Magical Girl Escalation Taylor (Worm/Nanoha)

[Silently Watches]

[ ] Picking up the Pieces, Part 3 – So that was a thing. Unfortunately for you and them both, dealing with angry and upset space wizards is way outside your areas of expertise. You need to talk about this with someone, but whom? And how are you going to prove that you aren't crazy?
-[ ] Talk to Dragon about the EEG results
--[ ] Spell calculations, Device production
-[ ] Power up the radio with Dragon
--[ ] Endbringers in general, the Simurgh in particular, and TSAB assistance


Emigration 4.17
Friday, April 8

You click on the link in the email you received yesterday and are unsurprised to find yourself once again on the video chat Dragon used to talk with you last time. Also like last time, Perfect Storm modifies your laptop's video feed so it displays Calamity Witch rather than you when the world-famous Tinker logs on. "Do you just keep windows open until people reply?" you can't help but ask. You got the private message yesterday afternoon, but between making dinner alongside Dad and putting the finishing touches on the artsy-craftsy History project you maybe possibly forgot about until the last minute, you didn't even know she had sent you anything until you logged onto your account half an hour ago. And yet, even after that delay, she still answers in just a couple of seconds? Something's a little fishy about this.

Oh. Or maybe she's like Miss Militia and doesn't sleep. Agoraphobia and insomnia? No wonder she gets so much Tinkering done. She'd probably die of boredom if she didn't have something to do.

The avatar bobs gently; maybe a shrug? "You'd be surprised how many windows I keep open at any one time. There's a lot I have to keep track of, and automation only goes so far. That isn't what I wanted to talk to you about, though."

You grin, feeling only a little superior. "The EEG says I don't have any powers, doesn't it?"

"More like it's indeterminate. There is something strange going on in your brain when you use magic, but the source could not be localized."

"And by can't be localized, you mean it isn't coming from that thing in the front of my brain where the Corona or whatever used to be, right?" She doesn't answer immediately, which makes your smile widen a little more. "Right?"

"…That is one way to interpret it."

You laugh lightly. Parahuman powers? Nope! You are a mage. This would have all gone so much faster if Dragon had just believed you, but you'll cut her some slack. You had trouble believing in magic until you created Samantha, and you were the one doing it. Besides, there's no reason to rub her nose in her misjudgment. That's the kind of thing Emma would do. Instead you simply ask, "Now that that's all been straightened out, have you taken a look at the books Perfect Storm sent you? I couldn't make heads or tails out of the blueprints, but I'm not a Tinker or an engineer—"

«Device Meister, Mistress.»

"—so I wouldn't know what I'm looking at anyway," you finish, ignoring Perfect Storm's 'helpful' correction.

"That makes two of us."

What?

"I flipped through the designs in those books, but they make no sense. Analyzing the blueprints, the materials used have the wrong resistances for electricity to flow down them, and several areas don't have any kind of circuitry whatsoever. Whatever powers your device, it isn't electricity. Not to mention, the blueprints has different pieces stacked on top of and even inside other ones, which just isn't possible. Not unless even the simplest 'magical' designs rely on dimensional folding or something along those lines, anyway," she reluctantly amends.

Dimensional folding. Thinking back to how Perfect Storm shifted when you first met, you nod. You could see that being the case.

"Nor is it only the physical designs that don't work," Dragon continues. "I thought I could get some hints about the engineering from looking at the code, but that was even less helpful. I'm highly tempted to dismiss this as an elaborate prank, but thinking back to our other talks, you sounded too eager and honest for that to be the case. You believe what you're saying is true, for whatever that's worth."

"I know what I'm saying is true," you tell her in a stern voice. She thinks this is a prank? Seriously? "The code makes perfect sense. I've definitely seen it enough. If it didn't work, I'd know it."

"There is no sense to be had in it. There is no internal consistency at all. How to explain this?" mutters the Tinker to herself. "You know about number bases, right? Decimals like everyone uses in day-to-day life is base 10, binary is base 2, that sort of thing?" You nod. "Mathematics can be done without issue no matter the bases involved. The problem is that it has to be consistent, and this isn't. In your 'spells', different variables will be entered into the same function, but running through the calculations based on the final answers in the books, the only way the answers make sense is if, depending on the variable in question, the function uses different bases depending on the variable that was entered. Ten is the predominant, but not by much. Base 7 and 12 are also very common, followed by a substantial bit of base 17. To make matters more complicated, even if two variables correspond to the same function and use the same base, that function will then call up completely different subroutines. I can't find any sign for when one set of subroutines is supposed to be used instead of another, and there are no redundancy loops or error checks that I would expect should it be a matter of trial and error. These codes should all collapse into error messages before they do anything."

"I don't know what to tell you. My spells make sense to me. If there's something funky going on with the math, it isn't bad enough that I've noticed it. As for the whole subroutine thing, maybe it just needs an AI to figure out what needs to be turned on when, but I don't think that's it, either." You shrug. "Storm's told me before that I can learn to cast any of my spells without its help. That doesn't sound like it's essential, just very very helpful."

Dragon shakes her head. "Regardless, this doesn't prove your claims. I'm willing to accept for now that you aren't a parahuman," she explains to your expression of shock, "but the only alternative you've presented so far is that you learned magic from aliens. You'll have to excuse me if I first look at all the possibilities before I accept something that unbelievable. It's nothing personal, just that what you're trying to convince me of is beyond outlandish and well into impossible. For it to stand up on its own merits, every other plausible and even implausible explanation must first be ruled out."

You glare at her, your initial surprise becoming overwhelmed by your anger and frustration. When you first talked to Dragon, you revealed the whole truth both because it was the right thing to do and because she, being a world-famous hero and Tinker, likely deserved to know about alien technology if anyone did. You went through the MRI and the EEG and the fight that nearly got Vista killed so you could prove to her that you were telling the truth and weren't crazy or messing with her. And this is the thanks you get? That's a good reason to let her stay in the dark and be surprised if and when space wizards show up on Earth Bet—

Oh. Ohhh. Now that's just mean, but it's so deserved.

"What more proof would you want before you accept that everything I'm telling you is real?" you ask, carefully hiding your expectant smirk.

"What more proof do I need before I believe in magical aliens? Where do I begin? The bare basics would—"

"Would talking to them work?"

"…Um." Dragon blinks bewildered at you. "What?"

"You remember that video I sent you where I swam down to the crashed ship and salvaged something from it before it all sank? Originally, I thought what I found was part of the computer. That's what I went down looking for, you see," you explain, "something that would reveal exactly what Perfect Storm is and where it comes from. It doesn't remember a lot from before it crashed here. Anyway, when I powered up what I thought was a computer, it turned out it was actually the ship's radio."

"You claim to have a radio from a UFO," Dragon repeats slowly, "and that you managed to talk to the same aliens whose technology you claim to use. And you want to, what, put me on the line with them?"

"Pretty much, yeah."

"I'm starting to think you either really did do all this or are completely delusional. I don't know which would be worse."

You shrug. You aren't entirely sure what she's worried about, but maybe that's because you've spent the last couple of months with Perfect Storm whereas she hasn't. Either way, a problem for another day. "Well? Do you want to talk to them or not?"

Dragon visibly hesitates, but finally her curiosity wins out. "Okay. If you're this eager to show me, I'll see it."

«Negative.»

"Huh? Negative what?" you ask your Device.

«Mistress suffered moderate to severe Core strain following last communication attempt. Commands to power radio will be overridden.»

Dragon turns to stare at Perfect Storm in interest, and you give her a sheepish smile. "Give us just a minute, please?" You don't wait for her to respond before hitting the mute button. "Storm, this is serious. If we want Dragon's help figuring out how to power the radio long-term or finding the rest of the ship or anything, really, we need her to believe us. You heard her. She isn't going to accept what we're telling her unless she talks to them herself."

«Irrelevant. Mistress's Linker Core will be damaged following such strain.»

You stop and think for a second. Your Intelligent Device is doing its best to protect you. You appreciate that, you really do, but right now, that's more than a little inconvenient. Perhaps it gives you a different angle of attack, though. "What about the Endbringers? They're a danger to me, and if the TSAB or whatever has weapons that can kill them? That will keep me safer than me being here by myself."

«Damage to Mistress's Linker Core will eliminate ability to protect self from all enemies.»

"You aren't making this easy, are you?" you mutter. "Okay. A question. Which is it straining my Core: just turning the thing on, or keeping it running?"

«Continued use.»

Ha! Good. This you can work with. "So I can run it for a little while without it causing damage, right?" Perfect Storm reluctantly dings. "How long? If we turned the radio on, how long would I have before my Core starts getting strained again?"

The Device is silent for a long moment. «Thirty seconds.»

"See, that's not too—" Perfect Storm's words catch up to you, and you blink. "Say what again? Thirty seconds? That's it?"

«Mistress's Linker Core still has not fully recovered from prior communication. Healing sufficient for routine spellcasting was achieved quickly, but Linker Core still possesses lingering damage. Thirty seconds maximum empowerment.»

Well, that's less helpful than you expected. You can tell Perfect Storm won't budge on this, though. Clicking the microphone button again, you give Dragon a weak smile. "I talked to Storm, and it's willing to help power the radio again. The only problem is that my magic took a big hit last time, so we'll only get thirty seconds before Storm shuts it off."

"That's not a lot of time."

"Tell me about it," you mutter. "But I can't power the radio without its help, so if thirty seconds is all we get, that's what we'll have to work with. Even getting that much was a hassle. Is there anything specific you want to talk about?"

"We hardly have long enough to talk about anything," she points out. "But if there's anything critical we need to know about…. You said it's because of their technology that you and your partner are immune to the Simurgh, correct?" You nod. "Then that's what we need to discuss. What is it about their technology that protects you? The Simurgh is in some ways the most dangerous of the Endbringers. The others we can drive off and the threat is over, but the Simurgh's plots take months or even years to come to fruition. If we could limit the damage she can do over the long-term, she becomes less of a threat. We might even be able to stop quarantining whole cities."

You wince. That'll be hard. It's definitely important, but you just don't know if you'll have the time to get the explanation out, let alone get a good answer. Perfect Storm sent the PRT a long explanation about how telepathy works, but presumably Dragon has had as much luck getting that to work as she's had with magic, which is not a good omen for this conversation.

Walking off-screen to your closet, you lug the radio tube out and prop it against your desk chair. "Storm, ready with the translation program? Dragon, get ready to ask your question." You pick your Device up and hold it in your palm over the radio. "Turn it on."

Just like before, dark triangles and wires pop out of nowhere and tap into pieces of the radio. The holographic screens appear afterwards. A quick check to make sure Perfect Storm is showing them to Dragon, and you give her a nod. "This is Taylor, from Earth Bet. Is anyone there?"

"TSAB Enforcer Command, Lieutenant Azera speaking. Where did you say you're from again?"

Great, somebody who doesn't know what's going on. That's just what you need right now. "Earth Bet. I'm the only mage on my world. I talked to this Tiburon guy a few weeks ago. I'm kind of in a time crunch here, but we need to know how magic blocks out telepathy."

You're worried Azera is going to ask some stupid questions and waste more of your limited time, but she seems to roll with the punches. "What kind of telepathy do you mean? Forcible interrogations, hallucinations, inviolable directives?"

"Maybe the last one." Is the Simurgh's Scream a directive? It certainly makes people act in a way totally opposite to how they normally world, so you guess? "There's a monster on our world who drives whole cities insane whenever she attacks, and I'm one of the only people who can resist her. We think it's because of the Device I picked up, but we don't know for sure, and I don't know how to build them or how they work. I have one of our best engineers on the—"

The screens flicker mid-sentence and die. Staring at Perfect Storm, you bite out, "That was not thirty seconds."

«It was, Mistress. Agreement was for thirty seconds. Linker Core monitored during event. Cumulative damage noted. Too dangerous to attempt communication again without stronger power source. Refuse to comply with instructions to do so.»

You turn to look at Dragon. "Sorry. I knew thirty seconds wasn't a lot, but I thought you would at least get a chance to ask somebody who knows about telepathy and everything a question."

"It's fine. I didn't expect much with that little time to work," she admits. "What I find more interesting is how you talked to them. They don't know who you are, do they?"

"Not really. I only had a couple of minutes to talk to them last time, and it wasn't until the end of the conversation that they realized I'm the only mage here. I never seem to get a chance to tell them anything of importance," you add with a significant look at your Device.

Perfect Storm glints back unashamedly.

"You've certainly given me a great deal to think about," says Dragon with a sigh. "And everything was calming down, too. I knew the other shoe was going to drop eventually. I just didn't think it would be something like this."

"Sorry?"

She waves your tentative apology off. "Nothing we can do about it now. Even if your Storm decides to let you power the radio again, please don't. Aliens with magic." She shakes her head. "Assuming somebody isn't playing a joke on you and you aren't playing one on me, this is the kind of situation that needs to be handled delicately. I don't know who needs to know about this and how to make them believe it when I'm not sure I do, but this is bigger than just the two of us. Please, just hold off on talking to them until we have some idea of what we're going to do."

Her side of the video abruptly cuts off, and you watch the screen for a few seconds before deciding she hung up rather than that there's any technical difficulties. Hanging Perfect Storm around you neck again, you grab the radio to manhandle it back into your closet.

Somehow, you don't think this is much of a shoe, and that worries you.

I wonder what Saint's making of all this.
+1 to Spatial Translocation (1/2 Adept).

Only a few people remembered that Perfect Storm said no to you powering up the radio again. I thought about having it stick to its guns, but since you were all so eager to have Dragon talk to the TSAB, you got one exception. The radio is now firmly off unless you hook a bigger mana source to it than somebody's Linker Core. And yes, I actually did time myself reading the dialogue so I wouldn't shortchange you on your thirty seconds.

