"Oh, crap."

Amy looked at her sister's face. They were about four hundred feet up, heading towards Winslow, and she was freezing. So was Vicky judging from the shivering, her costume not really suited for this temperature, but the blonde was never going to admit to it. Even Amy's much heavier robe was letting a lot of cold air into places she'd rather not have had it, so her sister's clothing was undoubtedly much less comfortable.

After quite a lot of arguing between them the pair had changed into their costumes at the school and left, Amy still grumbling about how this was a stupid idea. Vicky airily shot down every objection she had, or simply ignored them, and of course she was never really able to turn the other girl's requests down no matter how crazy they were.

So here they were, freezing their asses off, heading towards something they hadn't been invited to so Vicky could stand around looking heroic on the news while Amy hid inside her hood and pretended she wasn't there.

Bitter? Her? Nah.

Now Vicky was slowing and dropping quickly behind one of the buildings, having apparently spotted something ahead of them. Amy hadn't seen what it was before they were too low for her to look. "What is it?" she asked.

"I think I just saw Victor climbing that old fire tower over near the dock end of the boardwalk," her sister said urgently. "I'm almost certain that's who it was. He had a bag on his back that looked like it had a rifle in it."

Amy stared at the girl, trying to mentally picture the construction she'd mentioned. "Isn't that just about the highest thing in the area?" she asked slowly.

"Yeah, it's about a hundred feet or so, and falling apart," Vicky replied. "It got abandoned years ago for some reason and no one uses it these days. I go and sit on top and watch the sunset sometimes, the view is amazing from there. You can see the Rig, and the docks, and our house just about and..."

"Winslow?" Amy added suggestively. Vicky stopped dead, looking startled.

"Uh… Yeah, it's about maybe half a mile from there, I think? Probably has a perfect view."

"A perfect view for someone with a sniper rifle who's known to be an amazing shot?" the brunette probed.

Vicky now looked worried, and angry. "Oh, shit. You think he's going to start shooting at the school? Why would even the E88 do that?"

"Maybe because Sophia Hess is black? Along with about half the students who go there?"

"Fuck." They exchanged a glance once more. "We need to stop him," Vicky said, beginning to rise again.

"Stop, Vicky!" Amy said urgently. "Think about it first. He's probably not alone, the E88 hardly ever goes out one at a time. If Victor's there, one of the others is almost guaranteed to be there too. Maybe more than one. There might be unpowered gang members too, and they're always heavily armed. If they see you and all start shooting at the same time..." She shrugged as Vicky went back to looking worried. "You're bulletproof, fair enough, but not if they hit you twice in a row in less than a second. And I'm not bulletproof at all."

"And you can't heal yourself," Vicky sighed. "Hell. What do we do?"

"Check if you actually did see Victor, or anyone else, climbing that tower with a gun. Then call Aunt Sarah and warn them." Amy thought for a moment or two, looking upwards at the roof of the industrial building they were currently floating behind, about twenty feet off the ground. There was no sign of anyone else in the area. "Let's go up to the roof and look very carefully over the edge. Remember we're both wearing white and you can probably see us for miles in the sunlight. Not to mention you're a little obvious when you're flying anyway."

"OK, not a bad plan." Vicky gently rose, cradling her sister in her arms, until they reached the roof, which was slightly sloped and made of metal. Amy reached out and tapped it, then looked along it to where the peak was. The tower was still invisible behind it.

"Up a little more. Keep below the ridge-line."

Moments later they were level with the peak of the roof. A cautious extra foot of altitude let them see the very top of the tower in the distance about three hundred yards away. "There, see?" Vicky shuffled her sister in her arms to free one hand and pointed even as Amy yipped a little and held on harder.

"Don't drop me!"

"I won't. Look, isn't that Victor?"

Staring at the tower, Amy squinted. "It… might be."

"That sure looks like a rifle to me too."

"I'll give you that," the brunette nodded, because while she wasn't certain of the identity of the person in question, she could certainly see what seemed to be a thick gun barrel sticking out past the wall around the observation tower top. The person holding it was also in a position that suggested he was bending over to look through a telescopic sight.

"We have to stop him, whoever it is," Vicky said as they floated down again to land on the roof. She put Amy down and reached for her phone. The healer cautiously tested the surface, found it to be solid, and walked up the roof again, dropping to her knees near the top. She peered over at the tower then looked around.

