A/N: It begins.
Disclaimer: Worm and the Parahumans franchise in general belongs to Wildbow. I'm just playing in his sandbox.
This is a sequel to Parental Guidance. Please read that story first or you will undoubtedly find yourself extraordinarily confused.
It was surprisingly well-guarded, for an old storage facility.
Guards with tinker-tech guns and dogs patrolled the perimeter, spot-lights combed the surface of the featureless fields outside the facility. There was a tall, barbed fence surrounding the facility and cameras were dotted all around.
None of this was enough to trouble the woman-and-girl duo who slipped in through a quickly-created hole in the fence, melted by a silent tinker-tech compound.
"This is Agent M to control. We're in."
"Copy that, Agent M. Any problems?"
"Not yet."
"Good. You know what we're looking for."
Agent M looked down at her partner-in-crime, and the teenage girl looked back seriously.
"I'll advance toward the main facility. I need you to use your ability to confuse the guards and ensure they don't see me."
The younger member of the thieving duo nodded. "Okay."
Agent M began to advance, quickly and quietly across the field. Evidently, her partner had pulled through – there was no sign of anyone noticing her movement across the dark, open space. She found herself hugging the wall, approaching one of the guards from behind. A quick chop to the back of the neck saw him unconscious, a short drag away to a nearby bush hid the evidence well enough for a temporary job. The quick application of a lock-pick and many years of practice saw her enter the facility easily enough.
She was not surprised when her partner followed her in shortly after-ward. Her power was extraordinarily versatile.
The pair advanced down several corridors, guards knocked out quietly by either Agent M's neck-chops or judicious abuse of her partner's power. Eventually, they came to a well-protected door.
Signalling for the other thief to keep an eye out, Agent M set to work with her lock-picks again, soon having the door open.
The chamber they entered looked like something from a heist movie. Lines of criss-crossing red laser beams gleamed across the long walkway, a web of traps that would have required an incredible feat of acrobatic ability to cross without tripping the alarm.
"Okay," Agent M whispered, "There it is. One of Doctor Haywire's storage discs containing his notes on dimensional travel."
"Cool..." the other thief seemed distracted, "But Miss Militia,"
"Agent M," the former hissed.
"Sorry, Agent M," Vista corrected quietly with a wince, "Why does this secret mission seem awfully like we're committing some kind of crime?"
"Nonsense, agent V," Miss Militia shook her head, "This mission was authorised by the Director herself. Now, you know what to do here."
Vista waved an arm, and suddenly, the lasers curved up, forming a neat archway for the two 'secret agents' to stroll through. Agent M cautiously crept closer to the podium, containing the disc that supposedly featured work by the dimensional tinker, Dr Haywire.
She stopped short.
Because there wasn't a disc.
There was a note.
'Dear enterprising thieves,'
She read to herself silently.
'We got wind that someone wanted to steal this little trifle, and that made us want to steal it too, so we stole it before you because we're better at this than you are. Better luck next time!
Yours insincerely,
Ocean, The Midnight Feline and Skitter'
She resisted the urge to curse. "Abort," she hissed, "Mission is a failure."
When they finally made it a safe distance away, Miss Militia took the time to address her partner in totally-legalised crime.
"Well, that did not go as successfully as we might have wished," she sighed, "But I was still very impressed by your performance out there, Vista. Your experience in the field really showed."
"Thank you, Miss Militia," Vista beamed, "Can I ask a question?"
"You may," the older Heroine nodded.
"Were we trying to take out Ocean's Crew, here, by catching them in the act?" the youngest hero in the Brockton Bay protectorate asked curiously.
Miss Militia adopted a thoughtful look beneath her scarf. Vista had proven to be competent, intelligent, and surprisingly rational for someone who lived in both the same planet, country, AND city as Ocean's Crew. Perhaps the Director would agree to let her in on the so-far unsuccessful plan that they both referred to as 'GTFOOTD', or 'Get The Fuck Out Of This Dimension'.
"I don't have the authority to share that at the moment, but I'll talk to the Director when we get back about whether we can let you in the loop," Miss Militia promised.
"Oh, great!" Vista cheered, "So who are we going after next? The Gesellschaft? Ash Beast? Breaking into the Birdcage to take out Glaistig Uaine?"
Miss Militia blinked. "What?"
"Well, Clockblocker took out the Slaughterhouse Nine," Vista explained, "So I realised I need to step up my game if I'm going to become the next leader of the Wards. So who is it? Nilbog?"
"But... Clockblocker retired with the bounty money from taking out the Nine?"
"Well, yeah, but if I don't match up to him I won't really feel like I've earned it, you know? Oh, wait, it's the Sleeper, isn't it? I bet I can take the Sleeper. He can't be that badass if he's always taking naps."
Miss Militia resisted the urge to back away in horror. She and Director Piggot had miscalculated. They had miscalculated badly.
It seemed Vista was not the helpful, rational, sane girl she had first thought.
