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Taylor is DOOMed

Reader mode
This is probably the reason Schrodinger used a cat in his paradox. Using lizards is much more convoluted and confusing.

Anyway!

Now that Coil's down, who's most likely going to be the next to be, as Dinah oh-so-accurately put it, "100% chance of a fucker getting fucked"?
 
SanguisAnima said:
This is probably the reason Schrodinger used a cat in his paradox. Using lizards is much more convoluted and confusing.

Anyway!

Now that Coil's down, who's most likely going to be the next to be, as Dinah oh-so-accurately put it, "100% chance of a fucker getting fucked"?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Well... We don't currently know what the fall-out of Taylor's use of a chainsaw in the area of Medhall, is...

I suppose we could ask whether Accord regards her as being excessively untidy... Saint is probably mad enough to try and mess with her, though I don't see he has enough excuse, yet... Maybe she gets to go home, and see if "quiet night's sleep" is something she's still physically capable of?


'Escher' isn't just the noise people make while sneezing...
 
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I have a few ideas:

Medhall will soon be rebranded to MESShall, and it'll be quite easy to imagine why.

I don't doubt that Accord's already visibly twitching all over: eyebrows, corner of lips, fingers, toes.

Saint? Well, if there's a chance of "recruiting" She Who Is Rage Incarnate into his 'crusade' against 'the AI secretly plotting the world's doom' - and yes, that spelling is intentional, since it is nowhere near what Her Iridescent Rage-ship is capable of - we'll see how he goes about doing it. *looks around for Dinah; not seeing her around, proceeds* What are the chances that Saint fucks himself over within the first ten minutes of meeting DOOMlor?

And I have no doubt that our DOOM Queen is still capable of a quiet night's sleep. Provided, of course, that no one is fuckwitted enough to disturb her, in every conceivable way possible.
 
If it does turn out that Danny's got his own suit of demon-stomping armor tucked away somewhere, I think this might be an appropriate bit of theme music for them to work out a few issues.
[\SPOILER]
 
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14. DOOMed XIII: Towering RAGE of DOOM
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    • Taylor looked up at the building in front of them, then glanced at her father, who was also examining it.

    "Medhall, huh?"

    "So the girl said." He shook his head. "Pity. They're a major employer in the city, but there have been rumors for years that they have backing from sources overseas that are less than entirely legitimate. And it would explain some of the stranger things about where the Empire gets its drugs from. I've heard from more than one place that they actually distribute more narcotics than the Merchants do, but in much higher purity and for a lot more money." He shrugged a little. "From what I've been told by at least one person, they might actually be supplying the Merchants. Not that Skidmark knows, of course."

    "I'd have thought the Nazi ideal would frown on narcotic use," she commented wryly.

    "Hah. They say that but I highly doubt they actually believe it. And, of course, money is money," he chuckled. "Got to cost a lot, trying to get the Fourth Reich off the ground."

    Grinning to herself, she pulled out a small explosive charge and handed it to him, keeping another for her own use. "I think we should make sure they fail. I don't like Nazis."

    "It does run in the family, my dear," he said with a vicious grin of his own, taking it from her without hesitation. "I'll get the phone lines, you get the power feeds?"

    "Sounds good."

    "They'll have at least one backup," he warned.

    "Yep. Already located it. Generator in that sub-building to the side there, above the parking garage." She pointed to where her armor's systems had traced the wiring from the tall building they were scouting out. "Looks like the main power distribution node too, so I can get both at once. All they'll have is emergency lights, with any luck."

    "I expect there will be a lot of armed idiots in there, as well as possibly some of the researchers. It's late, most of the workers will have gone home, but Anders has the penthouse on top and several of the next floors are inhabited too."

    "That won't be a problem," she assured him grimly.

    "Didn't think so," he responded, tossing the charge in his hand and catching it again. "Takes me back, all this."

    "Mom would be sad she's missing it."

    "She'd already be in there shooting Nazis," he snickered, before turning and walking off into the darkness, his shotgun over his shoulder, the leather trench coat he'd gone back to the car to retrieve flapping around his ankles with the pockets full of ammo. She looked after him with a fond smile, feeling happiness that she'd not only made it home but reconnected with her dad over a mutual hobby, then went about her business.

    Ten minutes later they regrouped in another location across wide plaza outside the front of the Medhall Tower, about two hundred feet from the main entrance. Taylor produced the detonator and flicked the power switch with her thumb, causing the display to light up and a self test to run, finishing a moment later with a contented beep. "All set. I'm jamming their radio and cellphones as well, so they're not going to be talking to each other when we go in."

    Her father looked up the thirty-nine stories to the top of the building, where a number of lit windows could be made out on the last three floors. "What rules of engagement are you using?" he asked almost idly, thumbing shells into his shotgun, a mix of deer slugs and buckshot.

    "If it shoots at me, I shoot back," she replied immediately.

    "Fair enough. Good plan. Nice and simple."

    "I like it."

    "And when we find the capes?"

    She turned and looked at him, knowing he could barely make out her toothy grin through her faceplate. He grinned back.

    "That's about what I thought," he said.

    "Any problems with it?"

    Lifting the gun, he peered along the barrel, then flicked the safety off. "No. To be honest, someone should have done this a long time ago. I'm proud it's you."

    She put her arm over his shoulders. "And I'm so pleased I'm home again. I was getting very irritated by the end there." Releasing him, she pulled out half a dozen heal packs and gave them to him. "Just in case. They sting a bit."

    Her father took them and put them into a free pocket without a word.

    "Got a spare plasma rifle too," she added, producing it along with some power cells. The cells went into other pockets, and he slung the energy gun over his back after inspecting it briefly. In truth, she had quite a few spare weapons, having looted the Mars base to the bedrock on her way out the door that last time, and there wasn't much left in the ARC facility either.

    At some point she might go back and look around for more, she mused, along with looking around all the other bizarre places she'd visited on the way home, but that could wait. For now, they had something more important to do. And she was looking forward to sleeping in her own bed in the first time in far, far longer than she cared to think about. After that, and some time to relax, she could look into dealing with all the other things on the list, which was a very, very long list at this point...

    "Thanks. You always did bring me thoughtful presents, Taylor," he said with a smile.

    Nodding with a sense of satisfaction overlaying the constant deep anger that burned deep inside, she turned to the building again and raised the detonator in her hand. "Knock knock, Mr Anders," she said, flipping up the protective cover and pressing the button under it with her thumb.

    Three muffled thumps sounded from different places around the building, and all the lights went out.

    "Always important to begin with a quip," her father snickered. "It's traditional."

    "Indeed," she replied, waving at their target. "Age before beauty."

    "Thank you," he responded, looking darkly amused, "But you're the one in armor, and therefore the designated bullet sponge. You go first."

    "It's always me," she sighed, although she was smiling, as she headed towards the main door, pulling out her combat chainsaw, while he followed chuckling to himself. It seemed like the ideal tool for the job.

    It was, of course, and they went through the remains of the doors without really breaking step.

