"I'm awake!" She really, really wasn't. I just woke up, myself; having been woken up by a medical emergency just outside of the tent a few minutes ago. At least I think it was a medical emergency.
"Uh huh. Sure. Armsmaster wants to talk to you in the Tinker tent, I think it's about the Mastering thing." Bang perked up at this and swung her legs out of the cot before dashing past me, glad I'm not the only one of us eager to see what exactly they've got in there. Though knowing Armsmaster he was probably going to ask maybe two questions and some follow-ups before sending her back out.
As for me, I was going to grab some breakfast before seeing if any Thinkers were available to pull resources with. I'd much prefer helping by wading into the thick of it with my orb-shield-Blaster-thing, but I wasn't anywhere near the league of the guys out there. The city's skyline was never going to be the same after this fight, it was like something out of a disaster movie.
The refreshment table was also a disaster. I wasn't expecting much and we certainly didn't have a buffet back in our base, but how was I supposed to face the serial-killer filled day on nothing but a packet of saltine crackers and an apple? Not to mention trying to open the packet with handcuffs on, they weren't as bulky as Bang's but unless I found someone to ask for help I was going to have to use my teeth.
Speak of the devil, right as the thought crossed my mind there was a commotion from the 'Marker' desk or whatever it's called as a bunch of capes start yelling and bragging about who's going to get more hits in. Before long half a dozen of them head over to the table and grab some snacks of their own, I recognized Stormtiger, the orange cape, the angel with the sharkfin, and the cape who turned Bang into grass a few days ago. Most of them leave but the orange guy and the knife guy stay to eat in the tent.
My first impulse is to ask the orange guy for help because he didn't seem that bad wen I first met him yesterday, but I quickly change my mind when he starts ravenously eating a huge pile of oranges with the peels still on. He's clearly a lunatic and I'm still a terrible judge of character. The other guy is intimidating, but he's at least quiet and eats like a normal person rather than a wild animal.
"Hey umm-" He stops chewing and looks over at me. "Could you help me open these?" For several moments there's zero reaction, and I start to question if I've actually said anything. Then he nods and gestures for me to hand him the packet, at least, that's what I thought he was gesturing. In like three seconds he pulled out a lockpick from his sleeve and took off my cuffs, before pocketing them and going back to eating like nothing happened. It happened so fast I didn't even see which pocket he put it in. Fuck. "I uh, I actually needed to wear those still."
"Wear what?" What?
"The handcuffs."
"You're not wearing handcuffs."
What? He actually sounds confused.
"You have them in your pocket." I can't read his face too well through the wicker mask, but at my insistence, he decides to demonstrate everything he brought, carefully pulling out each item in question and show it off with an air of bafflement. Meanwhile I decided to make the most of the situation and actually eat my saltines while I waited for Kodama, his name apparently, to produce my contingency. In total Kodama pulled out three cans of pepperspray, a flaregun, several packets of assorted vegetable seeds, nine grenades, a glass cylinder full of powdered rust and metal shavings, seven bullets, a maraca, a spool of twine, a dozen lockpicks, four flashbangs, eight darts, a knuckle duster, a lump of clay, three rolls of pennies, a black chess knight, a box of those noisemaker things they sell in fireworks tents, and what I was pretty sure was a map of Brockton Bay's sewer system. But no handcuffs, at least not before Bakuda showed up and stole what I had to assume was Kodama's most precious resource, his attention span.
"Alright losers, I hope all you boys and girls had fun because the fight's over now that I'm here! I see you snickering back there, you nobodies from out of town have
no idea just how much my genius outclasses everyone here. I'll lay it out for you: I've held entire cities hostage with my bombs, I killed
Lung-" This is when Kodama rushed out of the tent, forgetting all his stuff on the refreshment table. "with only a little help from my adorable assistant Wukong, then I killed
Behemoth with no help at all, and now I'm going to kill Crawler. Yeah, there's the look of fear and awe you deserve to be feeling, I'm the motherfucking Endslayer. All of you peons are just going to be a footnote in my rise to dominance, just fucking watch." I poke my head out to see exactly what the gang leader is talking about but she flies over the top of the tent as I do. Okay seriously, why does everybody have Mover powers all of a sudden?
