- Location
- Australia
Director Piggot admits nothing.
I think I'll keep it the way it is, but thanks for the feedback.
Director Piggot admits nothing.
- Location
- Whadjuk Noongar boodja
Nah, it's not even that uncommon for someone to drop off the start in that sort of casual conversation, even inadvertently. I've done it myself a multitude of times. Most folks don't care even if/when they notice doing so.
Only someone that was
Part Thirty-Five: First Contact
- Location
- Australia
Earning Her Stripes
Part Thirty-Five: First Contact
[A/N: This chapter commissioned by @Fizzfaldt and beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]
A No-Tell Motel on the Outskirts of Brockton Bay
March
May waited until darkness had fallen before she headed out to prowl the night. She'd purposely chosen the motel for its lack of security cameras—the people who frequented a venue like that rarely wanted video proof of their indiscretions—and the incuriosity of its staff. This meant she could stroll out to her stolen car in full costume, though again minus the full-head mask, and nobody would pay the slightest bit of attention.
The parking lot was just as discreet, tucked in behind the main building to make it harder for suspicious spouses and nosy private investigators to spot guilty license plates. As she got in the car and started the engine, she wondered how many other supervillains used places like this as ad hoc bases of operation. It was certainly something to think about.
Once she'd cruised out onto the main drag, she applied thought to the next part of her plan. I need to start acquiring minions. While she was very goddamn effective on her own, having a bunch of people marching to her beat was a potent force multiplier. This worked even for non-capes, which was good, because the villains in town she could potentially recruit to her cause were very few and far between at the moment.
Fortunately, the two biggest gangs in town had literally just had their cape leadership stripped away from them, meaning there were two pools of potential recruits waiting for her to show up and claim them. It was true that the larger of these groups had been members of a white-supremacist gang, but she was an equal-opportunity employer; if they were willing to forget about that part of their lives, so was she.
But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Step one: find a cop car.
Monochrome
"Okay, so the Empire Eighty-Eight and ABB are falling apart by the day, but there's still a lot to do," Emma noted as Madison strode along the Boardwalk with me riding on one shoulder of the Blockade armour and Emma on the other. "We have ordinary crime, and there's always the chance of new villains coming to town."
"Yeah, Director Piggot seemed pretty sure that was going to happen," agreed Madison. "She's been doing this a lot longer than we have, so I'm not gonna second-guess her on that."
"Absolutely." I hitched myself a little higher and scanned up and down the Boardwalk; despite the fact that only the last fading glow of the sunset was showing over the hills to the west, the overhead street lighting was giving pretty good illumination. The only movement I saw was from people, mostly looking in our direction. "Seems like we've got enough respect around here that nobody's willing to pull any stunts while we're looking."
"That'll be down to you and Firebird." Even with the voice modulator, Madison sounded amused. "When you dragged that one purse-snatcher along the Boardwalk by his ankle, you got everyone's attention."
"Well, it was either that or by the scruff of his neck, and he was taller than me." I shrugged. "Besides, he called me some pretty nasty names when I stopped him. He needed to learn not to do that."
"I think that lesson was well and truly learned." Emma tossed one of her throwing discs in the air, then caught it again and snapped it back onto her arm bracer in one fluid motion. "Are we gonna patrol back along the Boardwalk when we get to the other end, or go somewhere else?"
I considered that for a moment. "The Boardwalk is pretty well covered by the cops and Wards as it is. We don't want them getting complacent elsewhere in town, so we'll move along and check out the Trainyards before we finish up tonight." It was a school night after all, which meant it'd be a good idea to get home before midnight, at least for me and Madison. Emma could get by on just a couple of hours of sleep, the big cheating cheater.
"I'm down with that." Madison's voice was full of satisfaction. They'd told me about the encounters they'd had with the Merchants while they were still building their reputation as heroes. Madison in particular had issues with drug dealers hanging around and harassing people. "If we can clean that area up and keep it that way, it'll make it easier to get the Port back up and running when the time comes."
"Absolutely." Emma waved to a couple of people who'd stopped to take a photo of us. "And if any of these villains do stick their heads up, we'll smack 'em down again. Because that's what we do."
That was my view too. "Damn right."
March
Before she set out to acquire a cop car, March decided to modify her own ride to make matters more convenient. First and foremost, she needed to be wearing her mask when she encountered them, and the roof of the car made that problematic. With this in mind, she used her empowered rapier to slice away the roof, door pillars, window frames, and rear window, in chunks small enough for her to handle. After smoothing off the rough edges, she got back into her newly-converted roadster and began the hunt.
As far as she was concerned, a poor hunter went looking for the prey, a mediocre hunter waited for them, and a good hunter drew the prey to them. So she set out breaking the law in the most flashy and egregious way possible: by blatantly exceeding the speed limit, all the way through town. A speeding car combined an obviously illegal act, a chance to drive fast with the siren on, and the opportunity to yell at someone in the name of the law; by her understanding, it was catnip to the average police officer.
She picked up her expected tail just a few minutes later, after her third four-wheel-drift around a random corner. He was still a ways back, though, so she decided to make him work to catch up with her. From what she remembered of the map, the waterfront was just up ahead: a boardwalk along the shore, paralleled by a long boulevard called Lord Street.
She'd let him chase her until she found a nice quiet place to conduct business, then the chase would be over and the next stage in the plan would take place. This would possibly entail the cop dying, depending on how stupid he wanted to be. It would absolutely end with her driving off with her very own cop car, slightly used, one previous owner.
The reason she wanted a cop car was simple: police-band radio, with wheels attached. At some point, the remnants of the Empire Eighty-Eight and the ABB would try to supplement their current savings with some crime, petty or otherwise. Without their super-powered protectors, they would almost certainly fall afoul of the law.
Whichever cops responded would call it in, and she'd hear about it. Whereupon she would turn up and save the mooks from the cops, then make them the strongly worded offer to work for her. They would almost certainly accept; while she'd never worked for another cape in her life, she understood that the minion mindset never really went away.
And then, once she had her ducks in a row, she would start learning Flechette's roster times and patrol routes. Brockton Bay was smaller than New York, which meant it would be harder than ever for Flechette to hide from her.
She couldn't wait.
But in the meantime, she was in the process of actuating the first stages in her plan. It was never a good idea to look too far ahead and lose sight of the here and now. As the cop car closed in from behind, she threw the car into a howling, smoking drift that left four distinct black trails on the asphalt and took her around the corner onto Lord Street.
With a nice long straightaway ahead of her, she gunned the engine. The car began to accelerate again, just as she noticed the three capes off to the side, on the boardwalk itself. She whipped past them, leaving her with the image of a large blocky set of power armour carrying a costumed teenage girl on each shoulder, all three turning to look at her.
Unless one of them is a speedster, they'll never—
Taylor
The car came around the corner behind us, rubber shrieking on asphalt, the burning smell borne to us on the wind. Just as we turned to look, it roared past us, already dangerously fast. Behind it, a police car screeched around the corner with siren wailing and lightbar flashing.
"Was that—" Emma began.
"—a rabbit driving?" I finished. It had certainly looked like it, with white fur, long ears, and a cute little round cap.
"Cape," Madison filled in grimly. "Database says March, out of New York. Also says she's dangerous."
"Got it." I gathered my feet under me and leaped.
I might have been inclined to allow the cops to deal with a speeder, but a cape doing the speeding was a whole other thing. For starters, capes were a lot less likely to tamely allow themselves to be pulled over and arrested. Plus, we'd just finished telling Director Piggot that we'd help deal with any new villains in town. March definitely qualified.
And if she thought she was dangerous? She hadn't seen dangerous yet.
She was doing twice the speed limit when I passed over her, but that was no big deal. I was going faster than her, and all I needed to do was get in front of her. She looked up at me as I rotated laterally in the air, going from head-first to feet-first, utterly ignoring minor matters such as wind resistance and aerodynamics.
The next bit was going to be a little tricky. I hadn't even had my powers for a day when Uber and Leet had hit me with a car, utterly wrecking it when I didn't give way in the slightest. This time, I wanted to do better.
Allowing gravity to notice me again, then telling it to notice me, I dropped out of the sky. The idea was to land on the hood of the car, envelop the entire vehicle (and her) in my personal protective field, then put my feet down on the road. Any amount of friction from my feet meant I could stop instantly; nothing within my protective field suffered from inertia or gravity unless I wanted it to. The car would stop on the instant, allowing us to take the unharmed perpetrator into custody, hand her over to the PRT and go on our way.
At least, that was the plan.
As I fell toward the hood of the car, March anticipated my move and swerved to get clear of me before I could drop that far. (She was, I would learn, very good at anticipating moves). What she didn't seem to expect was how fast I was accelerating downward. Increasing the value of g for myself was a somewhat niche trick, but it came in handy occasionally.
As it was, she peeled around me with more than a foot to spare, but not quite out of my reach. I made a hasty grab, and my fingers closed over the top of the front passenger-side door. The instant I made contact, I layered my protective field over the car and all its contents, and it stopped.
Unfortunately, her foot was still on the accelerator, so the engine was roaring and rubber was howling against asphalt. Using just the pressure of my fingers and thumb on the door, I gently lifted the entire vehicle until the back tyres were no longer in contact with the road. That got rid of part of the noise, but not all of it.
"Turn the ignition off and exit the vehicle, March!" I shouted over the bellow of the engine. "You're under arrest!" I didn't actually have the power of arrest, but I could sure as hell hold her until the people who did showed up.
The rabbit head was turned my way. I had to admire the workmanship that had gone into it. The thing could've been cartoonish but it actually looked realistic, if a six-foot rabbit could look realistic.
The rest of her costume was … hyper-militaristic, if that was a thing. Bright colours, fringed epaulettes, polished brass buttons, with the cap on top between the ears. It looked like a crossover between Alice in Wonderland and Gilbert & Sullivan.
"And which one are you supposed to be?" she asked. She eased off on the accelerator, but then I saw her pick up a long skinny sword from the passenger seat.
"I'm Monochrome," I informed her. "You need to put that down right now. It won't hurt me. Nothing can hurt me. And if you try, I'll take it away from you and tie it in a bow."
"Really." Then she stabbed me.
I was kind of expecting it (in a ha ha, what's she going to do with that, stab me? way) but mostly not, because I was holding the car a foot off the ground with one hand, and that sort of thing tends to breed caution in others. What I wasn't expecting was for it to actually fucking work.