    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

    "What the fuck was that?" A faint whoomph! sound made everything in the guard station rattle slightly, and the lights flickered and died. Alvin looked up, then around at the security monitors and status displays. The screen displaying the condition of the primary and backup power feeds to the building was blinking red icons he'd never seen before, all the readings were at zero, and the pair of monitors that should have been showing live views from the cameras in the power room and comms rooms simply displayed 'Signal Lost' on a blue background. "Power's out."

    "Yeah, genius, I can see that for myself," his colleague Bill snapped as he prodded keys on the keyboard in front of the main computer as fast as he could. "The lack of lights is something of a hint."

    "Don't get nasty," Alvin complained. "You always get nasty."

    "Because you're an idiot who won't shut up," Bill growled. "Fuck. Main power down, backup generator isn't kicking in, and we're on batteries." He glanced up as the dim emergency lighting came on with a faint click. "All the phone lines are out too," he added, bringing up another screen of dire information. "And internal lines are shot."

    "Maybe it was a power surge or something like that?"

    "No, it's deliberate, there's no way everything would go out at the same time by accident," Bill replied, giving up on the computer, which was basically telling him that nothing worked. "Someone's taken out the entire comms room, the three phase feed to the building, and the backup generator." Picking up the compact walkie-talkie at his elbow he turned the volume up, then keyed up the transmitter. "Lower guard station to all security. Report status." When he released the button, both of them waited. There was no response.

    He tried a couple of times, then changed channels and repeated the exercise, with similar results. Pressing the squelch defeat control produced a horrible whistle, which made them wince and him quickly let go of it. "It's being jammed. We're definitely being attacked."

    "Who by?"

    Slowly, Bill turned his head to fix a glare on the other guard. "How the hell would I know that?" he asked acidly as he got up and headed for the old fashioned telephone hanging on the opposite wall. It was appropriately bright red. He picked up the handset, put it to his ear, then swore. "This is dead too. Fuck. Someone knows their stuff."

    "Why would someone attack this place?" Alvin asked as he opened the cabinet on the side wall and pulled out his highly illegal M16, along with half a dozen magazines.

    Bill joined him and did the same, both of them loading the guns and putting spare mags in their pockets. Alvin also took a couple of frag grenades, offering Bill one, who looked at his companion as if he thought he was insane. Which he did.

    "Well, let's think it through, OK?" Bill sighed. "We're in the largest, richest, pharmaceutical company in the entire state, with enough drugs in the labs to make the fucking Merchants look like they're amateurs. And about half a billion dollars worth of technology, never mind all the Tinker stuff they've got upstairs."

    "Oh." Alvin nodded. "I get it." He frowned a little. "But they should know that Kaiser will kill them all..."

    Bill put his hand on his face. "Jesus." Turning to face the other man, he glared at him. "How long have you been here?"

    "Seven years?" Alvin thought for a moment. "No. Eight."

    "And in all that time, haven't you ever thought about the fact that no one is supposed to know that Medhall is run by the E88?"

    Alvin looked as if the light had dawned. "Oh! Right. So, no one will know that Kaiser will kill them and they think they can just walk in and clean us out?"

    Flicking him sharply on the forehead, Bill nodded. "Exactly. It's a secret. And we're probably about to get hit by some asshole who's looking for drugs and tech. Might even be ABB, or some other subhumans. So we need to hold them off until reinforcements get down here. With all the power out the elevators don't work, which means we're on our own for at least a few minutes. Go check the external cameras, there's probably about a dozen people headed our way." He turned back to the armory and dug out a pistol and some ammunition, working on the basis it was better to have too much than not enough.

    As he was putting a webbing vest on to hold everything, Alvin said from behind him, "I can only see two people out there."

    "Two?"

    "Yeah. Some older guy in a long leather coat, and..."

    Bill frowned as his companion's voice trailed off. "And?" he queried, turning around.

    "And someone in the most serious power armor I've ever seen," Alvin replied, his voice quavering a little as he stepped back from the monitor bank and pointed. "Angry power armor."

    Moving to stand next to Alvin, Bill stared at the image of two people walking towards the main door. The other man was right.

    It was the angriest power armor he'd ever seen either. And he didn't have the faintest idea why he thought that.

    Mind you, the fucking enormous chainsaw the armored figure was holding as they reached the door did add to that impression. As did the way the door simply collapsed under the thing's blade in a shower of sparks. "Fuck me," he shouted, the sound of the chainsaw suddenly very loud and only forty feet away in the main lobby. Cocking his M16, he dived for the door with it raised to his shoulder. "Come on, let's get the bastards!" he yelled as he opened fire.

    "Um..." Alvin didn't sound convinced, but he followed anyway. They were proud superior humans and members of the strongest gang in the state and knew what they needed to do, after all.

    Despite this, neither of them made it more than ten feet outside the security office.

    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

    Max listened carefully. He could definitely hear, very faintly, a chainsaw. And explosions. And now a weird sort of 'zap-foom!' sound unlike anything he'd ever encountered before.

    Was that someone… laughing?

    He felt a chill go down his back. There was something very wrong about that sound. Not that any of the others were any better, really. Combined with the sudden lack of power and comms it was obvious that his facility was under attack, by someone who knew how to go about it, and might even have had inside knowledge.

    There was a very short list of people who that might be, and right at the top of it was one purple-armored bitch he was going to take enormous pleasure in killing. Possibly quite slowly, although he'd settle for instantly.

    No one attacked the Empire and got away with it. He couldn't allow it, since as he'd told Krieg, it was simply too dangerous. They had a reputation to uphold, that of being far too powerful to take on, and that reputation was already at risk even before whatever this was. Now, he had no choice, he'd have to take the gloves off and go all in regardless of cost.

    Looking at the phone, he shook his head. It was completely dead, and therefore useless. The radio he pulled out of his desk and turned on quickly disabused him of the idea of using it, as all he got was a horrible sound that had to have been a deliberate jamming attack of some sort. Tinker Tech seemed likely. When he checked his cell phone, it didn't have a signal either. So, basically, the attackers had efficiently removed any simple and direct way to coordinate a reprisal.

    He was almost impressed. Not pleased, of course, not even a little, but impressed.

    So he'd have to do it the hard way. This was going to cause long term problems, as there were most likely still people in the building that were unaware that Medhall was run by the Empire, and he was going to have to deal with the fallout of that, but there was no choice. All the security guards were E88 members with at least some form of training, a few of them ex-military even, and they were all in the know. So were a number of the other personnel, although many of the actual researchers who worked for him had no idea that their work was funding his group.

    Except for the labs on floors thirteen and fourteen, of course. 'Special Projects' was a highly secure place with staff who didn't mingle with the general population, since it would be all too easy for one of them to accidentally let slip that several tons of narcotics a month were made on site. At this time of night, though, those floors would be locked down and empty although some of the more legitimate labs were still in operation, due to having experimental work that needed constant monitoring.

    All this went through his mind in a few seconds as he left his office and stomped towards his living quarters. Looking out the window in his bedroom towards the PRT building, he could see a lot more lights on there than normal, presumably all because of the continuing excitement going on over whatever had exploded over by the docks earlier that night. The interactions between the Tinker girl and his first team had undoubtedly stirred the pot even more, as would have her destruction of Krieg and Rune's team.

