Always make them come to you.
I stared down at the mask in my hands. It was simple to look at. Gray metal with red crystal lenses. Designed to wrap around my head and rest on my ears and nose, covering the top of my face while leaving my hair free. Its function was a lot more complex. Its meaning to me was maybe even more so.
When I'd first made it, it had been meant to be most of my costume, paired with a protective vest – red, of course – and a belt to hold my weapons and tools. Simple, easy to get on and off. Something I could wear over street clothes, or even under them. Easy to adapt and add to, but not too hard to replace if I had to ditch it quickly.
But if you can't make them come to you, make them wait for you.
My father hadn't approved. He'd lectured me about it being too simple for a leader. Told me how I had to stand out, to both allies and enemies; how I needed to set an example. His advice was never truly a suggestion.
Now my costume wasn't easy to put on or take off. I'd needed a suitcase to carry it around when I wasn't wearing it, and there was no chance I could hide it under street clothes. My vest had been replaced with a breastplate. Aluminum over kevlar, still red. Knife-proof and bullet resistant. A red shirt that buckled all the way up to my chin and matching red pants, silk and leather of the highest quality. The red was broken up by white elbow-length gloves and similar knee-high boots, along with a white belt sporting a holster on each hip for my weapons, yet none of the pouches I had wanted for tools.
You're the one in charge, not them. Don't let them forget it.
I'd wanted a taser, or even a PRT stunner if I could get one. I didn't have either. Instead he'd given me a submachine gun and an ornate axe. I'd modified them, but neither was anything resembling non-lethal. My father had been adamant When I had to intervene directly, people couldn't expect to get away unharmed. Statements had to be made, after all.
I'd cheated a bit there. Added an electrifying component to the grapple launcher that rested under the glove on my right wrist.
Be the center of attention, even when you're not in the room.
If that had been all, just fancier clothes and some weapons I didn't want to use, it would have been fine. But apparently the costume had still been lacking sufficient flair. Flair that had come in the form of a short cape, black, with a mantle that draped over my shoulder and down my chest. Worse, it had gold braid at the shoulders and a gold pattern, like stylized wings, on the front.
But even that hadn't been enough...
I stifled a sigh. The costume wasn't the problem. Thinking about it on its own, rather than something I was actually wearing, it even looked good. The designers had been paid enough to make sure it was stylish, if overdone.
You're the person everybody looks to. Someone they can't ignore.
No, the costume was just a distraction. Something to brood on so I didn't have to think about where I was, or what I was about to do. It was stupid. Childish. I couldn't afford that. Not anymore.
I lifted my mask up and slid it on, the world going dark before taking on a red tint, and even that faded as the HUD powered up, dispelling the gloom of the empty room I was standing in. I blinked a few times to make sure everything was working, then reached into the nearly empty suitcase and pulled out the final piece of my costume. A bucket helmet, painted as white as my gloves and boots, with a flared rim around the back to protect my neck, and a pair of spikes – almost horns – projecting up the front. I wanted to question the connotation, given the gangs in the city, but the more things to distance me, the better. It slid on over my mask, sitting perfectly in place.
Confidence is more than just appearance. More than just attention. It's who you are. Live it.
My hands fell to my sides and I tried to suppress my disappointment.
I'd hoped that, with the costume on, armed and equipped with tinkertech of my own design, I'd feel different. More like the leader of a team of parahumans.
I didn't. I just felt like me, but wearing a silly costume.
I took one last look around the room, not quite sure what I was looking for. Whatever it was, I didn't find it amid the dusty shelves and cleaning supplies.
Which, unfortunately, left me nothing else to do. I squared my shoulders and stood up straight, sticking my chest out slightly. I could almost feel my father's hands, pushing and pulling, molding my posture into something commanding.
I marched over to the door, heels clicking against the bare concrete, and hauled it open, stepping out into the alley I'd left not five minutes ago. Four heads turned my way, four sets of eyes hidden by masks and hoods, and the hushed conversations I'd barely noticed stopped dead.
"Took you long enough," Garrison—Turismo, now that he was in costume—said. He was nervous too. Father's lessons meant I could practically smell it. But it was a different kind of nervous, an electric anticipation for the violence mixed a fear of the unfamiliar. A fear for the combat he'd never been a part of till now.
