Capítulo 1654: 42
Notes:
Been a while, eh?
Short recap of previous events:
Taylor beat Alexandria's ass, settled a double-ended job for Faultline, dealt with Lung's sex trafficking operation and took over the ABB, then took a trip to Boston to grab Accord and a ton of corrupt assholes, then came back to finish dealing with the Empire while some strange BS is going on.
Chapter Text
She woke up to the sound of… a news report?
Getting up, she blinked blearily at Lisa as she watched something on her phone.
Lisa turned to her with a smug smile, and twisted the phone around.
It was a news station, a man speaking some words her brain couldn't process yet, while below him, a strip of text slowly rolled across the screen.
' ROGUE PARAHUMAN DISMANTLES SEX TRAFFICKING RING - BUT WHERE WAS THE GOVERNMENT?'
Wow that was a bold fucking headline.
ALS News… they weren't as large as others but they were pretty damn big as far as she knew.
His mouth noises slowly turned to actual words as she blinked the sleep out of her eyes, hurriedly sitting up and grabbing the phone.
"- and this… does raise the question; why is the PRT refusing to comment on this? Of course, the usual spiel is that- it's an investigation, so they can't comment on it. But what is there really to say here? We have the information, this is all leaked. It can't get any more straight forward than this. It's online, you, at home, can look this up on archive websites and read it all yourself." The announcer said, gesturing above his shoulder at a slideshow of the documents they provided with a pen he was fiddling with, his suit barely wrinkling from the motion.
"So just to recap; a rogue parahuman contacts an FBI agent, and says they have overwhelming evidence of a sex trafficking ring operating in the underbelly of Brockton Bay, a city with the second highest crime rate per capita in all of America and the last in government funding relative to its population."
The images above flicked to conversational transcripts that never happened, and she felt her brows raise at how… charitable this was going. She was expecting a lot more scepticism.
"In the images above my shoulder, you can see how this rogue parahuman describes things. Granted, they do sound a little overdramatic-" He chuckles, highlighting a section of transcript.
She squinted at the text as Lisa snickered to the side.
The highlighted text read ' if you won't uproot the rotting tree, I'll send you its ashes. Coward.'
"...Who wrote that? I mean, it's pretty much what I'd write anyway if I was pissed at an FBI agent and feeling dramatic, but come on…" She mumbled.
"I did. Was- a pfhh- g-good line." Lisa forced out between her snickers, cuddling into her side with a shit-eating grin as she gave her a dry stare.
She focused back on the presenter as the video of the transcripts turned the whole page back to black and white.
"But this 'Summoner', is a man- or a woman, of course, who claims to have enough information to bury a sex trafficking ring that most people have no idea even exists, headed by one of the most powerful capes on the coastline. Just last month this same cape that is in charge of this ring was caught on video nearly bisecting Armsmaster and fighting off almost a half dozen heroes by himself. And it takes nine pages of dialogue for this FBI agent who will remain anonymous, to say he will send an investigation request. Immediately after that he warns how this could take potentially months or years to get going into a proper raid. Requests, information, due process, bureaucracy. And then it'll likely be sent to the PRT for further inaction and delay, because the gang doing this is led by a parahuman. We, as citizens, already know this, of course. The FBI is probably too busy spying on your SNS messages to do anything actually useful, and the Protectorate is too busy posing for beachside selfies with tourists around these parts, at least under the PRT's command."
Lisa burst out into a snorting exhale.
"Ho-ho-holy shit I love this guy!" Lisa cackled, and she hurriedly shushed her, bringing the phone closer.
"But, take a look at this." He added.
The video behind him zoomed in on cue as he pointed at it with the tip of his pen, his brows sceptically furrowed.
"A week after this message was sent, this rogue Parahuman going by 'Summoner', simply replies, and I quote; ' the day after tomorrow. two hundred and fifty people, approximately. Boston, New York. Be ready' " He carefully enunciated, then turned to the camera with a theatrically puzzled face.
"Now, this… looks pretty ominous, so our unnamed agent asks for a clarification. None is provided, and nothing is prepared, of course. But, I suppose he got that clarification the next afternoon, when the city of Brockton Bay momentarily became a warzone. "
The video behind him changed into what could charitably be called a montage. Handheld phones recording out of windows as the sound of gunshots rang without pause, momentary shots of shaky footage of smoke and sparks, bodycam footage of police officers getting out of their vehicles and running into groups of black-clad men that fled on sight, throwing smoke grenades and vanishing, leaving behind nothing but armed corpses and burning meth labs.
"In the course of a single hour, there were a reported forty four casualties of gang-affiliated persons and criminals, three unrelated casualties, and over ten thousand rounds of ammunition fired, over fifty smoke grenades used, and over ten suspected IEDs detonated. All of this was started by what seems to be over fifty unknown individuals that were spotted, wearing all black, having no insignia or flag upon their persons, and having no apparent affiliation. Two civilians were killed, one police officer, from accidental crossfire, and forty four criminals alongside them. This happened all across the city, but mainly in the areas where gang activity was the highest in recent months." He said, and a rough hotmap showed up on the screen behind him.
She was surprised that anyone even bothered mapping Brockton Bay's crime locations…
Wow, they looked a lot deeper than what they sent them… though they were supposedly journalists, so that made sense.
The fact they hadn't mentioned Coil was strange, however. Did people really think he died in that self-detonation? She hadn't even planned on that.
