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

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Chapter 24: Pho thread post that requires formatting that i've forgotten how to do, under construction.
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    ■​

    ♦ Topic: Medhall HQ collapses during clash downtown
    In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay
    Brocktonite03     (Original Poster) (Veteran Member)
    Posted On Apr 7th 2011:
    Well ladies and gentleman, Medhall's gone. Say goodby to like half the respectable (I'm going to fucking gag, hindsight folks) work in this city for the time being. Link.

    You can see the aftermath Here and Here.

    In other news, we got a new cape in the bay? Link.

    Everyone currently discussing the new cape that was present during Oni Lee's attack needs to take it to the appropriate threads. You can find it in the link above. We've already dealt out some punishments to keep the thread on track. -Tinmother

    Edit: I mostly lurk and don't do this OP thing, this feels wierd... Anyway, HOLY SHIT MEDHALL WAS EMPIRE THIS ENTIRE TIME? LINK.

    (Showing page 7 of 19)

    ►Answer Key
    Replied On Apr 10th 2011:
    Moooods, they're posting weird crap again!

    ►XxVoid_CowboyxX
    Replied On Apr 10th 2011:
    [Comment Deleted]

    Void Cowboy you're not even in the right thread to be guessing someone's identity...

    As a reminder, discussion of cape identities is not allowed, suspected or otherwise. The fact that the cape in question has no mask on and we can all see their face clear as day does not change that. We have no idea who they are or if they are attempting to conceal their identity or not. Please leave it to the cape to come forward with that information or not. Don't go snooping, enjoy the temp-ban. -Tinmother

    ►Forgotten Creator
    Replied On Apr 10th 2011:
    Void!

    You know what, I'm going to get up, get a drink, take a walk around the apartment, finish my drink, and then come back. 5 dollars says void's banned by the time i get back.

    Edit: Eyy look at that, everyone here owes me a fiver now. I swear that man has no self preservation instinct.

    ►Mac's Dual Rocket Propelled Grenades
    Replied On Apr 11th 2011:
    Not today Creator! That's a temp ban Void has. Our agreement is null and ...

    You know what I'm just not going to finish that.

    ►bothad
    Replied On Apr 16th 2011:
    So the Medhall CEO, Max Anders, put out a press release detailing the future of the company. Pretty ballsy of him to go out there and basically go 'No, we are staying and we will come back stronger than ever.' This is Medhall that we're talking about though, they've been really good to Brockton Bay ever since they've been here so I have faith that they'll pull though.

    Edit: Fine, here, Link.

    ►Ultracut
    Replied On Apr 16th 2011:
    Just saw the press release. Yeah that's a power move if i ever saw one. Congrats to Max for building up such a successful company that they can bounce back from that.

    ►Forgotten Creator
    Replied On Apr 16th 2011:
    Guys, Provide links. Some of us have lives and stuff.

    ►Dawgsmiles (Veteran Member)
    Replied On Apr 16th 2011:
    Here. Edit: Beat me to it.

    ►Bagrat (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
    Replied On Apr 16th 2011:
    I already posted this in the other thread for the press release, but dude, Max looks 100% dedicated here. He's coming out the gate swinging with his speech. I never took him for a hardcore patriot but, then again, I'm the cape geek guy. Normies don't interest me all that much :p

    Edit: I have made a terrible mistake.

    Edit 2: That first edit sure will be pulling double duty from now on by the looks of it. I just sang praise for a damn neo-nazi. Someone take my tags away, I clearly don't deserve them.

    ►Mac's Dual Rocket Propelled Grenades
    Replied On Apr 16th 2011:
    So, Bagrat. If normies don't interest you, is it because of the spandex or do you just enjoy a partner that's capable of crushing your head between their thighs like a watermelon?

    Because let me tell you, there's significantly more of both of those running around now than there were before!

    End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 ... 17, 18, 19

    ■​

    ♦ Topic: New cape in the bay?
    In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay
    Dawgsmiles     (Original Poster) (Veteran Member)
    Posted On Apr 7th 2011:
    I don't see a thread for this up yet, so here we are.

    This looks to be the newest cape to grace our wretched hive of scum and villany fair city. No real details yet other than brute rating: Yes to be able to hold up an entire frickin building for a few hours.

    (Showing page 1 of 2)

    ►Bagrat     (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
    Replied On Apr 7th 2011:
    *Whistles* whew. That's an impressive first showing!

    I'm immediately noticing the lack of mask and wondering if this is a new member of New Wave. @ Brandish @ LadyPhoton Can anyone pitch in and confirm or no?

    ►Deimos
    Replied On Apr 7th 2011:
    Thats a heck of a lot of chains. I'm hesitant to say it out loud because that just sounds so silly, but... Chain control?

    How would you even categorize that. As a master technically?

    ►Bagrat (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
    Replied On Apr 7th 2011:
    @ Deimos I'm with you on that one. The sheer amount of mass that little lady seems to be able to throw around is staggering.

    I'm trying to dig around now but I can't seem to find anything on who this newcomer is.

    ►Procto the Unfortunate Tinker (Not a tinker)
    Replied On Apr 7th 2011:
    Some kind of hammerspace to keep all those chains on them or they might be projections of some kind, I'd wager.

    ►Reave (Verified PRT Agent)
    Replied On Apr 7th 2011:
    The PRT doesn't have a statement at this time concerning the new cape, only heartfelt thanks that they were able to prevent the collapse of the Medhall building long enough to rescue people that were trapped inside. I'm looking at a report saying about 50 or more employees were present at the time. Either working through the night or some real early birds considering this happened around 5:00 AM.

    In either case, the little lady is the only reason those employees were able to make it home in one piece.

    ►bothad
    Replied On Apr 7th 2011:
    Medhall owes them a drink or two after that.

    ►GloryGirl (Verified Cape) (New Wave)
    Replied On Apr 7th 2011:
    @ Bagrat I don't recognize them and Mom says they'd have done a press release if we took on any new members.

    Not that we've ever done that, considering family and all, but still.

    ►Vista (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)
    Replied On Apr 8th 2011:
    Please join the wards, please join the wards, please join the wards.

    ►Clockblocker (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)
    Replied On Apr 8th 2011:
    What my adorable partner in crime is trying to say is that we've got too much boy-ness going on in ENE Wards atm. Vista's been harking on about getting a new girl member for a while now.

    End of Page. 1, 2

    (Showing page 2 of 2)

    ►Aloha
    Replied On Apr 8th 2011:
    so whats there name

    ►Deimos
    Replied On Apr 8th 2011:
    'Little Lady' for the lack of anything else to go off of instead of just saying 'Them' over and over.

    Unless, you know, someone else comes forward with a better name or the cape themself tell us. It's only been a day give it some time.

    ►Nondeceptive
    Replied On Apr 14th 2011:
    So what gives? Did they just wake up one day and decide to have breakfast, look out the window and spot medhall collapsing, throw on their costume, bust out every link chain in the city, do their damndest to truss up medhall like a pig thats about to be gutted, keep it there for like 6 hours straight while everyone inside gets rescued, drop the building like a ton of bricks once given the clear, refuse to elaborate and just leave???

    What the hell. For real, it's been a week since then. Are you seriously telling me that nobody has seen this person since?

    Also I refuse to call them that.

    @ Reave I'm sure you'd let us know if they approached the PRT or not by now, but can we get an update on this on the PRT's side? Have you guys gotten any contact from them since?

    ►Reave (Verified PRT Agent)
    Replied On Apr 14th 2011:
    I can confirm that the PRT have not been approached by the 'little lady' yet.

    ►Clockblocker (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)
    Replied On Apr 15th 2011:
    *Snicker*

    ►Vista (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)
    Replied On Apr 15th 2011:
    Clock, you are the last person who gets to laugh at someone else's cape name.

    Also, no new ward? :(

    ►Ryus
    Replied On Apr 17th 2011:
    I just got out of the hospital.

    I don't know who they are, I don't know who they're affiliated with, I just want to thank them for rescuing me and everyone else at Medhall that morning. The building was already leaning over pretty hard and i swear we started to freefall when they worked their magic. A buddy of mine got pinned underneath about an entire floor's worth of office desks that slid to the side of the building from the lean. Myself and another buddy stayed to try to dig him out of there.

    If they didn't act, I'm sure all of us would have been paste and dust underneath all of the rubble. I'm convinced the only reason they'd even have know we were dead would be by checking who was clocked in at the time.

    ►Dawgsmiles (Original Poster) (Veteran Member)
    Replied On Apr 29th 2011:
    Welp, we solved this mystery it seems. They're a part of a new group in the bay with some kind of theme going on. Link to the group's thread.

    End of Page. 1, 2

    ■​

    ♦ Topic: Velocity takes down Mush!
    In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay
    Bagrat     (Original Poster) (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
    Posted On Apr 13th 2011:
    Last night, Velocity apprehended Mush of the Archer Bridge Merchants with the help of a new cape.

    Velocity was finishing up their patrol when they spotted the newcomer leaping from building to building and confronted them to figure out who they were. The both of them teamed up for the night as it seemed the newcomer was on their way to something, and Velocity offered to help.

    Well, it turns out they were raiding a merchant meth lab that just so happened to have Mush on scene at the time. Velocity says he dropped one of his containment foam grenades at mush's feet right as his golem started to form, which meant that the merchant couldn't run all that easily and had to fight the heroes before backup arrived.

    Thankfully, PRT troopers were quick to arrive and foamed the rest of Mush's golem down, taking down one of the most disgusting capes in the Merchant's roster. I managed to snag a Picture of Mush's golem buried in containment foam. Poor dude, he's never going to hear the end of that.

    No real info on our new mystery cape other than the fact that this one has no mask. Sounds related to the other maskless cape that showed up earlier this month in the bay.

    (Showing page 1 of 12)

    ►Ekul
    Replied On Apr 13th 2011:
    Than you Velocity, and I mean that from the bottom of my heart. Merchant bastards are the worst scum in this city.

    ►SenorEel
    Replied On Apr 13th 2011:
    Any day Merchants get taken off the street is a good day indeed. Cant believe it was Velocity that actually took people in.

    Not that i'm bashing on him, good job and all that, I just pegged him more as a first responder and search and rescue kind of guy with his power.

    ►Valkyr (Wiki Warrior)
    Replied On Apr 13th 2011:
    Another new maskless cape in the bay? Ugh, more work. @ Bagrat do you have any other info on them besides the fact that they don't have a mask? Any idea what their power is? Any hard confirmation that they're related to the cape that helped during the Medhall incident?

    ►Logs
    Replied On Apr 13th 2011:
    Now we jsut need skidmark and the rest

    ►Bagrat (Original Poster) (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
    Replied On Apr 13th 2011:
    My PRT contacts are still getting back to me, but they believe that the two are connected somehow. This is super weird, it's like these guys don't exist or something. The PRT seems to have little more than the rest of us have on these new capes.

    @ GloryGirl stated in another thread that these are not new members of New Wave. It looks like we might have another maskless group in the bay.

    ►GloryGirl (Verified Cape) (New Wave)
    Replied On Apr 13th 2011:
    Again, I don't recognize this one and I can say that they're not with us. New wave has been on the lookout ever since we've heard about another maskless cape in the bay, but we haven't been approached by anyone yet.

    ►Aloha
    Replied On Apr 13th 2011:
    good job

    ►Kriketz
    Replied On Apr 13th 2011:
    So we got ANOTHER new maskless perosn running around?

    ►Thatdude
    Replied On Apr 13th 2011:
    Which one of you traitorous bastards in the PRT knew that me and uber were going to do a katamari themed stream at the end of the week! I already built the magnetizer to make everything stick together! Now we gotta do something else.

    @ Someguy Can you believe this crap?

    End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 10, 11, 12

    ■​

    ♦ Topic: Less gangers on the street
    In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay
    Brocktonite03     (Original Poster) (Veteran Member)
    Posted On Apr 21st 2011:
    Has anyone else found it weird that alot of small time arrests have been made recently? Like, the PRT and BBPD seems to be going hard at the moment with all of the arrests they've made over the past few months, but some times they talk about it and sometimes they dont.

    Like, just the other day they made an announcement about that one meth lab, but two weeks ago bail got posted for 15 suspected empire members that I didn't even know got arrested to begin with.

    Please tell me i'm not crazy and someone else spotted this.

    (Showing page 1 of 1)

    ►Point_Me_@_The_Sky
    Replied On Apr 21st 2011:
    You're not crazy.

    :D

    But are you seriously complaining about the heroes making arrests? Seriously?

    ►XxVoid_CowboyxX
    Replied On Apr 21st 2011:
    The PRT never actually makes half of their arrests. It's all made up to make them look good. Why else are there empire and abb and merchants on every street corner week after week.

    End of Page. 1

    ■​

    ♦ Topic: ABB LEADERSHIP APREHENDED!
    In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay
    Bagrat     (Original Poster) (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
    Posted On Apr 28th 2011:
    Yes you read that title right. Both Lung and Oni Lee of the Asian Bad Boyz were taken in last night by a full deployment of the Protectorate and New Wave. Not only that, but Dragon showed up in one of her suits alongside, get this, yet another maskless cape to help out.

    The actual events of the night are covered Here.

    Considering Dragon's involvement and that she's already here in BB, it looks like the two gang leaders are getting fast tracked to the birdcage.

    Don't hold your breath, but I think the heroes finally got them.

    Edit: Alright guys, I know that the ABB weren't the nicest people around, but the mods would like to remind everyone to not go around dehumanizing people and wishing death upon others. As much as they might deserve it.

    (Showing page 15 of 45)

    ►Dragon     (Verified Cape) (Newfoundland Survivor) (The Guild)
    Replied On Apr 28th 2011:
    @ Brocktonite03 I didn't do much truth be told. I just wanted to show Lung what a real dragon looked like :p

    @ Char Yes, I will be staying in Brockton Bay for at least a few days. My Hawthorn armor that I used in the fight needs extensive repair work done to be operational again. I'm still looking over the error logs to see if i should bother to melt it down and start over or try to salvage it.

    @ JohnathanRays Hardly, I believe the real person worthy of praise over the ABB cape's capture is the independent that helped out. Based on what I was able to dig up, they were the ones fighting Lung for the most part while he was ramping up. If they didn't occupy him for as long as they did, I'm not sure if I would have made it in time to assist.

    @ Point_Me_@_The_Sky Sorry! Yours was not the only house I flew over that night. My apologies for startling everyone.

    ►Answer Key
    Replied On Apr 28th 2011:
    I still cant believe Dragon's here with us in BB.

    ►Robby
    Replied On Apr 28th 2011:
    I can't believe they expect us to believe that they're not about to drop the ball on arresting Lung and Lee. How many times this month alone has some empire goon been arrested and then let go the same day? Way too damn much, and its been like that for years now.

    I'm not holding my breath until they're on a transport and long past Boston.

    ►Loyal
    Replied On Apr 28th 2011:
    Way to go guys! Score one BIG TIME for the heroes.

    ►Laser Augment
    Replied On Apr 28th 2011:
    ROT IN HELL LUNG, GIVE ME BACK MY SISTER.

    User received an infraction for this post -Tinmother

    ►Nondeceptive
    Replied On Apr 28th 2011:
    Thank Scion that all that chaos last night resulted in some arrests.

    On that note, can someone get down here and clean up the crap in the street. I actually cant leave my apartment and I got work to get to. I'd climb out my window, but I can't lock it back up behind me! No way in hell im leaving my apartment unlocked while I'm off at work, not in this city.

    ►Xyloloup
    Replied On Apr 28th 2011:
    Am I dreaming? Is this real life?

    ►Mac's Dual Rocket Propelled Grenades
    Replied On Apr 28th 2011:
    Or is this just faaaaaaantasy?

    Caught in a laaaaaaandslide no escape from reallllity?

    ►Procto the Unfortunate Tinker (Not a tinker)
    Replied On Apr 28th 2011:
    Are we just going to ignore the fact that we got another new independent running around with no mask on? I don't even see them mentioned in the press release. Bagrat says they were there and we all know he knows what he's talking about, but the only other person that even admits they were there is Dragon. Am I the only person who thinks this is weird?

    ►Aloha
    Replied On Apr 28th 2011:
    congrats

    End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 ... 43, 44, 45

    (Showing page 16 of 45)

    ►Char
    Replied On Apr 28th 2011:
    @ Dragon Im so sorry that your armor is like that.

    ►Logs
    Replied On Apr 28th 2011:
    howd lee get captured he can just teleport away

    ►Nod
    Replied On Apr 28th 2011:
    I will spit on Lung's grave and play hopscotch on his tombstone for taking away my dad. Bastard ruined enough lives as it was, may he never come back.

    User received an infraction for this post -Tinmother

    ►Valkyr (Wiki Warrior)
    Replied On Apr 28th 2011:
    I'm just going to make some small edits to the ABB's page...

    ►Laotsunn (Kyushu Survivor)
    Replied On Apr 28th 2011:
    I've always been torn between thanking Lung-sama for uniting the families and keeping us all safe, and denouncing his actions as a petty warlord that kidnaps women and preys on those weaker than him.

