The first tank the augmented patrol app picked up wasn't where Taylor thought it was going to be, which probably meant that they'd split up and weren't all taking the same path. That would complicate her spur of the moment plan to stop them. Still, she shifted her flight path and readied a containment foam grenade. Two more tanks came up on the system shortly afterwards, in two other places. She kept on target for hitting the first one and would swing around to hit the next afterwards.
Within a couple seconds of her coming into view of the first tank it started to try and aim at her. She did her best to ensure that they couldn't get a bead on her and threw the containment foam grenade as soon as she thought she wouldn't miss. The grenade ended up under the tank, and when she looped back around to make sure that it went off properly she found that it had pinned the tank in place but hadn't done anything to stop the turret. Grumbling to herself, she positioned herself directly above the tank and dropped a second grenade.
Feeling that she'd spent too much time on this tank already, she dropped a marker on the map and made for the next one. Several more had appeared, though it looked in part to be because Dragon had brought out her own scout drones and was likely working to intercept some of the tanks as well. In fact, the next two Taylor went to try and foam were already disabled. Figuring that the stationary tanks were ones that had likely been stopped already, she instead looped back to go after some more mobile ones.
Sadly, because she was focused on the tanks, she'd been ignoring the various individual bikers in the area. That most of them didn't have guns and thus weren't direct threats to her while on the platform had caused her to dismiss them as a potential problem for the moment. As such she wasn't prepared for the next tank she approached to be ready for her to come around the building. It got off the first shot she'd seen from one of the things as a result, and their aim was quite good.
As she flew backwards off of her platform she had plenty of time to think about how much it still hurt to take a tank shell to the face. She'd successfully held onto her handgun and the containment foam grenade, and recovered soon enough to have the platform catch her. But she darted back behind the building she'd come around before the tank could line up for a second shot.
Amy: What the hell just happened?
Taylor: I stopped a tank shell.
Amy: ...
Taylor: ...with my face.
It was obvious that Amy wasn't happy about that. Taylor decided that she had more important things to worry about right now, like the approaching tank. She moved up over the building, and along the rooftops until she was close enough that the tank couldn't shoot up high enough to hit her. She then came out over the tank and dropped the grenade on it. One marker later and she moved on, considering her tactics for approaching the next few tanks as she went.
Unfortunately, the next two tanks were on the same street, and for the first time they had people manning the machine guns on top. Perhaps they'd previously forgotten that the things existed? This made targeting them without entering into lines of fire harder. She swung around behind them, able to get all the way around behind both and drop a grenade on the one in the back before they could react properly. The tank in front was able to get the turret spun around before she could reach it, and she lobbed a second grenade at it before darting between two buildings.
The telltale sound of a containment foam grenade going off was very odd, and she ended up carefully peeking around the corner of the building. She then blinked a couple of times, because containment foam was pouring out of the tank's main gun. Shrugging, she grabbed a second grenade before flying over and dropping it on top of the tank, the man at the machine gun only realizing that he should be paying attention when the grenade bounced on landing. He didn't react in time to stop it from going off next to him.
Terry scowled as he dropped down on his fourth tank of the day. He hadn't had a chance to get a weapon up to the level he'd need for this, but his feet were well up to the task of moving him around and his shield was definitely up to stopping the basic rounds the tanks were equipped with. But even the idea of attacking the hospital like this pissed him off, and he found that his 'energy pool' was filling faster than he'd expected. He'd likely be dumping a full energy load into improving his weapon well before the day was out.
He only normally carried a couple of containment foam grenades, so they weren't an option for a prolonged engagement like this one. Instead he braced himself behind his shield as the tank came forward, the angle of the shield acting as enough of a ramp for the tank to lift up slightly on one side. He'd then push forward, his costume keeping him from being harmed by the forces as he lifted one side of the tank into the air. Generally they ended up flipping over at that point, but the second tank had been positioned such that the main gun had stopped him from succeeding at first.
Sadly for the people operating that tank, they'd forgotten to lock the hatch, so he'd been able to open it up and drop in to deal with them in person. Though it annoyed him that he'd only looked away from the tank itself for a moment while applying zip-cuffs to the operators before it'd vanished entirely behind him.
Taylor had ice walled a couple of intersections to keep tanks from slipping down streets with lots of civilians down them, but she was also nearly out of containment foam grenades. On the other hand, at this point half of the Protectorate was in the fray, so she was on her way back towards the hospital to watch for anyone trying to slip past everything else.