"Some spots were distractions formed by use of fireworks, some were genuine assaults. The aftermath and purpose of this attack was made apparent the next day, when these same men drove up to police and federal buildings, offloaded dozens and dozens of women, children, and a few men, from their trucks. All with piles of paperwork in their arms. Then they simply drove off without another word. Nobody stopped them, because who could possibly think that that black truck was driven by vigilante militia? Who could think they'd have the gall to just drive up to an FBI office, drop off dozens of people, then drive away? It was such an audacious move that nobody reacted, nobody expected it. It sounds absurd just saying it out loud, doesn't it?" He exclaimed, expression and tone distinctly disbelieving.
There was some faint camera footage of the drop-offs, playing behind him. Disguised trucks, some just delivery trucks, some from moving companies, some simple decoys…
"An estimated number of over two hundred people were left in front of these buildings, precisely two days after that ominous text mentioned above. Almost all of them gave the same story. They lived in brothels, meth labs, warehouses, kept like cattle, until some people they thought were police walked in and began to kill their captors and took them away. They medically treated them, asked them questions, fed them and clothed them for a day, then sent them to those buildings with simple instructions. The only reply those men gave the victims as for the question of who they were? 'Nexus', apparently. Not that any of us at home has ever heard that name before. In fact, judging by the silence and what journalists have been able to find, nobody in general has heard that name before."
For a relatively smaller news channel, they did their work well.
She knew what had happened, but even she was oddly interested in the story, or at least its presentation.
This wasn't what she was expecting, but…
"I think it's fairly easy to make the connection here. A rogue parahuman and their armed militia did what would take the federal government months and years, over the course of less than three days. Some you might have noticed the obvious; that this is an individual who is dangerous. Who seems to lead what seems like a small army that calls itself 'Nexus'. Who, none of us has ever heard of before. Who has most definitely broken the law, probably hundreds of them. Yet, you might have noticed we have yet to call them a villain. That is because despite everything, this 'Summoner' personality has done nothing but return a young kidnapping victim to the police that goes by the name of Dinah Alcott-"
Her brows furrowed.
It wasn't hard to make that connection, considering the same method of delivery and Dinah likely being a little more loose-mouthed than expected, but she was quite annoyed he was namedropping a child on national television. That had to be some kind of irresponsible, right?
"- almost a week ago now, and then does all this, for no seeming reason but a moral disgust at the state of affairs, at least according to their messages, which we, of course, should take with an obvious, large grain of salt. And this entire situation, this person, it now raises a lot of questions." The man gesticulated, leaning back in his chair with a dissatisfied face.
He was almost like an actor.
He was good.
"While law and order makes a society function, when that law and order does not functionally exist in some places even in this very country, what is the alternative? And is it something we are willing to entertain? What state is our country in, when we look upon a parahuman criminal, and see their first actions in the public eye doing more good than any national agency or bureau has on that piece of the coastline in years? More than a decade, probably, unless there's something classified we haven't been able to find. And is this kind of justice, by blood and fire rather than law, something that we should welcome, for its efficiency and speed, or be afraid of, for its brutality and unaccountability? Think about it. We'll see you again at twelve thirty am, and have a good day ladies and gentlemen." He finished quickly, giving the camera a smile as he clicked his pen shut.
The news channel outro played.
"Holy shit, that went so well." Lisa breathed out.
She blew out a long breath, unsure of what the hell to even take away from that.
She had been treated far, far, far more charitably than she ever expected. And he wasn't even particularly biased during the entire segment, or what she managed to catch of it. Just… strangely neutral.
What on earth?
"Did we pay them?" She asked, incredulous, and Lisa shook her head on her shoulder.
"Not a dime. We just gave their journos 'leaked info'. They're semi-infamous for being overwhelmingly sceptical against the government and the PRT because they're funded by some people who dislike both, AKA fronts for The Elite, so this might be the most charitable piece you'll see today. I still didn't expect them to go that hard. I just thought I'd wake you up to good news, for once."
She snorted, smiling down at the screen, tapping out of the video.
"Well, you succeeded. I expected to be branded a villain doing a good thing for some self-serving reason, like how Marquis was talked of, or something like that. Not this. They didn't mention Coil or Oni Lee or anything either, which was unexpected… not sure if that's good or bad."
Lisa shrugged.
"The other stations probably will say your name for the entirety of next week, until the new Endbringer attack happens at least. Besides, they're a Boston news station, plus decent journalists. We're practically a drive away from them. That probably helped too."
Boston… did Coil or Accord pull some strings without telling her?
"Yeah, that makes sense. Alright… Let's get up. I have an emperor to catch. You get someone to start designing our brand. I have some design ideas." She hummed, nudging Lisa aside.
"'Brand'. Are we gonna sell bags?" Lisa snorted, and she rolled her eyes as she pushed Lisa off the cot.
"No, but we need a symbol. To have an effective leading group, you need a leader, and a culture. Flags, symbols, and iconography are a tried and true method of cultivating a culture. I can design some things, but I have to get the Empire now while they're still reeling."
Lisa nodded, yawning and going to reach for her silken bodysleeve.
She followed, stretching for a bit, putting on her shoes, her own suit, then casting Teleport into Sile's apartment, since he should be at work at the moment.
She was almost excited.
Max Anders held a consistent schedule.
It probably helped him stay out of suspicion.
From seven AM to one PM, he was in his office, working as the CEO of Medhall.
Unfortunately, Mastering him had turned out to be a much bigger frustration than anticipated.
His office was inundated with employees all the time, and the doors opened and closed so much she had to wonder if there was even a point to having them.
One employee in, another out.
He worked few hours, but it seemed that that made him all the more sought after by employees while he was here.