    This has not made that decision any easier.

    ►GloryGirl (Verified Cape) (New Wave)
    Replied On Apr 28th 2011:
    @ Laotsunn How can you even begin to defend an unrepentant mass murderer? He's a villan! He deals with drugs, casinoes, and brothels, you said so yourself!

    ►Laotsunn (Kyushu Survivor)
    Replied On Apr 28th 2011:
    You wouldn't understand. You haven't watched him change over the years before your eyes.

    ►Mac's Dual Rocket Propelled Grenades
    Replied On Apr 28th 2011:
    @ Procto_the_Unfortunate_Tinker Hey I agree. How many does that make now. 3? 4? Seriously they're just poping up out of the woodwork now. Did someone start some kind of no mask trend when I wasn't looking?

    ►Winged_One
    Replied On Apr 28th 2011:
    A shame that Lung is getting fast tracked to the birdcage.

    ►Acree
    Replied On Apr 28th 2011:
    PRT, Protectorate, New Wave, yall had better make this one stick. Like, we all know the gang's basically run the city at this point, but you guys got BOTH Lung and Lee. Thats literally the entire ABB cape roster. If it was just one of them, the other would probably be doing their best to break them out before they get carted off. Like, there's literally no reason for anyone in the empire, merchants, or any small time villans to break their competition out of jail, especially since they're birdcage bound.

    But like, I can't help but feel that something's going to go wrong and they'll get out anyway. Can't help it with yall's track record so far.

    Yall had better make this one stick.

    End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 ... 43, 44, 45

    ■​

    ♦ Topic: The Maskless Desperados
    In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay
    Mac's Dual Rocket Propelled Grenades     (Original Poster)
    Posted On Apr 28th 2011:
    So you know I don't do serious all that much but this is seriously bugging me how we got this whole rush of new capes running around and they've got no masks on. So I'm throwing this thread up to get us started on the subject.

    Edit: Shows you i don't do this all that much, need to actually contribute it seems. Here's a timeline I suppose:

    #1 4/07 Pic Medhall Collapse
    #2 4/13 No pic Mush Takedown. PRT description says they're thinner and flatter than a fence post. Long coat and not much else.
    #3 4/28 No pic ABB Takedown and Bombapocalypse. No description other than a "Yeah they exist" from the Protectorate. The hell is that about?

    Edit: Alright New Wave got us a description on the third one. Was worried there for a second that they were just made up to make the heroes look good, thanks guys! Short, possibly a kid with a raincoat. Dark skin. Tinkertech gauntlets about as big as they are.

    (Showing page 7 of 8)

    ►Vista     (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)
    Replied On Apr 30th 2011:
    These names are terrible.

    You're all terrible.

    Clock I can hear you laughing from the next room over. I'm afraid you're going to forget how to breathe or something.

    ►Weld (Verified Cape) (Wards Boston)
    Replied On Apr 30th 2011:
    I'm not sure who I'm more in agreement with, Clock or Vista.

    ►Answer Key
    Replied On Apr 30th 2011:
    @ Weld All of the above?

    ►Deimos
    Replied On Apr 30th 2011:
    Which one of you thought it was a good idea to let PHO name people. We ALL know how this goes down.

    ►Forgotten Creator
    Replied On Apr 30th 2011:
    I still think the one we actually have a picture for should be called Reaver.

    @ Reave why you gotta take this super cool name and not be a cape. Such a waste.

    ►Nondeceptive
    Replied On Apr 30th 2011:
    So are we just ignoring the other dedicated threats to these people now? Is that what we're doing?

    ►Reave (Verified PRT Agent)
    Replied On Apr 30th 2011:
    @ Nondeceptive Considering the insignificant amount of information on these guys that even I'm able to come across and the fact that the PRT seems to think that they're related to each other, I'd say that lumping everything in one place is the better idea at the moment.

    @ Forgotten_Creator I accept your terms, prepare for war.

    ►Valkyr (Wiki Warrior)
    Replied On Apr 30th 2011:
    Someone pick a non-cringe name before I decide what they're called on the wiki for them.

    Remind me to never ask PHO for name recomendations.

    ►Bagrat (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
    Replied On Apr 30th 2011:
    @ Reave Interesting. Why does the PRT think that they're related and in what way? Also, they've been around for a while now but we haven't gotten a press release or anything for like a month now. Neither from them or from you guys. We barely even know what they look like apart from one of them, and we have some barebones descritpions of the others. Can you at least shed some light on what you guys call them internally? Surely it can't be any worse than what PHO has come up with.

    ►Clockblocker (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)
    Replied On Apr 30th 2011:
    *Snickering intesifies*

    End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 5, 6, 7, 8

    ■​

    ♦ Topic: MEDHALL OUTED AS EMPIRE FRONT
    In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay
    throwawayaccount5     (Original Poster) (Banned)
    Posted On May 1st 2011:
    [Post Deleted]

    User was banned for this post. -Tinmother

    (Showing page 1 of 1)

    ►Bagrat     (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
    Replied On May 1st 2011:
    I think I speak for everyone here when I say we need some verification on this.

    With that said, shit. That's not going to go over well.

    ►Tinmother (Moderator)
    Replied On May 1st 2011:
    Under no circumstances should posts 'out' or endanger the civilian identities of capes. They wear masks for a reason. Thread Locked.

    End of Page. 1
     
    Last edited:
  • Threadmarks
    • Chapter 25
  • Threadmarks
    • Charles Stanton

    Charlie thumbed his radio, one burst. 'status?' Two bursts returned. 'ready.'

    It was just him and another mercenary in the backyard. The both of them pressed up against the house on either side of the backdoor. A quick glance inside revealed that it led into the kitchen. He looked over to the other mercenary with him, Chris, and nodded once. 'call the boss.' Chris returned the nod. 'affirmative.' As his partner turned away to make the call, Charlie looked over his laser rifle one last time. It thummed like it always did, the power source was fully charged, sights zeroed in for close quarters.

    Looking back up, Chris had just finished the call. He looked back at him, one nod. 'the mission is a go.'

    Charlie pointed his rifle at the deadbolt in the door. His free hand went to his radio, three slow bursts. 'breach on 3.' Countdown started.

    3. His hand went on the door handle.

    2. He gave Chris a once over, the man was ready to be the first one in.

    1. The rifle slagged the deadbolt and he yanked it open for Chris to head in. Charlie was hot on his heels and inside right behind him.

    The lights were on in the kitchen. Sweeping side to side showed it to be clear. Not much room between the counter and the dining table. He took up overwatch while Chris moved forward to the doorway, moving quickly but making little noise. His partner motioned for him to advance. 'all clear.'

    They met the other team coming in through the front door in the living room. A ratty couch sat in the middle having seen better days. The TV was on some news channel, volume low. Their first target, Daniel Hebert, was passed out on the couch, empty beer bottles on the ground.

    Through the open front door, he could see the escape vehicle pull up in front of the house at the curb. Charlie motioned with two of his fingers towards the other team twice, then once hard towards the stairs. 'bravo team, check upstairs.'

    One nod from the fireteam leader. 'affirmative.' Bravo team moved and headed for the stairs. Charlie turned to his partner and twirled his fingers up in a circle. 'sweep the floor.'

    A loud creaking came from the stairs and Charlie winced. He looked over, Bravo team were ramrod still on the stairs. Old creaking wood from a rundown house, fucking perfect. Their first target began to stir. He motioned for bravo team to keep going. Chris was waiting for new instructions with a potential cape waking up in front of the both of them.

    They had their orders. Charlie put his thumb to his neck and slid it from the left to the right. 'kill him.' Chris nodded and took aim.

    —​

    Hannah Washington

    The instant Miss Militia heard glass shatter on the ground, she knew something was wrong.

    She tried to make small talk with the doll, but that got her nowhere. They really didn't want to talk and the doll, Black Gold Saw, just waved her questions off. The director was going to love that.

    Failing to get anything out of the doll, she tried to check over the merchants that were in a heap. They all showed signs of being beaten, but otherwise were generally healthy. Well, as healthy as tooth rotten drug addicts could be.

    She thought about chatting up Dragon with nothing better to do other than tie up the gang members when the shattering of glass rung out through the depot. And here she thought it was going to be an easy, low stress night of bagging some already beaten merchants.

    Miss Militia stood up, her weapon flowing away from the small 9mm to something heavier on her hip. The sound came from the back of the depot where the lab was.

    "Re-" she stopped herself, they gave a name already. "Black Gold Saw?" No response. Miss Militia moved.

    One of the beakers was broken into several shards along with a few large pieces at R- Gold Saw's feet. Some chemical was spilled out on the ground along with the glass. She hoped that it wasn't toxic. The doll itself was doing its best to imitate a statue. Hands out in front of them gripping open air. Their head was turned to the side, facing the left side of the back wall.

    "Gold saw, what's wrong?"

    The doll turned towards the wall as it spared a glance back at her. The look it was sending her way gave the impression of being judged, analyzed, measured. It was inhumanely cold and calculating. Before it had been hard to describe, aloof, maybe even slightly playful. Now there was no sign of any of that.

    Now, the doll meant business.

    Her weapon shifted at her side. Her hand on its grip, ready to pull it out at a moment.

    The doll averted her gaze and marched towards the corner of the depot. With a heave, they lifted one of the tables holding the beakers, burners, and racks of chemicals used to make the merchant's products. Glassware and ingredients spilled over the table as it all got sent flying across the room. Miss Militia cautiously took a few steps forward, flinching for a moment as the table crashed into another table full of yet more drug making equipment.

    Something had set the doll off, that was obvious enough. She just didn't know what.

    A red glow blossomed in front of the doll as they stood a few feet away from the wall. Their arm extended out to the side, pulling with it a jagged, red spike. The spike gave way to the backside of what might be a sword. Velocity described it, once, but the man really did not do it justice. Gold Saw kept pulling, and pulling, and pulling. Only once their arm was fully extended did they seem to pull it out of whatever space all of the doll's weapons shared.

    It had to be longer than the doll itself. An oversized hand guard draped over a wrapped handle, both as red as its wielder's hair, eyes, and horns. The body was black and the blade edge was a dirty blond, even in the dim light.

    Black Gold Saw. Black Rock Shooter. Suddenly the doll's names started to make some sense. Some.

    The doll took a step forward and swung at the wall with the oversized weapon one handed.

    —​

    Daniel Hebert

    Danny heard something creaking, Taylor must have come back home. He'd gotten into the habit of staying up to watch the news in the middle of the night. He tried to stop her from going out on her own once, she just opened up a portal and stepped though instead. At least she looked sorry while doing so.

    Now he just kept the news on, hoping that she would come home in one piece. He couldn't stop her from going out, not that he had much of a right to that in any case.

    Someone was moving in the house. Must have been what woke him up. He opened his eyes, only to end up staring down the barrel of a gun. His brain decided that now was absolutely the perfect time to start firing on all cylinders, half hung over and half waking up.

    Danny bolted upright on the couch, only for the gunman to not even be looking at him. He was too busy looking behind him and the couch, along with the second black clad figure in his living room.

    "CAPE." one of them screamed at the top of their lungs. Both of their weapons shot up to point at whatever-

    That's when something tore through the air right above his head. Danny ducked, covering his head as whatever flew over the back of the couch. He looked up just in time to catch one of the gunmen, their rifle, and the living room TV get split in two.

    A familiar red gauntlet gripped the couch to his side and equally familiar red hair fluttered in front of him. Taylor vaulted over the back of the couch, destroying the coffee table with the landing. The second gunmen ducked into the kitchen and Taylor sprinted in after him. Her sword tore a chunk out of the door frame as she passed through it.

    "Taylor!" he yelled out. He made it halfway to standing up before he heard the stairs creaking behind him. Danny turned and stared at the odd sight.

    On the left was the stairs, and more gunmen that were now leveling their rifles in his direction. On the right was some kind of industrial hellscape seen through a kaleidoscope with… was that Miss Militia staring back at him?

    A red streak shot past him, grazing his cheek, and Danny hit the deck.

    —​

    Hannah Washington

    Looking through the large tear in the wall, Hanna found herself dumbfounded as she looked through and into someone's living room. An older man, 40 or 50 or so, stared back at her.

    This was new.

    A red streak tore across the room from the side. It narrowly avoided taking the man's head off, but it still dug a groove into the side of his face. Miss Militia stepped through the portal without a second thought as the man dropped down behind the couch and brought up her weapon.

    There were two people up and to the right, halfway up stairs leading up to the next floor. A stream of red streaks flew in the direction of the man. Vaguely military, tinkertech rifles, no insignias, names, or ranks. Coil's mercenaries. Miss Militia took aim with her shotgun and fired.

    The merc in front staggered back from the impact, but was still standing. Good body armor, bad for her. Militia ducked back through the portal as a returning barrage sailed through where she was in the man's house a second ago.

    [ "Miss Militia, Console, I've-" ]

    Militia slapped her comm piece in her bandana, [ "Not now!" ]

    This was bad. This was really, really bad. Somehow she'd gotten tangled up in a firefight with coil's mercenaries in the middle of some civilian's house. There was a man present in the middle of all of this as well as a doll. She had no idea what either of them were going to do in this situation. A few more streaks of laser fire kept her on her side of the portal, with more shooting out of one of the doorways leading out of the man's living room.

    She couldn't do anything from this position, the portal wasn't giving her a good angle and the mercenaries already had a bead on her position. Even if she stepped through, the single look she took earlier told her that there was no cover out there. She thought about calling for backup… but she didn't even know whose house this was or where the portal led to. These might not even be Coil's mercs, this could be halfway across the country for all she knew. Troopers were already on the way to the depot so Miss Militia decided to sit tight and only step through if it looked like the civilian was in real trouble.

    She prayed the man had some sense to keep his head down.

    Fortunately, although realistically it was still bad so maybe more like unfortunately, the one who decided to expose themselves was Gold Saw. A red gauntlet gripped the doorway in the corner of the living room, splintering and crunching the wood and molding. They stepped through, only to raise their hand up to defend against the returning laser fire.

    Militia decided to risk it with all of the attention now turned towards the doll. Shot didn't seem all that effective, even at close range. She debated a different weapon like a proper rifle, but if she missed who knew where the bullet would end up and how much drywall it would punch through before stopping. Using a higher powered round would help to deal with the body armor as well as using more specialized armor piercing rounds, but that would just make the problem of not knowing what was behind the wall even worse. Militia swapped out the ammo in her shotgun from buckshot to slugs, stepped through the portal, turned, took aim, and fired.

    The slug hit the first mercenary center mass. His outfit cratered, but no hole opened up in their side. They buckled over in pain, falling forward down the stairs. Militia racked the slide and took aim at the other merc. They were turning, starting to point their laser rifle in her direction, but she got her shot off first before dipping back behind the portal plane.

    Another slug racked and everything became quiet just as suddenly as it started.

    Chancing a look through the portal, the civilian was up and armed themself with a beer bottle of all things. Another step around the portal to protect the man found the two mercs incapacitated on the floor just a few feet away. She moved quickly to collect the tinkertech rifles and get them away from the mercs should they recover. Two slugs regenerated in the back of her shotgun's internal magazine as she kept her weapon trained on the men and disarmed them. Moments later both of the men were tied up.

    Hannah let loose a breath she didn't know she was holding in. Turning back to the man, he looked like some regular, if overworked, office worker. She had no idea who he was.

    "Uhh," Eloquently put Hannah, "Hi. Fun night."

    "Yeah." he responded back, lowering the beer bottle he had raised over his head.

    "Are you alright, sir?"

    The man raised his hand up to his cheek and drew it back with some blood on it. It didn't look all that serious from here, it was just a graze. It didn't stop his eyes from going wide with alarm.

    Suddenly his head shot up, looking forward at nothing in particular before blurting out, "Taylor!" He looked back towards the doll and… Ohh shit.

    The man bolted over to Gold Saw's side and wrapped them, her, in what looked to be a crushing hug. Shit. She shouldn't be seeing this. Tonight was just getting better and better. Gold Saw, Taylor, (no she was technically still in costume, she was Gold Saw for now) Gold Saw for her part looked completely out of her depth. Her arms were out and to the side, like she was afraid she would harm the man if she returned the hug.

    The moment didn't last long. The sound of a car burning rubber rang out and Gold Saw was instantly on the move. She exited out the left side of the living room leaving the man stupefied. Were they related somehow?

    Hannah almost didn't want to know the answer.

    There was a car pulling away from the scene by the sounds of it and Gold Saw bolted after them. She could learn all she wanted later. The left side of the living room turned out to be the front of the house with the door being the front door. Down the street an unmarked van was hauling ass out of the neighborhood with… was that Knight?

    They were already halfway down the street in hot pursuit of the van but the large shield was instantly recognizable, even from this distance.

    They were all one person. They weren't dolls at all. Actually, no, that wasn't necessarily confirmed yet. Hannah looked back to the man inside the house. He could be Dollmaker and they could still be tinkertech dolls. They could also be some kind of shifter or breaker with multiple forms.

