Tinker, Breaker, Mover, Stranger (Worm/Black Rock Shooter)

[Gungrifin]

Credit for the banner goes to The-AnonyM0US3-Otaku (Link goes to SB, a quick search here gave me no results)

—​

Director Emily Piggot hated a lot of things. She hated this city for being completely bat shit insane sometimes. She hated Costa-Brown for always promising to try to get more help sent down to her division but never delivering. She hated Calvert for being the unrepentant snake she always knew he was.

"Puppy, please, not in front of- Hurk"

"Nu-uh, it's nap time honey."

She hated Nilbog for giving her nightmares for the longest time, the capes that were supposed to help but ended up doing nothing except running away at the first opportunity, and whoever the fuck in intelligence that dropped the ball and got her squad, and many others, killed back in Ellisburg.

"Ok, being serious now, can't breathe…"

"Kind of the point babe."

But now? Right now she hated nothing more than Assault and his particular brand of stupidity. Over 50 dead or missing, easily three times that injured, multiple collapsed buildings right in the heart of downtown. Did any of that register with the man? Was any of that an indicator to maybe not crack jokes for once? Emily wouldn't bet on it.

Emily sighed. Amazingly, the mood surrounding the media outlets covering the incident wasn't nearly that glum and horrific (despite the fact that there was a double digit body count). On the contrary, everyone was downright ecstatic and relieved that the casualty list was only this short thanks to the newest cape in the bay. For once, and for reasons wholly unknown to her, the news decided to focus on the positives concerning last night instead of raking her over the coals for letting the situation happen to begin with. They were lucky that the entire block hadn't come down and further damaged every building in the surrounding area. They were lucky that it didn't happen during the middle of the day or rush hour. it absolutely could have, and by all accounts should have, been worse, and yet there was nothing but praise for all parties involved for keeping the damage to a minimum.

While the news coverage was a small mercy she wasn't about to turn down, it did nothing to stop her phone from ringing itself off the hook by those above her demanding answers; answers she didn't have. Emily didn't care that the newcomer made the PRT and Protectorate look bad by proxy, failing to be the ones to act and be the protectors of the people, that was for the PR department to handle. Emily didn't care that other directors were unhappy that she wasn't able to keep the local cape scene at bay, she had made requests for transfers and more manpower for so long that she stopped trying. The only thing that soured her outlook was that despite the heroics on display last night, despite the fact that the newcomer had taken center stage on the news and was the talk of the city, the PRT had absolutely no idea who the cape was.

Or capes, they still hadn't figured it out yet. Hopefully they would by the end of this meeting. Regardless of how well off they had gotten with this incident, Assault still couldn't understand tact even if he was beaten over the head with a thesaurus. As much as she would have enjoyed seeing the man get strangled by his wife, they had a meeting to get on with.

"Battery, let Assault go."

Battery looked over to the director, the pleading look on her face clear to see as everyone had their helmets and masks off for this meeting. Emily simply looked Battery in the eye and held it until Assault was finally released. He didn't get more than 2 words out before the director snapped her hand up to point to the door. With Battery there was no heat to her words or stare, simply the expectation that she follow her orders. Assault, however, had earned the full weight of her ire and she was not currently in the mood to deal with him and his bullshit.

Assault squirmed underneath the director's gaze and the unspoken dismissal before picking up his helmet from the pile on the conference table. He tries to give one last snide comment as he puts his helmet back on, but quickly leaves the room with his tail tucked between his legs once Emily starts to stand.

Emily hated capes, capes and their stupid problems that made them behave like children. She was all but convinced that dealing with capes was going to be the death of her, if her kidneys didn't beat her to the punch.

"Thank you, director", Miss Militia says.

Emily sat back down in her chair with a huff, "Don't mention it, I give him 5 minutes before he gets bored and finds something to entertain himself with. Now, let's get on with… Battery, why are you charging up?"

Battery, currently keeping an eye on the door to the conference room, looks back towards the director. The lines built into her suit glowing brighter with each second, "I'm fully expecting that idiot to come back through the door at any moment."

"Understood, carry on. As I was saying, let's get on with sharing what we've learned about this new group in the bay. Have they released anything to us or the media yet? Intentions, a name, anything?" 3 weeks of scant reports of unknown capes in the bay leading up to this latest clusterfuck downtown and the PRT had nothing but rumor and speculation to show for it.

Armsmaster was the first to speak up. "I have a monitoring program running to check places such as PHO and social media for any official statements made from non protectorate groups operating in Brockton Bay. It has yet to return anything related to 'Dollhouse' outside of civilian sightings and forum posts. Of the few direct interactions we've had with the suspected members, none of them resulted in any of the 'Dolls' responding in any significant manner when approached."

Emily raised an eyebrow, "Please tell me those names are internal."

Armsmaster nodded once, "PR has yet to put forth a name for the group that they approve of."

"Dare I ask why that's what we're using to identify them?" Emily could feel the headache already.

Velocity spoke up next, "Director, the reports don't hold a candle to meeting them in person. Calling them dolls is fitting, in my opinion. They literally look like dolls or mannequins. Ashen white skin, no real identifiable facial features, no imperfections either for that matter. They look like they were made and we're not the only ones to make this observation either, the PHO thread on them noted this almost as soon as the thread went up."

"I agree with Velocity's assessment." Miss Militia says, picking up a folder and passing around pictures of the newest capes in the bay around. "We have yet to see any of them casually talk or respond to anyone when approached and it's hard not to notice the similarities between them. We're working off of the assumption that they aren't people at the moment as it explains their looks, behavior, and capabilities the best with what we know. Current theory is that we have a new tinker in the bay, although we can only speculate at the moment on what their specialty could be. Everything else has too many inconsistencies and questions that we don't have answers to at the moment."

The pictures of the supposed tinker toys all roughly matched up with the descriptions given. None of them wore masks of any kind but they wouldn't need any if their assumptions were right. It was painfully obvious that they were artificial in the same way a toy was. Emily couldn't help but think they might have been made out of porcelain at first glance. The fact that they had distinct color palettes which helped to distinguish each other only added onto the artificial feel.

Oh yes that headache was coming along nicely. The last thing this city needed in the middle of a brewing gang war was potentially autonomous tinker creations running around getting into fights with whoever they pleased.

"Ok, let's get a rundown of what each of these... dolls have shown so far. Militia, Velocity, you've both had the most encounters with them, correct?"

"Yes Director. I've technically met them the most but there's basically nothing I can contribute on that front." Velocity says, frustration abundant in his speech, "They avoid me like the plague. I try to chase after them to say hi and maybe ask them a few questions, but they're high level movers and they don't seem interested in chatting. The worst part is that I still have no idea how they're shaking me off of them. They're either strangers or they can teleport on top of everything else they do 'cause if they round a corner and I lose sight of them they can just disappear."

Emily made a mental note to check Velocity's recent time in master/stranger quarantine.

"Personally, I don't buy the tinker explanation. I feel like we're missing something big about their power but I can't make heads or tails out of them as is. Militia is the only one that has had any meaningful interactions with them."

Emily took a moment to enact low level M/S protocols throughout the building with her PRT phone. She wasn't happy at the thought of potential strangers running around the PRT building and sought to further lock down everything as soon as this meeting was over. She also wasn't happy at the many, many assumptions being made this early on.

"Alright, has anyone else meaningfully interacted with these dolls?" No one else at the table spoke up and she was not about to go out and ask Assault. "Then let's hear what Miss Militia has to say. What can you tell us about your encounters with them?"

"I'm afraid there is only the one encounter, ma'am. They don't stick around long after dealing with criminals and excluding the recent incident downtown they only seem to be active during the night."

Damn capes always doing shit during the night, why can't anyone do things during the day like normal people. And yes, Emily knew that fights during the night were generally preferable than during the day and led to less civilians getting in the crossfire, but it was still infuriating waking up each morning to learn about yet another fire or collapsed warehouse.

Or in this particular case, the Medhall building.

"Alright, let's start there. I want a timeline of every confirmed incident with these dolls leading up to the fight around the Medhall building, including details on any encounter with them worth sharing seeing as we know almost as much about these things as anyone else. When was the first time they showed up?"

"That would be my one encounter with them on the 5th where the Merchants went on a joyride through the city in one of Squealer's trucks."

Right, that one. The one the mayor was still breathing down her neck about. Supposedly a water main was damaged underneath the street whenever Skidmark did what he did and it was taking longer than expected to fix.

"Which one appeared?"

"The yellow one, Knight."

Emily took one look down at the pictures to see which one was the most probable offender to be called that; the long golden hair, sword, and massive spiked shield were a dead giveaway. She wasn't a fashion nut and had trouble placing the shirt/dress thing; black on top of white with some lace and gold highlights on the side. The gauntlets, if they were gauntlets and not straight up claws, and the crown were spiked up like some cartoon villain and gave her a bad feeling.

She wasn't even going to try to describe the wheels that replaced its lower legs.

The other two had far less going on than the first one: One had a dark blue long coat with a hoodie and barely anything else save a bikini top and shorts. It held a massive cannon in one hand with some kind of thin sword in the other. Considering how thin it appeared, she was surprised that it was able to lug around such a weapon. Emily could already tell this one was going to give her no end of trouble. Capes with large gun-like weapons were horrible to deal with when things started to go south, and it being something a tinker came up with made it that much worse.

The other had a green theme going on and Emily swore if it turned out there was one for all of the colors of the rainbow she was going to have a hernia. It sported a more traditional black dress compared to the first one with what appeared to be a wedding veil on top of its head. The glasses were a nice touch, but all it told Emily was that this new tinker had a thing for theatrics. These things didn't need glasses to see and it was just for aesthetics, all of it was. More claw/gauntlets combined with some vaguely demonic features such as green wings and horns was not filling Emily with confidence that the tinker that created these things had good intentions. The multitude of chains that it was holding and manipulating was not helping things along either.

The concentric iris pattern on the eyes was shared by each of them, which also matched the colors each was leaning towards. It was all very deliberate. Emily didn't like a single bit about any of these things and she knew Glenn was going to have a field day analyzing their looks.

Not pictured was the supposed 4th doll simply because they've never caught the damn thing dropping off money and drugs every single night. That's even if it was one of these dolls and not someone else entirely. The only reason they thought it was related to begin with was that their mysterious intruder started donating contraband around the same time this new group showed up. The fact that something could and was bypassing security measures on the regular was lighting a fire underneath the chief director. Emily was the one on the hook for it, of course, and there just isn't anyone available to send down at the moment, naturally, but as soon as situations in other cities calm down she might, might get someone transferred.

When hell freezes over.

"Unless someone knows something I don't, we don't have any of the Merchants in custody." Emily looks over to give her full attention to Miss Militia, "So what happened that night?"

The military themed cape cleared her throat before beginning, "Just after midnight, the BBPD informed us of a car chase involving an unknown cape and one of Squealer's monstrosities on the outskirts of the docks. It took me about 10 minutes to make my way over from my patrol route downtown. Just before I arrived, the truck apparently began opening fire on the cape and squad cars. BBPD broke off the chase shortly after."

It wasn't ideal, but it was the right move to make. Armed technicals on the streets were never welcome news, and a tinker vehicle, damn near impossible to find or track given Squealer's supposed specialty, running around shooting up the streets needed to be brought in soon.

"I was on 18th st by the time I started to hear the gunfire. I headed south to follow the noise and came across the truck. It was heading north in my direction and quickly turned west on K ave as I approached; I assume Squealer spotted me. I turned on the same corner to follow when I ran across Knight, it seems she was the one doing the pursuing as she came from the same direction Squealer's vehicle did. We basically ended up right next to each other as we both turned onto K ave at the same time."

"You were on your bike, correct? What was Knight riding?" Velocity asks.

"She wasn't using anything. She was skating along with those wheel-leg-things of hers."

The door to the conference room opened slightly to admit Assault's head in. Battery was already moving.

"I still say they're heeli- Hurk."

The door closed behind Battery. Faint sounds of a struggle could be heard behind the door, but security could deal with it or sound the alarm if it got halfway serious. "Militia, continue."

It took a moment for Miss Militia to stifle her laughter, "Anyway, Knight and I were now behind the truck in pursuit. It was fairly surprising to say the least considering her lack of a mask. I believe my first few thoughts were a combination of realizing that she was maskless and trying to determine if she was a brute/mover or a tinker given the equipment she uses. While Knight and I were taking stock of each other, the truck opened fire on the both of us. I braked to pull some distance and began to swerve evasively while Knight moved to put herself between me and the truck and began blocking the gunfire with that shield of hers."

"The next few moments were a bit tense to say the least. I had no idea at the time how tough that shield was, but it did the job and neither of us took any bullets. I pulled up as far as I dared to Knight and summoned up a shotgun to try to take the wheels out, assuming Squealer didn't armor them up. Her creations are rarely armored, mostly impossibly quiet and stealthy. I wasn't sure if Knight was going to be able to hear me over the wind and the gunfire but I called out anyway trying to get her attention."

"I quickly threw out 'hi thanks for the assist are you ok' before laying out a basic plan where Knight would get as close as possible to the truck to allow me to get to the sides and try to take the tires out. She looked over to me and nodded once before accelerating; I followed after."

That wasn't even close to a good idea, trusting some unknown cape on their first showing in the middle of a fight. Who knows whose side they belonged to and if they were an independent or a villain. Emily knew that it was better than trying to tail one of Squealer's vehicles from a ways back and not risk getting shot at all. One turn and the Merchants would just disappear, damn Squealer and her stealth specialty.

It was still stupid.

"Wait," Triumph spoke up, interrupting Militia, "So Knight actually acknowledged you when you tried to talk to her? None of them have done so in any other encounter."

Militia didn't say anything for a few moments, she almost looked shocked. "I didn't even think of that, you're right. I wonder what made that night so special."

"Their programming may be incomplete," Armsmaster says, "All other encounters we have on record except for the most recent one put the Protectorate showing up afterwards. During both this and the incident with the Medhall building they interacted with the Protectorate in some capacity while the incident was ongoing."

So they're only willing to work with us when it's convenient or too dangerous? Yes because Emily needed more reasons to bring in a rogue tinker who thought they could take the law into their own hands. "Continue please, what happened when you two approached the truck?"

Militia cleared her throat once more, "Knight rammed it with her shield. I think the back wheels got some decent air time. It was pretty dark so I wasn't able to tell how much; maybe half a foot?"

Dauntless let out a low whistle, "That's a hell of a brute rating right there."

"That was my thought at the time as well," Militia responds, "I didn't see exactly what Knight was doing to the back of the truck as I went around to the right side, but I heard a lot of metal being torn up. I put a few bean bags into the windows to encourage whoever was looking out that side to keep their heads down. Went after the wheels with more traditional buckshot after that. Turned out this was one of the few trucks that Squealer decided needed armor."

"The truck turned into me, either to run me over or off of the road I'm not sure. I braked to get behind the truck and behind Knight again when the back door of the truck flew open. I couldn't see anything, but I heard something charging up and swerved to the left. Sounded like a lightning strike went off the next second and I went deaf for a few moments. Skidmark was leaning out the back of the truck holding what I think might have been a railgun. His fields were layered all over the barrels."

"Then I noticed Knight wasn't with me anymore. I didn't give it much thought and sped past the truck as soon as I saw Skidmark begin to point the thing in my direction."

That wasn't acceptable. A car chase shooting up the streets? Trying to run over a motorcycle with a truck? Turning a hilariously lethal weapon on a Protectorate member just after using it on another cape, one that by all accounts was out on their first showing? Skidmark had to know that this little stunt was going to bring a lot more heat down on his little gang of junkies than he could deal with.

Then again, it was Skidmark. Trying to guess what that addict was thinking was courting madness.

"I assume Knight survived, seeing as we've seen her multiple times now."

Militia paused slightly before responding, "I can't say if she did or didn't. I was too busy getting out of the way of Skidmark to check if Knight was alright or not. After I got in front of the truck I switched over to a con-foam sprayer. I mostly just pointed it behind me and held the trigger, hoping to get foam over the windows, the wheels, or inside the engine block. After a few blocks I risked looking behind me and there was no sign of the truck."

"And there's no hope of finding one of Squealer's trucks once it goes to ground. Did you doubleback to check on Knight?" Velocity asks.

"I did, and I didn't find her or any of her equipment back where she got shot. After that, it was cleanup duty getting the con-foam out of the street before morning traffic."

"Assuming it survived the shot, brute 3 to 5 depending on the output of Skidmark's weapon." Armsmaster finally contributes, no doubt taking notes on how to take down the doll. "Mover 1 to 2 at most to keep up with road vehicles. What other capabilities has it shown?"

"Regeneration?" Triumph asks, "Unless we're lowballing the Brute rating pretty hard, she'd need some form of regen to come back from being hit that badly."

"The tinker could be repairing them." Armsmaster counters. "We have only ever seen one doll at a time, which can imply any number of things regarding the tinker's ability. A single unit with modular equipment perhaps or multiple units but a single reactor or power source to share between them. There is also the possibility that units have been destroyed and entirely rebuilt without us knowing."

"We need to make finding this tinker one of our top priorities." Emily cuts in before Armsmaster gets too far into hypotheticals. "But that can wait for after this meeting. How many encounters have we had with these things?"

Militia shrugs, "Not much, I'm afraid. The incident with the Merchants really was the most we've interacted with them. As Armsmaster already said, every other time we've come across them is after the fact. The only reason we believe that a doll was involved with any arrest the last few weeks was gang member testimony."

As if they were going to seriously trust anything a skinhead was going to say. They had basically nothing except a few guesses. Tough strong mobile antisocial tinkertech dolls with potential Stranger on the side, and it was entirely possible they were completely wrong about what they thought they knew about these things. "We can't do anything with if and maybe, lets focus on what we know. Give me a rundown of the Medhall incident and how this one," Emily pins her finger down onto the picture of the green one, "fits into it."

The doll in question was the woman of the hour as far as the news was concerned. Even Emily had a vague idea of what supposedly happened, how it had stopped the Medhall building mid collapse with the frankly ludicrous number of chains at its disposal. It was the only reason that they were able to evacuate anyone out of the building at all. The story itself was more than enough for the spin department to go to town on bumping up recruitment and presenting it as a win for the PRT and Protectorate, but the close up shots of the doll itself were worth their weight in PR gold. The sheer pain, exertion, effort, and anguish it showed on its face, suspended in midair for hours holding onto all of the chains that kept Medhall from completing its collapse and killing everyone inside, was a masterclass of courage in the line of duty at great personal expense. She didn't think she could compile a better message of doing what was necessary to fight the good fight if she tried.

It was an excellent act, not that the doll felt any of the emotions it was faking for the cameras, Emily was sure. The one thing she wasn't sure of was if Glenn was going to be insufferably fanboying over the entire stunt or livid that he couldn't be the one to claim credit for the PR goodwill after this. If her measure of the man was anything to go by, she wouldn't bat an eye if he already had the doll's face plastered over every square inch of his office by now.

Dauntless spoke up next, "Ma'am, around 5 in the morning a major cape fight broke out downtown between Oni Lee and several members of the E88. We've confirmed that Victor and Othala were present as well as Krieg and Crusader's ghosts. Velocity was the first to arrive on site followed shortly after by Miss Militia. Armsmaster was still 5 minutes away and I was 7 minutes away. Several of the buildings around Medhall were already badly damaged and one had collapsed entirely. Velocity began to perform initial search and rescue of the affected buildings while Miss Militia proceeded to stand off at range and wait for backup to arrive…"

—​

The humans continued with their meeting, blissfully unaware that they were being watched. In the corner of the room, where none of the humans were able to see, a red eye sat on the wall. Its owner watched and listened, worlds away, as the humans exchanged what little they knew of their true nature. It would need to make some slight revisions with the others on how to act going forward. None of their truly important cards had been played, so far, but too much had already been noticed.

It looked away from the meeting, to other parts of the human city. A garage with a mechanic working on a vehicle. A warehouse full of crates and armed guards. A workshop on a floating oil rig filled to the brim with fantastic technology. A bunker with a massive vault door.

A battered house, home to a broken but mending family. The young miss was stepping outside for the first time in months. She was far from happy with their current predicament and her other self wanted nothing but to help the young miss, but those were long outside her power to change by now.

 

[Gungrifin]

Max Anders was not having a good day.

Oh, he supposed that things could be worse, but they most definitely could have been better.

For starters his company, Medhall Pharmaceutical, could still exist as an entity. It still did technically, they had all of the paperwork backed up offsite, but that was little comfort to the lack of office space. The collapse of his company's headquarters was the death of Medhall if he ever saw one. He didn't think for a second that they could just start back up and continue on as if nothing happened.

He did wish to make an effort to revive the company however, despite knowing better. It was his company after all, no matter what the shareholders said. They were going to lose a lot of workers as people look for other work in the meantime. It would be best to start immediately, Medhall is… was the largest employer in the city behind the local government itself. It was a household name and Max intended to keep it that way.

"Tomorrow", he tells himself as he takes a swing of scotch from his private stock, in his private study room of his house. The worst part was that he couldn't wring Lungs neck with his bare goddamn hands without tipping off the entire east coast that the Empire and Medhall were joined at the hip.

Other things that most definitely could be better was his ex-wife not handing herself over to the authorities along with his son. He believed he understood why: The ABB targeted Medhall. He owned Medhall, and by extension was a target in his civilian identity. His civilian identity had a son and an irate ex that could be used as leverage should the ABB decide that burning his company to the ground wasn't enough of a message.

The fact that said message was for Kaiser and the Empire, not Max Anders and Medhall, and that his ex was capable of far more property damage than whatever the hell Oni Lee's newest explosives did was academic. The fact that he accepted a long time ago that his son could be used against him was irrelevant. His son was a target, if only to get to him. If Kaiden thought that she could protect her family by turning over a new leaf and hoping for the best, then for the sake of his son, and his son only, she had his blessings.

Max took the bottle he was holding and threw it as hard as he could across the room before picking up and uncorking another bottle on the small coffee table next to him without looking. He almost spat it out in the next few moments, not expecting the vodka.

"Max, at least empty it first," His second in command said from across the room, plucking the suspended scotch from the air, "This is a good vintage."

Max debated throwing the vodka, to make a statement if nothing else, "My company is in ruin, a reflection of my marriage no doubt. Night and Fog are being recalled back to Germany. Brad is out for blood and I don't think I can, or want to, stop him. And our long term plans have been thrown an international company's income sized curve ball. On top of all this, the chinks apparently think that they can attack us directly and get away with it. Unless I have horribly, horribly overestimated their already questionable intelligence and they're not just completely soft in the head. That's also possible."

The urge to spit out his drink of choice was not a one time deal it seemed. God vodka was terrible; whoever convinced him to buy this was taking a swim in the bay by morning.

"It will make a fantastic propaganda piece once this has all blown over. The Empire's enemies dead in the streets. The people unbroken and coming together in the face of a vicious attack, stronger for it. The lesser races groveling at our feet seeking our forgiveness." An image of Lung and his fucking head on a pike flashed through his head. Max had his doubts throughout the night, but now he was sure that he and Krieg were properly plastered. He wasn't sure who was making that god awful chuckling laughter, and he was completely fine not knowing.

Krieg was his second in command for a reason, but giggling like a giddy schoolboy was not one of them. Not that anyone would ever see the scene of these two drunk men acting like loons. Even if they could, all they would see would be the CEO of a company that just imploded and his aide drinking away their futures.

Yes, Krieg was his second for very, very good reasons. He could relax around him in ways that he couldn't around his own son. He was also competent, which was always useful to have in a subordinate. The only others that Max would dare to bring into this inner sanctum at moments like this weren't for good reason.

Victor, quite frankly, Max didn't trust, which was weird admittedly seeing as the man was one of his best. It had nothing to do with his loyalty or his person, those had been addressed long ago. Max ultimately didn't trust Victor due to the peculiarities of his power. All it would take was a year or two of letting his guard down to find his skills at orating, management, and everything in between needed to keep his Empire under his thumb slipping away from him.

If it wasn't for the fact that the man's very power made him the most versatile person in his organization, Max honestly could see himself shipping him off to Germany in a heartbeat.

Brad was an entirely different story. He would appreciate the honesty, the camaraderie. He would take well to the drawing of the curtain, the gesture of being allowed to see weakness, a soft underbelly, a moment of compromise. If only he wouldn't turn right the fuck around and use it against him at every waking moment from that point onwards. Max didn't need that, and now that he thought about it he didn't need Hookwolf to go off the reservation either. There was more than enough evidence linking Medhall and the Empire still buried underneath all that rubble. The PRT did not need further reason to suspect ties between his two organizations.

Max was going to have to do something about Brad he supposed, yet another thing that could be better in his life.

"So, what's the plan, sir?"

Like he felt like a fucking sir right this moment, "The plan is we are dealing with this shit tomorrow. Medhall first, and only enough to ensure the company isn't dead in its tracks. I'll probably have to resign, hand over the reins to a puppet. As soon as we plug all the leaks and stop it from sinking completely, then the ABB."

He also had to find and thank the demonic cape that bought Crusader the time to destroy as much incriminating evidence in the Medhall building as he could before the 'authorities' locked down the entire area. That and saving his employees, he supposed.

Even if she did belong to the newest cape sized thorn in his organization's side. Victor was looking into who the newest race traitor freaks were but hadn't found anything yet. He would show them their place, as was natural, but for her he would be civil… for a while.

Max goes to take a swing of his bottle, only stopping once he remembers what it was that was in his hands. Maybe putting it on the rocks would help?

…

Fuck it, he wasn't going to remember this in the morning anyway.

 

[Gungrifin]

Brutus felt good.

Not walkies good but the special good from mom making Brutus bigger. Bigger meant mom wanted Brutus to hurt someone, hurt or fetch, no kill. Brutus only kill once, he felt sad afterwards.

Brutus wasn't as big as he could be, he was in back of metal box that mom won't let him chase after. Brutus know that he would get bigger later, feel even better. Lately mom was taking Brutus and Judas to the bad places that smell of fear and piss. Felt good being big, felt even better hurting those that hurt small puppers!

Metal box stop moving. Brutus peak his head up to see. Mom not care but mom friend not like Brutus showing himself while big. They at building that smell like fear, but more fear than normal. Some pupper fear, many person fear. Many person already leaving building, Brutus not even gotten out of metal box yet!

Brutus was such a good dog.

Mom friend talking fast, pointing at building. Mom and mom friend talk back and forth. Brutus recognize few words. 'Cape', 'Dogs', 'Empire'. Mom gets out and Brutus know that it's time to feel really good. Back of metal box opens up and Brutus gets out. Metal box bounce off ground as Brutus gets out, gets bigger.

Smell of fear and piss get stronger as building gets closer. Mom shove man out of doorway, Brutus growl at man on ground, show him his place. Mom not said hurt yet, Brutus wait for mom.

New smell as they enter building. Smell like Nothing. Brutus not know that was a smell! Different nothing than other mom friend that smell like nothing. Mom friend nothing was scent that disappears now and again. This Nothing actual scent.

Source of Nothing in room, standing over cages letting small puppers out. Nothing has long coat, looks thin, not eating enough, not big and strong like Brutus! Mom and mom friend speak up, Nothing point big metal object at Mom.

Brutus get mad! Brutus protect mom and want to hurt Nothing but mom not say hurt yet. Mom friend speak more, it take moment but Nothing stop pointing object at mom. Brutus not trust Nothing yet but Brutus smell Metal scent! Metal pupper shaped like man close by. Brutus alert mom, mom alert mom friend. Nothing look towards wall Metal scent coming from, point thing at wall.

Metal burst through wall, already back to being pupper, not man! Brutus already know mom want Metal hurt. Charge forward, Nothing run away like cowar-

BALL!

No, bad, not ball. Nothing throw balls that smell like Nothing. Nothing throw itself? Balls hit Metal, knocking it back. Metal try to dodge balls, scared of balls. Brutus chomp down on Metal leg, leg taste like Metal and pointy like hedgehog. Brutus hold Metal in place, let Nothing hit Metal.

Brutus not big enough yet, still growing. Brutus lifted in air by leg of Metal and let go. Metal leg cut lip, Brutus feel good thou, barely feel cut! Brutus look down and see Metal winding up big swing, right at Brutus!

Brutus go flying, hit cages full of puppers. Brutus look once to see if puppers crushed under Brutus, one look injured. Brutus MAD! Brutus turn around, jump over pit full of smell of fear and piss and small pupper not moving, charge Metal. Brutus ignore Nothing and Nothing balls, chomp down on Metal and keep going. Brutus and Metal go through wall, out into street.

Brutus bigger now, feel really, really good but still mad at Metal pupper for hurting small pupper. Metal try to shake Brutus but Brutus hold on to Metal like when mom has Rope. Nothing step on Brutus back and leap into air. Nothing balls hit Metal from above, make loud ringing sounds. Metal start tearing at Brutus face, Brutus know better, close eyes. Nose feel bad but eyes safe! Brutus feel Metal shake as more Nothing balls hit Metal. Metal stop hitting Brutus face and open eyes.

Brutus holding Metal leg not attached to Metal pupper anymore. Metal and Nothing fighting. Nothing has stick that also smell like Nothing, hitting Metal while running like coward. Brutus spit Metal leg and run, catch up with fight. Nothing bash Metal with big stick and hit Metal legs with small stick. Ohh! Nothing balls come from big Nothing stick! Maybe mom let Brutus play with Nothing later.

Nothing get hit in arm, blood spray, smell like Nothing but also smell of Blood. Nothing get knocked back, bounce on ground once, twice. Brutus leap over Nothing on ground and chomp at Metal again, Metal run like coward. Metal run to left, try to get around Brutus to get to Nothing. No problem, Brutus run good, Metal pupper run good as well but nothing as good as running as Brutus.

Metal pupper stop suddenly and spins around, slash at Brutus eyes. Brutus too quick for Metal, close eyes and slash at Metal. Brutus not feel Metal hit Brutus, Brutus feel paw not hit Metal, Brutus feel paw hit soft.

Brutus really, really scared Brutus hit mom. Angry mom make Brutus feel bad, hurt mom make Brutus feel really bad.

Brutus open eyes, it only Nothing. Thank mom.

Nothing kick Brutus in snout from ground. Brutus feel that, growl at Nothing! Nothing get up, point big Nothing stick behind Brutus and launch more Nothing balls. Brutus not like Nothing, it not know Brutus could break Nothing like small stick or chew toy. Nothing wounds start closing up, easy to see with little cloth on Nothing! Nothing move away, chase after Metal? Right, mom want Metal hurt.

Brutus chase after Metal pupper and make it hurt like it hurt small pupper. Brutus wary of Nothing, not trust Nothing and it's Nothing smell. Brutus think Nothing balls look painful, rethinking playing with Nothing after this. Brutus show Nothing it was best by making Metal pupper cower in man form. Brutus start running faster, ahead of Nothing, chasing after Metal.

Brutus a good dog, the best dog. Brutus maybe even get first pick on walkies after this!

 

[Gungrifin]

Lisa was nursing a nasty thinkerache. Something kicked her power's ass last night and she was still trying to figure out what. Well, she knew what, the cape with the blue coat and literal hand cannon; How was the question.

Interaction with unparseable data.

Yes yes you have no idea what you saw. Water found to be wet, more news at 11.

Lisa let out a sigh, the ice pack wasn't helping so she put it down on the table in the coffee shop she was hiding out in. It wasn't like she was out of commission, but she definitely needed to take things easy for a little while. Alec was being a little shit with his games, playing with the volume louder than necessary just for her no doubt. Brian was out and about checking up on his sister and Rachel was at one of her kennels tending to the dogs they rescued.

The loft was a no go for the moment so here she was on the boardwalk trying her best to look like her head wasn't splitting in two. The coffee shop was nice and quiet, relatively speaking. Small, out of the way, the selection was on the cheap side and most definitely could have been better with a few changes. It was absolutely perfect as far as Lisa was concerned seeing as there was literally just her and the hostess.