The rare moment of privacy she needed came three hours into her just floating by his side as an invisible gas cloud, and while waiting like that didn't eat up her resources much if at all, it still pissed her off to have to waste so much time doing practically nothing.
That moment of privacy seemed to come in the form of a phonecall that made him lock his doors with a button on his desk before answering because of course he had such a thing.
It was nothing exciting, unfortunately. Kaiser, or Max, simply answered in curt yes and no's, while the person on the other line was asking about Purity's civilian alias because they couldn't get a hold of her.
As the last goodbye was muttered, she materialized behind him, tense and ready.
The call beeped to an end, and before he could react, she snapped two feelers shut around him and lifted him up off the floor, squeezing him hard enough to make his shout of surprise little more than a particularly violent wheeze as his legs kicked in the air once, unable to connect to anything and use his power.
Their eyes met, and his fate was sealed.
She learned a lot about a man while rifling through his head, and Kaiser was no exception.
He was painfully bland. Just a narcissistic sociopath with a power complex.
By the time she was done, he just blinked back to awareness, and glanced down at her feelers still squeezed around him and keeping him up. He gave her an annoyed, constipated look.
"This suit is armani."
She stared at him.
She had no idea what that even meant, but she obliged, and put him down, allowing him to straighten his suit.
"So, who-"
She flickered a piece of paper into her hand, and presented it to him.
It was getting annoying, having to verbally tell people who she was and what she wanted them to do. Letters and messages were much easier.
He took it, and gracefully unfolded it, holding it loosely as he began to read.
It wasn't much. Who she was, who she had Mastered, the general chain of command, and what she wanted him to do.
A sudden bang sounded out from outside, and she glanced through the window, seeing… nothing, really. Could have been a gunshot or a little dynamite popper that dumb teenagers played with. She couldn't tell the distance either.
She ignored it, and turned back to Max.
He frowned half-way through the paper.
"Hookwolf and his crew are particularly hard to wrangle. I could get Hookwolf to you, but if I try to bring Cricket and Stormtiger over as well, they'll likely just ignore it. Hookwolf can tell them anything I tell him, in their eyes. One of the twins also is still regenerating her leg from Challenger with Othala's help, so neither of them will be moving anytime soon unless we're under genuine attack. I could, of course, give you an address."
She nodded, pale white lashes blinking slowly.
"Write the twins' current address."
He turned to his desk, and took a post-it note, writing quickly and handing it to her.
She hummed a short affirmative as she took it.
"Call everyone for a private meeting when you're done here and start working as Kaiser. I'll follow you. In pairs, or one by one, preferably. I'll Master them too. Any of them you believe are not evil enough to warrant being Mastered by the standards of an average, morally gray hero?"
Max took a moment to think.
"Cricket." He said, quite surprisingly, and she tilted her head.
"She has never killed or seriously maimed anyone. Hasn't participated in blooding or initiations either. She doesn't seem to have much of an opinion on anything, really. She's just an adrenaline junkie who loves fighting, harder and harder enemies, even if it one day gets her killed. She wants to feel alive, and she wants challenge. Easy to control, easy to please. She's hardly as morally questionable as most of us."
She frowned, surprised and confused.
She hadn't expected such deep insight from him, nor did she expect such reasoning.
It wasn't even bad reasoning. She knew a lot of people in her lives that were a lot like Cricket, according to Kaiser's description. Most of them weren't truly evil as much as victims of themselves.
"Anyone else?"
Max hummed, crossing his arms.
"For active members… Purity was my spouse, to start with. She cares deeply for our young child, but she has killed many. I'm assuming you have a heroic disposition, and wouldn't see familial love as enough to excuse her actions?" He ventured, almost reluctantly.
What a cold bastard.
She hummed.
"No. What kind of kills? How many is 'many'?"
"At least a dozen. Always opposing gangsters. One accidental civilian as far as I remember. She drank a lot when that happened. No hate crimes, in case you're wondering."
Hm. Not all that egregious, really. It was tragic an innocent died, but accidents happened.
As for the kill count… she herself had killed far more gangsters than that. And gangsters were still people, of course, and they were usually redeemable with years and years of work, but she hardly put the same worth to them as she did the normal, average, innocent person, and she didn't have such years.
She'd have to think about it.
"Anyone else?"
He nodded.
"Othala. She's kinder and gentler than Panacea, actually, as long as you're the right type."
… Or skin colour, probably, but she honestly didn't care too much about that so long as the girl wasn't going out for bi-weekly hate crimes with the gang.
She'd have to find some way to address and integrate that section of the Empire, no doubt, because she was really not interested in racial segregation or tensions within her own city, and it would actively work against the culture she wanted to cultivate, one where strength of body, mind and character was revered, rather than ancestry or phenotype. But for the moment, it wasn't really a big enough problem to put all her efforts into fixing.
There were ways, complicated ones… but that was what Accord was there for.
If his power worked around her. She'd verify that tonight, or even sooner, if Accord did as she asked with any kind of expediency.
Politics as a concept were about a struggle of power, and whether that power was used for the many or the few.
If she got her way, there wouldn't be politics in Brockton. She'd decide things with Accord, and they would be done.
Still a bit away from that though. Close, but not quite there yet.
She shook her head with a sigh, and rubbed at her eyes.
Hookwolf, Stormtiger, Night and Fog, Alabaster, Krieg, Crusader, who was a new face as far as she knew, the Valkyrie twins, and Viktor. The rest of them needed a bit of thought.
Purity… hm, really debatable. Especially considering the rest of what she knew about the woman's civilian identity.
