Many thanks to @Assembler, @themanwhowas, @fabledFreeboota, @Skyrunner, @BeaconHill, and ShadowStepper1300 for betareading. Thanks in particular to @themanwhowas and @BeaconHill for assistance with this rewrite.
Many thanks to @MugaSofer for fact checking.
Many thanks to @IAmARobot and @themanwhowas for assistance with power generation.
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Gunfire broke the silence of the streets. The Empire goons had surged forth, and the PRT had met them.
I doubted it was open battle. Neither side wanted that. But I couldn't tell—not from these dark side-streets, where the only sign of combat was the echoing, drumming crack of gunfire, and the audible undercurrent of shouting human voices.
"Empire runners, headed right for you," Sophia's voice came from my radio. "Four of them, one gun. Rifle."
I glanced at Browbeat. "We can take them."
He nodded. His jaw, visible through his mask, was a hard line. "Yeah." He looked at me. "Uh, do you mind if I…?"
"Not at all," I said. "I'll watch your back."
What little I could see of his face looked grateful. "Thanks."
I fell back, away from the sound of gunfire, and unslung Belthronding as Browbeat strode forward, cracking his knuckles. His hands came down to his sides, and his fists were clenched.
Four men rounded the corner. One was carrying, as Sophia had warned, a rifle. Two of the others had combat knives, and the last had what looked like a police baton. Their heads were shaved, and their arms were bare, proudly displaying a latticework of ink.
The man with the gun shouted as he saw us. "Wards! Look out!"
He raised his gun and fired at Browbeat. The bullets skittered uselessly against bone plates with a painful screech, like nails on a chalkboard, and my teammate's stone-hard flesh was left unmarked. Browbeat started to run, his feet leaving minute cracks in the asphalt as he rolled forward like a tank.
The Empire men brandished their weapons, but Browbeat was implacable. He bowled them over like a ball through pins. One he caught with a punch that sent him careening into the wall. He delivered an elbow to the gut of another, sending him sprawling, coughing and gasping for air.
One of the men slashed wildly at him with his knife. The blade cut cleanly through the fabric of his costume over his chest, but was stopped dead before it could break the skin, as though by a barrier. Browbeat took his hand and crushed it in one of his own until the man was howling, the knife dropping from broken fingers. He tossed this man aside, then, and dispatched the last one with a kick to the shin that broke bone.
I watched him for a moment as he stood amid the gasping, groaning bodies. He was breathing heavily, and I knew it wasn't from exertion. Browbeat had faced an Endbringer less than a week ago. This was no great task in comparison.
I jogged up to him. He didn't turn, though I knew he heard my approach. I laid a hand on his shoulder when I reached him. "Are you all right?"
He didn't answer for a moment. "Fine," he said at length. "Just dealing with some demons." He looked at me. "Do we just leave them here, or call it in?"
"Both," I said. "We'll call it in while we move. I doubt the PRT has time to pick them up. I'll make the call, you lead the way."
He nodded and turned, leading us down the road. I pulled out my radio.
"This is Annatar," I said. "Browbeat and I just disabled some Empire recruits near the Blackwing-Vital intersection."
"
Got it," Clockblocker replied. "
We'll send PRT to pick them up later, if they're still there."
The sound grew louder as we grew closer. Only a few weeks ago, gunfire would have been deafening to me. Terrifying. Now it was practically familiar, and running
towards it seemed perfectly natural. It didn't take us long to arrive.
"Annatar! Browbeat!" Aegis' voice was hoarse as he shouted over the sound of gunfire and the crackle of containment foam expanding. He was taking cover behind a minivan that had seen better days. The paint had been chipped even before Leviathan, and the tidal waves had left it rusting and water-damaged. The bullets had done nothing to help any of this.
I dove out of the cover of a wall and ran behind the van with him. A bullet pinged off of my pauldron while I was exposed, but I was otherwise unscathed. "What's going on?" I asked.
"Kaiser and his inner circle are already on their way out," he replied. "Headed south. Velocity and Vista are trying to locate their getaway car. This is just their rear guard. Where's Shadow Stalker?"
"On the roof," I answered. I had to almost shout to be heard over the cacophony. "She can join the scouting team, and I can try to figure out what I can with Vilya."
Aegis nodded. "Do it!" He made as if to say more, but was interrupted by an explosion down the street. He cut himself off with an oath. "Shit, they're using grenades!"
"You and I can handle that," said Browbeat. "The PRT troops can't."
Aegis nodded. "Come on, let's go shake things up. Annatar, figure out what you can, and send Shadow Stalker to join the others."
I nodded. "Good luck!"
He grinned. "Don't need luck," he said. "Got the Sun on my finger."
He stood up, vaulted over the van, and was off into the fray without landing, flying straight into the Empire line with a shout. Browbeat followed.
I hunkered down and spoke into my radio. "Shadow Stalker, Vista and Velocity are looking for Kaiser's getaway car," I said. "Most of the Empire's capes should be there. Go help them find it."
"On it. Sure you don't need help here?"