Her lunge was faster than my eye could follow; Emma probably could've seen it coming in time to do something about it, but all I knew about it was a flash of silver straight at my chest. I fully expected it to attempt to hit me in the chest, but I did not expect my force field to simply pop like a soap bubble, nor did I expect the skinny blade with a very pointy end to be driven deep into my chest cavity.
I stared down at the embedded weapon, stunned.
This … this was actually happening.
I wasn't prepared for this.
Before I could do anything, she whipped the sword back out of my chest. I took one stumbling step back, then I was tumbling. I fell hard, but I didn't feel the ground. I simply … stopped falling. Staring up at the sky for a second, there wasn't a cloud in the sky, and remembering the weather forecast, I coughed around the wetness that filled my throat.
Rain, my ass.
I heard shots being fired, though they were muffled … like a long way away. My fingers were starting to get sticky, and I lifted my hand, staring for a few seconds at the red liquid that covered it. It took me a second to remember it was blood.
My hand got really heavy and I closed my eyes, but on an up note, my chest didn't hurt any more. In fact … nothing hurt…
I felt the shadow of someone or something falling across me, and then there were people screaming.
I just really wanted them to shut up so I could sleep.
The last thing I remember was the sound of fabric tearing, and thinking that a bandage wasn't quite gonna cut it …
Firebird
Emma knelt tensely on the sidewalk, knowing her gloves were covered in blood but not giving a shit, as Panacea laid her hands on Taylor's unconscious body. Glory Girl stood back out of the way, apparently unconcerned regarding the outcome. With the assistance of the first-aid kit from the patrol car, Emma had managed to keep Taylor alive up until this point, but her vital signs had been really bad toward the end.
Madison had overridden Emma's demand for an ambulance, instead directing a call to New Wave, requesting Panacea's assistance. The call-out would cost four hundred dollars—her usual rate, plus double time for short notice and outside working hours—but Emma considered it cheap at twice the price. Glory Girl was apparently used to ferrying her sister around, and had gotten Panacea to them in less than five minutes (though to Emma, it had felt like much longer).
"Done," Panacea announced, settling back on her heels. "I've fixed the damage, and she'll be waking up in about ten seconds. She's going to need to have a full meal and rehydrate, to replace the blood she lost, but otherwise she'll be okay. What was it, some sort of bladed weapon?"
Emma stared as Taylor's eyelids fluttered open, a warmth spreading through her chest. Oh god, thank you. She's going to live. "Uh, yeah," she managed, trying not to ignore Panacea. "March carries a rapier. According to the database, she can cut through anything with it, and make things explode." It would've been good if Taylor had waited for Madison to reach that part of the entry.
"Hmm." Panacea frowned. "Well, from what I can see, whatever cutting power she had wasn't working. The blade scraped off a rib before it went into Monochrome's chest, which saved her from a much worse wound, possibly even a fatal one. Thanks to you, she didn't even suffer from anoxia." She gave Emma a brief smile. "When people do first aid properly, it makes my job so much easier."
"Ugh …" groaned Taylor. "What happened? How did she even do that?" Between one instant and the next, her force field came back, covering her from head to foot.
"Her blade can cut through anything," Emma informed her. "How do you feel?"
"Like I got stabbed with a blade that can cut through anything," was the tart reply. Taylor sat up, then finally registered Panacea. "Oh, hey. I'm guessing you're the reason I'm feeling a lot better right now?"
"Good guess." Panacea stood up, then dusted her knees off. "Looks like Crystal wins the pool."
"Pool?" asked Emma as she helped Taylor up; it wasn't like Taylor actually needed the assistance with her force field on, but there was a psychological element there.
"Yeah." Glory Girl rolled her eyes. "On which of you three was going to need Panacea's assistance first, the way you've been tearing through the local bad guys. I had my money on you."
"Did anyone have anything on me?" asked Madison curiously.
"Just Manpower." Panacea smirked. "He was so sure he was gonna win too, given how easy Tinkers are to hurt once they're out of their armour."
"Who'd you have your money on?" Taylor asked her. "And thanks, by the way. I really appreciate it."
"Oh, I wasn't allowed to be in on the pool." Panacea shook her head and snorted. "Something about a conflict of interest. Anyway, you're welcome. Glory Girl has your billing information?"
"I've already transferred the four hundred to your account," Madison assured her. "I'd apologise for dragging you out on a school night, but you don't seem particularly upset over it."
Panacea grinned. "Hah, no. Thanks to jobs like this, my college fund is really healthy, these days."
"And I get five percent for flying her here," Glory Girl added. "We'll probably get takeout on the way back. Win-win."
"Well, thanks anyway." Emma waved her hands vaguely, aware of the blood on her gloves. "See you around." She watched as Glory Girl expertly gathered Panacea into a bridal carry, then rocketed into the sky. "Okay," she said. "That happened."
"March's sword popped my force field," Taylor said, in an 'I want to speak to the manager' tone. "Nothing's supposed to touch my force field. How did she get a power like that?"
"I'm getting the impression that your power and her power cancelled each other out, but she was still holding a sharp piece of steel and you were soft squishy meat," Madison offered helpfully. Emma couldn't help noting that Madison's good steel would very likely protect her from any sword March wanted to point in her direction.
"Ugh, okay, fine." Taylor huffed in irritation. "How bad was it?"
"Pretty bad," Emma said candidly. "I had to give you CPR, before Panacea got here." She still recalled the taste of Taylor's blood in her mouth. It would likely be with her forever.
Taylor nodded slowly. "Got it. Thanks. Remind me to save your life sometime."
"Anytime." Emma tilted her head. "Go ahead, ask the question you want to ask."
"Okay, fine. Did you get her?" From the tone of Taylor's voice, she already knew the answer.
Madison shook the head of her power armour ponderously. "No. We were all concentrating on you. After you dropped the car, she got away in the confusion. But don't worry. We'll catch up with her again."
"And when we do," Emma stated with conviction, "she's gonna learn why she shouldn't mess with the Real Thing."
Some Way Out of Brockton Bay
The party was dying down as Butcher leaned back in her chosen seat, watching her followers stumble about in search of booze, a bed partner, or somewhere to throw up. Hemorrhagia staggered up and flopped down next to her, holding a bottle by the neck. "Spree'ss so drunk, hee'ss havin', havin' a drink'n c'ntest with, with hisself," she announced out of nowhere.
"Wouldn't fuckin' surprise me." Nothing surprised Butcher anymore about the Teeth. So many members had come and gone, among the powered and non-powered members alike, that if she hadn't seen basically everything there was to see, one of her predecessors would have.
Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately) the layered powers that came with being the Butcher meant that she couldn't get drunk easily and she couldn't stay drunk at all. Which meant she was just drinking for the taste and the mild buzz.
"So where're we goin'nex'?" Hemorrhagia went to take a drink from her bottle, but it was empty. She looked drunkenly disappointed.
Butcher had been thinking about that. "Heard that Brockton Bay's been nearly cleared out of villains. Empire's gone, ABB's gone. Sounds ripe for us to go take a cruise back through our old stomping grounds."
Hemorrhagia blinked owlishly at her. "I nev'r been."
Butcher smiled; it wasn't a pleasant expression. "It's gonna be fun."
End of Part Thirty-Five
Part Thirty-Five: First Contact
[A/N: This chapter commissioned by @Fizzfaldt and beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]
A No-Tell Motel on the Outskirts of Brockton Bay
March
May waited until darkness had fallen before she headed out to prowl the night. She'd purposely chosen the motel for its lack of security cameras—the people who frequented a venue like that rarely wanted video proof of their indiscretions—and the incuriosity of its staff. This meant she could stroll out to her stolen car in full costume, though again minus the full-head mask, and nobody would pay the slightest bit of attention.
The parking lot was just as discreet, tucked in behind the main building to make it harder for suspicious spouses and nosy private investigators to spot guilty license plates. As she got in the car and started the engine, she wondered how many other supervillains used places like this as ad hoc bases of operation. It was certainly something to think about.
Once she'd cruised out onto the main drag, she applied thought to the next part of her plan. I need to start acquiring minions. While she was very goddamn effective on her own, having a bunch of people marching to her beat was a potent force multiplier. This worked even for non-capes, which was good, because the villains in town she could potentially recruit to her cause were very few and far between at the moment.
Fortunately, the two biggest gangs in town had literally just had their cape leadership stripped away from them, meaning there were two pools of potential recruits waiting for her to show up and claim them. It was true that the larger of these groups had been members of a white-supremacist gang, but she was an equal-opportunity employer; if they were willing to forget about that part of their lives, so was she.
But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Step one: find a cop car.
<><>
Monochrome
"Okay, so the Empire Eighty-Eight and ABB are falling apart by the day, but there's still a lot to do," Emma noted as Madison strode along the Boardwalk with me riding on one shoulder of the Blockade armour and Emma on the other. "We have ordinary crime, and there's always the chance of new villains coming to town."
"Yeah, Director Piggot seemed pretty sure that was going to happen," agreed Madison. "She's been doing this a lot longer than we have, so I'm not gonna second-guess her on that."
"Absolutely." I hitched myself a little higher and scanned up and down the Boardwalk; despite the fact that only the last fading glow of the sunset was showing over the hills to the west, the overhead street lighting was giving pretty good illumination. The only movement I saw was from people, mostly looking in our direction. "Seems like we've got enough respect around here that nobody's willing to pull any stunts while we're looking."
"That'll be down to you and Firebird." Even with the voice modulator, Madison sounded amused. "When you dragged that one purse-snatcher along the Boardwalk by his ankle, you got everyone's attention."
"Well, it was either that or by the scruff of his neck, and he was taller than me." I shrugged. "Besides, he called me some pretty nasty names when I stopped him. He needed to learn not to do that."
"I think that lesson was well and truly learned." Emma tossed one of her throwing discs in the air, then caught it again and snapped it back onto her arm bracer in one fluid motion. "Are we gonna patrol back along the Boardwalk when we get to the other end, or go somewhere else?"
I considered that for a moment. "The Boardwalk is pretty well covered by the cops and Wards as it is. We don't want them getting complacent elsewhere in town, so we'll move along and check out the Trainyards before we finish up tonight." It was a school night after all, which meant it'd be a good idea to get home before midnight, at least for me and Madison. Emma could get by on just a couple of hours of sleep, the big cheating cheater.
"I'm down with that." Madison's voice was full of satisfaction. They'd told me about the encounters they'd had with the Merchants while they were still building their reputation as heroes. Madison in particular had issues with drug dealers hanging around and harassing people. "If we can clean that area up and keep it that way, it'll make it easier to get the Port back up and running when the time comes."