Cricket, she'd probably just Master. No sense in letting her be, despite Kaiser's belief. She was too involved to not notice something was really off, and she had no idea what reaction that would eventually cause.
As for Othala, she'd… also just consider leaving the woman alone. She was just a good person with some racism issues as far as Kaiser's judgement went, which was by far not enough to warrant Mastering her. There was also no practical conflict there since Othala didn't participate in the gang too much except healing people and buffing before fights. It was a wonder if she'd even notice.
There was some argument to her being complicit to the Empire's atrocities, but she didn't know enough to make a judgement yet.
She hadn't been expecting the literal nazis to be less monstrous than the ABB capes, but then again, they had a much, much larger sample size. They had… what, ten capes? Twelve? It kept changing.
"Call everyone but Purity and Othala. Text the address you'll meet at. See you in…" She glanced at the clock on the wall. "Two hours. Burn the paper."
Max nodded, and leisurely walked to his desk, straightening and checking on his suit in the process.
"Farewell, 'Sam'." He said, intoning it in a way that made it very obvious he knew it was a nickname.
She wordlessly flew out, ducking through the slit of a half-opened window on the hallway outside, and rushed for Medhall's roof.
A quick check to make sure no cameras were pointed in her direction, and she materialized, softly landing on the gravel and flickering her phone back to her hand.
Comms were still pretty much dead beyond codeworded messages utterly essential to being even a little organised, but in case of emergencies, they didn't have many other options. Other apps usually went through the open internet, which could be made very, very secure, but not enough for her to be satisfied with.
The sound of police cars sounded out from the city below, a thing so usual it was practically just background noise to most Brocktonites, but combined with the loud bang she heard a little bit ago, made her pause. She switched to the Rune of Precision, focusing in the far, far distance, until she saw something vaguely concerning.
A thin and tall plume of dust and smoke, rising between a building, and… the PRT complex she had been guided through, what felt like ages ago but was less than a month ago.
She called Lisa, frowning.
She did not want to expend herself more than necessary, but an explosion at the PRT wasn't exactly the usual fare.
The line clicked, and she wasted no time.
"Explosion at the PRT building. Accident, or should I go check it out? 'Sword' is ours already, I have a two hour gap until he's done here."
Lisa hissed, a sound of frustration, while keys incessantly click and clacked in the background.
"Not an accident, but almost everyone is evacuating the building and it's going into lockdown, so we're not going to be getting any info until the heroes all group up and recap at the Rig. The Protectorate is a separate agency from the PRT so they don't know what's going on any more than we do and we don't have bugs in the PRT, just The Rig. Greggy boy, if you're listening, got any security footage to feed me?"
Silence.
"Guess not." Lisa murmured, sounding immensely stressed.
She pursed her lips.
She could call Maria… but that was really damn risky when she was on the job. She'd rather let the woman be, and preferably, let her be completely uninvolved with all this. She'd mastered the woman at a time when she had no resources, and it was a shame she couldn't take that decision back. Putting her at risk for some info wasn't worth it.
She sighed, squinting.
Logically, that explosion should not have happened in a million years. The ABB was under her thumb, the Empire was licking its wounds and its leader was hers, Coil was her lackey at this point, the Merchants were reeling from losing something like three or four dozens of their members to sudden attacks by military professionals… So who was left?
She had suspicions, some more logical than others, but she needed information.
"Why aren't you more stressed about this?" Lisa asked. "An explosion at the PRT from a hostile could only mean that either the Merchants completely fucking lost it, or that there's a new player around."
She resisted the urge to tell Lisa that adding that much context into the sentence made it meaningless to even use the codeword, and instead shifted her eyes across the far distance, watching men moving and rushing through the PRT's windows and halls with the Rune of Precision.
"Stress doesn't help. I'll go check it out, won't involve myself too much. This is too out of the ordinary to ignore."
"Roger. I mean, yeah, got it." Lisa mumbled, likely from spending too much time around military people lately, and closed the call.
She flew straight to the site, and lowered herself down in a slow spiral, brows furrowing as the scene peeked through the dust.
The entire front area of the offices she'd been led through, all twelve feet tall walls of layered glass, laid strewn about in a fifty foot area, glass shards embedded into wooden decorations, doors, and people. Along the edges of the front and usually behind cover were screaming and groaning people who'd mostly been dragged inside by now, only a couple dazed stragglers hiding behind cover, too scared to leave it while PRT agents rushed out around them.
Judging from the sheer amount of dust, she could guess that either a giant pipe beneath the dirt and concrete combusted, or someone threw a damn grenade.
As if to answer her question, a loud, startling roar was heard, and she spun, catching a glimpse of a lion helmet before the entire dust cloud exploded outwards and away, clearing things enough for her formless eyes to drop to a bisected, black-torched torso where the epicenter of the blast had been.
Her eyes flicked back to said lion helmet.
It was just Triumph. She ignored him and looked back to the corpse.
The top half was missing entirely. She could see charred chunks of it smeared across the cracked tiles.
She flew into the lobby, taking in a quick overview of the situation.
Miss Militia was giving emergency treatment to someone who seemed to have gotten glass in their eyes, comforting the sobbing, screaming secretary girl while the PRT's paramedics flit in and out of the doorways to snatch away the injured and retreat into the building.
She watched the woman that Miss Militia was helping for a moment. Watched the blood flow down her open, hyperventilating mouth, heard her sobbing wails as Miss Militia did her best to soothe her.
She felt her mind curdle in that familiar sensation of bodiless anger.
