Squealer parked her latest getaway vehicle back at the garage on the outskirts of the city. She had pulled off her mask after she had dropped off the Empire Eight-Eight thugs. Kaiser was treading on thin ice, the new leader of the Merchants thought to herself.
Tammy waved to the two guards, who looked pretty professional in stolen uniforms from a local security company. "Yo," she called out.
"All clear, boss. How's the plan coming?" one of the enforcers said.
"Working on it. But Armsmaster is setting traps on the equipment I need. It's been damn annoying." She hopped to the ground, stretching the kinks out of her back (and appreciating the looks her boys were giving her).
The back of the trailer was a total mess. It had come way too close to breaking some of the thrusters back there. And the Protectorate knew she had the vehicle, so would have counters in place. She might be able to figure out something he couldn't counter, but this was Armsmaster. He could make a motorcycle that was 95 % as capable as her own and he was almost as good a driver, even without her ability to drive any of her vehicles.
Which was just not fair. Vehicles were her thing. But he was like good at just about everything. And her plan to work with Trainwreck...
...that just wasn't working well at all. So no steampunk power armor for her.
"That's a pretty rugged vehicle. I wonder what you could do with professional equipment? But, you make do work with what you have," an unknown voice said in her workshop.
Tammy scrambled for a gun even as she dove for cover.
"Please, if I wanted you dead, I would have killed you before you knew I existed."
The tinker peaked over her workbench. She peeked over to see a very imposing man in gunmetal carapice black armor and a scarlet cape. Four glowing lights were on each side along the 'jaw' of the faceless black helmet that his mouth just showed under the bottom of it. He had a very mean looking black and red mace held in front of him with the bladed end down on the ground.
"Who the fuck are you?" Tammy said as she pointed a particle rifle at him under the table. "A tinker should know that you just don't invade another tinker's shop."
"I am Agent Givens of Arachnos. I will take that under advisement, but I am not... a tinker. I am a scout for my Lord Recluse. Arachnos finds itself without a home. And my understanding is that you are a engineer that we could hire you to create a device of transport."
"No. You don't have anything I want. Get out," the villain, gesturing with the barrel of her weapon that was now visible.
"Not even to gain the people needed to free Skidmark from prison?" Givens had not even moved from his spot.
Tammy moved the barrel to point at the ceiling. "You have my attention."
"I have the schematics for for a transdimensional portal. Once you complete that, I can have a heavy assault squad of Arachnos Soldiers brought in with a parahuman team leader. Perhaps an entire elite strike team of parahuman." Givens seemed totally at ease as he watched her think.
"I think we might have an agreement. How soon can these people be here?"
"That depends on how fast you can get this built, doesn't it?" Agent Givens said in humorous tone. "We need to use it to stabilize the transport to Earth Bet."
Tammy gave him a very hard smile at that.
"Are you still not talking to me?" Gina asked Monday morning on the way to school.
"I'm trying to decide." Taylor gave her a glare. "Why didn't you give me a real warning?" She was almost stomping along the sidewalk as they walked down the side road.
The shorter-haired girl checked around. "Because of secret identities. I was specifically told to not let you know there. I think Piggie was trying to test to see if you would go all Carrie on Sophia. She's a bitch that way. I kind of bent the rules to warn you as much as I did."
"I was really hoping that I was leaving the bad teenage drama behind me," the taller girl complained.
"That would be nice," Gina replied with a nod. "I'm-" She stopped, as she wasn't really sorry, but she wasn't happy that it happened. "It really sucks that I couldn't really warn you."
"It does. I thought I was away from Sophia." Taylor pursed her thin lips. Her... friend wanted to warn her. That was something at least. Even broke the rules slightly to give her something of a heads up. "Things aren't as bad at least. Even Emma has mostly dropped things."
"And you've got Justin giving you googly eyes in chemistry."
"I do not."
"If he was staring any harder, I'd think he was a stalker." Gina gave her a small grin.
"Are you all right?" Taylor pushed her glasses back up her nose slightly with her forefinger.
Gina tried to open her mouth, but no words really came out for about half a minute. "My shrink says I'm not supposed to put down people outside of combat. He seems to think I should be trying to be nicer. Work my way through my grief. I just want to break a building."
"I bet Carlos could find a building that needs demolition for you," Taylor said with a small chuckle. "So do you have an eye on someone? I think Tommy in Trig has been thinking of asking you out."
"He flinches every time I walk near him, so I don't think that's going to work." Gina gave her a sidelong look. "So where did you disappear yesterday after the attack? I thought you followed the Undersiders?"
"I did, but it's kind of need to know right now. If we aren't careful, might lose our lead, sorry." Taylor gave her a shrug.
