Brockton Bay
Boyce Sanford lurked his way through the area the neo-Nazi gang had formerly occupied in Brockton Bay. A few dregs of humanity, sporting the various tattoos of the gang, hung around disreputable places where they were still trying to function as a gang. A gang of normals, engaged in the typical business of criminal gangs everywhere. Granted, they tended to focus their criminal activities on racial and ethnic minorities, a holdover from the Empire's days.
Boyce shook his head. To be successful in crime, one must be an equal opportunity criminal; specialization can wait until after you're successful. Though without the support of Capes and foreign organizations, they were just a bunch of thugs, trying to get used to doing things themselves.
"Hello, gentlemen," Boyce said clearly, gaining their attention. "Please allow me to introduce myself: I'm a man of wealth and taste, and would like to hire you for some work." Again, with the nonsense pass phrases, but at least this time he got the reference. He liked the early Rolling Stones' music.
The thug in charge nodded, and led him to an office-like room in the nearby safehouse. "What do you need, and how much are you paying?"
"In reverse order, I pay well, and what I need you to do is a bit of old fashioned violence. You gentlemen game?"
- - - - - - - - - -
Acadia State Park
Bar Harbor (what's left of it), Maine
Lina looked out from the cabin she was staying in with Luna and Dilgear. She'd found the sprawling cities of this world a bit overwhelming. The cities of Sairaag and Saillune had populations of at most fifty thousand people. To find out that those would be considered small towns in this world, and that nearby cities had millions of people living in them?
She definitely felt like a girl from a small rural town coming to visit one of her world's cities for the first time. Overwhelmed was just the beginning of what she felt. There was also culture shock. People here were so different, they were alien.
And yet they were the same, too, as evidenced by the three idiots that had attempted to mug her. That was when she found out that she still retained some of the durability she'd had as a conflict engine – the would-be mugger broke his hand trying to knock her out. Luna had quickly taken care of the second, and Sylpheel bonked the last over the head with a stick, then immediately healed him. Lina has simply used a
Sleep spell on hers.
The police were like law enforcement everywhere, rules to be followed, statements to be taken, and criminals to be gathered up. They'd taken a look at Luna's passport, made a couple of calls, and the group was allowed to go about their business.
"Whatcha doing?" Luna asked, standing next to her sister.
"Thinking," Lina answered quietly, "about what I want to do now."
"I was amazed with the restraint you showed with the mugger," Luna said. "No collateral damage, people screaming, or fires." She took a drink from her cup of coffee. "I think my little sister has finally grown up."
"Happens to all of us, I guess," Lina answered.
"You could take up your old job as a bounty hunter," Luna offered. "There are a lot of bounties out there, for what they call 'Class A' and 'Class S' Villains."
"Maybe," Lina said. "So much is different here."
"Or you could try teaching magic."
Lina snorted. "In a place like this that thinks 'magic' is nothing but simple deception and misdirection for entertainment?"
"Cheer up," Luna said as she watched the ocean with her sister. "Good things are bound to happen soon."
- - - - - - - - - -
"Run!"
Kid Win didn't need to be told twice. At Clockblocker's shout, he jumped on his hoverboard while his patrol partners decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and acted to remove themselves from the building where they had found…
them.
Assault was jogging alongside Clockblocker, while Aegis and Kid Win were in the air. "Last time we encountered them, at least a confoam grenade stopped it from chasing us."
"Yeah, we don't have any of those with us
right now," Assault groused. "We weren't expecting
those."
Behind them, they could almost hear the nonsensical muttering of the creatures they'd encountered in the old, dusty warehouse.
"I think they're getting closer," Assault warned. The muttering of the creatures was getting louder.
Clockblocker was silent, quickly composing a text message to Hailey. Or rather Hlal. He sent it off and hoped he wasn't interrupting anything too important.
Some kind of noise nearby distracted his teammates while Hailey appeared out of nowhere, dressed in nothing but a bath towel, carrying the items he used the last time he encountered these creatures.