I glanced at him without answering. It was the first time I'd seen the team all together, all in costume. His was a lot like mine, but with purple instead of red, and without the weapons. He didn't need them. Beside him, leaning up against the brick wall of the alley, was Rune. Her costume I'd seen before, a few times, before she'd joined the team. A blue robe with a peaked hood and silver-embroidered runes tracing the edges of the hood and sleeves. A simple costume that hid various tricks underneath.
On the other side of the alley Chariot and Vasistha stood, almost in opposition to the others. A bit worrying, though not remotely surprising. Also unsurprisingly, their costumes were of a lower quality. Chariot's was clearly homemade, bits and pieces of mechanical skeleton imposed over denim overalls and a puffy jacket, with a simple domino mask over his eyes and a bandana over his mouth. The only things he had that was impressive were his boots. Sleek metal things with vents on the calves and wheels at his heels. Vasistha, for her part, had a costume a bit like Rune's. A yellow, hooded robe. But where Rune's was obviously made of thick cloth, Vasistha's almost floated, barely opaque. Neither her costume nor Chariot's did a thing to hide skin that was too dark to be tanned, which went a good ways in explaining why the two pairs were standing so far from each other.
I barely held in yet another sigh. Their costumes weren't the problem any more than mine was. I just had no idea how to address the actual problems, or any way to really find out. Staring at them, searching for details I wasn't even sure how to process, was just another way of trying to put off the inevitable.
"So how is it, Red? Do we pass?" Turismo asked.
Again I didn't answer. I just started walking, boots splashing against the pooled autumn rain, then held up a hand and crooked my fingers. "Come on."
A little to my surprise, they did. Rune and Turismo fell in on my right, while Chariot and Vasistha fell in on my left. We left the alley almost in formation, emerging into an empty street lit only by streetlamps under a pitch-black, cloudy sky.
"Are they still there?" I asked.
"They are," Vasistha answered. Her voice was quiet but steady, and she sounded even younger than she looked, which said a lot.
"In costume?"
"Yes."
"Any sign they know we're coming?"
"No," she said, then paused. "Not that I can tell."
"That's fine," I said, looking at her over my shoulder. Outside the protection of the alley, the wind was bitter, and she had her arms wrapped around herself. "You could have brought a coat," I told her, and my eyes shifted down to her slippered feet. "Or at least some shoes."
"I'm fine," she said.
I left it at that. Anything more risked giving the wrong impression to the others.
"So what's the plan?" Chariot asked. I could hear him shifting his feet in the snow, moving side to side, clearly eager to go ahead. Probably just as eager to get things over with. Different from me. Different from Turismo, too. I'd have been happy to put things off as long as possible, if that was an option.
"I'll go in first," I said, forcing myself to maintain my posture, to speak clearly. "Try talking. Give them a chance, even if we all know they won't take it. The rest of you wait for my signal. When I give it, come in swinging."
"That's all?" Rune asked.
Chariot answered before I could. "I like it," he said. "Simple and direct."
"I guess," Rune said, clearly skeptical. I felt her glance at me, but she didn't say any more. The mood didn't allow it.
Thankfully there wasn't enough time for things to get awkward. We'd arrived at our target too quickly. That had always been part of the plan. Between the cold, the hour, and the part of the city we were in, I hadn't wanted to walk a long way in costume. Too much risk of being seen.
"Get set up, but stay out of sight," I said. "This isn't the Docks. All it takes is one person making a call and we'll have the heroes and the PRT on us in no time."
I waited for a moment, but nobody said anything.
I nodded, mostly to myself, and stepped forward, toward our target. Behind me I could hear the others shuffling around, finding places they could wait without being seen.
Most of the time, thinking of the sort of places a pair of villains might call a lair, I thought of old factories or warehouses. Or tenements, maybe, abandoned for long enough that nobody even knew who owned them anymore. Sometimes shacks by the trainyard, or parking lots that hadn't seen a car in years.
But then, when I – when most people – thought of villains in Brockton Bay, I thought of the bad part of town, north of the city center, not the suburbs south of it. And for the most part that was right. But anywhere there was money to be made, one way or another villains would find their way in.
Even if that meant holing up in an auto body shop next door to a post office.
I went in the front door, setting the bell jingling, and once again cutting off a conversation before I had time to hear what it was about. I could have snuck around the back, or the side. Picked a lock, gone in stealthily. But image so happened to be the word of the day.