No vote for this chapter because this right here is the end of the arc! 4.x next, then the after-action report, and then Arc 5 begins. Fair warning, there might be a couple of weeks delay between Arcs 5 and 6 since I haven't planned that far in advance. I meant to, but I keep getting sidetracked. That's an issue for the future, though, and will likely depend on just what kind of a mess you make of Arc 5.

 

[Silently Watches]

Emigration 4.x

Samstag, 9 Grasmanod, Year 0080

"Right now, we're still waiting for the majority of the supplies to be collected and brought on board and the specialists to arrive. We can set off as soon as that's finished. I'd estimate no more than a week."

"That is good news, Erga," Admiral Dietrich Tucson said with a sigh. Finally, something was going right with this blasted operation. "You're sure no one else knows the details of your mission?"

"Just myself and Captain Aska. We told the rest of the crew that we're on a routine expedition and surveillance mission with unsubstantiated rumors of pirate activity in the area. It seemed the best explanation for why I'm aboard and why everyone needs to be prepared to adhere to first contact precautions," the Enforcer said with a shrug.

Tucson nodded. That was good enough, for now at least. That kind of cover story would not last forever, particularly not if everything went south the way he was afraid and half-convinced it would, but it would do until the Sojourner reached Delnarib and the Dimensional Sea beyond. "Just be careful. I believe I've explained how delicate this situation is. A Lost Logia activating is not the kind of first impression we want to make on a magic-naive world. I'm just glad we have some point of contact on this Earth Bet place."

"Explained more than once, if you don't mind my saying so, Admiral," Erga said with a cheeky grin. The Eltria-born mage had an incorrigible habit of toeing the line between simple sass and true disrespect, but thankfully for him he was also a damn fine investigator. There were days his skill was the only thing keeping him from getting busted down a rank. "Find the dimension, find the Lost Logia, beat it up if it's active, lock it down if it ain't, and bring it back. Standard Enforcer op except for the planet. Also look for that Taylor girl and convince her to leave her backwater and join up."

"Don't get cocky," Tucson warned. "We lost two ships and almost three full crews to this thing, and that's without knowing whether it played any role in the Agharti's crash. You stick your neck out too far, you just might lose it this time."

The much younger mage scratched his purple stubble. "Ah, love you too, Admiral. Promise I'll come home safe and sound. Erga out."

Days like today, in fact, when Erga's skill was the only thing keeping him safe.

Tucson shook his head and turned back to his regular display, but he barely had time to read the first line of the report in front of him before his secretary buzzed him. "You have a priority call, Admiral," the woman's voice said.

"Who is it?"

"Enforcer Lanster, sir."

His hands froze on the keyboard. This was a confrontation he did not have the wherewithal for right now. Unfortunately, he also knew that if he didn't answer, she would just call back again. And again, and again, until he finally gave in and talked to her, at which time he would have to slap her down for insubordination because there was no doubt in his mind that she would be in a temper by then. Running his fingers through his greying head, he sighed again. "Okay, Stella, patch her through." A video screen popped up where Erga's had been a few moments before. "To what do I owe the pleasure, Lanster?"

The redhead scowled at him; as much as she would scowl at her superior, anyway. "I heard you found it."

No matter how tempting it was to play dumb about what she was talking about, he knew she would confirm whatever rumor she had heard eventually. "We received a message via the radio that was part of the Agharti a few weeks ago. A local mage on a magic-naive world managed to power it up with what sounds like an ad hoc setup. We've already started organizing a mission to pick her, and the Lost Logia, up."

"A… a few weeks?!" she spluttered. "Admiral, with all due respect, you know what happened when that thing activated last time, and that was when it only had a few days and two ships to build up its forces. Now you're saying it's been on an inhabited world for a few weeks and we haven't grabbed it yet?!"

"The initial communication did not indicate that anything untoward had happened, which should have meant that the Lost Logia was still inactive. There was no reason not to be cautious with regard to assembling a team to retrieve it," he explained as patiently as he could. Lanster's indignation was understandable, admirable even. Had he been in her shoes when he was still an active field agent, he would have been just as upset. But aggravation did not help anybody right now. "Yesterday's follow-up message regarding a telepathic monster driving people insane, on the other hand, rapidly accelerated our plans."

Lanster's face turned even more pallid than it already was, nearly the shade of her white gown, and he could see her mouth his last words. "Who…. Who's the Enforcer going in?"

"Erga."

"Erga?! Sir, he's one of the worst choices for this operation!"

Tucson crossed his arms and stared hard at her. "Do recall, Lieutenant Commander, that his attitude aside, Commander Erga has substantially more experience working around low-magic worlds than have you. I fail to see what standing you have to criticize his placement as the Enforcer for this incident."

"That's not what I meant, sir," she said, eyes down and voice audibly chastised. "Erga is more experienced, and he's a good investigator, but even he'll admit that he's weaker when it comes to combat. This Lost Logia will not go down without a fight." Glancing up again, she suggested, "What about Fate? She's one of our strongest fighters, and she's worked on magic-naive worlds before. She even lived on one for several years. If anyone's the best bet for dealing with this, it's her."

"I agree. Or I would were Captain Harlaown not currently on an undercover assignment. Total radio silence by her own orders."

"Then what about calling for help from—"

"Lanster," he interrupted with a sigh, "while I appreciate the suggestions, we don't know anything about the situation. Certainly not enough to think that we can't handle this without calling in the rest of the Navy."

Lanster bit her lip before blurting out, "Send me."

"What?"

"You could send me. I'd serve as Erga's adjunct during the investigative phase, but if things got out of hand, I'd be able to put it down better than he can. Not to mention, I've fought this Lost Logia before. I can do it again."

"You might have forgotten what kind of condition you were in after that incident," Tucson said humorlessly, "but I certainly haven't. And since I doubt you've started wearing hospital gowns as a fashion statement…."

The woman shook her head. "This is nothing, sir. I'm ready to get back to work."

Right. Meeting her eyes, he asked, "Can you walk?"

"I've already been cleared for flight, sir. Medical's just dragging their heels on signing off regarding rejoining combat exercises—"

"Lieutenant Commander." Her voice trailed off. "Can. You. Walk?"

Her silence told him everything he needed to know.

"Until you've completed your physical therapy, you aren't going back on active duty. I don't know that I could trust you with a desk job right now. Either way, there's no chance I'm going to put you on the Sojourner."

"Admiral, please," she said, her voice soft, nearly begging. "What if… When does the Sojourner head out?"

He answered carefully, "A week, maybe a little later."

"A week." Lanster nodded to herself. "What if I was cleared by Medical before it departs? There'd be nothing keeping me from returning to active duty, would there?"

He massaged his temples. Why did his Enforcers have to be so tenacious? Why? He could barely believe he was considering this, but he consoled himself with the fact that what she was offering was practically impossible. "Fine. Get cleared before the Sojourner ships out, and I'll permit you to join the crew and assist Erga with this case." The redhead laughed, but he raised a warning finger. "But! I need to have their approval for you to rejoin active duty on my desktop before you so much as step one foot on the deck. Do not test me on this, Lanster, I mean it. You will not like the consequences if you try to sneak on board. Is that clear?"

"Absolutely, sir. You'll get it. I'll put the form in your hands myself if I have to."

The video feed cut out, and he let himself lean back in his chair. That girl was either going to be one of his best Enforcers, or she would be the death of him. And that was ignoring her terrible, terrible luck in the kinds of cases she wound up taking part in. First the disaster with the Mariage, and now this? He might have to stick her with a desk job just to keep her from getting killed.

He could appreciate the opinion she voiced after she returned from her latest mission, though. Appreciate and totally agree with. Nothing good ever came out of Galea.


Parts of this interlude might have worked better had you already converted somebody, but oh well. At least you got a major piece to the puzzle of just what the hell Perfect Storm really is.

 

[Silently Watches]

After-Action Report for Arc 4: Emigration


Ugggghhhhh. That arc felt like it took forever. Not that there wasn't a lot to do, or that I didn't have a ton of fun with it, but damn did it go on for longer than I intended it to.

But I'm guessing you're not here for my bitching, are you? You just want to pat yourselves on the back for how well you did. Well, fine, be that way.

House Shopping

• You chose to go to Philadelphia, sticking close to Miss Militia and Vista and getting involved in the Beast city-quest. As mentioned before, Chicago would have been more of a crime drama, and Boston would have been more politics and intrigue and dealing with Accord (whom I honestly don't like as a character, so I'm rather glad you didn't pick Boston).
• You almost had the option to head to New York with Legend and Shadow Stalker. The problem is that this required you to hit the Simurgh with Solar Wrath, and you didn't learn that spell in Arc 2. Since you couldn't prove that you were immensely powerful in addition to being extremely flexible with your skill set, you didn't get THE Blaster's attention. And no, Alexandria's curiosity doesn't help in this regard.

Picking Up the Pieces

• This quest went as well as could be expected, I think. You found the Aghari's radio and had a nice little chat with Enforcer Command about being a noob mage from a dimensional backwater. Then you proved to Dragon that yes, they really are aliens. For a certain value of 'proved', anyway, though she is having a very hard time thinking up reasonable alternatives to your claims considering the evidence. Too bad you don't have a magical power source to keep the radio going long enough for a decent conversation, isn't it?
• Interestingly, had you chosen to talk with someone of a more political persuasion for Part 3, you could have focused on the public reaction issues that would pop up when it comes out that aliens are real. This goes doubly true when you keep in mind that the TSAB made it clear the first time you spoke that they want their stuff back.
• Speaking of things going well as opposed to crashing horribly around you? Had you chosen to hang up (or hide information like some of you suggested) during Part 2, the TSAB wouldn't have known that you're just a regular girl and instead would have continued with their assumptions that the Agharti was attacked by pirates or something even worse. Their reaction in the interlude would have been much more aggressive, with many more combat-capable mages headed to Earth Bet to seal up Perfect Storm. That wouldn't go over quite so well in the future.
• There were no opportunities to learn new spells in this quest. Sorry!
• Well, no, that's a lie. There was one chance to get in a fight. I'm not going to tell you what it was because there's still a chance you can stumble into it later, but this was the first opportunity.

A Dragon's Hoard

• It took you an extra week to get started, but eventually you called Dragon back. You then chose to tell her about Perfect Storm's extraterrestrial origin and got the MRI, which means there was no longer any doubt in her mind that something weird was going on. Calling the Enforcers might have broken her, though, just a little bit.
• But damn, that fight against Cadejo.
• Since you got the MRI, Alexandria got the results and knows that you aren't a parahuman. Yes, 4.a was a missable interlude. It's going to be fun to see just what that sets up in the future!
• There was one opportunity to learn a new spell with this quest, and you chose Spatial Translocation. Because flight just isn't enough for you greedy brats, is it? You don't even want to expend that much effort to get around.

Monster Menagerie

• Ah, the introduction to Philadelphia's special city-quest. I had a lot of fun coming up with this part of the game. Maaaaaybe a little too much fun.
• So many of you made the assumption from the word 'go' that you're dealing with the Travelers who picked up a bio-Tinker somewhere. We'll just have to see if you're right or not.
• Anyway. You didn't start it when you first got the chance, but since you chose to take part in the Party Hardy event, you still got part 2 and later the relevant sections of part 1 (hence my calling it part 2-ish). Too bad you missed the opportunity to watch Bonesaw's dissection. I would have greatly enjoyed writing that, and you would have gotten some much-needed information.
• Had you chosen to follow the Duster while at the party, I would have given you the opportunity to try Angel Dust's drugs during the party, and a special scene was waiting for you that I only hinted at while you were dancing. But you didn't, and as a reward for your good judgement, there were far fewer casualties during the fight than their would have been had you tried to fight while high as a kite. Of course, since you then chose the second-most cautious manner in which to keep your identity a secret, there were still some.
• There was one opportunity to learn a new spell in this quest, specifically in part 2/Party Hardy, and you chose Dimensional Transfer to finish off the transportation skill branch.

Helping Out the Little Guy

• Overall, these were meant to be random encounters. The only exceptions were the very first one, which introduced you to the Monster Menagerie subquest, and week 3, which featured a familiar face.
• …Okay, so only half of them were truly random encounters. Point still stands!
• If you had chosen to do this quest with the Privateers week 2, it wouldn't have been random, either. That would have given you the opportunity to see the Fairyland capes in action against your team. (Spoiler: the Privateers got their asses handed to them, though thankfully no one died or was seriously injured.)
• You do remember you're part of that team, right?
• There were four opportunities to learn new spells in this quest. You only did this once and learned Recursion Field.

Snark Hunt

• You ignored this quest entirely, which means…. Well, you'll just have to wait and see.
• There were three opportunities to learn new spells in this quest.

Hanging Out

• I can't run an experiment if no one partakes in it. Oh well. I'll probably keep this as an option in the future, just so it's there if anyone wants to give it a try.

Know Thyself

• Like Eye of the Tiger back in Arc 2, this was a training option in case you weren't interested in the quests provided. You still didn't choose it.

Arc 5 should start next week. This should, if I do it right, be very important in determining some stuff in the near future.

 

[Silently Watches]

Escapades 5.1

Sunday, April 10
You wrap white gauze around a bloody red wound, one of several you've bandaged this afternoon. It's times like this you wish you knew some kind of healing spell, or even that you maintained a closer connection to the team you were 'officially' part of to know when they were getting themselves into trouble. If there had been more than traps in the drug den they raided, or even just more traps….

You really don't want to think about those possibilities.

"Buck up, kid," Alexander says warmly, breaking you out of your thoughts. He just smiles at your confused expression. "We're okay. We didn't even get that hurt, all things considered. The Fairyland capes are nasty bitches, if you'll excuse my French, but a few of Snow White's minions standing guard in a house? Not nearly as big a threat."

"Speak for yourself," wheezes Ramirez, a bag of ice firmly planted between his legs where a concrete Dwarf had head-butted him.