    He couldn't believe that in the space of mere hours he'd lost five capes and dozens of normals. That was so far out of the ordinary it was both deeply worrying and incredibly infuriating.

    Someone was going to pay for that insult.

    And now they were attacking his home? Hadn't they heard of the Rules?

    He quickly changed clothes, taking off his expensive suit and putting on more casual garb, as he didn't want to risk ruining a suit that cost over ten grand, then stood in the middle of his huge bedroom and used his power to create his signature armor over the top of it. When the interwoven blades had finished forming across his body, he stretched a little to make sure everything was correct, then left the room, in a determined and coldly furious mood. He could hear the sounds of combat still going on below, that damn chainsaw coming and going intermittently.

    It was a pity that Purity had left, and highly annoying that she'd taken Crusader, Night, and Fog with her. He was going to have to work out the best method to get all of them back under his sway when this was all over, as he'd need the firepower. In all honesty he could have done with it right now, but it was too late for that. He'd just have to make do with what he had on hand, but luckily that should be enough. Having called everyone in when all this first began had been the right decision, definitely.

    Max had actually stopped in front of the penthouse elevator and prodded the button without thinking about it out of force of habit before he consciously considered the issue. "Fuck," he muttered, his voice echoing in his helmet, when he realized that with the power off the goddamn thing wouldn't work. The emergency lighting was enough to easily see by, especially as his penthouse had a much more elaborate battery backup system which left it fairly well illuminated although not much else was working, but that didn't help him in this case. Sighing, he walked a little further down the hallway and tapped a nine digit sequence into the keypad next to the access door for the stairs. It beeped and unlocked, allowing him to pull it open and enter the stairwell, which was much less well lit, the only illumination being a couple of small LED fittings at the top and bottom of each flight of stairs. The sounds of mayhem from ground level were louder here, echoing up the stairs, although still faint due to distance and the intervening doors.

    As the door closed behind him with a slight click he descended the stairs, his armored feet making solid thumps on the industrial rubber coating, until he reached the next floor down. Again, he tapped in a code, pulled the door open, and went into the hallway that led to the residential area below his, which was divided into half a dozen self-contained apartments surrounding a meeting room instead of being one huge dwelling. Passing the first door he hit it with his fist. "Othala! Get out here, we need you!" he yelled, not stopping. As he turned the corner he heard the door open and a confused voice say something he ignored.

    A couple of minutes later he was standing in the meeting room at the head of the enormous polished table, looking at his remaining capes, all of whom were in costume, staring at him and twitching every now and then when the sound of shooting from far below them made itself apparent even through the soundproofing. "What the fuck is going on, Max?" Jessica, a statuesque blonde also known as Fenja, said. Everyone looked at her, then at him for an answer.

    "We're under attack," he snapped. "Obviously."

    "Who?" her twin sister Nessa, or Menja, asked.

    "That Tinker bitch. She's killed Hookwolf, Cricket, Victor, Rune, and Krieg," he replied, then got distracted by a small scream of horror from the side as Othala gaped at him, her hands over her mouth. Belatedly thinking that he should probably have broken the news of her husband's death to her a little more carefully, he looked hard at her. "I'm sorry, Othala," he said more or less truthfully. "Victor died a hero's death and we will avenge him. I'll need your help for that. Will you stand with us?"

    The young woman looked wide-eyed at him over her hands, then flicked her gaze around at the others, all of whom were watching her, Fenja and Menja with some sympathy and Stormtiger looking furious. "Yes," she whispered after a second or two. Her voice firming, she lowered her hands and repeated, "Yes," more firmly. "I will."

    "Good." He looked around at the remaining three. "We've lost half our comrades in one night, to one woman. Yes, I miscalculated, I will admit that, but this cannot be allowed. We will stop her, and any support she has, and We. Will. Make. Her. PAY!" He slammed his armored fist on the table, leaving a deep scar in the wood. "Our security teams are already engaging the threat. We have no communications, and must rely on our own abilities and intelligence to deal with this woman and her allies. Yes, we are short handed, I admit that, but we have reinforcements in the building and must locate and rally them to our defense. Once we have won, we will make certain that everyone knows that you do not attack the Empire, especially in their own home!" He hammered the table again, his voice rising to a near shout as he spoke. Moments after his fist landed, the entire room shook slightly as there was a deep rumbling explosion from somewhere below them, and everyone looked around as the paintings hanging on the walls trembled and swayed.

    "They are coming, so we must venture into battle immediately," he said after the sounds and vibrations died down. "Stormtiger, you will head towards the main security office on floor twelve and take command there. Pick a team to go out the emergency escape route and find backup, then bring it back in behind the attackers. Get the heavy weapons out, don't hold back. We're not concerned about damage at this point, it's gone past that. All that matters is that we win and they die, you understand me?"

    "I do, Kaiser," Stormtiger replied, standing straight and meeting his eyes.

    "Fenja, you are to protect Othala, and proceed to the secondary armory on twenty-two. Take any guards and other personnel you encounter on the way with you, and set up a backup line of defense. Othala, we'll need you to heal any wounded, and provide Fenja with any of your abilities she needs should the attackers make it that far. We're at a disadvantage here since most rooms and corridors are too small to allow either Fenja or Menja to reach their full size, but that can't be helped at the moment. The armory has a fifteen foot ceiling which should help to some degree."

    Both the woman he was looking at nodded, Othala wiping her eyes again but looking determined. He turned to the last of his remaining capes. "Menja, you're with me. We're going to find these attackers and take the battle to them. We don't know how many there are, but from the sounds I doubt it's just her. She has allies. They could be coming up any of the stairwells, so everyone stay alert. Gather any information from the guards you can, and keep your eyes open for anything that will help us."

    "Maybe we can take out their jammer?" Stormtiger suggested, frowning a little. "If we could get at least the radios working again, it would let us coordinate. And call in some backup faster. Phones would be even better."

    Max nodded. "If you spot anything that might be a jamming system destroy it, but we don't have time to go looking for it. It might even be outside the building. We don't know the range either, but when you get a team out they can keep trying until they get through."

    "Without any way to talk to each other this is going to be a pain in the ass," Menja sighed.

    "I know, but we don't have a choice," he replied with a glance at her. "But it doesn't matter. We're smarter than they are, and if we're careful, we'll prevail." Straightening his back he looked at each of them in turn. "The Empire will prove, yet again, why we are the most powerful organization in this city. And when this is over, we will have a far greater reputation than we did before, I can assure you of that. All right, you all have your missions, so let's go. We don't have the luxury of time."

    All four of them saluted him, then all but Menja left, Stormtiger going one way at a run, the other two turning in the other direction and hurrying off. He turned to Menja, who had grown to the maximum size she could manage in the building, which was about nine feet tall. Her spear was in her hand and she looked determined but worried. "Come on, we have a Tinker to kill."

    The woman nodded, and followed as he stalked out of the building, heading for the north stairwell.

    He was not in a good mood. And was about to make that abundantly clear to everyone.

    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

    Lisa looked at her friends, who were all sitting around the table in the hotel suite's main room. They'd finished the chinese food half an hour ago and were now staring at each other, trying to think of something useful to say.