"Absolutely." Emma waved to a couple of people who'd stopped to take a photo of us. "And if any of these villains do stick their heads up, we'll smack 'em down again. Because that's what we do."
That was my view too. "Damn right."
<><>
March
Before she set out to acquire a cop car, March decided to modify her own ride to make matters more convenient. First and foremost, she needed to be wearing her mask when she encountered them, and the roof of the car made that problematic. With this in mind, she used her empowered rapier to slice away the roof, door pillars, window frames, and rear window, in chunks small enough for her to handle. After smoothing off the rough edges, she got back into her newly-converted roadster and began the hunt.
As far as she was concerned, a poor hunter went looking for the prey, a mediocre hunter waited for them, and a good hunter drew the prey to them. So she set out breaking the law in the most flashy and egregious way possible: by blatantly exceeding the speed limit, all the way through town. A speeding car combined an obviously illegal act, a chance to drive fast with the siren on, and the opportunity to yell at someone in the name of the law; by her understanding, it was catnip to the average police officer.
She picked up her expected tail just a few minutes later, after her third four-wheel-drift around a random corner. He was still a ways back, though, so she decided to make him work to catch up with her. From what she remembered of the map, the waterfront was just up ahead: a boardwalk along the shore, paralleled by a long boulevard called Lord Street.
She'd let him chase her until she found a nice quiet place to conduct business, then the chase would be over and the next stage in the plan would take place. This would possibly entail the cop dying, depending on how stupid he wanted to be. It would absolutely end with her driving off with her very own cop car, slightly used, one previous owner.
The reason she wanted a cop car was simple: police-band radio, with wheels attached. At some point, the remnants of the Empire Eighty-Eight and the ABB would try to supplement their current savings with some crime, petty or otherwise. Without their super-powered protectors, they would almost certainly fall afoul of the law.
Whichever cops responded would call it in, and she'd hear about it. Whereupon she would turn up and save the mooks from the cops, then make them the strongly worded offer to work for her. They would almost certainly accept; while she'd never worked for another cape in her life, she understood that the minion mindset never really went away.
And then, once she had her ducks in a row, she would start learning Flechette's roster times and patrol routes. Brockton Bay was smaller than New York, which meant it would be harder than ever for Flechette to hide from her.
She couldn't wait.
But in the meantime, she was in the process of actuating the first stages in her plan. It was never a good idea to look too far ahead and lose sight of the here and now. As the cop car closed in from behind, she threw the car into a howling, smoking drift that left four distinct black trails on the asphalt and took her around the corner onto Lord Street.
With a nice long straightaway ahead of her, she gunned the engine. The car began to accelerate again, just as she noticed the three capes off to the side, on the boardwalk itself. She whipped past them, leaving her with the image of a large blocky set of power armour carrying a costumed teenage girl on each shoulder, all three turning to look at her.
Unless one of them is a speedster, they'll never—
<><>
Taylor
The car came around the corner behind us, rubber shrieking on asphalt, the burning smell borne to us on the wind. Just as we turned to look, it roared past us, already dangerously fast. Behind it, a police car screeched around the corner with siren wailing and lightbar flashing.
"Was that—" Emma began.
"—a rabbit driving?" I finished. It had certainly looked like it, with white fur, long ears, and a cute little round cap.
"Cape," Madison filled in grimly. "Database says March, out of New York. Also says she's dangerous."
"Got it." I gathered my feet under me and leaped.
I might have been inclined to allow the cops to deal with a speeder, but a cape doing the speeding was a whole other thing. For starters, capes were a lot less likely to tamely allow themselves to be pulled over and arrested. Plus, we'd just finished telling Director Piggot that we'd help deal with any new villains in town. March definitely qualified.
And if she thought she was dangerous? She hadn't seen dangerous yet.
She was doing twice the speed limit when I passed over her, but that was no big deal. I was going faster than her, and all I needed to do was get in front of her. She looked up at me as I rotated laterally in the air, going from head-first to feet-first, utterly ignoring minor matters such as wind resistance and aerodynamics.
The next bit was going to be a little tricky. I hadn't even had my powers for a day when Uber and Leet had hit me with a car, utterly wrecking it when I didn't give way in the slightest. This time, I wanted to do better.
Allowing gravity to notice me again, then telling it to notice me, I dropped out of the sky. The idea was to land on the hood of the car, envelop the entire vehicle (and her) in my personal protective field, then put my feet down on the road. Any amount of friction from my feet meant I could stop instantly; nothing within my protective field suffered from inertia or gravity unless I wanted it to. The car would stop on the instant, allowing us to take the unharmed perpetrator into custody, hand her over to the PRT and go on our way.
At least, that was the plan.
As I fell toward the hood of the car, March anticipated my move and swerved to get clear of me before I could drop that far. (She was, I would learn, very good at anticipating moves). What she didn't seem to expect was how fast I was accelerating downward. Increasing the value of g for myself was a somewhat niche trick, but it came in handy occasionally.
As it was, she peeled around me with more than a foot to spare, but not quite out of my reach. I made a hasty grab, and my fingers closed over the top of the front passenger-side door. The instant I made contact, I layered my protective field over the car and all its contents, and it stopped.
Unfortunately, her foot was still on the accelerator, so the engine was roaring and rubber was howling against asphalt. Using just the pressure of my fingers and thumb on the door, I gently lifted the entire vehicle until the back tyres were no longer in contact with the road. That got rid of part of the noise, but not all of it.
"Turn the ignition off and exit the vehicle, March!" I shouted over the bellow of the engine. "You're under arrest!" I didn't actually have the power of arrest, but I could sure as hell hold her until the people who did showed up.
The rabbit head was turned my way. I had to admire the workmanship that had gone into it. The thing could've been cartoonish but it actually looked realistic, if a six-foot rabbit could look realistic.
The rest of her costume was … hyper-militaristic, if that was a thing. Bright colours, fringed epaulettes, polished brass buttons, with the cap on top between the ears. It looked like a crossover between Alice in Wonderland and Gilbert & Sullivan.
"And which one are you supposed to be?" she asked. She eased off on the accelerator, but then I saw her pick up a long skinny sword from the passenger seat.
"I'm Monochrome," I informed her. "You need to put that down right now. It won't hurt me. Nothing can hurt me. And if you try, I'll take it away from you and tie it in a bow."
"Really." Then she stabbed me.
I was kind of expecting it (in a ha ha, what's she going to do with that, stab me? way) but mostly not, because I was holding the car a foot off the ground with one hand, and that sort of thing tends to breed caution in others. What I wasn't expecting was for it to actually fucking work.
Her lunge was faster than my eye could follow; Emma probably could've seen it coming in time to do something about it, but all I knew about it was a flash of silver straight at my chest. I fully expected it to attempt to hit me in the chest, but I did not expect my force field to simply pop like a soap bubble, nor did I expect the skinny blade with a very pointy end to be driven deep into my chest cavity.
I stared down at the embedded weapon, stunned.
This … this was actually happening.
I wasn't prepared for this.
Before I could do anything, she whipped the sword back out of my chest. I took one stumbling step back, then I was tumbling. I fell hard, but I didn't feel the ground. I simply … stopped falling. Staring up at the sky for a second, there wasn't a cloud in the sky, and remembering the weather forecast, I coughed around the wetness that filled my throat.
Rain, my ass.
I heard shots being fired, though they were muffled … like a long way away. My fingers were starting to get sticky, and I lifted my hand, staring for a few seconds at the red liquid that covered it. It took me a second to remember it was blood.
My hand got really heavy and I closed my eyes, but on an up note, my chest didn't hurt any more. In fact … nothing hurt…
I felt the shadow of someone or something falling across me, and then there were people screaming.
I just really wanted them to shut up so I could sleep.
The last thing I remember was the sound of fabric tearing, and thinking that a bandage wasn't quite gonna cut it …
<><>
Firebird
Emma knelt tensely on the sidewalk, knowing her gloves were covered in blood but not giving a shit, as Panacea laid her hands on Taylor's unconscious body. Glory Girl stood back out of the way, apparently unconcerned regarding the outcome. With the assistance of the first-aid kit from the patrol car, Emma had managed to keep Taylor alive up until this point, but her vital signs had been really bad toward the end.
Madison had overridden Emma's demand for an ambulance, instead directing a call to New Wave, requesting Panacea's assistance. The call-out would cost four hundred dollars—her usual rate, plus double time for short notice and outside working hours—but Emma considered it cheap at twice the price. Glory Girl was apparently used to ferrying her sister around, and had gotten Panacea to them in less than five minutes (though to Emma, it had felt like much longer).
"Done," Panacea announced, settling back on her heels. "I've fixed the damage, and she'll be waking up in about ten seconds. She's going to need to have a full meal and rehydrate, to replace the blood she lost, but otherwise she'll be okay. What was it, some sort of bladed weapon?"
Emma stared as Taylor's eyelids fluttered open, a warmth spreading through her chest. Oh god, thank you. She's going to live. "Uh, yeah," she managed, trying not to ignore Panacea. "March carries a rapier. According to the database, she can cut through anything with it, and make things explode." It would've been good if Taylor had waited for Madison to reach that part of the entry.
"Hmm." Panacea frowned. "Well, from what I can see, whatever cutting power she had wasn't working. The blade scraped off a rib before it went into Monochrome's chest, which saved her from a much worse wound, possibly even a fatal one. Thanks to you, she didn't even suffer from anoxia." She gave Emma a brief smile. "When people do first aid properly, it makes my job so much easier."
"Ugh …" groaned Taylor. "What happened? How did she even do that?" Between one instant and the next, her force field came back, covering her from head to foot.
"Her blade can cut through anything," Emma informed her. "How do you feel?"
"Like I got stabbed with a blade that can cut through anything," was the tart reply. Taylor sat up, then finally registered Panacea. "Oh, hey. I'm guessing you're the reason I'm feeling a lot better right now?"
"Good guess." Panacea stood up, then dusted her knees off. "Looks like Crystal wins the pool."
"Pool?" asked Emma as she helped Taylor up; it wasn't like Taylor actually needed the assistance with her force field on, but there was a psychological element there.
"Yeah." Glory Girl rolled her eyes. "On which of you three was going to need Panacea's assistance first, the way you've been tearing through the local bad guys. I had my money on you."
"Did anyone have anything on me?" asked Madison curiously.
"Just Manpower." Panacea smirked. "He was so sure he was gonna win too, given how easy Tinkers are to hurt once they're out of their armour."