"That's your own fault," Alexander retorts, voice halfway between the quiet man you're used to and the de facto field leader of the Privateers he's fast becoming. "Maybe those things wouldn't hold so much of a grudge against you if you hadn't gotten distracted staring at her ass last time."

"Or they were just jealous I got the right angle to—"

"La la la la la!" you shout, fingers shoved tight in your ears. A childish action, no question about that, but it stops the Don Juan wannabe mid-sentence and drastically lightens the mood if the other ex-dockworkers' chuckles are anything to judge by. Just as planned. "Fifteen-year-old girl still in the room, thank you very much."

Samantha shoots you an approving glance as she passes to continue her own Florence Nightingale impression. She's taking this a lot better than you are. Has your dad told her details of the Privateers' operations that he's hidden from you? Or maybe it's just that she realizes Alexander has a point. For all that these men were originally dockworkers and, at times, glorified manual laborers when those were the only jobs around, they've had eight weeks to practice working together and fighting capes with nothing but the boosts to awareness and coordination your dad can grant, and it shows. They aren't S.W.A.T., but they just might be able to give the PRT's troops a run for their money.

"If I was about to say anything you haven't heard from the guys at your high school, I'll give up drinking and swearing and become a priest," Ramirez says, breaking into your introspection.

"So you're on par with high schoolers now?" laughs Mitch. "Giving yourself a little too much credit there, don't you think?"

A loud shout cuts through the laughter. "Hey! Hey!" Tim all but runs in and flips on the large television on the far wall. "Everybody shut up and listen!"

"—numbers are still coming in, but current estimates are that anywhere from ten to forty National Guardsmen were seriously injured or killed in the initial attack. You can see behind me what remains of this section of the wall that was built around Brockton Bay following the Simurgh's attack, the concrete and rebar little match for the Teeth and Fallen's coordinated attacks—"

You, along with the rest of your team, can only stare at the scenes of destruction being broadcast all across the country. Your hometown is only the second city in the U.S. that has been targeted by the Simurgh, but you know the tales from other lands. You know of Madison, Wisconsin, and the great guarded wall that was built to keep in all the people who were tainted by the Endbringer's maddening Scream. You know how the country still views the few people who have been let out, cleared by the PRT but still viewed with suspicion and fear by the average man and woman.

And that wall was just broken, like a boundary made of twigs?

«Mistress,» your Device whispers insistently in your mind, «a call from Miss Militia. High probability it is related to recent events in Brockton Bay.»

High probability? More like a dead certainty. "Patch it through."

"Calamity, it's Militia. Where are you?"

"Watching the news." The Privateers turn to look at you, and you prod Perfect Storm to make the other heroine's side of the conversation audible. "What the hell happened?"

"Everything. Everything happened, all at once." You can all too easily imagine her face, the same tension in her eyes that you saw when she found you and Vista following your first fight with the Beasts. "It isn't even the Teeth or the Fallen who are the problem. It's all the villains who have managed to escape."

All the villains? How many people were trapped behind…? Your thoughts screech to a halt when you remember the scene you witnessed when you were getting screened. Victor was listed as only a moderate threat, but he was forced to stay within the quarantine zone, and Othala was thrown back in when she refused to stand aside. Alexandria herself said that heroes got the benefit of the doubt during screenings like this while villains with the same chances of being Ziz-bombs were treated with suspicion. How many villains wound up trapped behind the city's walls with nothing to do but plot their revenge?

The rest of the Privateers stand in silence, their thoughts likely running along similar tracks to your own. "How bad is it likely to get?"

"It's bad enough already. Everyone from the Philly Protectorate and most of the Boston branch is already here, along with several people from New York, and that doesn't count all the independents and even the occasional villain who has volunteered to help out. We've already received our engagement orders: stop the escapees from reaching anywhere they can disappear by any means necessary, up to and including lethal force. This is an all hands on deck situation, Calamity. I don't want to put any pressure on you, but we need all the help we can get before this turns into a total tragedy."

"I don't—"

A noise comes from Miss Militia's side, someone talking but their words incomprehensible. "I need to go," the heroine says. "If you want to help, come to the National Guard's base of operations. We put the address on the Protectorate's website. Just get here quick if you're coming at all."

Several seconds pass without anyone saying a word, the sound stretching into a subjective eternity. "Tim, get the boss," Alexander finally says. "Who's good to go?" About half the Privateers raise their hands, every single one of them wearing bandages of some kind. "That'll have to do, I suppose. What about you, Taylor?"


I guess that's one way to kick this arc off with a bang, isn't it? 'Course, things are a little more complicated than just villains breaking out, but passing on that detail understandably isn't Miss Militia's highest priority right this second.

What are you going to do?

• Join the fight – Miss Militia was very clear that the Protectorate needs help. You didn't agree with how the PRT handled the screening process, but there's a time and place to make an issue of that. This is neither.
• Stay behind – The Beasts are still out there. If Miss Militia and the rest of the Philadelphia Protectorate are in Brockton Bay, that means nobody is sticking around to protect the city's citizens. You'll do more good filling in for them while they're gone.

And Samantha?

• Lend her skills – Samantha is a Guardian Beast, someone literally designed for combat. If the heroes are in such dire straights that they are letting villains go after mistreated villains, they need her there.
• Protect the homestead – Defending others is right there in her title. Convince her to stay here and flex her magical muscle so the Protectorate doesn't come back to find their home yet another disaster zone.

Don't forget about Danny and the Privateers.

• Bulk up the forces – Didn't you just say the Privateers are probably as good as the PRT? They need to go and lend their aid. If nothing else, their teamwork will put to shame any other group volunteering.
• The boss's problem – All the Privateers are injured except for Danny, but his powers don't truly require having his crew around. He can still go by himself and coordinate some of the heroes just like he did during the Simurgh fight.
• On medical leave – With his team down for the count, Danny won't be able to protect himself should everything go to hell. He needs to stay here. Keeping an eye on the city is the most the Privateers should be doing until they've recovered.

Yes, I will allow any combination of the above you want, up to and including sending Danny into the fray by himself or even none of you going at all.

See the bullets? That means that once again, a 24 hour moratorium is in effect. Poll will officially open tomorrow afternoon.

 

[Silently Watches]

[ ] Join the fight – Miss Militia was very clear that the Protectorate needs help. You didn't agree with how the PRT handled the screening process, but there's a time and place to make an issue of that. This is neither.
[ ] Lend her skills – Samantha is a Guardian Beast, someone literally designed for combat. If the heroes are in such dire straights that they are letting villains go after mistreated villains, they need her there.
[ ] The boss's problem – All the Privateers are injured except for Danny, but his powers don't truly require having his crew around. He can still go by himself and coordinate some of the heroes just like he did during the Simurgh fight.


Escapades 5.2

The answer is an easy one, though you get the feeling the rest of the Privateers aren't going to like it. "I'm going, all right. Samantha, you in?"

"Do you honestly expect me to stay here while you put yourself at risk?" she asks with a raised eyebrow.

"Fair enough."

"Good," Alexander says, still blissfully unaware of the path your thoughts are treading. "Everyone who's still able to fight, let's get a couple of trucks ready—"

"Everybody, stop!"

The men all turn to look at you in confusion. Kurt, still sitting as part of the group who admitted they were too injured to fight again today, was the first to figure it out. "You don't want any of us to go, do you?"

"No, I don't. Not now, and not to this." You raise you hands before they can bellow out their disagreement with your opinion. "If everyone was at their peak, maybe. Maybe. But you just got back from dealing with a boobytrapped drug den. All of you are injured. Some of you more than others, no arguments there, but injured just the same."

"Not all of us," one man argues. Mitch, you think his name is. It really has been a while if you can't remember everybody. "A few of us are still good to go."

Samantha lays one hand on your shoulder. "And 'a few' is… how many, exactly? Two? Three? That won't be enough."

"We've fought capes before! We can do this!" the same man yells.

"This won't be a regular fight!" you shout back. Right now, you'd dearly like a verbal hammer you could use to literally pound the facts into their heads. "You guys don't have powers, but you make up for it with skill and cunning and teamwork. But right now, you'll be missing most of your team, and it's going to be a mess out there. You heard Miss Militia. There will be both heroes and villains there, and they'll all be shooting to kill. There are going to be a lot of casualties, and I bet quite a few of them are going to be friendly fire from everyone going all out. Sam and I? We can take bullets and explosions and hits from Brutes and keep on going. We've done it before. None of you have the kind of defenses we do."

"They're right." You, along with Samantha and the Privateers, turn to regard your dad as we walks into the room. He's dressed as Captain, tricorn and all, and that means another argument you don't want to have. "We've been successful in fighting the gangs, immensely successful. But we didn't achieve our victories by charging in and butting heads with the strongest capes around. We played it smart. We watched and waited and planned, and then, only when we knew we had the greatest chances of getting away with it, did we attack. But this?" He shook his head. "This isn't something we can outthink and outmaneuver. We just don't have the raw power we would need for any kind of meaningful contribution.

"Go home, everyone. I know you want to help, but like it or not, this isn't our fight. There's nothing we can do here." The men muttered but lost their scowls for the most part, and he smiled. "And then, once everyone's rested up and recovered? Then we'll keep going after the villains who have infested this city. We know what living in a gang-ridden hellhole is like, and while we may have lost Brockton Bay, we won't lose Philadelphia."

It takes a couple of minutes before the Privateers are entirely dispersed. Once they're gone, though, you shoot your father a curious look. "Been working on your public speaking skills?"

"How do you think I kept so many people in a dockworkers' union in a city without a working port?" he replied. "There were months where a speech was all I could send the men home with. Compared to that, this is nothing."

"Danny," says Samantha gently, "everything you just said about outthinking your problems and not having the raw power you need? You know that applies to you, too."

"If I was even considering heading out to actually fight, you'd have a point, but I know where my strengths are. My powers helped out a lot during the Simurgh fight with coordinating people. They'll help out just as much with coordinating this mess."

You bite your lip, but after a long moment you nod. You don't like it, not one little bit, but… maybe he has a point. "You promise you'll stay at headquarters? No volunteering for anything, no stupid heroics?"

He gives you a flat look. "That should really be my line, you know."

"It should be, but I'm the one who's bulletproof."

Waving him closer, you raise your Intelligent Device. "Do you have the coordinates for the base?" A confident ring from the red gem, and a set of numbers appear inside your head. You take a deep breath and let it out. Time to do this. "Storm? Spatial Translocation."

Your triangle of light spins into existence below you, and the floor breaks apart into motes of orange light that quickly float upwards and wipe the converted warehouse out of existence. What replaces it is a large room with a bunch of capes and soldiers who have all glanced over to see who the new arrivals are before they return to their other duties. You look around, but you can't find Miss Militia anywhere.

"There," Samantha says, pointing out a young National Guardsman next to a box. A man in a burlap robe walks up to him and takes a wristband before continuing on his way. A very familiar wristband, in fact. Moving quickly towards the soldier, you tell him, "Calamity Witch and Samantha. I only know the basics. What's going on?"

From the faint smile on his face, this is either a question he's gotten several times already today or he has a sick sense of humor. You'll give him the benefit of the doubt considering it immediately morphs into carefully contained anger. "The Teeth weren't the only ones who hit the wall today. You know about Empire Eighty-Eight?"

"Too much. We're Brockton natives, left after the Simurgh hit."

"Okay. Most of them left and went to Boston, but apparently this Kaiser guy failed screening and got stuck inside. They decided to come back and bust him, a couple other capes, and a bunch of thugs out. Big chainsaw guy people were calling Hookwolf was leading them. They all went west.

"There was another group with them for a while, but this flying glowing cape and a few others split off fairly quick from what I was told and headed up 95 like they're trying to get to Maine. They reportedly have a bunch of families with them." He shook his head. "Guess they saw a chance to make it out and start a new life without people knowing they got Zizzed and took it.

"Everybody was already going after those two groups or dealing with the Teeth and Fallen when a bunch more people came out and ran south. More families, but they had capes riding on big dog monsters with them. They didn't hurt anybody, which is more than I can saw for the others, but between the dogs and all the smoke one of them was spewing out, we couldn't get a clear shot."

"Where are the Teeth now?"

The soldier scowls. "They aren't far from here, unfortunately. We thought they were either going to go inside the city or leave, but then this half-dragon guy breathed fire on some of the Teeth and the Fallen. Don't know if it was an accident or what, but they started attacking this new group, then somebody was teleporting around and blowing shit up. They're drifting away, but they're still fairly close by, and Alexandria and Legend and some others went over there to bring all of them down." He thinks for a moment. "Alexandria did say anybody who decided to go help over there needed to know that the Butcher, Valefor, and Lung were in play and to make sure you left the Butcher alive. If you can't stop them without killing them, you need to make yourself useful somewhere else."

That's… worrying. "Where is everybody now?" you ask.

"I don't know. We haven't been kept in the loop since the big names arrived, just providing security for the coordinators." He hands out a couple of wristbands. "Give them your name, and tell whoever answers what group you're joining. They'll put you in touch with the team leaders who will have further directions." You and Samantha take yours, and he shrugs. "Good luck out there. You might need it."


So, yay. That was a thing. As you can see, there four groups of villain you can go after, but you can only be in one place at a time, so you'll have to choose.

…Well, no, I suppose that isn't technically true.

• Empire – Kaiser, Fenja, Hookwolf, Cricket, Stormtiger, Victor, Othala, Rune, a bunch of non-powered skinheads. Kaiser, at least, is a high-probability Ziz-bomb.
• Purity – Purity, Night, Fog, Crusader, along with several families with kids and elderly.
• ABB – Lung, Oni Lee, various thugs, and a small number of civilians. Currently squaring off against the Teeth and the Fallen simultaneously.
• Independents – The Undersiders, Parian, Uber, Barker and Biter, a couple of unknown parahumans, the largest number of families.
• Security – No villains, but a soft target for anyone with the bright idea to cause trouble.