Said shop being a front for Coil's organization also helped. She was here to pick up some files the boss wanted her to look over, she really wanted to find out more about the cape from last night but the boss begrudgingly took priority. She wasn't going to say no to the peace and quiet in the meantime. Considering the contents of what the boss handed off to her, she wasn't expecting things to be peaceful or quiet for much longer.

PRT case files of known parahumans in Brockton Bay. High level unredacted files, originals.

Yeah, that. The versions that still had suspected identities on them. She didn't know what level of clearance was needed to get access to these in particular, but it was high enough that it didn't matter. The fact that he could was not filling her with happy thoughts. The fact that he did made it even worse.

Protectorate, Empire, ABB, Merchants, Faultline, Wards, New Wave, and all the independents in between. If these were even suspected of existing there was going to be blood in the streets. You didn't fuck with peoples civilian lives for good reason. Lisa didn't bat an eyelash at the PRT keeping notes on anyone and everyone suspected of being a cape, big brother was watching after all, what the boss wanted with said information was another matter entirely. This stuff was likely to get her burned just by knowing about it.

Coil's file was missing, not that she didn't see that coming a mile away.

Lisa winced at the sound of the front door opening, the hustle and bustle of the boardwalk filtering into the shop for a few seconds. A moment of slight panic over the folder full of PRT files on the seat next to her had Lisa looking towards the front door. It was just a kid.

She wanted nothing else than to take the files and burn them, toss the ashes in the bay, and run. It wouldn't work, wouldn't solve her problems, only add new ones on top of them.

"Welcome! How can I help you?"

"Umm… Hi, are you hiring?"

Her main problem was Coil, full stop. Man was a megalomaniac, a very rich one at that considering the mercenaries he had on call 24/7. Delusional as well if he seriously thought she was going to play ball when recruited by gunpoint. He also was most definitely not an idiot, so he was probably fully aware that she wasn't fond of their current arrangement. The only question was who was going to make the first move.

"Sure, let me get an application. Have a seat wherever you like, miss."

She couldn't run off to the PRT, the boss would know within the minute if she tried. Well, she still could. She did have some incredibly convincing evidence that the PRT needed to clean house right here in her lap… if she wanted to be dead before the day was out. It would interfere with his plans, probably. Maybe as a final fuck you just to spite him.

"Here you go, I can't guarantee anything right now but bring it back whenever you're done and I'll pass it along to the owner."

"... Alright, thank you."

She couldn't just shoot the bastard either with all his mercs running around. That was as much a suicide mission as going to the PRT. Running might work but Lisa didn't believe it was a permanent solution. The boss had cash to burn and she didn't feel like looking over her shoulder for the rest of her life.

Lisa leaned back in the booth and closed her eyes. Faultline was a toss up and she wasn't familiar with how the woman operated. On one hand the merc had a stick up her ass about doing jobs locally and shitting where she slept. Understandable, but inconvenient. Lisa wasn't sure if she would even accept a protection job from her in the first place, and she surrounded herself with case 53's so joining up was looking like a no go. On the other hand, merc. Even if she did help Lisa out there was no telling if she was willing to drop her like a hot potato once Coil finds out and offers more money than she did.

New wave was out, Carol wouldn't even speak with her, and every other major player in the bay was just trading one master for another. The ABB would whore her up in their prostitution dens and the Merchants she didn't even bother contemplating. The Empire would actually be the best choice strangely enough and wasn't that a thought Lisa didn't expect to think this morning. They wouldn't trust her for a second and she was going to need a damn good reason as to why they would protect her from Coil.

"Umm… I finished, I couldn't do all of it."

Lisa looked over momentarily to the quiet girl in the shop. Tall, thin despite hiding it behind the baggy clothes, long black hair, glasses. She'd say the girl was riding the line between unremarkable and… well, she wouldn't say ugly, that was just being mean, but she was still growing and it would all smooth out eventually.

"That's great! I'll take that and we'll call you as soon as we can. Do you want to take anything with you today?"

The girl looked down at the counter, taking in the items behind the glass. After a few seconds she shook her head. "Sorry, not today, I need to get going. Thank you."

"Have a good day miss!" This, this right here was why retail was a war crime. Who actually liked smiling and waving at people all day.

The girl left, the boardwalk filtering back in again before the door closed, leaving just the two of them in the shop once more. Lisa sigh'd and took a sip of her now cooling coffee. Damn Coil giving her these files and putting her on edge, felt like she was walking around with a bomb that went off if anyone else knew it existed.

The PRT was realistically her best choice, despite the superbly inept security they apparently had. All of the other groups would either crucify her for not destroying the files immediately or not bother with the nice guy act Coil had going on right now. She was just going to have to play it fast and hard to get into witness protection as soon as possible. Across the country would be nice, maybe L.A. or Vegas. Somewhere warm where she didn't need to wear multiple-

The door opened again, and was accompanied with the girl sprinting back into the shop like Hookwolf was on her heels.

"Miss, are you alright?"

The girl weaved between the tables,"Noimnotalrightineedaplacetohidepleaseimsorrypretendimnothere…" before disappearing into the back where customers were most definitely not allowed to be.

"Ma'am. Look, I'm sorry but you can't be back here! This is employees only…"

The hell was that about? Actually, on second thought, Lisa had enough on her plate as it-

The door opened yet again and she was actually starting to get annoyed. Her damn headache was getting worse with all this constant noise. Lisa turned around back to the front to see who it was this time.

More kids, a somewhat pretty daddy's girl redhead and her athletic dark skinned girlfriend. They were most definitely not here for the coffee seeing as they were looking every which way but the menu. Lisa didn't even need her power to figure out what was going on.

It also was most definitely not her problem and the sooner they left the sooner she could get back to figuring out how to kill her boss in peace and quiet.

"You think she came in here?"

"Dunno, looks empty." The redhead looked about the place from booth to table before settling on her. She… oh god, here they come.

"Hey, we're looking for our friend. Did anyone come in recently?" They were talking to her. Ohh the decisions to be made. Let's see… Ahh, this should do it.

"Tall, dark clothes, hoodie, glasses?"

"Yeah that's her."

"Haven't seen anyone."

Aaand they're not smiling anymore, Lisa was though! Just to throw some salt on the wound she went to take a sip from her coffee.

Ohh, the redhead recovered and started to smirk, this should be good, "Look, we're just looking for our friend. There's no need to be a bitch about it."

"I mean, do you see your friend here?" She made a wide sweep with her arm showing off the clearly empty shop.

Aww she's pouting, "Whatever"

"Cmon Emma, there's no one here. I don't want to waste today tryin' to find the twerp." Miss tall dark and brooding was glaring at her like she was personally offended by her presence. "Let's leave her to her third rate coffee."

"Yeah, you're right." Really? That was all it took to get the rich girl to smirk again? "Hey, I hear there's a new clothes store that opened up, wanna go check it out?"

It almost hurt letting these two go. Lisa could run circles around them for hours, the redhead in particular she was so easy to manipulate. Her sanity and ever rising headache demanded she let them leave, unfortunately.

The door opened, one final time here's hoping, and the conversation between the two girls got lost over the noise of the boardwalk. With peace and quiet finally restored, Lisa stood up, walked over to the door, flipped the latch, turned off the open sign, and made her way to the back to figure out what the hell that was all about.

—​

Everyone found themselves in the break room sitting around the cheap table they had back here with a cup of tea in hand. Nothing fancy, just something to calm the nerves. Lisa's power was chomping at the bit to start dissecting the girl, Taylor, like it just got exposed to catnip and she was trying hard to keep it back. The shop girl was trying to help Taylor to be at ease, but it wasn't working out too well; she was wound up tighter than a spring.

Positioning herself to keep entrances into the room in view. Avoiding contact. Signs of physical abuse.

Lisa sighed, the sooner they got this over with the better. "Hey, you alright?"

Taylor looked up from her untouched tea to look her in the eye for the first time. The silence started to get uncomfortable after the 15 second mark. Whatever Taylor was looking for, she must have found something and muttered, "...Yeah, I'm fine."

"Freaked out, Insecure, Neurotic, and Emotional. I think that's bingo."

Taylor scrunched up her face for a moment, "Don't you need 5 things for bingo?"

"Free square in the middle."

Whether she appreciated the humor or not, some of the tension bled out of the girl. Why was she playing therapist for a stranger again? Oh right, her thinkerache trying to excavate her skull. The sooner they got done with this the sooner she could get back to things that mattered.

Like Coil.

"So, like, seriously, who were those two? I'ma go out on a limb and say they weren't your friends."

Taylor reacted to 'friends' and her damn power was making every attempt to analyze her. Like, it's probably some stupid high school hazing bullshit why the hell was her power reacting so bad to this.

The girl let out a sigh, one that spoke of long suffering. "Emma Barnes and Sophia Hess." Lisa raised an eyebrow, the name's didn't ring a bell.

Sophia Hess. Shadow Stalker in her Ward Identity.

Aaand now we're panicking because what the FUCK power you gotta warn a girl before dropping bombshells that! How the actual hell did we even get that out of just hearing her goddamn name?

Wards case files included in files given by Coil. Files include civilian identities.

…

Right, she skimmed those earlier, didn't she. Should have seen that coming to be honest. Fuck fuckity fuck. Fuck you very much Coil. This shit was exactly what Lisa thought was going to happen. She just had to go and try to help someone out, couldn't just kick the poor abused kid out onto the street nooooooooo we had to go and learn a fucking ward's identity.

Lisa was the one to let out a sigh this time, complete with nose bridge pinching and the kind of stars you get in your vision when you squeeze your eyes close too tight for a while. When she opened them back up the other two girls were looking at her, the room slightly out of focus.

Uhh… quick thinking. Stall? Stall. "Just so I make sure I heard that right, did you say…" Need to deflect away from Hess, hard. Focus on the other girl. "...Barnes?"

Alright power, time to do your thing.

Emma Barnes. Daughter of Alan Barnes. Lawyer. Divorce Lawyer. Works in the same office of Carol Dallon. Husband to-

Alright, ow, that's good enough to work with for now. Also holy shit the redhead wasn't a complete nobody. "Yeah. That's her." Taylor continues to nurse her tea.

Unphased at Barnes name having influence.

"It's not the end of the world but that's annoying." How does that work out though? Daddy's a lawyer, sure, but he's the wrong kind to be throwing his name around and getting things done. Unless she's been convinced that he does have that kind of power. It can't be that simple.

"I'm sorry for applying, they know I come here now. I'll go find another place to work."

"Taylor, you don't have to worry about that." The- Lisa really needed to learn the name of the worker- spoke up. "If they harass you here we can just bar them from the shop."

Taylor almost recoiled at that.

Conditioned response. Fear of retaliation.

Damn, whatever was going on was serious, and whatever it was had Shadow Stalker as an accomplice. There was no way a ward was helping to bully and terrify someone in her civilian identity, right? Actually, no, this was Shadow Stalker, psycho bitch pinned Grue to a wall with her crossbow bolts and left him for dead. Then there's her vigilante history before joining up with the wards proper.

Alright, let's see. Barnes, daddy lawyer, abuse and several truckloads of it, fucking Shadow Stalker. They got this girl so scared she's jumping at her own shadow. Actually considering Shadow Stalker's power that's completely justified. As much as Lisa knew she was already waist deep and sinking lower and lower the more she learned; a ward bullying a civilian out of costume?

Ohhhhhhhhh she just couldn't resist.

Alright, time for a cover story. Work the Barnes angle. Daddy's a lawyer, need connections to know major players in the city. Work for the city? No, too easy to look up later. Private sector. Private eye? Private investigator got her heart strings tugged, yes, this'll work for the moment.

"She's right. Businesses are private property. You can tell anyone to get out and not come back for any reason."

Taylor didn't even look away from her tea that she still hadn't touched. "They won't do anything here, not anywhere out of school with witnesses."

"That sounds like you're speaking from experience there, am I right?"

Taylor looked up again, doing that searching again for whatever it was she was looking for. Lisa held up a hand, "I ask because this is starting to sound like it's no longer just… high school?"

"Not anymore, but yeah, high school."

"Gotcha, this seems like it's no longer just kids being kids and some stupid hazing thing. How long has this been going on for?"

"About two years now."

"Sheesh, and they haven't stopped or let up?" Taylor shook her head no. "You can press charges, you know. Even if it doesn't make it to court, it'll get the police involved if it's really that bad."

Taylor shook her head again, "Nothing came of it, the school never does anything about it, it's my word vs theirs."

Attempted already. Police are ignoring the case. School is ignoring the case. Ignoring Shadow Stalker involvement. Police and school are looking the other way for the PRT.

Mother f- of course it would be Stalker. The lawyer daddy has nothing to do with it. Also, there was something else in there…

Distrustful of authority. Doesn't believe authority figures will listen, care, or help.

Girl needed someone in her corner, stat. "If you did file a report and the police tried to look into it I can see if it went anywhere."

Taylor looked back up once again. She wasn't quite glaring, but Lisa was feeling judged nonetheless. "I'm sorry, who were you again?"

Lisa let loose one of her smirks, "Lisa Wilborn, Private Investigator. I… work with the police, on occasions. I know a few guys, can ask around and see if anything went anywhere or not, maybe even get why it got dropped. Umm… don't expect much out of that, I'm not really with them and they don't really have a reason to give me anything. It's just a perk of working with them every now and again when they need something looked at from a third party."

That should do it. Not tied down to the police, nice honest third party with no history with anyone in the story at the moment.

"Umm, don't take this the wrong way, but you seem kind of young."

"Fair point. Dropped out of high school early and got my GED." Lisa leaned back in the crappy backroom chair she was sitting in and threw her arms over the chair's back. "I'm also really good at what I do." Hey, it was even the truth! Still felt like she was being dissected by the girl's stare.

"Don't those kinds of thing's cost money?"

"Sure they do, but I'm finishing up a case at the moment," Lisa held up the folder full of PRT files that she wasn't letting out of her sight for the next week. Thankfully it was unmarked and unassuming. Felt like playing with a loaded gun regardless, "and I have nothing else lined up in the meantime. Also, if that brief interaction I had with them out there was any indicator, those two could be knocked down a peg or three. I'll even do it pro bono, do you know what that-"

"Why?"

The question brought Lisa up short. Taylor just looked at her expectantly from across the table, her tea still yet to be touched. Why was she doing this? Get some dirt on Stalker, maybe some payback for Grue? They were barely even a team, and the guys were alright but she wasn't married to the idea of the Undersiders. Even less so considering who their boss was.

The Barnes kid? She wasn't going to lose sleep at night over the redhead regardless of what happened here.

Taylor… she had this look to her like she was at the end of her rope. Hiding in the back of a shitty coffee shop talking with complete strangers. Being bullied for years. PRT covering it all up so their pet ward had something to chew on in her civilian life; which was beyond fucked up just by itself.

She... Lisa'd seen that look before, right before her brother killed himself. He said he was fine too.

"Cards out on the table? I'm looking for dirt on Mr Barnes." Lisa said with all of the sincerity she could muster. She was lying through her teeth, obviously, but Tattletale was very good at what she did. "It's… something of a side project of mine, sniffing out corrupt individuals in the city. Dunno what I'm going to do with it but I'm making a list. Now, honestly, we've just scratched the surface here but all I see is the lawyer… Alan I think is his first name?"

Taylor stared back for a few moments longer, not saying anything. After about half a minute of Lisa holding her breath, the girl finally nodded once, lightly.

"Yeah, his name's Alan. Dad and he are friends, I think."

"Oh shit really? Huh, small world. Anyway, as I was saying. The most obvious thing that's going on here is lawyer daddy is throwing his weight around, but that doesn't make any sense at the moment. Isn't he a divorce lawyer?"

"I… I think so?"

"Yeah, that's what doesn't make sense. Either he's got connections to other lawyers who are doing him favors or something else is going on altogether. All to, apparently, cover up his daughter's questionable taste in friends. Perfectly honest? I smell gold in them hills."

"And, well, If I get to help someone out of a shitty situation, that's just icing on the cake." Throwing psycho bitch Shadow Stalker under a bus was also on the table. Just another thing to take to the PRT when she decided to run.

Taylor.. Just sat there like she had been for the past 15 minutes. Staring. It took a while, but the girl finally reached for her tea for the first time. After a few moments, she put the empty cup back down on the table. "Ok… Uhh, do you need anything?"

Seems she passed whatever test she was under. Tattletale, Private Eye was officially in business. "For starters, do you have any examples of what is being done to you at school? I'd like to compile a list of who is all involved first."

 

[Gungrifin]

Robin was not a public speaker.

That wasn't to say that he wasn't a people person, far from it, it's just that he just wasn't good at dealing with 'the public' by himself.

"On your mark."

The one thing that he did not miss from his days on the force was leaving that sort of stuff to other people and focusing on his job. He still did to a degree, but now he was the one giving the speeches and attending gatherings, if only to play the role and read off someone else's script.

He could talk to a person, get to understand their situation, things like that. Say what you will about the PRT being the Public Relations Teams, they had some really good people onboard who knew their stuff. He was a better first responder now because of it.

"Get set."

But people? He'd rather box an Endbringer.

"Go!"

Robin, Velocity in costume, stayed put on the starting line. The kids that were lined up next to him started running, all at different speeds. It was only a 20-meter dash, a PR stunt that Velocity had no love for personally. Some of the kids rocketed forward without looking behind them, others trailed along behind. A few glanced back and saw him still on the starting line.

'Race with the Protectorate' day, featuring Velocity and Battery, what a load of stupid bull crap.

Several of the kids were now looking back at him. A few were giggling and jumping up and down, their own involvement in the 'race' forgotten, anticipating him surging forward. He waited for the first kid to cross the finish line, and then waited some more as everyone realized that he still hadn't moved. Once all the kid's attention was on him, then he started to move.

Like a snail.

It was more of a waddle than a run. Arm's out to the side pumping back and forth, he began breathing heavily once he got a quarter of the way. Many of the kids that turned around were squealing and laughing, a few came back for him and tried to pull at his legs, get him going faster. He began to reach out for the finish line around the halfway point, surrounded by the kids. There were quite a bit of them around his feet at this point, he was actually using his power slightly to not step over one of them. All of them were shouting his name or telling him to go faster.

Battery was just hanging her head over on the sides, staring at the ground, Robin was smiling too hard to care.

A person Robin could communicate with. People had him feeling out of his depth. Kids? He could work with kids.

Right before the end, he fell over, carefully to not be on top of any of the kids. He could feel them pulling at his costume, trying to drag him across the finish line. Kind of wished they could drop the volume a little, but they were kids and they were having a good time it seemed. A quick crawl to finish the race had all the parents on the sides cheering and clapping. Many of them couldn't look, they were laughing too hard or covering their eyes.

Velocity didn't mind, he just laid on his back and pumped a fist into the air. The kids started to hold onto it and jumped up and down around him, celebrating. One of the perks of having a mask, he supposed, 'Velocity' was the one getting laughed at for the kids, not Robin.

Why were they doing this again? Easy. Battery had no chill, both with her personality and her power. She had to charge up, but was full speed once she was. The adults could try their luck with her, try to cross the finish line before she finished charging. Velocity had no such weakness, which made him unfair as a racing opponent. He quite literally decided if he won or lost, and it would be painfully obvious to anyone that actually tried. No need to subject people at a PR event to that, have him entertain the kids instead. Battery was more fair for the ones who actually wanted to try. It was more a race against the clock than her, more fair. Kind of like a time-trial.

A dog came into his view from where he was lying on the ground. The world slowed as he spooled his power up to full in an instant. It was a rottweiler of some kind, although Robin wasn't a dog person so he couldn't tell the exact breed. It had a collar with a little tag, flapping as the dog was running straight towards him. He couldn't read the name on the tag from this angle.

It was on a leash, in that there was a leash attached to its collar, but the owner, at least who he thought was its owner, was across the street running towards the both of them. Velocity palmed a con-foam grenade from his belt and looked over to see if Battery was done being embarrassed on his part or not. She was looking in his direction, and was already halfway charged up if the lines on her costume were any indicator.

He felt like they could handle the situation if the dog was about to attack anyone, but there were alot of kids around him. It was a little tricky getting out from in between all of them without putting enough force on any of them to knock them over once he shifted back. Once out, and back on his feet, he walked over to put himself in between the dog and the kids. Sitting down on the ground would help to spook the dog less than if he just suddenly appeared standing up, and if the dog was about to bite someone, he could move out of the way in time.

The world spun back up to full speed, slowly, and the dog continued to run at him. He wasn't growling or barking and seemed friendly and curious, thankfully enough. Velocity was still wary of the dog right up to when it jumped on him. His lower face was exposed with his helmet, and all he could feel was dog slobber.

"Brutus! Down!"

The dog clearly wanted more kisses, it took his owner coming over and prying them off of each other for Velocity to feel safe to breathe without inhaling drool. The owner was trying to rein back her dog with little success. She had long blond hair, a spattering of freckles across her nose, and really pretty green eyes, "I'm so sorry mr Velocity, he just yanked himself out of my hands."

At least be strong enough to control your dog miss… "At least he's friendly, maybe a little too friendly."

"I'm so sorry we were out for a walk and I heard all of the commotion coming from over here so i decided to check it and and then he got really excited with all of the people around and now you have slobber all over you I told Sam that he's bigger than I am but she keeps asking me to walk her dogs for her when we tell her she's go too many already and-"

Robin held up a hand to get the girl to stop, "It's alright, no one got hurt. Although, I would recommend talking with your friend about having you walk a dog that's too big for you to handle."

"She doesn't listen," The girl sighed with a hint of frustration, "She goes at her own pace and does whatever she wants."

Robin chuckled, "Well, it sounds like she's a handful. What was your name? And is this Brutus?"

The girl cracked a smile at the deflection, "My name's Lisa, and yeah this is Brutus. Sam's got a lot and I mean a lot of dogs, I can barely tell them apart sometimes."

Well good for her friend for looking out for so many dogs, he hoped she knew what she was doing. Robin held out his hand, gloved as it was, for Brutus to sniff and get familiar with him. He had him on his back getting a big belly rub in no time. Some of the kids wanted to come over and also play with the dog, but he kept them back. The girl, Lisa, didn't seem able to control him all that well and he didn't want him getting too excited.

As friendly as he was, he was a big dog and there were small kids around. Best to play it safe.

"Who's a good boy, Brutus, who's a good boy." Lisa and he were both crouched over her friend's dog with her baby talking to him. It was a nice break from the PR event, even though he was sure pictures of him playing with a dog were going to be used for PR anyway. It was the little, unscripted things that he enjoyed the most about interacting with people.

Lisa stole a few glances around them before looking up at him. "So, uhh… mr Velocity sir," some of her blond hair fell down in her face. A quick shift found her hair out of her face and behind one of her ears in a manner that Robin was 90% sure meant he was going to need to end this conversation before it started..

"If you don't mind…"

[[" Assault, Console, BBPD is reporting a huge slab of concrete floating south down Greenville ave. "]]

"I was wondering if-"

The sound of Militia over the radio was music to his ears. Velocity put one of his hands up to motion for the girl to stop, again. The other went to the side of his helmet and he turned away from her to better hear the dispatch. He was VERY thankful for the distraction.

[[" They are requesting backup, what's your ETA? "]]

He moved his hand from where his ear would be to the sub-vocalizer that ran around his neck.

[[" Console, Velocity and Battery here, we're pretty much done here and are free to help. Please advise. "]]

Lisa… was looking disappointed. Sorry kid, you're way too young.

[[" Velocity, you two are free to end the event and meet up with Assault. "]]

[[" Console, Battery, where is my man, I haven't smacked him today. "]]

[[" Puppy, please, I haven't even- "]]

Velocity went to stand up. He could at least have a little fun with letting down the teenager. "Well, my apologies miss, if you were about to ask if I was available. I'm afraid I'm already married, to justice."

Lisa just about sputtered out on the spot. "I… buh uhh… no, wait…"

"Duty calls, there's other fish in the sea, good luck!"

And with that he spooled his power back up, the world around him slowed once more, and began to jog in the direction Militia said Assault was.

—​

It wasn't until later that Battery informed him that the girl hadn't thrown in the towel just yet. She flagged the other hero down and told her to tell him that she would leave him a message at the PRT HQ.

Ahh, to be young…

 

[Gungrifin]

I take no responsibility for the incorrect usage of google translate.

—​

Tonight was going to be a cold one. Poor Militia, getting all of the night patrols. It was also looking to be a quiet night, the empire had been laying low for the past few days and the ABB were still celebrating whatever it was they thought they did downtown.

Velocity was jogging along his patrol route, occasionally climbing a fire escape to look out over the rooftops. There were few people out on the streets after dusk. It was very quiet.

He'd gotten used to it being quiet a long time ago.

There was a corner store with a second floor at the intersection that marked the last waypoint of his patrol route. It rose up higher than most of the surrounding buildings. He liked to use its roof as one final lookout as he checked in with whoever was on console today.

He thumbed the button on his subvocalizer that was for normal transmission. He didn't have his power running so he didn't need to hit the other one meant for when his power was running. He could have had both it and a proper mic, but that would just add weight and the vocalizer worked regardless of what he was doing.

[[" Console, Velocity, it's pretty dead out here, permission to return to base. "]]

He could use a mic while using his power, but he couldn't move while doing it. Air was weird when he had his power fully spooled up. He didn't need a lot of it and he barely got winded by jogging halfway across the city for a few subjective hours. Course, air was still a thing, and that meant he had to sit still for his voice to even carry through the air to the mic if he was using one.

[[" Velocity, Console, permission granted. Well see you soon. "]]

It worked, but he couldn't use one and move around at the same time. Even worse, he had to stay where he was and guess as to when the mic picked up the last of the hyper compressed sound waves his voice generated. The vocalizer used his body to transmit his voice instead of the air, which was running at 'normal' speed for him. He could also use it on the move, which was important considering that he was a speedster and all.

It was just so slow getting a message out with a mic.

Robin took one last look out over the city before responding.

[[" Roger, I'm headed ba- "]]

Movement caught his eye, someone or something was moving from rooftop to rooftop in the dark. He couldn't see all that well, but they seemed to have a literal cape flapping behind them as they moved. He could think of only a few capes in the bay that had an actual cape attached to their costume, and most of them could fly.

[[" Velocity, please respond. "]]

[[" I'm alright, caught something at the last second, don't recognize the costume. I'm going to check it out. "]]

Velocity didn't wait for a reply, instead the world slowed and he flipped the switch that would let him receive messages while using his power. Console would take a while to actually say the message, but he would get it all at once and at his speed once it all finally transmitted.

As for the cape, he was going to have to find out if they were friendly or not.

—​

It took a moment to spot them again once he was on the ground, even longer to plot their trajectory and figure out which building they were going to land on next. He had gotten pretty good at that over the years. He wasn't going as fast as he could have been, he was letting time go a little quicker, give them a little bit more air time before he stepped out from behind the large rooftop AC unit he was hiding behind.

His helmet ding'd, indicating that it had finally processed whatever console said and was waiting for him to play it. They had some… unfortunate incidents in the past with messages just playing as soon as it was received, so now he could keep it buffered until he was ready to hear it. He had all the time in the world to hear the message right now.

[[" Roger, be safe. "]]

It was so sweet how Hannah really cared about everyone. He only knew small bits of her past, but she had probably gone through the most out of everyone in Protectorate ENE. It was nice, knowing that she didn't let her past get to her.

Or, if it did, she was able to handle it better than he was.

Velocity flipped the switch on his equipment back to normal and let the world spin back up around him. He stepped out onto the roof so that they could get a good look at him as they came down for a landing. It was one of the 'dolls' it seems, the blue one. It wasn't a cape he noticed, but her long coat trailing behind her.

They weren't trying to name them anymore, just referring to them by their color until something changed. Knight already had her name before they realized there was more than one of them running around.

Blue reacted to his presence by flicking her arms out to the side. A mix of blue and white energy pooled in her hands. In her left hand, it took the shape of her sword. The cannon thing began to form in her right. Part after part popped into existence around the weapon even as she finally touched down on the roof.

She rolled with the landing and came out of it in a crouch. Wasting no time she began to bring it up and point it at Velocity.

He spun up his power, not moving from his spot where he stood. It wasn't quite pointed at him just yet and it wasn't even done being deployed it seemed, 3 large braces that ran down the length of the barrel were still being slapped on.

Ok so he might have jumped the gun, heh, just a little. It's not like they're giving him much of a choice otherwise. He felt confident that he could react to any shots she sent out before they actually hit him, and then he could actually do something about the doll instead of trying to talk to one of them. He pulled back on his power, little by little, allowing the cannon to finish deploying in slow motion, sparks flying off as the metal clanged together, and point directly at him. Blue had her sword in a reverse grip, about where a flashlight would be when you needed a light and were bracing a handgun.

He was still sped up, so he slowly, slowly, started to raise his hands. No need to spook the doll with any sudden movements.

It was a big gun. He could probably fit his head inside, easy. He thought it might have been rifled, it was hard to tell with such little light. The cannon wasn't glowing like they'd seen it before when they saw her use it once. Supposedly that meant that it wasn't powered up fully? He wasn't taking his eyes off of her, sped up or not, regardless.

Blue had this… intense look in her eye. Like she was coiled up, expecting him to do something, anything. The world was spinning back up to around normal, and his hands were still about half way up. He couldn't see much of her face save for one of her eyes, most of it was hidden behind the massive cannon he was currently staring down the barrel of.

By the time the world was back to normal he could make out that Blue had been trying to say something.

" -aaattttaa wwaa nani ga hoshīdesu ka?"

Uhh… yeah, that was going to be an issue. Lets see here. It wasn't Russian or Chinese, those he was fairly confident in speaking. It sounded like an eastern language. Was she an ABB cape? 'Nani' and 'desu' were all that he caught and he was fairly certain he had heard some of the asian gang members say them at least once or twice.

She had moved from her low crouch to standing up now, the gun pointing straight at him through the entire movement. He had his hands all the way up.

"Um, hi? Sorry, I don't understand." So much for him traveling and learning new languages. He still needed to hit the books some more it seemed. His power was up, faintly, just to benefit from some slightly faster reflexes if he needed them.

Blue kept her weapon up for a moment with no indication that she understood him until she… tch'd him? Did she just- Yes, yes she did and she was lowering her cannon. Turning around, Blue started to walk off towards the edge of the roof. Her cannon and sword were consumed by the same light they appeared with.

"Kanshō shinaide kudasai."

Definitely needed to brush up on his languages, he could translate it all once he got back to base.

—​

Blue was a hell of a mover, Velocity thought.

A single leap could take her from rooftop to rooftop, something that he couldn't do but Battery could. Assault as well if he had some energy to work with. The both of them could actually get some force behind them once they got rolling, he just slowed down the rest of the world. No mighty leaps for him, he still had to be able to make the jump normally. It grated on him, slightly, but he made peace with that a while ago. He was still fast enough to get down the fire escape, over to the next building, and up onto the roof before anyone else. It just took 'him' a couple minutes longer than anyone else.

He didn't intend to lose her this time. A quick message was sent off to let Console know who he ran across and their brief encounter. He was following from the streets for the moment, the world about half slowed so he could keep up with her with just a jog. If he ever lost sight of her he would spool back up fully and get up on the roofs again.

The 3rd time he did so, he found Blue not moving, peering down over the side of the roof. Her weapons were back out and Velocity wasn't sure he liked that. He reset his power and started to walk over from about the middle of the roof, letting the crunch of gravel let her know someone was here. The cannon came up and he felt confident enough to not need his power up this time around. The cannon only made it halfway up before Blue locked eyes with him.

She didn't seem happy to see him. Her cannon lowered back down to the roof and Blue stood there, eyes closed, performing what he might have thought were breathing exercises. A final exhale that might have been more exasperating than exercise had her turning back around. The cannon was placed down to her side and she motioned for him to come closer.