"Pooey. Everyone else has been laying low after the kidnapping. Armsmaster was totally pissed off. He's pretty angry that we only got Hookwolf, even though we outnumbered them. I hate it when the badguys have an escape plan," Gina complained.
Neither wanted to mention the slightly unhinged heroine that they had failed to rescue.
"Seems everyone is married to their job," Taylor said slowly to change the subject.
"Assault and Battery are a couple. And Sam goes bar hopping a lot. Not to mention Gallant and Glory Girl's on and off again dating. So I'm sure you'll lose your virginity sometime," Gina said, then stuck her tongue out at the taller girl, blowing her a raspberry.
"What! You! Why you jerk! I thought we were making up?" She was just about sputtering that all out.
"Friends are allow to make fun of each other!"
The rest of the walk was just light banter, as they walked into the school. Taylor was thinking idly as she sat in her first period history class.
"Hey, Taylor? You still hanging out with that loser?" Marion Schmidt called out at the end of class.
"Yes." Taylor looked at her warily. Calling her a loser to her face would probably start a fight!
"Just tell her to back off this week. I don't want no guff from my uncle for getting suspended again," the blonde said gruffly.
The slightly taller girl blinked. "Well, you aren't wearing your jewelry. She had some bad run ins with Neo-Nazis before, but she's trying to not snap at people."
"Yeah, word on the street is to not show your gang colors. With the ABB going belly up and the Protectorate being kind of gung ho against the gangs, it's a bit dicey. No one wants to be accidentally hit," Marion said with a big frown on her face.
"You are Empire?" Not just a skinhead, Taylor realized.
Marion looked away. "Look, it's never just that easy. I've got a lot of family in the gang. So they have me doing little stuff. It helps keep food on the table after all the Chinks and Japs stole all the jobs."
"I'll let her know," Taylor said in a neutral voice.
That seemed to upset Marion but she just picked up her books and left the classroom.
That was weird, the young heroine thought to herself.
"Hello, Dragon. I need a security lockdown on this session. I don't want anything connected externally to the Protectorate servers except you," Miss Militia said as she leafed through handwritten notes.
"Nothing? All other external connections are disconnected. I assume you believe that you have been hacked?" the Tinker hero said from her video screen.
"Probably the worst sort of hacker. One that appears to be able to guess passwords. So a Thinker," Miss Militia explained. "Which is why, for all that Armsmaster is almost perfect for security, this is the one loophole we can't easily block."
"I see. And you can't even put anything in records or they'll probably find them. So why haven't you just arrested this person of interest?" the A.I. asked curiously.
"Because we found out that her gang is being bankrolled by someone for an unknown purpose." Miss Militia gave Dragon a very worried look.
"A new mastermind or thinker that's kept below everyone's notice? That is worrisome. You have a plan in action?" The masked face on the screen showed her own worry.
"Yes. We need to leave her access to the servers without her finding critical information. So we need to know what she's looking at. But we can't trip her up. She seems to have some sort of sixth sense for picking things up. She almost spotted being tailed by insects."
"The new Ward? It sounds like you have quite the tracker and infiltrator then. I think I can help you, but this is going to be tricky. I have to ask, why isn't this coming through Armsmaster?" Dragon asked curiously.
"I don't know if his armor is compromised," Miss Militia said truthfully.
"And he never leaves the armor off outside of his rooms and workshop, which could also be compromised." After this was over, Dragon was going to have a small discussion with her friend about always wearing his armor. "You did try during his exercise period?"
Miss Militia grimaced. "I think he's got something set up in his room. He hasn't used the fitness room for at least a few weeks."
"He hasn't been eating military rations again has he?" Dragon asked in a pained expression.
"I don't think so. He just goes down to the kitchen in his armor and makes something basic.'
Men, both of them thought.
"Nope," the albino woman said to Armsmaster. She was sitting in a slouch in a plain chair in front of Armsmaster's desk in his office. It still looked like half of a workshop.
"You haven't even looked at the possible locations to transfer to," the leader of the Brockton Bay Protectorate noted in a pained voice.
"I like it here. My only friends are here. I'll go help in other cities, but I'm living here. This may not be Paragon City, Rhode Island; but it is home now."
"Legend really feels that you should be on a larger team to get the best use of your abilities," Armsmaster argued, though admittedly not too hard.
"I can visit. I can teleport or fly anywhere most of the time. I'd rather see about finishing up with the ABB or Merchants."
"I'm not arguing with that idea. I'd love to show that Brockton Bay is an example for a city improving instead of devolving into chaos and gangland battles." Armsmaster sighed as he rubbed his chin. He really wished he could figure out a way to have thirty hours in a day. "I mean I don't even understand what Squealer is planning. Skidmark is scheduled to be tried next week and she's robbing high end electronics warehouses all the way into New York City."