These are your possible targets, but you and Samantha don't have to go after the same group. You can split up if you so desire. I'll mention the voting format you'll need to use in 24 hours.

 

[Silently Watches]

[ ] Taylor: Purity
[ ] Samantha: ABB


Escapades 5.3

"I guess I'll leave it up to you two, then," your father says with a faint smile. "I'll be with the Thinkers and such." His smile turns brittle. "Just stay safe, okay?"

You reach out and grab his hand. "We will."

Taking a deep breath, Captain walks off to find the other support capes, and you let Samantha drag you away and to a quiet corner. She fits her wristband on her left arm and fiddles with it for a moment before looking up at you with sympathetic amber eyes. "Do you want me to stick around, provide a little extra security? I know there are plenty of soldiers here, but…."

It's tempting to do that, but you shake your head. Samantha is strong, even by cape standards. Once she got her feet under her, both two and four, she beat you in your spars every single time, and you know she still could even with the new spells you've accumulated. Alexandria could defeat her, probably, but that's the kind of opponent it would take. Telling her to stay here, though she would be willing to do so, would be a waste of that same strength. "Where do you think you could do the most good?"

"Probably Lung," she says tentatively. "I know he gets bigger and stronger as the fight goes on, but I think I have the answer to that." She holds up one hand and encases it in a silver glow. "Shredding Claw won't do anything about his size or the strength of his blows, but it will lower his defenses so I or someone else can do some damage. My Inherent Forcefield will take care of the hits and the fire. Even if he gets too much for me, it sounds like there are enough big-time capes there that we can take him."

A shiver runs down your spine. That list of people who could beat her? Lung's likely on there, too. You try to force that thought away. Like she said, she won't be alone. Alexandria and Legend will be there at the least, and probably lots of other Protectorate leaders. That could easily be where Chevalier is, too. With so many capable fighters around, she'll be okay.

You hope.

"If you think that's where you need to be," you tell her, "then that's where you need to be. I'm headed after Purity. Remember what she said when we talked to her? She said she was trying to turn her life around, be a hero. Then she backed up the Empire, but afterwards she split off and headed in a completely different direction." You shake your head. "Something about this just isn't adding up. We're missing something."

"That something might be that she's the Simurgh's tool now," warns Samantha.

"It might be, but…. One of the things Alexandria told me when we were getting cleared to leave was that if a hero got an indeterminate result, they were given the benefit of the doubt, but if a villain got the same, they were thrown back into the city. Purity said she was a hero, but no one believed her. What if she got a yellow rating? By those standards, she should have been released if that's the case. There's just too much we don't know about what happened."

"That's the real reason you're going after her, isn't it? You're thinking about trying to sit down and talk with her about what she was thinking," your Guardian Beast elaborates at your look of confusion.

"It isn't my plan, but I haven't ruled it out, no."

The raccoon-woman thinks about that for a second before nodding. "Considering how she acted the one time we met, she might be the safest one to try that with. Just don't go so far to get her to talk that you wind up putting your head on the chopping block, okay? Try to get proof that she's safe before approaching her if you can."

"I'm not going to do anything stupid."

She smiles and pulls you into a one-armed hug. "You're a teenager. What you consider stupid and what objectively is stupid aren't necessarily the same thing."

"Okay, okay. You don't have to be such a mother hen. I'll be fine." You're smiling as you say that, though, and she sees it for the joke it is if her own grin is anything to go by. "I'll keep you informed. You do the same."

"Will do."

You take to the air and look around. Let's see, it's afternoon, so sun's to the west. The soldier said Purity and company were headed north towards Maine, which would be… that way! Tapping the button on the wristband, you tell it, "Calamity Witch, joining the chase for Purity."

"One moment, please," the clearly automated voice replies. A moment passes before another voice comes over the line. "This is Revel. We're at the following coordinates: 43.140796, -70.693652. The wristband will lead you here. Get here as fast as you can."

Get there as fast as you can? Why does that not fill you with confidence?

"Storm, can you point me toward those coordinates?" Rather than answer with sound, a blinking icon pops up in your field of vision, far ahead and slightly to the right. Perfect. Turning to face it, you throw everything you have into your flight spell. Maneuverability, inertial dampening, draft deflection; all stripped from the formula in favor of pure speed. The whistling of the wind and a faint rumbling around you are your only companions for nearly a minute, but then the icon looms large in your vision and you kick the rest of the spell's components back into place.

The only good thing about the ungraceful and incredibly nauseating spin-tumble-flail you do in midair is that you're pretty sure you were going too fast for anyone to see it.

"Hey, who're you?!"

You raise the hand holding Perfect Storm between you and the guy who just spoke, your other hand still clapped over your mouth. Only once you're sure you're not about to lose your lunch do you look up at him. Your first thought is Holy shit muscles. Your second thought is Ewwwww.

Thankfully, the object of your attention remains unaware of the direction of your thoughts. He crosses his arms over his chest with difficulty – not surprising since it looks like someone stripped all the muscles from a six-foot-plus bodybuilder and shoved them onto his five-foot-four-ish frame – and repeats, "Who are you?"

"Calamity Witch. Revel told me to meet her here."

At your name, the boy hero relaxes and starts flying off, waving for you to come along. Compared to the speeds you were just going, it feels like you're just bobbing along behind him. "Sorry about the greeting. We've already had one cape come along who we thought was here to help out only for him to start fighting against us, so Revel has some of us rotating out to provide security at the edge and make sure they don't get any other reinforcements. She did tell me you were coming, but you got here so quickly I had to make sure it was actually you. Name's Strapping Lad," he finishes with what's probably supposed to be a roguish grin.

And suddenly the too-tight spandex makes sense.

Avoiding that topic, you keep your mind on business. "Who was the new cape, who else is with Purity, and who's on our side?"

"Just Purity and three capes for them, but maybe twenty or thirty civilians of all ages. Newbie had armor and a spear. Makes a bunch of ghosty copies that can fly. A strong enough punch will break them up, but any lasers or anything go right through them, and their spears will slip through stuff unless it hits flesh. Another guy turns into a lot of mist. Can't blast it away, and everyone who tried to go in started choking and crying. Third one I don't know much about other than she's the most dangerous. The people who went into the mist and didn't immediately come out? They started screaming, and a lot of them were on the ground with their arms or legs cut off, even the Brutes. A couple are dead."

Those powers are extremely familiar to you, as they would be to any Brocktonite. Crusader, Fog, Night.

"That's why it's taking so long for us to bring them in," Strapping Lad continues, pointing ahead to a white, yellow, and red light show above a block of cars. "The normal people are in cars, but any time we try to stop them, Purity will blast anybody coming close and ghost-guy sends a bunch of minions out. We distract them and sneak up, and the mist cape and the other one come out to play. Then we back off, get our wounded away, and the cars keep moving."

Yeah, that's not a bad plan on the ex-Empire capes' part. Or maybe just Empire capes; Purity said she had flipped, but the other three just kind of vanished for a while. Why? No one knows.

"What about blasting the cars from range?" you ask. It's not a question you like, but it's one that has to be voiced even if only so the option can be rejected.

Strapping Lad nods, your tone betraying your thoughts of that course of action. "I know we were given the all-clear to use lethal force, but we agreed on the way over here that we would only turn to that if we had no other choice. We'd rather cuff the villains and drag everyone back to Brockton Bay; they want to leave, they can go through the clearance process just like everybody else. 'Course, we may need to do it. If we had our whole group, we could probably handle it, but once that other group of villains popped out of the woodwork and headed south, our fastest fliers and several Shakers got pulled off to go after them. More capes there than here, and the other Nazi group was giving enough trouble that no one thought it was a good idea to take heroes away from that fight. That was before Casper showed up, though.

"Lady Photon and Laserdream are tag-teaming Purity. They're the only fliers we have left who're fast enough to keep up with her. Me and Python and Ogre have been rotating out trying to get rid of the ghosts, but none of us are invulnerable, and those spears hurt. We've got a couple more Shakers who weren't hurt enough that they have to leave, but they're still hanging back while Infusion tries to patch them up. Revel's in charge, but her blasts don't go fast enough to hit Purity, can't hurt the ghosts, and she can't see inside the fog to know who's friend and foe. That's why she was so eager to get you here." He waves at the standoff before you. "Wherever you can help, we need it bad."


For all of Taylor's fanon love of beefcake, it's worth a reminder that she makes a mention somewhere early on in canon (I forget exactly where) that she isn't a fan of bodybuilder-style musculature. Brian's form, on the other hand, was more natural and normal-looking.

Four targets to choose from. Such fun!

[ ] Purity – The boss herself. You're fast enough to keep up with her, and like you told her last you saw her, you're tougher than she is. Plus, if you want to try talking her down, this might be your best shot.
[ ] Crusader – His projects go through inanimate objects, but does that include forcefields and Flare bullets? Only one way to find out.
[ ] Night and Fog – Double the evil, double the pain. If you can take them out, the biggest barrier between the heroes and the noncombatants will be gone.
[ ] Civvies – The weakest link in this chain. Break that, and the assembled capes can go all-out on the neo-Nazis.

Include battle plans with your vote, and as always, you need to tell me if you want to go lethal.

 

[Silently Watches]

[ ] Purity – The boss herself. You're fast enough to keep up with her, and like you told her last you saw her, you're tougher than she is. Plus, if you want to try talking her down, this might be your best shot.
-[ ] Cast a recursion field to leave most of the heroes free to herd the civvies, and try talking down Purity.


Escapades 5.4

«Hey, Samantha, you know the thing about trying to talk to Purity? I'm going to give that plan a shot, after all.»

«Yeah, sure. Keep safe.»

You blink. That was… oddly short, to say the least. «Everything going okay over there?»

«About as— Get back here, you overgrown salamander! —as you'd expect. Lung is a pain in the ass, and don't get me started on Oni Lee again.»

You can't help but softly smile at that. Despite her complaints, she doesn't sound that irritated. It almost sounds like she's enjoying herself a little. «Need any help?»

«Nah, I think we got— No, no, no, don't eat that! …I'll call you back in a bit, okay?»

"Something funny?" Strapping Lad asks, a scowl sitting heavily on his face. You don't know if his displeasure is because of you or the situation up ahead, but right now, you're where it's aimed.

You can forgive him, though. Considering how this fight has been going, he's probably a little stressed. "Just something my partner said. I think where you need me most is with Purity. I know she can fly faster than this." A little bit of a lie, but one that's easy to sell to somebody who doesn't even know the names of the villains he's facing. It will be harder to convince the members of New Wave who are here. They may not be winning, not from this perspective, but you remember the sheer venom with which Purity talked about the public hero group. With whatever history they have, they'll want to continue that fight on their own, no matter what arguments you bring to the table.

Not unless you change the situation to one they can't ignore.

Your magic triangle appears below you and spins faster and faster. "Get the civilians out of here."

"That's what we're trying—"

His words get cut off as a wave of twisted not-color washes out the hues and vibrancy of the world. The musclebound Brute vanishes, as does his compatriots you could previously see. The light show where Photon and Laserdream are fighting Purity does not abate, nor does the cloud where Fog has positioned himself. The cars with the civilians should all be gone, though, stuck in the real world with the Brutes. Crusader's ghosts are floating around in aimless surprise, so he's still around, and Night… should be here with you, but you can't know that so long as you don't see her, which is kind of her whole schtick to begin with.

«Call Revel's wristband,» you order Perfect Storm. «Let her know there's nothing to worry about.»

"What did you do?!" the leading heroine's voice yells at you a second later.

Now is really not the time for her to get distracted. Sighing, you fly towards the airborne battle while answering, «I pulled the four of us and at least three of the villains into a pocket dimension. Sort of. Night I don't know about, but even if she isn't here, she doesn't have Fog to protect her. The Brutes should be able to handle her, and I told Strapping Lad to go ahead and get the civilians back to Brockton Bay»—you dodge an errant scarlet laser—«or wherever we're supposed to be taking them. If you can go after Fog and Crusader now that there aren't any innocents around, I'll try to get New Wave to back you up.»

Forming a single Flare bullet, you send it towards the three combatants ahead of you and detonate it. It doesn't hurt anyone, but it gets their attention. Now that they're distracted from the fight, they look around and realize that something big happened while they were otherwise occupied. "Revel needs your help with the others," you tell the mother-and-daughter pair. "I'll keep her busy until you're done."

"We got this," Laserdream snaps back, her eyes still fixed on Purity.

"Full-body forcefield," you explain. You aren't boasting, but you know down in your bones that your Barrier Jacket is tougher than their shields, Laserdream's in particular. She's the offense to her mother's well-roundedness and her late brother's defense. "And I'm faster than either of you. But there are two of you, so you'll be more help against Crusader."

Just like the last time you saw the ex-Nazi Blaster, your mask has compensated for the glare of her powers. It gives you a gook look at the growing expression of rage on her face. That's not what you hoped for when you decided to erect the dimensional barrier. Waving for Lady Photon and Laserdream to go away, you drift closer to the glowing woman. Maybe a stupid idea as her hands shine brighter, but if you're lucky it will keep her on the back foot long enough to calm things down. "Let's get away from here," you suggest, nudging your head towards the distance behind her. "Put some space between us and everyone else."

"What could possibly make you think I'll do that?"

Well, at least she's not shooting yet? You roll your head in a circle, exaggerating the motion to glance at the other heroines without being obvious about it. Still there, unfortunately, but slowly moving away. They are just being cautious in case your plan fails horrifically, not knowing that their very presence makes it more difficult. Looking back at her, you whisper, "We can't talk here."

Purity blinks.

"I figure you'd want to get away from your teammates, too," you say louder for New Wave's benefit. "Less chance of a stray shot hurting someone you'd rather leave uninjured."

