I get the sneaking suspicion that Brian doesn't want to kill these people. It started with his apparently lackluster arguments against it when we voted on it, and has extended to his attitude all throughout our trip to the McCormick's place. He's being sulky.
To be fair to him
I don't want to kill these people. Killing the dude at the party isn't something I'd care to repeat, and these are grieving parents. That said pretty much the worst case scenario is that they start sending teams of capes to murder me or worse, and that's already happening. I don't see any way to stop them from doing that given their connections. Kinda like the Nazis I killed. You don't
let those kinds of people have any kind of power over you. Just ask the Jews.
Anyways it looks like Grue here is trying to talk us out of this one last time. "Guys, are you sure we wanna do this? Once we go lethal there's no going back. The PRT will come after us. They'll run
news stories about us."
"I'm sure." I say. "Just as long as we don't have to kill any kids... Hey, these guys don't have any kids do they?" I look to Tattletale.
"They, uhh,
had a kid." I give her a blank stare.
"Anyways, yeah I'm sure. The plan one more time?"
Grue sighs. "We're going with shock and awe. First we smash into the wall with Bitch's dogs into the gate house and see what Tattletale can do to the security system from there. If that fails you're going to climb over the wall and open up the gate however you can.
After that we go in with all our powers on full blast and tie up anybody you see. Bitch is on straggler duty. You all gather up the McCormicks in a central location. I'm not going to be in the room when you execute them. We all good with that?" A chorus of assents and yesses answer him.
"Good. Let's do this thing." We spring into action at that. We're a couple blocks down from our destination right now in an alley, so we gotta charge down the street on Bitch's dogs. I'm on foot because I can. Grue is holding off on his smoke for now so we don't get discovered early, but there's always the chance somebody just decides to call the cops on us from the dogs barreling down the street alone.
The dogs smash into the gate house easily enough, and I speed inside to lock everybody down as quick as I can. It was just two people. Tattletale comes in behind me and gestures to bring one of them over to the computer screen. She jacks something into the computer and gets the password from looking at this guy's eye movements. Somehow. Then she works her magic on the computer.
"I've done all I can here. All right guys, we got anywhere between ten and twenty minutes before the fuzz shows up. Let's make 'em count!"
We bumrush the mansion with myself going on ahead. I have plenty of zip ties on me and I intend to use them. I'm told I gotta really string people out if I can, and failing that to tie their hands to something behind them. Removing their leverage apparently makes them less likely to escape apparently. I rounded up three grounds workers outside, smashed into the window and grabbed the cook, and found five more security personnel inside. Nobody I caught even had a
chance to resist.
While I was doing all that apparently Grue, Regent, and Tattletale intercepted the McCormicks on the way to their panic room while I was systematically searching the ground and upper floors. Along with four of their staff. There are just the two of them here, so I take them both on my shoulders up to a better location.
"It's
gotta be the living room." Says Regent as he's shaking a can of black spray paint. "I saw it coming in and it has just the
perfect wall for this."
"What the fuck do you think you're doing you gutter trash
filth. Put us
down." From the dude. The lady is just thrashing, shrieking, and trying to claw at me.
"We brought duct tape, right?" I ask. Grue grunts and hands me a roll. I form a third appendage to shut them up with. I let Alec lead the way. We come to a real posh living room with a glass table, a big chandelier, and the swankiest wood carved furniture I've ever seen in real life. Alec unceremoniously shoves the central table to the side.
"Hey Grue, mind helping me with this couch before you go?" Grue shakes his head in exasperation, but does help him with the couch. Once they got it where the table was, he leaves the room.
"Finally, the plainest flat wall in the building." He starts spray painting a black 'they' onto it. Tattletale is messing around with the lady's cell phone.
"Anything good on there?"
"Unfortunately not. Anyways, let's get this over with." I set them down on the couch facing the ongoing defacing of their wall. I bring my hand up and form a couple acid 'drills' with it. They're still struggling, but they're not able to do anything against my grip strength.
"Nuh-uh, not like that." As she throws the phone to the side. "Use this." She hands me her gun.
"What? Why?" I've never even handled a gun before let alone fire one.
"You don't want the PRT to connect this to your other kills, do you?" Fine, fine. I take the gun and pull the trigger on the woman. Nothing happens. Well they start struggling harder, but nothing of consequence happens.
"Gotta turn the safety off hun." I level a stare at her. After a few seconds of fumbling with the gun-
*BANG*
Wow. That was loud. And messy. Holy shit, this couch is ruined. I turn it to the man and
*BANG*
Well then. Some blood got on me somehow. I dissolve it and start walking out of the room.
"Guys wait up, I gotta finish this." From Alec. I roll my eyes.
"If the cops show up we're leaving Regent." From Tattletale.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah." He was, in fact, able to finish before the cops showed up. Or the PRT.
Armsmaster
"So what do you make of this Triumph?" I ask our newest team member. Fresh out of the Wards and his first crime scene is a double homicide. What strange luck.
"Well It looks like a revenge killing." Gesturing to the wall.
They know what they fucking did
All in black spray paint. It certainly
looks that way, yes.
"But revenge for
what is the question. The Undersiders have been acting as a professional robbery crew up until now, right? Ocean's 11 type stuff?"
"A bit more low brow than that, but yes. The main issue here is that we don't really have that much on them. They've been nobodies and ghosts up until now. Nobody's wanted to snitch on them because they've been hitting drug dens and other illegal enterprises. And they've always gotten away without a trace until recently. This is a drastic change in behavior."
*Ring Ring*
I check the caller ID. Its Dragon.
"Yes Dragon, I'm at a crime scene right now."
"I know. I tried your lab and they said you weren't there. We were supposed to be working on the Endbringer tracking system tonight." I wince. That is
important. I shouldn't be
wasting time here with a petty homicide. Only reason I'm here right now is because their rich family was making pitiful mewling noises at the director. Just like these guys did when... Wait a minute.
"In the interest of getting this case off of you as soon as possible I've taken the liberty of looking into their finances. It seems they've made several suspicious money transfers into various Number Man accounts totaling five million dollars tonight. They've also started selling various assets off to make those millions." Number Man. Well the finances are a dead end.
"Well I've done all I can do. I have some things to take care of at the lab. Triumph, this case is yours now."
"Uh, sir?"
"Just make sure to request all the records we have on one Taylor Hebert once you get back to headquarters. She may or may not be a lead here."
"Sir I don't think I'm ready for-"
"Then have console send you over Miss Militia. She has a good head on her shoulders for protocol. You can
do this Triumph, I have
faith in you.
"I have work to do with Dragon at the lab now. See you later." I get on my motorcycle and head on over back to the oil rig.
Now we've gotten satellites in the air, buoys in the ocean, and radio towers on land all sending us telemetry data on their positions. And so far it seems like none of them are being
purposely taken down by the Endbringers. We'll have to see if this trend holds true past the next attack. It would be disastrous if we came to rely on this only for them to start smashing all that infrastructure to bits afterwards.
Powers this chapter:
Stone-age Otaku (Earth Girls) (200CP)
It takes a lot of patience and a lot of repetition to make a good blade from a stone. You don't bore, at all, and your hands are always steady. Between different attempts at the same task, you can pick out the tiniest differences between the last attempt and the attempt before that (and the ones before that...) to work out precisely what needs to be tried the next time.