"Oh? What sort of stuff?" Nict'Futurias asked as she flicked an invisible fleck of lint off her purple and black uniform.
"The highest rated capacitors in a small package. Less than two feet long. And then the myobidium-aluminum wire is only used in the strangest of tinker gear." He actually sounded quite peeved.
"What?" Futurias was suddenly quite attentive. "Have any high end mainframes been stolen recently?"
Armsmaster was typing fast suddenly, trying to verify something on his desk computer. "One of MIT's older mainframes was stolen yesterday. How did you know?"
"I think I might need to check, but that sounds like she's making a dimensional portal. That could allow her to bypass all the guards and walls and just snatch him right out of prison," the paragon said as she thought hard.
"You're... a tinker?" Armsmaster asked.
"Oh, no. I can just repair some basic things. But you have to remember, I'm from a far off future. Dimensional portals are basic technology."
"Please tell me you at least have the rudimentary understanding so we build something to block this?" he asked.
Futurias nodded. "I couldn't build one, but I could repair it if it isn't too broken."
"Teleporters?"
She nodded again.
"Let's start with the principles of a device that can block interdimensional portals, as that seems to be what Squealers is working on." Armsmaster was almost giddy, but he did not want to show that. He had an image to maintain.
Dragon may be a good friend, but he would be more than happy to be known as the best tinker in the world. Hell, she would probably cheer him on.
The heavy, reinforced concrete wall collapsed. The blade-armored figure of Kaiser stepped over the rubble.
"S-Stop! Or I'll-"
The security guard's orders fell on deaf ears as he was skewered on several blades that came out from the flour around him, holding him off the ground almost like a teepee.
"Hookwolf. Where is he?" the leader of the Empire Eighty-Eight demanded.
"He's in- solitary-" the guard managed to get out. "Let- me-"
Kaiser was already ignoring the bleeding guard. More blades grew out of the ground at an angle, smashing through the walls towards the area of the solitary confinement cells. He smiled grimly, as he had slipped a message for Hookwolf to act out and get thrown in there.
It was only thirty seconds later that he found his second in command. A wave of curved blades ripped the bars and door right away. Curves, angles were something he used to great advantage. "It's time," he ordered. It was tricky to use his blades to cut off the negator collar on Hookwolf, but not impossible.
Explosions sounded in the distance while he was working.
"Our cue to leave?" Hookwolf said as he stepped out of his cell, the two pieces of his collar clanging.
"Yes. That means that someone has responded already." Kaiser was creating walls of blades behind him, staggered and made with six inch thick steel.
Without appearing to walk fast, he led him to the far end of the hallway. Hookwolf started tearing through the guards and barred doors with equal ease.
By the time Charged State had battered through the barriers (and discarded trying to bash through the walls because it would be easier) she found they had escaped.
"Crap. That was our one good capture this week. Armsmaster is going to be pissed." There went her date with Josie tonight.
The attack started at one o'clock in the morning during a drizzling rain. In the supervising manager's office, a lethal female figure appeared behind his seat and stabbed him through the chair (and his heart) with a needle spine, killing him instantly. Operative Ansom nodded her black and iridescent helmed head, then faced back into invisibility even as she made sure his phone was off the hook.
Across Brockton Bay, the power was disrupted as a heavy, normal truck smashed into a power station and a 'drunk driver' smashed into a power pole. Calls were made, repairmen were then dispatched to deal with the largest power outage since Sonic Smasher blacked out half the city in '99.
Back at Brockton Bay Power & Light, the electric gate opened silently as a caravan of six semi trucks drove into the yard only a minute after the last truck had left. Most of the Merchants were gathered for a very big operation as equipment was unloaded under the exacting eyes of Squealer and Trainwreck.
"This is loco, Squealer. We're wasting our time," on of the unpowered thugs in her gang said.
"When I want to hear your opinion, Jose, I'll tell you what to say," the drenched villainess said in a flat, angry tone.
Metal creaked as Trainwreck looked between the two. "They seem very professional."
"Soldiers, boys. That means they are part of a real organization." Squealer had to admit, she would not mind friends with real resources. She moved over to the computers she had built into the trailers. Normally, her power would not help much. But because this was part of a transportation device, it worked better than ever.
She might need to look at alternate transportation tech. What she could do was awe inspiring even to herself.
Twenty minutes later, as Agent Givens and his partner in crime watched as rings started turning as most of the power in the city was diverted to power exotic engines and transformers. Rain spattered off the spinning rings in sparks and steam.
