Somer's Rock.
This was a place that had
character, in the same way that bullying supposedly built character.
It was old, almost as old as the city itself. The bricks were shoddy, cracked, and with quick dry cement being the only thing holding them together. The door was half an inch too thick, layers of paint adding up over the years to add to its width, with a persistent rumor that the door was originally one stolen from a British governor during the colonial days.
I personally doubted the validity of that, but the rumor remained.
Opening the door, I side stepped my way in, ducking to let the hilt of the Endslayer in without it hitting the door frame. Too many experiences where doing that in my early career ended the chase, as well as ending any attempt at intimidation afterwards.
Image, is perhaps the second most important thing to being a cape, I have found. If you can cultivate an image, make it be known to others, then you can de-escalate situations before they turn violent. It gave people an understanding of who you were, how you would react to certain threats.
The Image that I had built for myself was one of barely restrained violence, tempered by ability. To all who knew of the Black Knight, they knew of his
viciousness, the ruthless way he would tear through mobs of opponents. It was from those early encounters that the annoying rumor that I had Brute powers started.
I took that image, born of me flailing around like an idiot in my first few months when I didn't have too much control over my Thinker powers, and I enhanced it. I played it up, made it stronger. A growl here, a roar there. It was that image that I had cultivated that let me end the fight with Squealer early.
But, here's the thing.
That image was a
lie.
A falsehood, something I wrapped myself up in to hide from the world that I was just as broken as everything around me. But, just because it was a lie, didn't mean it wasn't important. If everyone reacts to the lie as though it were the truth, then it has become the truth as far as they are concerned.
Upholding that Image was key to my survival, and I sat down at the table with a self proclaimed psychic who could probably see through all of it.
To say that I was feeling nervous was an understatement.
The reason for my nervousness?
A certain blonde
bitch that was locally famous for her ability to read minds who could probably suss me out before I could even punch her in the gut for opening her mouth.
I had no reason to attack the Undersiders, in truth I thought they were fun to leave running around my city. They only ever hit other villains or corrupt businesses, even if the businesses weren't known to be corrupt at the time. They never harmed the average civilian, and had a reputation for professionalism when on the job.
The fact that Tattletale had contacted
Emma on PHO was a very possible breach of the Rules.
Well, a very flimsy breach as Emma's PHO handle was
literally Knight's_Squire, but I was prepared to stretch the very minor breach in the rules if she threatened her, consequences to myself be damned.
The Undersiders weren't far, they were sitting at the bar where they had a good view of the door, and Tattletale waved me over.
I slowly made my way towards them, not letting the full weight of my suit thud against the wooden floor of Somer's Rock, and as I made my way towards the group I noticed a few other capes in the city get up and get out of my way, with a few even leaving the bar entirely as I made my way towards the Undersiders.
I felt bad as Parian, a doll themed neutral rogue, got up and left when it looked like she had just sat down to order something.
Image was important, but it had its downsides at times.
I sat down next to the thieves that had contacted me, and slowly turned my head towards them.
I saw Bitch, Hellhound if you wanted her to hate you, start to growl something at me before Grue shot her down with a look.
She looked at him and grumbled before sitting back down, my fist unclenched from where I had been subconsciously balling it up, ready for a fight that might have broken out, before turning my attention to Tattletale, who looked pale and like she was ready to piss herself.
Good.
Image had its advantages.
"Tattletale," I ground out, the voice changer in my helmet transforming my voice into something more menacing.
She gulped, and I don't even think she realized that she had done it before responding herself, "Black Knight, I can explain-"
I immediately cut her off, forcing the conversation to follow my flow, not hers. Never let the Thinker have a moment to Think.
"Explain it to me then, tell me why you contacted
my friend on PHO to set up this meeting," I growled out, the voice changer probably wasn't needed in that moment to make the full brunt of my displeasure known.
Tattletale must have noticed because she somehow managed to go a few shades paler, and she very quickly tried to dissuade my anger as she waved her arms about in a blind panic.
"No, no, it's not like that! It's not what you think!" She very hastily got out before I took a deep breath to make my displeasure known when she managed to bite out, "we just wanted to thank you!"
Which, naturally, brought me up short and took the wind almost entirely out of my sails.
"Thank me?" I asked dumbly.
Tattletale looked like she was starting to feel more assured that I wasn't going to kill her right then and there. As if I would break the sanctity of neutral ground.
Regent spoke up from behind her, a slight tremor in his voice betraying the lazy drawl of nonchalance that I had grown to associate with him, letting me know that he was scared shitless.
