didn't reach her eyes.
Flint took the envelope. "Thank you. I'm sorry we missed her." The redhead nodded and left, heading back toward the employee entrance. To Faith, he said, "I think we should head toward the restrooms."
She nodded her agreement and the two quickly made their way into the hallway of the club leading to the bathrooms. There was a locked supply closet on the way. Keeping an eye out for other people, Flint sent a tendril of sand under the door and up to the doorknob on the inside to unlock the door. The two slipped inside. A flash of light soon indicated that the two had vanished, leaving at least two very confused PRT undercover agents mingling with the crowd and trying to figure out where the two strangers who had gotten special attention had gone.
Up on the ship, Vala was waiting for them at the transporter station. "Everything OK?"
Flint held up the envelope and extended a thin blade made of sand under the flap, creating a makeshift letter opener. He tore through the flap, then slid out the enclosed piece of paper. "Meet us at 3 pm tomorrow at the back door to Fugley Bob's restaurant," he read out loud. "Palanquin is being watched by the authorities."
"Huh," said Faith. "There's some assumptions built into that note."
Vala looked over Flint's shoulder at the note. "Probably fair ones, though. If we weren't wary of the authorities, then Anya would have just waited for Legend to show up instead of vanishing." The ship's scanners had clearly shown the Protectorate leader arriving over the house in Newfoundland.
"It also takes any potential conflict away from their primary business and place of residence," added Flint. "But why not just send us there to start?"
"Something changed," suggested Faith. "Either that or Faultline's team isn't fully on the same page as the person who sent us the original message."
"I guess we'll find out tomorrow," said Vala.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Brockton Bay
Victor was looking at his watch impatiently. There were supposed to be ten men here to help load merchandise onto a pair of trucks, and only seven had shown up. None of the ones here knew anything about where the other three were. He called a number that connected to an Empire informant at the BBPD.
A rough male voice answered. "This is Sergeant Thompson speaking."
"This is Victor. I need to know if any of our boys were picked up in the last twenty-four hours," said Victor without bothering with polite niceties. Thompson knew the score, so he wouldn't be dumb enough to complain.
There was a brief pause. "The only arrests last night were a pickpocket on the Boardwalk and a couple of Merchants trying to mug a tourist. Let me double-check the sheet." He could hear the sound of a keyboard. "OK, there was a call last night but no arrests. That's why it didn't cross my desk. A car went out to a suspected domestic, but found five young men in need of medical attention. Four of them are in the hospital, one with gunshot wounds. Here, I'll give you the names."
Much to Victor's annoyance, three of the four in the hospital were the men who were supposed to show up. The one out of the hospital was a name he didn't recognize. "What can you tell me about Ricky Dasich?"
"Hm..." muttered the cop. "Looks like he's still in high school. Winslow, not surprisingly. The report says a follow-up call to the hospital found that the kid checked himself out of the hospital AMA. He had some reason to not want to stick around."
The Empire cape pondered that. "All right. Keep an eye out for any more information." He hung up the phone. He needed to get these crates loaded, which was going to be a pain in the ass because they were short-handed. Then he would pay a visit to the hospital with Othala in order to find out what happened. Depending upon what he heard, little Ricky might be getting a visit after that. Whether he would enjoy that visit was still up in the air.
Friday, January 14, 2011
Winslow High School
Macy, Sophia, and Miguel were waiting for his bus at the stop down the street from the school.
"You don't have to escort me home. I can take care of myself," said Miguel.
Macy shook her head. "It's fine, Miguel. You're our friend. Cass would be here too, but she has a much longer trip home and her parents had something for her to do tonight."
With some concern, he replied, "But I don't want you two to be targeted by the Empire, too."
As the bus pulled in, Sophia answered, "You're not targeted by the Empire. You're targeted by a bunch of racist kids who want to be Empire because they think it's cool. They won't be so brave against a group."
The three teens got on the bus using their student bus passes. It was only a twelve-minute ride to Miguel's neighborhood, with only one stop in between. He actually lived a little closer to the school than Sophia did -- close enough to walk if the weather was nice and he left a little early. The weather today was not so warm to make that appealing, though.
The two girls noticed that there were a couple of teens hanging around near the bus stop at their destination. They must have cut out early or skipped entirely to get there before the three of them. Macy commented, "The kid on the right with the earring is Ricky." Neither of the two punks acted like they noticed the three teens getting off the bus, but Sophia thought they seemed a little too casual about it (assuming that was a thing and not just Hollywood pretense). She kept an eye on them until they were around the corner.