I found them in the back, in the garage. Two men in costume, like I was, though theirs were of even lower quality than Chariot's or Vasistha's. Just masks and street clothes. Not that different from what I'd originally envisioned for myself.
Maybe my father had a point.
"Who the hell are you?" one of them asked, his voice a growl, his mouth twisted in obvious anger and confusion. His mask was a bunch of little spears and shields welded together, covering most of his face and mixing into his receding hairline. As he spoke, he stepped to the side and yanked a metal-plated cloak off a piece of machinery, spinning it onto his shoulders. So, a little better than a mask and street clothes.
"You would be Sixer," I said, then turned to his companion, who was inching his way toward the wall, where a crowbar rested amidst some other tools. "And you would be Stray."
"Yeah, but that doesn't tell us who the fuck you are," Stray said. His mask was full-face, metal like his companions, and looked like a snarling wolf. Not the best look in a town where Hookwolf was such a big name.
"We'll get to me in a minute," I said. "I was hoping we could talk."
That calmed them down a bit, if not much. Stray stopped his move for the weapon, and Sixer relaxed his stance a bit, focusing on getting his cloak bucked up around his shoulders. "You think we're gonna talk with someone who doesn't even give his fucking name?" Stray asked.
I drew my axe, and they both tensed up again, especially when I flicked a switch on the handle and the blade began to glow, quickly brightening to a cherry red and giving off waves of heat that were visible even in the dim light of the garage.
"I'll admit that I may have been a bit rude, asking to talk business before I introduced myself," I said. "You can call me the Red Comet, and I'm here to discuss your eviction."
In a TV show, that would have been when the fight started. But most people aren't dumb enough to just charge someone the moment a threat is made, at least partly because most people aren't dumb enough to make a threat if they don't think they can back it up. So instead of getting indignant and attacking me, Sixer just stepped forward, glancing around warily and covering Stray while he scooped up the crowbar.
"You a Ward?" Sixer asked, looking me up and down, taking in the quality of my costume. "No. Empire?"
"We're Solomon," I said. "We're new, and this is where I've decided we'll start our expansion."
"Right," Sixer said. "I get it. We're the big guns around here, so if you take us out, you look good and nobody wants to fuck with you. Or we leave voluntarily and it looks like you scared us off, and nobody wants to fuck with you."
I had to stop myself from chewing on my lip with an effort of will. He wasn't wrong. That was the plan, more or less. I could have added that the two of them were only 'big guns' because only capes that couldn't make it settled for working the south end. They were the very definition of 'big fish in a small pond'. But I didn't think that would go over very well.
Of course, the fact that he'd just guessed the entire plan left me a bit unsure of how to proceed. I couldn't back down, or banter, or bargain. All of that would make me look weak, which I couldn't afford. My father had made that more than clear, as well as intimately detailing the penalties I'd suffer for failing here.
Not that he'd punish me himself. That wasn't his style. But playing the villain game came with heavy costs. Even if you won.
"So, what's it going to be?" I asked into the silence my indecision had caused. "Go peacefully, or stay and fight?"
"Stay and fight," Stray spat, raising the crowbar in both hands.
"Stay and fight," Sixer agreed. He hooked his thumbs into his best and turned to Stray for a moment. They nodded to each other. "Not like we have much choice. We're muscle. If we turn tail and run, we'll never get a job again."
I inclined my head to him, halfway between a nod and a salute. "I expected as much."
"I'm sure you did," Sixer said. He stepped to the side, moving around a workbench scattered with tools, while Stray moved the opposite direction, ducking under a pickup truck that was raised halfway to the ceiling, moving to flank me.
It was all a ruse, of course. Neither of their powers cared where they were relative to me. Another thing my father had drilled into me. Because of that, I also knew that they needed a bit of time at the start of a fight. Part of the reason I'd been willing to go in alone.
The other part was Vasistha.
Now! I thought, as loudly as I could.
Chariot was the first one in, as expected. He came in through the same door I had, the wheels on his boots squealing and the vents blasting superheated air out behind him, and rushed toward Stray, zig-zagging around the scattered equipment and vaulting over a workbench. He didn't hit him. Without heavier armor he'd have done as much damage to himself as to Stray. Instead he tossed a handful of balls at him that whirred and spun, unspooling into half a dozen bolas, tangling him up.