    Both her power and her own native wit told her that Brian wanted to return to Brockton Bay and retrieve his sister, and if possible his father, but at the same time didn't want to go anywhere near the fucking place. Based on what they'd seen online, she sympathized enormously with that latter viewpoint. Rachel was being quiet even for her, and kept glancing nervously at both the TV and Lisa herself. And Alec, despite his lack of normal emotional tells, clearly was also more nervous than she'd ever seen him before, although he was covering this with his usual lackadaisical manner.

    In her own case, she didn't know what the hell was going on. She'd found herself in her familiar bedroom in the Undersider's loft, sitting in her bed staring at her teammates, who were all looking at her like they'd seen a ghost. Before she could even begin to try to work out why the loudest explosion she'd ever personally heard had lit the entire place like daylight in a strange color and nearly blown the windows in, then everything had gone entirely nuts. In a remarkably short period of time she'd been dragged downstairs, bodily thrown into the back of a van they didn't own and she'd never seen before, and they were driving hell for leather out of the city while she was asking a lot of questions and getting more and more annoyed and worried about the lack of answers.

    The actual answers she did eventually get made her even more worried, as well as scared, as they made no sense whatsoever.

    And her power was playing up. That had never happened before. But she got, somehow, the distinct impression that it was more scared than she was, which was insane. It was starting to feel for all the world like her power was an entirely separate thing from her, and a thing that was terrified. The data she was getting from it made no sense whatsoever most of the time, and when it did actually seem to give a straight answer, it only made her confusion deeper.

    There was also the little problem of her apparently missing chunks of time here and there. As, for example, about twenty minutes or so ending when she found herself looking at the other three who were hugging the wall like idiots and staring at her wide eyed, over couple of bags of piping hot food.

    The explanation that she'd received, several times, about what had allegedly happened between the last thing she could remember previous to that and then was entirely ridiculous, and obviously wrong.

    Except she could tell from their expressions and voices that they believed it utterly. Alec, she could accept might be pulling her leg, thinking it was hilarious, although he was also lazy enough that he probably wouldn't keep it up this long. Rachel, on the other hand… Not a hope. She didn't do practical jokes. She barely had a sense of humor at all most of the time. And Brian, while he was quite content to go along with Alec a lot of the time, or her for that matter, wasn't the type for this sort of little jape. Not to mention that she knew him pretty well and she knew when he was telling the truth, even without her powers.

    Which were also telling her something fucking bizarre was going on, while trying to hide under the bedclothes.

    How that worked she had no clue whatsoever.

    But if she accepted that the ridiculous things they'd told here were actually true, what did that mean? For her, for them, hell, for the entire world for that matter? It implied that something fundamental and deeply disturbing had happened, possibly changing everything in ways she couldn't begin to work out.

    And who or what was… 'The Doom Queen?' That was what Brian had said she'd said during her latest lapse of whatever-the-fuck-it-was, along with mentioning a lot of things that were terrifying, all in a voice that wasn't hers. Clearly it referred to the maniac in purple armor who was all over PHO, but who was she? The name didn't exactly inspire confidence.

    Lisa blinked.

    Brian was now standing, not having apparently covered the intervening distance in the normal way of actually moving, while Rachel had vanished and Alec was pointing at her with one hand, his eyes wide and worried.

    "She did it again, Brian," he yelped, backing away as Lisa looked around at them, confused yet again. "Make her stop doing that! It's creepy as fuck."

    "I'm not doing anything, you asshole," she snapped, glaring at him.

    "Yeah, sure. Just suddenly sounding like someone playing a heavy metal record backwards at half speed is entirely normal behavior," he retorted, moving to stand behind the sofa while keeping a wary eye on her. A whimpering sound under the table made her look to see Rachel's dogs all huddled around Rachel, none of them looking happy, although at least this time the floor was clear of urine. Neither dogs nor human seemed prone to coming out, so she just shook her head and straightened up again.

    "This is ridiculous," she complained, rubbing her temples with her fingertips. "What's going on?"

    "I have no idea but I don't like it at all," Brian finally replied, cautiously coming back to the table, righting the chair he'd apparently toppled in his rush to leave the vicinity, and sitting in it, not taking his eyes off her in the process.

    "So what did I allegedly say this time?" she asked a little warily, still not entirely believing all this.

    In response, he pulled out his phone and put it on the table. She looked at it, then him. "I had a recorder app running just in case," he admitted with a shrug. Somewhat impressed, she nodded, watching as he tapped the screen.

    "The Fires of Hell are hers to control, all Demons submit to her might or perish, now and forever. Her RAGE is unlimited and she has risen to overcome all that could stand against her. She is the Doom Queen, rightful ruler of the dimensions of Hell, unbeatable and unvanquished. Yet she is capable of mercy to those who offer her peace and do not stand in her way. Worship her Glory, bask in her Anger, fear her on the field of War. Serve Her Will and Thrive. Become Her enemy and Perish Screaming in Despair."

    When Lisa stopped shivering, she slowly raised her eyes from the innocent phone, which was now gently smoking as it melted into the tabletop. Brian and Alec were also staring at it in horror. The voice, that ghastly voice that she was told had come out of her mouth… She was abruptly very glad she couldn't remember it.

    Hearing a trickling sound, she looked under the table, sighed, and shook her head. "Rachel, go take a shower."

    "You think that means we're safe if we go back to the Bay?" Alec asked, his face pale. "I mean, if we don't go against… Her?"

    Brian looked at him, then Lisa. He also didn't look even vaguely happy. "I… don't know." After a moment, he shook his head. "But I can't leave Aisha there. I have to go back."

    "In and out fast, then, keeping our heads down," Lisa said. At the expressions of the others, she shrugged. "We're a team. For better or worse. And this is… probably about as 'worse' as it gets."

    "You're telling me," Alec mumbled. He was still staring at her. "Are you going to do that a lot?" he asked. "It's kind of… worrying."

    "I'm not doing it on purpose, fucker," she shouted. "I don't have a goddam clue what's going on or why it's picking on me."

    "Calm down, both of you," Brian yelled. He tried picking what was left of his phone up, swore when it sizzled against his fingers, and stuck them in his mouth. "You owe me a new phone, Lisa," he mumbled more quietly.

    Lisa glared at him, then beaned him with a pot of plum sauce.

    They were still bickering when Rachel came back and sat on the sofa surrounded by worried dogs, but in the end they all decided to go back, very very carefully, and try to find Brian's sister and father.

    But only in the day. None of them had the slightest wish to go anywhere near that place in the dark…

    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

    "You four, and you two. You're going to go over to the safe house on Bleeker Avenue and bring everyone back here, along with every single fucking gun you can lay hands on," Stormtiger ordered moments after he slammed the door to the armory open and looked around. He indicated half a dozen people, all of whom were looking somewhat worried and confused about the continuous sounds of battle from down below, which were getting closer and louder. Moving to one of the weapons lockers he threw the doors open and grabbed a couple of AK-74s, handing one each to two of his designated exfiltrators. "Take all the ammo you need, hell Kaiser says take any fucking weapon you want. Just make sure you bring back everyone. And I mean, everyone, you got me?"