    How many forms did they have?

    What in hell were Coil's mercs doing here?

    …

    "Where am I?" She said to no one in particular.

    —​

    Emily Piggot

    "You've got to be kidding me." Emily groaned out.

    "I'm afraid it's the truth, director." Miss Militia responded.

    Why me? Why can't this happen to someone else?

    Emily lifted her head out from the safe, gentle, uncomplicated confines of her hands and back out into a world of capes and drama and bullshit. "The man isn't our mystery tinker?"

    "He insists that he isn't a cape, and the scans we took while tending to his injuries indicate that he has a pollena but no active gemma. Considering the recent attack on his home, we're keeping him in a safehouse for the time being."

    It was too early for this shit, she just got into the building.

    "Daniel Hebert, the man who runs the Dock Workers Union these days. I think I might have met him once." Emily looked towards the two senior Protectorate members in her office, "Please tell me we've already identified this 'Taylor'."

    Armsmaster spoke up, "Taylor Hebert, his daughter. Most likely person Daniel would be referring to. Age 15, dropped out of Winslow High School several months ago and is working to complete a GED. Works near the boardwalk in a coffee shop."

    Emily closed her eyes in a vain attempt to keep the youth guard complaints she knew where coming at bay. "Find the owner and see if they've broken any child labor laws, preferably before the youth guard finds out. I know we still have those in this country and I don't need to be feeding them any more ammunition against us than necessary. What other headache inducing bombshells do I need to be aware of?"

    "She's missing." Armsmaster dropped without missing a beat. Of course she is.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • Chapter 26
  • Threadmarks
    • Thomas Calvert

    [ "I'd watch your tongue if I were you, Hookwolf. Once we find a way-" ]

    [ "To do what, break Kaiser out of that trap? Then what, are you going to get on your knees and suck the man off yourself? I didn't know you loved his dick that much Victor. What's next, you gonna spread your cheeks for him as well?" ]

    [ "Like I said, that is not the case and this is not the place to do this Hookwolf." ]

    [ "Fuck that, this is the perfect place to do this. Out in the open. Enough with this behind closed door bull-" ]

    Coil muted the stream from inside Somer's Rock. He couldn't think and he didn't need to listen to needless posturing from idiots.

    Actually, 'Coil' was likely far too tainted now he supposed. He'd have to dispose of that identity, far sooner than he would have liked and with far too little accomplished to show for it.

    ...

    Hire some mercenaries, stay on the lookout for useful assets to acquire, plant agents in as many local organizations as possible, slowly work his way up the local hierarchy as a neutral mediator, gather as much information and dirty laundry as he could while playing the game to win hearts and minds.

    Covertly turn the gangs against each other, stage shootouts to increase tension, maybe leak a secret or two if it seemed like a good opportunity. Coerce, blackmail, and intimidate the smaller entities while the larger giants went for each other's throats. Silently kill off those that he couldn't put under his thumb.

    Wait for things to cool down once the dust settled, activate his agents that were still around afterwards, burn the organizations that remained to the ground, take over in a flashy power grab, leak all the dirt that he'd been able to acquire on his good friend Piggot over the years and get her terminated as PRT Director.

    Install himself as the new director in his civilian identity, stage a war between his two halves for a bit before having 'Coil' meet an unfortunate 'Accident', pick up the pieces afterwards.

    Yes, all of this while also using his power to make sure everything went as smoothly as possibly. No failed attempts, endless interrogation sessions, as much rest and downtime as he would need. Although, more realistically, he'd rather use his time to further his goals. The unfortunate and common fate of a workaholic.

    It was the perfect plan…

    Fucking Trumps…

    ...

    Tom took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes. 4 and a half months of his power being on the fritz. 4 and a half months of not having a reliable backup timeline ready. He'd accomplished maybe a third of his goals by the time his power had started short circuiting and now he was back to square one with a fucking trump gunning for him.

    He held no illusions about what he had, emphasis on had. A solid core of ex military mercenaries that were paid well and with high morale. A few select parahumans that were on his payroll in secret. One, now two if only temporarily, full parahuman teams: The Undersiders and The Travelers.

    What he didn't have was his damn power. Because of a single fucking trump.

    He had money, he had a mountain of blackmail and dirty laundry, he had assets, but none of it was worth a damn when an enraged abomination starts tearing their way through his base looking for him. He was well accustomed to intentionally and strategically kicking the hornet's nest, he just never wished for it to stick afterwards.

    What was the point of explicitly hiring mercenaries with lucrative contracts that promised exonerated reparations in case they got injured or, god forbid, killed if he couldn't use his power to course correct to a timeline where they never go out on a bad op to begin with. What use was all the blackmail in the world if he could only burn it once before it became worthless.

    He still had The Undersiders, and The Travelers if he played his remaining cards right. That was pretty much it though.

    Tom huffed out, not at anything in particular but more in general frustration. The idiots on the feed were still bickering between themselves.

    "Agent, please tell them to settle down or at least take their internal feud somewhere else."

    …

    No response came, right, he muted the feed. A few keystrokes later and his agent's voice filled his personal study in his house.

    It wasn't like he had a base to use anymore. Not after what that abomination did to it.

    [ "Gentleman, please, let us all settle down, push our personal differences aside, and focus on why we have all gathered here tonight. We all have a common enemy that needs to be addressed." ]

    [ "Oh yeah mister snake man?" ], Hookwolf, he almost regretted turning the feed back on, [ "Who the hell even are you in the first place? Half this room hadn't even heard of you before now and yet you want to call the shots?" ]

    His agent was good, only responding with a shrug of his shoulders that let off casual indifference. He paid the man well to emulate him, [ "I simply think it is an improper use of all of our time to watch an internal dispute unfold. I think we all would appreciate it if we were able to get on track with this meeting some time before tonight is over." ]

    At that, the bell on the door to the restaurant chimed. Everyone on the feed turned around to see that The Travelers had shown up finally. Trickster took off his ridiculous top hat and held it to his chest as his teammates all made their way to a booth, [ "Apologies for the delay in getting here, there was a last minute hangup getting out the door." ]

    [ "And who the fuck are you? First this snake and now a circus clown. Does everyone just think they're hot shit and have a spot with the big boys now that Kaiser and Lung are gone?" ]

    [ "Certainly not… Hookwolf, I believe. We are nomadic and are simply passing through the city for the moment. While we're here, we'd like to observe this truce meeting to better ascertain the state of the city. We expect to be gone in a couple of weeks and have no interest in putting down roots at this time. Feel free to ignore us during our visit and we will be out of your hair before you know it." ] With that, Trickster put back on his top hat and joined his team at the side of the restaurant.

    "Inform everyone of our role in The Travelers visit." His agent subtly nodded his head, which showed up on the camera feed.

    [ "The Travelers are here at my request. They approached me with a particular problem concerning one of their members which I am attempting to rectify. While they wish to be neutral, The Travelers are mercenaries for hire of which I have already made use of since they have arrived." ]

    [ "Really." ] Faultline, arrogant pest of a woman. She was useful for drawing attention away from himself but she would never work for him. He planned to lure her out of the city before dealing with her, but that seemed like a pipe dream at this point.

    [ "Nightclub bitch don't even start, you don't do jobs in Brockton Bay and everyone knows it." ]

    Faultline didn't respond, she simply pressed two of her fingers to her welder's helmet and imitated blowing a kiss at the shirtless nazi. The sound of metal scraping against metal called out from the man, it sounded like a blender trying to imitate a growl.

    Was the man really trying to start a fight on neutral ground? He couldn't possibly be that stupid.

    [ "Hookwolf if you want to fight someone I suggest you wait until after we all leave." ] Ahh, and here the special, uninvited guest finally speaks up. [ "We all know that this is Marquis' and Allfather's old neutral ground. I know you know better than to pick a fight with everyone right here right now, especially with an entire team of unknown capes present. Tell me, do you have any idea of what any of The Travelers' powers are? If you still want a fight that bad then by all means, it's your funeral." ]

    Hookwolf looked back to the far corner of the room where the speaker sat in a booth all by themselves. [ "I don't remember invites being open to Protectorate pigs and I sure as hell don't remember asking for your opinion, Assault." ]

    The man was looking to kill someone tonight if Tom would hazard a guess. He was thankful Grue listened to him and held Rachel back from this meeting. She and Hookwolf would probably have taken one look at each other and started a fight on the spot, truce or no.

    [ "Well it's a good thing I'm not here as Assault today then now is it. Look dude I don't give a rat's ass what rock found its way into your shoe this morning but cool it. The entire damn city is on edge and we've got a little collective terrorist problem to deal with. I'm just here to make sure everything stays kosher tonight. Get into a dick measuring contest with the rest of the city after we all make sure we're still going to have a city come morning, okay?" ]

    Hookwolf threw his hands out to his sides along with a snort. [ "What, is Madcap coming out of retirement tonight?" ]

    [ "If it's needed to keep the peace, sure, let's go with that. Now pick between sitting down at the table like an adult and walking out that door before I do it for you. Madcap isn't required to play nice like the heroes and we both know I can run circles around you." ]

    Tom had to hand it to the man, he knew when to play the fool and when to lay down the law. Assault was going to be one of the first people he'd transfer out of the city once he figured out a way to salvage his plan and replace the director.

    Hookwolf responded… oddly. The metal wolf of the empire threw up a half-hearted wave and a smirk at the not-hero's ultimatum as he made his way towards the table. [ "Gotta be honest, I thought we lost you back in the day. Good to see you're still in there man." ] Hookwolf sat down at the table by kicking his feet up on it.

    That was just disgusting, they served food on those tables.

    The rest of the members of The Empire that were standing around took that as their cue to find a booth and sit down. Victor remained standing and chose to stare at his fellow nazi companion

    "Show that you're checking your phone for messages for the next minute." His agent nodded slightly on the feed and did as he was told. His agent thumbed through messages he'd received on his phone at random, keeping the phone down below the table but not hiding the fact that he was checking it.

    Of course that just made Hookwolf impatient, [ "So are we going to do this thing or what? The hell are we waiting on?" ]

    "We're expecting one more to show up. Start in 5 minutes regardless."

    [ "There should be one more joining us but they should have shown up by now." ] His agent slid his phone back into its pouch and turned back to the rest of the room. [ "I'm going to give it a few more minutes." ]

    Hookwolf scoffed, [ "Oh come on, who else could possibly show up that we give a shit about. Basically everyone that's important is here already. Merchants are done for and Trainwreck wouldn't fit through the front door. The chinks are why we're all here and wouldn't be invited anyway. We're here, you're here, Nightclub Bitch is here. All these fuckin' nobodies are here. Who else-" ]

    As if on cue, the bell on the door to the restaurant dinged. In stepped one of Tom's last ditch efforts to weaken the gangs in the city before 'Coil' would make his departure. Victor was the first to respond with a fist raised to his chest and a bow, [ "Sir." ]

    The Empire would have hobbled along without its leader, infighting causing it to eventually fizzle out. With Kaiser back, however, it would tear itself in half along the newly divided internal groups.

    Or should he call him Max now that he was going around without his helmet on?

    Oh well, Tom simply added the man to the list of targets that he needed to eliminate as soon as they outlived their usefulness. He reckoned the man went somewhere between Assault and that trump that ruined all his fucking plans in a single fucking day.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • Chapter 27
  • Threadmarks
    • Max Anders

    Somer's Rock. Well, at least they fixed the sign out front. He couldn't say much about the interior, it was just as dingy as he remembered it being the last time he was here as a boy.

    The dining room held all of the major organizations in the bay. Some he didn't feel like they should be present, but he had a long list of headaches and dumpster fires to deal with as it was and he didn't feel like making a fuss right this second.

    His own empire took up about a third of the capes present. Stormtiger and Cricket were together in one booth along the walls, that was to be expected. Alabaster, Crusader, and Rune sat at another booth. He was sorely tempted to go over, smack Hookwolf on the side of the head, and tell him to get his feet off the goddamn table. Victor simply moved to his side and stood at attention.

    He didn't like that. Victor was not his second and he didn't appreciate the attempt to not so subtly install himself as such. Krieg was still alive, just frozen in time. He'd let it slide for now but Max made a mental note to explain to Victor later that he decided who stood by his side.

    "Ho- ly- shit, he's alive." Hookwolf spat out. Max didn't miss the thinly veiled contempt behind his words. He was also sitting at the head of the table where Allfather took his usual place. The spot where he would be sitting should a meeting be called. He didn't know who the other person was at the other end of the table, in Marquis' place, but he'd address that later. Right now he had an unruly, insubordinate man sitting in his spot.

    He really should have came down on Brad a long time ago. He let the man off of his leash for too long and his ego was finally getting ahead of himself.

    He crossed the room in seconds. Victor tried to step up along with him but he waved the man off. His position as leader of The Empire was clearly being contested and he needed to make it abundantly clear to everyone that he was still in charge. Hookwolf was leaning back in his chair, looking Max dead in the eye as he approached. He was still human looking but he was tense, clearly ready for a fight, ready to pounce. It would only take a second for his barbs, thorns, and hooks to crawl their way to the surface and Max didn't intend to give him the opportunity.

    A few columns of steel rose up underneath his chair, pushed upwards, and tipped the already leaning chair further backwards. Hookwolf jolted and Max grew a net of steel around the area where he came down. By the time he hit the ground and got over the disorientation, he was already halfway done encasing the man in metal.

    Obviously he started to shift his form, but a hard kick to the side of the head jolted the man even further, allowing him to completely encase him in steel before he could recover. He sneaked in a few bands of Titanium and other alloys underneath the steel and out of sight to keep him down. He knew how strong Brad's metal form was, and he didn't want to take the chance that he could break out of the mountain of steel that was still growing around him.

    The only sound in the room was the scraping of metal against metal as Hookwolf tried to brute force his way out of his confinement, that and some mild swearing. The man's voice changed as he himself did, turning from something that was reasonably human to a horrid screeching of however-in-hell the man figured out a way to talk in his metal form.

    "You're an idiot, Hookwolf." Max left the man's head exposed at the structure's base as its form solidified at the head of the table. Part to let him speak, part to humiliate him, and part to allow Max to put him in his place.

    "Ha!" Hookwolf returned, the sound was horrendous. "You're a joke at this point… Max." He felt his eye twitch on reflex. It stung, showing emotion so visibly on his face for all to see, but he decided to own up to his public identity being exposed before he came to the meeting. Going in with his helmet tucked under one of his arms would let everyone see the absolute cold fury he was feeling about being outed. "The high and mighty leader of the E88, done in by a lowly subhuman. Give it up. No one in The Empire will be taking you seriously anymore."

    Well, at least now he was going to be able to put his acting skills to proper use as Kaiser; Speeches were good and all but you miss out on all the small tells on someone's face that masks hide. "I meant that rhetorically, Brad. It wasn't an invitation to actually go ahead and prove it."

    Hookwolf, well, Brad now, stopped fighting against his restraints. His metal wolf mask was scrap by this point and he could see the man's eyes go wide. For a man made out of hooks, nails, and screws, he was amazed at how expressive his face could be. An ugly snarl escaped his throat, "YOU DARE-"

    Max didn't let him rant. On the bottom of one of his boots grew something resembling an ice skater's… he didn't know the proper name. The blade they used to skate on the ice on the underside of their shoes. He brought up his leg and stomped down as hard as he could on the man's exposed neck. It did nothing to Brad despite how sharp he made it just to spite him, but the message was clear.

    "I absolutely dare you antagonistic bastard." Max leaned forward, putting most of his weight on Brad's neck, the elbow of his free arm resting on his knee so that he could really lean into it. "You think I have anything to lose at this point? I'm not sure if you've turned on the news lately, Brad, but it appears as though my civilian identity is known by every thrice blasted person in the city at this point. Let me clue you in as to what that does to someone such as myself."

    His free hand came up, elbow still putting weight on his knee, and Max counted off with his fingers, "My house is surrounded by cops and PRT. My bank accounts have been seized. My car has been towed. The plan on my personal mobile has been canceled and has rendered it an expensive and glorified paper weight. And last, but most certainly not least, My own god damn company has issued a vote of no confidence against me and has kicked me out of my position as the CEO of Medhall."

    He put his hand back down, "I could keep going, but we'd be here all night if I did. Not only all of that, but as it turns out I find that you've been trying to claim yourself as the leader of MY Empire in my absence."

    "I'm gone for-," Max turns to the side, looking at nothing in particular, and brings his hand back up to splay all five of his fingers out for all to see, "-five minutes, five damn minutes-", he looked back down at the man, making sure to look Brad in the eye, "-and you try to stab me in the back. I said you were an idiot and I meant it, because you made such a stupid series of mistakes in this pathetic attempt to usurp me."

    His hand came back up and Max started counting off again, "The first thing you tried with me was to spit venom and act defiant to my face like I was going to roll over and let you have it without a fight. Your first mistake was let me make the opening move. The second thing was not even trying to win the hearts and minds of the lower members of MY Empire. That might have actually made me put in some effort to win them back to my side. And third, you tried all of this to my face, in clear view. The next time you try something like this, at least have the decency to come at me when I'm not looking. You might have better luck next time."

