by wildbow
“Ouch. You didn’t re-injure it last night?”
She shook her head, “Hip, not knee. Looking back, I think I screwed up my knee back then because my dad had pushed me too hard and too fast. But I blamed myself. I got depressed, stayed home instead of going to the gym. Once dad and the sibs realized I wasn’t going to come along anymore, I started to get left out of family events, left behind when they went out to eat after training. It doesn’t sound like that huge a deal, but gymnastics had become a core part of my life, and it was gone. Everything fell apart.”
“I’m sorry. I know better than to say that’s not significant. Believe me. I’ve been there.”
She shrugged. “I guess I became my own family. Found another pillar to build my life around. But even if I have a high pain tolerance, having an injury like this reminds me of those days. Puts me in a bad mood for a while. So I’m sorry if I’m irritable.”
“I can deal.”
They’d gone out as friends, first, because they both had similar backgrounds, and segued into a casual relationship. They had both been athletes, once upon a time. She was an ex-gymnast, he had been a baseball player. She’d triggered because of the aftermath of a career-ending injury. He’d acquired his powers because he’d been perpetually second place, doomed to miss his chance, a mere hair from a career in the major league.
He knew how devastating that stuff could be when you’d made the sacrifices, given up most of your adolescence to succeed at something, only to fall short.
He’d turned to his dad for help, and his dad had delivered a small vial that was supposedly designed to force a state equivalent to a trigger event, without the necessary trauma. Irony had reared her ugly head when the major leagues had mandated MRI scans to check for powers and maintain the integrity of the game, mere months after he’d gained athletic ability that would let him compete.
In a way, he was glad. Not that he had been back then. He’d been spoiled, a brat, entitled. He was relieved he hadn’t continued down that road, that he’d found a career where he was on something of an even playing field with his peers.
Not that things were perfect.
He could hear the arguing the second the elevator doors parted.
Miss Militia, Weld and Kid Win stood on one side of the room. Assault was on the other side, perched on the edge of the terminal, with Clockblocker, Chariot and Vista at his side.
“—vigilantism!” Miss Militia’s voice was tight with barely controlled anger.
“There has to be an authority for us to ignore for us be vigilantes,” Assault said. His voice was calmer, but his body language wasn’t. He was tense, the hand that wasn’t gripping the edge of the console was clenched into a fist. “There isn’t. Nobody’s stepping up to enforce anything.”
“The PRT stands. All of the watchdogs are in place,” Miss Militia spoke. “You go out and do something without an official A-okay and people are going to notice that we’re acting completely outside of the principles and rules the Protectorate stands for.”
“How?” Assault countered. “Media? In case you haven’t noticed, a full third of this city is still lacking power. The reporters that have stuck around this long are too tired and too low on resources to follow along.”
“Cell cameras,” Miss Militia said. “People are watching and recording us every step of the way.”
“We’ll be covert. I’m talking a fast, hard hitting strike. Attack is always preferable over defense.
“You’re talking revenge,” Triumph spoke. He let Ursa support Prism and stepped forward to join the ‘discussion’.
“Revenge, justice, it’s a pretty thin line. But sure. We can call it that,” Assault said, leaning back a little. He smiled a little at Miss Militia; there was now one more person on his side of the argument.
Triumph glanced around the room. Flechette, Ursa and Prism weren’t taking a side. They weren’t local, and the politics here would be intimidating.
Still, Triumph glanced at Flechette. She’s been around a few weeks. She should feel confident about voicing an opinion.
Was she being neutral, or was she undecided? Or was there another factor at play?
He felt so disconnected from the Wards, these days. He barely recognized his old team. Vista, Kid Win, Clockblocker… he’d been their captain, not so long ago.
Miss Militia and Assault were looking at him, waiting for him to speak. From Assault’s confidence, there was no doubt he expected Triumph to take his side.
Instead, he commented, “Just going by what I’ve heard, Assault’s arguing we should take the fight to the enemy? Without Piggot’s consent?”
“Piggot has told us to stand down,” Miss Militia spoke. “So we’d be going against her directive.”
“They attacked one of our own. Again,” Assault said. “And they broke a cardinal rule. They attacked family. You don’t unmask a cape, and if you happen to discover their secret identity, you don’t go after their family.”
“The family’s testimony suggests that wasn’t deliberate. Skitter informed Trickster partway through,” Weld said.
Clockblocker cut in, “But we can assume she found out beforehand. Unless you’re going to suggest she figured it out on her own?”
“No,” Weld replied. “It makes sense. I suspect Tattletale could find out something like that. I’d even believe she’s found out all of our identities by now. But I’m saying Trickster wasn’t in the know, and he’s the person who made the conscious decision to attack Triumph’s sister.”
“They’ve broken other unspoken rules,” Assault said, looking at Triumph and Miss Militia rather than the junior members. “Shatterbird? Are we really going to let that one slide?”
“Anything goes when fighting the Nine,” Miss Militia said.
“The Nine are gone. He’s still breaking the rules. He kidnapped and took control of Shadow Stalker. He’s affected civilians. Criminals, admittedly, but still civilians.”