"Oh, damn it, I was right," she said.

"What is it?" Vicky said from behind her. She glanced back to see her sister holding her phone and looking at her.

Amy pointed. "That's Kreig on that roof over there closer to the school. He's got a phone to his ear, he must be talking to someone. Probably either Victor or Kaiser. So that almost certainly is Victor up the tower. I was right, there's more than one of them."

"You were definitely right," Vicky commented, looking in another direction. Amy followed her eyes to see the instantly recognizable forms of Crusader and Rune, both of them standing on what appeared to be a large piece of road surface, drop behind another building nearer still to Winslow than Krieg was. "Four of them."

"And we don't know for sure that there aren't more, either," Amy said, scowling. "Those three between us and the school, Victor up that tower… I bet he's being the surveillance guy. They could be planning on attacking the place." She thought some more. "But why? Half the PRT are running around there, along with a lot of cops and at least four Protectorate capes. That seems a little stupid to me. No one has ever said Kaiser's an idiot."

"There are those lizards too," Vicky commented, landing on the roof next to her sister. Both girls ducked down to make sure they wouldn't get spotted. "Who knows what they can do. But maybe the E88 is after them and not the school or anyone at it?"

"Why?" Amy looked at her sister. "Like you said, no one knows what they can do. An unknown Parahuman is dangerous, you never know how they'll react if they get attacked. And I didn't see anything to suggest any of them are Tinkers, which are the Parahumans the gangs most want, right?"

Vicky shrugged. "They're Nazis, who knows what the fuck they think?" she said. "Maybe they are after Shadow Stalker. Or they might just want to take the opportunity to cause chaos while everyone is distracted."

"I'd have thought if that was the case they'd attack somewhere that wasn't swarming with nervous armed people." Amy tugged at her lower lip, thinking. "It's weird." After a moment she dropped to her stomach and wormed her way back up the roof, flipping her hood back both to get a better view and to prevent the white cloth showing, then very carefully looked over the edge. Vicky, beside her, did the same. "He's still up there," she said. "I wish I had some binoculars so I could see what he's doing."

Vicky was peering at the tower, then at the distant location of the school, which wasn't quite visible from their position although both of them were reasonably sure where it had to be. "He's not looking at the school," she finally said.

"You sure?" Amy glanced at the girl next to her, then at the tower.

"Pretty sure, yeah. He's aiming that gun or whatever it is off to the side. Sort of over towards the docks more, but not at them."

"What's over there?" Amy racked her brain to try to remember. "Not E88 territory, that's back towards the commercial district. Merchants, maybe? Are they trying to ambush Skidmark's bunch?"

"If that's the case why are three of them nearer Winslow?" Vicky pointed out in a reasonable tone.

"Uh… I have no idea."

They exchanged a glance again. "And the Merchants are over closer to the dock worker's association place anyway, I think," the blonde added slowly. "If anything, that's probably about the right direction for the ABB areas."

"Lung?" Amy exhaled in surprise. "Why would they risk getting him upset? You know if they do anything in ABB territory he's going to go crazy."

"Don't know, but as far as I can remember that's roughly the right area." They checked again, and Victor's whatever-it-was was now definitely aimed in the direction Vicky had thought, the man moving slightly up the tower as he reoriented it. "He's nuts. If he shoots Lung all he's probably going to do is really piss him off."

"Maybe he's going after Oni Lee?"

"Might be."

They watched a little longer, then ducked as the distant figure moved in their general direction. "Shit, think he saw us?" Amy whispered, then felt silly. He couldn't actually hear her.

"I don't think so," Vicky whispered back. "Hold on, I'll check."

Both of them had forgotten about the phone the blonde sister was still holding. She cautiously peeked over the top of the roof again, then ducked back. "He's looking towards Winslow again."

"What the hell is that idiot doing?" Amy grumbled.

"Fucked if I know." Vicky shook her head.

"We need to tell the others." Amy indicated the phone in Vicky's hand.

"Oh, right. OK." Looking at it, Vicky poked an icon, then lifted it to her ear.

The explosion that occurred a second later made her yelp in surprise and toss the phone across the roof as she jumped. Amy nearly passed out from the sudden shock.

As Vicky's phone slid over the edge of the roof and shattered on the ground a second later, both of them exchanged pale-faced gazes then looked frantically around for what had blown up.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?"