She wanted to Heal her.
She wanted to Heal her so much it hurt.
Ignoring the urge with the inner reasoning that Panacea would deal with it sooner than later since it was a Saturday, she took a deep breath, and turned to look for anything more.
Nothing but chaos.
Screaming, smoke, sirens.
There were two heroes on site already, but she had no doubt more would be coming.
She switched Runes to turn on Absolute Focus, simply so she could focus on all the various conversations happening around her, if they could be called that.
It was mostly screamed out questions and hurried, short answers as people got their bearings and the PRT agents secured a perimeter.
One of the security guards covering the entrance responded to a woman's questioning shout with the simple, hoarsely screamed words; 'suicide bomber'.
Which answered some questions…
But that just didn't make any fucking sense.
Who the hell would suicide bomb the PRT?
If they had a problem with heroes, they'd go for The Rig. Not this place.
Minutes passed as she idly watched people pass by under and around her.
Nothing further seemed to happen.
There was a lockdown, yes. The windows were all covered by metal plates, and every seeming police car within a five mile radius started patrolling around the PRT.
Heroes dashed in and out, Console directing them.
But not much else happened.
She followed Armsmaster to a corner as he checked something, Miss Militia by his side, her bloodied hands on her hips.
Armsmaster's vambrace clicked open, and a small, strange holographic keypad came out of it, while another small section joined it, swerving to be aimed at his eyes as it loaded what looked like… a fuzzy box?
It was very, very angle dependent. She had to practically wrap herself around the man's helmet for the image to clear and see he was quickly pulling up security footage and scrolling through the timers with the keypad's controller.
Miss Militia's foot began to tap, her hand going to the massive pistol on her hip, likely for comfort.
"Found it." Armsmaster grunted as the video scrolling stopped, and he clicked the play button… somehow.
He centred the video on a man inconspicuously walking in amongst the sparse foot traffic of office workers, PRT agents, and visitors.
There was nothing more to it, however.
The man just walked up to the glass doors, reached into his pocket, and with an angry, cold look in his eyes, took out a detonator and blew himself up.
The video burst to static, and Armsmaster went back frame by frame.
Nothing there either.
Just a still image of a man going from standing, to a torso-less fireball throwing burnt chunks of flesh out of its core, from one frame to the next.
"Nothing we can work with here. No apparent motivation, no face recognition positives, so he's never been in the legal system before. Strangely well-made explosive… Any chance this is Summoner or Coil's work?"
She felt the distinct urge to smack her head into a wall with frustration.
Was someone trying to set her up?
Miss Militia frowned.
"No reason I could come up with for them to do this. Neither individual seems the type… Could be anyone, realistically. The Empire has access to illegal weaponry of all types and the ABB has been having some kind of internal upheaval considering the fight between Oni Lee and Lung, so this could be literally any one group or villain. Or just someone that went crazy, was mentally ill and manipulated… Doesn't make sense. This might be Nexus trying to establish itself, but with all their efforts to appear as a morally gray villain the past week and something..." Miss Militia trailed off.
Armsmaster grunted.
"Sense is derived from long-term patterns. Coil never did anything of significance, one way or another, aside from infiltrating us. He doesn't have patterns aside from subtlety and the type he employs. This could be some ploy to draw us here while he does something else somewhere on the Bay."
He wasn't wrong.
Miss Militia shifted, thumbing the slide of her pistol.
"He could have waited for the gala for that. We'd all be in another city, it's public information."
Armsmaster paused, and frowned in seeming agreement.
"Suggestion?" Miss Militia asked.
"...We'll focus away from the PRT itself. This place is well-defended enough, and has less significance than other places. I'll coordinate Console to put patrols as far as reasonably possible from the PRT. This could still be a distraction. Put all the Wards on Rig patrols. It keeps up with their restriction without being disruptive, and we'd benefit from more eyes on the most important building this city has." Armsmaster reported, and Miss Militia nodded.
"Anything you need from me?" Miss Militia calmly asked.
"Do the… social things. Coordinate the Wards. Don't wish to deal with children right now." Armsmaster softly growled, the air around him faintly tasting of distaste-awkwardness-frustration.
Miss Militia nodded, and walked off.
Armsmaster switched to his visor, and the vambrace clicked shut.
She took a moment to turn and check to make sure everyone injured was being hurried to the small hospital on site of the PRT complex.
A whirr of servos had her turning back to Armsmaster, finding him locked in place like a statue.
What the hell was he doing?
She leaned closer, over his helmet.
His eyes and facial features were twitching like absolute mad.
Was he having some kind of seizure?
She saw something within his visor shift and move, and paused before bunching herself up and trying to get into his helmet to see what the hell he was doing with the visor.
Unfortunately, it was literally airtight.
She eventually huffed, and flew off, following Miss Militia.
Things calmed down quick, but the minutes still ticked and ticked. Twenty minutes later, Miss Militia got a message on her phone, and she checked it, allowing Taylor to peek at it from over her.
Ah.
Armsmaster was writing instructions. Somehow.
Triumph was to stay at the PRT complex just in case, with… who the hell was Adamant?
Fuck. More arrivals? How many goddamn reinforcements were they getting?
And why were they just getting them now? All these years the local PRT had practically the bare bones necessity to not lose the city, and all of a sudden they get three new capes and three more Wards? Two brutes, Browbeat and Weld, and one Blaster, Flechette, being so hyper-lethal she was practically an executioner ?
Was Cauldron pushing things to fuck them over? It didn't feel like a far-stretched thought.