“And the people in charge know that,” Miss Militia said. “If they decide that it’s crossing the line, we can act decisively.”
“People in suits,” Assault said. “They sit in offices with padded chairs, viewing everything through the filter of clinical, tidy paperwork. They don’t know what it is to be in the field, to face the risk of death or fates worse than death in the service of this city.”
If Miss Militia had been getting ready for a response, she hesitated when Assault said ‘fates worse than death’, his voice revealing a tremor of emotion.
Triumph could imagine the scene as he’d glimpsed it: Battery on her deathbed, wasting away from a poison designed to be cruel rather than efficient. But as slow as it had worked, it had proved incurable.
Assault went on, and there was no hint of the earlier emotion in his voice. Rather, he sounded dangerously like a leader. “If we don’t act on this, if we don’t move on the Undersiders and the Travelers, then we’re saying that’s alright. We’re saying it’s okay to do those same things to us.”
“You’d be violating your probationary status on the team,” Miss Militia said, quiet. “Going against orders.”
“My joining the Protectorate was conditional on being on the same team as Battery,” Assault replied. He met Miss Militia’s eyes with a level stare, as if challenging her to press the issue.
There was no doubt what was at the root of Assault’s anger. Miss Militia, by contrast, was the leader of the Protectorate because of her unwavering loyalty and willingness to not only abide by the rules but to fight for them. Triumph could understand why they’d taken the positions they had.
He glanced at the others. Weld was a company man, so to speak, and the PRT was his family, after a fashion. It made sense that he’d stand by the rules imposed by the PRT, the Protectorate and the Wards. Clockblocker had always chafed under the yoke of the institution, and Chariot could easily be the same. Most Wards went through a phase like that, feeling the pressures, the strict rules, realizing that the Wards existed in part to
keep them out of the worst of things, while aching to go out and be a hero. Clockblocker had never entirely grown out of it.
It could be that Chariot’s stance here was what Coil wanted. Triumph couldn’t forget that Chariot was an undercover operative, planted by the supervillain to gather information.
No, none of those calls surprised him. The outliers, the ones that caught him off guard…
“Vista, I didn’t think you’d be wanting to break the rules like this,” he commented. Before she could reply, he said, “And Kid Win. I took you for more of a rebel.”
“I’m tired of losing people,” Vista said. “We lost Gallant. Aegis too, and Velocity, Dauntless, Battery…”
“Yeah. And Shadow Stalker,” Triumph offered.
“She left,” Clockblocker said.
“I’d still consider her a casualty,” Triumph said. “We might not have liked her, but she was one of us, and the enemy basically took her from us.”
“I don’t want to forget Glory Girl and Panacea,” Clockblocker said. “She and her sister did me a life-changing favor. We don’t know the whole story there, but the Undersiders or the Nine had to have played a part in how that unfolded. But that’s one hell of a list of names. There’s less of us than there are them, and we’re losing. Not just fights, but we’re losing this war. Don’t you see that?”
“I see it,” Miss Militia said, her voice particularly quiet compared to her raised volume earlier. “But that’s exactly why I’m telling you not to do this. The second we make this into an actual war, we change it from a losing fight to an outright defeat. At best everyone involved would lose out, our enemies included. I don’t want that.”
“You’re making it sound more complicated than it is,” Assault said. “I’m talking a quick, hard hitting strike against one of their territories. One of the master-classifications would be a good bet. I’d suggest Regent, but Shatterbird is too big a complication. Better to take out Hellhound or Skitter. Doing either would cut their tactical options down by a third, and it could gain us a hostage to leverage against the others.”
“Not Tattletale?” Clockblocker asked.
Assault shook his head. “She’d know we were coming. It’s in Armsmaster’s notes from his first meeting with Skitter. It’s why they’re so elusive as a group, and that’s why it’s so crucial we strike first, while they’re still split up in individual territories. Grue, Trickster, Genesis or Imp would escape too readily, and confronting Ballistic or Sundancer would place our side at too much risk.”
“They’d retaliate,” Miss Militia said, “And we’d almost certainly lose. We’re roughly matched in numbers, we’re outmatched in raw firepower and they have the edge on us in terms of tactical knowledge.”
“So we’re supposed to sit here and take it?” Clockblocker asked. “If my family gets attacked next time, I don’t think my dad’s about to haul out a shotgun to defend himself.”
“That’s not exactly how it played out,” Triumph said. “But no. I don’t think we should take it, and I don’t think we should attack. Miss Militia’s right.”
Assault’s eyebrows rose in surprise.
“Thank you,” Miss Militia said. “I understand that some of you are upset. We’re all upset. We’re all concerned about our loved ones, about the current state of things in the city and about possibly being captured and controlled by Regent. But we’re only going to succeed with the support of the Protectorate as a whole, and we’ll only have that if we stick to the rules.”
“Well said,” Director Piggot spoke.
All heads turned. Director Piggot stood in the doorway that led to the stairwell.
“Director,” Assault said. He didn’t look fazed by the woman’s appearance.
“I hope you’ll hear me out before committing to a plan of action?”
“Of course.” Assault leaned back, folding his arms.