The person speaking was wearing a balaclava, but otherwise was dressed in fairly ordinary work clothes, including jeans and steel toed boots. His voice was somewhat concerned.

"Look, almost all the cops in the fucking city are either at Winslow cleaning up whatever the hell happened there, or running extra patrols in the usual places. They don't have anyone left to deal with the docks, not that they normally come here anyway. And the PRT is either doing the same thing, or wandering around waiting for the E88 or the ABB to take advantage of the situation."

The other man spoke in a weary voice, as if he'd said this several times before. Which he had. He was dressed similarly to his friend, complete with balaclava.

"Yeah, yeah, I know all that. What I meant is, is it a good idea to do this with that?" He pointed at the machine in the back of the stolen delivery van, the rear doors allowing it to be seen. Then he indicated the wall of the building at the end of the alley they'd backed into.

"Why wouldn't it be?" the second guy said as he climbed into the vehicle and started flipping switches, while looking at a couple of sheets of paper on a clipboard that had a checklist on it. The device started to hum faintly, lights coming on in various places.

"Because it's a fucking Tinker-tech ray gun, you complete lunatic!" the first one said acerbically, moving slightly further away. "Not only that, it's a ray gun that Leet made!"

"Hey, his stuff usually works pretty well," his friend said, typing in a code on a keypad that folded out of the side of the hulking machine. This resulted in the hum getting louder and a sub-bass rumble starting up. More lights lit along the length of the barrel-like protrusion that stuck out of the back of the van as it extended with a whine.

"Yeah. Once. Then it kills everyone in the room."

"That only happened one time, and it was a bunch of Merchants so no one cared," the second man said dismissively. He looked at the wall, then down at the paperwork. "Hmm. Setting six, I guess."

He turned a dial five clicks, the bass rumble wavering each time, then settling down to a steady throbbing like a very large happy tiger.

"Merchants who stole one of his inventions," his friend pointed out. "Just like you stole this invention."

Putting his notes to one side, the man in the truck leaned out and stared at his friend. "Look, Rico, this is our big chance. Working for Über and Leet as minions is getting old. Sure, it pays well enough, and I admit they're decent guys, but we're never going to get rich running around dressed up as some video game character, are we?" He patted the purloined device next to him. "This disintegrator ray works, I've seen it. Leet thought it was too dangerous to use when he'd tested it, but it worked fine. And he won't miss it until we're on a beach in Miami with a few million bucks. You remember how much crap those two have stashed away, right?"

Rico nodded reluctantly.

"This thing was buried under all that, it's been there for nearly a year. And these are his test notes. It's simple enough to operate." The man in the van waved the clipboard at his friend. "Just set it right, turn it on, and fire. Boom, the entire wall goes away. We only need it to work once anyway."

Nodding slowly, Rico looked nervously at the thing, then turned his head to regard the wall. "And you're sure that's where the safe is?"

"Yeah, my information is good."

"Why would anyone keep ten million dollars in cash here, for god's sake? It's right in the middle of one of the bad parts of the city. Why not in a bank?"

"Because banks report to the government, you idiot." The second guy shook his head sadly. "Criminals don't put their money in the bank. Jesus."

He pointed at the wall. "Ten feet inside that is a big safe with piles of cash in small bills. No one knows it's there. When Marquis was Birdcaged, some of his stashes were misplaced. I found the documents on that last job, and I checked. There's definitely a fucking huge safe bricked up in that place. The guys who have the workshop around the other side have no idea it's even there. And it would take about fifty pounds of dynamite to get inside, Marquis didn't buy crap safes."

"And he just left it there?" The tone was dubious again.

"Yeah, he did. There were rumors that several big villains did the same thing, stashing money in secure places no one would expect, in case they needed to run for it. I'd be surprised if Kaiser hasn't done the exact same thing. But when New Wave took the guy down, no one realized it was here, he never said anything, and it's still there. Waiting for some enterprising lads to turn up and help themselves."

Patting the machine still rumbling away, he added with a grin, "I don't have dynamite, but I've got something better. A make-the-wall-go-away-now machine. We zap the place, load all the money in as quick as we can, and get the hell out of here. By the time anyone notices we'll be five hundred miles away."

"What if it goes wrong?"

"It only needs to work once, Rico. We dump it in the bay on the way out of town."

"I hope you're right, Nick."