"Who'd you have your money on?" Taylor asked her. "And thanks, by the way. I really appreciate it."
"Oh, I wasn't allowed to be in on the pool." Panacea shook her head and snorted. "Something about a conflict of interest. Anyway, you're welcome. Glory Girl has your billing information?"
"I've already transferred the four hundred to your account," Madison assured her. "I'd apologise for dragging you out on a school night, but you don't seem particularly upset over it."
Panacea grinned. "Hah, no. Thanks to jobs like this, my college fund is really healthy, these days."
"And I get five percent for flying her here," Glory Girl added. "We'll probably get takeout on the way back. Win-win."
"Well, thanks anyway." Emma waved her hands vaguely, aware of the blood on her gloves. "See you around." She watched as Glory Girl expertly gathered Panacea into a bridal carry, then rocketed into the sky. "Okay," she said. "That happened."
"March's sword popped my force field," Taylor said, in an 'I want to speak to the manager' tone. "Nothing's supposed to touch my force field. How did she get a power like that?"
"I'm getting the impression that your power and her power cancelled each other out, but she was still holding a sharp piece of steel and you were soft squishy meat," Madison offered helpfully. Emma couldn't help noting that Madison's good steel would very likely protect her from any sword March wanted to point in her direction.
"Ugh, okay, fine." Taylor huffed in irritation. "How bad was it?"
"Pretty bad," Emma said candidly. "I had to give you CPR, before Panacea got here." She still recalled the taste of Taylor's blood in her mouth. It would likely be with her forever.
Taylor nodded slowly. "Got it. Thanks. Remind me to save your life sometime."
"Anytime." Emma tilted her head. "Go ahead, ask the question you want to ask."
"Okay, fine. Did you get her?" From the tone of Taylor's voice, she already knew the answer.
Madison shook the head of her power armour ponderously. "No. We were all concentrating on you. After you dropped the car, she got away in the confusion. But don't worry. We'll catch up with her again."
"And when we do," Emma stated with conviction, "she's gonna learn why she shouldn't mess with the Real Thing."
<><>
Some Way Out of Brockton Bay
The party was dying down as Butcher leaned back in her chosen seat, watching her followers stumble about in search of booze, a bed partner, or somewhere to throw up. Hemorrhagia staggered up and flopped down next to her, holding a bottle by the neck. "Spree'ss so drunk, hee'ss havin', havin' a drink'n c'ntest with, with hisself," she announced out of nowhere.
"Wouldn't fuckin' surprise me." Nothing surprised Butcher anymore about the Teeth. So many members had come and gone, among the powered and non-powered members alike, that if she hadn't seen basically everything there was to see, one of her predecessors would have.
Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately) the layered powers that came with being the Butcher meant that she couldn't get drunk easily and she couldn't stay drunk at all. Which meant she was just drinking for the taste and the mild buzz.
"So where're we goin'nex'?" Hemorrhagia went to take a drink from her bottle, but it was empty. She looked drunkenly disappointed.
Butcher had been thinking about that. "Heard that Brockton Bay's been nearly cleared out of villains. Empire's gone, ABB's gone. Sounds ripe for us to go take a cruise back through our old stomping grounds."
Hemorrhagia blinked owlishly at her. "I nev'r been."
Butcher smiled; it wasn't a pleasant expression. "It's gonna be fun."
End of Part Thirty-Five
I'm torn.
You've given Madison the hand wave against Sting with her so-called "good steel" as it was utterly unable to affect it. Then you had previously illustrated that Taylor could bend and otherwise deform and break the "good steel" in previous chapters. So this, this, didn't quite compute to me and was quite the surprise. Not sure I like it either to be frank. At least they seem to negate one another and some armour would help.
Edit:
I enjoyed the writing and so on as usual, and it isn't as if I won't read more with a voracious hunger that is surprising in its intensity. Probably doesn't help that this is the 3rd time reading about March recently and she is...annoying? grating? power wanked? not sure the actual terms, but her appearance didn't make the fics better if you get my drift.
You've given Madison the hand wave against Sting with her so-called "good steel" as it was utterly unable to affect it. Then you had previously illustrated that Taylor could bend and otherwise deform and break the "good steel" in previous chapters. So this, this, didn't quite compute to me and was quite the surprise. Not sure I like it either to be frank. At least they seem to negate one another and some armour would help.
Edit:
I enjoyed the writing and so on as usual, and it isn't as if I won't read more with a voracious hunger that is surprising in its intensity. Probably doesn't help that this is the 3rd time reading about March recently and she is...annoying? grating? power wanked? not sure the actual terms, but her appearance didn't make the fics better if you get my drift.
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GreydonCreed
Man of Culture
- Location
- United States
Hell's bells, it would be cheap at 10x the price. A RL ambulance response (which is just EMTs/paramedics keeping you alive until you get to a hospital) is $1 - 2k. A LifeFlight/Medevac helicopter call out is $12 - 30k, depending on equipment needed. This does not include the med bills incurred at the hospital itself.
Panacea did a less than 10 min response for lifesaving treatment AND full healing for less than $1000. If I was a cape I would have a prepaid/retainer account with her and her phone number on speed dial! 😅
The Real Thing isn't going to F around with March anymore. The next time they encounter her, if they can't take her down quickly they can back off and carpet bomb the grid square she is in. 😳 And if PRT gets bent out of shape they can go public with the fact they were fighting an attempted Ward-killer that the Protectorate has done nothing to stop (in Legend's city no less!). 😰
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If the powers cancel each other out, then March might have a massive headache and some other side-effects now. That would give it some consequences.
The real question is - will Monochrome show up against March next time with Good Steel armor? ...Actually, she doesn't even need the Good Steel. If her powers actually negate March's, she just need something along the lines of stab-proof armor protection.
As for Good Steel vs March, I see three options. March trumps Good Steel and goes right through. Good Steel partially stops March, so no full penetrations of sufficiently thick Good Steel. Good Steel and March negate each other, in which case just rapier on steel.
As for Good Steel vs March, I see three options. March trumps Good Steel and goes right through. Good Steel partially stops March, so no full penetrations of sufficiently thick Good Steel. Good Steel and March negate each other, in which case just rapier on steel.
ThrawnCA
Carbon-based biped
- Location
- Australia
No, see, it's actually simple.
The Siberian field is paper. Sting is scissors. Good steel, of course, is rock.
If Good Steel happened somehow to interact the same way as Monochrome's power it would neutralize the effect and then defeat the mundane sword on raw "this is a slab of metal".
Though it'd seem weird for the powers to have that commonality.
- Location
- Australia
I brought March in because a) I wanted someone to actually puncture Taylor's growing arrogance about her power, and b) to give Emma and Madison more of a challenge than they've had so far when it comes to actual fighting. She will go down, but it won't be a one-two curbstomp.
On the other hand, the next encounter will not go March's way.
Good Steel is basically immune to powers that cross dimensions to get their effects, instead of applying physical force. (We'll be seeing some other applications of that, in later chapters). Taylor's power is basically able to apply all the force, sufficient to bend very thin bits of good steel.
Sting, on the other hand, canonically pops the Siberian, and Monochrome's field is vaguely based off the Siberian.
March has never been after Flechette to kill her. She's just fucked around with her, repeatedly.
As for Panacea, yeah, that's definitely a thing. I'm thinking she's actually screening her calls somehow, to filter out the people who are willing to pay $300 to get rid of a hangnail, and will flood her phone with calls until they get her. Probably got Dragon to program the interface.
Nah, but she jarred her wrist a bit with the unexpected resistance.
Narwhal's armour resisted March, because (IMO) her force fields are tiny and independent. So if Monochrome has layered force fields, one inside the other, this will probably do the trick.
Good Steel will have the third effect.
Very basically, yes.
They were brewed up in the same batch ...
Or go full on Buso Renkin Buster Baron, allowing their powers to work together. But that is more of an anti-endbringer option.What is needed now, of course, is for Madison to build a larger suit with all three of them inside, protected by Taylor's force field and piloted by Emma
Or possibly a suit each that can join together into The Real Voltron.
SanguisAnima
Σ Series Z10/0 Group A 4A-GELU Mk1
- Location
- nowhere important
I don't know why, but my brain gave me a visual of The Real Thing doing something like what Franky did in Thriller Bark.
Sorry.
- Location
- Elsewhere
Well, of course not.
What self respecting March uses a one-two beat and then steps on a curb?
That would completely throw the parade off!
ThrawnCA
Carbon-based biped
- Location
- Australia
Nah, that wouldn't be enough. It might stop the first strike, but at that point, Taylor is basically a normal with body armour, whereas March is still a combat Thinker. Perfect timing is not quite Contessa-level, but it does let her pull implausible stunts in a fight.
And that's assuming March wouldn't just put the first strike through her eyeball this time.
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A Million Villains Across Tenthousand Fanfics: "Okay listen. The one important thing to never , ever. Absolutely do no do , is to-"
March: *stab* hehehehee
MVATF: "-Poke the Skitter."
Taylor: *ANGRY CHITTERING NOISES*
[Escalation Intensifies]
(And that's how that universe became uninhabitable)
March: *stab* hehehehee
MVATF: "-Poke the Skitter."
Taylor: *ANGRY CHITTERING NOISES*
[Escalation Intensifies]
(And that's how that universe became uninhabitable)
- Location
- Whadjuk Noongar boodja
Ahh!
Well, someone's about to be Really Surprised!
Stab happens, Taylor is Really Surprised.
Somebody might enjoy themselves, but I wouldn't bet on it being you, Sparky. Which iteration (roughly) are we up at at this point?
That's an inherent flaw of the character from her first appearance in Worm though. She was created to be That Gratingly Irritating (Nigh-)Unbeatable Antagonist, though I'm not sure if she was just meant to be that for only Flechette, or if May(Mei) was deliberately created to be just that annoying for the readers as well.
Agreed, I think it's safe to say that both Taylor and Emma have gotten the point of this lesson. (Sorry, not sorry.) Madison too, most likely, though it's hard to say how much her certainty that Good Steel will protect her from everything will over-ride that. Regardless, there will be no kid gloves worn next time they catch up with May, very limited restraint and absolutely no sympathy. As it should be when engaging such a dangerous person with a long history of casually killing.
I can't see Piggot letting the NY office's poor decisions impact her branch and Her City any more than what she absolutely cannot stop, so I'm pretty sure that if it came down to that sort of thing, you'd find her closer to the Real Thing's side than RCBs. Though I'd be shocked if Taylor, Emma and Madison would let it get that far though, as unlike their opponent, they aren't murderously deranged. That said, somebody should absolutely be (metaphorically) publicly hung, drawn, quartered and then impaled on a spike over the city gates for not trying harder to prevent that shit from happening.