Seems like she had something to show him. Maybe it was why she was out here? How were they finding things every night?

Peering out from over the edge of the roof, power spun up slightly just in case she tried to push him over, he could see a van parked in front of the building they were standing on. The back doors were open, and there were people loading crates into it. He didn't see any obvious colors on them, which meant it was most likely a Merchant operation. Maybe a drug lab or stockpile. He wasn't going to think about it too hard, they were the merchants. Expecting forethought from them was a fool's errand.

"Well, alright. I'm assuming you want to go down there?" He looked over to Blue. They seemed to understand English, but the one way communication was going to need to be addressed, soon.

She responded with a single nod and reached for her cannon. Velocity grabbed her arm, stopping her just before she could pick it back up.

"Those look dangerous, miss. And those," he tilted his head towards the edge of the roof, "look like normal people. Are you sure that's how you want to play this?"

If she looked unhappy before, now she looked downright murderous. A few tense seconds passed where Velocity thought he was going to have to subdue her right there and then. She dismissed her weapons with a huff and he felt like the message had gotten across enough to let her go. Before he could get another word out she jumped and was over the edge, falling down to the street below. A not-quite-time-stop had her suspended in the air in freefall, long coat fluttering behind her. It looked like she aimed for the van, he hoped she wasn't actually tinkertech and wasn't about to crumple the entire vehicle; there might still be someone in it.

Well, she was going to hit the ground at some point, best to get moving. Girl had an attitude. The sheer willingness to immediately resort to violence and the deadly equipment being used reminded him of Shadow Stalker back when she was a vigilante. He wasn't sure he liked the idea of another one of those running around the bay.

Down on the street, Blue was maybe a foot away from landing on top of the engine block of the van. If any of the Merchants knew that she was there, they had yet to react to it. He walked forward, taking in how many were present, who was helping to load the van and who was standing guard. One had some kind of SMG, he would be the first Velocity went after. Another message burst sent off to Console informing them of what was happening and a request for backup. He didn't see any capes among the gang members so this should be an easy bust.

Blue was getting closer to the van and he needed to get started. A con-foam grenade was left in the front entrance, hopefully catching the one ganger standing in the door frame and blocking an escape route out of the building. He could move, but he had no force, no weight behind him while he was using his power. He could hit hundreds of times a second, but an asthmatic lung donor armed with a handful of spit wads and a coffee stirrer could hit harder than he could with his power fully spooled up.

Yes Assault made that joke, yes he was using it to describe himself, it was accurate and he thought it was funny. That was fine, he had his own way of fighting.

Containment Foam grenades, nylon rope, handcuffs if anyone he was fighting had their hands close enough together or near a pole. He could pick up a brick and leave it suspended in the path of someone's face. He could let the world spin back up and just throw a solid right hook at normal speed, with all the force that it usually had. He served on the force once, he knew how to handle himself.

He had a variety of tools that he could use, most were overkill for simple gangers. For the gunman, he was just going to yank it out of his hands the instant Blue hit the van. Speaking of which, it was right about the time someone was reacting to their presence, unless they were all just that stoned. It was the Merchants, it was entirely possible.

He walked over to the gunman. The most he could do while still sped up was flick the safety. It took a bit of effort to do so, everything he wasn't affecting with his power felt like they weighed a ton. With the safety hopefully engaged, he grabbed the wrist of the gunman with one hand and the body of the SMG with another.

The ganger was starting to flinch away, one quick look saw Blue making contact with the van. It was time to get started.

 

[Gungrifin]

Either Blue was actually tinkertech, or she weighed a number that Velocity was not going to say out loud and within earshot. Not that she would have heard him over the sheer noise she created by landing on the van. Calling it a landing wasn't very accurate. She stepped on it… and won.

The front tires were just gone and he wasn't looking at the time, so who knows what happened there. The cabin was crushed, the engine block was a pancake, and the engine itself was in hundreds of pieces strewn about the place. Oil was splattered everywhere, and there were glass shards from the windows anywhere there wasn't engine, oil, or bits of rubber.

It was actually impressive just how totalled it was. Considering Blue was in the middle of driving a haymaker right into a merchant's face, he was going to keep his comments to himself.

Probably indefinitely.

The ganger he was busy with out in the real world was having a bad day. He had just driven the butt of his SMG right back into his face after Velocity relinquished it off of him. The rest of the gang members were looking off towards the van, still processing what exactly just happened.

6 were outside, loading a pallet of crates into the back of the van. A quick glance through the front door showed that there were 8 more still inside, including the one that was still standing in the door frame with the currently expanding cloud of con-foam. 7 inside, 7 outside. He didn't want to leave Blue out here by herself, despite the fact that he was pretty sure she was perfectly fine, and he didn't know if there was a back door or not. He also still had the gun that he needed to dispose of.

A trash can an alley or two away found itself the new owner of an SMG, the alley next to it received the magazine once he figured out the release. He racked the bolt back and extracted the round from the chamber as well, just to be on the safe side.

Coming back to the fight, Blue had moved on from introducing someone to her fist and was switching to a high kick to anothers head. It looked like they were all finally starting to react. The one in the door frame was only just now realizing that he might be in trouble, staring down at the foam consuming his lower legs, and everyone else inside seemed to be content with watching through the glass for the moment.

They wouldn't be helping any time soon, the door was going to be full of foam in a moment. As for out here… he was curious to see how she fought without weapons. Blue seemed to be at least confident enough in hand to hand to jump straight into a situation where she was outnumbered. Then again, that might have been the brute rating talking more than anything else.

He eased off his power to about half speed and stood back, ready to jump right in if she really needed it.

The kick carried through, landing solidly right on the ganger's ear, Blue twisting her whole body through the motion. That one was down for the count if the airtime he was getting was any indicator. Continuing the spin, she ducked down into a crouch to avoid a horribly telegraphed swing for her head and brought her leg around for a low sweep.

The ganger found himself falling sideways as Blue brought herself back up to standing. Her next victim met a one-two combo of uppercut to the jaw and a solid immediate follow up right to the solar plexus. He was going to feel that all the way to the hospital.

She was quick on her feet, he could give her that. Nice reflexes as well. He was worried she wasn't pulling her punches with the normal gang members, some of those hits seemed to have quite the force behind them. If the remains of the van was any indicator, she could cause some serious harm by going too far. No one was being turned into a fine red mist, so far, but he really had no idea what her abilities were or their limits.

A third punch brought the man down to the floor. She jumped to get a little height before bringing down a vengeful blow that Velocity was glad he wasn't on the receiving end of. That was three that he didn't think would be getting up any time soon, one that only got knocked over, and two more that were still up.

The two that were still up did something that was actually halfway decent, tactically speaking. They positioned themselves each on the opposite side of Blue, looking to come at her at the same time from different angles. The one on the floor was recovering as the two made their move.

The one that Blue was facing took a foot straight to the chest courtesy of a fully extended kick. If he remembered right she was the smaller one of the three they had seen so far. She only came up to his shoulders and he couldn't help but notice just how thin she was. She had almost no muscle on her, the bare leg currently being planted in the other guy's rib cage showed that easily.

The other one had come around and gotten behind her in the meantime, wrapping her up in a crude grapple. A brief struggle had her trying to break out of it to little success. Strange, she seemed stronger than that. The one she kicked tried to come back for round two, and got another kick for his troubles. This one brought her leg pointing a fair way into the air, connecting with the ganger's jaw on its way up.

A strange sound rang out at this time, coming from the building. Velocity spun his power back up to full before looking over, and damn near caught a bullet for not paying attention. He flinched out of the way on reflex, it wasn't going to hit him on a second look, but he knew that they were just as dangerous to him with his power going as they were normally. It was moving at a decent clip, maybe half a foot every one of his seconds, and passed right in front of his face.

Right, should have checked on the others and saw if anyone else had guns. Stupid, got caught up in the new cape. There were 5 inside that were either pointing small handguns out the windows or still drawing their weapons. The front door was fully covered up by now and the window was shattering into shards. He couldn't go through there without cutting himself up to pieces, they were also pointing guns in that general area which made him want to avoid it to begin with.

A quick look around the building found a back door, but a second of real world speed found it locked. More gunshots rang out in the meantime. He was not happy with the merchants drawing guns. Blue was still in the middle of hand to hand with a few of them, they could hit their allies.

Coming back around the front, the glass window was cascading into a few hundred shards. He didn't see any bullets flying, but he did see where they used to be as they disturbed the air, faintly. Thankfully they seemed to all be aiming for where he used to be standing in the middle of the street, none of them were heading off towards Blue and the gangers she was dealing with.

He couldn't let that continue. He needed to get in there, now. The only real way was through the window. He knew how to do it, it was just going to take some effort and time to apply his power to enough of the shards so he could move them out of the way safely.

One by one, he took a shard, sped it up to his speed, and moved it to the side to try to create a hole big enough to fit through. He got enough space cleared where he could stick his arm in when he noticed that there was a lot more debris around his feet than he remembered there being a moment ago. Looking around, there seemed to be more than just the remnants of the van's engine on the ground. Paper, plastic, small wood slivers, a few nuts and bolts. He stopped and watched, all of it was converging on the building.

It wasn't until he spotted a trash can peeking out from a nearby alley, contents spilling out into the street that also seemed to be making its way towards the building, that it clicked. Mush. The trash golem Merchant cape. He checked the window fragments, and sure enough, many of them were no longer falling straight down, instead angling inwards.

There were 2 inside that didn't have a gun on them. He couldn't tell which exactly was Mush, but he had two more con-foam grenades on him and he was going to spend one on each of them. Eventually, he moved enough glass out of the way where he could step through without needing to take a trip to the hospital. Two more bullets were fired in the meantime, both of them came nowhere close, but they were starting to aim towards where he was by the window.

He couldn't waste any more time. If he gave Mush enough time to build up his golem suit, they could both be in trouble. Mush was a bad match up for him, nothing he had really worked on his trash armor and Blue's abilities were unknown. He set off both of his remaining grenades on his targets and turned his attention to the gunmen. The foam was going to need some time to expand and set, he just hoped it was enough time to disrupt him from forming his armor. Once that golem got started, they were going to need to leave.

He just wasn't sure if Blue would. She seemed like the type to stay and fight.

Four of the Merchants had their guns pointed out towards the window, the fifth was still pulling theirs out. Velocity decided to try and disarm that one first, the others were riskier to deal with. He brought his arm up to the gangers face, slowly. He didn't even hit the man, just went through the motions of elbowing him in the face and bringing it back. Unless he didn't even register it, he'd hopefully flinch back and then he could take the gun out of his hands.

No point in wasting time when he could be working on the other four. The next one over he did actually hit a few times. He boxed in his free time, and threw out 4 left and right jabs into the Merchant's right side. Felt just like a punching bag. He wasn't going down with just that, however, it was more just to set off his nerves. It would take a moment for his brain to catch up so he did it again with the next one over.

The first one was starting to flinch, so he went over and yanked the gun out of his hands as quickly as he dared. Following that, the second ganger was reacting to the tickling he gave his right side. It did basically nothing but set off his fight response. He was pulling to his left, away from the danger. A full speed right hook into his left cheek from the opposite direction would knock him flat. Hopefully.

He had just enough time to repeat that for the second member before the other two started to react to him dismantling their forces. Blue was in the middle of throwing her captor forward over her shoulder and right into the ground. Velocity thought it might have been a Judo throw, he needed to see it actually happening to be sure. The grenades had gone off by now and started to puff out at the feet of the other two Merchants inside. More debris was making its way inside through the window and he still couldn't tell which one was Mush.

He actually recognized the glock that the third gunman had on him. And yes, that was the dumb as hell sideways grip he was using to fire it. It was honestly amazing that this idiotic, stupid 'gangsta' style was still being used. This one he wasn't going to feel too bad about the free nap he was about to hand him. He was turning to his left in the direction of his now disarmed buddies. Velocity didn't bother with the nerve distraction, he just decked him.

The fourth gunner was pointing his gun a little too close to where his buddies were standing/collapsing for his taste. He also wanted at least one of them conscious to answer a couple quick questions once this was all over. He got behind the Merchant, put his left hand on the man's right shoulder, his right hand gripping his right arm, and drove the man to the ground by pulling his legs out from underneath him.

The rest of the gunmen were all mid collapse except the first, which he never actually knocked out. He did get the man he was currently sitting on top of to get his hands behind him, they were close enough that he brought out the handcuffs. Blue seemed to have the outside under control. Her throw was finishing up and the rest of the gangers were all splayed out on the ground around them. More debris was coming in through the window and a lot of the glass from the window was joining it.

A quick sucker punch to the first man had Velocity breathing a little easier. All of the guns had their safeties engaged, magazines removed, and chambered rounds ejected. The debris seemed to be moving towards the man on the left, who must be Mush. The gunmen were dealt with, but all of the trash was still coming. The con-foam had already started to expand quite a bit and he didn't feel like getting caught in his own grenade trying to knock the cape out before he could form his golem.

This… This was looking bad.

 

[Gungrifin]

Good news, Mush was encased in con-foam.

[[" Console, ETA on that backup? "]]

Bad news, it didn't adhere to the ground in time like he hoped it would. Mush's golem armor was coming together around the mass of foam that the Merchant cape was inside. He was able to shove enough bits of metal, sludge, and pieces of glass in between the rapidly hardening foam cloud and the floor to rip most of it off of the ground and take it with him.

[[" ETA, 8 minutes. "]]

Well, at least they were going to have an easy time tracking him after this; couldn't drop the armor now without leaving himself helpless.

Velocity thought back, maybe there was something he could have done different? He could have tried to taze Mush instead of using the con-foam, but he didn't know which one he needed to hit and he only had the one taser on him. It was risky trying to incapacitate him directly when the armor was in the middle of forming, he could have gotten encased in it in the process.

Or worse, crushed.

Once he knew who it was he needed to worry about, it was too late to do anything directly. He wasn't willing to use the taser on someone being encased in foam. If they had a bad reaction to it he wouldn't be able to get them out for a while. There was nothing nearby to cuff him to and all of his other options were either lethal or utilitarian.

He was an idiot wasting time earlier. They could always do proper power testing later once they had Blue and the others like her join up with the Protectorate. The worst part was that he just let her deal with the gangers outside and didn't help it go quicker. He let his guard down, thinking there wasn't a cape around.

Velocity sighed, no use crying over spilled milk, he was going to have to leave this to the PRT troopers once they got here.

"Blue, we have a problem."

Actually, would they put her into the Wards? He didn't know how old the cape was now that he thought about it. He supposed that she could have been a teenager. Blue was looking his way with a raised eyebrow. She was taking the time out of tying up the unconscious merchants outside to mouth the word 'blue' back to him.

"It's… Your costume's color scheme, it's not important right now. Mush, a Merchant cape, is inside and he's forming his golem armor. I can't engage him effectively, we need to withdraw for now. The PRT is on the way and-"

The side of the building blew out courtesy of a fist the size of a small car, the trash golem strode along not far behind.

"VELOCITY," The merchant boomed out, "YOU OPPRESSOR, COWERING BEHIND A BADGE."

… Great. They needed to leave. The both of them were non-insignificant mover's to some degree, they could both stay away and lead the PRT troopers-

The sound of metal clanging and crashing against itself sounded off to his right. Blue had summoned her cannon again. He barely had enough time to throw his power on full blast before she was able to get a shot off. He was afraid of this, and he had absolutely no idea how to engage OR de-escalate the situation. Mush he couldn't deal with at all and Blue seemed to be itching for a fight all night.

He was sure that they could bring Mush in once the troopers got here and just buried his entire golem under con-foam. The only question was what they were going to do for the next 8 minutes.

—​

Whatever ammunition that Blue used for her cannon was weird. It was irregularly shaped with hard angles everywhere; Lopsided, even. Each shot was shaped differently as well, no two looking to be quite the same. The rounds tumble through the air as they traveled, all solid black and surrounded by a pale blue light.

The sound that her cannon made when firing was strange as well. It almost sounded like metal being stamped. He was sure that wasn't correct, it was just the closest he could think to what the sound was. It certainly didn't sound like it operated under the same principles that a regular firearm did.

Course', tinkertech could do whatever it felt like, he really shouldn't go looking for answers he wasn't going to find.

Mush was in the middle of picking up the scrap metal that used to be the Merchants' van before it was made further unrecognizable by the fighting. It was mostly Blue and Mush duking it out with each other in the middle of the street. Nothing he could do was making a difference. No grenades, not strong enough to hold Mush back with his rope assuming he was willing to risk it sinking into the armor and getting stuck on something, and his taser was useless as were the handcuffs. All he could do was provide a distraction for Blue until the PRT got here which was not an arrangement that he was comfortable with.

It was that or busy himself moving the Merchant gang members out of the way so no one got stepped on or something.

There was little debris back inside the merchant drug den so that's where he was moving people when he heard a crash of metal behind him. A quick spin up showed him that Mush was using the remains of the van like a crude weapon, slamming down the slab into the street trying to hit Blue. To her credit, she was able to dodge, but he didn't know if she could keep that up forever. Mush didn't get tired piloting his golem.

Velocity returned to his efforts to get people not killed tonight. They may be Merchant scum, but no one deserved to get splattered across the street because of a cape fight. He was almost done, there were only two more-

Another crash of metal, and this time the sound of cannon-fire didn't resume. He almost didn't want to turn around.

Blue was taking a knee in the middle of the road and holding her cannon in both of her hands. She was using it to shield herself and hold back Mush's weapon from crushing her. He had her pinned to the ground and seemed to be putting the full weight on his armor into just sitting on her.

What should he do? What could he do? Was he really going to have to sit and watch a heroic newcomer get killed with backup literally minutes away? He had… he had one, exactly one, trick he could pull and he wasn't sure it would even work.

Velocity sighed, he was hoping he'd never need to replicate this trick again. More so that he wouldn't have to explain it to the PRT and maybe keep it as an ace in the hole for a rainy day. Looking around, this was about as rainy as it got. He'd gladly reveal this if it meant saving Blue's life, brute or not.

He let the ganger go, to unceremoniously drop to the floor once the world returned to normal. There was a small pouch on the backside of his belt that he hadn't touched since his early days from before joining up with the Protectorate. He pulled out two small metal cartridges and a tiny sprayer cap he had custom made. There was a slight hiss as the cap pierced the top of one of the cartridges, he wasn't worried; The minuscule amount of CO2 that leaked would dissipate and the cartridge had plenty left over.

He walked over to the side of the trash golem, trying to find a good place to do this. Next to one of the arms would be his best bet at freeing Blue, remove Mush's leverage. Actually, could he get it inside? That might just blow the entire limb apart, maybe separate the pieces from his power for a moment. He didn't want to do it right on the wrist, that might be too close to Blue.

Velocity settled for a little short of halfway up the arm and started trying to pry as much trash as he could off of the golem.

A little quirk of his power, it would affect 'equipment' that he carried with him but where exactly his equipment stopped and the world around him started had some interesting interactions. It would probably make sense if he really sat down and analyzed it, but it was just as arcane and arbitrary to him now as it was when he first started out.

One thing he did know, and figured out early on, stuff that was released from a container seemed to revert back to normal basically instantly. This included compressed air.

Using the same trick he did with the window glass, he was able to remove a bit of the trash from Mush's left arm, right below the elbow. It was basically right back under Mush's control the instant he stopped using his power on any of the pieces of debris. Some of it was already trying to return right back to where he pulled it out from. That was fine, he just needed a little bit of depth.

He took one of the canisters, stuck it inside the cavity, and held down the nozzle to let all of the gas out.

Once it left the canister it would slow down back to 'normal' speed, but Velocity was able to dump the contents of the cartridge basically all at once. To him, it was talking about a minute or so to empty the cartridge. Out in the real world? It was happening all at once; not only that, but it was basically just as compressed as it was inside the cartridge but with no cartridge to hold it all in. Combine that with the incredibly small area that the nozzle dumped the gas out into before it returned back to normal speed and you had a lot of compressed air on demand.

It wasn't very useful truth be told, rather destructive if misused. He didn't carry many cartridges on him for good reason. If you had enough air to bowl someone over, you had the equivalent of a bomb pressure wave going off. He used it to disorient perps with a quick blast of air to the face or the ear back in the day.

Now, though, he was fine with it being a little bit more powerful than he was used too. Blue was fine, probably. Mush was relatively safe, still trapped inside his foam prison. And he really, really didn't care if he blasted trash everywhere. They were going to have a hell of a cleanup after today regardless, what was another couple of pounds littered around if it meant freeing Blue?

He finished releasing most of the gas in his first cartridge and moved the cap over to his second one. He only intended to put a fraction of the second one right in the same spot that he dumped the first one in. It was already beginning to affect everything around it. He didn't know exactly how much he was going to need, but he only had the two cartridges. He knew that both would be overkill though, and there were still normals in the area if a ways away. It was hard to gauge just how much was enough to accomplish what he wanted.

He slipped both cartridges back into their pouch and took out the nylon rope. If he was doing this, he might as well go the whole mile. He threw the rope over the wrist of the other arm of the golem, ran the cable out a good ways to not get caught in his own gas, dropped his power and heaved with all his might to pull the golem's hand away from Blue.

Half a second later he spun his power back up, already feeling the wave of cold gas start to hit his back. It seemed like it did the trick. Mush's left arm was exploding, his right was sliding well off of Blue, and the golem seemed to be stumbling slightly.

He felt relieved that he was able to free Blue, but he knew in his heart that this was going to generate no end of paperwork for him.

Such is bureaucracy…

—​

The troopers arrived almost a minute later as they both played keep away from Mush. There was now a mound of con-foam taking up the majority of the street surrounded by troopers, bits of debris and trash sticking out here and there. Velocity was sitting down on the sidewalk feeling all of the energy drain out of him. A perk of his power, he got to take breaks wherever and whenever he felt like it. Blue was leaning up against the wall of the building the actual police were pouring into, looking for whatever drugs they could bust the Merchant gangers for.

10 minutes was enough, right? Velocity pushed himself back up to his feet and let the world spin back up one more time.

"Blue, thank you for-"

"Black Rock Shooter."

… What.

He apparently said that out loud considering the look she was giving him. With a sigh, she kicked off from the wall and summoned her cannon again. Slight concern turned to confusion as she pointed it straight up in the air, oblivious to the half a dozen troopers moving to respond to the cape drawing a weapon. She fired a single round straight up and dismissed her cannon, catching the shot as it came back down in the palm of her hand.

She pointed at the black… rock…

…

You've gotta be kidding. That was so blunt and on the nose. Who comes up with a name like that?

Robin took a moment to get it all out of his system before responding. The annoyed look that she gave him almost sent him into another fit.

"If that's what you want to go with, miss… Um, Bl-" yeah he couldn't say that name with a straight face, "Shooter, thank you for the help today, and thank you for restraining yourself when dealing with those Merchants."

Blue… no, Shooter responded with another undignified tch before walking away. It seemed she was done with what was going on and felt like it was time to leave.

"Uhh, hey, If you're able to, we'd like you to come with us down to the-"

Shooter spun, her blade forming in her hand in an instant, and Velocity found it pointed right at his throat almost as quickly. Shooter wasn't paying attention to him, but was instead eyeing the troopers behind him that he knew were responding to the threat.

He swiftly called out to everyone telling them that he was alright while raising his arms back up for the second time today. Shooter had that same look in her eye the last time they did this, the one where it seemed like she wasn't interested in playing games.

"We were just wondering if you could answer a few questions. You're free to refuse."

Shooter looked him dead in the eye for a few moments before shaking her head no.

"Alright, understood, you have a nice day. However, the director is-"

She was already dismissing her weapon and turned around, walking off into the night before he could finish. Shooter was an enigma if he ever came across one, and he wasn't sure if he wanted to be the one to unravel it or not.

 

[Gungrifin]

Natsu

Chang returned late. He said he would be gone for an hour, getting food; he did not return with food.

He disliked Chang, he was selfish and did not help others. Chang was young, didn't know how things were done around here. Didn't know that there were rules. He would learn in time or be tossed out. Natsu would stop bringing him food as well from now on and see how he liked it.

Natsu shivered, the chair was hard and the air was cold. There was no power in the building, at least the water was running. A warm coat would only help for the first few hours. He wanted to get up and move around, warm up a little. He wouldn't dare, not when he was responsible for guarding the stockpile. He would do what Lung-sama asked of him, gladly, even if it meant sitting and doing nothing for hours in a cold building with no power. There would be no safety in defying the dragon of Kyushu.

A sound down the hall had him standing, alert. The Demon Oni, Lung-sama's right hand.

Natsu stood back against the wall and let the Demon pass. He did not speak, did not look at him, only bowed with his eyes closed. Footsteps passed in front of him, heavy, he could feel The Demon as he passed by in his every being.

The door to the stockpile opened, Natsu didn't dare to open his eyes. Seconds passed, full of terror. He was the guard, it fell to him to safekeep the stockpile. If it was disturbed without him knowing, he would be blamed.

The Demon disposed of those that displeased him and his master.

He stood for minutes before hearing the door close. Footfalls passed by once more, Natsu only daring to break from his station after the Demon left. He sat back down, slowly. He was still alive, that… that was good. He would not question why the Demon was here, but he would need to inspect the stockpile, see what was left or taken-

His stomach rumbled, embarrassing, and fortunate that none was around to hear. He would check the stockpile later, confirm the inventory so that everything was in order. For now, he felt like getting some food.

—​

Emily Piggot

"So you just… let her go? No attempt to bring her in?"

Honestly, was the entire Protectorate division here in the bay trying to make her life as difficult as possible?

"Tell me Velocity, why did you think that was a good idea?"

The costumed hero stood at attention across from her desk, hands clasped behind his back and looking straight ahead. If it was anyone else, she would be chewing them out before telling them to get out of her office and do what she asked them to do; bring in the newest tinker and their creations.

She was sure the man didn't see it the same way, but she felt that the two of them had much in common, both coming from similar backgrounds of serving. That was not to say that she was happy with him just letting go of dangerous tinkertech that he and the troopers had dead to rights, but she could actually believe he had a good reason for doing what he did instead of just excuses.

"Ma'am, I believed that attempting to force the issue at the time would have been disastrous."

"Explain."

"While I can't speak for the other dolls, Shooter at the least has displayed an ability much similar to Miss Militia's power that lets her summon up weaponry out of nowhere. After seeing what her cannon was able to dish out in addition to her general fighting ability and temperament, it is my opinion that attempting to bring her in by force would have directly led to a fight that would have gotten many people injured or worse."

Emily did not twitch when the man said the name of the tinker toy. Glenn was absolutely adamant that they not refer to the doll with that name.

"You're not really making a good case here Velocity. That just sounds like a half-cocked vigilante that's doing whatever they want with no oversight. All the more reason to bring them in."

One of the very few things she liked about any of the people that she worked with was Velocity taking his job seriously. She was willing to listen to him pitch his case.

"Ma'am, I agree. Despite that, I believe that trying to build a rapport and get her to come in on her own would be preferable to burning bridges before we cross them. She has shown to be able to restrain herself to reasonable levels of force needed to subdue criminals and cooperate with us. I understand that this most recent behavior is not indicative of what we've seen up to this point, but needlessly antagonizing the dolls will, I believe, turn them away from us."

"In addition, should they actually turn hostile, I don't believe we have enough information on what they actually are in order to safely subdue any of the dolls. We still have yet to confirm if they are people or tinkertech, and the methods needed to restrain one may not work on the other. I don't like playing a guessing game on that when they would only need a moment to start tearing through the base. While I believe it is within our power to bring one in, I just don't think we can hold one of them for long."

She raised an eyebrow at that. "You still don't buy the tinker theory?"

"Director," Velocity broke out of his stance to look down at her behind her desk, "if they're actually tinkertech, they're the best I've ever seen. Something's… off, about them; I don't know what they are. Given what we've seen, I think the tinker theory is just as ludicrous as 3 people all triggering simultaneously with suspiciously similar powers. I still believe that there's something we're missing about the dolls that explains most if not everything."

Emily crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair, "That still leaves us with an out of control borderline independent that seems perfectly willing to play fast and hard with people's lives. On top of that, need I remind you that Lung is here in the bay? last I checked we have contingencies in place to bring him in and hold him should we catch him finally. I most certainly hope we can handle a few girls."

"I believe you are correct. However, need I remind you of the complete thrashing we received when Lung first showed up? Back when we thought he was just another brute and didn't know the first thing about his power? Those contingencies were made in hindsight. I'm not saying that the dolls are nearly as dangerous as Lung could be… at least I hope so, but I am pointing out that we are working off of guesses at best at the moment. In that regard the situations are fairly identical, they could be that dangerous and leaping before we look could be disastrous."

The both of them stared at each other in silence for a moment before she felt herself cracking a smile, "You made friends with an MP once, didn't you?"

The bastard was laughing, "I may have made an acquaintance with one once upon a time. Man was the only one on base with the balls to say no to the CO."

Emily shook her head before schooling her appearance back to something resembling professionalism, "Your concern has been noted. Quite frankly I don't care how you do it, just bring them in. If you can talk them into doing it under their own power then by all means, but they are coming in. Sometime soon, am I clear?"

The hero stood a little straighter, "Yes Ma'am"

"Good, now, what the hell is legal doing breathing down my neck about your power and compressed gas?"

—​

Natsu

20 minutes, he was gone for 20 minutes and he had food for him and the others. What was Chang even doing?

Bah, it did not matter. The Demon did not kill him, he had food, he was able to move around and warm up a little. Today was a good day. He would leave dealing with Chang for the future.

The kitchen was empty when he got back. He expected to see at least one of the others that he didn't know the name of in here. There was a bowl of soup left out on the table, still warm.

He would deal with whoever would waste food later, he was hungry. He sat down and began to eat his takeout. He wondered for a moment about eating the soup as well, but it was for someone else and was the wrong stock for noodles.

He enjoyed his meal in silence. Silence which started to concern him. Where was everyone? Why did someone just leave soup out? Reaching over, the bowl was warm and the soup steaming. It was made recently, very recently.

Natsu put down his meal, his hunger no longer a concern. The warehouse was quiet. He didn't see anyone when he came in except the man at the front door.

… He would go and check on the stockpile.

—​

Emily Piggot

Emily had her elbows up on her desk and was cradling her head in her hands. Not because of what Velocity told her he was supposedly able to do, but that it was undocumented, and that meant paperwork.

Mostly undocumented, legal knew about it and had told him to never, ever, ever use it again.

"Velocity how long have you been able to do this for?"

"Since my early days from before I joined up with the Protectorate actually."

"Sounds like there's a story there." She reached her hand out towards the hero, "Can I see one of these things?"

A small silver capsule was deposited into her hand. Steel most likely, barely weighed anything. Emily felt like she had seen something like this once before, but it was currently eluding her.

"An old friend fiddled with bikes as a hobby back in the day. It's…" Emily fixed the man a glare, "...Not important ultimately. To start, that capsule holds around 6 liters of air I believe?"

Why are you asking me.

"It might be a little more. Anyway, I can't do anything with that by itself. I need this," He says as he fishes out what looks to be a bottle cap from one of his pouches, "in order to break the seal and actually release any of the CO2 stored inside."

Emily thought over what the cape told her. Putting a few large bottles of soda worth of air in a single spot, dumping the entire cartridge all at once basically if the man's power was anything to go by, sounded like it could do some serious damage if misused. No wonder the legal team was foaming at the mouth over this stunt.

"These parts seem simple. Are these off the shelf?"

"Yes actually, the cartridges are anywhere from 5$ to 20$ for a pack of 'em. They're refillable however, so you really only need to get a single pack. The cap I had custom made and none of it is tinkertech."

Well that was good news, in a sense. No tinkertech review process to put the man's toys through.

"I'm actually curious what legal said if you don't mind me asking, director. Wondering if it's the same as what they told me the first time around."