Rune's entrance was, if anything, even more dramatic. A huge metal dumpster crashed through the roof, blue runes still flashing and fading on its surface. Debris rained down along with it, along with torrents of dust that showered down and spread around the room, like an inverted mushroom cloud. The impact almost knocked me from my feet, and did send Chariot stumbling. At the speed he was going, a fall could have been bad.
In the dumpster's wake, other objects entered, floating at more reasonable speeds. A few manhole covers, An old metal mailbox, and a handful of wooden pallets, the latter of which had Rune, Turismo, and Vasistha crouched atop them.
As soon as they were in, Rune hopped off her pallet onto the raised car and crouched down, tracing her runes on it. Vasistha joined her just as it started to rock on the raised jack, peering down at the fight with wide eyes.
Turismo, for his part, jumped the eight feet to the ground, landing in front of Sixer as the villain was still reeling from the dumpster's impact, one hand over his mouth to ward away the dust.
"Stupid choice," Turismo shouted, his face manic with a blend of emotions I couldn't hope to decipher, advancing with his hands held open, palms up, sparkling sand or dust pooling out of nowhere to fill them and spill down to the floor, letting off the occasional popping spark.
For myself, I took the opportunity to back off and keep my eyes on the two villains. It would have been nice if they took the sudden appearance of so many capes as a reason to surrender, or even just retreat. In either case I'd have happily let them. Unfortunately, for the same reason they'd chosen to fight in the first place, they weren't about to stop now.
Worse, neither of their powers were the type that had trouble dealing with multiple opponents.
Long pikes of concrete thrust up out of the floor between Sixer and Turismo. Or rather, the floor reshaped itself into spears. Sixer's power, to create rough weapon-shaped constructs out of the material around him. If that was all it would have been bad enough. Shakers were always a pain, changing the battlefield to suit themselves and hinder their enemies. But Sixer went further, the shafts pulling free of the floor even as others grew, moving with surprising speed to point themselves at Turismo and Chariot.
Did that mean something? The fact that he didn't target either of the girls?
The spears moved to strike, stabbing forward and pulling back. They weren't very coordinated, but the number of them was still increasing, and eventually that wouldn't matter. Chariot dodged with ease, while Turismo was slower, clumsy, staring with an offended expression at the villain who was obviously trying to kill him.
"Mutt!" Turismo shouted, tossing a handful of his sparkling dust at Sixer. It moved heavily rather than float in the air, more like gravel or iron filings than flour, coating the villain and the area around him. Immediately the number of sparks increased, arcing over Sixer and drawing a teeth-clenched groan from the man, but the spears didn't stop.
Worse, Stray wasn't out of the game, and even though he wasn't having any trouble dodging the spears, Chariot was still too distracted to do anything about him. The wolf-masked villain had given up struggling against the bolas – which hadn't stopped at wrapping him up, I saw. They'd moved on to rolling around him, wrapping their wires around everything they could – and was pressing his hands to the floor.
Stray's making his move! I shouted in my head, and Vasistha jerked, looking around wildly before her eyes settled on the bound villain. She tugged at Rune's sleeve, gesturing, and Rune stopped her work for a moment, the car going still.
"Hairy fucking balls," she spat, gesturing sharply. Two of the pallets moved toward Stray, falling on top of him one after another, but they weren't quick enough to stop him.
More shapes jerked and tore their way free of the floor. Not spears this time. Instead, canine shapes made of rebar and concrete clambered out, shaking off the rubble of their birth before looking around, stone tongues hanging from their mouths.
Two villains with very similar but very different powers. I would have been tempted to guess they were related, but apparently that wasn't the case. Neither was from Brockton Bay, and they apparently hadn't met each other before arriving in the city.
Doesn't matter, I chided myself. Think later. Fight now.
Stray's constructs weren't strong, but like Sixer's weapons, their numbers weren't limited. In Stray's case the only actual limit was time, and the fact that once his dogs were made he had no control over them. Still, dozens of hundred-pound stone dogs were troublesome whether or not they obeyed orders.
Rune dropped one of the manhole covers, and it hit a dog edge-on, shattering the thing, but more were emerging. Some rushed into the room while others chewed at the wires binding Stray.
Seeing the fight really get going, my instincts told me to step in and help, while my father's advice told me to wait. Neither Stray nor Sixer seemed intent on me, instead focusing on the more obvious threats of Chariot and Turismo. It would be easy to let things progress, maybe relay some information via Vasistha's power, and only engage personally if there was a direct need. Maybe if someone got hurt, or if Sixer and Stray's constructs got too numerous.