    With that, he let up off the man's neck. "Make no mistake, Brad Meadows, we'll be discussing this, at length, later. In the meantime I have a meeting to get on with so you can sit in timeout and reflect on your mistakes up until this point." The skate boot dissolved away, but Max wasn't done with the man just yet. He got down on one knee and grabbed Brad's metal head with a gauntlet that he'd been reinforcing for the past minute just in case the man tried to eviscerate his hand.

    He held Brad's head still and looked him dead in the eye, "And you had better pray to whatever pathetic nordic god or gods you believe in that I don't find out that you were the one that leaked my identity to the media. Quite frankly, I'm not going to be too picky about the facts. You are on thin fucking ice as far as I'm concerned. Give me a reason, any reason and I'll kill you myself. If a single person comes forward and points their finger in your general direction I will melt you down, shape you into a pocket knife, and drop you in the bay so you can rust and collect salt for the rest of your miserable existence."

    Max finished his dressing down of Brad by spitting on his face, aiming for the eyes. His opinion of the man clearly and thoroughly on display for everyone to see, he finished sealing the man in steel by encasing his exposed head. The returning shouts and curses were cut off by the mass of steel.

    He stood up, walked around the side of the structure he encased Brad in, and sat down on the throne he created with his power. He placed his helmet in front of him on the table as one final display of his stance on his identity.

    Everyone else in the room was standing now, poised for whatever they thought he was about to unleash. Well, he didn't blame them. He supposed he did just break the truce, in spirit if not in name, by attacking someone on neutral ground. The best he could do was take refuge in justifiable arrogance this one time. His reputation would take a massive hit, but he needed to lay down the law.

    It helped that no-one would argue that he wasn't having an incredibly shitty day today and was in no mood for anyone's bullshit right now.

    Well, that still left him in a room full of, also justifiably, wound up parahumans eyeing him like he was going to turn on them next. He needed to bleed some of the tension away before someone tried something. "Trickster," he called out, looking over to the booth the man was sitting at.

    You could hear a hat drop. He almost thought he heard the boy swallow. "Sup."

    At his side were two others, a boy and a girl, all in matching red and black outfits. Both of them had what looked like simple powered armor thrown over their suits. It wasn't the full body armor that tinkers usually made, it was more of a pair of supports running up and down the limbs with joints to allow them to move.

    "Have you made any progress on that request I made the other night, and if you haven't, do you have an estimate on when you'll be able to get back to me?"

    Trickster cleared his throat, "Uhh, no time soon I'm afraid. The PRT has the place locked down tight right now. Can't get close."

    Unfortunate, but there was little he could do about it without picking a fight with The Protectorate and the PRT. A shaky proposition with his hold on his empire in question right this second. "Very well, thank you." Max leaned back into his throne, threw one leg over the other, subtly molded the steel in the throne to be more comfortable to sit in, and turned his head to look at the last person he expected to show up to this meeting.

    Max didn't say a word to Assault, he just stared. Whether anyone thought it was an accusation or a silently asked question, he didn't care, he just wanted answers.

    The hero was the only one that was still sitting down in his seat, by himself in the corner of the restaurant he noted idly. "It wasn't us," he gave with a shake of his head without flinching or breaking eye contact. The walking and talking jokester didn't offer any crude commentary, perform any demeaning gestures, or otherwise act like the clown he took refuge in portraying himself as. For once, he seemed to act like the young man with a chip on his shoulder that he originally knew him as.

    He supposed that it would have to do for now. Max eased up and took stock of everyone else in the room.

    Faultline and her band of freaks were enjoying themselves to the bar area. A small group of nobodies that he had trouble placing sat off in another corner. One young man wore biker leathers as black smoke rolled off of him. A renaissance fair reject sat by his side. With them was someone he had trouble telling if they were a boy or a girl. Their costume gave off the impression of a circus clown, although a little more tactful than the stereotypical look. Next to them sat another teenager, this time a girl, in a red full body suit and a gas mask.

    The Merchants were absent, thank god for small favors.

    Finally, there was the man that sat across the large table from him. He wore a black full body suit, much like the other one in the restaurant. A white snake wound itself around him, with its head resting on the top of his head.

    There were far too many unknowns around him for his taste.

    "Out of professional curiosity," Faultline spoke up from the bar, sipping on a margarita, "what was the job?"

    "Yeah how'd you guys even meet anyway?" The fair reject asked without missing a beat, "Those guys just got into town. Actually how'd-" The young man in biker leathers slapped his teammate in the chest.

    "You shut the hell up right now and don't make this any worse…" He tried to whisper to his teammate, but the entire room could hear him. He decided to answer the more respectable person in the room first.

    "I'm sure everyone knows this by now, but Krieg was caught in that trap along with me. I merely asked Trickster to look into freeing my second in command. Nothing more." That should send enough of a message to Victor to check himself before Max decided to turn someone else into an example tonight. "Which reminds me," He turned back to Trickster and his team to address the teleporter, "Give me a quote for the job by the end of this meeting, if you would please. I have a bit of a financial crisis on my hands and I need to know sooner rather than later."

    Trickster simply tipped his hat in his direction.

    "Wait, How?" Max swore to god if the fair reject was a chatterbox then Brad was not the only person he was going to kill by the end of today. "Yo butler lookin' dude, what's your-"

    "I will gag you if that's what it will take to get you to shut up." His teammate shot back, no longer bothering to try to keep it within his own team.

    The fair reject sat back further in the booth smugly, "Hey dude, I'ma need you to buy me dinner first before we go that far." Neuter snorted at the comment. The biker looked like he wanted to strangle his teammate, which was impressive considering the full cover motorcycle helmet he wore.

    The next one to speak up was the man sitting across the table from him, "Trickster was hired by myself to free Kaiser from his prison. I was informed that it was effectively impossible to pull Krieg out. Has that changed?"

    Max studied the man. The man with the snake motif was hunched over the table, hands clasped in front of him with his head resting on top. He did not miss the subtle power move that put Max in his debt regarding his rescue. Not once had he seen the man look in any other direction other than at him since he sat down.

    Very well, The Empire had a new enemy that needed to be exterminated. The man was an idiot for provoking him so openly.

    "We're still looking into it, it's possible." Trickster responded.

    "I see. Let me know if you need another of those blocks for the job. Getting just the one was slightly difficult, a second one might take a while." And now he was establishing that Max needed him in order to free his second. This was a schemer.

    "I don't think we've met before, mr…" He left the question for the other man to answer.

    "Coil. We've spoken over the phone once."

    Coil. Coiled like a snake. Max couldn't help it and chuckled, it was a little on the nose but he respected the display. It would be excellent stress relief to tear the man down for his insolence.

    "I believe this is everyone." Coil began, trying to take control of the narrative. Max did it enough himself he could see the signs. "Let's begin with why we're all here tonight. The ABB."

    The biker stood up from his booth and made his way over to the table with Faultline following suit shortly afterwards. No one from Trickster's group stood up which he was mildly curious about. Not that he expected anyone to, but no one else from his empire stood up, leaving him to represent The Empire Eighty Eight. As it should be.

    That just left the hero in the corner. "Are you going to join us today, Assault?" Max asked.

    The man simply shook his head, "Not unless you want me to. I'm just here to make sure everyone plays nice today."

    "Do as you wish," Max turned back to the table now that everyone was seated. He needed to send a message to Coil that he was not going to meekly bow to his power games. "So, the ABB. Forgive me for being understandably a bit out of the loop. I would appreciate it if we started from the-"

    The bell to the front door chimed behind him. Max couldn't exactly turn around in his throne to see who it was. The sharp intake of air the room collectively took meant that it was someone dangerous or important.

    Lung, most likely.

    "Konban wa."

    Not Lung but definitely ABB if the asian language was anything to go by. Max stood up and rounded his throne, ready to eviscerate whoever it was the warlord sent over to make his demands known.

    He was greeted by a schoolgirl that he had a hard time believing was older than his son in a deep bow. His older son. They wore a black… maybe it was a raincoat. It covered most of their body with their legs left exposed. A white flame pattern ran around the coat.

    Their arms were replaced with some bafflingly massive metal gauntlets. How the hell did they even get in through the door?

    The uninvited guest raised out of the bow and Max could feel himself snarling. A black asian, sent by Lung no doubt just to piss him off specifically. Their coat covered their mouth leaving their upper face exposed. Orange eyes stared back at him.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • Chapter 28
  • Threadmarks
    • Brian Labourn

    You know what, maybe Tattletale had a point. Maybe it was getting a little too hot in the bay recently. If his hunch was right, the person that just walked in was one of those 'dolls' that Tats had been raising a fuss over for the past few weeks.

    Part of keeping himself up to date on the capes and organizations in the bay involved poking Tats every now and again to share what little she'd been able to dig up on the group. They didn't even have a name to place them, and according to Tats neither did anyone else.

    He did know that they all shared particular features. The eyes in particular and the lack of a mask in general. He didn't recognize who this one was specifically, which meant it was another new one, which concerned him considering what he'd heard on the news lately. Tats was keeping track of them all, but she skipped town suddenly and her notes were encrypted. He couldn't make heads or tails of her chicken scratch.

    Regardless, he did keep up with the news. They were talking about another one of them having shown up during the entire fiasco downtown. Supposedly fought Lung to a standstill long enough for the heroes to take him down. That was before, however, now the only thing they would cover was the connection between Medhall and The Empire.

    And now one of them had walked right into the meeting, one he didn't recognize, with some concerningly large fists.

    Why did he take this job again?

    Don't answer that brain, you need the money.

    "If you're here to pass along Lung's demands, little girl, then I suggest you get it over with and leave." Kaiser said suddenly. "This meeting is invite only and the ABB are not on the list."

    …

    What?

    Does… does he seriously not know?

    The fact that he said that out loud caught up with him a moment later. All eyes in the room turned in his direction, including Kaiser who was standing not 3 feet away from him at his side. He made no effort to hide the fact that he was unhappy, although Grue chalked that up to Kaiser's general situation more than anything else. He'd probably be just as pissed if he was in his place.

    "Is there something you would like to share with the room?" Kaiser addressed him. Was he Kaiser or Max right this second? New wave were maskless but they still went by their cape names. Best to keep it professional.

    "Uhh, I mean, what's there to share?" His heart was beating pretty quickly in his chest, he could hear it. This was not what he prepared himself to be doing for this meeting. "Everyone here knows about them already." 'Them' being accompanied by a wave of his hand in the doll's direction. "Do you seriously not know?"

    "Trickster free'd Kaiser only last night. I would assume no." Coil pitched in, "That was… less than 24 hours ago? Kaiser, have you had a chance to read or watch the news recently?"

    It was clear as day that Kaiser didn't appreciate Coil with the glare he was sending the man. Grue didn't try to make any assumptions on why, he usually left that to Tats. Although, she wasn't here now and wasn't returning his phone calls. There was no way he'd trust Regent to take that seriously, Bitch wasn't friendly nor talkative at the best of times, and he wasn't handing public relations over to the newcomers so early. Guess he'd better step up and start reading between the lines.

    As soon as he figured out how to do that.

    "No, I've seen enough to know just how out of the loop I am and not much- Hey!" The doll was walking around to the other side of the table when Kaiser yelled out at them. Grue readied his smoke just in case the meeting turned violent. Kaiser was clearly throwing his weight around and you didn't need to be a genius to tell that the racist took issue with the dark skinned cape that dropped in unannounced.

    Well, maybe it was more of a tan.

    Assault got up from his booth out of the corner of his eye and was booking it to the brewing confrontation. "What do you think you're-" Kaiser had his hand outstretched, pointing in the doll's direction. Assault grabbed his wrist before he could do anything else.

    "Assault, let me go."

    "I will as soon as you promise to not provoke her."

    Kaiser turned his head to look at the hero. "You will not give me orders. I tolerate your presence here-"

    At that, Assault got up right in Kaiser's face. He actually flinched back. "Look dude I don't give a shit. I said I was here to keep everything kosher and despite my better judgment that includes stopping you from getting yourself killed. Here's the deal, you've been gone for the past 3 days and a lot has happened since then. Take my advice and look before you go tap dancing through this particular minefield, alright?"

    Assault let go of Kaiser and backed up to give him some space. "Look, do me a favor, an old favor. Let me handle this." Hmm, wonder what the story was there.

    "As for you," Assault turned around to face the doll, "... You know what, just to make this easier, what's your name?" The hero was blocking the view so Grue couldn't see them, but… There was a pause before they spoke.

    "Strength." Damn that's a good one. Fights Lung and then that's the name they pick? He wasn't going to contest it.

    "Huh, I lost that bet. Ok, Strength, do you have any idea of the situations you're walking in on? Because I understand that you're new to this whole vigilante stuff but there are things that you simply don't do. I need to know, right now, do you know what The Truce is?"

    Another pause, this time longer. Odd.

    "Parley?"

    … Well, that was one way to look at it.

    "Par- no, well… Actually, kind of?" Assault bobbed his head from side to side. Yeah he had the same thought, kind of but different context. "Ehh, that's close enough for now. Alright, here's the deal. You come in here? You want to participate? Then you play by the same rules that everyone else does. You break them and there will be consequences that go beyond this room. Everyone will know and no one will ever let you live it down. If you can't agree to that, then turn around and leave. Do not test anyone here on this. Do you understand?"

    Again, another pause… It reminded him of Btich. She took some time to process everything but the simplest of conversations. Tats said it was something to do with her power messing with her brain. He was going to smack that girl for running off without telling anyone if he ever saw her again.

    The doll might have a similar condition. At least they weren't hostile to every little thing anyone did in their general direction. Fucking Bitch making things harder than it needed to be.

    He couldn't see them directly, but it was hard to miss the massive power gloves jerk up and down. "Alright, good. Now you can either sit in a booth or at the table depending on how involved you want to be in this meeting. In either case… Weapons generally are not allowed. Can I ask you to disa- erm, dismiss your weapons, please?"

    Smooth dude. Tell the one with prosthetic tinker arms to disarm.

    After a few seconds, swirling orange and black light covered their power gloves. He didn't need to shield his eyes from it, and a moment later they were gone. Assault stood to the side, still keeping an eye on the doll, and he could see that they were clearly uncomfortable without their gear. The doll rubbed its arms nervously. Some kind of insecurity? Something to do with their trigger event maybe.

    Best not to go looking.

    The doll stepped forward to take a seat at the table and Kaiser huffed, predictably, but didn't say anything. Assault shot him a glare, or what might have been a glare with his helmet in the way. The hero took the seat directly opposite of Grue with Kaiser next to both of them at one of the end's of the table. The doll sat across from Faultline who was to his right. Further down at the other end of the table was their boss that he'd only recently been introduced to.

    "I'm debating locking the front door so we can begin and finally get this meeting on track." Kaiser said.

    "Agreed." Coil returned, although he wasn't looking in Kaiser's direction when he said it. He was looking at the doll… who was also staring back at him. "So then, the ABB-"

    "We want Coil." Strength said suddenly while pointing towards the boss. In an instant Grue's feeling that things were going to get violent suddenly got worse. Kaiser scoffed and shook his head from side to side like he found the situation amusing. Grue couldn't say he shared the sentiment, he was pooling his smoke down under the table and his chair.

    Assault reached up underneath his helmet with his hand to rub his face or pinch his nose or something. Coil simply scooted back in his chair away from the table about a foot. "Kid did you listen to a word I just said? Please tell me you're not here for the reason I think you are."

    The hero looked back up in time to catch Strength nodding, not taking her eyes off of the boss. "I'm sure this is all a misunderstanding."

    "You know what Coil, you're in deep enough shit as it is with us, Truce or no." Assault turned back to the doll, "Strength, are you seriously doing this now?" She finally looked away from the boss and back towards the hero, nodding her head after a short pause and lowering their arm.

    Kaiser, clicked his tongue. "Kid, is this some game to you? You think you can just walk in here, trample all over the truce, and expect to get away with it?"

    "Kaiser," Assault shot back at the nazi, "I told you to let me-"

    "I'm not talking to you Madcap. You are not going to protect this one, not after they've already made their intent known. They have no interest in respecting the Truce and if they continue they will not enjoy its protections." Kaiser leaned forward, put his hands down on the table, and stood up. "Now, I asked you a question. Do you think this is a game?"

    Another short pause, although Kaiser was less patient by now, "Well?" Strength shook their head no a moment later.

    "I don't know what you're trying to pull here, but I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt that you have a good reason for this. Partially because I'm personally the last one here who knows what's going on anymore and being out of the loop like this is getting a little old. So do us all a favor and explain yourself, now. You 'want' Coil? Has he wronged you in such a way that you're willing to go against the Truce? Understand that this had better be the case or you might not make it out of this room tonight in one piece."

    A little heavy handed, but Kaiser had a point. Strength just stared back at him without saying a... Ohh no.

    "Answer me!"