"…Okay, then," she agrees slowly. Very slowly, visibly struggling to figure out what in the world you're doing. You wish her luck with that; you don't even know your plan. You are just making things up as you go. "Maybe some distance would be for the best. This way?"

"Works for me."

Side by side, you fly away. Purity's eyes are fixed on you, watching for any signs of duplicity. Your eyes keep flicking back to her just to make sure she isn't about to sucker punch you and go back to the fight. Judging that you've gone far enough, you slow to a halt. Now, how are you going to open this conversation in a way that isn't guaranteed to go straight to hell?

"What are you doing?" the shining ex-villain demands. "Shooting me, then saying you want to talk and bringing me out here. All you've done is isolate yourself from your allies."

"That's true, but my allies and I may not want the same thing. They want to throw you back into Brockton Bay. I want to know why. Why did you run? Why did you join up with the Empire again to get out?" She still looks uncertain, and you sigh and pull off your hat to run your hand through your hair while Perfect Storm floats innocuously beside you. "Do you remember what you told me when we first met, about how you wanted to turn over a new leaf, put the past behind you, become a hero and do the right thing? I wanted to believe you. I still want to believe you. All this? Makes it harder for me to do that.

"Maybe you have a good reason for breaking out. I would love it if you did. So convince me. Give me something I can take back to Revel and the rest of the Protectorate, something I can use to get you re-evaluated to leave. The world needs all the heroes it can get, official Protectorate or not, so give me a reason to help you."

Purity has been staring at you throughout your speech, but now she looks away. "It's not that simple."

"No, it's not. But this won't end unless you can give me and them something that puts your actions in a better light than just 'I didn't want to wait ten months to get cleared to leave'."

"Is that what you think this is about?!" she shouts. "About me, my happiness? That I'm doing this out of boredom?!"

"I don't know what this is about because you haven't told me!"

The woman shakes for a moment, her hands clenched tight, before she takes a deep breath. This is it; you're about to get shot, and Samantha will never let you live it down. "This has nothing to do with me. If that's all it was, I would have gone through the screening and been let go. I know I wasn't affected by the Simurgh."

You bite your tongue. The only people who can truly know they aren't affected by the Scream are those unaffected by telepathy like you and Samantha and Alexandria, but now probably is not the best time to push that. Instead, you focus on what else she said. "You didn't even try to get screened? Why?"

"Do you know who gets screened?" Yes, you do, but you shake your head slowly so she can make whatever point it is she wants to make. "Capes. That's it. Civilians need not apply." Purity struggles with her words for a moment before admitting, "I… I have a daughter, my baby girl. I had to leave her home when I went to fight. I hoped the people I left her with would be able to get her out, but… they didn't make it out in time. She isn't even a year old. There's no way I was going to abandon her in this hellhole, but the PRT would never let me take her with me."

"Couldn't you just explain that to them? Tell them you had a small child and you needed her screened too so you could both leave?"

She shakes her head, the motion furious. "They wouldn't have done it. Do you remember the protests that happened shortly after the Madison attack? They were anti-cape protesters, so most people ignored them, but they raised a valid question. If capes could be screened and let go after the fight, why couldn't the same be done for the civilians? The PRT's official position is that the precogs who can test for influence are needed elsewhere, that's it's a waste of their talents to have them spend the weeks or months it would take to clear everybody. That's why there is a protocol for civilians to be screened by psychologists over several months; it's less resource intensive, supposedly. They would never screen A— my daughter if it would open them up to further criticisms along those lines."

"So why not just wait to get cleared?" you tentatively ask. Chances are slim she won't take that question badly, and sure enough, Purity glares at you. "Several months, you said. Keep it together for that long, and you and she could both get out and go on with your lives."

"Tell me, have you ever met someone who was permitted to leave Madison?" Again, you shake your head. "Few people have. There aren't a many who get cleared in the first place, and those who do are treated like lepers. Doesn't matter their age, their occupation, nothing. Then I got to listen to all the things we would have to do if we were released. Every employer has to be told that you were in a containment zone. Every landlord. Every bank. Every school. Every individual you enter into a contract with. Even security for every public place you enter. If you have the tattoo, you're treated like you're subhuman." Her lips twist nastily at the irony before returning to a scowl. "If it was just me…. Maybe. Maybe I'd go through with it. But not her. She's just a baby, but she would grow up being treated like a monster. No one would ever accept her. She would never get a chance to live like a normal person. I will not condemn her to that.

"But what other choice do I have? Stay in Brockton Bay? Yes, supplies will keep coming in so long as people are trapped here, but inside those walls everything is falling apart. The Merchants' numbers are exploding with everyone who jumps into the shit with them. Just walking down the street poses the risk of being murdered for a few bucks so they can get high. Is that where you would want to raise a child?" She lets out a slow breath. "We can't stay. We can't wait to be let go. So yes, when Kaiser approached me with the offer to help us, I took it. I agreed to help him get out. And once we were free, I left them again so I could get myself and my little girl somewhere where no one would know who we are and where we could start over.

"You wanted my reasons? There you go. I helped the Empire, I broke out, I fought all you heroes who came after me because I don't have any other choice. Now," she says, pulling herself together and spitting out her words in derision, "you made a lot of big promises. You said you wanted to 'help me'. What do you really think you can do?"


Last time, several of you voted to fight if the negotiations with Purity went south; the plan floated out was to take down Purity and then focus on Fog. I just wasn't sure whether or not you would consider this ending to fit that criteria or not.

Either way, now you need to figure out what to do with the information you just got.

[ ] Continue the fight – Purity had her reasons, but they aren't good enough to justify her actions. Defeat the villains and drag them back to Brockton Bay so they can be properly cleared. She's probably exaggerating the restrictions out of panic, and she isn't the only one with a sob story.
[ ] Let her go – You empathize with her plight, and you'd love to help her. She just doesn't have an explanation you can justify sticking your neck out for. All you can do is wish her good luck and give her a chance to escape. If she makes it, great; if not, you did what you could.
[ ] Help her out – No one ever explained that part of the quarantine procedure to you. Giving her a hand could well mean you going up against the other heroes, though. You'll do it, but she'll need some means of escape that will keep them from just tracking her down again.

A plan would be appreciated for whatever overarching action you wish to take. That said, this is a delicate situation. You might not want to get too fancy, or you could wind up voting yourselves into a corner like you nearly did last time.

 

[Silently Watches]

[ ] Plan Khazinthedark (modified with permission)


Escapades 5.5

You keep your nervous swallow mostly silent. Your plan to convince Purity to stop attacking the heroes and return to the side of the angels was still a good one, you feel, but maybe you underestimated how difficult accomplishing that would be. Just a little bit. It doesn't help matters that considering her intentions, her actions are understandable. Not how you would have chosen to go about things, but you see why she made the choices she did.

How are you going to reconcile her goals with the Protectorate's when they seem to be mutually exclusive?

This would be so much easier if you actually had some pull with the national hero group, but as much as staying merely affiliated had made it easier to be treated as an adult rather than being pushed into the Wards, right now you would be happy to have some influence in the group's decisions of how to treat heroes' families! Purity was trying to turn her life around, and she's powerful enough that the Protectorate should be happy to have her in their ranks, but because of their….

Your eyes brighten. That's it. That's the answer!

Purity takes one look at your maniacal grin and scoots away.

"Hey, Purity?" The glowing woman nods in acknowledgement while moving another five feet back. "You said you were doing all this to help your daughter, right? Is there anything you wouldn't do for her? Even if it was inconvenient to you personally, if it would protect her, would you put up with it?"

"Yes…?"

The smile on your face broadens even more. "Then I might just have a plan."

It takes a few more minutes to hash everything out, not to mention reminding the other heroine that this is probably the only chance she has to get out of this mess alive and together with her daughter, but finally you and she fly side by side back to the fight. Which is not going well for the Empire capes, you can't help but notice as you watch twin lasers and colorful explosives zap down towards the carpet of mist below. Fog and Night are trapped on the ground, and while Crusader can fly, it is only by being carried in the arms of his ghosts. With all three heroes airborne and no civilians to be careful around, they clearly have the advantage. That isn't to say that the fight is entirely one-sided; the quirk of Crusader's powers that makes it selectively intangible is forcing the heroes to be careful of the floating specters, each of them breaking off at different times to engage the ghosts in hand to hand combat for long enough to shatter the fragile constructs.

Time to break this impasse. A score of Flare Shooters race between the two groups, arranging themselves in a wall before they explode into brilliant orange flashes that are bright enough to leave everyone blinking the stars out of their eyes. Even the projections are affected, just as Purity assured you they would be.

You trusted her to tell the truth, but it's nice to have that trust validated.

"Hey, hey, hey!" you shout, getting your allies' attention. "Let's all just take a breath and calm down. We really don't have to keep fighting."

The other heroines stare at you in utter bewilderment, but it is Laserdream who finally puts words to her confusion. "What are you talking about— Behind you!"

A couple of Crusaders, apparently taking advantage of your group's division, have leveled their spears and shields in preparation to stab you in the back. Their charge stumbles to a halt when Purity's shout cracks like a whip through the air. "Crusader! That's enough!"

The duplicates turn to look at her with the same expressions your own allies gave you, and one of them points at you and makes a complicated twirling gesture.

"I said, that's enough," the shining woman repeats, moving forwards to float at your side. "Back down."

"Calamity Witch?" Revel asks slowly, her eyes darting back and forth between you and the bright aurora that only you can see through. "What's going on?"

You give her a faint smile as the words of the Earth Aleph pirate movie some of the Privateers insisted you and your dad watch come back to you. "Parley?"

"What."

"Purity and I had a nice little chat and came up with a possible solution that doesn't have to involve us spending the rest of the night blasting each other all over the sky. Purity, you want to take it from here?"

She nods and moves ahead another few feet, no longer using you as a human shield against your allies. "Call your headquarters. I would like to speak with someone in charge in regards to the conditions for my surrender and defection."

"You… want to join… the Protectorate."

"That is correct."

"Revel, please tell me you are not actually considering this insanity," Lady Photon hisses through clenched teeth. "She's a goddamn Nazi."

"If you used your eyes, you would know that I left Empire Eighty-Eight a year and a half ago. The only reason I worked alongside them today was because that was what offered me the best chance of escaping the walls around Brockton Bay."

"Walls that were built to keep you and all the rest of you villains inside where you couldn't hurt anybody else." Golden light pools around hands belonging to the leader of the now much-reduced New Wave. "You're a Ziz-bomb. We all know it, or you wouldn't have been stuck there."

"How could you 'know' whether I'm the Simurgh's tool when I was never screened for her influence in the first place?" asks Purity in a pleasant voice. "Revel, I am of course happy to be screened and my right to leave Brockton Bay proven prior to meeting with anyone in person regarding my request."

Poor Revel had been glance back and forth between the arguing artillery capes, but you can see in her hesitant expression and weighty gaze where she is leaning. "Are you serious about turning yourself in and working with the Protectorate?"

"I am." She twitches, her arms coming across her body to wrap herself in a hug, but her voice betrays none of her nervousness. This is the part that has the second-biggest chance to blow up in your faces. "And as a show of my good faith…." She turns to the myriad of ghosts. "Crusader, tell Fog to return to normal. We're going back to Brockton Bay."

The spirits move away to give Crusader, the real one this time, the space he and his palanquin of ghosts need to rise up where the rest of you are. "Purity, you can't be serious about this. After everything you went through to get out, you're going to let yourself be put back in?" She nods, but that just seems to be the proof he needs. His ghosts whip around to point their weapons at you. "You! You're a fucking Master, aren't you?!"

The former villainess darts between you and him. "That's enough. You remember what I told you, don't you? My reason for doing all this?" He watches her a moment before jutting out his chin in defiance. All that bravado dries up when she continues, though. "Calamity Witch isn't a Master. She just convinced me that this had a better chance of succeeding."

"So it is all a trick!" exclaims Laserdream.

Purity glances at the younger Pelham Blaster before switching her gaze to Lady Photon, who appears just as unconvinced as her child. "Is there anything, anything at all, you wouldn't do if it would protect your daughter?"

"Is that a threat?"

She waves away Lady Photon's growl. "No. Not in the slightest. I am just making sure you understand the reasons behind my own actions."

It takes a moment for Lady Photon to see the implication, but when it does, her face turns into a morass of conflicting expressions. Several tense moments pass before she averts her eyes and glares at the distant horizon.

With that crisis defused, Revel drifts closer. "If your teammates will stand down, and if Calamity Witch will reverse whatever it is she's done to trap us all here, I'll get in touch with someone at the base. Radio can't seem to get out of this pocket dimension of hers," she explains, though her unimpressed look is aimed at you.

You just shrug. If this fight had continued, cutting off the group's routes of escapes would have been invaluable. It isn't your fault you didn't have definite plans to make this a diplomatic resolution when you cast the spell.

Everything around you blurs once the other villains have returned to normal, and then the vibrant hues and sounds and smells of the real world seep back in. The convoy of refugees is already a decent distance from your positions, the drivers reluctant to return to their prison but unwilling to go against the flying Brutes without capes of their own backing them up. Revel waves for all of you to stay where you are, and then she pushes a button on her wristband. "Control, I need to speak to whoever the highest-ranking cape is who is part of the Thinker group."

Several seconds later, a tinny voice replies, though the volume is too low for you to make out what was said. "Arbiter, glad to hear it. We have a bit of a situation over here." She shakes her head at whatever the reply was. "No, not that bad. Almost good. Purity surrendered and asked to join the Protectorate. Yes. Yes, I know. I actually think she is serious. I have no idea. She says she was never screened in the first place. It pertains to her secret ID; that is all I am comfortable divulging." Revel glances back at all of you before turning back to her wristband. "If it were a trick, she would have made a break for it by now. And you think this is in my pay grade? She is a Blaster 8, remember. …Yes, that should work. That should work just fine. Okay. See you when we get there."