Now I'm curious about how May has taken all this completely unexpected occurrence. Anyone that wasn't a delusional lunatic would be pretty rattled by it in her place.
Given that this is May/March, however, I rather expect her to have bounced back within moments, assuming she didn't just immediately
#HeadCanonAccepted
Though it should probably end with those universes 'cause I'm certain that March is that bloody foolish across a lot more than just one.
rkyeun
Cabbitus Maximus
- Location
- ◕ ‿‿ ◕
Rock paper scissor.
Good steel is fucking hard, and ignores dimensional shenanigans, I presume by being present in all dimensions and tied through together to its parallel selves so you can't affect it without affecting it hard enough to do so in all dimensions, which is why you can't clone it or freeze it or collapse it or cut it in just one, and also why things made of good steel need to be so bulky- you have to make sure it overlaps in all worlds, and it's easier to line up four inch plate so at least some overlaps than it is to line up thin sheets of aluminum foil. Sting attacks with dimensional shenanigans to cut through anything in every dimension, but is only as hard as the base object, so Sting rapier loses to good steel ignoring its dimensional nonsense, but Sting pops the Zebraforce and is still a rapier after. And the Zebraforce doesn't pull any dimensional shenanigans in the first place, it just pushes hard enough to bend the good steel despite its anchoring to all dimensions.
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- Location
- Australia
That's basically the long and short of it, yes.
Rock paper scissors.
I think Taylors biggest flaw in this fic is that she's well. Lazy. Or at least thus far, her power has allowed her to BE lazy.*snip*
#HeadCanonAccepted
Though it should probably end with those universes 'cause I'm certain that March is that bloody foolish across a lot more than just one.
"Taylor" in general, tends to punch up and hard. She both in cannon and fannon punches way above whatever you'd think her weight class is. She has the Batman mindset, but Batman gets away with it thanks to plot armor. Taylor gets away with it because she's willing to gouge a motherfuckers eyes out with a rusty spoon.
But only if put under pressure, which she's felt basically none up until March stabbed her.
Part Thirty-Six: Breaking Step
- Location
- Australia
Earning Her Stripes
Part Thirty-Six: Breaking Step
[A/N: This chapter commissioned by @Fizzfaldt and beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]
March
Fully aware that the car she was driving was more than a little conspicuous, and not wanting Monochrome's battlesuited buddy to land on it—and her—with both feet, or turn her into a crater from a thousand feet up, May ditched it at the first opportunity. All the same, she argued to herself as she ducked through the alleyways of Brockton Bay with one eye on her backtrail, Monochrome had totally been asking for it. What kind of idiot just stood there after saying something like 'you can't hurt me with that'?
Especially if it turned out that yes, May could hurt her with that?
The look on her face when her force field popped? That was amazing. Though it was nothing compared to her expression when she actually got stabbed.
May's wrist twinged slightly, and she rubbed at it. There'd been a bit of a jar, a resistance, when she'd been expecting none at all, and her wrist had been set just a little off for the lunge. Must have been the force field, she decided. It held out for a split second before it popped. That's actually pretty impressive.
Still, Monochrome had taken May's blade through the chest despite her stupid force field, so that team was down to the powersuit Tinker and the chick in black with the funky arm-shields. May still wasn't sure of their names, despite the fact that Monochrome had known hers. It didn't really matter; if they came after her to capture her or avenge their fallen teammate (or both) she'd take them down just as easily. As far as she was concerned, battlesuits only provided visual cover.
Still, it was probably a good idea to lay low until the next night. They'd undoubtedly be scouring the city for her tonight, along with everyone who was willing to help. Tomorrow night, it would just be them, and Monochrome would still be dead.
May grinned as an idea came to her. If they give her a public funeral, I'll sneak in after and put 'Whoops' on her tombstone. I mean, how stupid can you get?
Hebert Household
Taylor
Danny grimaced as he shook his head. "I'm not going to say that was a stupid thing to do, mainly because nothing else has been able to get through your force field. However, standing there and letting her stab you was remarkably short-sighted; just because nothing you've encountered can affect you inside the field doesn't mean there's nothing that will."
"Hear, hear," Rod Clements agreed. "As my Logic professor used to say, 'absence of evidence is not evidence of absence'. He looked Taylor over carefully. "Are you sure you're okay now?"
"Perfectly." Taylor felt confident enough to reply in the positive. "Panacea fixed me up just fine."
"She does good work, it seems," Alan Barnes agreed. "Well worth the four hundred I wired through to Madison."
"Yeah, she does." Taylor frowned. "Not to change the subject exactly, but with her quality of work, how the hell is she not snowed under, every hour of every day?"
Mr Barnes rubbed his chin with forefinger and thumb. "I don't know the full details, but I've heard any calls to Panacea for healing go through a smart semi-AI filter system, provided by some computer Tinker or other. She prioritises life-threatening situations and charges more for frivolous calls, like getting a splinter removed. Anyone who tries to swamp the system by calling multiple times gets dropped clear out of the queue; it can even tell if the same person is calling from different phones. And capes automatically get jumped to the front of the line."
"Don't you mean heroes, not just capes?" asked Emma curiously.
"No." Mr Barnes shook his head. "If a villain calls up and has the cash, she'll fix him up too. So long as he pays in good faith, he gets healed in good faith."
"But surely there would be a constant number of clients, even taking frivolous calls out of the equation," Taylor insisted. "I mean, there's always people in the hospital."
"That's because most hospital stays are multi-day affairs," Danny explained. "From what I heard, she dealt with a metric ton of chronic conditions, from asthma to allergies to emphysema, early on. Those were one-and-done. Cancer as well. Once you get the conditions that normally get handled rather than cured out of the way, the workload drops way off."
"Yeah," agreed Mr Clements. "The number of people actually going into the hospital on any given day is actually fairly low."
Mr Barnes chuckled. "The pharmaceutical companies hate her. She doesn't prescribe any drugs that they can jack the price on, and she reduces the need for people to take the ongoing maintenance drugs that they make a lot of their profit on. They tried threatening a lawsuit to bar her from healing people on some bullshit technicality, and Carol said, 'Bring it.' Our whole company was gearing up to go balls-to-the-wall for her. That went away pretty fast, especially after we started talking to the news services about it."
"Well, I'm just glad she was ready to come fix me at a moment's notice," Taylor said. "The question is, how do we fight March, if she can just pop my force field like that, and cut through anything?"
"I think we need to talk to the PRT again," Madison decided. "See if they've got anyone with any insights on going up against her. Until then, I'd suggest you stay at range, and either poke her with your staff or throw stuff."
"Well, I can definitely throw stuff at her." Cars, Taylor decided. I can throw cars at her.
Emma nodded. "I'll make that phone call."
Flechette
Lily was working up a good sweat on the treadmill—just because her powers gave her perfect timing and good balance didn't mean she could coast on the fitness aspect—when Triumph stepped into view in front of her and waved to get her attention. Hitting the button to let it roll to a stop, she pulled out one of her earpieces. "What's going on?" she asked. "The gangs acting up?"
"No, actually." She was struck once more by the deep resonant quality of his voice. "The Director wants to see you about that cape who keeps giving you a hard time."
"What, March?" Just saying the name gave her a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. "Is she in town? Who's she hurt?"
"Yeah, she is, and it seems she ran into the Real Thing about an hour ago. Nearly killed Monochrome." He tilted his head toward the ceiling. "But you need to be having this conversation with Director Piggot, not me."
"Shit." She took a deep breath. "Okay, yeah, good point." Grabbing her towel, she stepped off the treadmill. "Do me a favour and let her know I'll be five minutes?"
"I can do that."
Five Minutes Later
Director Piggot
Emily looked up at the tap on the door. "Enter."
The door opened, to reveal Flechette on the other side. Clad in civvies, the girl wore her tinted visor as a way to indicate who she was and hide her identity at the same time. "You wanted to see me, ma'am?"
"Yes." She waited until the door had closed behind the girl, then gestured to a chair. "Have a seat. Just so you're aware, this conversation will be recorded, as per PRT regulations." It was a warning she gave to every Ward, once. If they forgot thereafter, it was not her problem. "Now, you gave us some stringent warnings about March, as I recall."
"Yes, ma'am. Triumph said she nearly killed someone?" Flechette sat down, her shoulders hunched, as though she was expecting to be blamed for the incident.
"That is correct. Monochrome. Fortunately, her aim was a little off and Panacea is available at short notice, so she survived. As of ten minutes ago, the Real Thing contacted us for pointers on fighting her." She paused as Flechette opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again. "What?"
"Excuse me, ma'am, but March's aim is never 'a little off'. I've never known her to miss what she was aiming at because of random chance. Or even because someone dodged; she's stupidly good at anticipating which way someone's going to try to go to evade her."
"Hmm." Emily didn't doubt Flechette's word. She had more experience against March than anyone in Brockton Bay, as a matter of course, and second-guessing the experts was a sure-fire route to disaster. "I may have mis-heard what Firebird said. In any case, they fully intend to go after her again, so any suggestions for doing this would be well-received."
"Speaking frankly, ma'am, my first suggestion would be 'don't', but I suppose that's not going to fly."
"You are correct." Emily smiled thinly. "The Real Thing have shown themselves to be remarkably persistent, not to mention effective. Up until today, I wouldn't have bet against them when it came to dealing with a single cape. It appears that I—and they—miscalculated."
Just for a second, Flechette's expression clearly said 'no shit', but the girl was evidently too smart to express that sentiment out loud. "Can I talk to them? If I know what happened, I can maybe figure out where to go from there."
"That's something I can arrange, yes." Emily took up her phone, accessed Firebird's number, and pressed the icon to call it. While the call was still going through, she put it on speaker, then placed the phone on the desk between them.
The phone rang twice, then Firebird's voice came through. "Hello, Director Piggot. What's up?"
"I have Flechette here," Emily said. "She wants to talk to you about your encounter with March."
"Yeah, hi," Flechette added. "So, um, what actually happened? Because March doesn't miss. If she's going for the kill, you're dead. If she's really going for the kill, you explode."
"I'll let Monochrome explain it. All Blockade and I saw was the aftermath."
There was a pause, then Monochrome spoke. "She was in a car and I stopped her by picking it up. There was a sword, and I told her to put it down, but she just kind of leaned across the seat and stabbed me with it. It popped my force field and went through my lung. Firebird was able to keep me alive until Panacea showed up. What should I have done differently?"