When Faultline came back, she would know for sure.
This Director felt like he was getting ready for war.
She did not want to have that war. She'd much prefer to keep the PRT around, even if only as a showpiece.
Besides, the only way to get rid of all the heroes for good was to kill them, and she absolutely refused to do that.
She had no body with which to sigh at the moment, which made her frustration fester as she focused back on the instructions on Miss Militia's smartphone.
The patrol patterns were all in pairs, each pair a mile apart in the small map provided.
Assault with Battery, Dauntless with Velocity, Challenger with Armsmaster, and Miss Militia… was to contact independents and try to get them to cooperate for a couple days.
Brockton didn't have many independents, and fewer even still were actually known.
The list Miss Militia pulled up had New Wave, Parian, then a couple people she'd never heard of.
Chariot and Dovetail, with one marked as 'Arc', with a note attached saying 'Affiliation: Undetermined'.
She hoped they stayed out of things, but doubted it.
The fact Armsmaster was trying to coordinate with Independents struck her as odd, however.
Yes, it was a suicide bombing on the PRT HQ of all places, but…
No, the more she thought about it, the more confusing and suspicious this got. Armsmaster was right to be taking this super seriously, even if nobody but the bomber himself seemed to have died.
She stuck around, eavesdropping and sticking her nose into every conversation and screen, but after an hour and a half of few developments, she was forced to admit defeat and leave.
Leaving something like this so… unresolved, it irked her. Itched in a way.
Something was off about the bomber, but she didn't know what. And Cosmic Insight's only addition was to tell her he was driven purely by outside emotion his entire life until his death.
Which only created more questions. Was he mastered since he was young, or did that just mean he was influenced by outside perceptions too much and never even met a cape before? Was he just stomped on until he decided to take it out on the world as he left?
Seeing as identification would take a while for the authorities, nevermind her own men, she was mostly left with an unsatisfied feeling of paranoia. Or something going on around her she hadn't quite grasped yet.
If she had some time or a better location, she could extract a lot of things from the man's corpse, and even more from his soul. Enough information to know the guy a little too well.
But this was in the literal middle of the entrance. This place would never have a moment of being unwatched and unmonitored, not after this.
She eventually found a roof for a quick break, somewhere around Arcadia, quickly wrote a note for Lisa full of instructions, then flew off again.
Ducking into her friend slash sister's office, she dropped it off, then immediately shot back out to return to Kaiser's office to catch him as he left, not even staying long enough for Lisa to finish her startled yelp.
She'd apologise later with some pizza.
To her surprise, Kaiser had rounded up his capes with a pleasing amount of efficiency.
She'd expected him to have less control over them considering recent failures, but from another, naive perspective, the Empire had still won the gang war, so her worries were for naught. Spirits seemed to be high.
The only one who wasn't present was Stormtiger, for reasons unknown.
It took about an hour for all of them to be sufficiently gathered, but he'd set things up perfectly for her, and she had used the time to make some simple notes for her new additions.
A waiting room in a nondescript, outwardly abandoned weaving house, and an office so he could have some individual 'meetings' with people. Suitably sound-insulated door, to a degree.
Fenja, the uninjured twin, was to guard the door.
She couldn't verbally communicate with Max at all, because of Cricket's presence just outside the door, so she once again had to materialise in the room and resort to passing notes with Max like she was a kid in middle school trying not to get noticed by the teacher as she chatted with Emma through notes.
It was almost funny, in a way.
It took a few minutes to verify the order of entrance and confirm some things about each of the capes under Kaiser's command.
It took a few seconds to assume one of her older-used forms, of a white guy covered in scars, and she modified the look to add several dozen Nazi tattoos.
Mostly bland swastikas, iron crosses and gang signs and the like, she wasn't the most literate on neonazi iconography.
She allowed her soles to progressively harden to mimic approaching footsteps as she walked in a small circle, then walked to the door, and opened it, staring out at the half-full room of capes in varying stages of boredom or tenseness, exchanging reluctant small talk that instantly cut out as the door opened.
Her eyes went to Cricket as she leaned out a little, then jerked her head towards the room behind her.
"Ma'am."
Cricket snorted, a small sound, and got up.
Hookwolf's mask tilted to her, and she could taste his annoyed curiosity.
She went back into the room, and stood to the side.
This was reminding her of when she first got Coil.
Cricket walked in, and Kaiser gestured to the chair before his desk.
Cricket sat in it.
She walked past the woman and sat in the chair beside the desk, getting comfy.
She prepared herself.
"Melody." She simply stated, and Cricket's head jerked to her, eyes wide with surprise.
The woman didn't have the time to even form an opinion on her name being known to what seemed like a human grunt.
Gold flashed, and Cricket went still.
She got up, and pulled the woman's chin up, staring down.
She delved into her mind with haste.
She had to be good, and quick.
Being quick didn't lend itself much to being efficient.
She might be able to Master fifteen or so people, maybe twenty, in a day, but she had to take her time and be very careful with how much was too much and how little was too little.
Having to rush like this to not arouse too much suspicion or annoyance from the others meant she was working with just fifteen to twenty minutes per cape, taking the impatient, rasher ones first.
After she was done, Cricket took her note, read it, let out a long sigh with a faint swirl of combating emotion, then put it on the table, walking out without another word.
Kaiser pocketed the note for later burning.
Hookwolf was next.
His name was Brad.
He had the time to snap his eyes into a venomous glare directed her way before he joined her.
Hookwolf was…
A lot more complicated a character than Cricket who was just a prideful fight junkie.