"YOU CALL THOSE TANKS?" Sherrel yelled through a loudspeaker a couple of blocks over. "I'LL SHOW YOU A TANK, BECAUSE YOU HAVEN'T SEEN ONE YET!"
Sadly, Taylor had seen Sherrel's 'tank' already and didn't think that it actually qualified as one. Yes, it had a containment foam sprayer, but that was about it for 'weapons' and there were four smaller nozzles instead of a single main gun for that. Now, if you wanted to judge on armor alone then Sherrel would win, but an armored vehicle isn't a tank. On the other hand, going over to correct her would probably send the wrong message right now, so she wasn't going to do so.
It wasn't long before she'd made it back to the hospital and done a quick pass around the area. Carol and Neil looked to have a decent collection of bikers trussed up, but otherwise the area was calm. The last of Amy's visiting patients were boarding the transport that would get them out of town, though whether or not Dragon would wait until things had calmed down a bit more was yet to be seen.
So far they had fourteen confirmed deaths from the attack, twelve of which were amongst the attackers. The last two were teenagers that'd stupidly hung around to take pictures of the battle. Injuries were much more significant, and Amy was already dealing with the first wave of those brought to the hospital with injuries. Many of them came from people who'd been in buildings along the route where the tanks had been firing at people and they'd all been lucky to not be dead so far. Sadly, they'd probably find more bodies before the weekend was over.
Colin pulled up to the warehouse that the tanks had originated from according to Trevor. His own equipment showed that there was a single likely-sleeping occupant and no weapons of any kind, though there was a gas tank. He could also tell that a number of tracked vehicles had left through one of the doors based on the patterns left on the street, which was enough justification to enter during the current situation. That Dragon had obtained permission to search the building from the owner helped as well, even if they hadn't had a chance to get a spare key from the man. Instead he picked the lock on the pedestrian access door, then decided to check on some things before going any further. To avoid attention from others moving through the area he did open one of the rolling doors long enough to bring his motorcycle inside while nobody else was there to see him do so.
Moving over to one of the relatively thin boxes sitting on the ground nearby, of a style that he'd assume was for transporting inflexible sheets of something more than anything else, he carefully lifted it up to prop it against the wall. It was unusually light, which was a good indicator that something was up with it. He then took the handle on the side and spun it like he'd been told the woman packing things up had done, but in reverse. As he did so the box started to get thicker, expanding outwards away from the wall. When the handle stopped spinning there was a definite shift in weight, and the augmented reality system showed that the now sizable crate contained a tank.
Nodding to himself, he opened the crate long enough to confirm that it contained a duplicate of the tanks the others were dealing with. That done, he reversed the entire process and lowered the unit back down to the ground. They'd have to send people around to pick up all of these crates, and possibly see if they could find out where they came from. That and they'd have to see if they were tinkertech or some other power expression, in the former case they might be able to learn how to make them if they had Trevor build one under observation.
With that confirmed, he moved to the 'office' area, one that contained an apartment for whatever reason. It wasn't important why it was there, just that there was a likely parahuman involved in the current attack inside of it. He quickly found that the sleeping occupant had locked this door as well, but he was able to pick the lock easily enough. They'd also utilized a security chain, but he slipped a small device onto the chain and pulled the door shut. Ten seconds later he opened the door again, the chain having been pushed over and removed. Much less noisy and wasteful than breaking the chain or the door, though he made sure to retrieve the device before moving on.
The woman he found inside the apartment matched Trevor's description of the one who'd seemingly caused the tanks to be created from the original. She didn't wake when he used a handheld scanner to confirm that she had a corona pollentia and gemma. She also didn't react when he handcuffed her, nor when he carried her down to his motorcycle. He actually checked to ensure that she wasn't injured at that point, but it seemed that she was just that tired. Or perhaps this was an aspect of her powers? Either way he made sure she was secure. He was going to bring her in personally, the PRT vans had enough to deal with as it was. They'd clear the rest of the warehouse later.
Taylor blinked and turned to the side of the hospital that the attacks hadn't been coming from. She'd resumed having the Snitch and scout drone circle the hospital as a precautionary measure, but hadn't expected anything to come up. But there were three more tanks coming, and she didn't have three containment foam grenades left. Two, but not three, and sometimes a single tank took two if the foam didn't spread well enough.