Flechette frowned. "Well, as I told the Director, the best way to not get stabbed by March is not to get close to her. But that aside, you say it 'popped' your force field, as opposed to punching through it? Also, a lung shot is a bit sloppy for someone like March. If she goes for the chest, it'll be a heart shot."
"Yeah. My force field automatically comes on when something's likely to hurt me, and I've found nothing that can get through it, until now. As soon as her sword hit it, it vanished. Panacea says she might've been aiming for my heart, but her sword scraped off my rib before it went into my chest." Monochrome sounded distinctly aggrieved about this.
"Wait, that's not right." Flechette shook her head. "For her sword to disrupt a high-end force field, she had to have been empowering it, but if she was empowering it, it would've gone straight through your rib like a hot knife through butter. Zero resistance. I know this, because it's how my power works."
"I don't know what to say. That's what happened. One second I was fully protected, and the next there was a sword sticking in me. And if Panacea says it scraped off my rib, then I'm going to take her word for it."
Flechette sat back in her chair, rubbing her thumbnail across her lips. "Okay, that's … the only way I can see that happening is if there was some kind of weird interaction between her power and your force field."
"What do you mean, exactly?" Monochrome sounded interested, at least.
"Okay, look at it like this. My power—our power—goes through anything. From the sounds of it, your force field stops everything. So, what happens when the unstoppable force meets the immovable object?"
"But she stabbed me anyway." Monochrome had clearly been looking ahead to the obvious conclusion. "So the unstoppable force wins?"
"No, they cancel each other out," Flechette said patiently. "Her blade wasn't empowered anymore, but it was still sharp."
"I said that!" exclaimed a voice Emily recognised as belonging to the petite teen inside the Blockade armour. "Didn't I say that?"
"Yes, okay, you called it." Firebird's sigh was audible. "Sorry about that. Blockade dislikes being ignored when she's right about something."
"Wait." Flechette sounded startled. "That's a girl in the Blockade armour? I thought for sure it was a guy inside there."
"That's the general idea of having a voice modulator, yes." Firebird cleared her throat. "So, back to the topic of March. Thanks for verifying Blockade's theory. Now, how can we use that information to wreck March? Also, is her power likely to be able to damage good steel? I'd really rather not go into a fight against her, and find out I'm trying to hide behind the equivalent of a marshmallow."
"Hey, my force field is not a marshmallow!"
"True," agreed Blockade. "From the way it popped, it was more like a soap bubble."
"What?"
"Monochrome, hush. Blockade, stop baiting her. We don't know if your suit will even stand up to March yet. Flechette?"
"I can give you good news on that front at least." Flechette sounded pleased. "We tested the piece Blockade gave to Armsmaster. My power couldn't so much as get a grip on it. I've cut through tungsten carbide like so much fairy floss, and that 'good steel' just flat-out ignored me."
"Hah! Yes! I knew it!"
"Okay," Monochrome said. "So Firebird and Blockade will be protected against her. Got anything for me?"
Emily coughed into her fist to get their attention. "Actually, I just had an idea. Monochrome, have you considered the idea of defence in depth?"
"Um … not really? What does that mean?"
"From the footage I've seen of you in action, your force field doesn't have to be skin-level, correct?"
"Well, no. I can shape it out to an inch or so. Why?"
"Can you generate two separate force fields, one under the other? Because if her power is expended when she pops the first layer, it'll just be an ordinary sword when she hits the second one." Knowing they couldn't see her, Emily still gestured to illustrate the concept.
Flechette's eyes widened and she sat up. "That … could actually work. It takes a second or so to empower a weapon. Even if she keeps her sword in contact with you while she charges it up again—and trust me, she can totally do that—you can move the field outward and form another one under it, right?"
"Well, yeah." Monochrome sounded doubtful. "So it's as simple as that? Two force fields, one inside the other?"
"Oh, it'll be anything but simple." Flechette shook her head. "Once she figures out what you're doing, and she totally will, she'll go for your eyes or anywhere else she thinks you might not have total coverage. And she will keep trying."
"But she won't just be fighting Monochrome next time." There was steel in Firebird's tone.
"Damn right." Blockade sounded just as determined.
Flechette didn't look entirely convinced, but neither did she voice any concerns. "Okay, then. Just … be really careful, okay? She plays by her own rules, and those rules change whenever she feels like it. If she can bully you, she'll absolutely do it."
Firebird's chuckle forebode dire consequences for March. "We're thoroughly acquainted with that mindset, trust me."
"Well, if there was nothing else?" prompted Emily after a few seconds of silence.
"That's all we had, Director," answered Firebird. "Thanks for letting us talk to Flechette."
"And Flechette, thanks for the advice," added Monochrome.
"You're totally welcome. Glad I could help." Flechette nodded to Emily.
"Good luck. Ending call … now." Emily hit the red icon, then laced her fingers together and looked over her desk at Flechette. "Thoughts?"
"Well, they listened, I guess. To a point, anyway." Now that the call was over, Flechette was letting her doubts show in her voice. "I just … nobody's ever gotten the better of March. The best we've ever done is chase her off with overwhelming force, and she still got a few good hits in. Monochrome nearly died the last time because she was overconfident. What if what I told them isn't enough to beat her?"
Emily had seen exactly what the Real Thing could do when they had the upper hand. Now she was about to see how they went against a foe who had already beaten them once.
"I suppose we'll find out when the time comes."
The Next Afternoon
Butcher
The convoy of vehicles trailed its way into Brockton Bay. They didn't draw a great deal of attention, being in relatively good condition and bearing legitimate license plates. This was because while the majority of the vehicles were stolen (the Teeth were not the sort of people to walk into a car showroom and actually pay money for their rides, don't be ridiculous) the plates had been swapped over for ones that had been taken off cars on the street. It wouldn't pass muster for an in-depth check on a given plate, but a simple check for license plates of stolen cars wouldn't show up either.
Seated in the passenger seat of the lead van, with most of her paraphernalia concealed in the back, Butcher looked around with interest. She'd never been here before in person, but one or two of her predecessors had, so she had their memories to tap into. In their professional opinion, despite a few new buildings, the place had gone downhill since Butcher and the Teeth had last graced the city with their presence.
Along with the capes, there were about forty mundane followers in the Teeth. She didn't have an exact number; every now and again they recruited new blood, or some idiot got shanked or left of their own accord. Although they could likely commandeer enough motel rooms to accommodate everyone, the Teeth didn't do motels. Like the 'travellers' of Europe and the UK, they tended to find a spot that nobody was looking too closely at, circle the wagons, and set up camp. If they could steal electricity (or anything else) while they were at it, all the better.
Following instructions from one of the past Butchers, she guided the convoy to the northern part of the city, rolling through mostly-abandoned suburbs toward their goal. Covetous eyes took note of boarded-up stores and strip malls; businesses that closed down due to bankruptcy or whatever often had stock left behind if there was no new place to take it to. Among their numerous talents, the Teeth were expert scavengers of things left unattended, whether it be for fifteen years or fifteen seconds.
"There," she said, pointing ahead through the windshield. "We'll set up there."
Spree, who was driving at the time, peered at the building. It was well-kept, though the signs saying 'temporarily out of service' and 'coming soon' were weathered and worn, which was what had gotten Butcher's attention. The important part was that it was roomy enough for the Teeth to all find somewhere to crash, and make the place their own (mainly involving breaking stuff and tagging all available surfaces, because this was the Teeth).
"What about the boat?" he asked, indicating the ferry that was tied up at the dock.
"Oh." Butcher grinned lazily. "We'll take that too."
March
Operation: Find A Gang was now on its second day with no appreciable progress, which irked May slightly. By this time she'd usually at least made some connections and was moving into the active recruitment phase, but teaching Monochrome the essential lesson of 'yes I can hurt you, you idiot' and then evading pursuit had cost her the night. She hadn't seen or heard anything about the moron's death on the news, but they were probably just trying to figure out how to spin it in a positive light.
To change things up, she'd boosted a motorbike this time and started cruising the streets, looking for trouble. It wasn't like she was being especially subtle, riding around in full costume and all. Just one cop car was all she wanted; surely they'd pull her over and try to arrest her, and then she'd have a cop car.
Rich end of town or poor end of town? Mentally, she flipped a coin. Causing problems in the affluent areas tended to draw more than one unit, whereas she was likely to only get one cop car at a time in the low to middle class suburbs.
Despite the fact that she could take down any number of cops, they might delay her long enough for the heroes to show up, and they'd probably still be holding a grudge over Monochrome. So while she was fully aware that it might take a bit longer, the coin came down on 'poor end of town'.
It took her less time than she'd thought to leave the nice side of town and hit the shitty region. Half the street-lights were smashed, there were areas where potholes outnumbered normal sections of street, and the general air of decrepitude made her want to gag. But she reminded herself that she'd made this choice, and she never made bad choices.
So she kept going, taking corners almost at random, gradually working her way farther north. Sooner or later, she figured, she would run into either a cop car or someone she could recruit as the first member of her Brockton Bay gang. Either one would be good.
Grue
"I gotta ask, are there any that we haven't hit?" As they strolled along the sidewalk toward Lord Street, Alec seemed to be inquiring more out of mild curiosity than from actual greed. "Because we've made bank over the last few days."
"Oh, there's a few," Lisa admitted. "But they're the low-end ones. Not worth our time."
"Need to think about moving on anyway," Rachel threw in.
"What's the rush?" asked Brian, concerned. He was still working on getting full custody of Aisha so that when he left town, she could legally come with. Failure to cross the t's and dot the i's on this could see her dragged back to Celia and him being charged with kidnapping. "I thought the PRT wasn't focusing on us yet."
"They aren't." Lisa looked at Rachel, frowning slightly. "You know something we don't."
"Yeah. I was out walking my dogs earlier, and I saw a bunch of assholes setting up camp in the ferry terminal. They were dressed like the worst type of bikers and had a cape walking around with a stupid big gun, with spikes and skulls and shit hanging off her." Rachel shook her head. "Too close to the loft. They'd find us sooner or later, then they'd harass us because assholes love to do that sort of shit."
Lisa stared at her. "Spikes and skulls and a big gun? Are you sure?"
Rachel glared back. "Of course I'm fucking sure. I'm not fucking blind."
"Motorbike," Alec warned them, stepping away from the edge of the sidewalk. So did Brian; some bikers loved to clip pedestrians, or do even more stupid shit. Then he turned to look, and did a double-take.