Emily held out the silver capsule for the cape to take back, "Don't use it on people essentially. Something about causing damage to eyes and eardrums, that sound about right?"

"Yeah that sounds about right. I was wondering if they changed their minds on that yet or not. Good to know."

—​

Natsu

There was no sound in the warehouse other than his steps. He had yet to run across anyone. It was as if they had been spirited away.

The door to the stockpile was wide open. Natsu picked up a stray pipe on the ground and slowly approached the door. He was a dead man walking if it was empty. If whoever it was that raided the warehouse was still here, he was set on taking them with him.

He stopped right at the entrance, peeking inside slowly. The corners of the room still had the crates in it so he would not be dying today. Maybe tomorrow, for failing to guard the stockpile properly.

He could hear someone rummaging around inside, sifting through a crate. Something was dropped on the ground. Someone was still here, looking for something in the stockpile. They were distracted, now was a good time to catch them by surprise.

Who knows, maybe he could present them as atonement for his failings. Maybe he would not be dying today or tomorrow.

Natsu took a moment to steel his resolve from behind the door. He counted down before finally screaming a battle cry and charged into the stockpile after the intruder.

His enthusiasm did not last long.

Standing in the middle of the room was a woman figure. Unnaturally long hair dyed in crimson blood. Demonic clawed hands were digging through a crate, looking for something to tear up or curse with their touch. Pale white skin like pure snow and evil horns grew from their head.

They turned, and Feng felt the color drain from his face. They were inhuman, unnatural.

"Yōkai"

The Demon… Oni Lee, he was just a man playing up a myth. He knew that now as every part of his soul warned him that this was a true oni. One not to be trifled with.

He wanted to move, to run. A part of him told him it would be futile, worthless effort. Another part screamed that it was getting closer and he listened. He ran, pipe forgotten, as he made his way out of the stockpile and back into the rest of the warehouse.

It was so quiet and empty, he could barely hear his own footfalls over his heart thundering in his chest. He looked back to an empty hallway but he dare not stop, knowing that it was still here.

A hateful eye opened up on the wall in front of him, full of red rage and malice. He skid to a stop and went down a different path. The eye followed him no matter where he went. He made no guesses as to its purpose. It would always show itself once he got near an exit. It didn't want him to leave, having seen it already, seen too much.

A touch of cold metal clasped around his neck as he turned a corner. He was yanked into the air, caught in Its grasp. It bore into him with it's unblinking, emotionless eyes. In it's other hand swam the souls of the damned, its previous victims. He wondered if Chang was in there somewhere.

The torrent that spewed forth from Its hand coalesced into a cruel weapon that he had trouble calling a sword. Every facet of it was meant to hurt and maim and rend. It was large, impractical, not a proper blade. He did not want to know how heavy it was, for it looked to be just as large as it's owner.

It lifted both him and the weapon off the ground, each in one of it's hands. He looked away as it swung it's blade. For a moment he was confused, not feeling the bite of it's blade. Only when he opened his eyes again did he see what it had done.

Below him a doorway to hell had opened up, the weapon tearing through the border of this realm and that. Colors mixed and clashed, shapes formed as he looked on. He held no illusions as to It's intentions now, for it wanted him to make him suffer and deny him a quick death.

Just as quickly as It caught him, it let him go. He was falling, falling down into that abyss where he would meet his end. He took one last look up as he fell, to see his killer one last time, but the doorway had already closed behind him.

Natsu screamed like a little girl the entire way down.

 

[Gungrifin]

Daniel Hebert

Danny looked up to the sign on the side of the building. It read "The Witch's Brewery" and featured some character stirring a large black pot with one hand while holding a coffee cup in the other. It was a little goofy and he couldn't help himself from chuckling a bit.

When Taylor told him that she'd gotten a job he was so happy for her. Happy that she seemed to be finally coming out of her shell that she retreated into at the start of the year. Happy that she seemed to be recovering enough to leave the house.

It ate him up, looking back, knowing that he'd dropped the ball the past few years and not once did he notice. It all seemed so simple when he wasn't paying attention. Taylor had friends at school, he had his work in front of him, they ate dinner together, talked about how their day went before going to bed, and the whole thing started up again in the morning.

And then January happened, and he finally started to actually look.

He shook his head, that was then and this was now. He couldn't… didn't do anything for his little girl before, he was damned if he was going to let that continue.

Stepping into the shop, he could tell why she liked the place. It was small with only a few booths and tables. He would be surprised if you could cram more than 20 people in here. It was decorated with shelves full of books and prop spider webs, crystal balls, candles and more on the sides. The front counter was enclosed and shaped like the outside of a small hut. The shop's menu hung above a window that held a cash register and his daughter that was currently hiding her face with her hands. To the left of the hut was a more traditional counter that held a pastry display with various mugs, coffee pots, and bags of grounds on the shelving behind it.

Further to the left had trees that rose up to the ceiling. A sign hung from the branches indicating that the restrooms were that way, deeper in the forest. He heard Taylor talk about how much fun work was, but seeing it in person was something entirely different. He could tell that this was someone's passion project.

Annette would have loved this place.

He walked up to the counter with a grin on his face considering how Taylor was reacting, "Hi there, can I get a double espresso please?"

"Dad, go away, what are you even doing here?"

Well, he was her parent first of all, he was practically required to embarrass her at every opportunity. "Work is out for lunch right now and I thought I'd stop by and see what all the hubbub is all about."

Ok, he might be overdoing it, but he'd rather overdo it than not do anything anymore. His daughter started to shoo him away, "Go sit down and give me a second."

"Stella," she called out into the back. A dark haired worker poked her head out a moment later, "Dad's visiting, I'm going on break for a minute."

"Alrighty, hello there sir!" He waved back to the other worker as she retreated back to whatever it was she was doing in the back.

—​

"So, you seem to be having fun." He said from behind his cup of espresso.

"Well, kinda? It's work but I'm enjoying it."

"I can see that, that's good," he took a sip of the coffee his daughter made, no employee discount though. "So… is anyone giving you trouble here?"

"Dad! I'm fine."

"The last time you told me that you ended up in the hospital." He put the coffee down, full dad mode engaging, "Forgive me if I want some reassurances."

Taylor slumped her shoulders, it hurt him to do that to her but he NEEDED to know. He'd take a bullet before he let his daughter get hurt again.

"Dad. I'm serious. Everything is alright here. Stella's nice and loves to talk to people, Chris is a bit of a chatterbox but he's mostly harmless, and I don't even share a shift with Mary or Stacy."

He raised an eyebrow at that, "Wait, is there only 5 people that work here?" That seemed odd.

"Yeah, well, there's Tim as well, but he's the owner and never around really. We're left alone to run the place so long as it's not on fire at the end of the day."

Hmm, interesting. "Sounds like he places a lot of trust in all of you. How's business?"

"Slow, I'm not sure if you noticed on the way here but it's not exactly on the boardwalk properly." He did, it was a little out of the way. Surprising that it was as empty as it was right now with it being the lunch rush. "We don't get all that many customers, most of them are regulars who just like the place."

"Yeah, I saw that coming in." He looked up at all the fake tree branches running across the ceiling, "Who set all this up? Was it the owner?"

"No, this is all Stella's work." She pointed around the shop to the various props to emphasize, "I'm helping her out with the bookshelves at the moment. Making a few paper-mache tomes and such to put on the shelves."

Hearing that made his heart swell, he was so proud of her that he just couldn't help himself. It was good that she had a project to work on, a hobby. He could only hope that it would help her heal and move on. They didn't have a lot of room in the house for hobbies. Maybe it was finally time to clear out the basement?

"That sounds wonderful. Do you need anything for that, like supplies?"

Taylor shook her head, "Stella's providing everything out of her pocket. It's her project, I'm just helping out."

"Well, good for her then." He took another sip of his coffee as they both sat there in relative silence. There was no one else in the shop at the time. It was a different kind of silence that they shared when they used to eat dinner together. Before, it was more that they just didn't say much at all. Now there was a feeling of actual contentment, of closeness that came with just enjoying the company of someone else.

The bell on the front door chimed. Danny turned around out of idle curiosity. It was a blond girl about Taylor's age, one that spotted the both of them and immediately waved as she walked over to their table.

"Hey Lisa, how's things?" His daughter said to the newcomer.

"Hey Taylor, s'all good." She held up a binder of sorts, "I actually got some news for ya."

Danny looked back over to his daughter and raised an eyebrow. Once she noticed he further emphasized by nudging his head in the girl's direction, "Don't worry, she's a friend."

"A 'friend', riiiight."

"Wow, that actually hurt. Ok, I see how it is. Tay, who's this?"

"Dad."

"Ohhhh, that makes sense." Lisa turned towards him, hand outstretched, "Hi there Mr. Hebert. I'm Lisa."

He gave the girl a look over, trying to gauge just how much he was willing to trust the newcomer. "Danny, please." He shook her hand.

Lisa shifted her weight over to one of her feet, "Whatever you say Danny. Also, wow, you really don't trust me do you?"

Not for a second, "You could say we've both had some trouble with trust and friends recently."

Lisa snorted, "Based on what I've seen, yeah, I can tell."

He felt like his face was going to get stuck if he kept raising his eyebrow like this. "Can I ask what you mean by that?"

"I've read her journal, I'm surprised you even let her out of the house."

That… was concerning, and had many implications. He turned back to his daughter. "Your journal? Like, that journal?"

Taylor grimaced, "Well, maybe friend is the wrong word, more like an acquaintance?"

"Wow," Lisa clutched her chest like she just got stabbed, "I stand corrected, that hurt. Tay scoot over, I've been walking like all day." Taylor complied and Lisa squeezed into the booth across the table from him. "And to answer your question, assuming we're talking about the same thing which I'm sure we are, yes, that journal." She turned back to his daughter, "Speaking of that frickin' log you dropped in my lap, do you have any idea how long it took me to photocopy that thing? You could kill someone with it."

Danny didn't know what to say. He felt a curious mix of emotions. Happy that his daughter was opening up to people enough to talk about what she'd gone through. Hurt that she hadn't even mentioned this friend of hers. Worry that she was being taken advantage of.

He didn't have any proof that that last one, he literally just met the girl, but the feeling was there anyway. Some might say he was being clingy and overprotective, some could go take a long walk off a short pier for all he cared.

"Why?" He asked, turning towards Taylor.

His daughter started to shy away, like she just got caught stealing cookies. It felt like an ice pick straight to the heart, but he powered through it. "Well, she asked for it, and I thought it could help."

He sighed, "Alright, someone start over at the beginning, what's going on?"

Lisa stuck her hand out across the table, "Hi there Danny, let's start that again. Lisa Wilbourn, Private Eye. I heard what your daughter went through and offered my help to try to see what I could do to make the situation better."

That made his eyes go wide. Why would a private investigator offer help? They didn't have the money to even hire one to begin with… unless Taylor was using her nighttime activities to pay for it. Was that why she was going out at night? Busting up drug dens or whatever else she was doing that made it to the news so she could hire a PI to investigate Winslow?

Yes, he knew that his little girl was a cape. He was about to ground her into the next century when he learned that she was sneaking out of the house at night, but that was before she saved all those people at Medhall a week ago.

If her being gone from the house until the crisis on every news channel was over wasn't obvious enough, the fact that she returned while still changed into her other form would have done it. She was bruised all over and holding her sides when she came in the back door, damn near gave him a heart attack thinking a cape had just busted into the house.

He had his suspicions before then, but seeing it all out in the open was a real eye opener. His little girl was the new cape out in the bay. The one actually doing something and cleaning house out there. She never told him, not a word.

That was the one thing that hurt the most. Not the sheer incompetence on display at Winslow, not he and his supposed friend socking each other after getting into a fight, not the journal and the sheer weight of the damn thing. The fact that she still couldn't fully open up to him stung like nothing else.

It was a bit of an open secret at this point, one that the both of them shared. She barely said a word to him, he helped her up to her room, she shut the door, changed, and walked back out like there was absolutely nothing wrong in the world. There wasn't a hint of her being hurt. If that's how she wanted to handle it, to just ignore it until she felt comfortable around him again, then he would happily play the part.

He didn't like it, not one bit. It felt far too much like how they had been doing things up until now. Pretending. He couldn't bring himself to call her out on it. Not when she was doing some real good out there. Not when she was finally getting better.

He didn't dare risk her crawling back into her shell again. He'd give her the time and space she needed, and let her come to him when she felt like it.

—​

Lisa Wilbourn

"Dad?" Taylor called out. Danny had been staring down at his coffee for the past minute or so, lost in thought. There were so many juicy things her power picked up on just now. A fair amount she was going to need to sift through and see what were false flags and what not. Taylor was potentially a cape? That was news, and if her gut was anything to go by she had an inkling as to what caused it. It just made what she was about to do to Psycho Stalker all that much sweeter.

"Sorry, thinking about some things. Lisa was it? You were just talking about some sort of help?"

"Yeah, I offered my services after Tay here gave me a little bit of her story. I gotta say, I cant believe that those girls got away with what they did scot free. I don't like it and I want to help."

Hey, it was true even. The girl had been dealt a really shitty hand and hadn't truly realized just how far down that rabbit hole went.

"While I appreciate the offer, I'm afraid money is a bit tight at the moment. I know those kinds of things cost a fair amount and I don't believe we can afford it right this second."

Lisa waved the man off. "Don't sweat it. I'm doing it because I want to, not because I want to get paid for it. Speaking of which, that's actually why I'm here today."

She took out the binder of notes she'd compiled over the past few days. The one that she was going to pin Shadow Bitch to a wall in court with. "I got some good news, also some teeny tiny bad news."

"What's the bad news?" Danny asked.

Damn, he's super protective right now. Not that she blamed him but still…

"Ok, well, how do I put this? Uhh… There's a lot more stuff going on that's immediately obvious with this case. Stuff that might make you guys start jumping to conclusions if you get it in little bits at a time. So, and please believe me this will only be a few days until this one guy responds back to me, I'm going to have to keep the both of you in the dark a bit." She bit her lip after saying that last portion. There was no way-

"No," There it is, it would come from the dad, "I've dealt with people keeping things from me too much already. Nearly lost my only family I have left because of stuff like that."

Not like she could really contest that one… "Can I give the good news first? They're related I swear and it will be well worth your time."

Danny huffed, "My answer hasn't changed, you can give us your good news if you want but we're not going to have things we need to know kept from us anymore."

"Dad!"

"No, Taylor, I'm not going to budge on this. The school didn't say a single word to me about any of the harassment that you received in 2 whole years. The police didn't even deign to inform me that my own daughter had filed police reports. I'm not going to have my chain get yanked around anymore. I thank you for trying to help out, miss, but If you have something to share then share it or get lost."

The man brought his hand up with those last few words, thumb pointing towards the front door. If he was a bull he would be huffing hot air through his nostrils right now. Lisa sighed, so much for doing this the easy way.

"Alright, I'll give the good news first. First off, I'm 90% sure we can take this to court on attempted murder. Failing that, there's basically no way you're coming out of this without a lawsuit for emotional damages and such in the bag."

Lisa sat back and let the two of them digest that for a moment. She didn't even need her power to tell that Taylor was surprised and Danny was skeptical.

"Miss, while I appreciate the help, you might find the legal route to be difficult to pursue. I don't know if you know this or not, but we… had to settle out of court. Taylor was put in the hospital and we had bills piling up. You can't sue the school, it'll get thrown out as soon as that fact comes up."

Is used to dealing with legalese. Best friend is a lawyer. No longer friends with-

Lisa cut her power off for a second and let loose one of her smirks, "Well, I have more good news it seems, Winslow's not who you're suing."

That brought the man up short. She could see the gears in his head turning and she'd be genuinely surprised if he was able to figure it out with what little she was giving him. "I can't see anyone else but the girls themselves be the ones the attempted murder charge goes up against. Suing for damages requires a party to be negligent and allow a situation to cause damages to begin with, but we can't go after the school; That's out of the question."

Danny broke out of his contemplation and looked back at her, "Who else could possibly be involved? Or… let me guess, you can't say."

Lisa held up her hands in faux surrender. Like she was about to say out loud that it was the PRT, "I'm waiting for this lawyer to get back to me that he's onboard and we're good to go. He's more than happy to-"

"No, thank you Lisa but we'll deal with it ourselves."

Damn, the man's gone full papa bear. Her power was also telling her that he had the temper to match, one that he was struggling to keep under control. Fine, if that's how he wanted to do it she'd play along. Lisa held up a finger in front of all of them.

"One hour, I'ma text him and if he doesn't respond I'll spill."

"Lisa," Danny growled out.

"If he does," She pushed on, "I'll put him on speaker phone and we can all sit down and discuss options right here right now. One hour, that's all I ask for." Danny looked genuinely upset, like, sheesh, she knew where he was coming from but man did he have a stick up his ass.

"Alright," Taylor said, surprising the both of them. "Go ahead."

"Taylor!"

"No, dad, it's fine." she looked back and forth between the two. "I've been waiting to know why Emma did what she did for years now. I can wait an hour longer."

Well, she had the daughter's approval, but papa bear was the one concerning her at the moment. The man was looking over at Taylor, clearly conflicted on what he should do. Eventually, he turned back to her, steepled his hands together in front of him, and told her with steel in his voice, "This had better be good."

With that, Lisa flipped out her phone-

Tt: got hbrts w me rn. pa wnts to tlk, now. r u avlb?

-and placed it down on the table for everyone to see once she was done. Danny continued to glare at her from across the table.

"Dad, don't you have work to get back to?"

"Kurt's dealing with it."

Interesting, "Ok, I know you're mad at me right now but you got me curious. What do you do?"

"Head of hiring at the DWU."

That didn't sound right, Lisa swore that her research on the man placed him quitting a few months ago. "Didn't you stop working there a while back? I believe you used to be head of hiring. Basically ran the place based on what I dug up, that correct?" Danny shifted his glare to now give a look, "Dude, Private Eye. This is literally my job."

A low rumble escaped the man's throat. "I went on vacation for a while, yes. I had a few months saved up and I took some time off to be with Taylor after we pulled her out of school. After the… thing back in January."

Alright alright. Don't have to bite my head-

Her phone went off in front of her. That was fast.

Was waiting for you to make contact. Made room in his schedule.

Lisa snorted as she picked her phone up-

Qc: Your texts are a crime. I'm available.

-and then snorted a little more. The look the both of them were giving her almost made her do it again.

"Hey Tay, do you think we can use the back? Legal stuff, I'm not doing this out here in the lobby."

"Sure, I don't think it will be an issue. Just let me tell Stella."

Lisa scooted out from the booth to let Taylor go. Danny got up as well. Man still had an intense look about him, but she was giving him what he wanted so he could at least be a little grateful. And to think, all of this to fling some mud in Stalker's eye…

—​

Kurt

Man, where was Danny? Dude finally got back from vacay and here he was throwing his work right back at him. If they weren't friends he'd sock the man right in the-

"Kurt."

"Danny! Where the hell were you, lunch doesn't take that-"

"Kurt."

Kurt stopped talking real quick, as a matter of fact most of everyone around them stopped doing a lot of things. It got real quiet real fast and he could have sworn the temperature dropped a degree or two.

"...Yes boss?"

"Do we have any scrap metal that needs to be recycled? Large pieces?"

"Uhh, I think so. Why?"

"Show me, and someone bring me a sledge."

…

Ohhhh boy oh howdy, boss was mad. Not just mad. Hebert Mad. Last time this happened they had to hide a few bodies.

 

[Gungrifin]

Max Anders

Max did not, thankfully, need to give up his position in order to keep his company afloat. It just took a simple pledge to take a pay cut, a generous stimulus from his personal coffers in order to buy new property and equipment as soon as possible, and minimum survey manipulation. He was also continuing to pay all of his employees out of his own pocket in the short term, regardless of the fact that they were technically out of a job. All of this came together to paint him as someone who put his company before its profits, a simple message that did two things.

First, it told his employees that he genuinely was on their side. They would adore him for this. The second was for later. If the board decided that his decision to cut profits was objectionable, they could have fun losing every single employee as he calls for the workers to abandon ship.

Not that he would let them actually cast him out to begin with, but you could never be too careful with letting those under you know their proper place.

"And it is with great pleasure that I announce that Medhall will begin production once more in the coming weeks. New production facilities are being acquired even as we speak. The equipment needed to start back up is still being sourced but we are hopeful to begin installing and outfitting our new facilities by the end of the week."

The masses spread out before him cheered at the news. Max honestly just wanted to get this over with as soon as possible. Normally he would be ecstatic at the opportunity to put his oration to the test, but all of the showings he had to make over the past week or so was beginning to leave him exhausted. He was tired of playing this particular part of his life right this moment. Tired of putting on a different kind of mask.

"Please," he raises his hand up to the crowd, "Our precious employees deserve the praise, not me. I am only the one financing this endeavor. Truth be told it would be easier, cheaper, faster to start up another company and just try again. But we live in the greatest country on this planet!" Max punctuated that last part by slamming his fist down on the podium, injecting some generic patriotism into his speech. "We do not do things the easy way here. I do not do things because they are easy, or they will make a quick buck. I was raised better than that and I do things because they are right!."

"It would be easier, but whatever it would be wouldn't be Medhall. I'd like to think that that name means something to a few people." He put both his hands on the podium and leaned in for the finisher to his speech, "We have been hard at work to directly acquire alternative sources of insulin, over the counter prescriptions, and other daily necessities for our customers while we weather this setback, but weather it we shall. Medhall is here to stay!"

The gathered crowd collectively lost it with the conclusion of his speech. He waved for the cameras before walking off the stage. Victor was waiting for him just off the stage and walked with him to the awaiting car.

"An excellent speech sir."

He nodded once in response. He felt drained making all these damn appearances, but thankfully they were mostly over with. He wouldn't show how he was really feeling until they were behind closed doors, and even then he wouldn't relax fully.

"Quite, the public seem to agree as well. How goes your investigation into the matter I asked you about the other day?"

Victor didn't respond as they were just about to enter the car he had rented out for this event. The cameras were rolling no doubt so the both of them just waved as they stepped into the car. The doors were locked, the windows rolled up, and directions to the Empire gathering were given to Krieg who was driving. Only once they had pulled away from the event and gotten a few blocks did Victor finally speak.

"Frustratingly nowhere, sir, I'll start with the PRT. The troopers have been briefed on these unmasked freaks it seems." Well, at least one portion of the ineffective government was working, even if it was the one he would have preferred to be the least useful. "They know of 3 of them, one of which has an actual name while the others are simply referred to by their color. There is also heavy suspicion of more existing that haven't shown themselves yet."

"All of them have been shown to have some brute rating, but other than that they all diverge and specialize one way or another. The running theory is that these… Things are tinkertech. I find it hard to believe personally, If only due to us never hearing a word of a new tinker in the bay. You know we keep track of the local junkyards and a close eye on who goes in and out of the boat graveyard. I just don't see how one could just pop up out of nowhere and produce 3 or more of these things out of nothing. Outside of that the explanation mostly holds up, but even the PRT don't fully believe it it seems."

Hmm… a curious case. "What of the suspected powers and ratings?"

The car took a turn as Victor spoke back up, "The brute rating for them is suspected to be around 2 to 4 with a note that it may be higher. Most of the ratings have that attached to them actually, so who knows. Starting with the named one, a 'Knight', Mover 2 but mostly ground bound. Its brute rating is higher than the others, starting at 5. Oh, I forgot, they all also have a tentative tinker rating of 1. I assume it's to remind the troopers that their equipment could be tinkertech as well. That was something they were fairly adamant about."

"No real power to speak of. Like I said, they suspect that it's tinkertech and are just assigning them ratings for the moment. We'll know as soon as that changes."

The car made another turn, "Moving on to the others we have simply 'Blue' and 'Green'."

Kaiser let out a quick chuckle, "I was almost hoping you were trying to be humorous earlier. They really called themselves that?"

Victor grimaced, "Well, no, this is just what they tell the troopers. Our man was present when they responded to an incident involving this 'Blue'. Apparently, and I assure you sir I wish I was joking when I say this, it referred to itself as," the man cleared his throat, "'Black Rock Shooter'."

He… he almost didn't want to know. "Is this the one that has been interfering with our operations? The one with the cannon?"

"Indeed sir," The car came to a stop at a light, "Supposedly in reference to the projectiles that it fires from that damn cannon of it's."

Kaiser hung his head in the blacked out car. "Well, that's… a unique name."

Victor let out a sigh, "Against my better judgment, I did some cursory research. I'm led to believe that these might belong to one of the lesser races. The… name bears some resemblance to eastern languages' fondness for bastardizing western words into nonsensical titles. I'm not sure which one."

That was potentially concerning, "Do you think the ABB got their hands on yet another Tinker?" Because having a tinker that specialized in fucking bombs wasn't good enough it seemed.

"No, it seems the PRT believes them to be independent at worst, and a potential recruit to the government forces at best. They appear to be going after all of the gangs in the bay, not just the Empire. The ABB have had warehouses raided as well as those Merchant scum. I'd hazard a guess, but they seem to think themselves heroic."

Kaiser scoffed, if they thought they could operate here in the Empire's territory with no support then they were going to be in for a wake up call, soon. The fact that they weren't under Lung's thumb made him hopeful that the problem would sort itself out in short order, one way or another.

"Which brings me to that one's ratings," Victor continued as the car lurched forward again. "Fairly high Blaster rating with its weapon sitting around 4, Mover 1 with a focus on agility and dexterity, and a special note attached to the Brute rating that states it's trained in hand to hand and close quarters. Another note attached to its Tinker rating, it's been shown to call forth its weaponry out of nothing."

"They suspect that the others might also be capable of such, the green one in particular considering what it displayed during the attack on the HQ, but no confirmation."

Kaiser thought that over, this one might give them a bit of trouble if they were careless. "What of the equipment of the first one?"

"Ah, my apologies sir. Other than some mechanized leggings that give it its mover rating? It uses a sword and shield. Although, calling what that one has a shield is an understatement. The thing is about as big as a bank vault door. I suspect it's tougher than the others."

With that description, he agreed. He would leave that one for Fenja and Menja; show it just how worthless it really was in the face of some proper warriors.

"The third one I assume needs no introduction." Yes, the demonic green one, "Not much is known about this one it seems. It looks like the attack on the HQ was its only showing."

"Really?"

"Supposedly. They know basically nothing anyone else knows about it. Its suspected ratings are all in question and none are out of line of the supposed baseline."

Kaiser sat back and digested all that he had just been told. Some he dismissed, some he had reason to pay attention to. A new tinker in the bay all by itself with delusions of being a hero? That just sounded like it was time for a reality check.

"Good work Victor. Now, how goes tracking down this supposed tinker?"

—​

Robin Swoyer

Velocity was out on patrol when he ran across a curious scene. A doll was on a roof looking out across the city. This one he hadn't seen before, which brought the total up to 4. She had long flowing hair that came down almost to her legs, spiked gauntlets, and a pair of horns similar to the one that was present during the battle downtown. She had a foot up on the lip of the edge of the roof and he wasn't sure exactly why she was here.

Maybe she was looking for something? Keeping watch over an area? Were any of the other dolls doing anything right this second?

He climbed up to the roof via the fire exit, sending off a burst to console letting them know what he had found. Once up on top, he made his way to the center of the roof before dropping his power. He let a few seconds pass, wondering if they knew he was there yet or not. Once it seemed like they weren't going to turn around, he called out and began to walk over.

"Hello there miss!" The doll damn near jumped a foot in the air at that.

Turning around, he got confirmation that yes it was in fact a doll. The skin and face were a dead ringer for their style. He couldn't tell if she had a color theme or not with how little light there was. If she had one it was dark. She sported some intricate greaves that seemed to entirely cover her legs in addition to the gauntlets. Nothing else stood out to him, other than the fact that she didn't seem to be able to see.

Her eyes were shut tight and she was all but looking around the rooftop for him. An arm was up, protective but in the open, like she didn't know where he was exactly. He called out once more, maybe she was blind?

"Miss, are you alri-"

Velocity hung his mouth open as a giant red eye opened up on a building far away. He immediately recognized the iris pattern all of the dolls shared. It closed just as fast as it opened, only to open back up much closer on a different building this time. He wasn't sure exactly what he was seeing.

The next time it appeared, it was right on the roof the both of them shared. Under his feet as a matter of fact.

Ok, this was a little weird. She's able to look far away? Spread her vision around and make it appear on other surfaces? Maybe this was more of a support doll, one meant for ops like work?

As he contemplated the implications of the doll's ability, he idly noticed that she had been backing up away from him. Just as he began to call out for her to watch her step, the eye on the roof closed up. The doll opened her eyes right as she tripped over the edge of the roof. They were bright red, almost like rubies.

His power was up to full in an instant. She was going to fall off the building if he didn't try to help. They'd never seen this one before, he couldn't know if she had the same brute abilities that the others displayed. Walking over, he planted one foot on the lip of the roof, took her outstretched hand, and nope nope ohh fuck-

He almost got pulled over the edge alongside her. Were they all this heavy? He sighed, now she was even further over the edge. Just what he needed. Well, he certainly wasn't going to be able to catch her by himself, time to go and use a foam grenade like a cushion.

Down on the ground he found the spot that she was most likely to land on and pulled out one of his grenades. They weren't meant to be used this way, but they could. He had developed an excellent sense of timing over the years.

Looking up, she had started to call forth some of that energy that Shooter used to form her weapons into her hands. This time it was red instead of blue, guess that was what they were going to be calling her for the time being. He let up off his power a little bit to watch the fall in slow motion. Part to get the timing right and part to see what Red was doing.

In her hand formed a ridiculously large blade. He was pretty sure it didn't fall under any formal category, the closest he could think was a giant saber. After it formed fully, Red began to angle it towards the side of the building she was falling down next to.

Velocity thought she was going to try to use it to stop her momentum by tearing half of the brickwork out. What actually happened left him at a loss for words. The saber plunged into the building and left a streak of color in its wake. A tear of different hues ran down the building as Red slowed her descent. She was able to stop herself around the second story at which Velocity re-holstered the grenade and let the world spin back up to normal.

Red sat there, clinging to the side of the building off of her saber that was in the wall. She hoisted herself up and then sat on top of her saber like it was a bench. Looking down, she spotted him staring up at her. Red tilted her head and let off what might have been a smile as she waved to him.

Velocity simply didn't know how to respond, so he waved back automatically. She turned back towards the tear in the side of the building and stuck her gauntlets into it, forcing it open wider. With a quick look back she jumped in, long hair trailing behind her as the saber thing was consumed by the closing tear.

 

[Gungrifin]

Cherrel Bailey

Aww hell. She didn't have the space to run the coolant line like she woulda' liked. The cabin was gonna run a bit hot, nothin' she couldn't deal with but it was gonna be a sauna once they got rollin'.

Cherrel dragged herself out from under the hood of her baby, oil and special tinker liquids spattered across her skin and clothes. It was times like this that she actually felt like she needed a shower. She took the flashlight outta her mouth and placed it down on a counter nearby before grabbin' a screwdriver, pliers and hamma. Needa pop this cover back on and fix it back in place before-

"Hey slut," her ass got slapped from behind while she was elbow deep in the engine, almost made her drop her tools, "How's the ride?"

"Skids! Don't do that, damn near dropped ma stuff down in the engine. You know I ain't gettin' any of that back unless I completely tear it apart again."

"Well don't present this fine ass out in the fuckin' open then! How's it lookin'?" Skids leaned over with her to absentmindedly check out her work. She knew he didn't understand hide nor hair of what she was doin', but she appreciated him tryin'.

"I ain't got the room to do what I wanted unless I run a line outside or somethin'. You know how hot the cabin gets when we have it runnin' for a while."

"Bitch feels like a fuckin' inferno, yeah. Can't fix the fucker without even more work?"

"Yeah, I need ma cuttin' torch cuz we already slapped the armor on. It'll take too long if you wanna roll tonight."