"Of course I'm right." Nick grinned, moving back to the console on the side of the machine. "What's the worst that can happen? It doesn't work, we dump it anyway, and think of something else to do. Trust me, I know what I'm doing."

He prodded the final button in the firing sequence.

"Holy shit!"

Ben hit the deck as a coruscating beam of light nearly four feet thick came out of the back wall of his mechanic's shop, passed through the four post lift which ceased to exist in a cloud of dust, hit the closed roller door and did much the same to that, then exited the building. Cowering in the inspection pit he'd rolled into when he'd somehow managed to avoid whatever the fuck it was, he put his hands over his head and waited for the loud roar that sounded like a blowtorch scaled up to the size of car to stop.

It did about four seconds later, the sudden lack of noise and light making the workshop look dim under the fluorescent lamps hanging from the ceiling. Cautiously he looked up, then very slowly stood. Gaping at the hole where his door used to be, then at the four stubs of metal that were all that was left of the lift, he opened and closed his mouth a few times.

"You were only supposed to blow the wall out, you fucking idiot!"

The shout came from behind him. He turned, still trying to say something, to see there was a matching hole in the back of the workshop. Through it, he could see two guys in balaclavas standing in front of a van that had some weird sort of machine in it, the business end pointing at him. As his ears recovered he could hear a sound like an idling motorcycle coming from the thing, matching the blinking lights in many colors he could see on it.

He gaped, wondering who they were and what they'd done.

Wait.

Two guys in balaclavas...

One larger than the other…

Obvious Tinker tech machine…

"Fucking LEET!" he screamed in rage. "And you, you little shit Über. Look what you did to my workshop!"

He rushed for the large toolbox under the workbench on the left side of the workshop, slamming the lid open and grabbing for the tool he needed for the job facing him.

"What?"

Leet, who it obviously was from the size and crap disguise, turned from shouting at his partner to stare at Ben. "I'm not Leet."

Not listening, and furious beyond reason at nearly being assassinated in his own fucking business by two idiot Parahuman gamers, Ben turned around and racked the action of the 12 gauge riot gun at the same time. "Try to kill me, will you?" he gibbered, aiming the weapon at them. Both of the men screamed and dived to each side as he fired.

The deer slug pinged off the top of the machine in the van, leaving a deep dent in it, then ricocheting through the roof. He worked the action once more, while the two idiots outside his building screamed again and ran. Both of them jumped into the front of the van even as he charged through the hole, firing a second time. This shot bounced off the tarmac into the underside of the vehicle. Starting with a roar the van peeled out in a cloud of smoke with him in hot pursuit, firing over and over until he ran out of ammunition. Panting, he watched the vehicle corner at speed, nearly tipping over, and head towards the docks area with a trail of multicolored sparks coming from the machine in the back which had collected at least one more slug.

Swearing up a blue streak, he stomped back down the alley at the back of his garage, stopping momentarily to look at the huge hole in the back wall, then went through it into the building.

Three steps in, he slowed, then stopped.

His head turned to the side.

Then the other side.

Then he rubbed his eyes with the hand not holding the smoking gun, and checked again.

"Jesus Christ above us all, that's a lot of money," he whispered in total shock.

Dropping the shotgun, he picked up one of the bundles of twenties, looking carefully at it. It sure looked and felt real. Peering around with steadily widening eyes, he estimated that there were easily a couple of thousand bundles exactly like it on the shelves down either side of the vault he'd not had the faintest idea lurked behind the end wall of his workshop.

So engrossed was he in staring at his new found fortune he barely registered the massive blast that echoed across the entire area about thirty or forty seconds later. He was too busy working out how to cover the holes in the front and rear of the place so he could count the cash in privacy.


"I hate you."

"Oops."

"I mean, I hate you with the burning hatred of a thousand exploding suns."

"It nearly worked."

"It nearly FUCKING KILLED US YOU LUNATIC!"

Rico lunged at Nick, who tried to fend off the hands that were intent on grabbing his neck and squeezing until the juice ran out. "Hey, get off! We need to get out of here before someone turns up to see what happened."

"YOU THINK!?" Rico was apocalyptically furious, and still trying to strangle his friend. Leet's machine had started making a very upsetting sound mere moments after they were out of range of the crazy man with the shotgun, and they'd both looked at each other, looked back over their shoulders at the violently sparking Tinker device, then wisely abandoned van even as they were doing forty miles an hour down the road.