The girl in the rabbit mask and the gloriously overdone militaristic costume pulled up alongside them. Brian noted the rapier hanging off her belt, but didn't see any ranged weapons. He also picked up on the fact that the ignition lock of the bike was busted, which meant she had not acquired it in any kind of legal fashion.
"Hi," said the newcomer brightly. "My name's March. How would you like to be part of the newest, most kickass gang in Brockton Bay?"
End of Part Thirty-Six
Part Thirty-Six: Breaking Step
[A/N: This chapter commissioned by @Fizzfaldt and beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]
March
Fully aware that the car she was driving was more than a little conspicuous, and not wanting Monochrome's battlesuited buddy to land on it—and her—with both feet, or turn her into a crater from a thousand feet up, May ditched it at the first opportunity. All the same, she argued to herself as she ducked through the alleyways of Brockton Bay with one eye on her backtrail, Monochrome had totally been asking for it. What kind of idiot just stood there after saying something like 'you can't hurt me with that'?
Especially if it turned out that yes, May could hurt her with that?
The look on her face when her force field popped? That was amazing. Though it was nothing compared to her expression when she actually got stabbed.
May's wrist twinged slightly, and she rubbed at it. There'd been a bit of a jar, a resistance, when she'd been expecting none at all, and her wrist had been set just a little off for the lunge. Must have been the force field, she decided. It held out for a split second before it popped. That's actually pretty impressive.
Still, Monochrome had taken May's blade through the chest despite her stupid force field, so that team was down to the powersuit Tinker and the chick in black with the funky arm-shields. May still wasn't sure of their names, despite the fact that Monochrome had known hers. It didn't really matter; if they came after her to capture her or avenge their fallen teammate (or both) she'd take them down just as easily. As far as she was concerned, battlesuits only provided visual cover.
Still, it was probably a good idea to lay low until the next night. They'd undoubtedly be scouring the city for her tonight, along with everyone who was willing to help. Tomorrow night, it would just be them, and Monochrome would still be dead.
May grinned as an idea came to her. If they give her a public funeral, I'll sneak in after and put 'Whoops' on her tombstone. I mean, how stupid can you get?
<><>
Hebert Household
Taylor
Danny grimaced as he shook his head. "I'm not going to say that was a stupid thing to do, mainly because nothing else has been able to get through your force field. However, standing there and letting her stab you was remarkably short-sighted; just because nothing you've encountered can affect you inside the field doesn't mean there's nothing that will."
"Hear, hear," Rod Clements agreed. "As my Logic professor used to say, 'absence of evidence is not evidence of absence'. He looked Taylor over carefully. "Are you sure you're okay now?"
"Perfectly." Taylor felt confident enough to reply in the positive. "Panacea fixed me up just fine."
"She does good work, it seems," Alan Barnes agreed. "Well worth the four hundred I wired through to Madison."
"Yeah, she does." Taylor frowned. "Not to change the subject exactly, but with her quality of work, how the hell is she not snowed under, every hour of every day?"
Mr Barnes rubbed his chin with forefinger and thumb. "I don't know the full details, but I've heard any calls to Panacea for healing go through a smart semi-AI filter system, provided by some computer Tinker or other. She prioritises life-threatening situations and charges more for frivolous calls, like getting a splinter removed. Anyone who tries to swamp the system by calling multiple times gets dropped clear out of the queue; it can even tell if the same person is calling from different phones. And capes automatically get jumped to the front of the line."
"Don't you mean heroes, not just capes?" asked Emma curiously.
"No." Mr Barnes shook his head. "If a villain calls up and has the cash, she'll fix him up too. So long as he pays in good faith, he gets healed in good faith."
"But surely there would be a constant number of clients, even taking frivolous calls out of the equation," Taylor insisted. "I mean, there's always people in the hospital."
"That's because most hospital stays are multi-day affairs," Danny explained. "From what I heard, she dealt with a metric ton of chronic conditions, from asthma to allergies to emphysema, early on. Those were one-and-done. Cancer as well. Once you get the conditions that normally get handled rather than cured out of the way, the workload drops way off."
"Yeah," agreed Mr Clements. "The number of people actually going into the hospital on any given day is actually fairly low."
Mr Barnes chuckled. "The pharmaceutical companies hate her. She doesn't prescribe any drugs that they can jack the price on, and she reduces the need for people to take the ongoing maintenance drugs that they make a lot of their profit on. They tried threatening a lawsuit to bar her from healing people on some bullshit technicality, and Carol said, 'Bring it.' Our whole company was gearing up to go balls-to-the-wall for her. That went away pretty fast, especially after we started talking to the news services about it."
"Well, I'm just glad she was ready to come fix me at a moment's notice," Taylor said. "The question is, how do we fight March, if she can just pop my force field like that, and cut through anything?"
"I think we need to talk to the PRT again," Madison decided. "See if they've got anyone with any insights on going up against her. Until then, I'd suggest you stay at range, and either poke her with your staff or throw stuff."
"Well, I can definitely throw stuff at her." Cars, Taylor decided. I can throw cars at her.
Emma nodded. "I'll make that phone call."
<><>
Flechette
Lily was working up a good sweat on the treadmill—just because her powers gave her perfect timing and good balance didn't mean she could coast on the fitness aspect—when Triumph stepped into view in front of her and waved to get her attention. Hitting the button to let it roll to a stop, she pulled out one of her earpieces. "What's going on?" she asked. "The gangs acting up?"
"No, actually." She was struck once more by the deep resonant quality of his voice. "The Director wants to see you about that cape who keeps giving you a hard time."
"What, March?" Just saying the name gave her a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. "Is she in town? Who's she hurt?"
"Yeah, she is, and it seems she ran into the Real Thing about an hour ago. Nearly killed Monochrome." He tilted his head toward the ceiling. "But you need to be having this conversation with Director Piggot, not me."
"Shit." She took a deep breath. "Okay, yeah, good point." Grabbing her towel, she stepped off the treadmill. "Do me a favour and let her know I'll be five minutes?"
"I can do that."
<><>
Five Minutes Later
Director Piggot
Emily looked up at the tap on the door. "Enter."
The door opened, to reveal Flechette on the other side. Clad in civvies, the girl wore her tinted visor as a way to indicate who she was and hide her identity at the same time. "You wanted to see me, ma'am?"
"Yes." She waited until the door had closed behind the girl, then gestured to a chair. "Have a seat. Just so you're aware, this conversation will be recorded, as per PRT regulations." It was a warning she gave to every Ward, once. If they forgot thereafter, it was not her problem. "Now, you gave us some stringent warnings about March, as I recall."
"Yes, ma'am. Triumph said she nearly killed someone?" Flechette sat down, her shoulders hunched, as though she was expecting to be blamed for the incident.
"That is correct. Monochrome. Fortunately, her aim was a little off and Panacea is available at short notice, so she survived. As of ten minutes ago, the Real Thing contacted us for pointers on fighting her." She paused as Flechette opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again. "What?"
"Excuse me, ma'am, but March's aim is never 'a little off'. I've never known her to miss what she was aiming at because of random chance. Or even because someone dodged; she's stupidly good at anticipating which way someone's going to try to go to evade her."
"Hmm." Emily didn't doubt Flechette's word. She had more experience against March than anyone in Brockton Bay, as a matter of course, and second-guessing the experts was a sure-fire route to disaster. "I may have mis-heard what Firebird said. In any case, they fully intend to go after her again, so any suggestions for doing this would be well-received."
"Speaking frankly, ma'am, my first suggestion would be 'don't', but I suppose that's not going to fly."
"You are correct." Emily smiled thinly. "The Real Thing have shown themselves to be remarkably persistent, not to mention effective. Up until today, I wouldn't have bet against them when it came to dealing with a single cape. It appears that I—and they—miscalculated."
Just for a second, Flechette's expression clearly said 'no shit', but the girl was evidently too smart to express that sentiment out loud. "Can I talk to them? If I know what happened, I can maybe figure out where to go from there."
"That's something I can arrange, yes." Emily took up her phone, accessed Firebird's number, and pressed the icon to call it. While the call was still going through, she put it on speaker, then placed the phone on the desk between them.
The phone rang twice, then Firebird's voice came through. "Hello, Director Piggot. What's up?"
"I have Flechette here," Emily said. "She wants to talk to you about your encounter with March."
"Yeah, hi," Flechette added. "So, um, what actually happened? Because March doesn't miss. If she's going for the kill, you're dead. If she's really going for the kill, you explode."
"I'll let Monochrome explain it. All Blockade and I saw was the aftermath."
There was a pause, then Monochrome spoke. "She was in a car and I stopped her by picking it up. There was a sword, and I told her to put it down, but she just kind of leaned across the seat and stabbed me with it. It popped my force field and went through my lung. Firebird was able to keep me alive until Panacea showed up. What should I have done differently?"
Flechette frowned. "Well, as I told the Director, the best way to not get stabbed by March is not to get close to her. But that aside, you say it 'popped' your force field, as opposed to punching through it? Also, a lung shot is a bit sloppy for someone like March. If she goes for the chest, it'll be a heart shot."
"Yeah. My force field automatically comes on when something's likely to hurt me, and I've found nothing that can get through it, until now. As soon as her sword hit it, it vanished. Panacea says she might've been aiming for my heart, but her sword scraped off my rib before it went into my chest." Monochrome sounded distinctly aggrieved about this.
"Wait, that's not right." Flechette shook her head. "For her sword to disrupt a high-end force field, she had to have been empowering it, but if she was empowering it, it would've gone straight through your rib like a hot knife through butter. Zero resistance. I know this, because it's how my power works."
"I don't know what to say. That's what happened. One second I was fully protected, and the next there was a sword sticking in me. And if Panacea says it scraped off my rib, then I'm going to take her word for it."
Flechette sat back in her chair, rubbing her thumbnail across her lips. "Okay, that's … the only way I can see that happening is if there was some kind of weird interaction between her power and your force field."
"What do you mean, exactly?" Monochrome sounded interested, at least.
"Okay, look at it like this. My power—our power—goes through anything. From the sounds of it, your force field stops everything. So, what happens when the unstoppable force meets the immovable object?"
"But she stabbed me anyway." Monochrome had clearly been looking ahead to the obvious conclusion. "So the unstoppable force wins?"
"No, they cancel each other out," Flechette said patiently. "Her blade wasn't empowered anymore, but it was still sharp."