"Well fuck that!" Skids pulled his head out from under the hood. Cherrel went back to work while Skids continued talkin' in the garage behind her. "We got us a gig and some cocksucker is payin' the big bucks for The Merchants to do what we do best. Raise some fuckin' hell! We were gonna do that anyway, why not get paid for it. What did they say in that one movie? The Aleph one with the fuckin' bat dude?"

She stopped working for a moment, tryin' to remember herself. "If you good at somethin', don't do it for free?"

"Knew I kept you around for a reason." Ass, she was smiling under the hood thou.

With the final screw back in place and the panel bent back into shape, she was done with her work. Tools were deposited back where they go and the hood dropped back down. Looking over, Skids was taking a hit off of a joint. Next to him was his new toy, the big gun thing.

"Alright, I'm all done." She pulled on her shirt a bit, wincing at the smell, "Feel like washin' all this gunk off thou."

Skids shrugged his shoulders before taking another hit "Make it quick, fuckstick was real specific about the time tonight. Showtime starts in 40."

"Who's payin' again?"

"Uhh, bah… I dunno. Spring? Screw? Don't know don't care so long as we get our fuckin' money." Skids passed the joint to her as he picked up his toy. "Im'a go set this bitch up on top."

—​

They were rumblin' down the street half an hour later. Her baby was purrin' like a kitten, but she could feel some weird vibration coming from the back. Didn't feel it till they got up to speed, and it dropped out as they took corners. Maybe one of the wheels was misaligned? She was gonna need to look at it when they got back.

It was hot as all get out in the cabin. Cherrel hauled a small bucket of ice up out of the icebox and strapped it down next to her for the moment. An ice cube every now and again in the mouth was helping, but it was still way too hot. She'd have to rip out the passenger seat to fit a unit up in here just so she didn't cook herself driving the thing in the future.

"Skiddy, where we goin'?"

"Down by the fuckin' pier and shit. Needa be able to see the fuckin' rig."

Squealer took a right to begin heading off towards the bay. The rig? Wonder what Skids wanted with the rig. "That's ABB turf. You sure about this?"

"Fuck yeah I'm sure! The Mother Fuckin' Merchants don't fear shit! We own this city and everyone's been playin' us for fools for too long. Ya gotta kick some assholes around every now and again. Make 'em jog their goldfish brains and make 'em remember why The Archer Bridge Merchants are the top dog around here!"

Well, she didn't know about that, but her Skiddy knew best. "I'ma cut through the old cannery grounds, that sound good?"

"Ohh hell no, that place smells like weeks old ass and pits and… Squealer… Squealer!"

Too late, she was already turning to bust through the fenced off area. Her baby barely felt the padlock bust as she took out the gate.

"Woman! The fuck did I just get done sayin'. Aww fuck me sideways, I can actually smell that."

Squealer let out a small giggle. Teach ya to touch my ass when I'm workin'.

"Alright this is good, gimme a good look at the fuckin' rig. God it smells."

She maneuvered them out onto the waterfront where the boats used to come in. Warehouses on one side and the bay on the other. She threw her baby in park and turned around to ask her skiddy what exactly they were doin' out here. Before she could say anythin', she heard a whine from all the car batteries they scrounged up in the back of the truck. Her baby rocked forward in the next moment, then again, and then again.

"WOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOO, TAKE THAT YOU CUM-GUZZLIN' COCKMUNCHERS, HAVE SOME FUCKIN' MORE WHILE YA AT IT."

Wait, was he firin' his toy at the rig? "Babe, stop, the hell are you doin'?"

"GETTIN' THEIR ATTENTION." A bright light bloomed around them and she closed her eyes on reflex. Slowly opening them back up she could make out Skids crawling down and closing the tank hatch behind him. "Holy shit that's fuckin' bright, alright we good go go go!"

Cherrel turned back around and floored it, making their way back over to the busted gate and back out into the city. Once on the street, she popped another ice cube in her mouth. "The 'ell we doin' pissin' off the 'ops for Skids?"

"It's what the cockgobler wanted, get their attention and make the fuckers run around the city like idiots for an hour or so."

"You sure this was a good idea?"

"Hell yeah. Like I said, they've been fuckin' playin' us for fools for years. Lookin' down on us like we're nothing behind that fancy shmancy shield. 'Sides I barely even hurt it, gun ain't that powerful. It's high time we made every fuckboy in the fuckin' city remember why no one talks shit about The Archer Bridge Mer-

The next thing either of them knew, they were getting tossed to the side like a child's play toy. Squealer slammed her head on the dash as they drove straight into the side of a building. She could have sworn they were in the middle of the street a second ago.

The driver side door got ripped off her baby. She looked over from where she was hunched over the wheel. Her head hurt, her arms hurt, her chest hurt. Everything hurt. What were they just doin'? There was a pretty girl with yellow eyes holdin' the door by the handle like it was nothin'. Swore she put armor on that. Swore she'd seen the girl before as well.

The pretty girl tossed the door off to the side and reached back with a dark, spiked gauntlet just as a fireball lit up the sky behind her.

—​

Lisa Wilborn

Her thinkerache was killing her. She was pretty sure she knew why now as well.

New cape in the bay that fucked with Thinkers? A sorta kinda friend that she was helping out of a shitty situation that also sent her packing for the blackout room just about every time they met? Yeah she wasn't proud of how long that one took to figure out.

Hindsight 20-20, thy name is tradition.

Damn, it was cold tonight. She was so going to add insulation to her costume the first chance she got. It might also help hide the outline of her body on the side, like what her mask did for her face. Sheesh, where was a hero when you needed one. You'd think actually trying to get arrested would be easy. She'd been sitting on this roof for the past 2 hours and her butt was starting to go-

A woosh followed by the crunch of gravel behind her scared the shit out of her, "Can I help you, miss?"

Turning around found Velocity standing a few feet away.

Tense. Confident. Feels in control of the situation. Wants to know-

Tattletale clamped down on her power with a wince, she didn't need that going right now. "Uhh… I seek asylum?" She said as she stood up.

"... Riiight. Let's start with some introductions first. Hi, I'm Velocity, and you are…?"

If anyone asked, she was not rolling her eyes, "Not sure if they'll let me keep the name but let's go with Tattletale for now."

"Hmm… If memory serves me correctly, you run with a little group called the Undersiders right? Small time smash and grab artist's?"

She waved him off, "Not anymore, like I said, asylum."

"May I ask why?"

"Lets see here." She pulled her hand up and started to count off. "Boss recruited me with a gun to my head in one hand and a bag of money in the other. Not interested in babysitting 3 other stooges that like to play cops and robbers with powers, again set up by the boss. Boss is going off the deep end, he's going off the deep end, did I mention he's going off the deep end? Yeah he's lost it and I want off the ride. Do you think LA is warm this time of year?"

Velocity… blurred for a fraction of a second. He also, well, it wasn't exactly a screech but he made some weird high pitched noise at the same time.

Subvocalizer around neck. Can vocalize and transmit over a very short period of time.

Tattletale let out a whistle, "Neat trick, I didn't understand a word you just said."

"Thank you, that was the idea. Why don't you tell me more about this boss of yours."

"I'd love to but I'd love not getting offed by a sniper merc at 1 in the morning more. Can we please take this to the rig or, like, literally anywhere else more secure than here?"

Velocity shook his head, welp so much for the easy way. "I'm afraid the rig is off limits. You'll be plenty safe down at the PRT-"

"No."

"I… beg your pardon?"

"No, you need to take me to the rig or something else under Protectorate control. I go to the PRT and I'm a dead woman," She took the folder of files she had tucked under her arm out and held them out for the hero. "Look, it's just easier if I hand you this. Part of the reason I'm trying to turn myself in here."

The hero paused for a moment before walking over and accepting the folder full of PRT files. He took out a flashlight and held it in his mouth as he opened up the folder. He didn't even make it in 3 pages before shutting the folder closed and fixing her with a hard glare.

She held up her hands in faux surrender, "Hey don't look at me, I was just handed the folder I swear. Boss is looking for someone in the bay and the man's not interested in playing by the rules," She motioned to the files in the hero's hands, "as you can clearly tell. I wasn't joking earlier when I said he's lost it either. I take one step in the PRT HQ downtown and he'll know within the hour. I'm not interested in ending up being fished out of the bay on the 6 o'clock news."

Velocity stood there for another moment, thinking over what she just said most likely. He pulled the flashlight out of his mouth, "Alright, let's say you're telling the truth for the moment and this isn't some elaborate ruse. Before we do anything, do you know what your boss wants with these?" He held up the files with those last words, she was pretty sure she wasn't going to be allowed to hold those again.

Good fucking riddance.

"Not really. Best guess is that it's because of the Trump in the bay messing with Thinker powers and he's looking for whoever is interfering with his power. By the way, my head is killing me, do you guys have thinkerache medicine or something?"

She could feel the man raising an eyebrow at her from behind his mask. "There's a Trump in the bay?"

She barked out a small laugh, "Right, you guys don't have any Thinkers do you. The new girls in the bay. Uhh, speaking of which, super serious, did they really call themselves 'Dollhouse'? Like, who comes up with a name like that?"

The hero grunted in response.

"Shut up! Y'all called them that?!" She cackled, "WHY?!?"

"It's… an internal name. One that doesn't seem to be going away it seems." He mumbled under his breath. She didn't actually hear that last part, but her power filled in the blanks for her.

"Ok no, for real, everything else aside I gotta know-"

An explosion erupted a few streets down and Lisa dove for the rooftop. Wait a minute, that was nowhere close. That wasn't Coil, couldn't have been. It would have been a sniper or a small bomb in her apartment, not like she was going back to that any time soon. What the hell was-

Another explosion, muted and much further away this time, reverberated throughout the city.

High yield explosives. Non-standard explosives. Explosions mostly originating downtown. Explosives-

Tattletale picked herself up to peer over the side of the roof. There was a thin coating of ice all around them, running up the sides of buildings and down the street like the world's coldest fire hydrant burst.

Were those… Tinker bombs? Actually power don't answer that, I'd like to still be able to sleep at night.

The hero next to her was spouting off to whoever did dispatch for the heroes, she wasn't sure why she wasn't really able to make out what he was saying. Nothing was sounding right over the pounding in her head from her power suddenly trying to run full tilt.

The actual hell was wrong with this city? The sooner they got her out of here the better.

 

[Suumplies]

interesting so far 👍

although your images for the dolls are broken

 

[Gungrifin]

Damnit, not again.

They're direct links to images hosted on imgur and they're basic pngs. I don't know how simpler i can make getting these images to be linked. I had no small amount of trouble with these things in the original thread on spacebattles. reeeeeeeeeeeee.

 

[Gungrifin]

Max Anders

"-And let it be known that today is a day that will go down in History! Today this city and it's citizens fight back against those who would-"

Kaiser wasn't able to finish his speech as an explosion rocked the empty warehouse. They were on the outskirts of downtown, just outside the area contested by the Empire and ABB. One moment, he was giving a rallying speech just before the Empire made a push in force on the lesser races. The next, everyone was hitting the deck as windows got blown out and a fire erupted in the nearby street.

Kaiser grit his teeth, his first thought that crossed his mind was that the rally got leaked. Irritating, he'd have to find the race traitor in their midst and make an example out of him. The second thought was to gain control back over the situation.

"Everyone! This rally is over and we are making our move, now! Report to your commanders, I want this building evacuated in 2 minutes." With that, he casually walked off the stage despite the adrenaline now thoroughly running through his system. Krieg, Fenja, and Menja took up positions around him, the twins already growing in size behind him with Krieg in the front.

"Spread out, 3 feet at a minimum, Oni Lee can't be far. Contact Hookwolf and tell him that he's free to-"

A popping sound rang out on his left. He didn't even look and just threw up a crude wall of steel on reflex as Krieg moved in the same direction. A blast shredded the edges of his steel barricade a second later. He was in the middle of drawing a steel sword out of his armored hands when another pop had Lung's suicide bomber appear right in front of him.

There was something deeply wrong with the man. It terrified him, not that he would admit it out loud. It was difficult to put into words right that second, staring right into the eyes of a mad teleporting suicide bomber.

Part of it was his ability, the man was frighteningly effective with it and had earned his reputation. Another part of it was the conviction he supposed the man held, strapping grenades and bombs to his chest without batting an eye and setting them off with every fucking ash clone he left behind. A large portion was the fact that the man looked honestly bored as they stared down at each other, like he would prefer to be off doing something, anything other than this.

Kaiser brought his half formed sword up and lunged for the teleporter. Lee brought up a small eastern dagger with one hand as the other went for his bandolier. He swung, the steel making up his weapon still folding out longer and longer, and caught the bomber by surprise with his weapon's change in reach. He claimed a few fingers, but the madman had already pulled several pins by the time Mejna ran her spear through his neck.

She swung out with her spear, the clone sliding off and away from their group before it exploded. Kaiser was already bringing his sword up to strike behind him when he heard yet another pop, exactly where he'd appear next if he had Lee's power. His strike didn't lop his head off, his crude sword only cutting deep in his neck. A kick sent the body stumbling into the barricade as he moved his steel to entomb the man in the barricade. More steel was thrown up around him as his subordinates closed back in.

"Sir, are you alright?" Krieg looked singed by the time he finally came around from the other side of the barricade, but his power was well suited to nullifying blasts. A muffled boom from the barricade blew out a few shards of steel. Fenja and Menja barely noticed, Krieg stopped any coming for him in mid air, and a few bounced off of Kaiser's suit of armor that he was reinforcing by the minute.

"I will be once we get out of here and regroup with the line members. Lung is going to pay for this humiliation a thousandfold. Where the hell is Crusader, we need his army to deal with Lee."

Krieg opened his mouth to respond before twitching his head to the side. A grenade was stopped in midair a few feet away from all of them. Fenja didn't hesitate to move and batted the bomb away from their group with her shield. It exploded a moment later halfway across the warehouse.

"We need to leave, Lee traps us in here long enough for Lung to show up and we're as good as dead." With that, Kaiser returned to walking towards one of the exits. Steel and blades sprouted up from the concrete floor around him as he walked. Fenja and Menja had grown maybe 3 to 4 feet taller than the rest of them when Lee tried another attack from behind. Fenja's sword had already bisected the man in two with a single downward slash by the time he turned around. They hurried away from the body as he buried it in steel.

Wary of Lee teleporting into midair and dropping down, Kaiser began to make a canopy of steel and knives as they walked, reaching towards their exit. A pop to his right had Lee appearing between him and Menja, eastern dagger held in both hands as the bomber tried to stab him again.

They made eye contact again. Cold, dead, lifeless, emotionless. He had a particular look in his eye. One that made you think he wasn't even looking at you, just through you. A kind of look that you saw in old, old military types when wars were still fought with mundane weapons.

Yes, Lee terrified him, one wrong move and you end up in a thousand pieces. Yet for all of his effectiveness, his ability to blow himself up and bomb the everloving shit out of you over and over and over again due to his damned power, Lee was a blunt instrument. The charge was aggressive and direct, no feints, no fancy motions. His intentions telegraphed a mile away.

The parry was trivial, but the man was still surging forward. This close, it would just take a single moment to get locked in a grapple, then game over.

A shamefully quick and dirty shield began to form out of his left vambrace. No style, no substance, only rough jagged sharpened steel. Before he had a proper chance to rebuff Lee's charge though, the both of them were violently shoved to the side. Just as suddenly, his momentum was arrested; Lee's was not and was hurled right into a barricade, impaled on the sharp spikes and thorns.

"Krieg, thank y- Duck!" Kaiser snapped his blade off of his gloves before throwing it as hard as he could in the direction of Lee's newest clone, directly behind Krieg. His second obeyed instantly and even helped to guide the sword in on the mad bomber as it passed through his power's area of influence. Another clone was eaten by his steel.

"Move! we're almost free." God the man was relentless.

They reached one of the side exits to the warehouse with only 1 additional attempt by Lee to take them out. Fenja and Menja dealt with it behind his back. Krieg was only a few steps ahead opening the door but he was occupied looking every which way. This would be a perfect time to try and ambush one of them.

The doors opened and his heart leaped up his throat. A metal drum, a box, some wires, that was all he bothered to register before realizing that they'd been had. He had just enough time to look up at his second ahead of him. Krieg turned back around to look at him, almost in slow motion. They made eye contact.. And he got… Pushed back……

Full force……..

…

Why was…

…

….

…..

Time…

…...

…....

…......

….........

….............

So…

 

[Gungrifin]

Nessa Biermann

Menja had fought Lee only once before and was quickly coming to the conclusion that he was a spineless coward. A coward with no honor who was unable to do anything without his damnable power. A coward who refused to fight them properly and tried the same dirty tricks over and over again.

For tricks they were. Clones or no, Lee would go for openings and vulnerabilities relentlessly. Exposed skin was slashed at, organs were stabbed at, and every thrice damned clone exploded. Every attack came from a new angle, a fresh blind spot. Every attack exposed the man more and more as someone who just refused to actually fight their opponent.

This was not a fight, an exchange of blows, a conflict. This was the ineffective flailings of a weak, pathetic man too scared to show himself lest he actually get hurt.

A proper warrior the man was not.

The clone in her hand exploded before she could finish tossing it to the side. Lee had just tried to gouge out her eye with his dagger. Another distraction, he couldn't hurt any of them with all his tricks. It was just one low blow after another, each as ineffective as the last. She was not about to blow Lee off however, where the Oni went, the Dragon surely followed. She was well aware just how dire their situation was, they just needed to-

"Krieg!" Her sister cried out behind her. Menja… hesitated, for just a moment, a single moment before turning to see what had become of uncle. At first glance he seemed completely fine, but then she started to actually process what had happened.

Krieg… Uncle wasn't moving. He was just standing in the open doorway leading out of the warehouse. He was as still as a statue, and she couldn't understand why the scene just looked wrong.

A ripple of air was expanding out away from uncle. Kaiser was caught in it and was being blown back by the wave. On the other side of the doorway there was what looked like a barrel tumbling through the air. Everything was still. Nothing made a sound. It didn't make any sense.

Something bit into her ankle. She looked down to Lee trying to do… whatever it was he was trying to do, she honestly couldn't bother to find out. Looking back up, looking to where uncle stood still, something about the minuscule amount of pain she was feeling clicked the final piece of the puzzle together as to what she was seeing. The world hadn't halted like it seemed. Everything was still moving along just fine. It was just… just…

"No."

"Krieg! Kaiser!" Her sister called out again, just as stunned as she was. Her body moved on its own, leading her to the trapped men that she looked up to. Uncle, always there to lend an ear and a shoulder to cry on. Max, a man with unflinching resolve and dedication to the cause. She didn't get far before colliding with an obstacle.

The air itself was frozen in time. Her hand was stuck, caught on the edge of it, it took a moment to realize that she was reaching out to the two of them.

"Sister! No! You'll get trapped too." Hands gripped her outstretched arm, pulling with her as she tried to free herself. Her sister had gotten bigger than she was at some point it seemed.

Slowly, they extracted her hand from the field of stopped time. The entire ordeal only lasted a few seconds, but a chill ran down her spine at the thought of being trapped alongside the other two. She and her sister sat down nearby. They simply tried their best to process all that just happened in each others arms.

Uncle was… dead? No, he was still alive, he had to be. Her sister laid her head on her shoulder. "Krieg, no…"

"Shh, Shh. It'll be alright sister. Look, he's not even hurt."

"But," A sniffle escaped her sister, "but he's trapped, him and Kaiser."

Her hand found itself wrapping around her sister's, she honestly wasn't sure she was even controlling her own body at the moment, it seemed to have a mind of its own, "No, don't think like that. We'll get them out somehow."

"But how?"

"I… I…" I don't know.

A familiar sounding pop broke Nessa out of her reverie, and then the only thing she was able to see was red. Based on how hard her sister's grip was, Jessica had heard it as well.

"Lee." her sister ground out through her teeth. Nessa was too busy looking for her spear. It wasn't in her hands.

"LUUUUUNNNG!" Did she drop it? Where? Her head snapped left and right, finding her spear to be behind her some ways. It had shrunk back to it's normal size. How long ago did she drop it?

"Show yourself you FUCKING coward. Come out here and fight us!" No matter, it would grow back to its normal size in her hands soon enough.

The two of them were growing again, they were almost as tall as the ceiling of the warehouse. She had her spear and she was ready to absolutely splatter Lee if he dared to show himself again. Her sister had her sword and shield read to do the same. They were both looking every which way, eager to hurt and maim and kill.

For there was going to be retribution for this. On this day, she swore that she was going to find Lung and make him pay.

—​

Kenta

Lung walked through the street, burning and on fire as it was, towards the warehouse. The fire did not bother him. It licked across his heavily tattooed chest and arms and he simply could not feel it. The scales underneath his skin, shifting and simmering on the other hand, he felt as clearly as he could feel his heart beating in his chest.

His scales itched to come up to the surface. His talons were barely able to restrain themselves. He could feel the fight to come. He could taste the anticipation.

By the time tonight was over, the Empire would be no more. His men were riled up. His power was coursing through his veins, being denied and fed for weeks now, itching to flow forth so that he may once again crush his enemies before him.

The destruction in the street brought him to think about his most recent acquisition into the ABB. Bakuda the Tinker. He was skeptical at first, but Lee had proven to be devastatingly effective with her creations when he was released on the Empire's headquarters.

A shame that her nature was rebellious. Lee would never bring her bombs into combat again so long as she continued to behave like a child. The one time previously felt like one too many in hindsight. He wasn't willing to risk losing his friend to an 'accident'.

The worst part was that he might actually find himself disposing of her sometime soon. She didn't show him the proper respect, no matter how well she tried to fake it. Combined with her nature, ability, and temperament, he just couldn't see her rolling over and meekly accepting a master. If she had any other ability, he would beat the insubordination out of her until she learned her place, but her ability made bombs.

He respected the power those bombs carried, and he couldn't trust Bakuda for a second. She was useful… for the moment, but that usefulness was quickly souring before him.

The doors to the warehouse flew open before him as his friend appeared to his side. The entire building was in disarray with chairs and torches knocked over in front of a makeshift stand. To the side he could see Lee's path of destruction as his friend stalled for time. Further to the side were the giantess twins of the Empire. Both were towering above him, reaching as high as the ceiling.

His scales shifted in delight, in expectation of the coming fight. The fight he had been looking forward to for weeks until now.

The twins roared and drew back with their weapons, crashing through the roof as they took a step forward. He looked away from the twins, already feeling his scales respond and worm their way to the surface of his skin. He found what he was looking for shortly after he started growing himself. Kaiser. The leader of the Empire.

Kaiser was frozen in time in a most shameful manner along with another Empire cape. His mood soured slightly at that, even as his arm was hacked off by a giant sword and a spear tore itself through his side. He wanted the man to witness his Empire crumble around him. He wanted him to watch as he continued into the night hitting every stash and stockpile the Empire had. He wanted him to watch as he burned his new factories to the ground.

He wasn't entirely sure how to feel about Bakuda robbing him of this particular pleasure. It would be something to ponder for afterwards. The twins were swinging with their weapons again and he just finished regenerating from their attacks. This time they only cut all the way to bone.

Although he no longer had a mouth to properly display what he felt at this point in his transformation, he could feel himself smile at the thought of taking on the twins and finally, finally showing them their place. He was only half as tall as they were, but soon their weapons would only be able to cut skin.

—​

Jessica Biermann

A small part of Fenja's mind was telling her that it was unwise to fight Lung head on, even with support. The vast majority of the rest of her mind was too busy screaming and vowing vengeance to listen.

How dare they. How dare they do that to uncle Krieg, to Kaiser. She claimed an arm from the man responsible for all of this. All of the attacks on the Empire over the past month, all of the hurt and wounded, all of those who lost their homes or families.

He looked away from them, and that made her newly incandescent rage boil over all over again. How dare you ignore us. After all the man did to ruin the lives, the jobs, the homes of people of this city. What gives you the right to spit on us and then look the other way.

She swung her sword once more with a blood curdling scream, biting deep into his side. All of those people at Medhall, the one truly objectively good thing the Empire did for the citizens, gone. Their workplace, their jobs, their lives, none of it mattered to him. The only thing the man in front of her cared for was hurting others.

No, he was no man, he was just a beast. An animal. An uncaring rabid creature who bit and hurt all of those around them with no regard for civility, for honor. Lung was a thing that needed to be put down for good. Lest the city and everyone around him get consumed in the inferno that he left in his wake.

Fenja pulled and dislodged her sword buried in his side. She chopped and hacked away at Lung until her sword began to melt from the flames and heat. It was only bouncing off of his scales at this point so she threw it to the side and used her fists to pummel the man. Her sister was doing much the same, having discarded her spear when Lung grabbed it and snapped it in half with his bare hand.

She hit and hit and hit and hit and hit some more. She pulled back to smash his face in just once more, but this time Lung caught her fist. He was almost as tall as they were, and it was starting to get a little cramped inside the warehouse. The ceiling was too low, the fires were burning too hot, supports were starting to fall down around them.

Fenja found herself being lifted off her feet as Lung grabbed her. The ceiling dug into her back as she was lifted up into it and through it. Then she was out on the street from being thrown clear of the warehouse. There was fire everywhere and the pavement was starting to melt from the heat. She sat up, only to see Lung stroll through the side of the warehouse dragging her sister with him. He was covered in metallic scales, talons tipped his fingers, and she thought she could see the beginnings of wings forming on his back.

Her sister was dragged through the hole in the warehouse that Lung made behind him. He casually tossed her out into the street alongside her like he was throwing out the trash. And then he roared, his mouth split open to rows of teeth. He roared with a feral, primal sound that no human could ever hope to make.

It was deafening, and what few windows that were left intact nearby all shattered. Fenja tried to stand, but he was too quick, too big. A fist met her face and it felt like a freight train.

—​

Crystal Pelham

"Mom, I see them! They're on Greengate in between J and K ave."

[[" Good work, I'll pass that along to Brandish and the PRT. Can you tell who picked a fight with him? "]]

"Yeah, it looks like E88. The valkyrie twins and Lung are slugging it out in the street."

[[" It would be the Empire… How big has he gotten? "]]

"Uhh. Bigger than the warehouse they all just got done demolishing. I think that all 3 of them are still growing too."

A sigh escaped the radio, [[" This is going to get ugly. Is the fight contained to just the one street? "]]

"For the moment."

[[" Alright there's nothing we can do about Lung right now, go to the next street over and see if anyone is still around. Start evacuating the area in case the fight spills over into the surrounding area. "]]

"Roger that, heading over… Wait a second, there's someone else here."

[[" Another member of the Empire? "]]

"No, I don't think so, I don't recognize them. Hoodie, raincoat actually I'm not sure. Dark skin, black clothes. They've got some massive fists. Probably a brute of some kind."

[[" I don't recognize them, where are they? "]]

"Standing on the rooftop right next to the brawl. They're just watching."

[[" Do you think you can rescue them before they get themselves killed? "]]

"Maybe, I don't… Ohh no…"

[[" What, Laserdream what happened? "]]

"...You know those AC units on the top of roofs? Yeah, they just ripped one of those up and threw it. They hit Lung, good shot too, right in the head. He doesn't look pleased."

[[" Idiot, alright, leave them and focus on the surrounding area. Some people just have to learn the hard way not to poke the dragon. "]]

"Right, Laserdream out."

 

[Gungrifin]

???

She kicked off from the building, fist cocked back mid jump to strike the thing in front of her. The hit cratered the thing's face, causing it to stagger back a few steps.

It hurts.​

There was fire all around her as the thing simply exploded with flame and heat. It had been a long, long time since she last felt heat, cold, pain. The street where she landed was sticky. Concrete and tarmac melting from the heat that contrasted with the cold, brisk, night air.

It hurts being out here.​

The fire that surrounded her reminded her of her old house back when she was still human. She had mostly forgotten about the bad old days. Of cruel kids, indifferent teachers, police officers wondering why she wasn't in school. Of just how painful it was out in reality. She never really forgot, but…

Hey, Strength. Didn't you say you would protect me?​

The reminder was not pleasant… She hated it out here. She hated feeling the flames dance across her legs, her arms, her face. She hated feeling the cold wind blow past her as she leapt for the massive thing that was spreading fire everywhere. She hated feeling the pain when the thing smacked her straight down into the road in the middle of her jump.

Didn't you say you would face the pain for me?​

She tried to stand back up, but the thing planted a fist the size of a car right onto her back. She could feel her skin burning from the touch. How hot were the scales on its skin? How long could she last for? How could she get out of here and go back to where it was safe?

Hey, why are we here, Strength? Tell me.​

It pulled back and punched again. Again. Again and again before switching to a stomp. She could feel the thing putting all of its weight into it. Her Ogre Arms were straining just to keep the thing from flattening her. The tarmac was goopy and clung to everywhere it could get on to. The heat coming off of the thing's scales made it feel like she was keeping a furnace at bay. Something was wrong. Her chest felt like it was going to rip itself apart. What was wrong? What was this feeling?

We switched places, don't you remember?​

She wasn't breathing. How long had it been since she last had to breathe? Would she get tired out here? Would she have to stop? To rest? Did… Did she need to sleep again?

We switched. You should be out here, not me.​

How did one breathe again? In… and then what? Out, yes, in and out. In. Out. In. Out. In… The air was just so damn soupy. So steamy. The feeling in her chest was alleviating but there was still this thing pressing down, trying to crush her.

It hurts out here, don't you remember? Strength?​

In. Out. In. Out. It felt so weird having to do that again. It made pushing back against the thing's foot hard. She heaved, centimeter by centimeter. She pushed back against the thing and its scales and fire. She pushed off of the liquefying road and managed to get up onto a knee. In. Out. In. Out. Wasn't there a story like this once before? Some ancient western figure, holding up an incredible weight. Was it Homer? Maybe Atlas?

I should be in there and you out here, hey, tell me why.​

The young miss would know, probably. Thinking about her just made everything 10 times worse. She grit her teeth as she heaved once more, getting up onto both feet now. Her shoes were sinking into the tarmac but she couldn't bring herself to care about her clothes right this second. She needed to get back, she needed to switch. She needed this damn thing to stop trying to step on her.

Tell me why I'm out here again. We agreed, didn't we?​

She'd say she tried to scream, but what came out was raw; raw from disuse. Even her voice was being denied out here? What next, did she need to eat again? She still screamed as she threw the thing's foot with all her might. A moment of respite was granted and she pounced. Up and to the side of one of the buildings, she grabbed onto a window frame. Glass shards still in the frame crunched, the wood splintered, the brick wall shook with the impact.

You should be facing this for me, It's why we switched. Remember?​

The thing was why she was out here. She needed to deal with it. Her arms hurt. They hurt. Her legs, her chest, her head, it all hurt. Was reality always this bad out here? There were so many new things. So many new ways to hurt others. Was the thing she was fighting even a human anymore? She doubted it.

Why are you letting me get hurt again? Strength? Why?​

She leapt off from the wall, once more rushing to smash the thing with her Ogre Arms. It tried to swat her like an insect a second time, but she was ready this time. She put all of her strength into one punch, aimed at the thing's own fist. They met each other, they measured their strength against each other, and she couldn't say for sure who was stronger.

I thought you would protect me Strength. I can't be out here.​

The thing's fist shattered. Scales peeled back to reveal flesh, blood, and bone. Her Ogre Arms dented and crumpled. They both hit back and forth, blow after blow. The thing's injuries mended and healed before them. Her Ogre Arms creaked and reformed back into shape over and over again. Each blow felt like the blow of a thousand thousand hammers. Each strike felt like her bones would shatter.

It hurts being out here.​

The thing was getting bigger and bigger as the fight went on. It was getting faster, stronger, tougher. She went after its feet and its scales would dent and crack but stopped shattering entirely. It began to hit harder and harder to the point where she actually needed to brace herself for the blows. A quick jump had her on the back of the thing's hand. She ran up its arm, trying to get to more vulnerable places, trying to get to the eyes or the ears.

It hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts.​

There was another strange feeling that she was feeling. It wasn't coming from her lungs or chest this time. It was her face. She could… taste something? What was it she was tasting? It tasted like copper. What tasted like copper? It felt so familiar, something from the bad old days, she couldn't remember. Her face still felt weird, her mouth. It was so hard to describe things after not bothering for so long. Her mouth, she was… smiling? Why was she smiling?

It hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts.​

She was smiling over a simple fight? How did that make any sense? Fight's weren't happy things, you did them to survive, because Others wouldn't, couldn't just leave you alone. You fought because otherwise Others would stick gum and spitballs in your hair, trip you in the hallway, bother you, push you over, throw fireworks into your front lawn. Point and laugh as your world comes tumbling down. You fought to stop all that from happening, so what the hell are you smiling for Yuu?!

GET OUT HERE STRENGTH, HELP ME! WE AGREED, WE SWITCHED, DON'T YOU REMEMBER?​

 

[Gungrifin]

Fransis Krouse

It was hard to make out specific details through the binoculars, but it was also hard to miss that the midget and Lung were beating the snot out of each other in the middle of the street. That and the fire, there was… there was a lot of fire.

What was it about this world that turned people into damn battle maniacs? Fransis swore there was something in the water.

"Oof, that was a good right hook," Ballistic said next to him, "Miss fisty sure can take as good as she can give." Francis rolled his eyes from behind the binoculars, already knowing that his teammate didn't even need them to see what was happening. Some people got all the luck.

"Sir, we're here and we see them." he said into the radio, still keeping an eye on their target. Coming to Brockton Bay might have been a mistake in hindsight, but they were here now and this was what they had to make do with. Their current employer, however, he very much wished wasn't asking them to drag their reputation through the mud. "Now, I'd like to go over why we're here one more time if you don't mind."

A sigh escaped the radio just as the midget got punted into a building through a window, "Trickster, we've been over this already." Man was sounding frustrated, good, maybe he could learn a thing or two about how the rest of us were feeling for this job.

"We have, and I'd like to go over it one more time on the infinitesimally small chance that my ears were playing tricks on me." The midget came rocketing back out of the building and hit Lung so hard he staggered back a few steps, "Because, sir, while we may be mercenaries who do jobs for money and don't ask questions… We also need to continue to stay employable from gig to gig. This does not make one employable, not once people learn what happened if we actually do this for you." Lung responded by breathing fire around the entire area. His flames were starting to change color away from the usual red and orange. "So, I think we would all like it if we went over exactly what it is you want from us, one, more, time, and I'd appreciate it if we could get some assurances that this won't backfire on us later."

Sometimes you just had to know when to kite away from a bad situation and run damage control.

"You disappoint me Trickster, but your request is reasonable. Very well, we'll skip the job as you already know what to do and move on to your assurances." The midget did… something with her giant fists and retaliated by blasting Lung right back with the unmistakable sound of gunfire, alot of gunfire. "Simply put there is absolutely minimal chance that following your target back to their home will be linked back to you. To put it bluntly, your teammate's only crime they might commit would be hovering in a low altitude no-fly-zone over a residential area. Nothing that isn't ignored a thousand times a day in this country." Lung was quick to respond, and kicked the midget down the street and out of the fire. "Even if your teammate were spotted and intercepted by one of the flyers in the city, being out at night also isn't a crime."

"None of that makes us feel better about taking this job sir, try again." He was perfectly fine not taking this job and being told to move along. This world may be bat shit insane sometimes but they had some good ideas, starting with the fact that you don't go snooping for someone's civilian identity. That was the kind of attention The Travelers didn't need on them, ever.

"I was in the middle of that." Their target was getting back up as Lung strolled out of the fire and onto a section of the street that wasn't completely ruined. "As I was saying. Third, you need to make several leaps of logic to come to the conclusion that your team followed a cape back to their home. At best, you could correlate your teammate flying in the area with there coincidentally being a break-in in the area days later. Besides, they have to know that a cape lives in that particular house to begin with to come to the right conclusions; which is, by your previous complaints, information that people do not go looking for to begin with." Lung was like the damn Hulk, way too goddamn fast for how big he was. Their target clasped both of her fists together and slammed them into the ground. The entire street simply ruptured and cracked like ice, stopping Lung's charge as he stumbled over the newly uneven terrain. He felt the impact from all the way over here. "Therefore, the odds that someone actually deducts any of this from one night of flying around the neighborhood block is highly unlikely."

"Besides, what I want with this cape's home is not your concern. You can rest easy and let me worry about any potential backlash."

Fransis put down the binoculars and looked over to his team. Ballistic and Genesis were fine with it but they didn't really get the politics behind this cape shit. Oliver was turning into a walking carpet with how often he just bent over and went with the flow, so he was ok with it too. The only one that shared his disdain for this particular job was Sundancer, but that was more for the usual enabling of terrible stuff to people and bla bla bla. He swore it was like herding cats sometimes, cats that never knew just how much shit could be brought down on our heads at any moment for one wrong move.

It certainly felt like they were making one of those wrong moves right now, but hey, democracy and all that. "Alright, we'll get you the address you're looking for. But after this we're going to lay low for a little while, I'd like a week or two before our next job."

"Done." Wow, he didn't even have to fight for that, man really wanted to know whoever this cape was. Oh well, they were here to get paid and he could always spin the story favorably later. Francis clipped the radio onto his belt, "Alright, you heard the man. Genesis, just like we planned if you'd please."

Genesis had brought out one of her forms capable of flight. It was feathered and vaguely bird shaped, which was unusual for her forms, and sported comically large eyes. The ears were droopy which reminded him of a basset hound. Damn thing was as silent as an owl as it lifted off into the air.

 

[Gungrifin]

Alison Lake

[[ "Engine 5, we're getting new reports coming in. Head over to Exchange between 18th and 20th. Seems like the worst of it is over there." ]]

Alison picked up the comm off the dash, "10-4, we'll divert that way and Jesus Ch-" She stopped herself from completing something that would get her slapped by her momma. Unfortunately she was still holding down the transmitter.

[[ "Engine 5! Is everything ok?" ]]

"Yeah yeah," She says while staring out the side window to Velocity of the Protectorate hanging on to the outside of the fire engine. "It's just Velocity, he did it again."

Alison put the comm back on its hook while giving the man currently outside her window riding shotgun a look. She cranked the window down and began to give him a piece of her mind, "Velocity! You need to-"

"Don't go to Exchange," He shot back over the rushing wind in what she realized as full business mode. "Lung's in the middle of a fight over there and he hasn't stopped ramping up."

"Shit really?" Well, she wasn't going to look that gift horse in the mouth, "How big has he gotten?"

"Wings." Carl let out a whistle over from the driver side and there were murmurs of agreement from the back.

"Alright I'll pass it around, thanks for the heads up." She meant it, too. While the firefighters hated picking up after the cape messes that were usually left behind, they didn't have the jurisdictional cold war going on like the Protectorate and the cops did. "On another note, the Chief wants you to stop doing this," she pointed down in between them to accentuate the last part, "Our boys are getting tired of the heart attacks and jump scares please and thank you."

His only response was a stifled chuckle before giving a thumbs up and speeding off. She leaned over to check how fast they were going as she picked the comm back up. 50, they were going 50. Capes were some bullshit. "Dispatch, Engine 5 here, I have something you need to know..."

—​

Hannah Washington

Miss Militia could feel the ground getting rougher underneath her bike as she and Armsmaster rode into the industrial area between downtown and the docks. Both of their headlights illuminated enough for them to avoid some of the larger debris, but there was still plenty of brick, mortar, shell casings, and craters to dodge. That and the occasional E88 and ABB gang member lying in the street. They couldn't afford to stop and make any arrests or check if any of them were alright, Lung took priority right this second.

It was the middle of the night, and yet they could clearly see rising smoke being lit up in the direction they were headed. Her power shifted on her hip as she followed behind Armsmaster. A knife changed into a pistol which changed back into another different knife. She wasn't looking too hard, instead concerning herself with watching the road.

[[ "Anomaly ahead." ]] Armsmaster called out as he began to slow down. Militia followed suit, coming to a halt in front of a building that seemed to be coated in some transparent material.

"Glass," Her boss said out loud, as if that explained everything, "Console, do you see this?"

[[ "I see it Armsmaster." ]] Triumph said over the comm with a yawn.

"I believe we have confirmation that the ABB have a new cape. Some wide area shaker effect." The glass covered more than just one building. She walked her bike forward to illuminate more of the area.

[[ "Rodger that, Velocity reported something similar earlier tonight while out on patrol." ]]

As Militia rolled forward more and more, it became clear that the entire road was affected. They were going to have to go around. "Armsmaster," she called out behind her, "Road's blocked unless you want to try riding over glass."

Her boss pulled up next to her, "We need to keep going, we're taking Lung in tonight. I don't want him getting away."

Militia nodded, truth be told she wanted to wait for Battery and Assault to return from chasing down whoever it was that attacked the rig, but she'd follow her boss in with-

She gasped… Oh god.

"What's the matter?" Armsmaster asked. She responded by pointing ahead, "Are… are those people?" The area she was looking at got lit up brighter to reveal that yes, there were people trapped underneath the glass.

She looked away, feeling her stomach roil as her boss called it in.

—​

James Kilgore

"Mommy! Mommy!" James called out between fitful coughs. He couldn't open his bedroom door, he already burned his hand horribly touching the doorknob. Smoke was getting everywhere and he could barely see. He wanted his mommy, he wanted his daddy. He had school tomorrow!

"Mommy!" As he called out, he breathed in more smoke, causing even more coughing. He could barely breathe so he stopped trying the door and went over to his window. The one that blew out earlier and woke him up. The broken glass in the carpet hurt and he stumbled, falling down onto even more glass. It hurt so much, he was crying so badly, daddy was going to be angry. Boys don't cry but it hurt so much.

He stood back up and tried to make his way over to the window. The smoke was irritating his eyes and he couldn't breathe. Where was the window? Wasn't it right here next to his desk and bed? He got really scared for a second that he somehow couldn't find it, but he bumped into his chair soon enough. This was good, he knew where the window was now.

He was still coughing up a fit, but at least he could see past his nose now. There were sirens going off in the distance and they were getting closer. Would there be a big red fire truck? He always wanted to see one.

He called out as loud as he could, "Hey, I'm over he-" Another fit stopped him from finishing. It was easier to breathe but there was still a thick cloud of smoke in his bedroom. What if they don't find him? What was going to happen? He tried calling out again for someone, anyone, but his cries quickly turned into sobbing. No that wouldn't do, daddy was going to be so-

"Hey kid! Are you alright?" Someone called out below him. He looked down looking for whoever it was. There was a man in red clothes down on the street looking up at him. He had a helmet on and James couldn't see his face. Was the man going to help? Was he a fireman?

James tried to call out again, but more smoke got in his lungs causing him to cough again. "Hey kid, I'm going to be up there in a second. What's your apartment number?" He was going to be saved. The thought helped him clear his lungs out so he could respond, "Two Two Eight!" He said with all his might.

"Alright, do me a favor and stay near the window. Don't move alright?" James went to respond but the man disappeared in a blur into his apartment. What just happened? Was… was that a cape? Who did he just call out to?

A loud crash came from the hallway and James was having second thoughts about calling out to the stranger. Mommy always said not to trust strangers. He couldn't see through the smoke, but he heard his bedroom door get rattled. How did the man get up here so fast?

"Hey kid." Suddenly the man was right beside him at the window and James almost jumped out of his jammies it scared him so badly. "Hey it's alright I've got you. God, that's a lot of smoke." He was leaning out the window along with him trying not to cough like he was.

"Who are you?" he asked. "Velocity," the man responded, "I'm with the Protectorate, don't worry." The Protectorate! Mommy told him about them, he can trust them! He felt tears well up and moved to cling to the side of his new savior.

"Hey, what's your name kid?"

"James."

"Alright James, here's the deal, we can't go through your apartment because it's an inferno. I'm fast so I can get through it, but I can't take you with me. So here's how we're going to get out of here. I'm going to lower you out the window as low to the ground *cough* as I can. Then, I'm going to let you go, race back down as fast as I can, and catch you before you hit the ground."

He looked up at the man, the hero, wondering if he could really do all that. "How are you *cough* going to do that?" The hero smiled back at him, "I said I'm fast. I'm really fast. Now, I have a question, do you trust me on this?"

He wondered, mommy said that he could trust the heroes, so he guessed he could. He clung tighter to the man's side and nodded quickly, wanting to get out and to safety. The man looked over to the window and cleared out some of the window shards out of the frame. "Alright, here, take my hand." The man dropped his hand down near him and James detached from the man's leg to cling to his hand. The next thing he knew he was up and in the air, scooped up into the man's arms.

They were both leaning out the window, the man with one leg in and the other out. It was a lot easier to breathe and the coughing was going away. "Ok, so, I'm going to hold on to your hand. On the count of 3 I'm going to let you go. I'll lower you down as far as I can so you don't fall nearly as far. Alright?" James nodded once more. "Ok, here we go."

The hero took James by the hand and started lowering him down towards the ground. He looked down and ohh god he was so high up. "Kid! Look up at me!" James looked back up to the man leaning out of his bedroom window with smoke billowing out of it. "Whatever you do, don't look down! Alright? On the count of 3."

The man counted down and James squeezed his eyes shut. Then he fell. He tried not to, but the sudden panic made him look anyway. He was falling, he was-

"Gotcha." The man said as he caught him. James' heart was thumping really loudly in his chest, but wow the man really was fast. Mommy was right, you can trust them. He was so happy he wasn't even worried about daddy being mad at him crying again.

 

[Gungrifin]

Kenta

Lung roared as he swung down trying to end the annoying little child that was messing with him. The punch missed as they dodged to the side, the only thing he accomplished was adding yet another crater in the middle of the street. He didn't know who this particular newcomer was, but between the recent raids on his warehouses and the casino he had an idea as to their allegiance; The newest batch of upstarts that thought they could steal from his enterprises. None of the other organizations in the bay were brazen enough to directly challenge him and his, not since the first time he set foot in this city.

It wasn't about the lost drugs, the stolen money, the confiscated contraband, all of that could be replaced. This was about reputation, about being given a bloody nose, about being humiliated. That was something that he, Lung, could not stand by and allow.

If only the damn cowards would show their faces so that he could make an example out of them. How fortunate for one of their members to think that they could take him.

They used the opportunity to crack a few of the scales on his wrist, scales that basically mended themselves a moment later. Their tinker arms buckled with the hits and reformed back into shape just as fast. He scraped the ground with his claws and tried to rake them, but no, they dodged to the side again, lunging behind the cover of a nearby car. They came out the other side with their thrice damned tinker arms turned into those autocannons again and were running down the street while shooting at him. He did not fear some insignificant pea shooter. He was more annoyed that he was going to have to chase them down as they tried to play keep away.

It was a futile effort in the end, he would make this one suffer for challenging him.

His talons tore up the ground, he ate up what little distance they put between the two of them with his long strides, he cocked back his fist once more only for the child to dodge to the side like they had been doing so for the past while. They'd been performing this dance for something close to 10 minutes now and he was getting tired of entertaining this nobody.

They came out of their roll over on the sidewalk, down on one knee and one of their arms out to the side. They raised their head and looked him directly in the eyes as shell casings ejected out of their gun arm by the bushel. The sheer defiance that he saw in the child's eyes as they stood made his blood run hotter, his flames a little taller.

The gesture alone was enough for him to put this one on his shit list. He tolerated the same look from his own tinker only because they were useful. This one did not enjoy such protections and they were already climbing the ranks of people he was going to enjoy killing personally..

He lunged, but not for them, he went to the side. The car looked expensive and he did not care who owned it.

There was no attempt to pick it up and throw it, he simply batted it with his hand in the general direction of the child that wouldn't back the fuck off. He had plans tonight, an empire to dismantle, and he couldn't do it if he was stuck fighting some damn regenerator that wouldn't actually fight him. They might have been putting in some serious effort at the beginning, but now it was nothing but harassment.

The child dove to the side before bolting down the sidewalk as the expensive looking car went through the storefront behind them. Their blasted arms had finished reloading or whatever as more bullets spewed from them. He gave chase on the opposite side of the road and the next car down the street joined the first one soon after.

Car, truck, van, car. The both of them traded bullets and cars as they ran down opposite sides of the street. The gun nut ducked and weaved between the car sized scrap that he sent flying their way. He barely even felt the bullets clink off his scales. He passed turning a motorcycle into yet another projectile, it was too small and he wasn't hitting her anyway. The semi without a trailer further down the road, however, would do just fine.

He aimed ahead of them with the car before the semi in an attempt to slow them down, he didn't look to see if it did it's job. He skid to a stop right in front of the semi and put all his weight into shoving it in straight across the road. The tires screeched and popped as it slid sideways.

It slid across the road until it made it to the other sidewalk, metal crunched, and the semi spun on its wheels revealing a massive fist print right on the engine block. One of the defiant little shit's fists was outstretched with the fingers badly mangled, while the other one was ejecting more spent bullet casings all over the sidewalk behind them. Their tinker arms were stitching together slower than they were before he noticed, and she was sucking in entire lungfuls of air.

And yet, they still had that damnable maniacal grin on their face like they were having the time of their life. Once this was over and the empire was removed from the board, he was going to take his sweet time wiping that smug grin off their face. He would make sure it was as slow and painful as possible so that ALL would know the consequences of crossing Lung.

—​

Robin Swoyer

Velocity had to practically pry the kid off of him as he passed him along to the medics. There were some nasty burns on the kid's hands but he didn't have the time to stay and make sure he was going to be alright. As soon as he was free he sped back off to do another round around the block. He found one kid, he might find another.

The fire had already spread quite a bit before he got here and there was a big area to check. Most of the buildings were burning along nicely by now and only a few were still in the process of only starting to catch fire; Those he checked first. Several apartments had their doors wide open which was usually a good sign that people had already evacuated. It was the doors that were closed and locked that he worried about. Those coincided with the places that were already lost causes.

The apartments he was most worried about. Way too many units to check in any reasonable amount of time, and Velocity had a lot of time on his hands. The warehouses were a different matter. He couldn't ignore them and assume that they were empty despite the fact that they hadn't been used much these last few years. He needed to check them out, part to see if there was a gang stash nearby that set this whole damn night off or something and part to see if anyone was trapped, hurt, or otherwise.

Building after building. Floor by floor. Room to room. It took him hours to get through it all and he had to stop and rest about halfway through. Maybe… 15 minutes passed outside when he finally got done with the perimeter.

[[ "Console," ]] He huffed out, [[ "I've checked… most of the area. Found a few people… got them to safety." ]]

[[ "Roger that, you sound winded, are you able to keep going?" ]] Not right this second he wasn't.

[[ "I'll just take a… a short rest. Should be fine in a minute." ]]

Robin turned his power back on and sat right down where he was. Across the street some buildings that he already cleared were starting to show signs of the fire spreading up to the second story. He was thankful that the area had wide roads for all of the big trucks that used to come and go from the warehouses, otherwise the fires would have spread farther.

Tonight was going to hell in a hand basket and he had a feeling it was only going to get worse as time went on. First someone shoots up the rig, then ice, glass, and who knows what else starts coating areas around the city. Not soon after Lung starts roiding it up right on the edge of ABB and E88 territory. Then there was the question of what exactly the Empire was doing in the area considering the report from New Wave placed the valkyrie twins nearby, let alone actually squaring off against Lung.

If that wasn't enough, someone was currently giving Lung a bloody nose considering he was still fighting and he was still growing if the noise was any indicator. So there's a new brute in the bay who decided that pissing in Lung's cornflakes was a brilliant idea for their debut. Ohh yeah, and the gang war was officially kicking off with gang members from both the ABB and E88 openly attacking each other in the middle of the streets, so they had that to look forward to.

Also, there was a massive fire raging that was slowly consuming a few apartment complexes and old warehouses in between the docks and downtown. Kinda hard to miss.

His sub-vocalizer dinged him. [[ "Velocity, Console, Armsmaster is requesting eyes on Lung and his surrounding area… You know, whenever you get a chance." ]]

Velocity barked out a strained chuckle… Of course he was. Why did he think tonight was going to be an easy one?

 

[Gungrifin]

Robin Swoyer

Finding Lung wasn't difficult, you just needed to follow the noise and broken buildings.

God it was like a warzone came to town out here. The number of cars that weren't turned into swiss cheese, flattened like a pancake, or had entire chunks missing from them outright was the shorter list. You could say the same about the buildings nearby. Some had minor brickwork missing from their exteriors, others had collapsed entirely. A few were still smoldering, burnt out husks courtesy of the fire already having passed through the area.

The less said about the… bodies, the better. They weren't everywhere per say, but you couldn't go two steps without running into some kind of sign that there was a firefight. Spent shell casings, dropped or discarded guns. A few puddles of blood here and there with some gang members lying face down nearby.

Velocity was trying very hard to ignore it all, keep his eyes forward, do his best to not think about how similar this all was to when he was on the force and gained his powers.

He pushed on, step by step, all the way to where New Wave last reported Lung. The tarmac had been burned so bad he could smell it. Said smell was not helping him trying to not remember his trigger event. The sidewalks alternated between pulverized, cracked into chunks, and relatively untouched with the street itself mostly being a complete write off. A fire hydrant had burst down the road, he was surprised that the pipes were still relatively intact underground considering how much damage there was to go around.

The warehouse that was missing about half of one side of it was a dead giveaway as to where this all got started. Velocity spun his power back down to normal speed to tap back into the live comms.

[[ "Armsmaster, Velocity," ]] He looked north towards the next street over. Lung and whoever they were fighting were still here and they were uncomfortably close by, [[ "Lung hasn't moved far from Exchange but the roads are completely trashed. You'll need to go on foot about half a block out." ]]

[[ "Affirmative Velocity, I'm on the way now. Have you made contact with his opponent?" ]]

Yeah, sure, he'll just jump right in the middle of that and start boxing as well, [[ "Negative, I'm still searching the general area andohmygodsomeone'salive-" ]]

There was someone kneeling in what remained of the street, it seemed like they were hunched over another person. For a second he thought it was Jessie and Niel, but he shook that thought off. They weren't here anymore and that was a long time ago.

He sped over to their side in an instant… only for it to turn out to be the twins. His hand reflexively went to the pepper spray on his belt. Shit shit shit, was this Fenja or was this Menja? Damn twins were hard enough to tell apart normally.

At first glance he could tell that something was wrong. One of them was moving and the other wasn't. Their chestplate was removed and off to the side; They were having chest compressions done to them actually, which set off all kinds of alarm bells in his head. Didn't seem like the other one knew what they were doing as well which kicked his brain into high gear to remember his crash course in being an EMT.

Both of their armors were scorched to hell and back. He could easily smell burnt hair and skin and for a single terrifying moment he was afraid he was going to have to deal with white phosphorus again. That was easy enough to dismiss, there was no reason for that accursed stuff to be here and they just fought with Lung. Lung, flames, heat, maybe smoke inhalation? Doubtful, Lung's flames didn't really generate a lot of smoke, just heat. Can't rule it out entirely. Skin shows signs of bruising and recent. Possible internal bleeding. Chest compressions, wait did one of their hearts stop?

He removed one of his gloves and kneeled down to check her pulse. The other one got startled at his sudden appearance but he didn't have the time to worry about her, she seemed to be well enough to move around. He couldn't feel a pulse and she didn't seem to be breathing either.

He looked up at the other twin. They were frozen like a deer in headlights just like Jessie- not relevant! She was crying, he didn't take either of them for a crier. Her armor was torn to pieces, gashes were running every which way with the skin underneath rended. Her helmet had a large cut running down the front of it that passed right where her right eye would be and there was a lot of blood.

"Don't stop your hands! Keep trying," he snapped at her. [[ "Console, I've got one of the twins here with me that needs immediate medical attention! Where is the nearest medical station?" ]]

[[ "One second." ]] He didn't have a second! [[ "Closest team is north-northwest about 3 blocks over." ]]

"Keep trying, don't stop, I'll be back." he spit out in a hurry. The instant he finished he spun his power up to full, immediately going for his sub-vocalizer. [[ "I might need Panacea or we're going to lose one of the twins. No pulse and not breathing." ]] He sent the message off and began hauling ass north in a sprint.

Potential smoke inhalation so he'd need oxygen, a defibrillator for the heart, maybe so adrenaline. That last one depended on if they had any or not. What he really needed was Panacea but he didn't know if she'd come out all the way to ground zero. Brain could still be fine, he didn't know how long she'd been like that but the window to resuscitate someone when their heart stopped was small.

Minutes mattered, seconds mattered, and he didn't know how many of either she still had.

—​

He passed right by Lung and whoever it was that he was fighting on the way to get the supplies. Didn't have a good chance to check out the newcomer but the ludicrously massive fists were hard to miss. They weren't facing his way when he passed by and he wasn't stopping to take a closer look. He had a bit of an emergency on his hands.

The trip back didn't have much more opportunity to figure out the newcomer than the trip out, but he did get a better idea of their size. They weren't tiny, but he'd be surprised if they were taller than Mouse Protector. Their fists on the other hand were damn near the size they were, so slightly smaller than he initially thought.

Still didn't feel like getting hit by them.

The other twin looked like they were still doing what he told her to do. He was really going to have to ask which one they were and stop referring to them by 'her' and 'they'. He dropped down on his knees right next to the one that needed help, the broken street poking sharply into his legs as he did. The bag that held the defibrillator was set down on his side and he placed the small bottle of oxygen down on her other side.

As soon as he got it free, the defibrillator went right on top of its carry bag. Her armor was already removed and she was at least covered enough for him to work, something he was eternally thankful for right now. Didn't need accusations of using an emergency to get frisky on top of everything else that was going to go down tonight. The director was going to have a fit as it was.

One of the pads attached to the defibrillator went onto her side and that was all he could do with his power on; The other twin was in the way now and he needed her to move her hands. The world spun back up and he immediately called out, "Move your hands, I need to attach this."

To her credit, the other one didn't waste any time and complied. He motioned with his head towards the bottle as he applied the second patch around her collarbone on the opposite side of the other patch. "Take that and be ready to use it." He slammed his thumb on the defibrillator to get it started as soon as he confirmed both patches were attached properly.

The medics didn't have any adrenaline on them and they recommended against it anyway. Now all he could do was pray that she was going to make it in time. Her chest convulsed with a shock so at least it was working.

"Cmon, Cmon," He said out loud to no-one in particular as she received a second shock. A booming crunch of metal rang out in the direction of Lung which was not helping his nerves right this second. The fucking smell of burning… stuff, the twins that were uncomfortably reminding him of Jessie and Niel, the radio chatter that he was pointedly ignoring unless his name popped up, everything was way too similar for his taste to when he first triggered and he did not need to start having some ptsd shit right now.

"Hey, which one are you?" He asked the other twin in an attempt to distract himself. Whatever the fuck they were doing in the next street over was making him flinch with every crunch. He looked up to her as the injured one received yet another shock. They didn't seem to have heard him and looked like they were starting to tilt over. Her one eye was barely open.

"Hey!" just as he called out to try to ask if she was ok, she toppled over. He had just enough time with his power to clear the area of debris and get the defibrillator bag under her head before it smacked into the pavement. A quick check found her still with a pulse albeit with a weak one.

She seemed fine a moment ago! Did she lose consciousness from blood loss? Sure let's go with that for now, not like he could do anything by himself about any of this at the moment. The actual medics were nowhere near and they sure as hell weren't about to risk going anywhere near Lung. He could maybe deal with one or the other at once, but not both. He thumbed his communicator.

[[ "Battery, Velocity, are you anywhere near my position? I have some high priority people that need medical attention now!" ]]

[[ "I'm down the street, one second." ]]

She was? He looked left and right… only for his coworker to zip right in front of him as soon as he turned his head. The blue circuit lines on her costume discharging before his eyes. That was such a massive load off of his shoulders. Thank whatever needed thanking that Battery could take people with her.

The critically injured twin's chest convulsed again with another shock and he went to kill the defibrillator before ripping the shock pads off of her. "Get this one to a med tent, she needs Panacea's attention asap." Battery wasted no time in arguing or asking questions and went to work. He meanwhile started to look over the other twin that seemed to need help.

It looked like they were still breathing which was a good sign but the bleeding hadn't stopped yet. He pulled out his own tiny emergency kit to get to the gauss. A low whine built up next to him which was shortly accompanied by a blur of blue and a small gust of wind. He could only hope that it wasn't too late for the other one. The thought only lasted a moment as the one in front of him was in dire need of bandages and wrappings.

She had a large gash across the stomach which was bleeding profusely. It was quick work to get that bandaged up but her head was concerning him, especially her right eye. Cleaning up the area revealed that whatever bit a chunk out of her helmet took that part of her face with it. The eye was a lost cause and that entire side of her face was going to have some nasty claw marks on it assuming she didn't simply bleed out.

"Alright, whatcha need?" Assault where the f- right the two of them could move together. Damn near made him jump out of his fucking skin. The man in question took a knee next to him.

"Blood bags for now, Panacea later. Her face is going to be impossible to stitch up, like half of it got clawed out."

"Do what you can, Armsmaster'll be here soon, I'll get my wife back here." Assault patted him on the back as his other co-worker stood up so he went to work doing what he could. Needed to get what dirt he could out of the wounds for starters. There just wasn't enough stuff in the kit that would fit on his belt for him to do much of anything. Maybe if Othala was nearby he wouldn't have to-

The building behind him shook and he kicked his power on full blast in an instant. Now what. Looking up it was the one from earlier that was fighting Lung. They were embedded in the wall like some bad saturday morning cartoon character.

Well, this was fucking perfect. If they were here, that meant Lung was going to be arriving any second.

—​

Ethan

Well, this was about to get fun, and by fun he totally meant that everything was about to suck.

Lung was definitely here considering he probably was the reason the shrimp with the overcompensating hands sailed through the air and landed near them. Speaking of which, dear lord the kid had some guns on them, and he wasn't talking about the fact that they could transform into actual guns by the looks of it.

Now, he liked 'em big and all, but he was already taken unfortunately. Or claimed, depending on how you looked at it. Marked? Ehh not the time…

Right, Lung. Ohhhhhh boy Lung was here and he was mad. Dude had to be at least 10, 12 feet tall by now. He was also looking right at the… 4 now? 4 of 'em. Giant maw splitting open like 4 different ways predator style; wonder if you could sue for that. Frickin' tree trunks for arms covered in fuck off hot scales. Wings each the size of a semi trailer coming out of his back which they've only ever seen once before back in Japan. Claws and talons that could cut any one of them here to ribbons except maybe him and the shorty considering they'd been fighting the big bastard for the past who knows how long and was still in one piece.

The shorty btw fell to the ground behind him and actually cracked the sidewalk when they fell. Shorty was stacked it seemed. Alright he could read the room, injured first, Lung later.

"Yo V, you think you can get the amazoness out of here?" Lung was just now rounding the corner he just came around, ripping out the brickwork and generally fucking up the building on the corner by using it like a damned hand rail, "I think it's about to get a little warm around here."

…

"V?"

He looked over to his side, Robin the fucking traitor already picked up the she hulk twin and was trying to haul ass down the street. He'd never, ever felt so betrayed before in his life. Bro straight just left him hanging out here with tiny tina and the rage dragon. Also, Robin could lift? Since when? There had to be at least 250lb of straight muscle thrown over his shoulders like a limp bag of potatoes.

"Alright, I see how it is. You! Tiny tot. You're my new best friend. Do you…" He bit his lip as he held out his hand to help her up. Should he? Yes, no, yes. "Do you need a hand?"