He liked being superior, and he liked fighting. That was generally it. There were faint emotions towards Cricket and Stormtiger, but those were more like a stoic, distant friendship.
The only thing he seemed to have genuine love for was his late mother, which was more than she could say of Cricket.
Hookwolf was also a mild concern, because he was the first to outright glare at her as soon as he came out of his fugue and finished reading his note.
She could just tell he was wondering if killing her would remove the Mastering.
Which was damn weird, because she'd pumped up enough acceptance of her and the situation into him she couldn't help but wonder why he was wondering about it.
Maybe it was something he thought of about everyone he met, regardless of personal thoughts.
He didn't voice any such thoughts, just ' tsk'ed, shredded the paper note in his palm with his power, and tossed the fine confetti aside as he shouldered through the door, leaving without another word.
After the rowdy or impatient ones, the important ones.
Krieg.
Victor.
Kaiser's only real options for lieutenants.
They had both the skills and the temperaments for such a thing, so if anything happened and the rest of the room outside figured out what was going on, she'd still have the Empire secure and ready.
They were much more complex characters, but she didn't have the time to do anything beyond glance at the basics and twist things to fit her needs.
Krieg was a man of intense emotion.
He loved his wife and kids, as well as his people, or race, specifically. The intensity of it surprised her.
And he utterly loathed everyone else with equal intensity.
She felt… genuinely bad about making him more loyal to her than he was to his children or wife by a wide margin, but it was one of those things where she didn't feel like there was much choice.
Viktor was a tried and true sociopath.
There were faint feelings of comradery to the rest of the capes in the room outside, a general reverence towards an ideology, and a certain fondness for Othala, but that was about it. His main enjoyment seemed to be advancement.
Being better than before, regardless of if he earned it or not.
Alabaster next.
A tried and true hedonist.
Not much else seemed to matter to him but his own self-enjoyment and a sense of pride.
When she was about to call in Fenja, was when something quite unfortunate happened.
She opened the door to see Purity next to two people whose name didn't immediately jump to mind.
It took a moment to recognize them as her posse, Night and Fog.
Purity wasn't using her flight or power, wearing a pure white costume oddly reminiscent of what Glory Girl wore, likely finding no use to using her power it since the capes were all unmasked to each other, but seeing her had obviously thrown her for a loop as they stared at eachother for a moment.
Purity just looked like a… good looking, short middle aged woman with brown hair. Which she was.
The woman burst with light, something to conceal her identity to the unexpected guest in the meeting room, and her eyes jerked shut with a hiss as she hurried to look away.
All for show, of course.
"Apologies. I wish to see Kaiser." Purity succinctly said.
She took a moment to observe the woman's companions with squinted eyes.
Night, or Dorothy, was dressed entirely in black complete with a cowl, mask, hood, high-heeled boots, and a heavy cloak.
Fog, or Geoff, wore a gray costume with a hood and mask, largely a gray masculine version of his wife's costume without her other equipment.
This might get… hairy.
She didn't know what to do with Purity. Nevermind Night and Fog.
Logically, she should just Master them all and be done with it.
But Purity was on that fine edge between 'could be reasoned with' and 'hasn't done quite enough horrible stuff to warrant mental slavery'. She'd even tried to leave the Empire multiple times according to Kaiser.
Killing gangsters was hardly something she condemned, regardless of which side they were on.
Then again, Kayden's beliefs weren't too far from the rest of the nazis in the gang, according to Kaiser. She was just a natural moderate, or something like that.
Most of the genuine dirty work like torture, hits, extortion and the like, were all done by Viktor, Krieg, and the gang's grunts, after all. Capes didn't even need to do any initiations as far as Rune had let slip.
The average cape in this room was more clean than the average grunt due to the unwritten rules, and fifty times as useful.
But again, the fine line.
She was scared of being too soft on someone who deserved it, and too hard on someone who didn't.
And she was quickly feeling worse and worse about what she'd done to Maria, which this situation reminded her about.
Fuck.
Purity cocked a hip, and tapped her foot with impatience.
Definitely a mom.
She turned back.
"Sir, Purity wants to see you." She said, and Kaiser pitched his voice to carry.
"Let her in."
She stepped aside, mind whirling as she sat in her assigned chair, eyes downcast and face blank.
Fuck.
Night and Fog were people that, according to their information and Kaiser's confirmation, were completely and utterly twisted and broken by Gesellschaft. It was what led to them being sort-of kicked out. Kaiser didn't trust them with how much Gesellschaft had done to them. He didn't know if he could control them or if they were sleeper agents.
They were victims, in a way, and she doubted she could fix them. Not if whatever conditioned them had lasted this long without any reinforcement. So what did she do about them? Logically, Master them and move on.
But she wanted to have at least some shred of a moral compass by the time she was done fixing this place, or else it would feel… like she'd just removed one evil to put herself in its throne. Sure, people would be better under her than another evil, but some naive part of her was slowly growing wary of this kind of attitude.
She'd done this rote and dance before, during the Void crisis in Runeterra. From all sides of the table.
The Noxians wanted to thrall peasants and use them as meat shields to reduce their food consumption problem as well as take back some territory, which were both uttely vital in the small united front they'd formed since Noxians held the flank territories and everyone was starving, but on the negotiation table, she'd been both the one appalled by the notion, and the one to suggest it.
It was difficult to have such vast experiences. It made her indecisive sometimes, and this was one of them. What balance of practicality and morals to strike?
It began to sound more and more like she should just be rid of all three of them, but Purity was too goddamn powerful to just shoo away. Blasters like her were rare with a capital R.