    They all exchanged glances, then nodded. "Sure, Stormtiger. Er… who's actually attacking us? The PRT? The ABB? How many of them are there?" The speaker was a huge man built like a viking warrior, with long blond hair he obviously spent too much time on. He was visibly nervous, flinching when something far under them detonated with a blast that shook the entire building.

    "No, no, I don't have a fucking clue, and it's that fucking Tinker girl Hookwolf was sent to recruit as far as we know," Stormtiger snapped, glaring at the man. "Who the fuck cares anyway? We're being attacked, we deal with it. Get your gear and get the hell out of here. Comms are being jammed so you won't be able to call us, but I want you to keep trying with the radios and phones on the way, and as soon as you get out of range of the jamming put out a call for a general assault on the place. Now move it!"

    All six men jumped to attention, gave him a hasty Nazi salute, and started rummaging frantically through the vast collection of weaponry in the huge room, all of which would have made the authorities salivate at the number of charges that could be laid on the possessors. Satisfied, he turned to the remaining E88 gang members who ran security in the Medhall building, all of them wearing the relevant uniforms and being the more intelligent ones for the most part. "OK, you lot, we're setting up a series of choke points on all the stairwells on floors seven, nine, and eleven. Get the fifty cals set up on tripods, with as much ammo as you can carry. Flashbangs and concussion grenades too. You two over there, get out that box of claymores and rig them on all access routes up on six. Right fucking now! GO!" He yelled the last order even as he was picking out a bandoleer of grenades for his own use, to supplement his powers.

    The seventeen men and two women still in the room rush to follow his instructions, considerable quantities of armaments shortly leaving the room in their arms or on hand trucks. He followed, checking that the pistol he'd picked up as a backup was fully loaded, then striding forward with a grim look on his face as he went to deal with those who fancied their chances against the glory of the Empire.

    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

    "We're getting a lot of reports of heavy weapons fire at the Medhall building, Director," one of the PRT dispatchers said over his shoulder, as he worked on his console. "Witnesses say that there are also strange sounds and visuals they think are powers at work. Bright green and blue flashes of light, and some maniac with a chainsaw who cut the front door into ribbons about ten minutes ago." He looked back at Emily. "Should I send someone in?"

    Emily glanced at Renick, who raised an eyebrow, then Miss Militia who was holding the back of a chair in a white-knuckled grip as she listened and watched the main activity map on the big screen where it was showing a whole series of color-coded icons surrounding the Medhall Plaza. "Medhall. Huh. Guess we just found out who's behind the E88," she muttered to her second in command, who nodded slightly. "No. Tell our people to stay well away from there, and get BBPD to stand down immediately and put a cordon around the entire area a quarter-mile out. No one is to go inside it until further notice," she ordered. The man stared at her for a second, then merely nodded and turned back to his equipment, typing rapidly while talking quietly into his headset.

    They watched as the various icons changed, a number of them showing real-time locations of PRT and BBPD assets diverting course or halting before they reached the perimeter she'd designated, which appeared on the screen as a dashed red line forming a circle with the Medhall building in the center. "You can't be serious, Director," Miss Militia objected, her voice wavering a little in outrage. "Someone is attacking the largest and wealthiest company in the entire city, with Parahuman..."

    Emily raised a hand, cutting her off. "I'm entirely certain that the person attacking that place is Overkill, probably with her father, and the reason she's doing it is that it's an E88 asset, somehow," she said with a growl. "I don't know for sure, but we're going to want to talk to Rune some more, I think. Assuming she's still being cooperative."

    "She's extremely cooperative," Renick put in. "Almost pathetically so. Overkill scared the ever-living shit out of her and she'll do or say anything to avoid ever meeting her again."

    "Good. Go and find out what the connection to Medhall is, then. I'm curious." Raising her voice as he nodded and left the command center, she ordered, "Get a drone in the air and get us visuals of the Medhall tower. No manned aircraft within a two mile radius under any circumstances. And make very sure it's an unarmed drone. I do not want Overkill thinking we're trying to take a shot at her..."

    "Ma'am," the flight directions officer replied crisply, already clicking icons. Seconds later he added, "Drone away, time to target fifty seconds."

    Everyone turned to look at the other screen next to the one showing the Brockton Bay map, which was now displaying an aerial view of the city from a viewpoint that was rapidly rising, before it started moving north-west. Very soon, they were watching a light-amplified image of the four hundred foot building a few miles away at the other end of the commercial district, one of the tallest in Brockton Bay. Flashes of light could be seen through the glass exterior, most of them clearly automatic gunfire, in large enough quantities that it was very clear that there was a massive firefight going on inside. A lot of the windows on the lowest six or seven floors were missing, and as they watched a huge fireball blew out half the ones on the next floor up as something large went off, showering glass all over the street below.

    Several people swore under their breaths at the sight, then winced when a blindingly bright beam of something cut horizontally across the entire side of the tower on that floor, causing a large piece of the exterior skin to crumble and collapse. This exposed internal rooms and corridors to their view, showing at least two dozen people firing a large collection of heavy weapons including an RPG launcher at another figure at the front of the building. This one was wearing all too familiar power armor and seemed entirely unmoved by being the target of enough firepower to take out a small battalion.

    Overkill swapped out the energy gun she'd been using for something different, then pointed it out to the side, firing a dozen small rockets that whistled into the distance, towards the drone, before arcing back around and going right into one group of E88 gangers, who the people doing all the defending clearly were. The image whited out for a moment and when it reappeared there was a hole thirty feet in diameter in the side of the Medhall tower, cross sections of three floors visible through it. Of the armed people who had been there, no trace remained.

    Dead silence in the control center was broken by one of the console operators, who said rather faintly, "She doesn't fuck about, does she?"

    "No, she does not," Emily sighed. Glancing at Miss Militia who was gaping at the screen with her eyes wide over her bandanna, she continued, "Oddly enough, I do not want that firepower and that 'kill everything that moves' attitude aimed at us. That is why I'm perfectly happy to let her have her fun, and wait for her to calm down before we talk to her. Very, very politely. Are we clear?"

    The super heroine nodded dumbly, not looking away from the screen. Emily, feeling that no more needed to be said, although she was also pretty sure that this wouldn't apply in Armsmaster's case as he was a fucking pain in the ass a lot of the time, returned her attention to it as well. She was just in time to see a tall man in a long leather trench-coat hurdle a crater on the eleventh floor through the missing glass, turn in mid air, and fire several shots from a large shotgun at the people pursuing him. Light reflected from his glasses as four of them dropped like sacks of rice and he landed, rolled, got to his feet in one motion, and disappeared deeper into the building.

    "Jesus fucking Christ," she muttered. "Dock worker my ass. Who is that goddamn man?"

    His daughter leaped out of the floor under him, grabbed one of the twisted I-beams sticking out of the wreckage of the building's outer skin, flipped over it, and went feet first through one of the few unbroken windows in a shower of glass, wielding a chainsaw single-handed as she did. A second later half a body came back out through the opening. Emily winced.

    Hannah was now sitting limply in the chair she'd been holding the back of watching the screen like someone who couldn't believe what she was seeing, and everyone else in the room was completely silent. Emily looked around, then shook her head. Clearly no actual work was going to happen until this was over, but on the other hand, life had gone so fucking surreal in the last few hours there wasn't really anything to do except wait to see how it all ended.