Tiny tot in the raincoat looked up at him from the crater they made in the pavement and Assault felt all the jovial'ness drain out of him when he saw her eyes. It wasn't the fact that she was a doll, and wasn't that something he would have liked to know 5 seconds ago, there was something else behind those eyes. Actual emotion instead of the completely blank look they'd received from the other dolls up until now. An intenseness that he usually got from the director when she had a stick up her ass, ya know, on top of how she was normally.

There was Hate in those eyes. It only lasted for a moment before the intensity ratcheted down like a thousand notches, but he definitely saw it. It was enough to knock him into super serious mode basically instantly. She noticed his outstretched hand and pointedly ignored it, helping themselves up off of the ground instead.

"Right, uhh, I'll process that later," The road was starting to shake with each step from Godzilla over there, "Whadda ya want to do about the big guy?"

Tiny tina with the gorilla arms spared him a single glance his way and didn't respond. Instead she decided to start walking in the direction of the local kaiju, draggin' her knuckles along the road as she went. The walk turned into a jog which turned into a full on sprint.

She leapt up with her fists cocked back, only to get backhanded to the side and straight into a building.

Ethan threw his hands up in the air. Alright fine everyone wants to ignore me today, fuck all y'all too. Lung was too busy pounding the shit out of the building to spare him any attention and he wasn't about to look that gift horse in the mouth. Were there people still in that half collapsed warehouse? There were if his eyes weren't playing tricks on him. Those look like Empire capes. He'll go do something useful like not get himself killed getting in-between the walking inferno and gorilla hands.

 

[Gungrifin]

Colin Wallis

Armsmaster rode past yet another site where some shaker effect had wreaked havoc on the city, either in the middle of the street or from inside a building. He slowed as he passed to record and capture everything on his helmet before speeding off again. With each site he passed he could feel himself gripping the handlebars of his bike a little harder, his jaw clenching a little tighter. There was a theory he was working on surrounding this ABB shaker and he was not liking his conclusions.

The site before last coated the entire area in a massive sheet of ice. The Massachusetts weather meant that it was going to be there for a long time before cleanup would be able to get to it. The last site he stumbled upon he actually never spotted until he ran bike first into it. Damn near made him jump out of his armor the instant he realized his bike was sinking into the road. His momentum carried him forward enough to reach the other side of the pit before he lost his bike completely. A quick turn around revealed that whatever the shaker effect did, everything from concrete to power poles had taken on the consistency of soft putty. The road, buildings, and nearby cars all had their molecular structure significantly compromised, he suspected. A sample was taken from the pit and he jumped right back on his bike.

The site he just now passed had basically nothing there except a roughly twenty foot wide sphere taken out of the nearby buildings and ground. It cut down into the sewers, and when he leaned over to look at the damage to the sewer pipes, his helmet picked up on a sphere of dense matter resting at the bottom. He could only guess what happened.

As he rode on, his theory showed more and more signs of being correct. The ABB didn't have a Shaker, they had a Tinker. What was worse, and by god he hoped he was wrong, this tinker specialized in bombs or explosives. The main point in his theory's favor was the fact that they'd found all these sites with obvious shaker effects around the city, but not a single site where a conventional explosive had gone off. Someone had set up bombs around the city and set them off for 10 minutes straight, and yet, not a single instance of a regular blast could be found. Instead they found roads and buildings that twisted in on themselves, or body parts of people that were spread out more than 20 feet apart, people that were still alive.

Tinkers… Tinkers were some of the best things to happen to this world, and some of the worst at the same time. Hero was a shining beacon of hope. Sphere would see nothing but to set back and kill those trying to make the world a better place. Dragon does so much and asks for nothing in return. And now this. Wonton, mindless, directionless chaos, this was what gave tinkers a bad name.

Leet's equipment might be hazardous, but he was essentially harmless, a joke. Kid Win he had high hopes for, but it didn't look like the young ward was going to be able to keep up with his mentoring. He really, really wanted to pick the brain of their still unnamed tinker that created the dolls. Those dolls were damn near works of art and he could only guess as to their inner workings, if only they would show themselves for once. Whoever they were, they were being infuriatingly passive and content to work from the shadows. Squealer he only felt pity over. They could do so much better than being a nobody, a druggie looking for their next fix. Her trucks were hodgepodge pieces of junk and he was morbidly curious to see what she could do with an actual workshop and proper support.

None of the feelings that he felt about the other tinkers in the bay could even come close to the sheer intensity of the fury he was feeling about this new Shaker/Tinker the ABB pulled out of nowhere. How many bombs did they have? What kind of effects could they generate? Was this just the first wave of many? How far were they willing to go?

How much damage were they willing to do to the image of Tinkers until tonight was over?

He felt his teeth grinding together as the road conditions began to get worse. Up ahead he could see the flashing lights of emergency vehicles and squad cars. His helmet told him that he was right on the edge of the cordon for this section of the city. A BBPD officer was trying to flag him down seeing as they had the entire street blocked off with vehicles, so he brought his bike to a halt nearby.

"Armsmaster." The officer said curtly. The man didn't really wait for him to respond before turning back to the cordon, raising his hands into the air to signal something to someone.

"Sir." he responded back. Another officer raced over to one of the squad cars that made up the cordon and hopped into the driver seat. Armsmaster sat there on his idling bike, impatiently waiting for the officers to clear up the road enough to let him through. Colin closed his eyes and tried to breathe, deep and slowly, trying to undo the death grip he had on his bike's handlebars.

He was… agitated, he would freely admit to himself; With tonight, with this new tinker dragging his name through the mud by association, with Lung for starting this completely out of character crusade against the empire. It was mainly the tinker bringing down his mood but he couldn't remember the last time he genuinely got this upset. Frustration he was intimitely familiar with, but this was something he seldomly felt. Thankfully he brought his armor designed for Lung with him, it included a full face cover to protect against heat and smoke inhalation. He wasn't exactly sure what kind of face he was making right this second, and he was glad that no-one could see it.

A dull roar rolled over the cordon, prompting Armsmaster to open his eyes back up and look. A fireball was rising in the distance right as the path was opening up to let him through.

"Bloody hell." the officer blurted out next to him, "I don't know who he's fighting but it feels like they've been going at it all night."

Lung, he needed to take down Lung first while he had the opportunity. One thing at a time. Who knew how long it would be before he got his next chance after this. The Tinker would be next, that he swore, but Lung was simply too important of a target to not go after first.

"I need to get going," He said as he gunned his bike forward through the cordon.

—​

Theresa Richter

Feedback from the left flight pod on the Hawthorn dragon armor she was currently piloting had her worried. There were only simple diagnostic subroutines onboard her armors and those had already returned with no obvious reason why going full speed with the pod made it sound like it was trying to tear itself apart. She'd need to get it back to her machine shop to run a proper series of tests to figure out what was wrong. Her best guess was that sub-par quality material might have gotten into the pod's construction, but there was no way to know for sure until later.

It wasn't enough to make her turn back towards Vancouver, it would still get her to Brockton Bay with minimal delay, even with her cruising speed reduced to only 83% normal. Need to Isolate the pod from the rest of the armor once she got to the city, jettison it somewhere where she could retrieve it later. That way, whatever effects the bad batch had on the pod wouldn't affect the rest of the test data.

[[ "Armsmaster, I'll be entering the airspace above Brockton Bay in 180 seconds." ]] she called out over the private comm channel she shared with Colin.

[[ "I'll have a visual on Lung by that time." ]] Colin responded, [[ "… Thank you for coming." ]]

Theresa was sure if she had a real body, she'd be smiling right now. Colin always had his own way of showing his appreciation, [[ "Don't mention it, It was getting stuffy back in the lab." ]] Colin's only response was a short exhale of air.

Files on the cape situation in Brockton Bay were brought up for review. She had some time before touchdown and she had her friend on the line to guide her through any recent shakeups in the bay. [[ "Anything new in Brockton worth mentioning.?" ]]

It only took a few seconds for her processors to trawl through the PRT files that Colin made available to her at all times. Less than a second later she'd categorized everything worth updating. Another second was spent actually going through it all and absorbing the latest going-ons in the bay. There was only silence on Colin's end by the time she finished.

[[ "Colin?" ]]

Satellite feeds showed that he was on his bike still, weaving between smashed and burning road vehicles. She'd give him a moment to focus on the road, directing her attention, and her satellites, a few streets ahead to Lung.

His size surprised her for a moment. Wings were growing out of his back as well which they had only ever seen one other time, at Kyushu. That seemed odd so she referred back to the PRT documents, going over them in finer detail. Other than the expected lack of details for some newcomer independents and vigilantes that declined to work with the PRT she couldn't see anything new that would cause Lung to scale up to this size.

Pulling her attention back over to the satellite feed, he seemed to be literally ripping a single other cape apart. Just as she looked, Lung finished tearing an arm off of the other cape. She didn't recognize them from any of the files which made them yet another newcomer whose power could be anything. A tinker, if her feeds weren't playing tricks on her and the massive red hot gauntlet of an arm that was tossed to the side were any indicator.

Actually, there were those 'Dolls' that had set up shop in the bay recently. Colin had kept her relatively up to date on what they had found out about them during their regular tinker sessions. It was possible that this was a new one. Their capabilities sounded amazing. She had thought about contacting them and seeing if they were interested in sharing their tech more than once before.

That is, if she could. It sounded like they had less than stellar luck getting into contact with this 'Dollmaker'. But if she could… She had plenty of money and goodwill built up and she'd happily pay out the nose for access to the tinkertech needed to build an actual body, especially if it was as versatile as the reports made them out to be.

[[ "Colin, are you there?" ]] He was back out onto open road, if only for a moment. Theresa patched herself into his helmet feed; His helmet being the best she could do to talk to him face to face without his setup back in his lab on the rig. [[ "Is there something on your mind?" ]]

In the distance a column of smoke was rising up into the air, lit by Lung himself and his own fire by the looks of it. [[ "... I think the ABB might have acquired a new tinker." ]]

Theresa checked her speed and distance to Brockton Bay, 150 seconds left. This sounded like it was recent and hadn't made it into the files yet. [[ "Any idea on their specialty yet?" ]]

[[ "Bombs." ]]

For a moment Theresa felt like she spent whole processor cycles doing nothing but background operations. [[ "Bombs?!" ]]

[[ "... Or explosives." ]] Colin moved to the far side of the road to avoid what looked like a vehicle that got stomped flat. [[ "For once I hope I'm wrong on this. 35 minutes ago a series of explosives or something similar to them were set off all over the city. We've been getting a steady stream of reports of exotic effects at the blast sites since." ]]

She returned to the satellite feed and panned over to the various anomalous sites around the city. She noted them earlier when she first pulled up the feed, but didn't have any context for them at the time. Taking a closer look left her confused. In one she could see down into the sewers where another had what looked like ice coating the entire street. One street was twisting and turning around a central point while another seemed to be glowing a soft violet. A few sites had PRT troopers and other first responders roping off the areas, one in particular seeming to have Miss Militia on site.

Based on the angle she thought she could get a better look with the cameras on her Hawthorn armor. It took but a moment to find the site, and at this distance her armor would have better clarity than the satellite feeds. Zooming in she could see Miss Militia and a paramedic trying to help someone off the ground. They were covered in something and it was hard to make out… Oh my god.

Colin's feed tiled lower towards the ground. She didn't say that out loud, did she? Reviewing… she did. Theresa zoomed the feeds out as far as she could, doing her best to not think about those poor people. [[ "How could someone do something so horrible?" ]]

Colin gripped the handlebars on his bike tighter. [[ "I don't know. What I do know is that I'm going to find them and throw everything in the book at them so that they can rot in the deepest hole the justice system has." ]] Ahead, on his helmet feed, a roar traveled down the road shattering what few windows were still intact. Theresa saw on the satellite feed that Lung was gripping his opponent by their remaining arm and letting them dangle in the air in front of him. His victory broadcasted for all to hear, no doubt.

[[ "Lung's ahead, we'll discuss it later." ]] Colin took the next corner which brought him onto the street where Lung was. Lung seemed to already know he was coming since he was looking right at him as he came around the corner.

Dragon checked her speed again. 50 seconds until she reached Brockton Bay. Those poor people. She clearly didn't have the full picture yet, not even Colin seemed to know for sure that it was a tinker responsible. Looking ahead, the city was starting to come into view, and if she focused her cameras right she could see Lung on her personal feeds standing tall and smug.

She didn't know who was responsible for this act of blatant terrorism, but she was sure that if she hit Lung hard enough he could enlighten her. Battle protocols began to come online. Weapon statuses returned all green. Recorders… She assigned to background processes.

Her original plan of gathering heavy duty combat data so that she could fork and split off her rapid response Hawthorn model into two different versions, one intended for Endbringers and other S-Class threats, and another for everything else, was now thoroughly on the back burner. A shame, Lung was about as good of a test as she could get before the next Endbringer fight. The recorders would be left running, but she wasn't going to pay attention to them, not after seeing… that. She wasn't going to test everything on the overgrown lizard, instead she was going to find what worked and kindly introduce Lung to the underside of her claws.

As her dragon armor screamed forward and the city got closer and closer, as Lung snapped his head in her direction seconds before she slammed into him, Theresa performed the digital equivalent of a shrug of her shoulders. She'd just have to get a proper set of data somewhere else.

—​

Kenta

Lung had heard the hero and his overcompensating motorcycle coming for the last half a minute. A shame that he arrived too late. Not that he believed the hero would have turned the tide of battle, but if he had shown up sooner, the runt might still be in one piece. Said runt was still struggling to resist him, how naive. Their misplaced defiance cemented in his mind that he'd have to put this one down for good.

The message would be as clear as day, Lung was not to be denied.

He turned towards the end of the street, holding out the defeated runt in plain view. Armsmaster of the Protectorate came around the corner on his silly bike seconds later, he made sure to look the hero dead in the eye the entire time. The hero came to a stop some distance away, the road being considerably torn up during his fight with the runt.

Just thinking about them made his flames swell. He increased the heat that was pouring out of his clenched hand, heating the other tinker fist that he had yet to rip off of the runt. They tried to hold it in, but screamed in pain after a few short seconds. His message sent, a simple underhand toss sent the runt hurtling down the street towards the hero.

He crossed his arms as Armsmaster dismounted his bike, just in time for the child's bouncing to come to a stop next to him. Her fist glowed a pleasing red as the hero wasted no time predictably rushing to her aid. No doubt the two tinkers would have much to share and bond over if they had met under different circumstances. A pity that they will have no time to talk shop. Lung raised one of his arms up to hold a finger to his thumb, and with a snap of his fingers, consigned the girl to whatever afterlife she may believe in.

A moment later found Lee appearing behind the girl. She had barely made it onto her knees, a commendable action at this time considering the fight so far, before his friend stabbed her in the back of the throat with his kunai. Armsmaster's reaction is fast, but not fast enough to stop Lee from fading into ash and showing up behind the armored tinker a moment later.

He ignored whatever happened next, for there was a low rumble and high whine in the air, building in intensity. Something else was coming. Something… There! He snapped his head to the left to see a metallic dragon racing towards him. He braced himself, Lung did not run from a fight, and the false dragon slammed into him. The both of them were sent tumbling through a nearby building and out onto the next street.

He recovered first, or at least he thought he did. The false dragon was faster and planted two talons right into his face. He found himself going head first into another building, some family's living room to be exact. He felt the bricks as they bounced off the scales on his back, but not the bite of the false dragon's talons. A deep chuckle accompanied him ripping his head out of the building.

"Dragon," he spoke out in his native tongue.

"Lung," she returned to him. "It seems we're going to finally have a chance to see who the real dragon is around here." Her Chinese was rough; seldomly used, he assumed.

"There is no point in proving myself to you, little one." The both of them began circling each other in the street. "Call yourself whatever you wish. You can not deny my claim."

The false dragon's serpentine body reared back once the two of them reached each other's initial locations. Heat built in her throat, her intent was obvious. Lung pulled the heat from his scales towards his own throat and let loose a torrent of flames. Their breath met in the middle, their flames licked up and down the street. She wished to challenge him? Overcome him? Very well. He would show this wormling what a True Dragon was capable of.

 

[Gungrifin]

Colin Wallis

"No!" Armsmaster shouted as he ripped his halberd through the space where Oni Lee just was. All it met was one of Lee's ash clones. Arms were thrown around his power armor from behind. He tried to tear the offender off of him, peel the man's fingers back, but he couldn't dislodge Lee.

"Sayōnara, Arm Masta-san."

A small explosion rocked his armor from behind. A host of small errors and alerts sprung up on the inside of his helmet, but nothing seemed to be majorly broken. It had barely sent him forward more than a single step. Lee, or his clone more likely, was blown to pieces, already dissolving into ash.

Armsmaster expected this, a fight with Lee, and worked it into his armor meant for Lung. In truth it was an armor meant to take on both of the ABB capes. It was primarily meant for Lung, but he found ways to incorporate blast padding into it at the same time. The thermal absorption properties already did well to absorb some of the energy from Lee's suicide attacks, and the armor would reduce any physical damage from his blasts, not to mention the bomber's knife. The padding was just to protect some of the more sensitive electronics from any concussive waves from Lee's explosions.

And also himself, as an afterthought.

Lee appeared to his left, dagger in hand as the man aimed for his neck. It tink'd off the full body plating meant to keep Lung's heat and flames out. Lee seemed to be going for the kill tonight. His halbred swept through the cape's legs only for the man to dissolve into yet another clone. Quick eye movements brought up the Protectorate's comm channels.

[[ "Velocity, I need you at my location asap. I have Lee tied up in combat and need you for plan C." ]]

Lee appeared on his right, a bold move testing his defenses on his dominant side. Quick work with his halberd parried Lee's attempt to stab him. He thanked Lee by throwing a left hook right into his face. Lee's demonic mask cracked as the man stumbled back from the blow, one hand clutching his face. He looked up and looked Armsmaster in the eye before dissolving away.

[[ "I'll be there," *Huff* "In a moment." ]]

Armsmaster went to respond, but movement behind him demanded his attention. He turned, his halberd poised to take Lee's legs away for the second time, only to find the doll standing up.

Something was… off, about the doll. This was the first time he personally met one of them and it only raised more questions than it answered. For starters, he was beginning to suspect that Velocity might have been on to something when he said they acted like they were more than just a tinker automaton. This one, despite the fact that it had been shanked in the throat and was leaking fluid that his helmet was having trouble identifying, had a mad grin on its face. He'd seen a battle maniac here and there before during his cape career, and this was hitting all the check boxes of one.

He didn't know if it was blood, oil, or some other tinker compound that was spurting out of the doll's throat wound, but it refused to be identified by the sensors in his suit. It was simultaneously any one of them, none of them, and all three of them at the same time. His suit seemed to be changing it's mind by the second with no signs of stopping. The doll itself was… phasing for lack of a better word, on his sensors as well.

One second it had a temperature of absolute zero before increasing to hotter than the surface of the sun faster than he could blink. Its mass was equally unstable. Its skin identified as porcelain, then clay, then ceramic while its still visually red hot augmented limb bounced from zirconium to titanium to a platinum alloy.

His first thought was to dismiss it all and assume some form of electronic countermeasures to throw off identifying their makeup and construction. It looked completely normal if he stopped using his sensors. There was one thing he was sure of, and that there was more than met the eye when it came to these dolls. He held out hope that they really were tinkertech, whoever made them did a hell of a job.

Lee was kind enough to interrupt his musings by trying to throw himself onto the doll. The doll shot out its hand and caught the man in his entirety. They shared one look between themselves before the doll started pounding the pavement with Lee in its clutches.

It exploded on the third impact with the ground. Lee wasn't far behind with his follow up and went for where the heart would be on a normal person with his dagger. The punch that the doll returned absolutely pasted the man.

"HaHaHaHa geh-," a deranged, gurgling laugh escaped from the doll. More of its blood substitute dripped down onto the ground. Armsmaster was beginning to think that this doll's emotional matrix might not be all that stable. A tink to his backside informed him that Lee was a restless combatant and he couldn't afford to observe the doll anymore.

Lee had his arm pulled back to try for another stab once Armsmaster got turned around. The back of his halberd sent the man tumbling to the ground. There was no real use in trying to actually engage the man, his ash clones would just disappear after a few seconds.

"Korehanandesuka?" sounded out from behind him. The translator in his helmet identified it as Japanese. The thought that the tinker that made the dolls was with the ABB crossed his mind for a moment as Lee appeared in front of him, but he dismissed it. The dolls had been disrupting the operations of all of the criminal groups in the bay, including the ABB. Lee charged, one hand already ripping pins out of the grenades on his chest. At the same time, he felt something try to shove him from behind. Emphasis on try.

He lunged forward, grabbed the Lee in front of him with his left hand and hefted the clone into the air. He rotated on the spot, throwing the clone with the motion onto the other ash clone that tried to topple him over from behind. There was no way that this plan was going to work, not with him wearing his full suit of armor. Neither of them could deal any lasting damage to the other so long as Lee kept using his ash clones and his armor stayed intact.

The doll let out another laugh that sounded like her throat was filling with liquid, which it very much seemed to be doing if the blood substitute running out of the corners of her mouth were any indicator. Lee changed tracks and went to attack her, but found no better luck than he did before. If the doll got its hands on a clone it was either smashed into the ground or turned into a fine red mist.

If it was anyone else, he would have already started berating the vigilante for excessive force. The fact that it was Lee's clones that the doll was atomizing tempered that greatly, he was going for more than lethal disabling strikes himself when it came to the teleporting bomber. Besides, this unit seemed to have strength to spare.

Lee appeared once more to his left, Armsmaster raised his halberd to defend himself before a blur sped between the two of them. Lee didn't bother to abort his attack, a massive tactical error considering that containment foam started to cover the mad bomber. He hopped backwards to not get caught in the foam as the entire mass dissolved into ash, hopefully for the last time.

Velocity blurred into focus beside him, a wheezing chuckle on his lips that told Colin just how exhausted the man was. "You think… *huff* …we got him?"

"We'll see," Armsmaster responded, trusting Velocity to have planted the tracking device at the same time he switched out one of Lee's grenades with a containment foam grenade. He pulled up the tracking program he loaded up in his helmet just for this occasion, finding a response on the roof of a nearby building. Velocity blurred away as soon as he got done pointing towards where the tracker said Lee currently was. It took less than a second for Velocity to call out the good news over comms.

[[ "Armsmaster I got a mound of con-foam up here that hasn't gone anywhere yet. I think we got him." ]]

A round of applause sounded out over the channel, only to be interrupted by Lung and Dragon crashing through a building and out onto the street. Dragon's armor coiled and wound around Lung like a snake, trying to restrict his movements. Lung meanwhile seemed to simply be trying to melt the entire area with his fire as he thrashed about. The both of them found their way into one of the nearby warehouses that looked like it was on its last legs.

The doll was already moving in their direction as he went to address it. Their mystery tinker fluid leaked behind them as they ran. Colin made a mental note to recover a sample or two once this was all over.

—​

Ethan

[[ "- I think we got him." ]]

Assault clapped for his colleague absentmindedly as he stood in front of something that was sure to give him nightmares for the next few weeks. Kaiser and Krieg were in the warehouse he found, it seemed like it was an empire rally that got crashed. The two of them weren't moving, and in Kaiser's case he seemed to be suspended in mid air. Debris from the collapsing roof stopped falling around them, forming a canopy over the area.

It wasn't a Gray Boy bubble, that he was sure of. In some ways it was worse. At least Gray Boy victims got to continue to live after they got caught in one of that monster's bubbles. Kaiser and Krieg weren't that lucky; it seemed they were hard frozen in time. How would that work, exactly? Would the universe just continue on a hundred, thousand, million years at a time in the blink of an eye? He didn't want to think about it too hard.

His philosophical ponderings were rudely interrupted by Lung and his new friend entering the warehouse through one end and exiting it out the other.

Ok, maybe calling it a warehouse at this point was a bit of a stretch. It was more a location that just happened to, somehow, still have some walls standing which could have maybe in the past been called a warehouse. Not that the distinction helped him get out of the way of the wandering heavyweight sumo match, mind you, but it was the principle of the matter.

Tiny tot came in moments later, lacking one of their gorilla hands. He apparently missed all the good action while contemplating the universe and his place in it. And just like that, she leapt after Lung to throw her hat into the ring.

He had absolutely no interest in joining them, which brought him to sitting exactly where he was. Not that he'd lose that match mind you, he just wasn't fireproof unlike everyone else around here it seemed.

…

Alright now he wanted to arm wrestle Lung just because. He knew he'd win.

"Assault, are you alright?" His boss asked after somehow creeping up on him in his loud as fuck power armor. He must really have been thrown off his game from earlier.

"Sure thing boss." He said, sticking his thumb out towards his newfound nightmare fuel. "Armsmaster, meet Kaiser. Say hi Kaiser." The bossman simply looked back and forth between him and the bubble of stopped time. "He seems shy today. I think he's feeling a little under the weather." Bossman just stood there, staring at the bubble.

Honestly? Same.

"Something similar to a Grey Boy bubble," halbeard muttered to himself, "No shimmer or discoloration. It's just…"

"Stopped? Completely?" He finished for his boss. Armsy nodded. Lung roared just outside the not warehouse drawing the attention of both of the heroes.

"We'll deal with this later." And off his boss went. Assault didn't try to stop him, he just turned back to the bubble in front of him and the implications for the future.

Ethan wasn't always Assault. There was at least one other name he used to go by before he found himself in the employ of the Protectorate. While he mostly left that life behind, he still walked it once upon a time. This? This was not ok. Even as a hero this was not ok, but the criminal world would take it even worse. He hoped that whatever effect Kaiser and Krieg were under was temporary. He didn't care about the nazis themselves per say; Now that it happened, good riddance he thought. It was the precedent. You didn't go for the jugular for very good reasons.

He was going to have to put out some feelers, call up some very old favors that he was saving for a rainy day. If this was permanent, whoever was now in charge of the empire was going to be out for blood come morning. It already looked like a full scale gang war had begun tonight. This was just going to be gasoline poured over an open fire.

—​

Theresa Ritcher

Dragon felt like an old western cowboy on an unruly bronco. The thought was as strange to her as the situation she found herself in. She found purchase on Lung around his neck and was honestly just trying to choke the bastard into submission at this point. Her containment foam sprayers were constantly trying to cover Lung's eyes to rob him of his vision. Her claws had broken off long ago, shattering on his damn scales. The fire and heat were starting to actually melt some of the more delicate components on the outside of her Hawthorn. She switched the flamethrower in her throat to a different configuration, acting more similarly to a high intensity cutting torch. Lung's scales were damn hard, she was honestly envious.

Her own armor wasn't up to snuff, however. Lungs claws were still in pristine shape and were tearing gouges out of her external plating. He was doing his best to dislodge her and she'd have to oblige at some point here or risk some actual internal damage.

Lung went through yet another building trying to dislodge her off of his neck. She tried something different, firing her single remaining thruster pack to force him straight down into the ground. There was a nice crunch as the road cracked underneath the two of them. The lower half of her Hawthorn coiled itself around one of Lungs arms, trying to restrict its leverage. He still had his right arm free which he was using to try to push against the ground, fight against the force of her engine face planting him into the ground.

That was about the time Lung's head snapped to the side, it was the cape she saw earlier, the maybe Tinker with the augmented arms. Or, in this case, just the arm. The Tinker had taken up position right next to Lung's face and was laying haymaker after haymaker into the man. Lung didn't seem amused and grabbed at the cape with his free hand. They, instead of being flung away like a rag doll, held on to the scales on Lung's shoulder. A strange tug of war started with the cape being the rope, her rather large first beginning to heat up from contact with Lung's scales.

Then… If Dragon had eyelids she would have blinked. Then a second augmented fist folded out of the pod that replaced the cape's arm. It seemed to be just as capable as the first one, seeing as they immediately used it to start whailing on Lung's face like they never stopped to begin with.

One fist holding the cape in place, another smacking Lung in the face (hey that rhymes), Lung trying to tear the both of them off of him as she pinned the man down to the ground. She wanted to say that she'd had stranger fights before, but this was definitely rising up to the top of her list.

[[ "Dragon, I have my tranquilizer on me." ]] Colin called out over their comm channel. That was good news, Colin had been working on his tranquilizer formula for a long time now, [[ "Do you see a good spot to inject Lung with it?" ]]

No, not really, even if they could break any of his scales, they would just grow back in an instant. Although, she was beginning to see flesh where…

[[ "Right shoulder, hurry." ]] She responded urgently. The cape had a death grip on lung's scales, and Lung seemed to be tugging on the cape pretty hard in return. In actuality, the only thing he was accomplishing was peeling back his own scales where the cape had found purchase. She could see tightly corded muscle and flesh where the scale was trying to knit itself back onto his skin.

Lung would see her plan in an instant as soon as Colin made for the opening. If he was smart, which he was, he'd leave the cape alone and go for Colin. Lung was, frankly, stupidly big right now and she was no closer to figuring out why. She didn't know if Colin had planned for him to even get this big to begin with. His armor might not be up to snuff with Lung's fire and strength currently as they were.

Her Hawthorn slithered its way around Lung's body, inching the model's head forward towards his shoulder. Her control unit was there, but the worst that would happen was her booting from a backup back in Vancouver. A small price to pay, Colin was still just a human and she didn't want to lose him.

Her head got in the way of the cape's attempt to punch Lung's lights out, surprising basically everyone present. The Hawthorn's maw opened wide, the Hellfire torch extended, ignited, and cut deep into Lungs exposed shoulder. The man snarled, and soon she found his hand gripping and crushing the head of her Hawthorn armor.

"Pull it back!" she called out over the external speakers, hoping the cape would understand.

Lung's fire quickly started to melt through the head unit. She idly measured a drop in temperature everywhere else on Lung's body, but his fist began to heat up to extreme temperatures. Armor plates started sagging, structural braces started warping. Her control unit was thickly reinforced, but it was getting a little toasty inside her armor.

She held on to Lung's neck, still trying to choke him out as best she could. He seemed to be doing his best to rip the Hawthorn's head unit clean off or crush it outright. She wasn't sure which would happen first.

"Wormling, I warned you what would- Hnng." Lung tried to say. Dragon checked the few external sensors that still worked. It was hard to make out, but there were two people standing near where she believed Lungs shoulder should be. Good, they must have gotten the tranquil- no.

Lung let go of her Hawthorn's head unit. While good for her, it only made her heart sink. Her immediate concern was the safety of the two that were dangerously close to her and Lung. Most of her sensors and camera feeds had been crushed when Lung grabbed her head unit. She was basically blind, and he didn't seem to be very interested in her anymore.

Dragon changed her rocket pod to fire in a new vector, sideways. She had to get Lung as far away from Colin and the other cape as she could while praying that Armsmaster's formula would do its job. The the change in thrust vector caused the both of them to roll to the side like she wanted. They didn't get very far as the rocket pod was flattened almost immediately. His scales began heating up hotter and hotter as Lung thrashed about. The only thing she was concerned with was maintaining her choke hold on his neck. They might have gone through another building, she honestly couldn't tell other than the fact that there was a heavy impact against one of her sides. At least she was decently sure that they weren't directly over Colin and the other cape right now.

Come on… Come on… Go to sleep.

"I… Am… Lung!..." she barely picked up on the speakers.

Then, like sweet relief, she felt the temperature start to drop… just a little. Dragon doubled her efforts to strangle Lung, hoping against hope that this was Colin's formula kicking in and she wasn't about to kill the man.

"It's time to take a nap Lung, I have a jail cell all picked out for you when you wake up."

"I… hng, can't…"

The temperature dropped, suddenly and rapidly. Dragon did her best to uncoil herself from the man's neck, give him room to actually breathe. The massive presence that she could detect on her sensors started shrinking right as her armor's power source gave out. Theresa let out a proverbial breath that she was holding in for the entire fight as her suit crashed to the ground around her.