    Grue opened his mouth to tell Kaiser to let them instead of yelling at them, but then Strength squeezed her eyes shut tight and shook her head before.... He didn't know how to describe it. One second she was there, and then her form shifted to look like someone else entirely.

    They had long, dark brown hair that covered one half of their face. Just like the other girl, it was hard to make out any real facial features. Their eye had the same unnerving pattern on it that the other one had, only this time it was brown. A large shawl covered most of their upper body- and that was about as much as he was able to register before they shifted again.

    Yet another different form appeared, and this one he actually recognized. They'd seen it out on the street more than once chasing after vehicles on it's mechanized legs. A dark pointed crown topped its head. Golden hair billowed out behind them with yet again the same eyes, this time colored gold or maybe yellow. A frilly white and black dress shirt rose up as they stood, and a black, spiked gauntlet slammed down on the table.

    Everyone was standing up now.

    "Oi ya dunderhead, how about ya actually give folk time to translate for ya instead o' being impatient like a ne'er-do-well. A lil' consideration for those 'ere that don't speak english, ey?"
     
  • Threadmarks
    • Chapter 29
  • Threadmarks
    • Ethan

    On one hand he had Kaiser. A man whose field of fucks to give, tonight and probably for a long time for the foreseeable future, was undebatably barren. The throne that he had just stood up from was, well, vibrating for lack of a better word. Shifting? Prickly, and getting prickly-er by the second. A dog could figure out that he was threat signaling.

    And, like, fuck it why not you know? He really had nothing left to lose. Rock bottom was funny like that.

    He hadn't even done anything- yet- that you could point at and say, 'that was over the line, his circumstances be damned'. That take down on Hookwolf? Fucking beautiful, he almost clapped. Yeah he did it on neutral ground but that was strangling an obvious coup attempt in the crib. An internal affair at worst, if handled during an unfortunate time and place.

    He hadn't- again, yet- attacked anyone else. Say what you may about the man, what he wasn't was an idiot. He was throwing his weight around and posturing to high heaven, yeah, but if he actually, directly started something tonight there was no way in hell he was going to get away with it and everyone in the room knew it.

    Well, he assumed anyway, he wasn't psychic, and boy wouldn't that be handy right about now to even begin to understand his other problem.

    On the other hand he had… fuck he didn't even know anymore. Red Blue Black Teal Pink Confusing Scarlet pick something and stick with it goddamnit. What was the count up to, 6 different forms now? She was changing forms colors and names faster than he could keep track of and was turning out to be the most cryptic little shit he'd ever have the pleasure of experiencing. It seemed like every time they showed themselves they raised more and more questions while answering none. Pretty soon he was just going to stop pretending like he knew what was up and see if it made things easier.

    He liked the kid, they seemed to be a little confused about the hero thing but they had spunk. However, my god were they sending mixed signals. Like, for starters they actually got half of a conversation out of them tonight. It was even in english! Kind of. They'd only heard her speak in japanese in the precious few times that she'd previously spoken. They could actually sit the kid down and maybe, just maybe, ask what the fuck their deal was.

    If only he wasn't currently standing in between two of the heaviest hitters in the bay just shy of openly hostile with each other. His magic 8 ball was currently telling him he was sitting on an opportunity to unlock one of the secrets of the universe and unravel the enigma that was the kid, but he had to make sure Kaiser and the kid wouldn't start flying across the table at each other before the night was over first. The universe could start making sense again and he could grill the kid for answers after everyone calmed the fuck down.

    And then there was the fact that like half the damn city was in this room at the moment and you could cut the tension in the room with a knife it was so thick and he was debatably the only hero in the room full of villains and holy shit how high was his blood pressure right now. "Kid, stand down. Kaiser, you as well. I told you not to provoke her and I'm not-"

    "Lad, mah name's Chariot." Ethan groaned. Please stop being difficult for 5 minutes.

    He turned around to face the walking talking enigma. "Forgive me for going on this small stress fueled tangent but this is like the 4th or so name you've given us. Is this going to continue? Are you going to keep changing names and forms over and over? Are you going to stop being confusing for 5 minutes?"

    The kid responded by crossing her arms and raised an eyebrow at him.

    "Right, I don't know what I was expecting there either. Look I'm ready to chalk whatever earlier was about up to power weirdness just to make things easier on myself and everyone else here so we can all get on with our lives. You currently go by Chariot and speak english, yes?"

    Chariot scoffed, "Is th' pope catholic?"

    Urge, to slap, rising…

    "Assuming the answer to that question is, infact, yes, I'll take that as your answer. Now quit being difficult and sit down so we can get on with tonight."

    Chariot held her glare at him for several seconds before tsk'ing, "I told 'em this was a rotten idea," she said as she sat down like he asked, "Oh no, don't say that Chariot, we can do it, just believe in th' pow'a of friendship."

    … She had voices in her head. No, bad thoughts. Don't analyze, that way lies madness. Do that later. Yes, go mad with the magic 8 ball's knowledge once this meeting was over.

    Ok, that's one problem defused for the moment. Assault looked from one person in the room to the next, motioning for everyone to sit down. Faultline was as stiff as a door and only sat down by pulling her chair out about half a foot away from the table. The kid that sat across from him at the table might have been Grue, one of their mysterious new informant's old teammates. The black smoke that was washing off of the young boy certainly was distinct enough to match him. He reluctantly sat back down at the table. Both of their respective teams were ready to stand back up at a moment's notice by the looks of it, but otherwise seemed to be seated for now.

    The Travelers were far more relaxed than you could expect, but that was only appearances. The other boy than Trickster had… looked like a salt shaker, clutched tight in his hands. He didn't know what the boy intended to do with it other than throw it but if he gripped it any harder they'd have a mess. The girl was another unknown and he'd never even heard of these guys until tonight. Thank god they seemed to be sticking to their neutral outsider stance. The team didn't so much as budge from earlier and probably wouldn't unless an actual fight broke out.

    Kaiser was still standing and had yet to take his eyes off of Chariot. The metal shards that made up his throne were still twitching as well. Great.

    "Kaiser…" He warned.

    "Do you need something from me, Madcap?"

    "Can you stop trying to provoke everyone so later you can say that it was the other guy who started it? The only way you're getting this fight you're clearly looking for is if you start it. Go ahead, see how far that gets you tonight."

    The man finally looked him in the eye and held it for a few moments.

    "Bro, I am genuinely sympathetic to your situation, but I only have so much to hand out right now and you are pissing in the wind currently. Stop taking out your frustration on every little inconvenience that looks in your general direction. And while you're at it," He nudged his head in the direction of the enigma sitting behind him, "give the other guy a chance to actually answer the questions you ask them."

    Ooh he got him to snarl a little; A bit of nostril flaring going on. Yeah I'm calling you out on your shit man, do something or sit down.

    Kaiser's throne eventually stopped twitching and the man looked to his left where the other capes from the Empire were sitting. Assault glanced over to find most of them out of their booths and standing. Crusader had a pair of ghosts up, Rune had her hands placed on the booth seat, and he couldn't see Cricket's hands at all. No doubt Rune already had the booth under her power and Cricket had her little hand scythe things ready to go. One by one all of them stopped posturing and sat back down where they were before.

    Assault let out the breath he was holding in and bled the tension out of his shoulders, his arms, everything really. His outstretched hands came down, "Okay, that's ten years off my life I'm never getting back." Both he and Kaiser sat back down at the table in unison.

    "Dude," called out from the Undersider's booth. The renaissance fair lookalike was talking again, "You guys need to chillax, like, yesterday. There's this thing, it's called weed, I'm not sure if any of you-"

    "Regent I will let Bitch's dogs eat you if you continue." Grue interrupted him.

    Regent, he guessed, threw his hands up in the air, "Don't threaten me with a good time boss man." Neuter snorted over at the bar. What the hell, he let out a little laugh along with him. Maybe it would help to cut down on the tension in the room. Couldn't hurt. Grue didn't respond to his teammate's antics but Ethan knew what long suffering behind a mask looked like. He pried enough of it out of his wife as it was.

    Usually because of him but details details.

    Anyway, Victor was still standing off to the side behind Kaiser and Coil was trying and failing to back away slowly without being seen.

    Ohh boy, Coil. Did you ever fuck the dog here. Assault looked over to Chariot, "Chariot I think I speak for everyone here when I say that whatever beef you have with Coil had better be ironclad." He could have followed that up with more, but honestly they really needed to hear the kid's story. The worst part was he thought he might have an idea what it was. There was no way in hell that man was walking out of here alive if so.

    Chariot was no longer interested in Kaiser and was staring in Coil's direction again. She leaned forward and rested her elbows on the table, black spiked gauntlets clasped together in front of her. "Our home was attacked."

    There it is. Shit, that confirms it. Daniel's kid was their mystery cape.

    "That's an extremely serious accusation. I do hope you don't expect all of us here to simply take your word for it." Kaiser retorted. Well, here goes nothing.

    "I'm afraid she's telling the truth." He put out there to back up her claim. "Happened last night. It resulted in some fatalities, the bodies are still warm in the morgue."

    Kaiser was now giving him his full attention. "You knew about this before coming in here?"

    "Hard not to considering the only reason we even know about it happening to begin with was from Miss Militia being present while it happened. She got into a shootout in the middle of Chariot's house. Call me crazy but I think she's a little justified in asking for Coil's head here."

    "And when were you planning to share this? You know that this crosses a line, it needs to be addressed."

    "Now hold on there," Assault put his hands up in faux surrender to placate Kaiser, "I didn't get confirmation that it was, in fact, her actual house until about 5 seconds ago, ok? Militia was out on patrol, came across Chariot- or, well, one of her other forms while out. She flips out all of a sudden and portals directly into her own living room and drags Militia along for the ride. The two of them find the place swarming with mercs and they opened fire on the two of them basically immediately. We had our suspicions but no hard confirmation, now we do."

    Assault put his hands back down, "You know you don't act on something like this unless you're far past reasonably sure you know what actually happened. We were planning on waiting out the current little crisis with our collective mad bomber problem first before lighting a fire under everyone with another issue. Don't need everyone side-eye'ing everyone else in the middle of a truce."

    He turned around to look back at Chariot. "At least that was the plan, other people seem to have had other ideas."

    "What makes you sure that Coil was the one behind it?" Grue across from him asked. The boy held up a hand when he looked over at him, "I'm not debating that this actually happened. I'm just asking what makes you believe that Coil was the one that attacked you in your house."

    "Not us, the young miss's family." Chariot corrected. He guessed those 5 minutes he asked for were up considering she was being cryptic and weird again. Has to be a power thing.

    "Family." Kaiser all but growled out.

    He cleared his throat, "Anyway, to answer your question, unmarked black van with no plates. Mercenaries with tinkertech laser rifles. They fit the description we have of his private little army. Confessions from those who lived from the attack on Chariot's house also help. I'm going to reiterate, people died in that attack. Those mercs were there on orders to kill."

    The entire room fell silent. Well, Hookwolf was still stuck underneath Kaiser's throne, trying to tear his way out of it. But other than that, you could hear a hat drop. Kaiser sharply, and loudly, inhaled before letting it all out again. His eyes were closed, his head tilted down and to the side. "So, we're back to targeting capes in their homes again?" The man looked up and across the room, "Really?"

    Everyone was paying attention to the man in the full body suit now. Coil cleared his throat, "As terrible as this event sounds, my first guess would be a false flag operation to implicate me. I assure you I have no-"

    "We have the rifles." Assault cut in, "Some expensive hardware for a false flag in my opinion. One of those mercs took a shotgun blast from Militia basically point blank and stood back up. It's not just the guns; they had optics, some damn good body armor, knives- big ones that ex-military types like to have. K-Bars."

    "Real or fake?" came out from the Empire booth's behind him. Assault scooted around to find the question originating from Alabaster.

    "Honestly? Wrong guy to ask. Velocity or- hell even the director would be able to tell you."

    Alabaster lazily threw one of his hands up in a 'oh well' gesture. "Hard to find good knives that aren't some cheap ass squinty eyed knockoff shit."

    Right, he was just going to file that information away into the 'never let this cape catch you off guard' box. Damn knife nuts were a different breed of deranged entirely.

    "This is all very convenient how any evidence you have is either your say so or in PRT custody." Coil said. Yeah that was fair, and the main reason why they were looking to whip all this out later when they had a mountain more evidence than they had currently. "Not much actual proof."

    "I'm going to have to side with Coil on this one. This is still just your word. Why is this the first we're hearing about this? This sounds like it would have made it into the news." Hmm, guess he should have expected the Undersiders to at least try to stay in the favor of their supposed boss. That's if their little defector's information was correct of course.

    "Yeah, sure," He shot back. "Let's all take a stroll down to her house." Assault stuck his thumb out towards Chariot. "I'm sure we can all agree to pointedly ignore any and all personal effects, the mailbox, the damn number on the side of the house, the street signs, and anything else that could be used to identify them while we're there inspecting the golf ball sized holes those oversized laser pointers bored into the walls. Raise your hand if this sounds like an excellent idea."

    Just to drive the point home, he raised his own hand and looked around the room. No one joined him.

    "Look, I'll concede this point," Assault said, lowering his arm back down, "but it still happened. Seriously, what do you want from me? If Chariot had been publicly outed or something then we could all go and look without any harm but seeing as that hasn't happened yet the next best thing I can do, which is not talking about whether I'm allowed to or not, is pull the stupid laser pointers out of evidence and bring them with me. That's assuming this was even going to be an issue today which I most certainly didn't intend but here we are. As for your other concern, 'local house gets broken into' or 'beloved company turns out to belong to local white supremacist movement'. Take a wild guess which headline-"

    Movement to his left caught his attention. He glimpsed a bushy mound of dark brown hair in the corner of his eye before whatever that form was called turning into Red. Or, well, Black Gold Saw.

    He could not say that name with a straight face.

    So what does this make, 6 forms? Black Rock Shooter, Black Gold Saw, Strength, Chariot, that green one that they hadn't seen in like a month, and now some brown one. How many did the girl even have?

    Red, meanwhile, dragged one of her armored fingers along the top of the table they were all sitting at. Her finger slid down and into the table, a multicolored hue trailing in its wake along the table's surface. Once the tear was pulled along enough, Red just stuck her arm into it like she was scrounging around for something. Ethan just sat there, flabbergasted. Now what the hell was she doing?

    He regretted the thought the instant she pulled out a familiar looking tinkertech rifle. It had a tag attached to the barrel by a string. The weapon was deposited unceremoniously onto the table, the portal tear thing closed up, and Black Gold- nope still can't do it- Red kicked her feet up on the table and leaned back.

    She brought her hand up and waved at everyone before turning to look back at Coil.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • Chapter 30
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    • This chapter has been beta'd by: @X9Killbot

    —​

    James Edgar

    James couldn't take his eyes off of the cape staring him down halfway across the room. Their posture was nothing but calm and collected, at ease, relaxed. Oversized leg braces (that turned out to be heels of all things) kicked up onto the meeting table like it was the middle of their living room. The old wooden chair they sat in creaked as they leaned back in it. One clawed gauntlet out on the table, the other resting on top of their bare midriff.

    The glare they were sending his way promised terrible violence on his person the instant they thought they could get away with it. The faint ghost of a smile on their lips told him they'd enjoy it.

    James finished tapping his fingers together to send a message off to the boss. He didn't like how he'd been hearing nothing in his ear for the past while.

    Alright James, think. There was a hero in the room, and despite their presence tonight specifically not acting in that capacity, they were still a hero at the end of the day. There was no way the man would just let the crazy cape have him. Not without a fight.

    No, that was a dangerous assumption to be making. The heroes were desperate enough for this kind of a heavy hitter on their side; James could see them throwing him to the wolves to get into their good graces. It was a risk relying on the man to stop the cape from going too far tonight.

    Talking his way out of this situation was a shaky proposition at best. His propensity for talking fast and off the cuff might get him out of this alive, but the boss had concerningly little on file about this particular cape. He didn't have much of a profile built against them so he didn't know too well what made them tick. It was also fairly obvious what they wanted, and it would be like taking shots in the dark to sway them to another more agreeable form of compensation.

    Both The Undersiders and The Travelers were here; Trickster alone could easily keep him safe from immediate harm and Sundancer would be enough of a deterrent to make everyone back down should the need arise. Grue will have to ferry them all away to a safer location. Ok, he had an exit plan. He was most likely safe for right this second but there was no telling how long that would last.

    "Kid you know you just did this in front of me, right?" Assault stated plainly while rubbing his temples. James really couldn't bring himself to worry about the hero and whatever headache he was having. "Please tell me you didn't pull this out from where I think you did. I can't ignore this." The shapeshifter didn't bother responding to the sole hero in the room, they only continued to stare him down.

    He began tapping out another message with one hand while holding up the other in front of him, "I assure you, all of my men are alive and accounted for, as is their equipment. I have made no attempt on anyone's identity." Yet more silence came from his earpiece.

    Coil what the hell are you doing? Using the bathroom?