"I said that!" exclaimed a voice Emily recognised as belonging to the petite teen inside the Blockade armour. "Didn't I say that?"
"Yes, okay, you called it." Firebird's sigh was audible. "Sorry about that. Blockade dislikes being ignored when she's right about something."
"Wait." Flechette sounded startled. "That's a girl in the Blockade armour? I thought for sure it was a guy inside there."
"That's the general idea of having a voice modulator, yes." Firebird cleared her throat. "So, back to the topic of March. Thanks for verifying Blockade's theory. Now, how can we use that information to wreck March? Also, is her power likely to be able to damage good steel? I'd really rather not go into a fight against her, and find out I'm trying to hide behind the equivalent of a marshmallow."
"Hey, my force field is not a marshmallow!"
"True," agreed Blockade. "From the way it popped, it was more like a soap bubble."
"What?"
"Monochrome, hush. Blockade, stop baiting her. We don't know if your suit will even stand up to March yet. Flechette?"
"I can give you good news on that front at least." Flechette sounded pleased. "We tested the piece Blockade gave to Armsmaster. My power couldn't so much as get a grip on it. I've cut through tungsten carbide like so much fairy floss, and that 'good steel' just flat-out ignored me."
"Hah! Yes! I knew it!"
"Okay," Monochrome said. "So Firebird and Blockade will be protected against her. Got anything for me?"
Emily coughed into her fist to get their attention. "Actually, I just had an idea. Monochrome, have you considered the idea of defence in depth?"
"Um … not really? What does that mean?"
"From the footage I've seen of you in action, your force field doesn't have to be skin-level, correct?"
"Well, no. I can shape it out to an inch or so. Why?"
"Can you generate two separate force fields, one under the other? Because if her power is expended when she pops the first layer, it'll just be an ordinary sword when she hits the second one." Knowing they couldn't see her, Emily still gestured to illustrate the concept.
Flechette's eyes widened and she sat up. "That … could actually work. It takes a second or so to empower a weapon. Even if she keeps her sword in contact with you while she charges it up again—and trust me, she can totally do that—you can move the field outward and form another one under it, right?"
"Well, yeah." Monochrome sounded doubtful. "So it's as simple as that? Two force fields, one inside the other?"
"Oh, it'll be anything but simple." Flechette shook her head. "Once she figures out what you're doing, and she totally will, she'll go for your eyes or anywhere else she thinks you might not have total coverage. And she will keep trying."
"But she won't just be fighting Monochrome next time." There was steel in Firebird's tone.
"Damn right." Blockade sounded just as determined.
Flechette didn't look entirely convinced, but neither did she voice any concerns. "Okay, then. Just … be really careful, okay? She plays by her own rules, and those rules change whenever she feels like it. If she can bully you, she'll absolutely do it."
Firebird's chuckle forebode dire consequences for March. "We're thoroughly acquainted with that mindset, trust me."
"Well, if there was nothing else?" prompted Emily after a few seconds of silence.
"That's all we had, Director," answered Firebird. "Thanks for letting us talk to Flechette."
"And Flechette, thanks for the advice," added Monochrome.
"You're totally welcome. Glad I could help." Flechette nodded to Emily.
"Good luck. Ending call … now." Emily hit the red icon, then laced her fingers together and looked over her desk at Flechette. "Thoughts?"
"Well, they listened, I guess. To a point, anyway." Now that the call was over, Flechette was letting her doubts show in her voice. "I just … nobody's ever gotten the better of March. The best we've ever done is chase her off with overwhelming force, and she still got a few good hits in. Monochrome nearly died the last time because she was overconfident. What if what I told them isn't enough to beat her?"
Emily had seen exactly what the Real Thing could do when they had the upper hand. Now she was about to see how they went against a foe who had already beaten them once.
"I suppose we'll find out when the time comes."
<><>
The Next Afternoon
Butcher
The convoy of vehicles trailed its way into Brockton Bay. They didn't draw a great deal of attention, being in relatively good condition and bearing legitimate license plates. This was because while the majority of the vehicles were stolen (the Teeth were not the sort of people to walk into a car showroom and actually pay money for their rides, don't be ridiculous) the plates had been swapped over for ones that had been taken off cars on the street. It wouldn't pass muster for an in-depth check on a given plate, but a simple check for license plates of stolen cars wouldn't show up either.
Seated in the passenger seat of the lead van, with most of her paraphernalia concealed in the back, Butcher looked around with interest. She'd never been here before in person, but one or two of her predecessors had, so she had their memories to tap into. In their professional opinion, despite a few new buildings, the place had gone downhill since Butcher and the Teeth had last graced the city with their presence.
Along with the capes, there were about forty mundane followers in the Teeth. She didn't have an exact number; every now and again they recruited new blood, or some idiot got shanked or left of their own accord. Although they could likely commandeer enough motel rooms to accommodate everyone, the Teeth didn't do motels. Like the 'travellers' of Europe and the UK, they tended to find a spot that nobody was looking too closely at, circle the wagons, and set up camp. If they could steal electricity (or anything else) while they were at it, all the better.
Following instructions from one of the past Butchers, she guided the convoy to the northern part of the city, rolling through mostly-abandoned suburbs toward their goal. Covetous eyes took note of boarded-up stores and strip malls; businesses that closed down due to bankruptcy or whatever often had stock left behind if there was no new place to take it to. Among their numerous talents, the Teeth were expert scavengers of things left unattended, whether it be for fifteen years or fifteen seconds.
"There," she said, pointing ahead through the windshield. "We'll set up there."
Spree, who was driving at the time, peered at the building. It was well-kept, though the signs saying 'temporarily out of service' and 'coming soon' were weathered and worn, which was what had gotten Butcher's attention. The important part was that it was roomy enough for the Teeth to all find somewhere to crash, and make the place their own (mainly involving breaking stuff and tagging all available surfaces, because this was the Teeth).
"What about the boat?" he asked, indicating the ferry that was tied up at the dock.
"Oh." Butcher grinned lazily. "We'll take that too."
<><>
March
Operation: Find A Gang was now on its second day with no appreciable progress, which irked May slightly. By this time she'd usually at least made some connections and was moving into the active recruitment phase, but teaching Monochrome the essential lesson of 'yes I can hurt you, you idiot' and then evading pursuit had cost her the night. She hadn't seen or heard anything about the moron's death on the news, but they were probably just trying to figure out how to spin it in a positive light.
To change things up, she'd boosted a motorbike this time and started cruising the streets, looking for trouble. It wasn't like she was being especially subtle, riding around in full costume and all. Just one cop car was all she wanted; surely they'd pull her over and try to arrest her, and then she'd have a cop car.
Rich end of town or poor end of town? Mentally, she flipped a coin. Causing problems in the affluent areas tended to draw more than one unit, whereas she was likely to only get one cop car at a time in the low to middle class suburbs.
Despite the fact that she could take down any number of cops, they might delay her long enough for the heroes to show up, and they'd probably still be holding a grudge over Monochrome. So while she was fully aware that it might take a bit longer, the coin came down on 'poor end of town'.
It took her less time than she'd thought to leave the nice side of town and hit the shitty region. Half the street-lights were smashed, there were areas where potholes outnumbered normal sections of street, and the general air of decrepitude made her want to gag. But she reminded herself that she'd made this choice, and she never made bad choices.
So she kept going, taking corners almost at random, gradually working her way farther north. Sooner or later, she figured, she would run into either a cop car or someone she could recruit as the first member of her Brockton Bay gang. Either one would be good.
<><>
Grue
"I gotta ask, are there any that we haven't hit?" As they strolled along the sidewalk toward Lord Street, Alec seemed to be inquiring more out of mild curiosity than from actual greed. "Because we've made bank over the last few days."
"Oh, there's a few," Lisa admitted. "But they're the low-end ones. Not worth our time."
"Need to think about moving on anyway," Rachel threw in.
"What's the rush?" asked Brian, concerned. He was still working on getting full custody of Aisha so that when he left town, she could legally come with. Failure to cross the t's and dot the i's on this could see her dragged back to Celia and him being charged with kidnapping. "I thought the PRT wasn't focusing on us yet."
"They aren't." Lisa looked at Rachel, frowning slightly. "You know something we don't."
"Yeah. I was out walking my dogs earlier, and I saw a bunch of assholes setting up camp in the ferry terminal. They were dressed like the worst type of bikers and had a cape walking around with a stupid big gun, with spikes and skulls and shit hanging off her." Rachel shook her head. "Too close to the loft. They'd find us sooner or later, then they'd harass us because assholes love to do that sort of shit."
Lisa stared at her. "Spikes and skulls and a big gun? Are you sure?"
Rachel glared back. "Of course I'm fucking sure. I'm not fucking blind."
"Motorbike," Alec warned them, stepping away from the edge of the sidewalk. So did Brian; some bikers loved to clip pedestrians, or do even more stupid shit. Then he turned to look, and did a double-take.
The girl in the rabbit mask and the gloriously overdone militaristic costume pulled up alongside them. Brian noted the rapier hanging off her belt, but didn't see any ranged weapons. He also picked up on the fact that the ignition lock of the bike was busted, which meant she had not acquired it in any kind of legal fashion.
"Hi," said the newcomer brightly. "My name's March. How would you like to be part of the newest, most kickass gang in Brockton Bay?"
End of Part Thirty-Six
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New chapter isn't bad. Though I do wonder if Brian and Alec wouldn't be a pretty effective counter to March? Her timing might help counter Grue's darkness somewhat, but Alec would be able to mess with her pretty easy, and it wouldn't take much to put her down. Not saying they would fight her, better to run away or avoid her, but I think they would be pretty effective.
GreydonCreed
Man of Culture
- Location
- United States
Ah hell... so much for the Undersiders. 😅
If they join up with March (not that she'll give them a choice) the Real Thing is going to turn them into a smear on the sidewalk. 😰
I'm more nervous about the Butcher and the Teeth, actually. Especially if they are taking over the ferry station and boat. 😓
Edit - worse case, March goes up against Butcher and kills him/her. 😳 The only upside to that is that March's personality gets subsumed by the previous Butchers and they are not much more of a threat beyond the current personality.
If they join up with March (not that she'll give them a choice) the Real Thing is going to turn them into a smear on the sidewalk. 😰
I'm more nervous about the Butcher and the Teeth, actually. Especially if they are taking over the ferry station and boat. 😓
Edit - worse case, March goes up against Butcher and kills him/her. 😳 The only upside to that is that March's personality gets subsumed by the previous Butchers and they are not much more of a threat beyond the current personality.
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