"It never fails," Hailey griped. "Just starting to enjoy a bath, and someone sends you a text message asking for 'Help!'" She handed over a couple of items to Clockblocker. "You owe me, buster."
"Thanks, and I know I owe you one. A big one."
Hailey took a look at what was approaching, one eyebrow arched. "
Where did you find those?"
Kid Win realized that Hailey was there. "In an abandoned warehouse, getting ready to burn him," he pointed at Clockblocker, "in effigy. Finding out the real one was there, I think they want to burn him for real."
Assault came to a skidding halt. "How did you get here, I want to ask, but if we don't get a move on, we're gonna be overrun!"
Suddenly, Hailey pointed in another direction, shouting "Dear lord, what is that thing?!" Predictably everyone
except Clockblocker turned to look, allowing Hailey to disappear.
Grinning, he put the viking style helmet on his head and grasped the spear firmly in hand. Sure, he looked silly, but so did their pursuers.
"Oh yeah," Dennis said, grinning behind his visor. "It's time to
Kill the Wabbits!"
"If you're gonna do something, Clock,
DO IT NOW!" Aegis shouted as their pursuers could now easily be seen and heard.
The mob of dust bunnies came to a halt, muttering their enigmatic "Bunbun" as they saw their nemesis holding the means of their demise.
"Spear and magic helmet time!" Clockblocker shouted with much enthusiasm, and the helmet and spear flared with golden light.
"Why do I suddenly hear opera music?" Assault mused as a sudden wind picked up and thunder began to rumble.
As a whole, with screams of "Bunbun!" the horde of magically animated giant dust bunnies turned tail and began to scatter as the lightning began to fall.
Assault, nominally the patrol leader, shook his head. "What the hell am I gonna put in the report about this?"
Then things got lively as a lightning bolt was called down a little too close for comfort.
- - - - - - - - - -
Miss Militia glared at the patrol group that had just come in, having dealt with an incursion of animated constructs resembling rabbits made of dust.
"So," she said, doubt coloring her voice, "while investigating a complaint about a possible Parahuman disturbance, you were attacked by animated dust constructs."
"Yes, ma'am," Aegis said.
"I'd expect that kind of nonsense from Assault," she muttered, "not you." Looking over at the Protectorate member in question, he waved cheerily back at her.
"It is accurate, though," Kid Win added. "We encountered something similar in that spring cleaning thing we did." He pulled out his Ward's phone and sent her the picture he'd taken of the construct that had given them something of a problem. "That one was much larger than the ones we'd encountered near the abandoned warehouse."
"The last time we encountered one of those," Clockblocker said, "it was immune to stun bolts and while confoam did immobilize it, it also made it into a 'tar baby'."
"I understand that," Miss Militia answered. "Did you have to use a replica Norse helmet and spjót to summon up Wagnerian opera music and a localized thunderstorm to deal with the problem?"
"You mean my spear and magic helmet?" There was a golden gleam from the mentioned items. "Oh shit…" Clockblocker muttered. On cue, the opera music started up, ominous clouds covered the ceiling of the conference room, and the storm opened up, complete with flashes of lightning and peals of thunder.
"CLOCKBLOCKER!"
- - - - - - - - - -
It could be said that Brockton Bay's nightlife was less enthusiastic than it had been at the beginning of the year. Mostly because two of the major gangs were gone, and the remaining one was kept on a short leash. There was still a good deal of criminal activity in the city. It was just that most of it was normal, non-Parahuman crime.
Near an old warehouse, a pair of individuals were skulking around in the shadows. They eventually made their way to a side door, notable in that the lock was actually newer than the rest of the facility. The building was in amazingly good shape for not having been officially in use for a decade.
One of the pair, a tall lean man, stood watch while his shorter, stockier companion worked on the lock. There were a few minutes of cursing, as the lock proved to be difficult to pick, but soon it was open and they were inside.
- - - - - - - - - -
"Huh."
Uber looked up from his phone and over at Leet, who was browsing PHO on his workstation. "Something happened?"