    Max Anders hummed from across the room and the room's attention turned to him. A contemplative look sat on his face as he stared off at nothing in particular. After a moment the man looked about the room. "Ohh, don't mind me," Max said, "I was just lost in thought trying to remember that one man's name."

    …What was he talking about?

    Max shrugged his shoulders, "It's been so long, I must admit I can't seem to recall. Although I do remember what he looked like, at least. Everyone here who was around at the time should." Max shifted his facial expressions into something more directed and hostile, directed at him. "I did mount his head on a pike, after all."

    "Fleur…" Someone said, barely a whisper.

    Dash Dash Dash Dot Dot Dot Dash Dash Dash.

    Nothing.

    "Her killer, yes." Max leaned over, metal crinkling as he shifted his weight on his throne to the side. Elbow came to rest on the armrest with his head propped up by his hand. Eyes closed, thinking hard, "What was that young man's name again…"

    Something was very wrong here, the boss wouldn't have just abandoned him like this. He would have said something if he needed to step away. James' mind raced trying to recall this Fleur and why they were relevant, "What happened with Fleur was a-"

    "I believe his name was Mike, sir." Victor said, interrupting him. How incredibly worrying, they were attempting to casually dismiss his rebuttals as if he wasn't even present. Although… when he looked over at Victor, James noticed that the crazy cape that had been trying to bore daggers into him this entire time had mellowed out considerably.

    Their face was completely and utterly devoid of expression as they examined him. Inhumanly so. It was worse than seeing the thinly veiled contempt they previously held for him behind that smug grin. Now he couldn't make heads or tails of what they were thinking or feeling. The continued silence in his ear was starting to make the hairs on his neck stand up under the suit.

    Max shrugged once more before correcting his posture, "Could have been, he clearly wasn't important enough to be remembered." The last part was given while once again looking right at him. "Then again, Fleur wasn't the first time in this city someone was targeted out of costume. Iron Rain."

    Coil you bastard you did not seriously leave me out here on my own with no information. Who the hell was Iron Rain?

    "You know, I never did find my sister's killer and give them their just reward." Max levied at James. What, was the man accusing him of that now as well? Maybe Coil had something to do with it but how was even going to begin to defend himself when he'd never even heard of the other cape before now?

    Victor looked towards his leader, furrowed brows visible on his exposed upper face, "Sir, if I recall correctly, Marquis-"

    "Marquis can waste away in the birdcage for all I care." Max barked out, "He can claim that he was the one to have killed my sister all he wants, but that claim smelt of bull from the instant he made it. Despite our two groups being at each other's throats once upon a time, my father, Allfather, actually respected the man. He even considered him his equal during a few choice conversations. Up until those last few years, anyway."

    Max closed his eyes, breathed in deeply, and then let it all out again, "No, Marquis had a code and he followed it. He may have fooled Allfather, but that man did not kill my sister."

    Max opened his eyes back up, and looked him dead in the eye, "You wouldn't happen to know anything about that night, would you?" James felt a wave of goosebumps roll over his whole body with the realization. Max Anders was taking a cape being attacked out of costume personally.

    "Kaiser, I believe you may be letting your personal feelings get the better of you here." It was looking like he was going to have to call in that exit strategy sooner than he'd have liked. Maybe an appeal to reason would slow down Max's momentum.

    "I believe you would be correct," was the response… What?

    Max chuckled to himself like he found all this genuinely amusing before gesturing to his own face. "What isn't personal these days?"

    Ohh shit.

    James looked about the room, first to the empire's side. The large groups of capes that took up multiple booths were watching him like carnival goers taking in an attraction. They were clearly enjoying the show and were expecting it to continue. James took in the other side of the large dining room. Faultline was running out of whatever drink she was blissfully sipping on, pointedly ignoring the rest of the room. Trickster… his blood ran cold the instant he looked over at the mercenary. The boy in the tophat and tuxedo was shaking his head from side to side as the young man looked back at him.

    "Kaiser," He started, looking back at the unmasked man sitting on his throne. Yes his voice was coming out a little shaky which no doubt undermined anything he said but he couldn't be blamed for having some frayed nerves right about now, "I swear, I've never even heard of Iron Rain before."

    Max leaning back into his throne, "Hmm, what a coincidence, I seem to recall that young man saying much the same thing about Fleur all those years ago."

    Now he was feeling the panic set in.

    Grue coughed to attract the attention of the room, "So, are we really just going to play judge, jury, and executioner here? Just like that?"

    The response was immediate from Max, "Yes boy, just like that." Max turned to look towards Grue, "Now, if you find what's about to happen unpalatable, then I suggest you look away." The young smoke generator turned his head to gaze about the room. Everyone was doing much the same as they were previously, not electing to offer any commentary. Grue finally looked his way, holding like that for a few moments. James couldn't see his face through the motorcycle helmet and tell what he was thinking.

    It was when Grue sat back in his seat that James realized that his exit plan had just gone up in smoke, "This is wrong, we don't know it's him."

    Fuck fuck fuck, "Assault, I'm willing to-" he tried to plead out to the one person in the room most likely to want him to at least stay alive, but it quickly fell into cries of pain as something sharp clamped down hard on his ankle. James tripped over backwards and fell hard on the wooden floor. His ankle felt like it was getting sheared off.

    Fighting through the pain to take a look at what he'd stepped on, it turned out to be a metal bear trap of all things. His hands were already moving, trying to open up the jaws of the trap so he could get his leg free. Jagged metal branched and arced off of the trap as soon as he laid his hands on it. His first instinct to pull his hands away from the danger only served to dig the jagged metal into them as his wrists were encased.

    What? "Miss, he's all yours," …Kaiser. "Do what you came here for and then leave, please. We have important matters to discuss." He looked up and… he couldn't see the man, the table blocked his view. He couldn't see much of anyone's face at this angle. Wooden chair legs scraped across the floor. The floor creaked underneath the shapeshifter's heels. He almost didn't want to look but his gaze was drawn towards the shapeshifter approaching him.

    Their face was cast into shadows with the overhead light behind them. Long crimson red hair that glowed faintly along the edges from the light as they towered over him. He couldn't bring himself to look away from their vibrant red eyes. The intricate circles within circles that made up their irises would haunt him.

    Had to take on one last job… He was going to die, right here right now, wasn't he? "Please, I can explain…" His voice was weak, no longer even bothering with the 'Coil' persona. He'd raise his arms in front of him… if he could, like it would even matter.

    They got down on one knee in front of him. Their gauntlet outstretched towards him.

    James looked away and closed his eyes.

    —​

    Ethan

    Wooden chair legs scraped across the floor on his left side. Metal heels clicked across the room and the wood floor. Christ, the kid was doing it now and everyone was just letting it happen. Hell, Kaiser was only too happy to be enabling her.

    The truce has been upheld over less.

    Their informant's teammate across the table had a damn good point that everyone seemed to be happily ignoring. They didn't know for sure that they had the guy responsible and yet it looked like due process got thrown out the window about 10 minutes ago.

    The truce has been upheld over less.

    He wasn't about to get between all this and further piss off half the damn city tonight, especially with Daniel's kid involved and the complete bullshit that was everything about their power, not without a damn good reason. But like, shit, he was here and someone was about to die right in front of him and the fucking kangaroo court had already dissolved it seemed. Nothing but a vicious hive of scum and villainy coming together to do scummy, villainous things.

    Like murder. Over evidence that was 'good enough'.

    The truce has been upheld over less.

    …

    Maybe if he kept looking straight forward, kept repeating it enough times, he could pretend the situation wasn't completely fucked.

    "Please, I can explain…" Ethan closed his eyes. A gasp, the ruffling of fabric. Please don't be anyone important. Please don't be anyone important…

    "Buh… What… Why?" Coil said, sounding very much still in one piece... Did he even want to know?

    Had to open his eyes eventually.

    Fuck.

    Alright, what's the dea- Oh my fucking god she just ripped someone's mask off on truce grounds. Puppy give me strength.

    He spared a glance back at the newest fuckup of epic proportions. I mean, he was still alive? Questionmark? That was good, right? No, no not really, this was not good. This was infinitely worse for the kid as a matter of fact. He honestly would have preferred it if she just killed him on the spot and ohh boy wasn't that a wonderful thought to have.

    Coil was still in one piece it seemed but now she wasn't even giving the man the time of day; instead just fiddling with the mask she ripped off of him. Delicately at that, those clawed gauntlets could easily rip that fabric into little pieces if she wanted to.

    Holy shit where did he even begin with this. She'd shows up unannounced, all but give everyone in the room the middle finger, and then the kid goes and does this? Justifications be damned, you don't walk into a truce meeting and do whatever the hell it was you felt like. They had standards over these things. Everyone did, heroes and villains alike, for better or worse. She had to know how this was going to look. He even asked-

    …

    If she lied or even half-truthed it when he asked her if she knew what the truce was, just to get to her target…

    Ethan pointedly looked around the room to gauge everyone's reactions. Faultline had her welding mask fully back down again and it was impossible to read her. Mr teammate had a motorcycle helmet and the damn thing was full of his smoke, he couldn't see shit. Gregor was as stoic as ever while Neuter was damn near sweating bullets. Gas mask, can't tell. Clown makeup, looking the wrong way. Foofy shirt with that one type of mask he never learned the name of and wasn't important, indifferent but Ethan caught the nervous drumming of his fingers on his legs under the table. The only one of the Travelers even visible was the one with the top hat- believe Kaiser called him Trickster earlier- the only one visible was Trickster and he looked… Amused? Confused? Both?

    He'd pour over that later, Kaiser had his attention now. It was pretty easy to decipher, and beyond worrying. A scowl etched into his face, no surprise there. Ethan could practically see the veins on the man's forehead bulging and throbbing.

    The sheer speed that it all melted away to a cool, calm, indifferent expression was actually impressive. If he blinked he would have missed it. Super concerning regardless, as if the dude wasn't already a ticking time bomb waiting to go off. Kid just had a big fat target painted on her back if his hunch was right.

    Looking over, they didn't seem to be doing much, just turning Coil's full head covering inside out.

    He was trying very hard not to look at the man's face.

    The mask in her hands was turned over once again, exposing some gadgets hidden on the inside. Kid raised the mask up to her ear and closed her eyes. It was held like that for a long while like she was listening to something. What, did he have an earpiece woven into the fabric or something?

    The mask came down and her expression soured as she regarded the fabric in her pointy hands. A single look was spared to Coil down on the ground aaaaaaand now she's walking away. Head high, eyes forward, mask discarded like it wasn't even important, and headed straight for the door. This can't possibly end well. Ethan didn't know if they'd just let her walk out in one piece after doing a fucking about-face but he wasn't going to risk it. Intervention time.

    He scooted his chair out and adjusted his posture to face her as she went around the table. Not enough to take up the entire walkway but enough to let her know he really, really wanted her to stop, "Alright kid, clue us all in, what the hell just aaaand you're ignoring me." Didn't even break stride and walked right past him.

    She was never interested in giving a single person here the time of day and now she was headed for the door. Christ, he couldn't even stop her if he wanted to, could he? Teleporter. That and other assorted bullshit.

    Ethan winced as the sound of metal screeching and snapping together sounded out from behind him.

    "Miss," ohh hell on a stick Kaiser was actually growling now. "I'm willing to overlook a great many things when dealing with incompetents," Man, why you gotta do this with half the fucking bay in the room. Asshole just had to have his virtue signaling that he was still top dog, didn't he? "They simply can't help themselves, despite their efforts to the contrary. Malice, on the other hand, I do not treat so lightly."

    He turned around to face the front of an all of a sudden far too small restaurant for his liking. The metal bars that lined the windows had grown a new extension that covered the door. Kid was just standing there, back turned towards all of them. Damn this form had some long ass hair. Puppy's shower hairballs were bad enough as it was, he didn't even want to think about maintaining that.

    He didn't miss the tension in the gauntlets and the distinctly no-longer-relaxed posture.

    Those were claws now.

    Kaiser actually stood up from his throne thing so he could turn around and face her directly. Kind of a design flaw with a solid back chair that you fused to the floor. "So, before I decide which-"

    She changed forms. Red was out and Browny- Brownie? Damn that made him hungry- was in… for just a second before switching back to Knight. Just a flash so he didn't catch all the details but caught more than he did last time. The shawl thing was more like a big poofy poncho. Multiple layers to it, lots of fabric to hide things in, absolutely devoured their arms in it. Wasn't as tall as Red but was decently up there, even without those horn things Red had that added like a head and a half onto her. Legs made him look twice and they'd changed forms already by the time he looked again. Looked like rods that just ended at points. Gave the term 'stick thin' a run for its money.

    "Lad, drop yer shite before aye rip it off the walls."

    Ahh hell, here we go. The walls took exception to that. Metal cracked and snapped into place, filling out the empty spaces between the bars until the entire wall was a sheet of Kaiser's jagged metal. The man in question crossed his arms, his suit of armor crinkling and clinking with the motion. "You have a single chance to convince me why I should-"

    Kid spun on her heelie leg things to face the room, "Does it look like aye give a toss?" her thumb flew up to point behind her. "Drop yer shite before aye bust it down, yer in the way."

    Ethan couldn't see the man's face but he was pretty sure Kaiser was flaring his nose like a bull right about now, "You enter this meeting uninvited, you accuse someone of-"

    "Aye don't fookin' care ab-"

    "You, claim," Kaiser wasn't quite bellowing… but he was close, "to come here under truce but fail to show for even a second that you know what the truce even is. These grounds are hallowed," Kaiser threw his arm wide, gesturing to the back of the room, "yet we have a man that has been de-masked and you are trying to leave like you have not just spat in the face of everyone here."

    She rolled her eyes, ohh that's just going to piss him off even more. If he wasnt right at ground zero he'd be asking for popcorn right about now, "Aye aye'm tryin' to leave ya fookin' wankstain. Gots a mad bastard to hunt down and yer shite is blockin' the way."

    Erm, Excusez-moi? Wasn't he, like, over there? Wait, fuck. Mercenaries. That wasn't guaranteed. "Alright," he stated while practically jumping out of his seat. Ohh boy Kaiser's throne was particularly prickly up close. Ethan brought his hands up into the universal 'time-the-fuck-out' pose. "Hold up. Back to what I was trying to ask earlier, is he," he threw his thumb over his shoulder back towards the maybe Coil, "not who you're looking for?"

    Knight scoffed. It was so much easier to call this one Knight than it was to refer to Red as Black Gold Saw. "No, it ain't him. Looks like him, but it ain't him."

    "That's your excuse?" Kaiser accused.

    "Actually," he tried. Ethan saw an opportunity to just get the kid out the damn door and into being someone else's problem. Deescalation and appeasement it is! Less headache medicine he has to take in the morning! "We do know that he likes to hire-"

    "It's irrelevant," Kaiser cut him off. Damnit man just let the kid walk. She can't torpedo her own reputation any harder than this already. Some people just have to learn this lesson the hard way just let her dig her own grave in peace. "We can't verify who he actually is without trampling upon the very truce we uphold."

    Ok, that was kind of a good point. He looked back at the maybe-Coil. Whoever they were, they shrugged, "To be honest-" was the only thing they were able to get out before a few columns of… shit which were the ones that grew on the ceiling; stalagmites or stalactites? Fucking nerds and the weird names they kept giving things A few columns of sharp pointy metal cones grew down from the ceiling right over maybe-Coil's head.

    "In addition," Kaiser spoke up, a little louder than normal for the guy in the back. "Anything they say at this point is suspect. It's entirely possible that they'll say anything to weasel their way out of their predicament, so their word means nothing." Stone cold Kaiser, you just cut the man's legs out from underneath him.

    Knight cleared her throat, drawing everyone's attention. She gestured to the metal wall behind her "So aye see ye haven't dropped yer shite yet and aye'm gettin' tired o' askin'." Actually, was that wall getting bigger? It was, hmm.

    Kaiser's only response was to cross his arms again. Was there a backdoor? How were they all getting out of here?

    Knight rolled over- seriously those were heelies and nothing could change his mind- and tried her best to get right into Kaiser's face. It wasn't nearly as effective a motion as it could have been due to her height although she did a decent job of nearly poking the shit out of his face with her crown headpiece. Seriously why do all these forms have different heights, "Aye'm done askin'."

    "Do not threaten me." Kid, just deck him or teleport away, pick one or the other. Actually no, please don't deck him. I mean… I really really really, really want to see him get decked, I just don't want the fight it'll cause.

    "Three…"

    "Child, I have been doing this since before you were in diapers. Count down to me at your own peril."

    Yellow-black energy swirled in Knight's hands. A sword coalesced in her right hand while that fuckoff huge vault door wheel shield thing formed in the other. Damnit, she was going to deck him. "Two…"

    Kaiser responded with nothing. The wall, however, started to form many, many points. It looked like a thousand invisible hands were pinching the metal and pulling it out, all pointing towards the kid's back. Ethan scooted a smidge closer, close enough to intercept the punch but not close enough that he'd be caught in whatever in sam hell Kaiser was planning to do to the kid.