"Maul to console," she said, even as she started heading for the tanks. "Three straggler tanks circled around to approach the hospital from an unexpected angle. I'm moving to engage them."
She wasn't yet ready to use the more dangerous grenades, but she hadn't needed to try and shoot the tanks yet. Granted, it hadn't taken long for the machine guns to be put into use, making it harder for her to not hit people, but she didn't think that her maul was going to be enough at this point. As such it was time to see what she could do with bullets, no matter how little hope she had that they'd work.
Still, she had two grenades left, so those were going to be used first. She swung around the first tank a couple of times as the bikers escorting it tried to tell the occupants where she was going to be coming from, but she could circle it faster than it could turn. She could also reverse direction before they could react. A combination of those and popping up over a building instead of going between them let her drop a grenade into the hatch that the machine gunner had left open.
Granted, that hadn't been her intention, but it seemed to work well enough. The entire thing ended up going dormant, with enough containment foam spilling out the hatch to lock up the machine gun as well. She dropped a marker on the map and moved on, keeping an eye out for activity at that tank in case it turned out to not be enough after all. Sadly, the other two tanks had moved to protect each other while she'd been dealing with the first.
She frowned as she considered her options. On one hand, they'd stopped moving when she'd approached, so they weren't going anywhere so long as they knew she was looking for an opening. On the other hand, they seemed much more alert than some of the previous tanks, perhaps because they'd been told about some of her previous tricks via radio or whatever it was they were using. Thinking on it more, she considered that she had taken a shell to the face without serious injury, but that the force field didn't protect her platform.
Deciding to take a risk, she made sure she could be seen circling the two tanks. Then, while behind a building, she jumped off of the platform and let it continue to circle without her. She still had the more powerful tinker-built handgun out, and she had the last containment foam grenade ready as well. Those in hand, she ran out from between two buildings on foot while her opponents were trying to track her now-empty platform. The containment foam grenade was tossed at the closer tank even as she turned to start running at the further tank.
The grenade pinned down the first tank even as the crew of the other one swung the main gun down to aim at her. In response she aimed her handgun right down the barrel of the thing and opened fire. Two shots, side-projecting, then she jumped diagonally. She was just in time to not be shot by the shell, it hitting the ground behind where she'd been standing instead. Apparently shooting down the barrel wasn't going to help. And the machine gunner had dropped down into the tank and secured the hatch, so she wasn't getting in that way either.
On the other hand, she made it close enough to the tank to not be able to be targeted by the main gun before they loaded and fired another round. Whether that was her speed or their inexperience was harder to tell. Either way, she jumped up onto the tank itself and very out of reach of the main gun. After a moment's consideration she also tore the machine gun off of the mount, aided by it not being installed properly in the first place, before pausing to consider her options. They weren't likely to open up the secured hatch, but they also weren't likely to not decide to move on while she wasn't locking them down. So how to stop them from moving?
Shrugging, she put the handgun away before pulling her maul out. A moment later she dropped down behind the tank, followed by starting to beat the crap out of the engine exhaust, trying to ensure that there wasn't a usable exhaust. It seemed that someone figured out what her plan was, though, since they tried to back the tank up over her. She jumped back up onto the tank, annoyed that she'd only partially blocked the exhaust. It wouldn't be enough.
A few seconds later she was blinking.
Taylor: Why aren't you crying that I'm damaging the tank and telling me how to fix it?
<UMR: Data. Elaboration. Data>
Huh. Her tinker snark felt that these were elaborate fakes that didn't deserve to be considered 'technology', even if it was still telling her how they supposedly worked. Further, it wasn't actually possible to 'repair' them due to their status as fakes. Come to think of it, she looked over to where she'd thrown the machine gun to see that it was no longer there, apparently it vanished.when she wasn't looking. And on top of all of that, apparently it felt that damaging things trying to harm her was perfectly fine, at least enough to get them to stop trying to harm her.
She suspected that it would still want her to fix most of those things later, when possible, and with some now-obvious exceptions.
Taylor: So can you tell me how to make it go away sooner?
<UMR: Negation>
Oh well. That was worth a shot, even if it didn't end up helping. Well, she had a few options. One was to go get a more dangerous grenade from the cabinet at the hospital. That risked causing serious injury or death to the people in the tank. Another was to try and beat the tank open with her maul, which she didn't hold out a lot of hope for. Though she did have a generally-unused option that could let her put a temporary hole in a gas tank. Hmmm.