It had made it about another four hundred yards before hitting a building and immediately detonating in an absolutely spectacular explosion, a column of fire rising above the surroundings and the sound nearly deafening them. There was now a crater covering the entire width of the road, and the front of the building it had hit was lying half in this. The explosion had blown both of them flat from where they'd got up to watch the van go on its way.

"WHY DO I LISTEN TO YOU, YOU FUCKWIT!" Rico raged on, shaking his friend as hard as he could. "STEALING A TINKER INVENTION IS SUICIDE. ESPECIALLY SOMETHING LEET MADE!"

"It worked, though, right?" Nick tried, managing to wriggle free and backing warily away. "Made a hole just like it was supposed to." He ducked a swing from his friend, adding thoughtfully, "I think setting six was a little high, though. Probably should have used four."

"AARRRGH!" Rico looked wildly around, grabbed a piece of pipe that was lying in the gutter, and swung it at Nick, who ducked again.

"Look, I understand you're upset, Rico, but we're alive so it's all good."

He ducked yet again.

Then he looked past Rico at the site of the crater and paled. "Oh shit."

"Oh shit? Oh SHIT!?" Rico tried to stab him with the pipe.

Nick pointed past him. The smaller man looked over his shoulder for a moment, looked back at Nick, registered what he'd seen, and looked over his shoulder again.

"Oh, shit!" he squawked, dropping the pipe.

Both men stared in horror at the couple of dozen ABB gang members who were watching the pair, each of them armed well enough to fight a small war. They exchanged a horrified glance then without another word turned and bolted.

A mass roar of rage came from the growing gang of ABB, who charged after them, firing manically.


"What the hell was that?" Rune turned and looked behind her as the echoes of the sudden explosion faded away. She'd nearly lost control of the slab of concrete she was flying, which would have dumped both her and Crusader thirty feet to the road.

"An explosion," the man standing next to her said. She gave him a look, then sighed.

"Really? I was wondering. Thanks."

As they watched, two men wearing balaclavas came tearing around a corner a couple of blocks from where her flying piece of masonry was tucked against an abandoned warehouse and pelted down the road towards them at high speed. They exchanged a glance.

"Über and Leet?"

"Too short for Über," Crusader said. "Smaller one might be Leet."

The men kept running, and moments later the reason for their haste became apparent as a wave of heavily armed ABB members poured around the corner. A couple of them yelled, pointing, and a number opened fire on their quarry.

"Fuck me," Rune said in a high voice as a number of rounds whined past. She raised the concrete platform abruptly, causing Crusader to stumble.

"Watch it," he snapped. Then he looked at where they were. "Stay below the roof line," he added quickly.

"Fuck that, those Asian shits are shooting at us," she replied with anger.

"They're shooting at those two, not us," he said, pointing.

One of the pursuing ABB looked up, then yelled. Instantly a couple of dozen guns were aimed at the two E88 members.

"You were saying?" Rune howled, frantically producing an orbiting cloud of debris to intercept the massed fire. One round nicked her arm, making her cry out, then swear violently, before returning fire with a handful of gravel.

"Don't engage them yet," Crusader shouted. An AK-47 round bounced off the building behind them and hit him in the shoulder. "On second thought, fuck the orders. Kill those scum."

"With pleasure," Rune growled, taking aim again. Her companion started manifesting his ghosts and sending them into battle.

Of course, just as they thought they had the literal upper hand, Oni Lee appeared next to them on the slab of concrete, handed her a grenade, and jumped off the platform. Rune screamed and threw the thing she'd taken without even thinking about it in her shock, then dropped flat as it exploded fifty feet away. Shrapnel whined past, a couple of pieces leaving holes in her back but apparently doing relatively little damage.

Even so, the shock was so sudden she lost control of the platform and they both plunged downwards.


"I swear I'm going to kill you in your sleep, you total fucker," Rico muttered, staying low as he and Nick shuffled along behind a wall, heading towards an open storm drain. "Slowly, with a huge smile on my face. I'll take a photo and put it next to my bed so I can look at it every night before I go to sleep. It'll make me feel warm inside."

"Shut up and come on, you asshole," Nick said in a low voice, peeking around the end of the wall. "They're all shooting at those E88 capes. Hold it… Now! Come on, run, will you?" He dashed for the storm drain and dived through the opening. Rico followed, feeling a moment of free fall that ended in a splat.