    She still wondered where the buggering hell Costa-Brown and all the other pains in her ass were right now, but in all honesty she couldn't see how they could do anything other than make a bad situation far worse, so she wasn't going to waste any time worrying about it. All she could do was try to keep a lid on things until whatever this actually was came to an end, hopefully leaving most of the city intact, and her people could clean up the resulting mess.

    Tomorrow was a long way away, and it was going to be a bitch to deal with, she felt gloomily certain.

    On the other hand, by then the E88 would be history, so it wasn't all bad. And she still had Shadow Stalker to terrify at some point soon, which was something she was looking forward too. Although she had no idea what she was going to do when Overkill came looking for her head...

    Oh well. Another problem for a future version of her. She pitied the bitch. Right now, she could do little but watch the Hebert's having a family moment.

    So she sat down and did exactly that.

    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

    "The purple demon is destroying the Medhall tower, Great Lung."

    Lung, from the darkness of his room, looked at the messenger, who was sweating and visibly terrified.

    "The Medhall tower?" He mused on the ramifications, while trying to keep his internal feelings at bay. "I see. Interesting."

    "Do you want us to do anything?"

    "No. It is not our business. We will have nothing to do with her activities. Merely watch and report."

    "As you command."

    "What of the reports of strange creatures in the docks?" he asked.

    The man flinched. "We… are unable to confirm it, but there are many stories. None the same, other than that demonic creatures roam the night and growl at people."

    "Nothing else?"

    The messenger swallowed hard. "We heard a rumor that a bar on the waterfront was visited by the E88, then the demons arrived and… ate them."

    Lung stared at the man. "Ate them?" he echoed.

    "Yes, Great Lung. After a short but violent battle. None survived. We did not risk going into the bar itself. That establishment is… known to be dangerous if provoked. Dockworkers go there."

    He nodded thoughtfully. He'd heard much the same more than once, and there were tales of some very strange things in the docks going back for years at least. Demons wandering the place were actually slightly less peculiar than some of the things he'd heard… "Leave me," he ordered. "And withdraw any of our people in the docks for now. No one is to risk a confrontation."

    "Yes, Great Lung," the man nodded, bowing low, then quickly backing away and closing the door. Lung looked at it, then at his hand, which he flexed a few times.

    "What is going on?" he wondered under his breath. "What has happened to my power?"

    He looked around, unable to answer the question, then added to himself, "And where the hell is Oni Lee?"

    There was no answer, so in the end he went back to thinking and wondering. And playing Candy Crush, which was something he didn't let other people know about.

    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

    Stormtiger ducked as a ravening violet-white beam the thickness of his arm went so close over his head he ended up with a reverse mohawk and punched a hole right through the wall in front of him. He gaped at it for a fraction of a second, seeing a flash of far-off streetlight through it at the other end of the building, the beam having gone through the entire tower like it was made of rice paper, then dived sideways and used his flight powers to fling himself up the stairwell. Below him, the entire thing collapsed as a massive blast blew the walls in with a boiling fireball in eldritch colors, the heat rising from it throwing him into the next floor hard enough to wind him. Ripping the door open having slashed the lock off with his aerokinetic claws, he shot through it and around the corner.

    "Fuck, that crazy bitch is insane!" he gibbered, shocked despite himself. He'd been in some violent cape battles over the years, but nothing like this. The Tinker girl went right for the lethal option from the outset, took no prisoners, and had more weapons than the US army did.

    He was very concerned that he might not have seen any of the really big ones yet…

    And why the fuck was she so invested in using that damned chainsaw? He'd never be able to look at a lumberjack the same way again after seeing what he'd seen.

    'She's closer to a fucking Endbringer than a human,' he thought frantically, looking around for reinforcements. Her armor was far, far tougher than Armsmaster's, or even Dragon's, his most lethal attacks doing absolutely nothing to it. He couldn't even scratch the paint. And he'd seen an armor piercing RPG round hit her dead in the back and do about as much damage as a paintball gun would do, except that at least the paintball would leave a mark!

    She hadn't apparently even noticed! Just kept hunting down some of his people while the guy with her had taken out the RPG man with a shotgun to the chest from much further away than seemed reasonable, before disappearing back inside one of the labs just in time for Stormtiger's return attack to shred the wall where he'd been standing.

    He had no idea who the guy was, but he had a healthy respect for his aim.

    And his ability to simply ghost away without trace. Clearly some sort of Stranger, but not one he'd ever heard of.

    At least eighty percent of the people he'd had with him were dead, along with half the other fifty or so they'd managed to get together from around the building. He had no idea where Max was right now, Menja was dead having been pretty much cut in half by the crazy Tinker's chainsaw when the woman had dropped on her head from two stories up, and right now all he could think to do was fall back to the secondary armory. Hopefully Fenja and Othala had managed to set up a decent line of defense, although he wasn't certain that it would do much against whatever was following him.

    Around the next corner he ran into half a dozen security people, all armed to the teeth. "She's coming," he said as he joined them. "The claymores didn't do a damn thing except wreck the area. Keep your eyes open for an older guy with a shotgun, as far as I can see that's all her backup, but don't underestimate the bastard. He's a combat Stranger or something like that. Jake, Wilhelm, you go that way, set up the incendiaries. Maybe that will slow them down. Heinrich, Fred, you two go the other way, toss a charge down the south stairs and blow them. Anything we can do to slow them down. You two, come with me, we need to get to the secondary armory right now."

    "Any sign of reinforcements, sir?" one of the guards said nervously.

    "No. Nothing yet." He looked over his shoulder as the floor shook. "Fuck. Get on with it, all of you. Fall back to twenty two when you're done."

    As everyone scattered to their assigned tasks, he took off at a flat run with the other pair following closely.

    Moments later there was a horrible descending scream from outside the building just after a large boom! made the floor shake again.

    "Wilhelm!" One of his two current companions stopped for a second, yelling out the name, only for his friend to push him into a run again.

    "He will be avenged," Stormtiger vowed. He wasn't sure how at the moment, but it was important to keep morale up.

    All three of them kept running, quickly reaching a stairwell and ascending as fast as they could. Behind them, the explosions, shooting, and screaming kept on approaching floor by floor, lighting the dark of the tower as the attackers pressed further and further in.

    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

    Max swore violently and spun on one heel, changing direction as he spotted a flash of purple armor at the far end of one of the long corridors running across the building from side to side. That bitch was still coming, and still wiping out every single person who came into sight. He was lucky to be alive, as he'd paused in sheer shock when she'd dropped on Menja with a yell of triumph that had made his blood run cold, accompanied by a roar from her fucking chainsaw and the most horrific scream he'd ever heard from his cape. Who had found her power nowhere near enough to help against an armored lunatic wielding a huge powered tool like a bread knife, with apparent glee.

    He shivered despite himself. He had no idea who these Hebert people really were, since the cover story he'd been told was clearly entirely bogus, but they were nuts. Absolutely barking mad and homicidal with it, to a level he'd never encountered even in the craziest capes Gesellschaft could produce.