"I'm doing the same as you," I said. "In my way."
I closed my eyes for the second time that night and reached out with Vilya.
A direction, I pleaded.
Just a direction. Where will I find my enemies?
South.
I knew I could follow Vilya's guidance. It would lead me where I needed to go, so long as I didn't stop listening. I raised my radio. "This is Annatar. I think I can find Kaiser, but I don't have mover powers anymore."
"Console here." Clockblocker's voice was harried. "Vista, double back and pick up Annatar. Follow her lead."
"On my way."
Well, now there was nothing to do but wait. No reason I couldn't help in the meantime. I rose, nocked a tranquilizer arrow to Belthronding, and ducked out of cover, firing at an Empire goon who was peeking out from an alley. My arrow caught him in the chest and he went down.
I ducked back as I drew another arrow out of my quiver.
One down, too many to go. I glanced out again, shot again. A miss, this time, as the man fell back into cover just as I loosed the shot.
"Annatar, let's move." It was Vista, beside me—and yet, also, several blocks down the street. I took a step towards her, and traversed a couple hundred yards.
"Where do we go?" she asked.
"South, for now," I said, my voice slightly absent. Most of my focus was on the Ring on my finger. "I'll give us directions as I get them."
She nodded, and space twisted around us. I followed her through folded space, down several streets.
"Left here," I said, Vilya having altered its instruction.
"How far?"
"…Three blocks?"
She nodded, and moved, her hands twisting in the air like a dancer's. Space shifted again, and suddenly the three blocks to the left of us were about two steps worth of distance.
I took those two steps, and immediately ducked behind a dumpster. "They'll be passing any second!" I told her.
She nodded, joining me and pulling out her radio. "This is Vista. We've found them. Converge on my position. Annatar, can you—"
I was already pulling out Belthronding again. "Of course."
There was the car. I understood at once why it had been hard to find. The vehicle might have been an expensive-looking limousine, but it was also modified with tinkertech, and nearly invisible. I could only see it by the faint distortion in the air as it sped down the road.
I nocked an explosive arrow, ducked out of cover, and fired at one of the tires. What with the invisibility, I missed my target, but the arrow burst in a fiery blossom underneath the car anyway, sending it spinning out of control.
It skidded to a stop, its tinkertech cloak flickering and going out. As it did, a wavering shadow of the car, like a holographic silhouette, seemed to bloom forth and expand, swelling out of the vehicle itself to twice the size and then popping like a soap bubble. It hurt to look at, like staring into an intricate optical puzzle.
The limousine was sleek in parts, as might have been expected, but in others marred by jutting modifications and additions made by some tinker. A veritable column of machinery rose from the hood like a souped-up hotrod, and the roof of the car was lined with antennae and blocks of intricate machinery.
For a moment the street was still, despite the gunfire still echoing. Then one of the doors opened, and out stepped a familiar figure. Kaiser's armor was almost as bright as mine. The steel was impeccably clean, and—though Kaiser had likely only created it a few hours ago—seemed to have been polished to a glowing sheen. His visor stared me down.
"Annatar," he said. "I might have known."
Other doors were opening now. Other capes I recognized were leaving the car. Hookwolf, bare-chested and muscular, with the faintest hint of metallic blades beginning to poke out through his skin; Krieg, his knockoff S.S. uniform impeccable. Purity, her eyes and hair already glowing like a star; and Alabaster, his bone-white skin seeming almost ethereal in Purity's luminescence.
Just me and Vista against what looked like half of the Empire's capes, with more inside the car, if I wasn't mistaken. I didn't like those odds.
But I'd take them, if I had to.
"It ends here, Kaiser," I said. "Surrender."
"Surrender? Now? To a little girl?"
Belthronding returned to its place over my shoulder, and I laid a hand on the haft of the small blade sheathed behind the small of my back. I pulled it out, flipped it in my hand so the blade was up, and flexed my fingers just so.
The haft Kid Win had built for me expanded in my hand, and Iphannis was suddenly upright and at its full, nine-foot height beside me. The blue light of the blade glinted off Kaiser's armor, setting the whole street around us aglitter.
"'Little girl?' Is that the best you can do?" I asked dryly.
"No," he replied with a chuckle. "No, it is certainly not the best I can do,
Miss Hebert."
I didn't move. No muscle in my body tensed, even as I heard Vista gasp beside me.
I could hear the smile in Kaiser's voice. "Ah, now you understand. Leverage, Annatar, is far better than any amount of charisma."
Another of the doors, on the opposite side of the car, was opening. I ignored it, ignored all the other Empire capes. My eyes were fixed on Kaiser.
I needed to decide on an approach, and fast. I could attack, and would if necessary, but Vista and I were alone as far as I could tell, though I was sure the others were coming. Sophia might be in position, and Velocity could arrive quickly, but that still wasn't anything like enough to even the scales. I could try to threaten him back. Could I out-escalate him? Make him back down from the implied threat against my dad? Or could I play dumb? How good was his source? How had he found out?
I cast my mind to Kaiser's history. How had he interacted with unmaskings, in the past? It had to have come up.