At the door to Miguel's apartment building, he turned to them. "Thanks for this. I would invite you in, but...well, my family gets upset at unexpected company."
"It's OK," said Sophia, with Macy nodding her agreement. "We just wanted to see you home." Both girls knew that the boy's family was a little unusual.
He smiled at them again, then went inside with a wave. They noticed that the security doors didn't seem to be working properly, as he was able to go inside without any kind of key. That was a little worrying, but it wasn't something they could do anything about. The two left to walk back and wait for the bus.
As they turned the corner, they noticed that the two kids from earlier were still there, but now they weren't alone. There were now four more men, and these didn't look like high school kids. They were in their twenties and had clear signs of being Empire 88. There were jacket patches, visible tattoos, and all four had either buzz cuts or shaved heads. One of them noticed the two black girls walking to the bus and stared at them. He continued to stare at them as they waited until the next bus arrived.
"I don't like the look of that," commented Sophia.
Macy bit her lip. "Should we call the police?"
Sophia grimaced. "And tell them what? Some Empire members are standing on a street corner?" The police had enough to do around Brockton Bay that they weren't likely to do even a drive-by for something like that, especially in that neighborhood.
Macy pulled out her phone. "I'm going to text Miguel. Maybe his family can protect themselves if they try anything."
Giving them some forewarning was a start, but Sophia was worried that it might not be enough. She pulled out her phone and brought up a map of the neighborhood. There wasn't much here...but she did see something that gave her an idea. When the next bus finally arrived, she said to Macy, "You go ahead. I've got to check something out."
"Are you crazy?" asked Macy, clearly wondering what her friend was thinking.
Sophia just pushed her friend toward the open door. "Trust me. I'll be fine."
Reluctantly (and to the slight annoyance of the bus driver), the other girl slowly got on the bus. As it pulled away, Sophia used the cover of the bus to dart into a nearby alley. It wasn't particularly clean and smelled foul, but it was out of sight of the gang members and it led to another street that held the shop that had caught her attention on the map. The alley also happened to be empty, luckily for her. It wouldn't do to get mugged on the way to trying to stop an assault. On the next street was a thrift shop. The shop was locked up tight with metal sliding doors covering the windows, as it was only open three days a week and Friday wasn't one of those days. Keeping an eye on the street, Sophia walked over to the shop, then stepped into the alley that ran beside it. Just as she hoped, there was a back entrance off the alley. This was locked up tight as well, of course, but doors were no longer much of an obstacle for her.
The inside of the shop was dark, though bits of light did filter in through the cracks around the security doors. There was a dim orange glow from a lava lamp sitting on the counter that somebody had neglected to turn off. It was close enough to a stack of unfolded clothes that she thought it was a wonder that the place hadn't burned down already. She actually moved the pile of clothes, not wanting a fire to start while she was in the process of robbing the place. She didn't really want to rob the place, but she also didn't feel like exposing her identity as a cape to the Empire thugs threatening her friend's family.
The shop wasn't particularly well-equipped, but what it did have was a plethora of old clothes -- clothes that she could use to hide her identity. Searching quickly, she found a pair of faded black jeans that would fit her and provide more protection than her current skirt and tights. She also found a black turtleneck that was slightly too small, a pair of black leather gloves, a dark blue hooded sweatshirt that had the logo of a triple-A baseball team in New York, a dark maroon scarf to cover her lower face, and a cheap black domino mask from a half-missing Halloween costume. Overall, she looked more like a homeless person than a superhero, but you couldn't tell what she looked like with the hood up. Her most useful find was behind the sales counter. There was a black aluminum baseball bat and what felt like a half-empty can of cheap pepper spray. Putting her original clothes inside a canvas shopping bag, she exited back into the alley. She hid her bag behind a dumpster in the alley, wincing a little at the odor, and hurried out to look for the thugs.
It said something about Brockton Bay that not one person appeared to notice or react to somebody with a covered face walking on the street with a baseball bat in her hand. To be fair, it said more about the neighborhood than the city overall. She likely wouldn't have gotten away with it on the Boardwalk or in front of the PRT building. Regardless, Sophia quickly headed to where the group of Empire thugs had been talking near the bus stop. Her anxiety increased when she saw they were no longer there, and she rapidly began walking toward Miguel's building. As she turned the corner, she saw the last of the gang members entering the front door through the broken security doors.