She was another one of them.
"Like I said," the experienced heroine said with forced cheer, "I'll talk to the Director about it."
Mainly about how they were never to let her, or anyone else, in on their conspiracy again, but at least she wasn't lying.
"Well then, now that our warm-up is out of the way," a master thief by the name of Ocean addressed the group of super-criminals that had come to be known to most as 'Ocean's Crew', idly flipping a disc between his hands, "We need to talk about our next real job. The world has been given more than enough of a reprieve from us and we decided to re-announce ourselves with a bang."
"We aren't actually going to try and steal Newton's third Law, are we?" his daughter, the supervillian-in-training Skitter asked with worry, "Because I'd like to think I made a pretty convincing argument on the consequences of doing that."
"No, honey," her mother, the room's other infamous master thief known to many as the Midnight Feline, "We aren't going to steal Newton's third Law. We wanted to, but we knew if we did it would clearly make you very upset and we wouldn't want that, so we picked a different target instead."
"...OK," Skitter said, only a little bit dazed that the only thing seemingly standing between the universe and absolute ruin was... good parenting.
"In any case, our target this time is still a difficult one," Ocean continued, "The eyes of the world are on Brockton Bay at the moment, mainly thanks to our good friend, Armsmaster, and his rather spectacular defeat of Leviathan. With that much attention on him, stealing from him is going to be more difficult than ever."
"Which is exactly why we're going to do exactly that!" The Midnight Feline broke in happily, "We've developed a two-stage plan in our long-awaited comeback."
"But it's only been two weeks," Grue, formerly leader of the small-time criminal group the Undersiders but now a member of Ocean's Crew and possibly the only sane one there aside from Skitter, pointed out.
"That's more than long enough," Ocean said firmly.
"Indeed it is," the world's most infamous cat-burglar continued, "Step one: We will steal his bike."
"Just to clarify," Tattletale, the Undersider's thinker and the self-professed biggest fan of Ocean and the Midnight Feline asked as she furiously scribbled down notes, "Do we mean his motorbike, or does he own a bicycle that he has attached some kind of emotional significance to as well?"
"His motorbike," Ocean answered, "Though we'll have to look into that second part, good thinking, Tattletale."
She beamed.
"So... what's step two?" Skitter asked with resignation.
"Well, Armsmaster is clearly a more dangerous foe than he was before the battle with Leviathan," the Midnight Feline responded gravely, "As such, when we steal something from him, some reparations will be required as a gesture of respect for his ability."
Skitter felt hope begin to bloom. Perhaps her parents had finally started developing something resembling a survival instinct?
"So we'll replace his bike with a little pink tricycle with kittens on it." Ocean finished pleasantly.
Skitter felt the aforementioned hope curl up into a ball on the floor in the corner of her mind and start crying.
"Why not puppies?" asked Bitch, known by boring people as Hellhound, another former member of the Undersiders and someone who had a great affiliation with dogs.
"Because he will react more to kittens, thanks to his history with me," Midnight Feline explained.
Bitch nodded, satisfied with the answer.
"So, is there… a plan that comes with the plan?" Skitter asked cautiously, "Because what you just said wasn't really a plan as much as a statement of intent to do things."
"Actually, no," Ocean chuckled, "We figured we would make this a bit of challenge. We're going to do this entirely on the fly!"
"Isn't that exciting?" Midnight Feline asked rhetorically.
Skitter held her head in her hands. "This is the day," she mumbled to herself, "This is the day we all get caught and get sent to the Birdcage."
The Birdcage, of course, being the maximum security, no-escape prison where the most dangerous of Parahuman criminals were kept. Skitter had no doubt that after the extent of their war against the legal ownership of property they warranted a place.
"Oh, don't be such a worrier, honey," Midnight Feline assuaged her concerns, "We've been inside the Birdcage and it's nowhere near as bad as you make it out to be."
"Guh."
"Except that Teacher fellow," Ocean frowned, "He was a bit of an irritating sort. 'My master plans' this and 'Take over the world' that. So cliché."
"Abuh."
"Glaistig Uaine was pleasant, though," Midnight Feline reminisced, "Especially after we brought her that tea set from Buckingham Palace. She was so understanding about the way we butchered the pronunciation of her name."
"Grbblllrrbblll."
"Well, it only felt right that a Fairy Queen should drink tea from a cup fit for royalty – Oh dear, sweetheart, I think Skitter is foaming at the mouth again."
"I'm getting a bit concerned about this habit of hers, dear," Midnight Feline's normally cheerful voice was tinged with worry, "It seems to happen every time we talk about a plan or an old job. Do you think we should see a doctor?"
"We'll book an appointment after this job, I think," Ocean confirmed, "I'll look into it with our connections," he turned to look out of the window as Tattletale helped Midnight Feline prop his daughter up on the couch to recover from her latest fit.
"But first it's time to let the world know... we're back."