…It had. Fleur—Amy's, what, aunt? She had been killed in her civilian identity, by an E88 goon. Kaiser had disavowed the attack. I didn't know all the details, but I could extrapolate enough.
I couldn't fight and expect to win, and I didn't want to risk escalating… but I could stall for backup, even if, with Vista here, I wasn't at all sure the others would arrive in time to help.
"You don't want to do this," I said. "Unmasking someone? How well did that go for you last time?"
"Typical," said a girl's voice suddenly. "Trying to deflect, to turn attention away."
I glanced at the open door, and at the girl standing up from behind it. Her face was hidden behind a blank red mask with no visible holes for her eyes or mouth. Instead, it had only a single eye in the center of her forehead. She wore long, flowing robes in ornate red and gold.
"I wonder how well you'd deal with someone taking that close a look at you," she said, tucking a lock of vibrant red hair behind her ear with her left hand.
"Oracle," said Kaiser, almost soothingly. "Now is not the time." He looked back at me. "We need not be enemies."
I bared my teeth. "You do
remember what happened to the last villain who hurt my family?"
"I'm afraid I agree with her, Kaiser," said Oracle. "We can't work with her. At least as long as she's fucking that lesbian ni—"
Oracle cut herself off, seemingly choking on the word, as though it didn't come naturally to her. I turned my gaze upon her. "You're new to this," I said. "Come on, Oracle—you know this is
wrong, I can tell. You know it's
stupid. You know you can do so much better—"
She laughed—a harsh, dark, thundercloud of a laugh. "You're one to talk," she said. "Bit hypocritical of you, to say that
I can do better. Then again, I guess you'd be familiar with hypocrisy, wouldn't you,
Ring-Maker?"
I found myself taking a step back.
Hypocritical. The word rang in my skull oddly. I forced myself to stop. "I'm at least using my powers to help this city," I growled. "I'm trying to
heal it!"
"No," she shook her head. "You're trying to
fix. To get tools you can
use. You really can't pretend you have the moral high ground on this one, not when you only think of how useful someone will be before helping them. Hell, you've mastered your entire team!"
My eyes burned like fire. "How
dare you?" I thundered. "You think you can
lie to my face—"
"Oh, sure you can't control them." Her voice was a cruel hiss. "
Yet. We'll just have to wait and see, won't we? I wonder, Annatar—
Taylor—what will it take to break
you?"
"Got it!" The young man's voice came from the other side of the vehicle, near the hood. In that moment, I realized my folly. I reached for Belthronding, but Kaiser was already moving.
A wall of barbed metal rose up between me and the car, blocking my vision. A crossbow bolt pinged off of it uselessly, as did my first arrow.
I heard scrambling, and then the car's engine started—a roar which rapidly dulled to a low, barely-audible thrumming.
"Vista!" I shouted.
"I can't see it!" she growled furiously. I saw her gesturing, and saw the wall beginning to shorten as she compressed the very space it filled.
In a moment, however, the car emerged from behind the wall. And yet it was altered. It shimmered, wavering slightly, as if it was interposed with several images of itself, all placed into my vision, one after the other, into almost the same place, but different enough that the edges were fuzzy and indistinct. Vista reached out, and the road ahead began to stretch.
The car, however,
separated. Three separate images of the vehicle, each wavering like an indistinct mirage, sped in different directions. One turned left, one right, and one carried on into Vista's lengthened space, speeding up right into the stretching area. As it entered, it stretched with the space, expanding sideways like an elastic band until, suddenly, it snapped out of existence, stretched to the breaking point.
"Fuck!" Vista exclaimed. We ran to the intersection. Two limousines, barely visible against the night, were speeding in two different directions. As I watched, they each split yet again, going once more in every direction down the next intersections in their path.
For a moment, Vista stretched out her hands to either side, as though to hold back two roads at once. Then she sighed, and released her hold on space. I couldn't hear the engine, and the cars split apart down side streets one last time and were gone. We had lost them.
"Fuck," she said again. "I can't close off that many streets at the same time."
"Did anyone get a tracker on that?" I asked into the radio.
"
Negative," came Kid Win's voice over the radio. "
I tried, but they spent a lot on that car. My bugs fizzled once they were on it."
"Can we get Vilya to find them again?" Vista asked me.
"Maybe?" I said. "Vilya doesn't really work like that, but I might--"
"
That's a negative," said Clockblocker. "
You're outnumbered and they could be anywhere, now."
"What about Velocity?" Vista asked. "Can he catch up to them?"
"
He followed the wrong car," Clockblocker replied. "
The thing just disappeared. Sorry, Annatar. We lost them this time."
I closed my eyes.
"Annatar?" It was Sophia—and her voice came, not from the radio, but from right beside me. She looked almost worried, as if she saw something in my face that concerned her. "Are you okay?"
I swallowed, looking after the vanished car. My hands were clenched into fists, and I sighed, forcing myself to relax. My anger cooled from a raging inferno to a smouldering ember, but did not go out. "Yes, I am," I replied.
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