She broke into a sprint. She knew Miguel and his family lived on the third floor, so it would take them time to call the elevator or take the stairs. Fighting in a narrow hallway or stairwell would make it easier to take on six people at once...hopefully. There was a small little voice in the back of her brain saying that she was being an idiot, but there was also an atavistic thrill at the idea of getting into a fight. The latter was clearly winning.
Three of the older gangers were visible in the hall. The other three had entered the stairwell at the end of the entrance hall. The flickering exit sign over the door implied a fire exit as well. Maybe if she attacked quickly, the others would make a run for it? She broke into a sprint, raising the bat for a sideways swing. The hall was barely wide enough to swing it, though she could cheat a bit with her powers. The bat swung through an arc, the very tip of it going shadow as it passed through a box containing a fire extinguisher, and impacted the side of one of the ruffians. He cried out and fell to the side, his hand holding his ribs...which were undoubtedly bruised if not broken.
"What the fuck?" said one of the other two in the hall. The other started reaching in his pocket for something. She jumped forward and jammed the tip of the bat into his nose hard, causing him to stumble back and cry out. The vocal one tried to grab for the bat, only to stare in shock as it phased to shadow and passed through his hand and wrist. "We've got a cape!" he yelled to the others in the hall. He stepped forward and took a swing at her. Sophia phased and stepped through him, then used the butt of the bat to slam into the back of his head. This pushed his head into the wall, and he fell down insensate.
The one with the bruised ribs was pulling himself to his feet using the wall, and he turned to face her. With a snarl, he launched himself bodily at her. She jumped up and phased to shadow, leaping through him. She tried to twist in mid-air but stumbled a bit on the landing. He tripped over the leg of his unconscious friend and fell down again. Rushing over to him, she brought the bat down on his back, knocking him to the ground. He groaned in pain and stayed down.
Behind her, the older gang member from the stairwell came out. He had a hunting knife in his hand and was watching her warily. She held the bat in a guard position, and the two advanced toward each other. As he swung the knife, she moved as if to block it with the bat, but instead phased to shadow and let the swing pass through the bat. Her opponent clearly was expecting a block and lost his balance from the lack of resistance. She pushed the bat forward like a staff and slammed it into his face. The blow stunned him, and it gave her plenty of time to bring the bat down on his head. He fell to the ground and the knife dropped from his hand.
Sophia turned and phased through the doorway into the stairwell. The two teens from Winslow were in there...Ricky and his unnamed friend. The friend looked at her phasing through the door, yelled, "Fuck this shit!", and bolted for the fire exit. Ricky, on the other hand, pulled out a snub-nosed revolver and started shooting. She could feel it as the six bullets passed through her shadow state. When the gun was empty, he continued pulling the trigger manically. She stepped forward and slammed the bat into his face twice. He stood there for a second with a puzzled look on his face, then fell forward into unconsciousness.
She turned back to the doorway to the entrance hall, only to find that one of the older Empire members had come in through the door while Ricky was shooting, and was lying on the floor bleeding out from two bullet holes in his chest. His nose was also bleeding, which meant that he was probably the one who had been reaching for a weapon, and she could see a switchblade in his hand. She frowned. The gun had probably been meant for Miguel or his family as part of some kind of initiation, so she didn't feel too badly for the one who was shot. The gunshots meant that somebody would call the police, however, and they would likely be showing up eventually. Miguel's family was probably safe for now, so that meant it was time to go.
The alley behind the fire exit was empty. Ricky's friend must have kept running when he got outside. From there, it wasn't hard to go back to where she had stashed her clothes. She packed her outfit and weapons in the same bag and headed for the bus. She didn't hear the sirens from the police until she was riding the bus on her way home.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Saturday, January 15, 2011
The Palanquin
It wasn't until almost ten in the morning that Mel got around to checking her messages. Last night had been a late one. Some idiot had tried to start a fight in the main club room. He was drunk, else he probably wouldn't have done so right in front of Gregor. The Case 53 was more than a little intimidating. Unfortunately, the idiot had also had two slightly less drunk friends that took exception to Gregor manhandling him out the door. The resulting mess had sent one of the idiots to the hospital and required hours of cleanup. PHO came up, and she saw that she had three personal secure messages. That was highly unusual. Secured messages generally meant professional cape business, and it was rare for her to get three of them in a single week, never mind overnight. She opened the first.