There was relative silence for a few seconds.

"Nick?"

"Yeah, Rico?"

"I really am going to kill you. A lot. Then I'll pay Panacea to bring you back so I can kill you all over again."

"You think she can raise the dead?"

"If I pay her enough, sure."

"Interesting theory." Gunfire from above echoed around the storm drain.

"I hate you so much."

"I know, Rico. I know." Nick produced a small flashlight and turned it on, then waved it around. "That way, I think." He got up, wiped off as much of the goop covering him as he could, and started walking. Rico did the same, coming up behind him.

"If you weren't my brother, I'd make it hurt more."

"I know, Rico."

"Mom told me never to listen to one of your ideas."

"Mom always liked you best."

"There are a lot of reasons for that..."

Complaining and bickering, the pair kept trudging through the mud, as the battle they'd accidentally sparked faded behind them.


"Now what?" Victor muttered, swinging the telescope fitted with a shoulder stock around towards the sound of the huge explosion he'd heard moments ago. There was a huge cloud of weirdly colored smoke forming an impressive sight high in the air, and through the scope he could see a large crater in the street about a quarter mile from Winslow. As he watched, a large number of people dressed in ABB colors came out of the building immediately next to the crater, looking dazed and very unhappy. More of them exited the one next to it. All were holding weapons.

They stopped, staring at something further down the street. He panned the scope that way and saw two familiar figures. "Oh, for fuck's sake, what have those two idiots done this time?" he sighed. The Tinker and his friend were a pain in the ass at the best of times, but why did they have to pick now to start playing around?

The two men turned and ran for their lives, the ABB gang following waving their guns and shooting at them. Somehow neither of them was hit, the entire collection disappearing around a corner and out of his view. He tracked the estimated position of the mobile battle until he spotted something that made him swear again.

"Damn it!" he groaned, watching as Rune raised her platform suddenly, then started firing chunks of rubble downwards at the street. Presumably the ABB chasing the pair of idiots had spotted his compatriots and opened fire on them.

Reaching for his phone he hit the speed dial button for Crusader's number, still looking through the scope. Moments later he twitched as Oni Lee appeared on the platform next to Rune, literally handed her a grenade, then dropped out of sight. The girl had thrown the grenade away almost the instant he'd produced it, but the explosion was far too close for safety.

Watching the concrete slab drop forty feet to the ground and vanish behind the buildings made him stare in shock, swear violently, and quickly call Krieg.

"Rune and Crusader are under attack by the ABB," he said as soon as the other man answered. "Rune was taken out by Oni Lee. I don't know if she's alive, I can't see from this angle."

"Oh, hell," the other E88 man replied in shock. "What do we do?"

"Go fuck up the ABB," Victor growled. "This plan is done, the PRT can't possibly have missed that fucking huge explosion. They'll be calling in troops from all over the city. Probably air support soon too. We need to get our people and get out. Let the ABB take on the PRT if they want, but Max will kill us if we get sucked into this."

"Fine, I agree. I'll get over there. Call Max and let him know, get some backup as quick as possible, then come and help."

"All right. Better hurry, no telling if Lung will turn up."

"Check with the spotter at his place."

"Will do."

Both of them hung up, then Victor dialed the number of his replaceable ABB surveillance guy, who was stationed on a roof about three blocks from the gang leader's base. It rang several times, but wasn't answered. Swearing to himself, he tried again with the same result.

"Balls," he snarled, giving up and dialing Max. "We have a problem," he stated when his superior answered.

"Which is?"

"Which is that Über and Leet fucked up one of their idiotic games, blew up an ABB safe house, then led the entire gang right to Rune and Crusader like they did it on purpose. Rune is down as far as I know, not sure about Crusader. Krieg's gone to help. I can't get hold of my spotter so it's possible Lung is on the way. Oni Lee is already on site. The plan is fucked, no way we can get to Shadow Stalker now."

"Ah." Kaiser sounded thoughtful. "How awkward."

"To put it mildly. We need to get our people out as fast as possible before the PRT turns up."

"Difficult with both our fliers out of commission," Max replied. "I'll get Hookwolf and Stormtiger headed in your direction in one of the armored cars."

"Send them to the junction of..." Victor looked through the scope for a moment, then worked out the rough address. "…North Bay Road and Feeder Street. They won't have trouble finding it from there. I can hear the shooting from where I am."