Was she overthinking it? Likely, yes.
She could do one thing in particular, which was to negotiate and see where it went.
But that left holes, potential leaks. A danger to herself, if Kayden was to be captured and grilled for info. If Kayden changed her mind once she saw Taylor's vision.
She had to know what mattered to Kayden , not just Purity, and during the short conversation she had with Kaiser through hand-written notes on the table, the only thing she could bank on were the woman's children. Which she was supposed to be taking care of right now, which was why Kaiser had planned this meeting now.
So he could invite her during a time he knew full well she couldn't come.
Apparently they had miscalculated.
Purity sat in the chair, and crossed her legs.
Night and Fog followed, closing the door behind them and standing in a classic bodyguard position right behind Purity.
"Is there any particular reason you didn't want me to come to this meeting?" Purity asked Kaiser, and said man carefully flicked out a gleaming zippo lighter to burn Cricket's note, lightly tossing it into a small trashcan beside his desk.
"You were invited, were you not?" He asked calmly.
She stared at Purity, the light not bothering her too much in this form that wasn't truly physical, and noticed a scowl along the faint outlines of her face.
"Was I? You know full well that I'm busy picking up and managing important assets of yours during this time of day and that I cannot realistically be present during these hours." Purity said, voice full of carefully placed venom.
It was nice to see Purity wasn't stupid, but it made her job harder.
Kaiser carefully nodded.
"But you're here, whole and hearty, aren't you? I'm sure the assets can take care of themselves well enough for a couple hours. You know that too. I'm sure they'd like to see their creator sometimes as well. Could have brought them along." He suggested, calmly steepling his fingers on the desk.
That was a lot of emotion in the air that she could taste. It wasn't merely anger, it was this kind of acidic resentment that only long-term hatred could produce.
Kayden hated Max.
And probably cared a lot about her children, which was nice. It gave her something to work off.
This would either go swimmingly, or terribly.
Or she could just… let Kaiser talk Purity out of the room without adding anything. Play it safe, buy time.
She worked well under pressure. Maybe she should decide now.
Rune treatment, or Kaiser treatment…?
She was being too indecisive.
Kaiser and Kayden continued their verbal, passive aggressive spar, and she mutely sat in the chair, collecting her thoughts and largely ignoring the lot of them.
Mastering someone like she did was not something she could take back, not while the secret of her abilities existed.
Pressure pushed her to do something now, because she hated unresolved business, and Kayden was growing increasingly frustrated with Kaiser's dodging.
She tried to picture how it would go for her, trying to convince Kayden to play along within a gang of almost entirely Mastered individuals. Many of which she had personal connections to.
Kayden would likely just attack her.
Additionally, being a few steps away from being a Nazi, and a genuine sympathiser... Taylor couldn't really trust this woman with anything, could she?
She wasn't in the same spot that Rune had been when this was all explained. Rune spent a year and something with these people and ran , Kayden had spent two decades and she was still here, reluctantly or not.
Night and Fog… she wasn't sure she could fix them, she wasn't sure if she should, and they were damn useful.
Her heart sank into its pit of freezing oil, and she resigned herself to practicality.
There was only one real option here. She was hesitating for nothing.
"Oi, Fog." She interrupted, her fake male voice rumbling with indifference, and the sudden butt-in caused everyone to halt and look at her.
The average human reaction was zero point two seconds, roughly.
And nobody in here was wearing a visor.
She glanced at Fog, meeting his eyes, and her own hues flashed gold, before her gaze immediately jerked to Night, and repeated.
Kayden only had the time to stiffen in confusion before she got her as well, a three-stroke flash like a strobe light.
She blew out a breath, and watched the silent, blank-eyed trio for a moment.
"I was wondering what was taking so long." Kaiser hummed, tapping his fingers on the desk, sounding strangely fascinated.
The man had been stalling for the entire time, she knew, expecting her to do what she did to the rest, which hadn't helped with the background pressure.
With a low, groaning sigh, she got up off the chair, and pulled Kayden's chin up to see more clearly into her eyes, made expressly easier by the woman's power being deactivated.
She almost dove into her mind, before pausing and half-turning to Kaiser.
"Does she love her children? Does she treat them well?"
Kaiser nodded, tapping a finger on his desk.
"Yes. In fact, she spoils them rotten. She's too soft on them. They'll grow up to be worthless in her hands. A waste of potential…" He hummed.
Coming from someone like him, she could guess that Kayden was just the average, loving parent with riches while he wanted to use them for one thing or another.
"I'm fairly confident that she'll raise your children better. Give her full custody and let her be. Understand?"
Kaiser's emotions flared with a surprising burst of displeasure, but he only let out a long breath in response for a moment.
Power complex, narcissist. He likely hated being ordered around a little more than how much she'd made him accept his place.
Or maybe he felt like letting Kayden raise his children was a waste.
She might have to tune him up a bit later.
"Understood. She'll have them before the week is over." Kaiser stated.
She nodded, and turned back to Kayden' unseeing eyes.
There was an urge to say something, but she ignored it.
She had no justifications, excuses, or platitudes to offer. She knew she was taking the coward's way out here.
The problem was that she couldn't tell if that was the wrong way.
She dove into her mind, ignoring the needles grinding away at the back of her phantom eyes, a very particular, nasty type of headache.
The Empire was hers, fully. Hadn't taken long at all.
Victory tasted like satisfaction, condenced and purified.
The hardest part was over.
Status de energia semanal
-- Ranking de
Poder 
-- Pedra de
Poder