"The alarm on storage unit two just fired an alert," Leet answered. "The north door was opened without a key."
"Anything dangerous in there?" Uber asked, coming over to read the alert that was still up on the screen.
"Nothing that works," Leet said. "Mostly a lot of things I'd been stripping for parts, or recycling for cash." He shrugged. "Anything truly dangerous is here in this building. Anything else isn't dangerous, had a RUDE, or fell out of this universe."
"Do we want to call the police?"
"We'll go over in the morning to take a look at what's missing, if anything, and file a report."
"Sounds like a plan."
- - - - - - - - - -
The taller of the two breaking and entering into the warehouse took stock of the boxes piled up around the building. A quick glance identified the source of what they'd found.
"Les," the taller one said, "I think we should get outta here."
"This stuff's gotta be worth something," Les said, pulling out a computer board missing half its chips. "Even if it's only for recycling." He dug around deeper in the one box, and came up with a hard case. "Now this is more like it," he said after opening up the box.
Inside was a high tech energy pistol, complete with charger.
Les' partner took a look at the gun. "You gotta be crazy if you're gonna use a Tinker's shit. Especially without permission."
"Think, Gene," Les told his apprehensive partner. "We could sell this to someone for a lotta cash. Maybe even use it to grab some more stuff before dumping it."
"I gotta bad feeling about this…"
- - - - - - - - - -
A short time later found the duo in some of the busier parts of Brockton Bay at night. Nobody was going to argue with a Tinkertech gun, and there were sure to be a few people they could mug for some quick cash.
Like that gentleman right there, in a nice suit with somewhat wild hair.
They waited until he had just come up to the alley they were in, reached and and grabbed him and pulled him in. Les pointed the muzzle of the pistol to the man's forehead.
"Heh," the man said with a smirk. "You boys really want to do this?"
"Just give us your cash, and no one gets hurt." Les said.
"Oh, come on," another voice from the entrance of the alley said. Glory Girl (out of costume, but easily identified anyway) floated a few inches off the ground with a scowl on her face, her arms crossed. "Really, on a nice night like tonight?"
Both Les and Gene could see Glory Girl's companion calling it in to the police.
Boyce just stood there with a smirk on his face, trying not to laugh. He basked in the irony of someone trying to mug him, and one of the local Heroes rescuing him.
Les took the gun away from their victim's head and pointed it at Vicky. "Don't come any closer," he stammered, "Or I'll shoot!"
"You moron," Gene growled. "She's a Brute, and she's notoriously bullet-proof!"
With the two sub-standard criminals suitably distracted, Boyce stomped on the foot of the one holding the pistol.
There was the strange sound of the energy pistol discharging straight at Brockton Bay's notorious flying brick, followed by an even stranger 'Splorch!' sound.
Boyce looked at what had happened, and noted that Glory Girl now had the remains of a rather large chocolate cream pie running down her rather stylish and expensive blouse and shorts combination. He could imagine hearing the pressure rising as the relief valve on her temper finally started whistling.
"AAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!" Glory Girl screamed at the top of her lungs, and hit the two mooks and Boyce (as well as anyone else within range) with her aura. Boyce simply arched an eyebrow, while the two goons fainted.
Dean, who had just gotten off the phone with the police, looked over what had happened. "At least you didn't punch 'em Vicky."
"They're not worth it," she replied, calming down. "However, I'm gonna punch Leet for making that damn gun! He is
not getting it back this time!"
- - - - - - - - - -
Leet sneezed, causing him to miss his perfectly lined up shot at Protomancer in the online game he was playing. Missing the shot allowed his target to return fire, giving him another virtual kill, and allowing the red team to win the game.
"What happened? Uber asked as they'd had enough for the evening.
"I sneezed, and was suddenly filled with foreboding and a need to be someplace far, far away in a hurry."
Uber was too busy laughing to reply, and only held up his phone for Leet to see.
"Aw, shit," he said. "She's gonna
kill me." After a moment's thought, he placed a call to Welshie for suggestions.