HideAndSeek: There was an unexpected visitor in SJN. They implied knowledge they shouldn't have and left contact info. I'm sending them to you to validate. I'm also calling in a favor. Expect visitors. Teleporter involved.
Well...that was interesting. SJN was St. John's, Newfoundland, and in this context, it meant somebody was snooping around Richter's old house. Having a teleporting cape explained how they got in and out before the PRT, the Guild, or anybody else showed up to take them into custody. She opened up the next message.
DocRock: Bringing team to BB on the morning of the 16th thanks to a mutual Northern friend.
Mel's eyes widened a bit. That visit in Canada must really have stirred up some things if they were coming to town. That was probably the favor referenced in the first message. Hopefully, they would at least try to be discreet.
The next message, combined with the first two, made her worried.
SoleSurvivor: Orders from the CD to keep your place under surveillance.
She frowned. As Faultline, she had managed to get through quite a large number of difficult situations. Having plain-clothed PRT in her club on a weekend filled with high-profile visitors wasn't the most difficult chore she had ever had, but there was an annoyingly high chance of something unexpected happening. In this kind of company, "unexpected" could quickly turn into, "explosive." It would be better to force a change of venue. If her backup was going to be here tomorrow morning, then she could set something up at an alternate site that was prepared in advance. Picking up the phone on her desk, she pressed one of the preset numbers. After four rings, Carl picked up.
"Hey, Mel, what can I do for my favorite business partner?"
Mel could hear noise from the kitchen in the background. "As far as I know, Carl, I'm your only business partner."
"Just proves me right, then."
Mel smirked. "Carl, I need to use the basement room tomorrow afternoon. Around two."
There was a pause. "Do I need to close the place down?"
"I would rather you didn't, actually. This is low profile."
"And this will be a quiet meeting?" he asked. It was a fair question. Anything involving capes had the potential to boil over into something dangerous.
"The Doctor and his team are going to be providing security, so we'll make sure it stays quiet," she replied.
This led to a much longer pause. "Well, shit. All right. Let me know if anything changes."
"Of course. Thanks for this."
He scoffed. "You own half of this place, Mel. You don't have to thank me."
She smiled. "Nevertheless, thank you anyway." After he acknowledged her comment, they ended the call.
"Something happening tomorrow?" asked Mark for the door to her office.
She looked over at him. He was older than she was, but he carried his age better. His face looked maybe a decade younger than his actual age, even with the signs of stress that came from a violent and troubled life. It was quite a contrast to her own sharp features. People always said she looked older than her years. It was amusing that the combination made them look like they were the same age when there was more than a decade between them.
"Take a look at this," she said, motioning toward her computer screen.
Mark, the cape known more popularly as Flashbang, walked over and looked over her shoulder. The normally calm and polite man uttered a rather vile expletive.
She laughed. "You have a way with words, but I can't argue with your summation."
He just shook his head. Tomorrow was going to be interesting.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The Angels were all gathered in the conference room again with Sammy and Metis. The AI was giving a briefing.
"We received a message at the PHO account Metis scrawled on the stuffed animal we left at Richter's. It simply said, 'Go to the Palanquin in Brockton Bay; ask the owner about the Canadian computer industry.' The owner of the Palanquin is a cape known as Faultline. Unlike some of the other capes in this world, Faultline seems on the surface to be similar to the versions known in the mirror realities. She's a mercenary who takes a particular interest in helping Case 53 capes. If anything, Case 53's in this world need the help even more than in the other worlds, so perhaps she's somewhat more altruistic than mercenary," said the transparent bear image.
"Perhaps, but I wouldn't expect it to be that simple," added Metis. "This mirror reality is more like the mirror in a funhouse, with plenty of distortions."
"What can we expect at the Palanquin?" asked Vala.
The AI avatar opened a window with a list of capes. "Faultline's Crew in this world is slightly different from in the other two. The most surprising addition is Mark Dallon, a.k.a. Flashbang. In Skitter's and Saurial's realities, he's part of the group New Wave with his wife, daughters, and his sister-in-law's family. Here, his wife is dead, he never adopted Amy Dallon, and his daughter is in the Wards. The Pelhams appear to live in Philadelphia. His power allows him to create bouncing grenades of varying force made of light constructs." Sammy brought up the image of a cape in a dark costume and a welder's mask. "Faultline herself is the leader of the team, and she has the ability to make a hole or cut in any substance. The sole exception we've discovered is EDM."