There was silence for ten or fifteen seconds. "They're on the way, ETA about seven minutes. You'd better get out of there before a PRT aircraft spots you. I can see people running around on the Rig helipad, they'll be launching soon."

"Got it."

He disconnected, then swiveled around to point his scope at the Protectorate base. Sure enough, there were people scurrying around on the flight platform preparing two VTOL aircraft, and when he looked towards the PRT building, he could see another one being started on the roof there too. Inside fifteen minutes this entire area was going to be covered with capes and troopers.

He'd be lucky to even make it over to where his team-mates were by then, but the Empire never left one of their own behind for the animals to maul. He had to do what he could.

Quickly sticking the scope back into its bag, he slung it over his back, made sure it was secure, then started rapidly descending the rickety tower ladder, hoping it wouldn't fall apart on the way down. He was in a hurry but not that much of one.

Amy shaded her eyes and peered towards the sound of the blast, watching with amazement as a cloud of multi-colored smoke, lit from below, rolled into the sky like a particularly good special effect. "Holy shit, what was that?" she gasped.

"No idea at all," her sister said, equally stunned. "Damn big whatever it was."

"Something to do with the E88 maybe?"

"Don't know, but why would they go and nuke the place if they're trying to be sneaky?" Vicky asked. Amy shrugged.

"Maybe it's some sort of diversion?"

"Pretty stupid diversion, half the city heard that. And probably saw it. The PRT are sure to turn up quickly."

"That might be the whole idea," Amy pointed out. Her sister looked at her, then back at the dissipating cloud, before nodding a little.

"I guess. But it seems weird even for them. And that's right in the middle of the ABB area… Wait a minute! I bet they did that to get the ABB running around, so the PRT will go after them."

"Leaving the school with less people, perhaps?" Amy added. They looked at each other, then back at the nearly vanished cloud. "We need to call Aunt Sarah right now."

"Yeah." Vicky looked at her hand, then patted her costume. "Where's my phone?"

Amy looked down, then over at the edge of the roof to one side. Walking carefully across the sloping surface, she peered down. "Um..."

Vicky floated over, followed her gaze, and groaned. "Oh, no! I only got that a week ago." She quickly flew down and retrieved the device, rejoining Amy on the roof. Both of them looked at it.

"Shit."

"I'll use mine," Amy said, pulling her much older phone out of her pocket and prodding the wake button. The phone screen lit, then as she tapped the relevant contact, produced a low battery icon and died seconds later. "Ah. Fuck."

"You have to be kidding me, Ames." Vicky grabbed the phone and fiddled with it. "Oh, for god's sake. What are the odds it would pick right now to run out of power?"

"About a hundred percent," Amy shrugged. "Seeing as how it actually did. Now what do we do?"

The sounds of massed gunfire made both of them look in the direction it was coming from. Not seeing anything, they hastily headed up the roof and peeked over. "Shit, did you see that?" Vicky asked in surprise.

"What?"

"Oni Lee just took out Rune, I think," her sister said, pointing. "That big piece of road or whatever it was with her and Crusader just dropped like a stone."

"Appropriately enough," Amy couldn't help saying, provoking a snicker from her sister.

"Yeah. Might be two E88 down. Can't say I'd miss them."

"What about the other two?" Amy looked at the tower. "Victor's still up there, I think he's looking at where Rune was."

"Krieg's gone," Vicky reported. "Can't see him anywhere."

"Must have gone to help his friends," Amy suggested. They listened to the shooting, which was getting more vigorous by the minute, and was now mixed with louder explosions that were presumably Oni Lee and his grenades. "They must still be alive, the ABB wouldn't still be shooting if they weren't, right?"

"That seems reasonable," Vicky nodded. "I wonder if they'll get backup?"

"I'd guess that Victor probably called Kaiser, or Krieg did, so it's likely."

Her sister looked back at the fire tower. "Hey, Victor's climbing down. I bet he's going to help too."

Amy gazed in that direction, then nodded. "Probably."

After a moment, the blonde said, "We can take him."

"What?"

"You didn't want me to go after him in case he had backup. His backup is kind of busy right now..."

They exchanged a long look, then as one turned to stare at Victor, who was only about twenty feet up now. "I should probably be trying to persuade you that's a bad idea, but for some reason I can't," Amy finally said.