"You stopped the rage dragon from fucking finding and killing us," I blinked, processing what he just said before he continued, "Tats here demanded that we repay the favor somehow."
My attention turned back to Tattletale, "I saved your lives?" I asked, figuring that them paying me back was worth any minor breach of the Rules they made in attempting to contact me.
Tattletale nodded, "yeah, yeah you did. We had robbed one of his casinos a few nights before and he was tracking us down before he managed to figure out where we were within a few blocks, at which point you and Armsmaster made short work of him and he got dragged off to a secure cell on the Rig where he's most likely being kept sedated."
I leaned back to sit up straight, and motioned for her to continue and for her to hopefully
get to the point.
"Right," she let out a nervous chuckle that seemed to ease her tension, "so, we figured we'd return the favor by informing you of any ABB news over the coming weeks, until Lung gets properly shipped out to prison."
I nodded, feeling much better about this meeting now that I knew what it was about.
Hah, look at that. I catastrophized about something before I knew the full details.
Emma must never know.
"Do you have any information now? Or do you want to send the information over PHO," I asked, eager to get information from a Thinker 7 who was famous amongst the lesser criminals for her breadth of information gathering.
"Two things, actually," she replied, her skin no longer looking pale and terrified as I allowed her to enter her element.
"The first thing is that the ABB has two new capes, and they've already made their debuts after Lung was captured. The first is a tinker named Bakuda, she was on the news recently for trying to bomb Cornell University, don't know if she's just fond of explosives or if-"
I cut her off, "she provided Oni Lee with several tinker tech grenades, I found out when I was examining the shrapnel that I removed from myself after the altercation."
Tattletale opened her mouth to an 'o' shape before closing it and shaking her head, "only you, Black Knight, only you."
She sucked on the corner of her upper lip before continuing, "the other is a C53 named Tengu, avian in appearance and fights with a bow. Powers unknown, possible Striker/Blaster from internal PRT documents."
I shifted in my seat, ruminating on this treasure trove of new information, "thank you, Tattletale. Continue to relay information through the intermediary's PHO account, if you can tell me anything about the prison transport for Lung and any attempts to break him out, I'll consider us even in this regard."
Tattletale let out a sigh of relief and sipped on a coffee that was no doubt getting cold by now, but she didn't even seem to care.
"Don't worry, I'll make sure not to look too deep into your girlfriend's account," she said casually, and I felt myself
stiffen as what she said registered to me.
"She's not-" I began tersely, slowly letting out a breath of air as I saw Tattletale's face pale again, "she's not…
that. " I said slowly, calming myself down for reasons I couldn't quite place.
"We're just friends."
Tattletale quirked an eyebrow at me and I was about to respond when I saw the front door open, and I turned my attention towards the front to see who was coming in.
A large, imposing brick of a man entered the bar, a white robe with red accents covered his body, while a mask made of pure stone rested on his face. In his hand he held a Bible, and I saw swastikas intermingled with flaming crosses on his red cassock that draped over his shoulders, there was absolutely no way to tell what gang this newcomer was from.
The obvious Nazi looked around Somer's, and even through the thick, stone mask he wore I could tell that he was looking in disgust.
His deep, booming bass of a voice spoke, his words somehow coming through unmuffled through his mask through what was probably power bullshit, and everything he said got me ready for a fight.
"So
this is where the filth that contaminates this city congregates," his eyes, a piercing steel blue bore into mine when his gaze came across my own,
"pathetic."
He marched towards the bar where me and the Undersiders were seated, and I could sense the danger that this man was radiating off of him, my power
screaming at me to leave as soon as possible so that I wouldn't be caught.
I looked at Tattletale and motioned for her to leave, quickly.
I didn't bother to pay attention to if she did or not, and I immediately kept my eyes on this unknown Empire bastard, standing from my seat and preparing myself for a confrontation if one presented itself.
The unnamed cape walked around the bar and grabbed a bottle of rum and slowly stuffed a rag into it, and my mind froze when I realized what he was planning.
He couldn't.
He wouldn't.
This was-
We were at-
Somer's was neutral.
"There is only one surefire way to get rid of garbage, especially garbage that refuses to be cleaned," he intoned gravely before lighting his newly created molotov cocktail.
"One must put it to the torch."
I darted forward, drawing the Endslayer from its place on my back and I went to swing, but it was too late.
He threw the bottle.
It broke against the liquor shelf.
All of hell broke loose.