Next, there came a picture of a team, the majority of whom appeared clearly inhuman. "Her team includes Gregor the Snail, a Case 53 who is a walking chemical factory; Newter, another case 53 who is an extremely agile fighter and whose skin and body fluids contain a powerful hallucinogen; Spitfire, a woman who is essentially a living flamethrower; Shamrock, who uses low-powered clairvoyance and telekinesis to appear lucky; and Whippersnap, a Case 53 who is excessively thin and has super-speed."
"What about Labyrinth?" asked Metis, who was familiar with the alternate versions of Faultline's Crew.
Sammy shook her head. "Elle Larsson is still confined to a sanitarium for problematic parahumans in upstate New York."
"Tough team, nevertheless," said Vala.
"We're not planning on fighting them, though," commented William, the former vampire. "We're still trying to find out what happened to that Richter fellow, right?"
Flint snorted. "Doesn't mean it won't happen, though." William acknowledged that with a nod.
"Isn't the whole city filled to the brim with super-heroes and super-villains?" asked Faith. "Seems like we could run into almost anybody."
The AI nodded. "There are a large number of capes of various moral and ethical persuasions. There are three major parahuman gangs -- the Empire 88, led by Kaiser, the Asian Bad Boyz, led by Lung, and the Archer's Bridge Merchants, led by Skidmark. You all have summary documents in your in-boxes describing the various powers and abilities possessed by each gang. The Undersiders are a less well-known gang. While it isn't publicly known, they are actually affiliated with the local Dock Workers' Union. Their membership includes Skitter -- a mirror version of Taylor Hebert almost certainly. Given how effective she has proven in two different universes, my suggestion is that you try to avoid the Undersiders if at all possible."
"I second that suggestion. Both versions of Taylor that I have met are exceedingly dangerous," agreed Metis seriously. While Saurial was of course the definition of an unstoppable force, there was evidence that Skitter was well on her way to becoming an insanely powerful warlord and master-class cape prior to her introduction to the Family.
"What about the government capes?" asked William.
"The local PRT Director is a man named Thomas Calvert. In both mirrors, he was secretly a super-villain known as Coil. He was a precognitive with the ability to model two different future paths and keep the one he preferred. It is unclear what his powers in this reality are...or even if he has any. The Protectorate team and Wards are similar to what we've seen elsewhere, though there are variations. Battery doesn't appear to exist, and there's evidence that a male cape with similar powers is a member of the Undersiders. Triumph also doesn't exist and has no obvious analog. Two known rogues from the mirror have joined the Protectorate here, Parian and Circus, the latter of which goes by the cape name, 'Jester,' in this reality. Armsmaster, Miss Militia, Velocity, and Assault are also members. Dauntless was a member, but he was killed in a fight with the Empire 88 six months ago."
"The Wards are also different. The group is missing both Vista and Shadow Stalker, but includes Glory Girl, Timestop, known as Clockblocker in other worlds, Morph, a tinker who appears to be this world's version of Kid Win, Galant, Aegis, and two precogs who aren't field capes -- Hunch and Foresight. The former is a Case 53 that was part of the Boston Ward team in the mirror universes, and the latter is a young girl who might be this universe's analog of Dinah Alcott, although her officially-reported abilities are more limited than would be expected."
"If the PRT here has access to two capes with precognitive abilities, then it is surprising that they aren't more dominant," commented Seven. "The ability to predict the future is a significant tactical and strategic advantage."
Metis frowned. "Thomas Calvert in the other universes fancied himself as a chess-master. He played all of the gangs against each other, with the eventual goal of running both the legal and illegal sides of Brockton Bay as a modern-day feudal lord. It's likely that his ultimate plan isn't obvious, and he could very well be playing a longer game with most of his moves concealed."
"So how do we want to run this? Who's going in to make contact with Faultline?" asked Vala.
"I think Flint and Faith should go in on the ground," said the large black reptile. "Both are capable of taking serious hits. The rest of us can be ready to provide backup as necessary. It may even turn out to be a simple conversation without any violence." Metis noticed with a grin that everybody looked highly skeptical of that, even Sammy's avatar. "It has happened before, you know. Saurial even had a cordial meeting with Lung, once."