    She didn't bother counting down the last number, instead electing to cocked back her left arm. His smidge closer became uncomfortably closer as he interjected himself between the nazi with the punchable face and the one trying to do the punching. Christ she was using the shield thing too.

    His hands went up, the shield made contact, he threw the momentum back- oof.

    He tried to throw the momentum back, but he was the one being flung back instead. What did they feed kids these days? Kaiser caught him although they both still stumbled back a step or two. He was actually straight-up thrown off balance by that. Would have bowled completely over and looked like an idiot if the man didn't catch him. That would've been embarrassing.

    The kid…

    Holy shit, kid was gone.

    There was a hole in the metal wall and they could all see out into the street. A fresh channel was dug into the street with Knight's massive shield sticking halfway up out of the far end.

    He didn't kick her back that hard… Did he?

    The shield vanished in a puff of yellow-black light. A second later, Blue began standing up out of the ditch; Asphalt flaking off of her long coat.

    She flicked her arm out to the side and he knew he wasn't going to enjoy this, courtesy of the blue-black glow that came into existence next to her. He tried to call out, tell her to back down, but her damn cannon was already formed. It spun up, the body glowing a bright blue between the pieces of metal that composed it. Ethan had just enough time to get his hands back up in front of him before the first shot hit and he got knocked off his feet.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • Chapter 31
  • Threadmarks
    • This chapter has been beta'd by: @X9Killbot

    —​

    Max Anders

    Madcap stopped the projectile cold. A large black stone dropped down to the floor with a weighty thud. The blue glow that surrounded it vanished once it came to rest, he noted. Madcap, on the other hand, was knocked off his feet and sent flying. Stepping out of the way, he felt the once-villain-now-hero impact the steel in his throne, hard, and slump to the ground, stunned. The old acquaintance behind him would have merited his attention once upon a time, if only to check up on him, but there was a mad woman with a cannon and a death wish standing outside that he needed to deal with first.

    The sound of metal crunching and shearing against metal in a curious manner sounded out for a second time. He was already moving out of the way before the next stone tore through the air where he was just standing. The black and blue projectile clipped his throne; he faintly registered wood paneling cracking and splitting further back into the restaurant over the reverb of ringing metal.

    Steel flowed over his barriers as Max moved towards his capes. The javelins along the wall he drew out earlier smoothed over, thickening the defenses of the building's front. A glimpse of the no-name cape was all he caught before he broke line-of-sight.

    He didn't miss how she was tracking him with her cannon.

    Several more shots sounded out from the front of the restaurant. Several black and blue tumbling projectiles ripped through his barriers, blindly searching for him from beyond the walls. With each shot that punched through, the armor lining the storefront became thicker and thicker, draining more and more power out of the incoming projectiles. He kept moving to regroup with his capes and, personally, not be in any one spot for too long.

    The booths were empty, his underlings at the ready. "It appears negotiations have broken down. Crusader, Go." He commanded.

    Ghosts broke off of Crusader with spears in hand. They floated through his barrier, the wall, and out into the street. Max continued to add mass to the walls as more shots rang out. His steel buckled and dented under the impacts.

    The ringing noise was horrendous.

    "Rune! Start collecting possessions." he called out, although it looked to be redundant as there was already a booth bench rising into the air as he said it. More would surely join it once Rune had a moment to gather her ammunition. More shots rang out although the walls were, mercifully, not in the path of those black stones. It was little mystery as to their targets. "Everyone else, get ready to move. Crusader, how's the fight?"

    The man was staring at the wall, tracking a fight none of them could see. "Pretty standard fare. Shot my ghosts, didn't do anything. Attempted a parry, sword phased through my spears." Crusader said with a smirk, "She doesn't know how my ghosts work."

    "Good, she's distracted now. Stormtiger, Cricket, Go! Stay safe, her weapon can punch through inch-thick steel with ease." Cricket pulled out her sickles without a word before sprinting out the hole in the front wall. Max frowned, she should have known better. Weapons were prohibited at neutral meetings like these. She was clearly excited for a fight if the sheer glee she was expressing on her way out was any indicator.

    Damn pit fighters… He'd reprimand her later as there was a distinct lack of wind surrounding them all despite him ordering a certain wind manipulator to join the fight outside. Stormtiger, the other pit fighter present, and the last one of Brad's little group under his employ, didn't move.

    Guess it was to be expected that at least one of them would have no small amount of loyalty to Brad. The tiger mask blocking his face gave little towards his thoughts, but it was clear as day he was dissatisfied with Max. Tensed muscles, arms slightly out to the side and ready to come up at a moment's notice, loose fists poised to call up the man's wind claws. He could practically feel the glare behind the mask he had no doubt was directed at him.

    Max returned the gesture right back. He tilted his head forward while raising both his eyebrows pointedly in the pit fighter's direction. 'Do I have to make another example tonight?' went unsaid, but he was sure the message was received. If not, he'd gladly follow up with what he did to Brad to make sure he understood just who it was he still took orders from. After a few seconds of staring each other down Stormtiger broke away first, rising into the air with a huff. Wind currents whipped around the closed room as he sailed through the opening, claws of wind trailing behind him. The currents were a little more forceful than usual.

    He didn't miss the not-so-subtle snub against him. It looked like more than one set of punishments were needed to be handed out once tonight was over. It was now more important than ever for the Empire to maintain as positive of a reputation as they could, both internally and externally. He still hadn't seen what the loss of Medhall's funding was doing to their accounts and yet he knew that it was going to be no minor setback. In-fighting on top of that would cripple them, not to mention what effect it would have on other groups and how serious they would be in dealings going forward.

    The thought caused him to glance about the room to the other inhabitants… only to find black smoke billowing about across the room. There wasn't a single trace of a good portion of the dining room nor its inhabitants. A small mercy that he wasn't going to analyze too hard. The young gang leader's smokescreen meant that no-one was present to have witnessed his underlings faux pas.

    "Alabaster," Max called out, "Our enemy today is a dangerous foe. You're with me. Run interference should she try to get close. I know you can take it, but try to avoid damage if-" His steel began to sing. He had only a moment to purge the palms of his gauntlets away and raise his hands to his ears before a horrid screech swept over all of them. Cricket's chirp.

    Chairs and tables crashed against the floor nearby. His vision blurred for several seconds as the noise that infernal woman loved to make assaulted all of their senses. Covering his ears only brought minor relief, although it was miles better than normal without his helmet on. Another minor benefit to forgoing a mask he supposed, he saw no issue benefiting from as many of those as he could get.

    Cricket's chirp stopped as the woman ran out of steam, leaving a ringing in his ear, "-urgh, avoid damage if you can. The longer you stay in one piece and keep her focused on you, the better." He didn't bother to wait for an affirmation that he was understood. A blast of wind blew through the opening in his barrier as he shook his head clear of Cricket's scream. More shots rang out as Rune's possessions floated back up into the air.

    "Victor, what boons has Othala activated?" The power thief recovered faster than the rest of them. He was already standing up straight with his pistol drawn. Max focused on correcting his posture as soon as he realized he was just as hunched over as the rest of them. "Sir: Invulnerability, Regeneration-"

    He waved him off, "All I needed to hear. You're with me as well." Victor nodded, short and precise, which was mostly the reason he saw it at all before turning to their junior member. "Rune, how long until you have a platform ready?" The young cape was still clutching her head, but she responded promptly.

    "S- should only take a moment. Damn that hurt. Isn't this place important though?"

    Yes, yes it was, but there were more important things to worry about right this second. He appreciated the forward-thinking nonetheless. Rune will make a good officer in the future. "It's only money, we can rebuild later. Use the barrier," He pointed towards the metal wall, dented and perforated as it was, "That wall is a write-off at this point, make use of it first. Get Crusader somewhere safe so he can use his power effectively."

    "A- alright…" Rune said, walking towards the section of wall he pointed at. His power made short work of the dents present in it and was already working to close up the openings. Max turned to the only one in the room that was not a part of his organization.

    He marched over to the hero, "Are you alright?" It seemed like the man was recovering, although he was sure the scream from earlier probably didn't do him any favors.

    "Uugh, did anyone catch the serial number on that vault door?" The faint smile the hero's comment put on his face was hard to resist. Lifting him up by the arm, they got him standing on his feet again. "You tell me, you're the one who wanted to see it so badly." The short bark of laughter from the ex-villain came and went. What settled upon the man was a quiet contemplation as he rubbed his neck and rolled his shoulders.

    "You know you can't continue to try to protect them, right?" Max accused, deathly serious. Madcap turned to regard him, his expression unchanged. The telltale sound of blades clashing against each other sounded out as another air current traveled down the street. He reached out and placed his hand on the man's shoulder, "We have rules-"

    "Yeah, yeah." Madcap snapped back at him, slapping his armored hand away. Max let him, mostly because he couldn't really stop the kinetic manipulator from doing so, "I know." Assault sighed, "I know, It's just…" The man grimaced, "Damnit kid, why?"

    Truth be told, he understood the why. He came very close to dropping all civility himself when he came out of that time bubble. Thankfully he was mature enough to not devolve to his baser instincts, no matter how good it would feel in the moment to tear his way through Lung's organization. The moment would eventually pass; There was no future down that route once it was all said and done.

    This… child, on the other hand, didn't seem to be able to see that far ahead. They were lashing out with their short-sighted temper tantrum, and they will reap the consequences. He understood the why, but that would not spare them his mercy.

    Looking about the room, the smoke was persistently present along the far wall and towards the back of the restaurant. An intriguing power, he momentarily wondered how the smoke would have interacted with Night and Fog before discarding the thought. The man responsible for this entire mess was swallowed by the dark fog, although he could still feel his bindings around his feet and wrists so he assumed the man was still present. They seemed intact, hopefully they would be able to deal with him after they put down the child.

    Back towards the front, Rune was making good progress taking over his barrier with her sigils and runes. A large section had already faded from his senses as the sigils flowed over its surface. One of the black stones had joined her ranks of possessions at some point it seemed. A strange object to be used as a projectile now that he had a moment to examine it. He wasn't exactly an expert on firearms, but it was obviously lacking in aerodynamic qualities and he didn't even begin to have the slightest idea as to how one would actually propel it out from a barrel.

    He paid it no further heed; Rune was about done and it was almost time to head out. "If it helps to placate your conscience," Max said as he walked only a short few steps to the meeting table. His helmet sat there, thankfully untouched by the flying projectiles from earlier, "under any other circumstances I would have let the events of tonight slide. We both know why I can't tonight."

    He heard the hero sigh defeatedly behind him as he donned his helmet, the metal seamlessly interlinking with his armor. "Yeah, I know." Max rolled his neck, testing the flexibility. Satisfied he turned around to find the hero looking back at him. "I don't suppose I can convince you to at least leave her in one piece?"

    He raised an eyebrow from behind his helmet. The hero shrugged, "The director really-"

    A gasp cut through their conversation as the both of them turned to Rune. The junior member was backing away from his barrier lining the wall. The steel making up the barrier slowly creeping back under his control as Rune's runes slowly faded away.

    On it, a massive red eye had opened up.

    The eye flicked about the room before settling on him. At that, it seemed to almost glare at him before closing up. The next second a multi-hued tear formed on the wall just where the eye was a moment before. It widened almost instantly, and familiar metallic leg braces stepped into the room. A wicked gauntlet followed next, outstretched towards his young charge. They grasped Rune's shoulder- the young cape failed to respond in a timely manner to the cape, yet another issue on top of a laundry list of issues that they needed to address once this was all over with- and simply shoved her to the side and out of the way.

    Red horns cross through next. Vibrantly scarlet red hair followed suit shortly after which gave way to the cape's head. Their eyes already locked onto him the instant they cleared the portal, laser-focused. The rest of their body passed through the portal, and before he could even blink, they shifted form to the one with the oversized tunic. Barely a step later, they changed back once again to the hooded form.

    Their left eye was sliced out with a gash running across their face from their eye almost to their ear, blood poured out of multiple wounds, and that damnable cannon was already appearing in their hand, raising to point towards him.

    —​

    Melody Jurist

    The relative warmth of Somers Rock gave way to the chilling cold out in the streets as Melody dashed outside, looking for her target.

    Click… Click… Click…

    There! She snapped her head to the right. Down the street, Crusader's ghosties swarmed around the girl, whoever she was. Melody moved as her 'Companion''s spears lashed out.

    The girl was on the defensive, not fighting back against the spooky ghosties. A thin blade was in one hand. A comically large gun thingy in the other. It was curiously shaped as she approached. No clear indicator of any magazine or magazine well. A spiraling drum that twisted on itself in the center. A brace bar surrounded whatever handle was used to lug around the massive thing, or maybe it was even a hand guard? Three struts that ran down the length of the barrel.

    It didn't matter. She didn't fear bullets and she certainly didn't fear these projectiles, despite her 'Leader''s warnings. Those rocks were just so slow as they tumbled through the air back at the restaurant, it almost put her to sleep.

    Down from above the ghosties spears struck, and away the girl danced in the streets dodging this way and that. She was quick, Melody could see that as she approached. Quick, but jerky. A direct start and stop. Self-taught most likely, no real form that she could identify.

    Not that she cared for forms personally, but fight in the pits long enough and you could tell fighters apart from each other in seconds. It was alright, Melody wasn't much better in that regard and that suited her just fine.

    Click… Click… Click…

    The girl turned to look at her as she closed in. Only a few more steps now, she could now make out the white in the girl's eyes over the overpowering blue from before. She drew in a breath just before dashing forward with a lunge. Up and from the left one of her kama swung.

    Click… Click… Click…

    Thin blade rose up to block her swing. She let their weapons meet as she gracelessly bodied the girl. As they crashed into each other, steel colliding with steel and bodies pushing tightly against each other, Melody thrusted her face forward as close as she could get to the girl.

    The girl's eyes went wide. Rookie mistake letting her get so close. She wouldn't have lasted three rounds in the pits.

    Melody screeched.

    Strange eyes, she thought, seeing them so close like this. Melody wasn't one for calling things pretty but they were certainly unique, even as out of focus and twitching as they were currently. The girl stumbled back from her, eyes squeezed tight and recoiling from the sudden assault on her senses. Weapons forgotten as they clattered to the ground.

    Speaking of which…

    Click… Click… Click…

    Crusader's little ghosties were also fizzing in and out by going by her echo returns. She shrugged, ohh well, he'd get over it like he always does.

    Melody calmly walked over to the spazzing girl, the chains attached to her kamas clinking with each step. Poor girl was wide open. Just another overblown newbie that got in over her head. She was at least going to make it quick.

    Kama came up, kama met face, kama sliced. She didn't even break stride as the body collapsed behind her.

    Thinking back as she looked over her kama- another tally to etch onto it she reckoned- It was a surprise to see that the girl actually successfully blocked against her swing on the first try. Not many knew the trick. Melody wondered where she learned that from… if she cared.

    Hmm? This wasn't blood. It couldn't possibly be blood on her kama. A deep blue, specks of the pitchest black she'd ever seen sprinkled throughout. It was… runny as well. Didn't stick like blood did. She felt it, rubbed it between her thumb and fingers. The texture was off.

    She tried smelling it. Nothing. Not even a hint of what blood was supposed to smell like.

    … Tasting it was probably a stretch too far, even for her.

    Commotion behind her had her pinging on reflex …

    Click… Click… Click…

    Ohh? The girl was still alive? Turning around found the girl clutching her face as she laid on the ground. Back hunched over, legs brought in close as she laid on her side. A brute it seemed.

    Melody felt the light smile on her face widen and blossom into maddening glee. A brute, tough but not immune to pain. She licked her lips, even as Philip's wind kicked up all around. The girl's hoodie flapped about in the wind, a long tear ran about halfway from the right side to the center. Just a useless piece of cloth at this point. This… this was going to be fun.

    The girl was starting to recover. Already she was off of her side and up on her hands and knees. Tut tut tut. We can't have that now, can we? The thought was paired with a well-placed boot straight into the girl's side. The long coat was in the way, but she generally knew where someone's kidneys were. The girl took the blow and rolled over onto her back.

    Their eyes locked onto each other and wait when did she get her gun back?

    Click… Click… Click…

    Trigger already pulled and aimed right at her head. Melody dropped, threw her kamas away, and flung herself backwards. The night sky came into view just as the bullet whizzed past, inches away from her face. Then the world was upside down as she stood on her hands instead of her feet, looking the wrong way.

    Click… Click… Click…

    Bad idea to finish the backflip. Melody twisted her body into an awkward tumble to the side. Another round sailed past in the space where she used to be, then another after that just as she finished the roll and got her legs back underneath her. She flicked her arms in towards her, pulling her kamas by their chains back to where they should be.

    Click… Click… Click…

    Well hello Crusader, so nice of you to join us again. One second love, she needed to get just one more slash in.

    Melody burst to the side as yet another massive bullet missed her by a mile. Barely had to do anything to dodge that one. That gun was fun and all but she needed to feel like it was an actual fight in order to enjoy it.

    She angled her surge back towards the girl. She was already back up on one knee, she'd be back up on her own feet before long. Her face was still being covered, her left eye where Melody sliced earlier gushing out that blue and sparkly black liquid from between her fingers. Her other eye was locked on to her, tracking her, correcting her aim.