In the center of the ring appeared a bubble of... nothing of white. Or everything. It slowly grew larger until it was ten feet tall. It was roaring loudly as a strange flying craft flew through. It was all black, with a laser targeted turret under the nose on the front and two armor-protected rotors on stubby rounded wings..
It was the first of five silent flying machines. Then figures started walking out on the raised platform. First a brutish man in malformed, black power armor with a scorpion tail cannon that was almost ten feet tall. Then a sleek, dangerous looking man that had a face, teeth and fins that were very much like a shark.
Then came through several nearly identical females in shiny, skintight armor and faceless helms in scarlet or iridescent black types. They moved off to guard positions, even though they were not armed with anything that the natives could see.
Agent Givens and Operative Ansum had both knelt down on one knee, confusing the Merchants.
That confusion melted away as a new figure appeared through the glowing portal. He was only slightly taller than the other figures, but carried a weighty presence that froze all of the villains and gang members as surely as if he had mind control. Like his soldiers of Arachnos, he also wore a full helm, imposing armor and a cape, but his was more ornate and he had a fur mantle on his shoulders.
He also had eight mechanical insect-like arms coming from behind him at his shoulders. The metal clop of his boots in the puddles of water was the only sound besides the machines in the background.
And his eyes actually glowed red.
Squealer suddenly had a stab of worry. Would he honor his deal?
Lord Recluse looked out into the darkness. "Secure the landing zone. Move all of Alpha Company through to the warehouses on your maps. I want to have disappeared before the first of the local heroes arrive." He then walked forward imperiously towards the suddenly very afraid tinker. "Squealer. Per our agreement, I shall send my top operatives to help break out the villain known as Skidmark. I have my own code of honor, as long as you do not cross me."
The scantily dressed woman nodded her head frantically.
"My lord, it is done," the Arachnos widow in scarlet armor next to him said.
"Very well. Make sure that Agent Ansum is properly retrained. She should have been able to extract the information on her own. Requiring me to bring in a master class telepath was... annoying."
Squealer and Trainwreck both started at that point, but Lord Recluse was already in motion. His spider arms, made of the toughest metal he could construct with alien and super science, smashed all four limbs of Trainwreck off in one blur of motion.
One hand, encased in armor of science and magic, grabbed the front of the ruined power armor before it hit the ground and lifted him off the ground. In one simple looking heave, he then slammed the power armor user onto his back to knock him senseless.
"Trainwreck, you are now the guest of Arachnos. Your employer will be contacted to see if he wishes to purchase your freedom. Do not attempt to escape. My men have orders to kill you rather than let you go free."
Squealer was quietly panicking. "Um-?"
"Speak," Lord Recluse's voice thundered out in a rumble.
"Who was he working for?" She was now glaring at her ex-gang member.
Kalinda stepped forward as if prompted. "He worked for the villain named Coil as one of his secret parahuman infiltrators. Most of his men are simple mercenaries with low level blasters and assault rifles. He appears to have some sort of thinker power, but his pawn did not know the specifics other than he will be told to change plans at odd times. I suspect, my lord, that he has some powerful precognitive ability," the woman in the faceless red armor said. She, like all of the other Soldiers of Arachnos, seemed immune to the wet and the cold. Her helmet turned ever so slightly to look at Squealer. "Your plans to destroy the portal in case of hostile invasion was sound. Arachnos appreciates professionalism and foresight."
"Oh. Yeah. Thanks." HOLY SHIT! THEY HAVE MIND READERS! AND SHE'S READING MY MIND RIGHT NOW!
"And quit shouting. You are going to give me a headache," Kalinda said crossly.
"Yes, ma'am." Eeep.
"Indeed, I agree with Kalinda on this matter. All of Arachnos appreciates foresight and intelligence. Qualities we appreciate in allies and... recruits. Captain Mako," Lord Recluse called out.
"Yessss, my lord," the shark-man said as he stepped forward. He actually seemed to be enjoying the rain.
"Ready an elite squad. Only our most powerful operatives. Get the specifics on where this Skidmark is located and retrieve him. Kill the leader of the responding heroes." Lord Recluse then turned to look over at Black Scorpion. "Plant the heavy explosion. I want there to be no clues left for the heroes."
Captain Mako hissed softly in amusement, a gurgling evil sound. "As your order, my lord."
"You got it, boss," the heavily armored thug replied. "You heard him. Get those nuclear grenades primed and ready to go off as soon as we have the portal dismantled."
Squealer just stood and watched, trying to blank her mind as army trucks full of supplies and hundreds of Arachnos Soldiers came through the portal.
This could be the worst day of her life, she decided. Or the greatest opportunity.