A stone dog stalked toward me, growling silently as I stood there, indecisive. I swiped at it with my axe, the superheated blade flashing as it carved through its neck. It dropped, crumbling apart, and I took a step back, looking around.
Rune's dumpster had caused a lot of chaos with its entrance, but its actual effect had been minor, beyond creating an entrance. The garage wasn't that big, and it was fairly crowded between the cars, equipment, and more than half a dozen parahumans, which had served us well at first, but that tide was turning now. Rune was running out of projectiles, each object she dropped staying where it was rather than rising up again, while Sixer and Stray's creations were just multiplying.
Chariot dodged a spear, gave a rocket-assisted kick to one of the dogs, and hopped on top of a concrete shield – another of Sixer's creations – only to hop back off right away as yet more dogs moved in on him. Turismo was doing better, trading attacks with Sixer himself, throwing handfuls of his heavy, sparkling dust at the villain, who dodged around and brushed it off himself as quickly as he could. He still had some on him, conducting electricity and causing him to spasm and stagger almost randomly, but not enough to incapacitate him just yet. More, the amount of dust in the area was building up, more and more electricity crackling across the floor, preventing Turismo from closing in to finish him off.
If we had one trump card here, it was Rune. If she could get the car under her power, we'd have something that could finish the fight in one shot, one way or another. I'd been hoping she'd work quicker, but her power took time to use, and I was coming to think we didn't have enough of it.
What decided me was Stray. He stood up, his clothes tattered, bleeding from cuts and scrapes where his uncontrolled creations had been less than gentle in freeing him, and picked up his crowbar again, heading for Turismo's back.
I could have waited, or transmitted an order through Vasistha. I didn't. It would have been smart, the course my father would have advised, but I didn't. Instead I drew my gun, aimed at one of Stray's creations, and fired.
The sound wasn't that loud. I'd modified the gun after my father had given it to me. Partly because I had no idea how to maintain or use regular guns, as opposed to the devices I made personally. Partly for other reasons. When a cape draws a gun, it says something. Everyone in the fight knows the stakes just got raised, and that it was time to play for keeps. Forget that nine out of ten powers were massively more deadly than a gun, forget that any random parahuman would beat a person with a gun nine times out of ten, none of that mattered. People didn't choose their powers, had no control over what they could do. A gun was different. Using a gun said that you'd gone that extra mile, gone out of your way to carry something that could kill.
That wasn't an image I wanted to project.
So when I fired my gun, a spray of bullets tearing into one of the stone dogs, breaking off a limb and tossing it aside to crumble into pieces on the floor, it didn't let out the rattling boom of automatic gunfire. Instead there was an almost mechanical whirring, and a clacking rattle like a dozen people smacking metal bars against a wooden log.
It still got attention. Stray stopped his advance to stare at me for a moment as I started methodically gunning down his creations. Then he swore, ducking down behind one of Sixer's shields and working to create more. But it was a less drastic response than if the gun had been stock. Almost funny in a way, since nothing I'd done had made the gun any less powerful. The opposite, if anything. For one thing, I'd given it a drum magazine on the top that held a hundred bullets, more than five times its original capacity.
It helped that I wasn't actually shooting it at anyone, but even so a tinkertech gun just felt different than a real one.
Still, one gun with a limited ammo capacity – no matter how high – wasn't going to win the fight. If nothing else, now that he knew I had the gun Sixer's shields would almost certainly hold up long enough to take everything I was able to give, at which point we'd be back where we started.
"Turismo!" I shouted between short bursts of fire. "Light the place up! Rune, make us an exit!"
"Fuckers!" Sixer shouted, apparently twigging to my plan. He shifted his focus to me, most of the spears attacking Chariot and Turismo turning in my direction, his shields converging to cover him as he advanced.
That was fine. That was what I wanted.
A dozen stone spears darted in my direction, probing and stabbing, and I moved to welcome them. I opened my eyes and mind wide, and I could feel my mask heat up as it activated.
The world around me didn't slow down. I didn't gain super speed. In any way I could quantify, everything stayed exactly the same. But at the same time I could feel my perception expanding, refracting out from the mechanism in my mask, doing... whatever it was it did.
I side-stepped a spear, chopping it out of the air with my axe. It fell in two pieces, clattering to the floor and didn't rise again. Another followed, and another. I moved forward, feet always placed where they needed to be, every swing timed just right, my whole body moving with a grace that wasn't really mine.