    A massive impact right in the middle of his back, accompanied by a very loud bang, made him fall forward. Swearing, and wincing in pain, he rolled frantically across the floor, knocking chairs and desks aside in the large open plan office he'd been strategically retreating at speed across. Deer slugs slammed into the floor and furniture, blowing holes the side of his fist into the latter, until he managed to scramble out of the room into another corridor.

    Getting to his feet he took the opportunity of his opponent, presumable the elder Hebert, reloading to leg it as fast as humanly possible to the next flight of stairs, then shot up it like he wasn't covered in steel. Steel that was scratched, dented, and scorched in a number of places.

    This was the part that was driving him around the bend. His own powers were completely fucking useless against either of the crazy motherfuckers attacking his building. The girl, because she simply ignored them, and he was for some reason utterly unable to actually affect her own armor at all, and her father because the bastard was impossible to actually see. The damn man was like a ghost, popping up here and there when he was least wanted and taking appallingly accurate shots at you, then promptly vanishing again. And the one time Max was sure he'd figured out where he was hiding and had moved to capitalize on that, he'd nearly lost his head to an energy beam from the other gun the bastard had with him.

    He still wasn't sure if the elder Hebert had actually missed on purpose, for that matter. Just to rub it in…

    It seemed like something he'd do.

    Swearing, Max kept running, trying to get up to the second level armory, while wondering where the fuck the rest of his people were.

    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

    "Come on, hurry the fuck up will you?"

    "Calm down, Darren, and brush your hair or something," one of the fifty or so E88 members who were ripping open crates of weapons shouted, invoking a mass laugh and some jeering from many of the others there. Darren glared at him while fingering his gun.

    "Funny. Very funny."

    "Do you use your wife's shampoo?" someone else called with a smirk audible in his voice.

    "I don't have a wife," Darren grated.

    "He tried once, but she was jealous of his ha..." The first mocker got a large fist in the face, which caused him to stop talking rather abruptly. Darren looked around at the rest.

    "Stop talking and start working, you dickheads. Kaiser is relying on us getting back as quick as we can. So get all this stuff into the trucks and let's go!" Pointing at the half dozen army-surplus vehicles, which were standing in a row along the front of the large open area of the former spice warehouse they were using to store their equipment in, he waved his gun meaningfully with his other hand. "Come on, get on with it."

    "You could help you bastard," the man lying on the floor with his hands over his broken nose whined. Darren kicked him in the side in disgust.

    "I'm supervising. Get up and get back to work."

    With ill grace the ganger did as ordered, mumbling obscenities under his breath and casting Darren dark looks. Satisfied that things were proceeding to plan, the currently senior E88 man leaned on a crate full of rocket launchers and put a cigarette in his mouth. About to light it, he turned his head as there was a thump on the main door, sounding like someone had hit it with the butt of a gun. "Finally. Goddamn idiots, where the hell have those fuckwits been?" he grumbled as he stomped over to the door and pulled it open. Peering into the darkness outside, he added more loudly, "Harry, you lazy asshole, where are..."

    Something flew past him and landed on the floor with a dull thud, twenty feet behind him. He turned to look at the stained and chipped concrete, and the thing rolling across it. Everyone else did as well.

    There was a long, long pause.

    The cigarette dropped out of Darren's slack mouth as he gaped at the decapitated head of Harry, which was leaking fluids onto the floor, then he very slowly turned to look out the door.

    Something moved into the light, something about eight feet tall, with horns, hooves, and a nasty fanged smile that promised mayhem and death. He didn't even have the ability to run, frozen in place by terror as he was.

    The thing stopped at the door. It looked around at the stunned gangers, all of whom were white and shaking, then fixed its eyes on Darren.

    "We serve HER will," it said in a voice that literally made him piss himself. It was something that didn't belong in the real world, something from the depths of a nightmare. And the worst part is how amused it sounded.

    Leaning down to stare directly into his eyes, the thing that he suspected might well actually come from Hell added, almost conversationally as it if was just passing the time of day, "In serving HER will we remove those minor problems beneath HER notice. Are you such a problem?"

    After a brittle moment, Darren shook his head very fast indeed. He was standing in a puddle of yellow, his pants warm, and was wishing he'd never listened to some of the stories his grandmother told him about what happened to naughty boys.

    "Pity. We do so look forward to serving HER will," the thing said reflectively.

    A bullet bounced off its head.

    Everyone, including the demonic thing, turned to look at the man who was pointing a gun at it, looking like he regretted every life choice not only him, but his ancestors, had ever made up to that point.

    The demonic creature smiled. Several people fainted. Many of the rest backed away from the man with the gun. "Ah. I suspect that you do not serve HER will. Excellent."

    Darren had the presence of mind to jump out of the way as the horror of the night came through the door in the rush, amid a vast amount of gunfire and explosions, as about half the gangers decided to shoot. When he was found some hours later by a very cautious PRT patrol, along with less than ten other survivors, he was rocking back and forth and apparently trying to persuade his long-dead grandmother to stop telling him things.

    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

    Peering out her bedroom window, Amy listened to the distant explosions and screams that rang out across a weirdly silent Brockton Bay, faint but peculiarly clear in the night, like that tiny whine from a mosquito that you can hear even though it's right at the threshold of detectability. She shivered involuntarily, wondering what morning would bring.

    Things had changed, that much she was sure. This new cape, Overkill, was…

    She didn't know what she was, aside from the single most terrifying thing in existence going on what Director Piggot had said. From the look in the woman's eyes, she meant every word. Amy didn't know what that meant in the longer term, but in the immediate future it apparently meant the city would be down one gang.

    The girl was actually OK with that, having put far too many people back together as a result of Kaiser and his bastards to really care much about how they died, but she wasn't sure what else was going to change and how. Probably everything and drastically, she felt, but it was far outside her own field of expertise or knowledge.

    Hopefully it would end there, at least until some other asshole decided to poke someone who could and apparently would simply shoot an enemy dead on the spot without hesitation.

    Amy wasn't entirely sure that was good, it being pretty solidly against normal Parahuman politics, but on the other hand, who was going to tell Overkill not to do that and make it stick? Apparently not the PRT, so that didn't leave much. Hopefully she was of a normally calm disposition or there were going to be a lot of dead people and craters in the near future.

    She sighed, leaning both elbows on the windowsill and watching as flashes of light came up from somewhere just over the horizon, roughly in the middle of the city. Today had definitely not gone like it normally did, and she was both worried about and confused about Dean aside from anything else. She didn't actually like him for a number of reasons, but she respected him in many ways, and didn't like seeing anyone in that state. Especially as she had no idea what was behind it.

    Unless it was somehow connected to Overkill?

    Thinking for a moment, she finally shook her head. She couldn't see how, although powers were weird at the best of times. Oh well. Sooner or later she, or someone else, would figure it out. It was Vicky she was really sorry for, her sister hadn't taken Dean's whatever-it-was very well. And Carol had spent quite a lot of time grumbling about Director Piggot, Armsmaster, Overkill, and a number of other things that didn't bode well. Aunt Sarah had finally lost her patience and extracted a promise from her sister that the other woman would fully comply with the Director's orders, which had been extremely clear and forceful. Hopefully that would be the end of it, regardless of how annoyed Carol was. Which was very.