Ending the call, Revel shakes her head. "All right, everybody. Let's go back to Brockton Bay before I realize what a terrible idea this is."

xxxxxxxxxxxxx​

The trip back to the city is much slower than was the one to the fight, partly because the cars you are escorting cannot reach the same speeds as your flight and partly because the tension is thick enough to cut with a knife. The soaring Brutes had to be warned multiple times not to attack the ex-Empire capes, and the look of betrayal Strapping Lad shot you when he first spotted you flying at Purity's left side was all you needed to know that he considers you nothing more than unprincipled pond scum.

It probably gave him and Laserdream something to talk about during the flight.

Once you reach a certain distance from the walls, another group of capes move into view. For a moment you are justifiably worried that you are going to have to stop yet another fight, but they simply direct Purity's group and you to a small clearing a short distance from the road. They take up defensive positions around you, but Purity by and large ignores them and simply reclaims her baby from Night's arms.

You aren't sure how long you wait, whether it is half an hour or more than two, but eventually the guards move away to allow three capes to descend to the ground in front of you. The first pounces on you, shifting into a raccoon just before she lands in your arms.

The second crosses his arms and watches your neighbor with obvious suspicion. "Purity."

"Legend."

The caped hero shakes his head and turns to you. "I hope you realize just what kind of a mess you've caused."

"A smaller and less bloody one than there would have been otherwise?"

He sighs and nods. "Fair enough. Let's get the easy part out of the way. Blackjack, chances she will act to further the Simurgh's plans?"

The third cape tilts his head, the green visor and domino mask matching the smoking vest of his casino dealer theme. "Five high."

"That she'll stab her team in the back if we let her in the Protectorate?"

"Two pair, jacks and threes." Blackjack hums to himself. "Clubs are wild, hearts trump spades."

Legend makes some sound, and it takes you a second to recognize it as a huff of reluctant amusement. "Las Vegas is right out, then, isn't it?"

The Thinker shrugs his shoulders. "He would have it coming."

"Don't remind me. I'm still figuring out what to do with him." Pinching the bridge of his nose, Legend sighs once again. "Thank you again for the help, Blackjack. One of the fliers can take you back to Misstep." The other cape departs, leaving him, Purity, and you and Samantha alone. "Well, you're unlikely to be influenced by the Simurgh," Legend allows, "and so long as everyone acts like responsible adults, you probably wouldn't betray your team if I let you join the Protectorate. So." He stands straight and crosses his arms behind his back. "Make your pitch. What do you want, and why should I give it to you?"

It's now or never. You meet Purity's eyes, a pure white domino mask concealing her identity now that her glow is switched off, and give her a nod. While you were waiting, you talked to her about some of the restrictions she could offer herself; hopefully, by acknowledging that she had made mistakes and was willing to endure some punishment for them, the Protectorate and PRT at large would cut her some slack and actually let her climb out of the hole she had dug for herself during her time as a villain.

"What I want is simple," she begins. "Your own Thinker has proven that had I undergone screening immediately following the fight, I would have been allowed to leave. The only reason I did not is that I have a young daughter, and by leaving her behind, not only would I have abandoned her, I would have left her in Kaiser's clutches, where she would have been groomed to be the third hereditary leader of the Empire. That is not the life I want for her. As no one has ever proved that infants can be affected by the Simurgh's Scream, I want permission for us to leave without tattoos or other restrictions that we would have to suffer were we processed out of the quarantine zone as civilians.

"As for why you should give it to me. I have earned my rating of Blaster 8. I will not be so arrogant as to say that I am as good as you"—ah, it looks like the Triumvirate's artillery has also heard about the 'evil Legend' description—"but I am still one of the most powerful in the country. My abilities would be an asset to any of your branches. You don't need to worry that this is some elaborate plot to take advantage of your generosity only to betray you, either. I have tried to be a hero for the last year and a half, doing everything I could to whittle away Lung's support base. Due to my history as a villain and the se— and other issues, those efforts were ignored. Should you give me the chance to build a new reputation somewhere else, or even just to work on fixing the reputation I already have somewhere the distrust is not so personal, I would not squander the opportunity.

"I know you don't trust me," she admits, meeting Legend's eyes. "I don't blame you. I spent ten years as a villain, and from your perspective, it probably looks like I'm trying to coerce you into ignoring the crimes I committed. But I am not asking you to give me your trust. I am asking only for the chance to earn it. I am willing and happy to be placed under whatever restrictions you think reasonable. Continuous oversight, docked salary to be transferred to those I have injured, house arrest or community service when not on duty; whatever you think is necessary to determine whether or not I have really changed and want to make up for my crimes, and for however long you think is deserved. I will not challenge it or ask for leniency. And," she adds in a soft voice, glancing down at the bundle in her arms, "if you decide that what I deserve is to spend time in prison first, I ask that you put my daughter with a trustworthy foster family until my sentence is complete."

You whip your head around to stare at her. That was not in the script!

"Just… stop," Legend finally says, rubbing both temples with one hand. "You have certainly put some thought into this, I'll give you that much. If I didn't know better, I would think this was your plan from the beginning rather than something Calamity Witch supposedly came up with on the spur of the moment."

A weak, embarrassed smile is all you can offer the world's premier Blaster.

"Volunteering to be placed under heavy restrictions was a nice touch, and the plea about fostering? If you love your daughter only half as much as I love my son, I know giving her up would be suffering of the highest order." He sighs. "But that is the issue. It isn't just you we have to be concerned about. No one has ever proven that infants are vulnerable to the Simurgh, true, but neither have they been proven to be immune. No one survived Lausanne, and the infants and toddlers exposed to the Scream in her attack on London are just turning nine and ten this year. They are still too young to have the influence and power her long-term plans are suspected to require. To ignore completely the threat your daughter has the potential to pose would be a disservice to everyone the Protectorate has sworn to defend."

Purity lights up, and it is only the cries of her child at the sudden brightness that forces her to let go of her powers. "So that's it? A baby might become a threat, so go ahead and kill them all? Deny any of them any kind of life when the chances of them being the Simurgh's weapons are so small? You claim to love your son. Would you force that fate on him like you want to do to her?!"

For a moment, you are afraid they are about to come to blows, but although Legend's eyes spark with fury, the hand he raised has a warning finger pointing at her face. "You want to join the Protectorate? Lesson number one: think very carefully before you make accusations you can't take back. Do you think I haven't laid awake at night with that exact nightmare running through my head, wondering what I would do if I had to choose between my son and every other child in the world? Do you think I like the idea that there are children growing up who will never know what it is like not to be feared for something they can't even remember? No matter how much I dislike it, there are times when the needs of the many must outweigh the needs of the few."

There is silence in the clearing for nearly a minute. Glancing around, you notice Crusader intently listening to the conversation, though Night and Fog seem to be off in their own little world.

A breath, and Legend takes a step back. "That being said, this situation is somewhat different than most involving the so-called Ziz-babies. There are not enough psychologists to work with every child who was potentially affected by the Scream, but if you join the Protectorate and live on base, there would be a child psychologist already available who could monitor and evaluate her as she grew up. You would be extensively tested to make sure you were not being used as the vector for the Simurgh's plots. If she triggers, she would join the Wards where her activities and use of her powers could be likewise monitored. These restrictions might eventually be lifted, but there is a good chance that wouldn't be until she is nearly or really is an adult."

The ex-villain frowns, but after a long few seconds she nods. She knows, just as you do, this is likely the best she is going to get.

"One more thing. You said that I would not have to worry that this is a trap. You're right. I won't. You want a chance to be better than you were? You'll get one chance. You slip up, you even look like you're going back to your old ways, and a life sentence in a maximum security prison where you will never see your daughter again will be the best-case scenario." He fixes her with an intent stare. "Is that understood?"

Transferring her infant to her left hip, Purity sticks out her right hand. "I accept."

It takes only a moment before Legend clasps her hand and gives it a single pump.

"As fucking sweet as this is, I think you're forgetting something." Legend and Purity turn questioning to Crusader. The armored villain has not moved from the fallen tree he claimed as a bench, but there is a tension to his body that wasn't there before. Your grip tightens on Perfect Storm as you ready yourself to get into yet another fight. "What about the rest of us?"

Purity cringes. "I… I'm sorry, Crusader, but—"

"But what? You think you're just going to run off and leave all of us behind? That we'd let you do something as fucking stupid as sticking your head in a lion's mouth?" He shakes his head. "You got room for her, Rainbow Man. You got room for another."

Legend crosses his arms, his disbelief obvious. "You want to be a hero?"

"Nope." Crusader pushes himself to his feet and walks over, a hint of swagger to his steps. "Purity, I think you're nuts for doing this. Completely fucking crazy. But if you're not going to watch your back, I'm stuck doing it for you."

"And what is the cause for this altruism?"

Crusader shoots Legend an unimpressed look. "I owe her the kind of debt you don't just forget about. And I don't trust you. That's reason enough for me."

"You're willing to be under the same restrictions and penalties as Purity?" The villain nods. "Fine. Maybe you'll surprise me and won't immediately find yourself in prison." Legend's voice reveals how unlikely he considers that. "Life in New Orleans will certainly be interesting, even for that city. That just leaves what to do with your other allies, and no, they will not be accepted onto any Protectorate team. Not with their crimes and their body counts."

Purity hesitates for a moment before bowing her head. "I understand. But if I may suggest something, you might have them professionally evaluated before you decide what to do with them. Their training with Gesellschaft left them… broken, and while I won't say they aren't responsible for their actions, someone who knows what he is doing should determine if it wouldn't be appropriate for them to be sent to an asylum rather than a prison."

«Come on,» Samantha whispers in your head. «You've helped her as much as you can. The rest of this is for them to figure out on their own.»

Nodding in resignation, you walk over, interrupting the trio's argument, and lay one hand on Purity's shoulder. She looks back at you and gives you a weak smile. Legend, after looking you up and down, huffs softly and tilts his head towards the sky, an unmistakable signal that your job here is done.

And that's that.

Rising into the air, you begin the short flight back to base, your Guardian Beast hanging off one side of your jacket. "I take it Lung's dealt with if you're accompanying Legend to a negotiation?"

«I wish. Shortly after sundown, he took off back into the ruins near the hole he made, and for all that he's a giant fire-breathing lizard, he's really good at hiding. He grew a lot faster than I expected,» she admits, «but I was right about Shredding Claw. I couldn't get enough hits in to make him squishy, but his resistance didn't grow like the rest of him. Alexandria decided to hold off trying to fight him while he was in hiding because he'd start shrinking once there was no one fighting, and Legend wanted me to come along because you went and made everything more difficult for him.» There is a smile tinging those thoughts. «We're splitting the group when we get back to work tomorrow. Some of us going after Lung while the others hold off the Fallen and the Teeth, and Alexandria and Legend both said they want me there when they enter the city to track him down.»

Hunting down Lung in what are presumably ruins where you never know if he's going to pop up around the corner you just passed? You shudder as the terror of that thought runs down your spine. There are a number of reasons you've become attached to your ranged powers, and the much decreased chance of something stronger than you stalking you is definitely one of them. Searching for something to say in response to her enthusiasm, though, you finally come up with, "You sound like you had fun."

The raccoon gives you a smile full of sharp teeth. «I am a Guardian Beast of the Sword. Getting up close and personal to defeat powerful enemies is what we were designed for. Join us tomorrow, and I'll show you what I mean.»

"Uh, let me think about it."

PURITY QUEST
COMPLETE​

That worked better than expected. As you can see, I cut out the part of the original plan that called for Purity actively betraying her teammates because that just didn't fit her personality or canon actions, and helping to calm things down cast her in a better light when she talked to Legend. It also means Crusader was alive and could volunteer to keep her safe while she dabbles in heroics (from his perspective, anyway). As for the various restrictions Purity and Aster will have to endure, those bear more weight coming from somebody who actually has the authority to decide what the Protectorate will and won't enforce.

And with this, the first day of the Escape from Brockton Bay is over. Tomorrow's a new day, and since you wrapped up one quest a lot faster than I thought you would, you get to choose what to do next.

• Empire – Despite the heroes' best efforts, Kaiser and the Empire reached the small town of Durham, which provided Rune with plenty of ammunition. The plan is to distract the villains while a small strike team sneaks in and beheads the snake.
• ABB – Lung and Oni Lee both vanished, though how Lung managed that no one is sure. Part of the group will hold off the Teeth and Fallen while the toughest of the tough go after Lung in the ruins of Brockton Bay.
• Independents – Most of the civilians have been recovered, but the villains themselves took off while the heroes were busy with everyone else. A small group of the initial attacking force are continuing the pursuit.
• Security – The most exciting thing to happen so far was breaking up an argument between two precogs. Tomorrow promises to be more of the same.

Like last time, you and Samantha don't have to go after the same targets. I'll give you 24 hours to think things over.

 

[Silently Watches]

[ ] Taylor: Empire
[ ] Samantha: ABB


Escapades 5.6

Monday, April 11
Stone walls soar high in the sky, the sun and stars hidden from sight by the thick black fog drifting above you. Even just looking at that miasma makes you shudder; there is something wrong about it, something that sets your teeth on edge.

You walk slowly down the corridor, heels clicking disturbingly loud on the floor. For several minutes, you think you are in a maze, but despite all the corners you have to take, the path never forks, never splits. It is just a single winding hallway, desolate and unfamiliar. Walking around yet another turn, you finally see something different. Down this hall there is light streaming through the cracks in the wooden door at the very end. It is a welcome reprieve from the blandness of the previous walls, but you find yourself wondering whether it might not be as inviting as it first appears. What is it doing here? What is that light? What lurks behind the threshold?

With a soft click, the door creaks open.