Sadly, she quickly determined that she wasn't going to safely get close enough to a usable point for that, since the treads were in the way. On the other hand, she could get close enough to a hatch, and if anyone asked she could probably blame the trick on purchased tinkertech. Deciding that she'd rather end this before they decided to try and get to within shooting range of the hospital, she moved over to the hatch and examined it. It didn't take long for her to shrug and pull off a glove. She then put her hand down on the hatch, a hole appearing a moment later. She reached through and unsecured the hatch to open it up before anyone inside could react, slipping her glove back on as she dropped in.
The five individuals in the tank were obviously confused as to how she'd gotten in, but didn't get a lot of time to consider how she'd done so before she was knocking them out in the close quarters.
Glenn grumbled as his phone rang. He had the day off, but of course that didn't mean he was going to be left alone. He grabbed the phone anyway, looking at the caller ID to decide whether or not to answer. After a moment he decided to answer, since at least Ethan usually had good ideas.
"Good afternoon," he answered.
"I have an awesome idea that needs to be approved fast," Ethan greeted. "Do you know what happened in Brockton Bay today?"
"I've been dealing with things that've built up around the house, so no."
"Tanks happened, and I think we should build a 'best of' snippet set to give to the news."
Glenn blinked. "Tanks?"
"Yep. Somehow the Fallen brought in a pile of them. Maul took out some on her own, Dauntless flipped a few. Wrench Wraith tended to ram them into submission. I missed out on most of the fun, sadly. But the best part is that almost all of the action against the tanks was done within range of sensor drones, and those now automatically record their raw data, so we should be able to pull any footage we want."
Right. Catching up on the news was suddenly very important. "I see. Anything else I need to know before I get started on this?"
There was a pause before Ethan seemed to whisper. "I can't confirm it, but some of the guys we pulled out of one of the tanks claimed that they'd gotten a headshot on Maul and she just ignored it. That's with the tank's main gun, by the way. But since she has her own sensors it shouldn't be hard to figure out."
Damn that man. Now he was going to have to go digging, just to see if that was true.
Taylor sat on the roof with a snack, having been told to take a break by both Carol and Sarah. Most of the work happening right now was the PRT working through the containment foamed tanks one at a time, though there was also apparently a team heading to pack up the warehouse that the tanks had come from as well. Things had calmed down everywhere, and a few people had been brought to the hospital from the gang fights that the console claimed had been started by mastered individuals.
Amy had just finished working on Jason's family. The kid had apparently been hit first, and his power seemingly shut down if he had an injury serious enough to kill him. Amy had healed him up, then continued to heal him up as he started to pull injuries from all over the emergency room. Once he'd stabilized she'd cleaned up the rest of his family and moved on to others, with his mother rushing them out of the hospital before someone else came in and he needed more healing.
"Console to hospital group," came over the radio while Amy was working on a woman who'd taken a bullet to her shoulder. "A transport will be coming over to resupply the roof cabinet shortly."
Taylor sighed at that even as she moved over next to the cabinet instead of in the open area on the roof. "I don't know if I should be happy that they're looking to resupply the thing or worried that they think we're not done yet."
It didn't take long for the transport to come in, and a couple of officers moved over to the cabinet with a cart. One of them nodded to her. "Afternoon Maul."
"Good afternoon," she replied.
"We were told to have you grab half a dozen containment foam grenades for yourself, since you used all of them earlier. Report said you'd used all the ice walls too, but nothing else?"
Taylor nodded even as she started picking up containment foam grenades from the cart. "Yeah, didn't want to risk killing people with some of the others."
The other officer nodded. "Probably a good call, all things considered. I'm not even sure how they got most of these approved in the first place."
"They're classified as 'in case of Endbringer' on the paperwork I checked before we took off," the first officer noted. "A more secure transport will probably be by to pick them up later, once we've stood down from high alert."
"Oh, that makes sense."
Taylor decided to leave them to things once she'd finished with collecting containment foam grenades. With any luck the rest of the day would be calm, but if it wasn't she at least had more options again. Instead she returned to her snack while also wondering what she'd end up doing for dinner tonight. Especially since her father had already let her know that he was helping some of the other dockworkers with some cleanup and thus wouldn't be home for dinner.