Sixer's power gave him decent control of the weapons he made, but it had two flaws. First, it took concentration. They didn't act on their own, relying on his mental commands. Which meant they had no better reflexes than he did. Second, he needed line of sight. Not that he couldn't act without it, but if he did he was swinging blind. I raised my gun in his direction, controlled bursts of two or three bullets picking his spears out of the air, or breaking them while they were still rising out of the ground, and he reflexively ducked back behind his shields, circular or kite-shaped defenses closing in tight around him, more of them moving to cover Stray.
Of course, that didn't mean the pressure was off. Just that it was less directed. Instead of careful stabs, the spears started to spin, twirling around as they searched for targets. Plus, Stray wasn't out of the picture either, and more of his dogs started to emerge from behind the shielded area he occupied, requiring me to switch to gunning them down again, keeping their numbers low.
Of course, my team hadn't been idle while I worked. Rune finally had the car moving, if slowly, about a quarter of its exterior covering in glowing blue shapes in all kinds of patterns. Turismo had been even more busy, if anything, spreading his dust all over the floor. As it came into contact with more wires, machines, and electronics, the electricity built up higher, crackling dangerously and lending a flickering blue light to the room. Chariot was already backing away from it, and both Rune and Vasistha were eyeing it warily.
Turismo, for his part, just grinned as he tossed handful after handful all over the room, uncaring of the effect it was having.
"I'd suggest you get out while you can!" I shouted. "It's going to get a bit hot in here!"
"Son of a bitch!" Sixer's shout was nearly drowned out as Rune smashed the car into one of the metal roll-up doors of the garage. It shrieked as it was torn from its tracks, then fell outward, smashing down on the asphalt of the parking lot.
As soon as the door was down, Chariot zipped out, gracefully hopping over the door and spinning around, watching the exit with wide, attentive eyes. Sixer and Stray followed him just a bit slower, and with a lot less grace, doing their best to stay covered and out of my line of sight.
I followed more slowly, gunning down the last of the dogs as I went. When I reached Turismo, I put a hand on his shoulder for a moment, and he fell in behind me. We left together, stepping around the fallen door, out into the cold dark of the night.
More by coincidence than anything else, Sixer and Stray had ended up surrounded. Rune and Vasistha on their floating car on one side, Chariot on another, and now Turismo and I coming from behind. They hunkered down behind their shields, but there weren't enough to cover all angles, and I could see them glaring out from behind them.
For a moment, nothing happened.
"I think we all know you can't win this," I said into the silence.
"Yeah, well, don't expect us to make it easy for you, asshole," Stray spat, straightening up slightly to deliver the insult face to face.
I raised my arm, and a small metal plug shot out from a slit in my glove, trailing a thin wire behind it. The prongs caught Stray on the shoulder, electricity arcing down the wire and sending him to the ground in convulsions.
I only left him like that for an instant before deactivating the taser. The wire retracted, spooling back into its housing. The plug came last, hitting my forearm with enough force that I had to stagger back half a step.
"Bitch, son of a bitch," Stray groaned.
"I know you can make more of your dogs," I told him, then turned to Sixer. "And you can make more weapons. Trust me when I say it's not worth it. You're outnumbered five to two, and none of us have come close to going all out yet." I pointed over my shoulder, back into the garage. Turismo's dust was arcing bright enough that my shadow was easily visible on the ground in front of me. "Do you want to see what we can do if we try?"
Sixer glared at me, breathing heavily, face screwed up in anger and possibly fear.
"You've got about ten seconds," I told him. "Then we drop a car on you, for starters."
He turned aside and spit onto the ground. "Fucking Protectorate's probably on the way anyway."
"Tell yourself that if you want, man," Turismo said.
"Yeah," Rune said from atop her mount, voice almost gloating. "Whatever helps your asses feel less thoroughly fucked."
"Enough," I said, doing my best to keep my voice level. "Just go, and don't come back. Find somewhere else, because this territory is ours now. I'd suggest somewhere far away, too."
If I expected some kind of parting remake, I didn't get it. Sixer tapped Stray on the shoulder, and they turned in unison and took off, the shields moving to cover their retreat.
I waited for a minute, then turned to Vasistha. "Are they really leaving?"