Quiet snuffling draws you closer, and you peer inside only to catch sight of a tiny patch of land in the middle of a wide pool of bubbling water. On that island is a small girl with blonde hair, her arms bound together with gleaming chains leading down into the water. She looks up, baby blue eyes glistening with unshed tears. "Calamity Witch," she breathes, hope and terror and pain mixed together in her voice and on her face. "Help me. Please, help me."

"I…" You glance around at the stark surroundings. "Who are you? What is this place?"

"Please," the girl begs. Fat tears stream down her cheeks. "You're the only one who can free me. It's coming. I can't stop it. I can't escape." She shakes her bound arms, the links of the chains clinking with each movement. "I need you to let me go. If it catches up to us—"

"Taylor," a distant voice says. Colors wash out of the surroundings, and the girl screams in pain. "Taaaaaylor."

You blink your eyes open to find Samantha leaning over you, her mouth stretched in a wide smile. "Time to wake up, sleepyhead. We've got a lot of work to do today."

Sitting up, you shake your head and try to pull your mind out of the haze left behind by that… dream? Memory? It isn't the first time you've dreamed of something you have never done, something impossible on Earth Bet but maybe possible on whatever world the original Calamity Witch hails from. Perfect Storm doesn't have the information you need to know whether those dreams really were scenes from your progenitor's life, but if so, it's clear her world was violent. In hindsight, the comparisons between her planet and the war-torn regions of Africa that are constantly torn apart by various parahuman warlords were not that far off.

That said, this feels different, more like it was you talking for yourself and not echoing Calamity Witch's long-gone words. Or maybe it was just because you were already mostly awake and lucid dreaming. There is really no way to know for certain.

A thought to Perfect Storm deploys your Barrier Jacket, and then you're out of your bed and mostly ready for the day ahead. "You're still going"—a yawn interrupts you—"going after the ABB today?"

"Yeah. I feel kind of obligated to," she says with a negligent shrug. "When the last two active members of the Triumvirate specifically ask for my help, I can't think of a good reason to turn them down. What about you? I know you weren't sure last night where you could do the most good, but there is still plenty of room going up against the ABB and the Teeth and the Fallen…. And there really are entirely too many villains fighting us and each other over there," she adds with a small frown.

"As delightful as facing off against a rage-dragon and his pet serial suicide bomber sounds," you tell her in a dry voice, "not to mention everyone else you mentioned, I thought about it before I fell asleep, and the more I look at it, the more I think they need my help the most dealing with the Empire. A bunch of Zizzed Nazis who might even now be taking over an entire town? That needs to be dealt with."

The conversations that had taken place during the group dinner the previous night had involved a great deal of discussion about which villains were still at large, and the news that the Empire contingent had made it all the way to Durham without losing a single cape or even more than two gangbangers had been a major blow to morale. Why that was made sense; the majority of capes do not have the durability required to take a bullet to the chest and keep on going, and for all that the Alexandria package is a well-known term, it is so popular because of its namesake, not because a majority of fliers are more or less indestructible. With a bunch of skinheads firing machine guns from the flying chunks of concrete Rune provided and somebody else, probably Victor, picking off the pursuers with a high-powered rifle, the heroes had little choice but to proceed with more caution, and that allowed the villains to make it to the town.

But now, after having a whole night to prepare themselves with what sounded like only a few Blasters and Shakers sticking around to harass anyone trying to sneak away? There was no predicting how fortified they had made their position.

It was inevitable that someone – in this instance, that someone being Cailleach, the same Winter Hill villain who helped you out with the Beasts during the party – would suggest hitting them with maximum force, but much like with Purity's group, the heroes' reluctance to endanger normal people posed a moral quandary. This was even more the case when those capes clamoring for Imperial blood were reminded that the citizens of Durham were not potential Simurgh victims trying to escape quarantine but simple civilians who posed no threat and just had the severe misfortune to be home at the worst possible time. The logistics of mounting such a devastating attack were likewise a major hurdle, as it would take a larger number of Blasters than they had available to raze even a town as small as this one. If Scion, the first and most powerful parahuman, were still around, he could have accomplished it, but the few other capes who are that strong are all either S-Class villains or were already killed so they could not threaten to do just that.

"I suppose," your Guardian Beast says, her expression dubious. "Just be careful. From everything we heard last night, they aren't holding back anymore. They will kill you if you give them the opportunity. Are you sure you don't want to go after the group of minor villains, instead?"

You give her a confounded look. "You think going after the Empire is too dangerous, but you invited me to come along and fight Lung? How does that logic make sense?"

"Because then I'd be there to watch your back."

…Okay, fair point.

Ignoring Samantha's smug smirk, you focus on the coordinates of the National Guard base. The PRT and National Guard had offered cots for the night to any and all capes in attendance, but you and Samantha are not meager parahumans. You are a mage, and that means using bullshit magic to sleep in your own bed. Your dad wound up taking them up on their offer, but that has less to do with him being a cape and more with him wanting to while the night away with a couple of the other Thinkers there. Women Thinkers, and by the time you left, none of them looked like they were discussing plans to track the escaped villains or anything else professional, for that matter.

You can't help but wonder if Samantha's efforts to open him up to the idea of dating again might not have backfired spectacularly.

Samantha gives you a wave and a telepathic nudge, and then you make your way over to the crowd of capes currently gathering around what looks like a map from this distance. Spotting familiar fatigues and American flag designs, you slip between a few people and come to a stop at Miss Militia's side. "I didn't miss anything, did I?" you whisper.

"Only that none of the Empire capes left Durham overnight," she replies just as quietly. "Several of the Thinkers worked late to figure out where they might be hiding. Once they made it into the city, they went to ground."

"Okay, everybody," a cape in white with a couple of steel points rising from each shoulder and the brows of his mask says, "huddle up."

Everyone squeezes closer, and you can't help but stare as the world outside your group slows to a snail's crawl. You don't know what restrictions a power like this has, but now you really want a spell that does something similar.

"Here is the most recent map of Durham we have access to," the accelerator tells all of you. "According to our Thinkers, they believe where the Empire Eighty-Eight most likely holed up overnight is one of these four areas. City hall, strip mall, university, or cathedral. There are some other spots they might also be hiding, but those are less likely. It isn't going to be easy to pull them out; they still have eight capes, all of whom are used to working together, and a large number of unpowered but well-armed foot soldiers, not to mention they've had all night for their telekinetic to fortify their location. I know a few of you are from Brockton Bay and so have fought them before," he nodded to Miss Militia and Lady Photon, who was lurking on the other side of the crowd, "and your input on what we're dealing with will be invaluable for everyone who's only joining us today. Now, I need options. Does anyone have any bright ideas for how we deal with these Nazi bastards?"


As a quick reminder,

Spoiler: Empire forces

Kaiser, Fenja, Hookwolf, Cricket, Stormtiger, Victor, Othala, and Rune. Also between three and four dozen skinheads with assault rifles, but ammo and the rest of their armament are unknown. No Alabaster; he died when his power was shut down during the Simurgh attack because otherwise he is a pain in the ass (I forgot to mention that in 5.2).

and now time for battle strategies. Your resources are around 40 capes, divided among Brutes, Blasters, Shakers, Breakers, and Strikers. Known capes are Arbiter (leader), Miss Militia, Lady Photon, Cailleach, and Infusion (healer); other specific powers will be generated as needed.
[ ] Break the door down – The assembled Avengers capes go all-out attacking every possible location in order from most to least likely in a single large group. Brings the most force to the fight, slowest way to search the town, easiest to see and track and thereby counterattack.
[ ] Divide and conquer – Split the party up and search all four likely locations at the same time. Teams will keep in touch so as to join the fight, but they will take time to get there. Fastest way to search, significantly less force initially brought to bear, somewhat easy to spot.
[ ] A clever feint – Most of the group pretends to scour the town and focuses on defending themselves from retaliation while a team of 5-8 capes sneaks around actually looking for the Empire. Least force available, fairly slow search, hardest to find unless they screw up royally.

Some tentative ideas were floated out during the last vote, so now's the time to add them in. As always, feel free to replace the provided choices with your own ideas; I'm just giving you some options to build off of.

 

[Silently Watches]

[ ] Plan Decapitation


Escapades 5.7

Durham is exceedingly unexciting, you decide as you and the rest of the heroes begin your final approach. It isn't that you were expecting for there to be goose-stepping skinheads or swastikas everywhere already, but you thought there would be something unique, something special that drew Kaiser to this little corner of nowhere. There isn't. It's a stark reminder that the Empire wasn't running to anywhere. They were just running away in the first direction they picked. Once the most powerful gang in Brockton Bay, capable of deploying enough capes to hold off the entire local Protectorate, and this is what they've been reduced to.

You aren't sure if it is humbling or inspiring or what, but you certainly feel something stir in your heart at that thought.

"Your show now, kid," one nearby hero says, and the rest of the assembled groups slows to a halt while you shoot forwards towards the middle of the city. You would be lying if you said you weren't even a little nervous. Yes, you have cast Recursion Field before. Yes, you have done so in battle. But never has so much ridden on doing so. As soon as you revealed this spell to your group's time-accelerating leader and had its effectiveness affirmed by Lady Photon, you became the lynchpin in the battle plans that were drafted. Fighting a group of likely Zizzed villains when they had foot soldiers or even innocent hostages they could hide behind was a terrifying prospect. Once you captured them in a dimensional barrier, though, they would have nothing with which to defend themselves.

Othala. Rune. Stormtiger. Fenja. Hookwolf. Kaiser himself. Each and every one of them would be trapped and at the unlikely mercy of the thirty capes behind you. If you succeed, the only villains who retain the advantage of mooks and hostages are Victor and Cricket, and they have ten angry Brutes headed their way. If you fail, the worst-case scenario is that the Empire figures out what you tried to do and kills all the innocents around them before going on a panicked rampage.

No pressure.

Reaching the point Perfect Storm picked out as the center of the small town, you take a deep breath before you let the formula necessary for the creation of your shadowy dimensional echo run through your head. "Recursion Field," you breathe, and as you hope, the sigil appears below your feet without difficulty.

A moment later, you take in the structure of the dome and turn back to your remaining allies before flashing them a thumbs up.

No one really replies, but they turn and proceed to the most likely target: the city's university. Nazis generally are not ones for higher learning, but the choice to start here has nothing to do with ideology and everything to do with sensible tactics. The university has the largest area and the most buildings of all four locations, and those both mean more places for the villains to hide, or worse, set up an ambush. If they already have space on their side, the last thing you want is to give them time, too.

The campus looks to be only a little larger than the community college where your mom once worked, but without any students loitering around, the grounds sprawl menacingly beneath you. "Split up!" orders one woman, the flaming Chinese dragon she rides settling on the ground to let off its other passengers before splitting apart into giant animal heads that are equally alight. "Make sure you stay in sight of somebody else, and nobody better be running off alone! Pairs at least, but groups are better!"

No problem. You float towards Miss Militia, who is walking away from the dragon's landing site—

"Calamity Witch. Why don't we search over there?"

You stop and turn around slowly to face Lady Photon. Personally, you have no issues with the leader of New Wave, but considering Purity's suspicions about how they had a hand in suppressing her attempts to become known as a hero and Laserdream's none-too-quiet comments on the flight back from talking down that Empire splinter-group, the same might not be able to be said about her.

But! No need to make yourself more paranoid than you already are. Maybe she just wants to get to know another hero formerly from Brockton Bay, especially another local forcefield-using flying artillery cape— Oh god, she thinks you're some long-lost cousin or something, doesn't she?

She drifts towards where another group has already started investigating and hangs a left closer to a five-story dormitory before coming to a stop. "Now isn't the time or place to pull a stunt like you did yesterday. I hope you know that."

…Never mind, clearly paranoia was the right way to go, after all. "Are you really that bent out of shape about Purity trying to be a hero?" you demand. Of all the ludicrous things to pick a fight about, she was going to go after somebody trying to make up for her mistakes? Seriously?!

The laser-wielding mom turns to look at you with a strange expression that is soon replaced with one of enlightenment. "No, no. That isn't what I meant at all. Part of the reason the method you chose to handle yesterday worked is because you had numbers on your side. Once we were in that pocket dimension of yours, you had all the power. Depending on how you chose to act, you could have turned the fight from four-on-four to five-on-three. None of us wanted that possibility to become reality, so Revel had little choice but to bargain with you. I just didn't want you getting any bright ideas about doing something similar where all it would do is get you painted by the same brush as the Empire.

"It's a good piece of advice for another reason, too," she continues while you just stare at her in befuddlement. That is the reason she thought Revel sided with you instead of with her? "You got extremely lucky with Purity. She was desperate, and you had what she wanted. That won't happen every time. It won't happen most times, even. Show your back to a villain again, and you'll only have yourself to blame when they stab a knife in it."

You open your mouth to reply to that insanity – was it really so hard for Lady Photon to believe that somebody who made mistakes, even big mistakes, just might realize what she had done and try to correct it? – but a loud string of bangs and rumbles jerk your attention to the building that other group had been investigating collapses into a gigantic pile of concrete and rebar. Dragon-rider-lady, and you really do need to find out her name at some point if that's the best description you can come up with, zips over to them and nearly shrieks, "What are you doing?!"

"Nothing we do is gonna matter after the effect stops, is it?" one man retorts. "If we wanna get these Nazi fucks, might as well blow up everything around 'em and get 'em in the crossfire, you know?"

She sits on her flying fireball for a moment before turning to face you. "Is that how this works?"

Uh…. A quick back-and-forth with Perfect Storm, and you nod. You know where this is going, and while it will definitely be the faster way of doing this, you can't help but imagine what would happen if Recursion Field didn't work the way it does. "It's a little more complicated than that, but he's not wrong."

"Okay." She jabs a button on her wristband and says, "New plan, everybody. Demolish everything. Calamity Witch says collateral damage is not a concern so long as her Shaker effect is up."