“Then let me introduce our visitors.” Piggot stepped to one side, shifting her prodigious weight out of the way of the door.
There were two of them, each covered head to toe in power armor that was similar in theme, if not in design. It was heavy duty stuff, and even without tinker abilities, Triumph could admire it as something exceptionally well made.
They were the same height, a man and a woman. The man held a spear that was no less than fifteen feet long, with a two-pronged tip on the end. The woman wore something that looked to be a modified jetpack, divided into two pieces that each had to weigh as much as she did. The exhaust jets fanned out to either side of her, like the feathers of a bird’s outstretched wings.
The woman removed her helmet, then shook her head so her dark hair could fall around the armor around her shoulders and neck. She wasn’t beautiful, but she wasn’t ugly either. Even ‘plain’ wasn’t the right label. She was exceptionally average in appearance, to the point that it was borderline eerie. He couldn’t pin down as belonging to any particular ethnicity, nor could he eliminate her from one.
Yet she’s strangely familiar, Triumph observed.
Triumph looked at the man, waiting for him to remove his helmet, but he didn’t. The man folded his arms instead, still holding on to the spear with one hand.
That body language. Triumph’s eyes widened behind his visor. No. No way. No way he’d come back here.
But if he was here, then the woman would be—
“Dragon,” Miss Militia said. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”
Dragon extended a hand, and Miss Militia shook it. “Likewise. Let me introduce Defiant.”
Triumph glanced around at the others. Nobody here was so stupid as to miss what was going on. Even the capes that weren’t native to Brockton Bay would figure this out in a heartbeat.
“Dragon and Defiant have stopped by to pick up resources and gather information before taking on a long-term mission,” the Director explained. “Would you like to explain?”
“The Nine,” Dragon explained. “We know their general behavior. After a spree like the one they had here in Brockton Bay, they’re going to retreat. They’ll stick to back roads and isolated small towns, use time and distance to let the heat dissipate. Jack may keep his people engaged with games like what he tried to set up here. Scaling up slowly in a remote area, seeing how badly they can terrify the local populace, ending with a grand climax before moving on. They’ll also be looking to recruit and replace missing members, and I expect they’ll go easier on testing the recruits until they’ve replenished their numbers.”
“What are you doing, then?” Assault asked.
“We’re going after them,” Defiant spoke. His voice was partially altered by his helmet, but it was still identifiable.
Why is everyone pretending they don’t know that’s Armsmaster?
Defiant continued, “And we’re not going to stop. Pursuit will continue twenty-four seven, year-round. We keep them running until they get tired and hungry enough that they make a mistake, and we capitalize on that.”
“We’ve tried this before,” Miss Militia responded. “I’m not saying I don’t appreciate the idea, but Assault was just arguing that it’s easier to attack than to defend, and I agree. You won’t be able to prevent every casualty.”
“The primary issue before,” Dragon replied, “is that the previous efforts were squads, sleeping in shifts, always moving. Invariably, the Nine would catch on to what was happening, they’d take out the squad on duty and then they would disappear before the others could mobilize to stop them. Or the Nine would circle around and kill the off-duty squad members. We don’t have that problem.”
“I don’t follow,” Assault said.
“Dragon mentioned to me once that she doesn’t need to sleep. A side effect of her powers,” Miss Militia said.
Dragon dipped her head in a nod. “I tried going after the Slaughterhouse Nine before, but Shatterbird’s powers proved too difficult to work around, and I was only one person. Now I have a partner.”
“Defiant?” Miss Militia asked.
Defiant tapped his chest. “With Dragon’s help, I’ve replaced my internal organs and parts of my brain with artificial equivalents. My current downtime is a rough fifteen minutes a day. That includes waste, sleep and eating. In the next two weeks, I intend to reduce it to a mere twelve minutes.”
Vista’s hands went to her mouth in shock.
He’s made himself into a monster. And Dragon doesn’t even flinch as he announces it. Triumph’s own eyes were wide.
Miss Militia seemed to recover faster than anyone else. “That’s not the only issue the squads faced. There’s the psychological strain. Hunting a prey for days, weeks, months at a time? Especially targets that will commit atrocities if you let your guard down for a second? It gets to you.”
“I think,” Defiant paused, as if he had to pick the right words, “My single-mindedness will be an asset on that front.”
“It’s worth a try,” Dragon said. “Between us, Defiant and I can customize our equipment and approach to effectively counter the Nine’s powers. Once we have a lead, we’ll maintain constant pressure for as long as necessary. Even if we can’t save everyone, even if we can’t stop them outright with Siberian rendering others invincible, I think we can keep them from setting up another major event like they tried here in Brockton Bay, and we can hopefully keep them from recruiting.”
“The PRT is hopeful,” the Director said, “They gave their consent. But you’ll have to explain how this is relevant to the current situation.”
“Of course. If everyone would turn their attention to the monitors?”
Assault had to hop down from where he was sitting on the edge of the long desk to see. Everyone else turned as the images appeared across the screen. One armored suit after another.
“The Cawthorne mark three.”
A sleek model resembling a cross between a dragon and a fighter jet, mounted with four engines around the ‘shoulders’.