Vicky grinned.

"But…" Amy held up a hand. "I want to do it my way. You remember the last time? I don't want to be putting someone back together in an alley because you nearly punched his head off again."

"Oh… whatever. Let's just grab him and take him to Aunt Sarah," Vicky smiled. "I bet that surprises her."

"Probably," Amy agreed. "It's Mom I'm more worried about."

Vicky stood up. "We can handle that later. Let's go snag a Nazi. My collection is missing one."

With an unaccustomed sense of adventure, Amy let her sister pick her up even as she was wondering why all of a sudden she wanted to see what she could do that wasn't healing.

"Hey!"

Victor, who had just stepped off the last rung of the rusty ladder onto the roof of the squat abandoned fire station, froze at the sound of the chirpy voice, then spun, one hand grabbing at his pistol. He had it ready to fire by the time he was facing the speaker, who made his stomach lurch when he saw who it was.

"Hi, Victor," Glory Girl said with a pretty smile. "Fancy meeting you here. Have you met my sister?"

"What the…?" he managed even as he felt a hand touch his neck.

The world went black before he could finish the question.

"Well, that was easy," Amy said with a sense of surprise, looking at the unconscious form slumped at her feet. "And kind of fun."

"It was also really cool," Vicky giggled. "'Have you met my sister.' Boom. Down he goes."

The brunette snickered, kneeling to check the status of the villain. He was totally out of it and she made sure that would stay the case until she turned him back on again.

"Now what? I don't particularly want to ride a Nazi all the way to Winslow," she said. Vicky burst out laughing, making her smile ruefully. "Not the way I mean it, Vicky, you know that."

"It was the tone of your voice," her sister giggled. "Well, we can't leave him here. He might escape."

"He's not going anywhere, trust me on that," Amy assured the other girl. "He's down for the count."

"Great. But I still don't want to leave him lying around. It's untidy."

"Can we get cited for littering by carelessly discarding unconscious racists?"

"No idea."

They looked at each other and grinned. "If we had some rope I could carry him that way, I guess," Vicky went on, peering around.

"What about that bag on his back? We could use the straps from that, maybe?"

"Worth a try."

Both of them knelt down on the gravel covered roof, Vicky rolling the man over while Amy retrieved the bag. She unzipped it, looking inside curiously. "Huh. Not a gun, it's a really high tech telescope thing with a stock like a rifle," she reported, pulling the optical device out and looking at it. "Cool."

"Expensive too," Vicky nodded. "Nice toy. Want it?"

Amy looked at her sister in surprise, then down at the scope. She inspected it with an evaluating eye. "Spoils of war," she decided with a grin.

"Exactly. We take the bad guys down, then loot their goodies."

"Don't for god's sake say that where Mom can hear," Amy warned with a smirk. "She'd explode worse than whatever that thing was." Vicky nodded vigorously in agreement.

"Oh. Loot. Find his phone." They quickly patted Victor down, coming up with a very high end smartphone. "Is it unlocked?"

"Yep. Hang on, I'll call Aunt Sarah."

"OK. Ooh, he's got some rope in this bag. Perfect."

Two minutes later, Vicky lifted off with the man dangling from a quickly improvised harness from one hand, while Amy was cradled in her arms. The brunette had the acquired bag over her shoulder and was talking on the phone they'd found. "Honest, Aunt Sarah, we've got Victor with us. We'll be there in a minute."

Lowering her phone, Sarah looked blankly at it.

"Was that Amy?" Mark asked.

"Yes. She and Vicky are coming here."

"Why? They're supposed to be in school."

"Apparently they decided to come and help, and captured Victor on the way."

She looked at her husband, who stared back. "I have no idea. They should be here shortly, they were fairly close. She said that all the excitement has something to do with the E88."

Both of them turned to watch the PRT and BBPD people running around like lunatics, readying weapons. Not that far off they could hear a lot of gunfire and intermittent explosions heading their way as whatever it was grew. The three reptilian capes who had kicked this entire thing off were standing in an island of calm with Armsmaster and Miss Militia, looking in the direction all the fuss was coming from. None of the lizards looked worried, although they did appear determined.

When a horribly familiar roar sounded from far too close, she noticed that they were the only people who didn't visibly react with concern. All they did was exchange small smiles.

For some reason, those smiles made her shiver just a little.