Lady Photon's wristband and your own both squawk out her message, the radios within just powerful enough to pass the word around to every cape in your dimensional field. Heroes and villains both turn their powers onto the nearby buildings, and in far too short a time, the entire campus has been reduced to rubble. It is a little uncomfortable how destructive capes can be when they really let loose, and just as uncomfortable when you realize much the same could be said about you.

The few seconds of chaos are followed by several minutes of looking through the wreckage for any sign that the Empire capes were there, but despite the parahumans' enthusiasm, it soon becomes clear that they took their aggression out on the wrong target. The fiery caterpillar dragon is reassembled, and you take off for the second site, the one that you know is where you will find your quarry.

City hall.

The squat, unimpressive building comes into view, and immediately streamers of light crash through the walls and detonate. Spheres of distorted space, pools of acid, Cailleach's ice bombs; it takes as little time to ruin this locale as they needed for the university grounds. You move closer to Miss Militia's spot on the dragon and ask, "Is this what it's going to be? Just bomb the whole town until we find what we're looking for?"

The American-themed heroine shrugs. Is her motion as uncertain as you think it looks, or are you just projecting your own concerns onto her? "I won't say it's your fault, but you certainly made it easier. Put people in a situation where there are no consequences, and far too many will embrace their worst desires, even if only for a moment." She looks away. "It is a trap all of us fall into, though we do our best not to succumb to that temptation again."

Several capes drop lower, but their cries of frustration soon reach your ears. What do they mean, the Empire isn't here?! This is where they were supposed to be! With Kaiser's ego, there was no way he would settle for anything less than taking over the seat of government. Not unless he was aiming even higher, if his deluded and Simurgh-addled mind thought he truly was above all other men. It looks like you're headed for the city's cathedral.

The others come to the same conclusion and ready themselves to move out once more. "Arbiter," a Case 53 covered in laser-shooting eyes calls out before you can move more than a dozen yards, "isn't the strip mall between here and the cathedral? We could knock it down while we're going and scratch that off our list."

"It's a little out of the way, but not that much," your group leader agrees after a moment's thought. "It won't delay us too much as long as nobody wastes time. Let's hit it and move on."

Taking a slightly looping course, the strip mall comes into view. Much like the rest of the town, it's nothing impressive— Except for all that! You shoot to one side as the roof shatters under the onslaught of massive steel obelisks that fly like rockets at your group. Not everyone is as quick on their feet as you; one monolith catches the tail of giant dragon and knocks free a couple of capes riding astride, and two more cut through the cluster of heroes that includes the very person who suggested you come this route. You doubt she appreciates the irony.

The roof continues its collapse, revealing rows of ten-foot pillars. No, not pillars. Blades. How long did it take Kaiser to make all these?!

The other capes continue their evasive actions as Rune flings more and more of her projectiles at your group, but even now you're rallying. A few flurries of light fly towards the building only to be stopped by a growing shield, and then the twenty-foot Fenja hurls something back that explodes into a living chainsaw. Another cape's quick thinking and momentum-reversing field is the one thing that saves more of your allies from being pureed by the blender that is Hookwolf.

Fenja's increased size makes her a better target, but the oddities of her Breaker state also mean she can weather the blows and better deflect the strikes aimed at the squishier capes at her feet. Or is it the oddities of her Breaker state mixed with the invincibility Othala can grant? That would probably make more sense. Fenja grows, Othala makes it impossible to hurt her, and then she can use her enlarged shield to protect Kaiser and Othala and all the rest. With that pair on defense, Kaiser and Rune can pair off for offense, him providing the blades and her throwing them. Hookwolf can be either another projectile or their final line of defense. It's a clever set up, and it's going to be a pain in the ass to stop now that they have gotten in a rhythm.

There is just one weakness that you can see: Othala, best as you remember, is incapable of granting any of her powers to herself. She is purely a support cape. If anyone could stop her, the Empire's strategy would fail, but Fenja is currently protecting her from all the threats thrown at her from above. You would have to attack her from the side to have any chances of hitting her, but if you tried that, all you would do is draw attention to yourself. Wide Area Search would let you target them, but between Kaiser's blades and Rune's powers and Stormtiger's air bombs and Hookwolf's everything, you can't be sure that any of your shots would hit. Solar Wrath would be easier to aim and impossible to deflect, but it can still be blocked. Not to mention, if you want to remain unseen, you would be blasting through a number of walls plus whatever metal Kaiser conjured to reinforce them. You don't know that it would have the energy to do more than ruffle their hair.

«Any ideas, Storm?» you ask the Device.

Maybe it is because your Device literally runs off telepathy. Maybe it just knows you well enough to guess your thoughts. Either way, it immediately offers a grisly suggestion. «Mistress's Flare Mana Conversion Affinity converts mana to heat and short-wavelength radiation. With safety measures in place, conversion limited to small amount of heat. Should Mistress cast without restrictions, spells cause lethal burns and radiation poisoning even if physical force nullified.»

That's not a great set of options, is it? Either you accomplish nothing or you burn everyone alive. This is not like fighting the Beasts, either. At the party, you had already figured out there was something wrong with them. They were more animal than man in your mind even before Miss Militia revealed they were probably the creations of a mad scientist. These are actual people, though. Evil, heartless people, but people nonetheless. Your hands tremble around Perfect Storm's pole. Can you go through with it?

Another swarm of tower-swords shoot into the air but is thankfully dodged by the capes it was aimed at, and it is that that really makes your mind up for you. Kaiser is desperate, and just like a cornered rat, he is going to bite anything that gets too close. It just happens that this rat carries the plague. The rest of the Empire aren't Zizzed – Othala you heard was cleared with your own ears, and Hookwolf and Fenja and the rest came back from Boston, so the same must be true about them – but they will follow Kaiser's lead. By the time they wise up, if they ever do, it will be too late to head off whatever convoluted plot Kaiser is part of. How many innocent people will they hurt before they're stopped, just like they hurt people with impunity back in Brockton Bay? How many will they kill?

How far will you go to keep your hands from being stained with blood if the alternative is for the ground to be soaked with it?

"Okay," you whisper to yourself. Looking at the ground, you note a nearby alleyway with just a single building between it and the strip mall. Nothing comes at you while you cast Spatial Translocation, and then you're at your destination. "Storm? Give me the formula for Solar Wrath."

«Does Mistress desire lethality restrictions remain active?»

You hesitate, once more looking at the gravity of the situation on your shoulders. "No. No, take them off. I need everything you've got."

«Understood. Lethal restrictions lifted. Begin ignition sequence.»

Aiming the tip of your staff at the building and the strip mall behind it, you watch the miniaturized sun grow and grow in front of you. When you fired this at Cadejo, you only let it get as big as your head. Part of that was the time crunch involved, but another part was knowing just how big this thing could get from your time in the training simulator while you should have been paying attention in history class. For this, you allow it to grow to its full size, wider than your shoulders and just a little less than half the length of your torso. Even with the protection from heat offered by your Barrier Jacket, you still feel the immensity of the fire contained within. The edges of the sunspots glow like coals; the flares looping back into the corona twist like starving snakes eager to gorge themselves on everything before them.

You raise the staff a little so it is firing at an upwards angle and hopefully won't melt the street quite as much as last time, and then you squeeze the trigger in your mind.

The force of the blast actually slides you backwards a few inches on the asphalt, but that is nothing compared to its brightness and volume. You can't see anything through the cone of flames. You can't hear anything over its furious roar. Your whole world becomes this single prolonged explosion, something Earth was never supposed to hear until the real sun breaks apart at the end of its life and consumes all around it.
«Initiate selective sensory suppression.»
The beam of nuclear fire finally dies down, and you blink the spots out of your eyes in time to see a massive spearhead coming your way. Diving to the side and never touching the ground, you shoot skywards to get out of the way as well as see what kind of calamity you have wrought.

In hindsight, you decide as you stare speechlessly at the scene before you, you might have underestimated how much damage that spell could do.

The building you chose to use as cover has a massive swath cut though it, and while Solar Wrath was still ongoing the top of the building collapsed and was likewise destroyed. The buildings behind the strip mall are both gone, as are those behind and to the sides of them. And the store itself? Like everything else the most powerful of your attack spells touched, it is not even rubble. When the spell hit Fenja's invulnerable legs, it did not stop so much as scatter, vaporizing anything it touched and melting what was outside its reach.

There is no sign of the Nazis at her feet. You can't help but wonder if they even had time to feel themselves being set on fire before they simply disintegrated.
«Suppression successful.»
The sound rattling in the air pauses for just a moment, and now you realize it is Fenja's scream of grief and hate. She whips out her sword and tries to pull out of the molten muck pooling around her feet, but by setting her focus entirely on you she has opened herself up to the thirty capes you brought with you. Even Othala's boon cannot last under the onslaught, and without warning it fails. Fenja falls a moment later, the myriad of exotic energies suddenly wreaking deadly effect.

Quiet falls over the empty city.

When you move back towards the group, you can't help but notice that everyone scoots away just a little. It is a subconscious reaction, you tell yourself. Never mind that extremely few parahumans are capable the kind of feat you just performed. Never mind that what is left of the buildings looks far too much like something from the few photos that inevitably spread over the internet after Behemoth attacks. It's fine. You're fine.

Arbiter drifts closer and clears his throat. "If you could take us out of this pocket dimension, I expect the Brutes have finished dealing with the other capes and the non-parahuman fighters. Should that not be the case, we know where they are and can finish this quickly."

"Right. Yeah." Taking another look at the aftermath of your attack, you find the threads of Recursion Field and break them.

Color washes back into the city, and activity resumes. The strip mall remains demolished.

Several capes shout in protest, and Arbiter turns to you with a cold glare. "I thought you said the damage we did would not transfer over."

"It doesn't! Look!" You point at the building. "I melted the building. That's collapsed. Whoever did that, it wasn't me."

Movement below catches your eye, and the group as a whole descends to street level. "Brick!" somebody calls out. "You okay down there?!"

The Brutes climb to their feet, some of them moving gingerly and all of them covered in scratches or cuts. For parahumans whose point of pride is their strength and durability, that is not a good sign. "Tell me the others are handled."

"Our selection of targets were eliminated," Arbiter confirms. "What about yours?"

The capes you couldn't keep an eye on carefully do not look at each other, and finally one of them explains, "We were going to check this place out on the way to the college, and then they started shooting and somebody Triggered. Next thing we knew, everybody was on the ground and there were big chunks of concrete flying at us. We broke in, but the only one there was that Victor cape, and he did some crazy kung fu shit to keep us from hitting him before he blew the building up with all of us inside. He's dead, and we're okay, but Cricket and the new cape and all the grunts were gone by the time we dug our way out."

"Why would they even pick here to hide out?" demands someone from deep in the crowd.

Several mutter in agreement, but it is Miss Militia who responds. "There was a gun store here. They probably picked it so the unpowered members would have plenty of ammunition."

The group starts devolving into an argument about whose fault it is that a known Empire cape and someone whose powers no one has a good handle on were able to escape. You, on the other hand, float a short distance away. You have no interest in who did or didn't do what, not when you still feel your skin crawling at what you've already done.

«Impossible for false Empire to defeat Mistress,» Perfect Storm says, trying and failing to cheer you up. «Mistress heir to might of Galea.»

You blink and look at the head of your staff. "Galea?"

«Location of unit construction. Home world of Calamity Witch origin.»

Origin? Construction? "Storm," you whisper, your mood rising both with the ready distraction and the implications of your Intelligent Device's statement, "do you remember something about your past?"

«Memory segment repair completed. Majority of files corrupted beyond possibility of recovery. Earliest records stored with highest priority adjacent to template files and restorable. Records include purpose of construction and designation chosen by designers.»

Its designation. Its real name. "Who are you?" you whisper.

«Unit classification: accelerated training platform. Unit purpose: installation of ability templates into local untrained mages to supplement military forces engaged in conflict with invading Belkan Empire.» You can almost feel the pride radiating from the crimson gem. «Initial designation: Immortal Assimilation Engine.»

Your wristband chooses that moment to begin beeping incessantly, as do everybody else's. What in the world is going on?

Arbiter taps a button on his, and you return to the group to better hear what's going on. Judging by how pale his skin is, it's nothing good. "Say that again, Console."

"Get back here now! The new Butcher just attacked headquarters!"


And now you have some idea what the dice rolls were for.

Even the sane(r) members of New Wave are fucked up. Whoever could have guessed that? Lady Photon's opinions are especially ironic considering the recent events in Boston and all the press that media circus generated. Hint: Collateral Damage Barbie, a lovestruck healer, smartphones, and unseen bystanders do not a good combination make.

Speaking of PHO-worthy topics, my SVers will notice something interesting if they check the threadmarks. A longstanding canon omake has now been put in its proper place, mostly because I only figured out this week how to rearrange threadmarks.

But enough about me! There is a new passive trait in your character sheet with two big implications. First, you can now support twin Guardian Beasts without any penalty to learning or training new spells. This won't matter until Samantha dies or you choose to un-convert her, but it's something to keep in mind. Second, now is your first chance to pick your secondary class!

Here's how this is going to work. There are three other classes to choose from, and each offers 5 or 6 unique spells from their skill trees that I think really capture the flavor of that class. Once you learn all those spells, you can choose to cross-train a second time. Details about that are in the FAQ section.

[ ] Extinction Knight – Close combat specialist with heavy armor and the cartridge system.
[ ] Infinite Enhancement – Support class with spells that empower your allies and hinder your foes.
[ ] Transcendent Gadgeteer – Magical Tinker with a specialty in cybernetics and weapon design.
[ ] Nothing – Do not take on another class at this time. This vote will be repeated at the end of every arc until a secondary class is chosen.

VERY IMPORTANT! Because the Gadgeteer is the only true non-combat class, it has its own leveling system. Except for the very first skill, participating in fights will not let you buy Gadgeteer skills, and completing projects will not let you buy spells from Calamity Witch's.