"They are," she said. Now that the fight was over she was crouched down on top of the car, shivering, her arms wrapped around her.
"Good," I said. "Rune, can you land that thing?"
"Yeah, why?" she asked, as the car moved to settle down on the ground.
"They were right about the Protectorate," I said, walking over to the car. "They'll be on the way soon, if they aren't already." I slashed my axe across the door handle, the blade leaving a glowing rent in that dripped molten metal onto the ground, and smelled like burnt paint. The door swung open. "We need a way out, and I figure a flying car's as good as anything."
"Sure," she said, hopping down. "I can do that." She walked around the car, tracing more runes on it as she went, the old ones slowly fading away even as the new ones glowed brightly.
"It okay if I make my own way?" I turned to see Chariot standing nearby, still shifting nervously, gliding back and forth. "Figure I'm quicker on my own."
"It's fine," I said. "Just be at the hideout tomorrow. I want to discuss a few things."
"No problem," he said, flashing me a momentary smile. Then he was off, moving far more quickly over the open ground than he had inside.
A good first impression. It was a start.
Rune finished her work quickly, and we all piled into the car. Vasistha gave me a grateful smile as she took her place in the back seat. Rune took the driver's seat, I took the passenger's seat, and Turismo grumbled a bit as he slid in beside Vasistha. Then we took off, the car wobbling slightly as it gained height and somewhat limited speed.
"So, that went pretty well," Turismo said, once we were moving.
"It went alright," I said. "It could have gone better."
"You think so?" he asked.
"I do," I said. "For one thing, we didn't have time to search for any money before we left."
"Oh," he said, sounding surprised. "Well shit. I forgot all about that."
"Yeah, me too," Rune said. "Fuck. Fuck. We could have used the money!"
"If they had it there, anyway," I said. "We still have some options."
"I guess we could go back, yeah," Rune said, turning to look at Turismo. "How long's your shit last, anyway?"
He shrugged. "Until someone cleans it up, I guess. It's pretty permanent."
"Oh," Rune said, turning to look back out the windshield. Not that there was that much to see, given our elevation and the dark of the night. At this point I figured she was mostly navigating by the light of downtown, off to the north. "Well shit."
"It doesn't matter," I said. "The police and PRT will be there anyway, by tomorrow. If there's anything there, I imagine they'll take it as evidence."
"Damn," Turismo said. "Sorry man, I wasn't thinking."
"Don't worry about it," I told him. "It was my call. I knew this would happen when I ordered you to go wild. I figured it was more important to get a win without any of us getting hurt."
"Yeah, that's fair," he said. "Still, would have been nice to make some bank out of this."
"Yeah," Rune agreed. "Still, we got the territory now. Shouldn't be hard to get some pushers on the streets or something."
"I doubt Chariot would like that," I said.
"So?" Rune asked. "Who cares about him? He can either accept it or fuck off."
"We're not going to be selling drugs," I said.
"So, what? Escorts?" Turismo suggested. "I figure my uncle could get us set up, for a percentage."
"No," Vasistha said.
"Who asked—" Turismo started, sneering.
"No," she repeated, stronger, glaring at him.
"Okay, jeez. Whatever."
"Let me worry about money," I said. "I'll figure something out."
"Yeah, sure thing man," Turismo said, still eyeing Vasistha warily. "Whatever you say."
There was a moment of awkward silence that I had no idea how to break.
"Uh, so, where's everyone want to be dropped off?" Rune asked.
I stumbled home half an hour late, still in my costume. Rune had dropped me off on the roof of my apartment building, and for a lot of reasons I hadn't worried as I'd walked through the halls. Nobody here would say anything to the police, let alone the PRT.
It took a few tries with my key to get the door open. It was a bit funny. It wasn't that late, and the fight hadn't been too hard. I'd stayed up way later watching TV and playing games, and I'd worked a lot harder over the last few months, getting in shape. But I was still more tired than I could remember being. Maybe because of adrenaline, or stress, or something else. I didn't know. I just wanted to collapse into bed and sleep for a week.
Of course, I knew I wouldn't get what I wanted. That was just the way my life was.
So it really wasn't any kind of surprise when I emerged into the living room to see my father sitting on the couch, legs crossed casually, wearing his full armor, his jagged crown of blades standing tall.
He sat up and spread his arms as I walked in. "Theo, my boy!" Kaiser said, voice warm and welcoming. "Tell me, how did your first fight go?"