—​

Colin Wallis

"Dragon!" Armsmaster called out. He didn't know if this unit was one of her remote suits or not, and dragon never said otherwise. The head of her dragon armor had a distinct imprint of Lung's fist crushing it on all sides.

[[ "Colin, easy, I'm fine it's one of my remote units." ]]

Armsmaster… Colin let out a sigh of relief. [[ "You never specified earlier. I was worried-" ]] He almost couldn't say it.

[[ "That something happened to me?" ]] She finished for him. [[ "I appreciate it, and sorry for worrying you. I'll make sure to clearly specify in the future." ]]

Dragon… Tess was one of the only people he could say actually wanted to be around him. He valued their time together more than he did his career, he could freely admit. The thought of losing her was… unpleasant.

[[ "I hate to say it, but this unit is totaled. I'm going to have to fly out a new unit to help you with your terrorist tinker problem. It'll be manned this time. Maybe you could show me around Brockton Bay once I get there?" ]]

That… that sounded nice. Spend a day relaxing and unwind. Bagging Lung was going to be one of his biggest achievements he ever pulled off, he could afford to kick back for a day afterwards. He wasn't exactly sure what Dragon wanted to see in the city, but maybe...

"Oh. My. God. Bossman. Stop flirting with your girlfriend." Assault called out behind him.

"Assault," He ground out between clenched teeth, "I was not-"

"Yeah yeah whatever you tell yourself. Look, tiny tot is leaving the area." Assault pointed towards the now thoroughly destroyed warehouse where the empire rally took place. Across the other side of the road, he could see the doll was picking up her other arm. "I'll make sure our resident rage dragon doesn't get back up while you go kindly yet firmly ask our latest newcomer to come in for some questioning. You know how antsy the director is about that right now, right?"

Armsmaster huffed behind his full face cover. Assault was right: Dragon was fine, Assault could keep Lung down better than he could on the off chance his formula wore off sooner than he expected, and the director was chomping at the bit to put this new tinker in line. Lung was shrinking, so he went and pulled the head of his halberd out of the man's shoulder. It had snapped off while Lung thrashed around at the end.

"Get a unit out here to contain-"

"Armsy, go, I got this."

Another huff, Assault was pushing his luck telling him what to do. Armsmaster set out across the road. Across the warehouse, past the bubble of stopped time that they were going to have to cordon off later, and out onto the street where this all got started. The doll had its other arm thrown over its right shoulder and was quickly trying to disappear down an alleyway. He called out to the doll as he marched over.

Before he reached the alley, his suit picked up on the sound of something tearing. It sounded… wrong. Like space itself was ripping. Rounding the corner he expected to see the doll that he'd seen just 5 seconds ago. What he found was a different one standing in its place. The tall red one, some kind of portal user. A tear was present in a nearby wall, multicolored and shifting hues dominating the other side. He caught the doll with one foot in the tear as he came around the corner, the other doll's augmented limb slung over their... right... shoulder.

The both of them froze as they made eye contact. Armsmaster felt a creeping suspicion that he just stumbled upon a missing piece of the puzzle that made up the dolls. Red glanced between him and the limb she had thrown over her shoulder, a damning admittance of his suspicion if he had ever seen one.

"You're... all one person."

She grinned mischievously, and responded only by holding up a finger to her lips. He was thankful Assault was several streets away, for nothing that came out of his mouth he could proudly call intelligible. The man would never let him hear the end of it. After that, she turned back to the portal and began stepping through.

"Hey! Stop!" he called out, but it was too late, her red hair already disappearing into the portal along with the other doll's arm. The portal closed up before he could make it.

 

[Gungrifin]

Max Anders

"Gah!"

Kaiser flew backwards, landing hard on the warehouse floor. He threw his arms over his head on reflex in a vain attempt to protect himself from the bomb, but no blast washed over him. Confused, a quick pat down revealed that he was uninjured. He took a moment to contemplate the fact that he wasn't dead yet. Krieg must have thrown him clear of the bomb, probably absorbed most of the blast with his power while he was at it.

His relief lasted momentarily, his mood souring quickly after that and he started to see red. They boobytrapped the exits to his rally. They damn near caught him with one of their fucking bombs. He knew that the ABB were willing to stoop to low levels, but this was taking it one step too far. He practically saw the damn thing he was standing so close to it. They had rules about these kinds of things.

Very well, if Lung wanted to play hard ball, he would happily oblige.

Standing up he found the warehouse completely and thoroughly reduced to rubble. The roof had collapsed and he could see up into the night sky. Odd, everything was a little too… settled, for a bomb having just gone off. Kaiser kept his guard up, Lee was probably still around and he was expecting the mad bomber to appear at his side any second now, that or Lung to come barging over to gloat over whatever victory the asian warlord thought he would accomplish tonight. A new steel sword flowed out from his gauntlets so he had something to protect himself with.

Krieg was nearby and looked no worse for wear, holding up a section of the collapsed roof over his head with his power. Whatever the bomb did, Krieg absorbed or deflected enough of it to save the both of them. If he had taken along any of his other capes with him tonight he was sure that all of them would be dead by now.

"Krieg, clear that rubble out of the way and make us an exit, now!" He called out while turning back towards the open area to keep an eye out for Lee's next move. Krieg's power didn't necessarily hard counter Lee, but his second's chances were far higher against the teleporter than his own. He trusted him enough to be able to handle himself.

The twins were nowhere to be found and he didn't like the implications. It was hard to imagine something as simple as the roof collapsing had done them in. There would at least be bodies left behind if that was the case, and they had grown halfway to the ceiling last he saw. The thought that they had simply been vaporized in the blast crossed his mind.

Actually… something was wrong. Something was very off about the entire situation. Lee would have popped up by now, and yet there was nothing. Now that he thought about it… It was quiet. No fighting, no distant gunfight in the streets, the fire that consumed the street in front of the warehouse wasn't even there. The only thing that sounded remotely right was the distinct sound of PRT and Police sirens in the distance.

There should have been at least a cloud of dust that was kicked up by the warehouse being basically leveled, and yet everything seemed a little too still. What the hell was going on?

"Krieg! Are you done yet?" He called out. When his second failed to respond he turned back to where he just saw the man. Something was definitely wrong. Krieg didn't seem to be moving at all. He was as still as a statue, still standing in the open doorway that led out of the warehouse.

The more Kaiser looked, the more the hairs on the back of his neck began to stand on end. That entire section of wall and a good part of the warehouse floor around it seemed to be practically untouched by the surrounding chaos. Now that he was looking, there was an odd metal block suspended in mid air underneath the canopy of partially collapsed ceiling.

"Krieg, answer me!" He could feel the block with his power. Yes his power didn't only work with steel, he was keeping that little secret up his sleeve for a rainy day. It was some kind of osmium alloy. Incredibly dense, denser than normal osmium. Parts of it didn't make any sense at first, but he quickly discarded the concern. Tinker alloys had a particular feel to them when he tried to interact with them with his power and the block seemed to be one of those.

His new concern was why the hell Krieg seemed to be just standing there, frozen for no apparent reason. Where the hell had that block come from and why in god's name did it seem like it was occupying the space he was just in?

A cough had him snapping his head to the right in the direction where the front of the warehouse used to be. Someone who had to be a cape, one that he didn't recognize, was standing close by. The black and red 3 piece suit complete with a masquerade mask and top hat stood out to him. It wasn't a perfect fit for the man. The cuffs were maybe half an inch too short to his eye and the outer jacket just a little too long. Overall he actually approved of the look, assuming they could fix the suit, but they represented yet another confusing unknown right this second. Kaiser was feeling particularly uncharitable right now and was in no mood for carnival games.

A net of steel sprung up from the mangled and twisted supports that presumably supported the celing of the warehouse. It all quickly moved to surround the boy, for his posture and improperly fitting costume made him think of a boy trying hard to look respectable and mature, only for the boy to be replaced with… a storefront mannequin?

The all too familiar crackle of a megaphone brought his attention to the rooftop of a nearby building. "Excuse me, sir, I'd like to not be turned into swiss cheese thank you," The cape called out from up above, "You could at least allow someone to introduce themselves." The boy pulled the megaphone away and was replaced with another mannequin. Another cough to his side showed the cape was back where he was originally, surrounded by a sea of his steel. The mannequin that was just here was up on the roof now… A teleporter? One that needed something to switch places with?

"Am I going to get stabbed?" They asked while picking at some of the steel nearby.

Now Kaiser was actually starting to get angry. He had no idea what the hell was going on and it was high time he got some answers.

"Who the hell are you and why should I care? You have 5 seconds." Kaiser returned.

The boy tipped his hat at him, "Trickster, of The Travelers, and you're welcome by the way for saving your ungrateful butt."

Excuse me? "I don't remember asking for or requiring your assistance." Kaiser was debating skewering the man on the spot, he really didn't have time for this.

The punk brought up a hand and pointed towards his second and the osmium block, "In case you didn't notice, that is a little bubble of stopped time. Or… whatever. You got caught in it for the record, you're welcome."

… What? How…

The cape sighed. Was he talking down to him? Kaiser did not appreciate the gesture, especially when it was coming from someone that could have easily been half his age. The steel around the cape crept in closer around the boy. "Explain, now. What the hell are you-"

Suddenly Kaiser found himself surrounded by his own steel. It dissolved easily to give him room, but he didn't like how familiar the shape of it felt.

"Ok dude, you seriously need to calm-" was all the other cape got out before Kaiser surged his net in the boy's, Trickster's, direction. The mannequin replaced the teleporter right as his steel would have run through the punk. Another crackle of a megaphone sounded out from the nearby rooftop.

"Alright dude, have it your way." Trickster pointed down towards him, "And If i get a hint that you're trying to sneak your metal up here to get me like you just tried you're going back in the bubble and not coming out again. Calm the fuck down!"

It was unbecoming of him to raise his voice, but with the other cape up on the rooftop he had little choice, "You don't want to make an enemy of-" Static bursts from Trickster's microphone interrupted him.

"Excuse me sir, you seem to not understand your predicament right now. Turn around." Now he was making demands of him, "Turn the fuck around asshole and take a good look at the time bubble. Take a wild guess how you got out of there. I'll wait."

"You will not order me around."

"Do you see the fucking block of whatever the hell that is in the middle of that time field? Piss me off and I'll switch you back. Test me." Trickster pulled his microphone away again and tilted his head to the side, Kaiser could tell by the silhouette of the man's top hat.

Slowly, like being dunked into freezing cold water, Kaiser realized that the man might actually be serious. If his power did what it appeared to do, he might actually be at the tender mercies of a boy half his age with an attitude problem. It felt like his teeth were grinding together, being given orders by someone he'd never heard of before.

Turning around… fuck, the boy had him dead to rights.

"Alright, we're going to try this again. Kaiser, meet time bubble. You're welcome, ass."

Kaiser turned back towards Trickster… and took a moment to breathe in and out a few times. "What do you want, Trickster."

"My employer would like to offer you an invitation to a truce meeting to discuss the ABB and the future of Brockton Bay. Tomorrow night, I'm told you know the place." Somers Rock, that old hole in the wall hadn't been used in years. Trickster pulled his free arm out the side, open palmed. "There, now was that so hard?"

As soon as he got out of here, he swore this Trickster would regret the blatant disrespect he showed him tonight.

Trickster dropped his arm back to his side, "So, with that, message delivered. Have a nice day." He turned around and started to walk away, disappearing behind the lip of the roof.

"Wait!" he called out. The boy would regret tonight, but with the situation being as it was, Kaiser had use of him before he made an example out of the man. Trickster slowly turned back around and crossed his arms as he looked down from the rooftop.

That didn't mean what he was about to do wasn't going to hurt his pride, however, "You said you had an employer. You also rescued me from that prison." Kaiser pointed behind him towards where he presumed he was stuck inside until now. How long had he been in there? Something to find out at the first opportunity. "I am willing to match what your employer paid you to free my second in command as well."

Trickster paused before tilting his head down. The megaphone came up, but not before the man took a deep breath. "While I always appreciate the opportunity to make more money, I'm afraid I'm going to have to decline. I can't free your buddy."

"You CAN'T? You…" Breathe, in, out, in, "Why, not."

Trickster declined to respond, instead he turned his head from side to side. The next moment he disappeared as something replaced him on the rooftop. He couldn't identify what it was, but he dropped that line of thought, it was just something that Trickster switched with. What it was wasn't important. Looking around he found the cape about halfway across the ruins making his way over the rubble.

Kaiser had to control himself to not impale the man with his steel as he approached. He came up right next to him and Kaiser noticed the darker skin tone Trickster had. Suddenly he was even more unimpressed by the boy.

"Ok, so, your friend here," Trickster said as he came up right next to him while pointing towards Krieg. "Is very, very stuck. I can't get him out of there even if I wanted to."

"Yes. I know." He ground out, "You said as much. I asked why."

The man stared back at him through his masquerade mask, clearly un-amused. "He's too deep in there for me to get him out. This field is weird and messes with mass or something. I could just barely get you out and that took like an hour to switch you and that block in the first place. Your friend is far, far deeper in the field and I don't know what the hell it would take mass wise to switch him."

Kaiser looked back at the time field, his second standing in between the block and what he assumed was the bomb. Looking at it properly now it really was nothing more than a metal drum, some wires, and the bomb itself. It was frozen, tumbling through the air.

Krieg's power, no doubt. His second tried to throw him and the bomb in opposite directions at the same time. He closed his eyes. If Trickster truly couldn't get him out… then his second in command was dead in all but name.

He was going to make the ABB pay for this transgression.

"What do you mean it took an hour?" He asked, wondering if there was anything he could do.

"Difference in mass by a few orders of magnitude, mostly. I can switch anything that I have connected to each other, but extreme distance and mass differences cause that to take a while to form. I can do it if I have the time to force the connection, which is what happened with you. You were like a hundred times more massive than that block was according to my power. Your friend is… I don't even know, a-lot. Too much. I literally don't know how long it would take and unless you got a spare neutron star or some shit just lying around I don't want to sit around for a year to find out."

Hmm… Unless…

"What about that block?" He asked, pointing towards the osmium-alloy brick that Trickster said he used to free him.

"The block?" Trickster looked back towards the field. "What about it? I'm not getting that back out of there if that's what you're asking. I don't know what the hell it's made out of but it's fucking huge right now. I'd need another one like ten times as big to begin to try, and if I did have one, I'd sooner use it to try to free your buddy instead of bothering with the smaller block. I'm not joking when I say i hope you got a fuckin' neutron star or something."

Kaiser closed his eyes and started counting down from 5. He wasn't clear enough it seemed, "I mean, what about using your power on the block where it currently is and Krieg as they are. If they're both as massive as you say they are, can you swap them similarly to how you swapped me with the block to begin with? You said he was too deep in the field, would bringing him out closer to the edge make him easier to use your power on?"

Trickster tilted his head and leaned forward, "What… Ohh! I see what you mean. That might work? Maybe. It depends on-"

The distant telltale sound of a particular motorcycle interrupted the both of them. Kaiser knew immediately who it was, Armsmaster, and he was coming this way by the sound of it. They didn't have enough time to discuss this right now.

Trickster was already moving, walking backwards while tipping his top hat back at him. "No time dude, gotta go. I'll contact you once I figure out if that idea would work or not. Sorry about your friend." And with that, the teleporter turned around to face a different rooftop and another shopfront mannequin appeared in his place.

Kaiser took one last look back at his second before he left the area. He'd be back, old friend.

—​

???

Half a city away, in a forgotten and derelict train depot, Black Gold Saw stood. Her head angled to the side, her eyes closed, her metallic gauntlets clutching an unconscious human that had stooped to drugs and chemicals. She felt a response from a ward that was placed prior, overlooking a sight that had amused her several nights ago. A stoic expression cracked, a grin made itself known across her face. The human was unconscious, a broken, bloody nose and bruised face giving no mystery as to why, and was not able to perceive the gentle laughter coming from the Other.

Black Gold Saw's eyes opened. While the scene that she had just witnessed was a great distance away, she knew exactly where to look to find it.

The King had been spared his cruel fate while The Jester continued to seal his own. These humans were so deeply amusing with how they lived their lives, unaware of the great game they all partook in. It was going to be a pain to properly neutralize The King now that he was free, but ohh… how much fun was in store for all of them, now that the unwitting pawn was back on the board?

It was simply so dull dealing with the riff raff. She hoped he would at least make a night or two worth her while.

 

[Gungrifin]

Miss Militia

Hannah rode down the street on her Harley at the edge of the city, keeping a look out for anywhere where she might want to hide a bomb in plain sight… assuming she was willing to stoop to petty terrorism, that is.

Actually, what the newest cape the ABB acquired, and currently only cape by the looks of it, was doing couldn't be called terrorism. That required a political ideology to be present surrounding the acts of terror and demands for change or denouncements of whatever it is the terrorist stood against. She'd seem proper terrorism when she was growing up as a little girl. The unpleasant experience shaped her, gave her powers even.

It was a pipe dream considering the state of the world currently, but she wished no soul would ever have to go through what she did.

No, what Brockton Bay's newest resident was doing couldn't be called terrorism. It was worse in some ways, just indiscriminate bombings all over the city for a few minutes once a day. The PRT, Police, Firefighters, and all of the city's emergency services were combing the city looking for more bombs. The city had practically gone into lockdown for the past 3 days. Businesses were closed across the city and all but a state of emergency had come out of the mayor's office. The only reason they hadn't officially said so was the fact that all of the citizens seemed to have come to the same conclusion first.

The streets were very, very empty. Eerily so. While terrible overall, it had made it easier to sweep the city in the meantime. Thankfully, most of the various criminal organizations had taken the hint and also decided to lay low for the moment. That alone was a miracle considering the widespread violence between the ABB and the Empire that night. They were looking at a full scale gang war on their hands… at least they were right up until both gang's top leadership were incapacitated in the same night.

Hannah took the corner on her Harley onto one of the roads that lead out of the city and towards the train yard. She was out here trying to comb through the train yard while everyone else slept, being one of the places they hadn't checked yet. Downtown and the 'nice' suburban areas were swept first, obviously.

Her riding gloves creaked on the handlebars of her bike. The protectorate protected the better off areas of the city first, typical. It had the highest population density, especially now with everyone taking shelter in their homes, and had the most infrastructure that could take who knew how long to fix if it got damaged. Skyscrapers, the art galleries, business buildings, high density residential areas, sewers, power lines. It needed to be cleared first, she knew it was solely a numbers issue, but the nagging feeling of preferential treatment was still there.

There was nobody out on the streets right now so she ignored what few traffic lights were out here on the long stretch to the train yard.

Colin had spared barely a moment outside of his lab for the past 3 days, too busy looking over the few bombs they were able to defuse and recover while the city got searched. Dragon was here now it seemed and she was at least able to kick him out of his lab every now and again to get him to eat and sleep. Colin was in full tinker mode and, while she would never say it out loud, it was almost a full time gig trying to make sure her boss didn't starve himself or fall asleep at his workbench with a hot soldering iron in hand.

Hannah made it halfway to the train yard before pulling over to the side of the road. The engine was killed and she pushed it far enough away from the road where it wouldn't be seen if someone passed by. It was dark in the middle of the night, away from the city with no street lights. While she was reasonably sure no-one would find her bike she still didn't want it discovered to begin with. A moment later had her pulling out her flashlight to find a good spot to conceal her bike. She only had the light on for a few seconds before towing her bike into its final resting place for the night behind some bushes.

It was dark, yes, but she was frequently on active duty during the night; the lack of light was something she had gotten accustomed to dealing with out in the field.

Satisfied, Miss Militia shifted her power into a small sidearm that sat at her hip while she turned back towards the road. The train yard was only 2 or 3 miles away but that was still a few miles she had to jog. Oh well, it was a small price to pay to not alert every soul at the train yard that someone was coming.

—​

The complete lack of maintenance and attention to this section of the city was simply insulting. Entire sections of the perimeter fence that should have surrounded the train yard were either gone or trivial to circumvent. Yes the rail lines had been decommissioned long ago, but this went further than simple neglect. The train yard was just abandoned by the city by the looks of it. Miss Militia didn't bat an eye at the graffiti and other signs of vandalism, it was more the fact that the place looked like they hadn't even bothered with something as simple as trying to keep nature from reclaiming the area.

There was no point in maintaining the train yard when shipping was almost nonexistent worldwide, even if the bay was open. Even if it was, Brockton Bay wasn't necessarily a center of trade. The rail lines had been decommissioned in any case, trains couldn't make a stop in Brockton bay even if they wanted.

No point in maintaining infrastructure that didn't make the city any money. Typical. So here it all sat for all these years collecting dust and rusting away. It made sense, it always made sense, but Hannah's home country always crept back into her thoughts when she saw differences in treatment like this. She lived in an area much like this growing up. Not necessarily an industrial jungle like the train yard, but a neglected part of the country that made it easy for radicals to establish themselves.

Pretty easy for a child to get kidnapped off the streets to be used as a human minesweeper if the government didn't even bother to look your way.

The next time she could, she was going to drag the mayor to the side of whatever fancy party he was attending and have a nice private discussion between the two of them. Hannah shook her head the instant she had the thought. The mayor wasn't the comptroller, he didn't control the city's annual budget, but seeing the abandoned rail cars and knowing they'd been here for the past decade or so made her blood boil.

Speaking of which, she'd just gotten done sweeping what looked to be the easy side of the train yard. There were only a few rail cars out in the yard and those were either empty or showed signs of squatters having claimed them long ago. She didn't find anyone currently occupying any of the cars, that was a relief. There wasn't anyone out here to potentially protect or worry about at least.

The yard was clear of any criminal activity and she wasn't terribly worried about tripping over any bombs out here. By the looks of it the place was thoroughly deserted. There were better targets to hit than a decade or two abandoned area miles away from city limits. That didn't mean they weren't making the damn things out here, but Miss Militia hadn't seen any signs of that just yet. The maintenance depot looked relatively intact, however, and she could see some light pouring out through one of the large entrance doors.

She'd be surprised if they were still bothering to send power down the lines out here, which made her think that it was a portable generator of some kind. She couldn't hear anything humming along like that from outside the depot and the light wasn't all that bright to begin with. Miss Militia swept her rifle from one side of the building to the other as she crossed the open yard towards the depot. She could easily see the rooftop against the night sky this far away from all of the light pollution coming from the city. It was clear and she could easily keep it in her sights.

There were almost no windows along the ground floor and what few there were there had shipping containers put up against them on the inside of the depot. It took maybe 20 seconds to move from the cover of the rail cars to the side of the building. Her rifle was trained on the building the entire time, although she had rubber bullets loaded initially. That was going to change quickly if she was actually about to stumble into the ABB Tinker's workshop.

The entrance to the depot faced into the yard with some lines connecting it to the rail network. She didn't go directly for it, instead she leaned up against the side of the building that faced the city and waited, listening for any sign of a response to her presence.

[[ "Console," ]] She whispered into the microphone tucked into her american flag bandana, [[ "I've cleared half of the train yard. Found evidence of someone being out here, in the old maintenance depot. I'm investigating now." ]]

It was Velocity's turn on console tonight if she remembered correctly. Poor Robin had been constantly running around the city the past couple of days. It was probably closer to a week or two for him with how much he had been using his power lately. At least he had plenty of opportunities to rest. She was actually a little jealous of how much downtime he could squeeze into an afternoon.

[[ "Understood Miss Militia." ]] The voice that came over the radio was distinctly not Velocity's, which brought her up short. Hannah blinked, Dragon was manning the console for tonight. She'd briefly spoken to the world famous Tinker every now and again when she needed something from Colin when he was in the middle of his work; the two Tinkers worked together via teleconference in Armsmaster's lab more often than not.

She wanted to ask if something had happened to Robin. Dragon probably would have said something earlier if that was the case. That simply left her to process the fact that she had Dragon, the Tinker, on the call with her.

Was Dragon also a noctis cape? At least she would be in good hands tonight.

Miss Militia brought up her rifle and hugged the outside of the building as she made her way around to the entrance. She was careful to take quiet steps, yet not let it slow her down as she advanced. Reaching the building's southwest corner, she counted to three before rounding the corner. Her rifle lowered to point to the ground, hugging it close to her body to minimize her silhouette as she rounded the corner, only to raise back up once she came around the other side.

There were no guards at the entrance and the soft light was still pouring out into the yard. She did see a few dark spots on the ground, however. Blood was her first thought but she wasn't stepping out into the light to get a better look. The entrance drew closer, and Miss Militia changed her weapon from a rifle into a smaller, more compact submachine gun for the smaller profile in close quarters.

Coming up right next to the door the splotches definitely looked like blood. The sound of men groaning in pain came from inside. People were definitely here it seemed, she just wished she wasn't about to stumble into a situation that involved civilians, or even worse, hostages.

Another count to three and she moved into the light, sweeping her smg from one side to another to take in everything. Along the sides of the depot were shipping containers with sections cut out of their sides. Makeshift doors and drapes of cloth separated the spaces inside from the floor of the depot. They were probably being used as makeshift rooms out here. Trash was strewn around the place and she spotted a few needles on the ground. This might have been a Merchant den.

Several people were on the ground already, either groaning or unconscious. One of them had their arm bent at an unnatural angle, which made her think these people weren't just high as a kite. Miss Militia lowered her smg to report in.

[[ "Console I've got a Merchant den here by the looks of it. Someone's already hit the place. I need a few transports for the people out here, whoever got here first did all the work for us." ]]

[[ "Understood. Do you know if they're still out there?" ]]

[[ "I'm about to find out, Militia out." ]]

The room was lit by a single desk lamp on a large table in the middle of the floor. Plates and forks crusted with stuff that she didn't even want to identify were scattered along its surface. There was a couch in the corner, torn up with the stuffing bursting out of its cushions. Faded throw rugs covered the concrete floor and a makeshift fire pit was smoldering out not too far from the couch. A communal area maybe.

The presence of a fire indoors had her glancing upwards to find broken windows near the catwalks that ran around the edges of the depot. At least there was a way for smoke to ventilate. That thought brought her to see that the depot didn't seem to have much in the way of insulation. The Massachusetts nights were able to get incredibly cold and the power to here had been long cut off. She was going to have to check everyone here before the troopers arrived to see if she had any medical emergencies on her hands.

The sound of metal clinking on the concrete floor further back in the depot drew her attention. The back half of the building was sectioned off from the front by more container-rooms. Miss Militia brought her weapon up again and crept forward, being careful to avoid the broken plates, needles, and what she assumed to be food on the floor. The light would cast a shadow on the back wall, so she moved to the side as she approached the divide that broke up the depot. There was basically no way to avoid giving herself away as she crossed into the back of the building.

More clinks from the other side of the shipping container informed her that there was someone here. They were walking around by the sound of it. She had no way to tell if they knew she was here or not, and no idea who exactly it was on the other side. This could be some new vigilante starting out, or she could run head first into the ABB Tinker.

Christ, could she even tell the difference? They didn't even know what the Tinker looked like.

Miss Militia peaked around the corner of the container, wincing as her head cast a faint shadow on the far wall. There was another light source in this area so it was less noticeable than it could have been, but still. No containers were present, but the tables full of beakers and burners against the far wall left no mystery as to what was being made here.

The only concerning thing was the fact that the rugs ended right at the divide between the meth lab in the back and the living space in the front. There was no way whoever was back there wouldn't hear her footsteps echo out on the hard concrete floor.

Unfortunate, but hopefully it was for the best. She could safely call out to whoever was in the back and they could either come out on their own or she could retreat back into cover in the living area. She had plenty of cover behind the container as it was, and if the Tinker really was here then cover wouldn't save her to begin with.

Miss Militia pulled herself back around the corner, counted down once more, and then called out after steeling her resolve, "This is the Protectorate! Whoever is in the back of the building, identify yourself!" Her voice echoed and carried nicely in the depot.

Only the clinking of metallic footsteps on the floor sounded when she called out. She might have spooked them with the sudden noise. Moments passed with no response, then the footsteps drew near. Miss Militia switched her weapon to a shotgun and took up a stance around the corner of the container. The first shell was a beanbag round, but there was nothing but buckshot loaded afterwards.

The footsteps brought the other person directly behind the container. The container thumped as whoever leaned up against the it, at least thats what she assumed. They were only a few feet away and she still didn't know if they were hostile or not. Her finger was ready on the trigger of her weapon.

Her head snapped to the left, to the other set of containers that formed the divide in the middle of the depot. On the side that made up the corridor between the two halves, a red eye opened up on the container opposite of the both of them. The iris pattern was instantly recognizable as one of the dolls. It flicked its attention straight to her as soon as it appeared, and closed a moment later. Miss Militia turned her attention back to the standoff she was currently in. A jet black, metal, spiked gauntlet wrapped itself around the corner of the container. Long, crimson red hair, gently twisting red horns, and enough of the doll's face crested the corner to be able to look the doll in the eye.

Miss Militia tried very hard to ignore the blood on the Doll's gauntlet. "Red," She said, tense but full of relief that she wasn't about to get into a fight tonight by the looks of it. The doll glared back at her in return, clearly unamused. She lowered her weapon and took her finger off the trigger, hoping that she still wouldn't need to use it tonight. "Didn't expect to see you here tonight. I didn't scare you, did I?"

Red glared back harder at that; the seer-slash-teleporter was jumpy it seemed.

The doll hooked her chin over the edge of the container, bringing her full face into view, and mouthed 'red' back to her with a raised eyebrow. Her gauntlet, the one with a not insignificant amount of someone's blood on it, pointed towards herself, the question left unsaid. Miss Militia could only shrug at the implied question, "Sorry about that, not a lot to go off of when you and the others avoid us at every opportunity." Her weapon shifted away from the shotgun and back into a sidearm that sat on her hip. "Maybe we could fix that tonight? Do you have a name you'd like us to call you?"

Red diverted her gaze upwards and stood there. A few drops of blood dripped off of her gauntlet, which was honestly making her anxious at the doll's nonplussed behavior. Was... was she thinking? Did this one not have a name picked out yet? They knew one of the other dolls' names, so that seemed unlikely.

That just brought up the question as to what exactly were the dolls. One of the few times she'd seen Colin these past few days was when he shared with the rest of the Protectorate members his helmet footage of his last encounter with them. They'd all clearly seen the newest doll, Orange based on the eye color, duck into the alleyway only for Red to all but take their place once Armsmaster reached the alley.

Assault was still saying they should call them 'tiny tina'. Hannah didn't get the reference.

A chuckle brought her attention back to the doll. She was already halfway around the corner, the clicking of metal on concrete ringing out through the depot.

There was something... unsettling, about the doll. The face was too perfect. No blemishes, no discoloration, clearly unnatural eyes that stared back at you unblinking. The lips were clearly curved upwards at the ends in a simile of a smile, but it wasn't accompanied by the surrounding face moving with it. The fact that the doll was taller than most was not helping to ease her feeling of unease. She didn't necessarily tower over the hero, but having to look up to talk to the doll or look her in the eye only further reinforced the errieness of the doll.

They reached out to her. The dark liquid dripping off of their gauntlet setting off several alarm bells in her head. Miss Militia took a step back, her hands going to her weapon that changed into a heavier handgun.

The doll was faster, it's reach longer. They gripped her shoulder before she could draw her weapon. Miss Militia tried to shake free from the sudden contact, but the strength behind the doll's grip was ironclad. It didn't hurt and it wasn't uncomfortable in the slightest, but there was no mistaking the fact that she wasn't going to be able to free herself from their grip.

Miss Militia drew her weapon from it's holster, hidden behind her as she wasn't sure if the doll was suddenly turning hostile or not yet. They leaned forward, past her face, near her ear and purred.

"Black Gold Saw."

With that, her grip released and the doll walked on, her red hair trailing behind her. A merchant that looked like they spent a few rounds getting boxed in the face was dragged across the floor as well. How did she miss that?

The doll provided no answer as she dumped the man in a heap alongside the rest of the merchants in the depot.