Hannah frowned as she turned back around to see that the most recent cleared tank had vanished. It was nice in some ways, since they didn't have to get the things somewhere to store them or otherwise dispose of them. In other ways it was annoying, because it was literally vanishing evidence. Then again, word was that every last person they'd pulled from a tank that'd made it back to the PRT building had been mastered by one or more of four different signatures, so getting anything to stick to any of them would probably be impossible anyway.
Until you could find the master you also never knew when this kind of thing was over. How many more people in the city were under master influence, and how long before some hidden order caused them to cause more trouble? It was all incredibly frustrating to law enforcement in general. For that matter, it was probably frustrating to the gangs as well, not knowing if their people had been compromised until they suddenly acted out.
"Wrench Wraith seems to have submitted a request for us to head a few blocks over and deal with a couple of tanks she knocked on their sides earlier," Officer Milligan said as his partner shut the van doors on the five from this tank. "Looks like she got a good look at one of the other tanks before it vanished and is concerned that the original might've had some weak welds on the fuel tanks."
Hannah nodded. "I see it, and until they vanish these things are real enough to cause problems if stuff spills, especially if containment foam didn't penetrate into the tanks themselves. I'll head over now, since I can take the short route through a couple of alleyways. Hopefully they won't have anyone trying to get them out already, but I should be able to handle anyone there."
This was probably going to take at least another couple of hours. Then again, it was much better than dealing with the tanks while they were mobile. They were probably going to need to add containment foam to a couple before they opened them up, for that matter, such as the one Miss Hebert had gotten the entire inside of without foaming the outside. Sadly, dealing with the damaged buildings was going to take longer.
Taylor stretched after changing out of her costume. She was going to be meeting with New Wave for dinner, at their insistence. At the same time, she'd been asked to stay signed into the console for the evening, though switched over to an 'inactive' channel. The primary benefit was keeping the augmented patrol system running, allowing her to better keep track of what was going on around her. That the rest of those on duty would get improved results from said system in the area around her had also been mentioned.
A few minutes later Taylor was heading for her moped when the radio activated, surprising her. "Dragon to all points, please be advised that Guild transports containing master-effect scanning devices will be arriving shortly. Their deployment pattern has been marked on your maps. Please do not interfere with them."
Blinking, Taylor popped the map open to see what the 'deployment pattern' looked like. It didn't take long to determine that, after you added in the PRT building, they were apparently looking to get full coverage of the entire city. Which, she supposed, was a great way to ensure that it would be hard for someone in the city to be mastered without anyone noticing for the time being. She wondered if these units were scanning-only or if they'd gathered enough full functionality units to blanket the city, but didn't bother to ask Dragon. It wasn't that important to know.
Not long after that she was on the road, heading for the restaurant that Sarah had apparently gotten a reservation at. Taylor thought it was more impressive that the woman had found one open after the events of the afternoon, but then again it also made sense. A number of homes and apartment buildings were damaged, so people with businesses that could make food for those who couldn't use their own kitchens probably wanted to be available. Whether it was for profit or otherwise probably varied from owner to owner.
Oddly enough, Taylor apparently beat the rest of New Wave to the restaurant. Then again, if they'd gone home to change out of costumes then it would probably take them much longer. Still, she was expected was quickly shown to the room that they'd be using. The Pelhams showed up shortly afterwards, followed by the Dallons about ten minutes later.
"Did you really take a tank shell to the face?" Vicky asked as soon as she realized that Taylor was already there.
Taylor rolled her eyes. "Yes, I did. It hurt. I paid them back by foaming their tank, then went and foamed more. The bruise finished fading over an hour ago."
"Damn. None of the tanks even tried to shoot me, and they got you in the face? That's not fair!"
Everyone blinked and turned to Vicky, but Eric was the one to ask the question they were all likely thinking. "Are you complaining that you didn't get shot by a tank today?"
Vicky nodded. "Of course. I've never been shot by a tank, it would've been awesome!"
Amy sighed. "Please tell me that's her snark talking?"
Taylor shrugged. "Probably. Aversion to dodging so that her force field gets to take different kinds of hits and all."
Vicky snorted. "You're kidding, right? Taylor here gets bragging rights for being shot by a tank and barely noticing, why wouldn't I want the same thing?"
Well, at least the girl had a point.