"I believe that was after Kaiju threatened to eat him if he didn't behave himself," replied Sammy. "I don't believe that we should use the Family as a baseline for assessing likely events. Things tend to skew rather drastically in their favor, for reasons I have yet to quantify."
"Perhaps Metis should go, then," suggested Seven.
"While we want to draw attention," replied Metis, "we probably don't want to draw that much attention at this time. My presence would probably be enough to draw the entire Protectorate down on us. I think there are a lot of things going on here behind the scenes, and I want to know more before we trigger a confrontation like that."
Sammy nodded. "While I have no doubt about your ability to win a fight with the local capes, I'm not certain we want to deal with this universe's Triumvirate, not to mention Scion. It also isn't clear how we should deal with them. For all we know, the mirror version of Scion may be completely benevolent." Of course, if that wasn't the case, then she might get a chance to use the massive coaxial cannon that Vectura built into the Smug Advocacy. She couldn't deny being curious to see how effective it would be against a Scion analog.
"I guess that means we get to see what Flint looks like when he's all dressed up," commented Faith with a grin.
The man in question simply shifted his form so that he appeared to be wearing a tuxedo, complete with black tie. He smirked and raised an eyebrow at her.
She looked him over critically. "Might be slightly dressy for clubbing in the Bay."
With a shrug, he shifted again into a slacks-and-blazer combo that looked more appropriate. "I'm flexible."
"Is anybody else jealous of people who can make clothes appear from nowhere?" asked Vala.
Anya, Faith, and, strangely enough, Metis raised their hand, followed shortly by both Seven and William. Flint simply smirked, while Sammy rolled her holographic eyes.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Later that evening, Flint and Faith were walking uphill toward the Palanquin. Flint was dressed as before, while Faith had a black mini-dress which should have been too cold for the evening weather. It was eight o'clock, so the line to get into the club was still relatively short. On a Saturday night, that still meant a ten-minute wait. The bouncers at the door wanded them with metal detectors, but neither of them was carrying anything that would set them off. On the off chance that they needed anything heavier than fists, the rest of the team could teleport it to them.
There were at least three different dance floors inside. One on the ground floor had a live DJ who seemed to like an eclectic mix of pop-style dance music, while the second had a preset mix of electro and techno. The upstairs floor was slightly quieter and had a much more elaborate bar. The bar was clearly the focus on this floor, whereas downstairs they were mostly adjuncts to the dance floor. There was also a second-floor lounge that had a variety of well-dressed folks talking, drinking, and smoking. It was clear that the rules about drug use were fairly lax, though that was probably to be expected in a club owned by a cape team that included a couple of walking chemical factories.
"You noticed the watchers?" asked Flint sotto voice after they had done a transit through all the rooms.
Faith nodded. "At least three undercover."
"Four," he replied. "The last one is really good -- guy with the green shirt at the lounge bar."
"So what do you think?" she asked. "Gregor is in the lounge. We can try talking to him."
Flint frowned. "They're watching him, though. They know something is going to go down here. If we're lucky, it has nothing to do with us."
She laughed. "Yeah, right. Let's talk to the bartender in the techno room. He didn't look as busy, and it's loud enough in there to cover the conversation."
The two headed back down to the ground floor. Flint was tempted to go to sand form and try and do some reconnaissance in the non-public areas of the club, but it wasn't clear if the group here were allies or enemies, and potentially pissing them off before finding out was unwise. When they got to the bar, they waited patiently until the bartender finished fixing a pair of mixed drinks for a couple of college-aged girls. Finally, he turned his attention to them. "What can I get you?"
Faith smiled at him and asked, "We're looking for the owner. We were told she had some advice for us about the Canadian computer industry." She felt a little silly asking for something in spy code like that, but it was what the message had said.
The bartender paused for a moment, then said, "Let me check on that for you." He went to the back of the bar and picked up a phone handset. After saying a few words, he came back and told them, "Somebody will be with you in a moment. Would you like something to drink on the house?"
"Jack and Coke," replied Faith.
Flint shrugged. "Give me whatever you've got in a local brew."
The bartender smiled at him. "We have one that we get through one of the dockside bars. It's quite popular." Flint just nodded, and the bartender fixed their drinks.
After a few minutes of waiting without saying much, a red-haired woman in a green dress came out onto the floor and came over to them. "I'm sorry, but the owner is indisposed at the moment. She did give me this for you, however." She had in her hand an envelope made of high-quality paper. "I believe you'll find everything you need in here." Her smile didn't reach her eyes.