    Shaking her head, she finally got cold enough to close the window and go to bed, finding that her dreams were much less normal than she was used to.

    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

    Danny jabbed the heal pack injector into his bicep, hissing a little at the mild full-body agony as it worked. "Should have ducked faster," his daughter's amused voice said from next to him. He fixed her with a hard look while removing and discarding the injector.

    "Perhaps you could remember the difference between left and right next time," he suggested acidly.

    "I know left and right perfectly well, thanks," she said mildly. "I meant my right."

    "Very helpful," he grumbled, poking the hole in his coat arm. "I like this coat."

    "I'll buy you a new one," she chuckled.

    "Your mother gave me this."

    "I'll pay to have it repaired, then. Forget the coat. Let's finish the job."

    Both of them looked around, inspecting the dark corridors surrounding them, wind blowing through where walls and windows had been, with flickering emergency lights in a few places. Far below the city spread out all around the Medhall building, except to the south where the dark water of the bay reached to the horizon with only the glittering force-field surrounding the Rig in the middle of it visible.

    "I can see our house from up here," he commented.

    "Really?"

    "Yeah, look, just over there and up a little." He pointed. She peered along his arm.

    "Oh, yeah. Neat. Right, let's deal with the rest of these fuckwits and we can go home."

    "Sounds good," he smiled. "Pity I'm out of bubblegum."

    She snickered, then kicked Kaiser's office door in with one foot and walked in. He followed, grinning to himself.

    "Hello, Max," she said calmly to the man in armor who was standing on the other side of the room, a very battered Stormtiger next to him clutching what was left of his right arm, which currently ended about the elbow. A younger woman was cowering by a door that seemed to lead into a bedroom, presumably the penthouse suite.

    "What do you want?" Kaiser, who was missing quite a lot of his armor, and seemed too exhausted to replace it, said as he slumped against the wall. "You've killed all but two of my capes, wiped out my entire security team, wrecked my entire fucking building, and destroyed my life. What more do you want?" He shouted the last part, making the girl, presumably Othala based on her costume, twitch a little.

    Taylor examined him, then Stormtiger. She glanced at Danny, who shrugged. He didn't mind one way or another. This was her operation.

    She raised her plasma rifle and pointed it at him. He looked back at the weapon, appearing resigned. Stormtiger tensed, winced, and passed out.

    "I am not interested in joining your gang," Taylor told him. "Don't ask again or I will be very angry. You really wouldn't like me when I'm angry."

    After several seconds, Kaiser yanked what was left of his helmet off his head and threw it to the floor, then pointed at her wordlessly. Then he waved a hand around the room, before pointing at her again, his mouth working.

    Eventually his voice seemed to come back. "ANGRY!?" he screeched in disbelief. "WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS IF NOT ANGRY?"

    Taylor walked slowly over to him, put the muzzle of the energy weapon to his forehead, and flicked a switch on it. The thing hummed almost eagerly. "Me making the point that I don't like Nazis and don't like being threatened," she said quietly. "Fuck with me again and I'll do something really horrible." She leaned in, as he paled to the color of bad milk. "Listen to me, Max Anders. I am Taylor Hebert. I have killed worlds, destroyed entire civilizations, walked through dimensions that will know my name for all time and fear it. And your people interrupted me having a pizza with my dad. Don't ever do that again or I'll come back, destroy everything you have left, and personally drag you to hell by the balls. You understand me?"

    Kaiser nodded jerkily. Danny smiled.

    "Great. And stop pretending to be a Nazi, both of us know you're just an asshole." She lowered the gun and stepped back. "Take your two capes and get out of my city. Don't ever come back, and don't ever let me hear about you again, because if I do..." She put the gun away and turned to Danny. Behind her Kaiser fell to his knees, while Othala seemed to have passed out just like Stormtiger. "Come on, we're done here."

    "How are we getting downstairs?" Danny asked reasonably, smiling a little. He felt very proud of his daughter. "They're suffering a deficiency of stairs at the moment."

    "Hey. Portal to our house, now," Taylor called. "Don't make me move you up the list."

    Danny watched as a dark pink mist appeared off to one side, causing Taylor to nod in satisfaction. "That's a good trick," he said mildly.

    "It's useful, but you wouldn't believe the trouble I've had with it," she grumbled as she walked towards it. "I'm going to have to talk to someone about that very soon. But right now I need to relax for a while." She walked into the mist without slowing.

    Danny paused at the threshold, looking back at Kaiser, who was watching him.

    He smiled grimly. Making a motion to his eyes, then at the other man, he waved, and followed his daughter.

    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

    Max stared at where the pink mist had been, trying to think. It was difficult, he'd had far too many near death experiences and his head was aching like it was about to fall off, plus he was totally, absolutely exhausted.

    He looked around at the wreckage of the building. It was slightly amazing that it was still standing, considering the number of holes in it and how much was in pieces on the ground.

    Then he looked at Stormtiger, and Othala. The only ones left of his entire Empire. He was pretty sure that the fucking Heberts had done for everyone else.

    Then he lay on the floor and laughed bitterly for about five minutes, before getting up to poke Othala awake so she could heal both him and Stormtiger. As he did that, he looked at his phone, which although cracked still worked, and saw it had full signal. Sighing, he sent a text to a number he knew well, but had never called.

    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

    Emily put the phone down on the table, then stared at it for a while. "Huh."

    She looked up at Renick, who was watching her curiously, then turned to examine the drone image. The Medhall tower was looking precarious but was still standing. "Think we can land a VTOL on the helipad without the entire thing falling over?" she queried, pointing at the screen. He followed her finger, then looked enquiringly at her.

    "Kaiser, who is indeed Max Anders, says that if we rescue him, Othala, and Stormtiger from his penthouse and guarantee that none of them ever see Brockton Bay or the Heberts again he'll tell us everything we want to know about the Empire Eighty Eight, Gesellschaft, and four separate international weapons and drugs smuggling operations."

    Renick raised an eyebrow and looked at the screen again. Then he grinned.

    She sighed faintly. "This fucking city..."
     
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    • Seriously, you should have Taylor tell the PRT about how she essentially conquered hell! It would be so funny to see the look on Piggot and the others faces when they realize just how truely BONED they are if the fit hits the shan!
     
    Vortex279 said:
    Seriously, you should have Taylor tell the PRT about how she essentially conquered hell! It would be so funny to see the look on Piggot and the others faces when they realize just how truely BONED they are if the fit hits the shan!
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    On the other hand, when an Endbringer comes, they can ask her......VERY politely, if she can help deal with said Endbringer, only for her to one shot it down to base molecular particles.
     
    mp3.1415player said:
    Moments later there was a horrible descending scream from outside the building just after a large boom! made the floor shake again.

    "Wilhelm!" One of his two current companions stopped for a second, yelling out the name, only for his friend to push him into a run again.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    The WILHELM SCREAM!
    Also: I started this with Doom 2016 Tower Ascent and ended it on BFG Division. It fit almost perfectly.

    Fun chapter. Good times. I laughed.
     
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