    Click… Click… Click…

    Wait for the trigger…

    Click… Click… Click…

    There! Melody jumped into the air right as the large bullet left the gun. Twisting in the air, the bullet flew under her and across her back as she faced the sky.

    Click… Click… Click…

    So sad, you missed once more, and now she was close again. Following through with the vault, her kamas moved as one with her. Her left struck first, striking the girl's gun. She wanted to knock it out of her hand but the damn thing was a massive lug as it was. She'd just have to settle for inching it to the side a bit with the impact. More time it would take to get it pointing back in her direction.

    Melody's right kama struck next. Down on one knee, weapon pointing the wrong way, one hand up high stemming the flow of blood from her face? It was a suckers bet if she could hit this next strike. Her kama tore through the side of the girl's longcoat and sank deep into her midsection. Up through the lungs, into the heart, she'd-

    The spray of blood that practically bathed her took her aback.

    Eww… Eeewwww. It got in her mouth. It's in her mouth.

    Melody didn't quite stumble back, but this was clearly unexpected. It was like some bad cartoon watching the blood gush forth like a broken fire hydrant. The girl seemed no worse for wear though, and was already back up on both of her feet.

    Click… Cl… Eugh… Click…

    Melody smirked as she took a few steps back away from the girl. The comically oversized cannon came back up to point at her, although it was too late by that point. The girl didn't even have the time to pull the trigger before Philip's wind blades crashed into her. The long coat was cut to ribbons in the places where the blades made direct contact. The girl stumbled, reeling with the hit.

    She just stood by as another volley was sent the girl's way. The girl avoided the blades by lunging back, away from Melody. Stupid, it only backed her into a corner with the buildings on the other side of the street now blocking off an avenue of mobility. More wind blades sailed down the street courtesy of Philip while Melody positioned herself to intercept the girl if she tried to dash out into the street.

    At least, that's what she expected her to do. Instead, the girl planted her cannon into the ground and braced herself. Philip's wind blades impacted and the cannon didn't even budge with the girl no worse for wear as she hid behind the massive hunk of metal.

    Tut tut, that won't do. It's no fun if you don't come out and play. Melody ran forward, striking at the girl's head with her kamas. She ducked and slid out of the way, her kama bounced off of the massive cannon stuck in the ground.

    Thin sword came up…

    Click… Click… Click…

    … and Melody effortlessly parried it with her kama.

    The next few moments were a whirl of blades between the two of them. A strike here, a clash of weapons there. Melody wasn't really one for pretty words or Max's theatrics, but she couldn't bring herself to call their fight anything but a dance. The two of them danced around the girl's cannon.

    Melody struck out, only for the girl to duck behind the cannon. The girl came back around the other side thrusting her thin sword. Melody twisted her head out of its way. A kick was sent in the girl's direction, aiming for the wound to her side Melody made earlier. The girl trapped Melody's leg with her arm and heaved, lifting her off the ground. The next thing she knew, Melody was slammed face-first into the side of the girl's cannon.

    She could feel the blood between her clenched teeth…

    Click… Click… Click…

    Wind sliced through the air less than a foot away from Melody's head.

    Click… Click… Click…

    It's been so long since she'd had a good fight…

    Click… Click… Click…

    The girl let her go and ducked behind her cannon to avoid Philip's wind, her one good eye never breaking eye contact.

    Click… Click… Click…

    Cmon…

    Click… Click… Click…

    She kicked off of the cannon and back out into the street just before the thin blade came around the other side, striking right where she just was. The two of them locked eyes with each other. Melody flicked her arms back, drawing in her kamas before she surged forward once more.

    The girl drew her thin sword in with both hands and took a stance, blade pointed right at her as she charged.

    Click… Click… Click…

    Fight me…

    Click… Click… Click…

    Melody stopped, ducking suddenly to let Crusader's spooky ghosties charge overhead. The girl abandoned her stance and jumped. Crusader's spears passed right through her cannon, missing the girl entirely. She performed a full backflip onto the top of her cannon, reached down to grab it, and pulled the trigger.

    Melody shielded her face from the debris as the cannon shot pulverized the sidewalk. Her arm was peppered with little bits of concrete. Looking up, the girl was gone.

    Click… Click… Click…

    Melody twisted her whole body to the side to dodge another one of those glowing blue projectiles as one tumbled past her and straight into the ground. Another joined it soon after. Melody looked up to find the girl high up on the ledge of the nearby rooftop. The two of them were looking right at each other and that cannon was pointing right at her.

    She pinged, over and over, and yet no further shots came her way. Philip rose into the air alongside the spooky ghosties, yet Melody stood still. The girl lowered her cannon but she didn't break eye contact. She smirked, the girl couldn't hit her and now she was finally saving the ammo instead of futilely trying.

    Then, the girl was gone, and another was in her place. The odd brown-haired one. Long wavy hair draped over half of her face accompanied by the large poncho cloth thing. And then, again just as quickly, she was replaced with yet another one. The red one.

    Miss red heels kicked off of the ledge back onto the roof and Melody lost track of her. Now she was frowning.

    "The hell? Where'd she go?" Philip called out as he made it up to the roof. Melody was afraid of that.

    … Damnit now she was sitting here ready to keep fighting, but the bitch ran. She threw one arm over her head to stretch, wondering what to do with all this energy. Hmm, could probably start by getting this gunk off of her face.

    Melody started to undo her cage, but stopped as soon as she heard the cloaked one's cannon firing off in the distance.

    Click… Click… Click…

    The restaurant? Crusader's ghosts fizzled out one by one. He was recalling them, he only did that if he was in a hurry.

    Philip was already sailing through the air by the time she re-secured her cage, and Melody took off soon after. It looked like tonight was a damn good night for a fight after all.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • Alright, we're all caught up now. PHO thread formatting got eaten so I'm going to have to remeber how to do that, but the cross-posting is now complete.
     
    Chapter 32
  • Threadmarks
    • My beta did not get back to me this week so I am entirely to blame for this...

    —​

    Ethan

    The black rock he just deflected away from Kaiser sailed off into the cloud of black smoke along the side of the room. He kept expecting to hear wood crunch and crack, concrete to chip, or metal singing in protest, but the smoke swallowed it with an eerie quiet.

    He tested the movement of his fingers in his left hand. His breath hitched for trying. They were somewhat responsive, but the absolute hellfire running up and down his arm told him something was definitely broken.

    There was… a lot of power in those shots.

    The first shot knocked him completely on his ass. As for the second shot just now? Well, he was able to stay on his feet… this time, but he still misjudged just how much energy was in those shots the kid was throwing around like candy. Assault really hoped saving the ungrateful racist behind him didn't just cost him an arm. Puppy would kill him.

    Kid lowered her cannon and glared. Blue-ish liquid poured out of her bad eye. If it bothered her in the slightest, she wasn't showing it. Her black coat wasn't quite in tatters, but it was a near thing. She didn't even appear to be winded from the fight outside that she'd clearly been on the receiving end of.

    She began to pace about in front of the hole in the front of the restaurant, the one that was slowly being closed off with Kaiser's metal. Right side of the room to the left at first. Assault matched her positioning, keeping himself between her and her obvious target. Kid's glare never left him.

    After reversing direction to pace back to the right, the kid did one of the most brazen things he'd seen her do to date, and that list included starting hostilities on truce grounds. She shoo'd at him with a wave of her hand, telling him to get out of the way. His jaw actually dropped at that.

    "I.. I… NO!" Gods he must've had the stupidest, most incredulous look on his face as he said that. It certainly sounded like it. Kid finally broke off that damn glare of hers… by rolling her remaining eye at him. Yeah, fuck you too kid. Kindest regards, my left hand. I'm not going to let you just-

    The instant the kid turned back around to continue her pacing, she snapped her head to the left and all hell broke loose. Gunshots rang out from Assault's left towards the kid, she responded by bracing her lug of a cannon across her body. Small sparks sprung up here and there on her cannon as the bullets failed to so much as even scratch it.

    One of Crusader's ghosts flew forward from his right side with Alabaster not far behind. Assault bolted forward to join them. Tonight was shaping up to be the shitshow that just seemed to keep on giving and it needed to stop, now.

    He heard the handgun click empty, and so did the kid. Her massive honking cannon came up and the kid sent a few of those black rocks sailing into the left side of the room before swinging it back in their direction. Crusader's ghost was well ahead of him and ran the kid through the stomach before she could even realize what was happening.

    The ghost didn't stop there, carrying the girl with her on his spear and slamming her into the back wall full of Kaiser's waiting metal. She gripped the ghostly spear with her free hand, trying to pry it off of her but it wasn't budging. More ghosts were already airborne and on their way to follow up.

    The kid looked up and just stuck her cannon through Crusader's ghost like it wasn't even there, letting off a volley of shots; like being impaled didn't even seem to fucking phase the kid. Alabaster simply exploded with gore next to him. Kaiser's metal began encasing the girl where she was, pinned to the wall by Crusader's ghost. He finally reached the girl and used all his kinetic energy to shove the kid's field gun against the wall.

    Yup, something was definitely broken in his wrist or something, he shifted his left arm to brace the gun with his forearm instead.

    Assault felt the thing damn near vibrate under his grasp as the kid tried to break it loose, but he was stopping its momentum cold. She shot a few more shots out while trying to break it free from his grip as Kaiser's metal snapped into place all round the weapon. It did nothing except send who knows how many shards of metal every which way as the rounds gouged out the metal lining the wall.

    Looking over, the kid was intent on burning a hole in the side of his head with the glare she was sending his way. He was feeling less and less bad about taking her in by the minute if this was how she was going to act.

    She was about half covered with Kaiser's encroaching metal, but her other arm was still loose and free. Blue-Black energy formed in her free hand coalescing into her other weapon. The sword swing was wide and easily caught with his good hand, arresting all of its momentum. She struggled to break her weapons free from his grip but they weren't going anywhere. With his arm pinning the field gun against the wall, and his good hand locking her sword in place, unless there was some other damn trick up her sleeve he felt confident that he could hold-

    Gun. 9mm. Pressed up right against the kid's head. Wait, don't-

    Bang Bang

    ...

    ....

    .....

    Assault stood there, hearing nothing but the sound of his heart thundering in his chest as the world seemed to grind to a halt. The faint throbbing in his hand pointedly ignored. He watched her, waiting to see if she would start moving again. Seconds felt like they blurred into minutes although, honestly, he wasn't paying that much attention right then. He was far, far more concerned with the fact that he might have just held down a prospective, if heavily misguided, hero only to allow the villains he swore to bring to justice to execute her.

    …

    ….

    …..

    Against his wishes, the world marched on with everything seeming to start back up around him. The screech of metal scraping against metal stopped. The kid's weapons dissolved into that blue-black light out from underneath him. Victor lowered the gun as he worked his jaw around. "Let's hope that's the end of that. Damn thing hurts getting shot with."

    Blue blood (because of course her blood had to be blue like everything else, why not) dripped off of the tips of the kid's fingers. Assault closed his eyes, not wanting to look at her dangling limp from Kaiser's coffin of metal. Another dead rookie that got in too far over their head, one he couldn't help but feel like he helped into an all too often early grave.

    "UUgh", someone, Alabaster, coughed. Resetting bastard survived that somehow. There's no justice in this world. "Victor, I know we don't agree on everything, but I'm with you on this one. Fuck that cannon."

    You know what, to hell with this, he was going to sit down and take a moment to himself. Get his thoughts in order.

    Metal shards poked through his suit's fabric into his back as he leaned up against the wall. They retracted around him, smoothing out as he slid down the wall to sit on the floor.

    His hand was doing its absolute best to kindly remind him that something in it was broken.

    Ohh yeah, he was also going to have to report what all happened here when he got back. That was going to be fun. Kaiser, Coil, the kid. All of it.

    Shit he almost forgot. Have to confiscate the tinkertech rifles before anyone else nabs 'em. Get those back to evidence so the guys don't rip his head off for leaving them behind.

    The back of his head tink'd against flat metal.

    …

    Huh…

    Kaiser's metal was cool to the touch. You'd think with all the shearing and snapping the man made it do on the regular that it'd heat up from all the friction.

    …

    His thoughts were definitely in need of organizing.

    Assault opened his eyes and took stock of the room.

    Black rocks littered about the place, broken tables and chairs, a few overhead lights were knocked out. That damn black smoke from the Undersider kid was still obscuring half the room. Kaiser's fucking metal looking like it was ready to drown the other half at a moment's notice. The place was trashed.

    Kaiser stood confidently behind a wall of dragon's teeth. By the look of his helmet, he was gazing at something to the side of the room. He turned his head to follow. Victor was helping Alabaster off the ground. Rune… what the hell was she even doing here, kid belonged in bed or something… Rune trudged across the room to-

    "Crusader." The words just slipped out of his mouth as soon as he saw the body. There was a massive spattering of blood everywhere. If someone had told you the 9 had shown up, he wouldn't have questioned it. The top half of Crusader's body was just gone.

    Rune dropped down on her knees next to the empire cape. She must have been close by, half her face mask had specklets of blood covering it. Five bucks said she was going into shock.

    It shouldn't have turned out like this you slow, stupid, idiot. Spent too damn long wishing everything would pan out ok. Kept trying to talk. If only he was a little faster…

    A gust of wind blew into the room. "Aww, is the show over already?" A scratching electronic voice called out next to him.

    —​

    Max Anders

    "Yes, but not without casualties." He said dryly while motioning towards their now dead comrade. It could have easily been him. Too easily. Nothing but one headache after another, but at least it's over now.

    Cricket looked over at his gesturing, "Shit, ghost boy bit it."

    "Indeed, can the two of you tend to Rune? She seems catatonic."

    "I'll get her." Stormtiger marched over to the young empire member, kneeling beside her. Although it did not speak highly of her, he wouldn't begrudge the girl for locking up like she currently was. It was to be expected that some people were simply… softer. A shame that it turned out to be one of his own.

    His attention returned to the instigator of all this, still trapped within his steel. He was debating leaving her like that, as a message to anyone else who thought that the rules were merely suggestions. A part of him said to take her down and set up a proper, more visible display, like he'd done once before all those years ago. He found himself agreeing with that.

    Kaiser dissolved his barriers and walked over to assault, slouched down on the floor. "Are you alright?" Felt like he was asking that a lot today.

    Assault just looked back up at him. His visor obscured his eyes, but Max could tell that the hero wasn't really looking at him. Lost in his thoughts maybe.

    "I dunno man…"

    "I hope you're not feeling responsible for all of this."

    "Kinda. Could've stopped it if I… if I…" Assault hung his head, "Fuck, what could I have done…"

    "She made her choice," He reasoned, "and she paid the price."

    "One day, for one day I want some kid to not be a dumbfuck and get themselves killed in this city." The hero looked back up at him, "Is that so hard to ask for?"

    Kaiser looked over the room, the very room that brokered truces and relative peace in this city for decades before today. Broken by a child who was summarily broken in return. Stormtiger had gotten Rune up onto her feet at the least, and was leading her off to an intact booth. Victor was checking his gun over while Alabaster spat in the face of their adversary. Cricket was right behind him, waiting for her turn he supposed.

    Crusader was dead, and that was going to hurt them in the long run. The man wasn't necessarily a heavy hitter, but he could certainly punch above his weight from time to time. His empire was bleeding too many capes for his taste recently. With everything that had happened in the past few days, he could admit that he was beginning to acquire a certain fondness of more simpler times of yesteryear. Not like he could change any of that right now.

    Cricket took up a boxing stance in front of the dead girl. Jabs were thrown at her, but not actually connecting. She shadow boxed for a few seconds before giving it up. "Really would have liked that round 2," she growled out like she did with everything else.

    Max watched her walk back towards the rest of his empire. "I'll let you stay here for a while longer if you need it, but I suggest you start thinking about heading out sometime soon." He turned back to address the hero. Max opened his mouth to speak, to tell the hero that the truce was holding on by the thinnest threads at the moment and that he should make himself scarce. It all died in his throat when he saw the girl staring at him with brown eyes from her metal prison on the wall.

    He didn't hesitate to call on his steel. A sword formed, flowing from his vambrace as he stabbed forward. The girl shifted back into the mutt with the tainted skin. A tinkertech fist caught his crude sword and shattered the entire thing in his hands.

    Kaiser backed up, calling on more of his steel to form protective barriers for what felt like the hundredth time this night. Assault scrambled to get clear of the girl, he smoothed out the man's exit route for him, let him get to his feet without his steel everywhere. Cricket's chains clinked to his side and he heard Victor work to get his gun back in working order.

    Seriously, did everyone bring a weapon tonight? He was going to have so many words to give after this bitch was finally dead. She raised her massive tinkertech fist high up into the air before bringing it back down against the wall she was trapped against. The whole section pulverized into a mist of dust, plaster, and steel shards. Bricks shot outwards, crashing against the asphalt out in the street as the girl stood, free as a bird, looking none the worse for wear.
     
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