Flint took the envelope. "Thank you. I'm sorry we missed her." The redhead nodded and left, heading back toward the employee entrance. To Faith, he said, "I think we should head toward the restrooms."
She nodded her agreement and the two quickly made their way into the hallway of the club leading to the bathrooms. There was a locked supply closet on the way. Keeping an eye out for other people, Flint sent a tendril of sand under the door and up to the doorknob on the inside to unlock the door. The two slipped inside. A flash of light soon indicated that the two had vanished, leaving at least two very confused PRT undercover agents mingling with the crowd and trying to figure out where the two strangers who had gotten special attention had gone.
Up on the ship, Vala was waiting for them at the transporter station. "Everything OK?"
Flint held up the envelope and extended a thin blade made of sand under the flap, creating a makeshift letter opener. He tore through the flap, then slid out the enclosed piece of paper. "Meet us at 3 pm tomorrow at the back door to Fugley Bob's restaurant," he read out loud. "Palanquin is being watched by the authorities."
"Huh," said Faith. "There's some assumptions built into that note."
Vala looked over Flint's shoulder at the note. "Probably fair ones, though. If we weren't wary of the authorities, then Anya would have just waited for Legend to show up instead of vanishing." The ship's scanners had clearly shown the Protectorate leader arriving over the house in Newfoundland.
"It also takes any potential conflict away from their primary business and place of residence," added Flint. "But why not just send us there to start?"
"Something changed," suggested Faith. "Either that or Faultline's team isn't fully on the same page as the person who sent us the original message."
"I guess we'll find out tomorrow," said Vala.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Brockton Bay
Victor was looking at his watch impatiently. There were supposed to be ten men here to help load merchandise onto a pair of trucks, and only seven had shown up. None of the ones here knew anything about where the other three were. He called a number that connected to an Empire informant at the BBPD.
A rough male voice answered. "This is Sergeant Thompson speaking."
"This is Victor. I need to know if any of our boys were picked up in the last twenty-four hours," said Victor without bothering with polite niceties. Thompson knew the score, so he wouldn't be dumb enough to complain.
There was a brief pause. "The only arrests last night were a pickpocket on the Boardwalk and a couple of Merchants trying to mug a tourist. Let me double-check the sheet." He could hear the sound of a keyboard. "OK, there was a call last night but no arrests. That's why it didn't cross my desk. A car went out to a suspected domestic, but found five young men in need of medical attention. Four of them are in the hospital, one with gunshot wounds. Here, I'll give you the names."
Much to Victor's annoyance, three of the four in the hospital were the men who were supposed to show up. The one out of the hospital was a name he didn't recognize. "What can you tell me about Ricky Dasich?"
"Hm..." muttered the cop. "Looks like he's still in high school. Winslow, not surprisingly. The report says a follow-up call to the hospital found that the kid checked himself out of the hospital AMA. He had some reason to not want to stick around."
The Empire cape pondered that. "All right. Keep an eye out for any more information." He hung up the phone. He needed to get these crates loaded, which was going to be a pain in the ass because they were short-handed. Then he would pay a visit to the hospital with Othala in order to find out what happened. Depending upon what he heard, little Ricky might be getting a visit after that. Whether he would enjoy that visit was still up in the air.
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Ace Dreamer
Verified Reality User
- Location
- Between The Unknown & The Known
should be 'of'?
This continues to look interesting... Who Faultline and crew are mixed-up with should be fun. Pity the Lizarding is being delayed.
Poor Sammy.
Non-quantifiable subject is non-quantifiable!
from what was stated in story, there's no record of Maquis having a daughter, and she was never adopted by the Dallons. so she either was never born or lives somewhere else and may not have triggered, or triggered with different powers and a different identity
- Location
- Maryland
There was a crossover fic between Exalted and Worm where Taylor was the Goblin Queen. I don't think I finished it (reading it), and I think it is unfinished (by the author). Of course, Taylor has had pretty much every superpower imaginable in different fics, including one from mp3.1415player where she was known as "God Empress Papercut," and even an entertaining series where she's a badass without any powers whatsoever (said name escapes me at the moment -- but she starts out as a PRT intern).
I will say that, as far as Demons and Angels is concerned, Rinke was confirmed dead in this universe after what is referred to as the Cleansing of Ellisburg.