Gaiatsu 2.4

Butterfly stayed hidden in the alley, not wanting to betray her presence or become linked to anything which was about to occur.

She still felt a little morally conflicted about having made the call, but justified it with three words: Sophia. Fucking. Hess.

Currently it was like a live TV show, two police cars with flashing red and blue lights in the convenience store parking lot as the Wards gave their statements to the BBPD.

The apprehended criminals sat handcuffed in the squad cars still to be driven off to jail.

Like the feral growl of an angry wounded animal the roar of engine noise flooded the street from everywhere as an armor plated monstrosity of skimmed into view on uncountable arcs of lightning.

Tortured metal screeched as one of the BBPD cars was sideswiped followed by a horrific oddly hollow crunch and hiss of pressurized water from the fire hydrant rammed off of its mounting.

Contrary to expectations, the water did not spray into the air, instead a globular mass of water somehow held itself together while it grew and grew even as the Merchant vehicle rocked from the disembarkation of a massive metal man who moved with hissing pistons and belched vents of steam.

The police officers pulled their service pistols and opened fire where their bullets joined Shadow Stalker's crossbow bolts to bounce off the brobdingnagian Brute ineffectively.

Kid Win tried to take to the air, but couldn't even detach the hoverboard from the back of his armor before the aquatic mass the size of a minivan simply enveloped him.

Based off of Moist's flailing arms and Kid Win's energetic deluged cavitations the teen Tinker might as well have been put in a oversized washing machine on spin cycle.

Shots from the lone laser pistol barely made it three feet into the water only to leave a line of bubbles where the water had boiled before absorbing the beam's energy.

Squealer's vehicle sent out a shockwave of distorted air which caught the cops unaware and knocked them off their feet.

Across the street the expanding wavefront even managed to forcefully bump the trashcans Butterfly had hidden behind as the crash and tinkle of broken windows came from all around.

Shadow Stalker ghosted briefly and was unaffected by the buffeting force in her breaker state. She crouched behind a cop car and reloaded her crossbows as the cyclopean steampunk stomped towards her.

With a ghost-assisted leap Shadow Stalker fired from ten feet in the air at the piston pushed powered armor on the other side of the BBPD car.

Precision use of her powers sent one bolt halfway into the fifty gallon barrel sized left forearm which apparently caused him to finch away as if in pain and the other shot re-solidified in the middle of the metal man's forehead.

"Walk that one off asshoOAAaaAAiiieee!"

Electricity snapped when the giant juggernaut whipped Shadow Stalker in the air above the police cruiser with the jumper cables.

The faked flinch was actually camouflage for him to whirl his right arm rapidly around and what had appeared to be a power cable inexpertly attached to the exterior of his armor flew loose to catch the Ward while in her breaker state.

The overconfident electrocuted former vigilante painfully smashed into the roof of the patrol vehicle, her prone form cast eerie moving shadows as the red and blue lights revolved beneath her body.

With a contemptuous flick of his wrist he broke off the crossbow bolt imbedded in his forearm and tossed the remains in Shadow Stalker's mask, leaned closer to the downed Ward menacingly and pointed to the bolt imbedded in his armored helmet.

"Ha, ha! You missed all my vital spots!"

"TRAINWRECK!" Squealer bellowed from the cab of her vehicle, "Quit fuckin' around and load that pig-mobile on the flatbed. We got what we came for!"

Kid Win was on all fours and vomited water as Moist climbed into Squealer's rig with one of the Ward's pistols captured as spoils of war.

The half-crushed cop car with two panicked robbers still handcuffed in the backseat rocked on its' suspension as Trainwreck unceremoniously scooped up the damaged vehicle and dropped it on the flatbed of Squealer's vehicle before clambering up after it.

With the deafening roar of engines and extension of middle fingers the Merchant Machine skimmed away on a platform of lightning to disappear without a trace not half a block away.

Butterfly briefly surveyed the aftermath of the cape battle, well... ambush if she was honest with herself, she had called down on the Wards and police officers as they moved slowly amid the broken glass scattered everywhere by that shockwave weapon of Squealers'.

"It couldn't happen to a nicer bitch," Butterfly thought as she made her way to the far end of the alley to jog back home. She was comforted in the knowledge that for Sophia the worst part was yet to come.

Filling out the paperwork.

She jogged home in the darkness, confident she would get to sleep well before Sophia had bumbled her way through whatever forms she was required to fill out as a Ward.

One advantage to being an independent hero the PRT never mentioned.

She was asleep in her own bed just over half an hour later.

_

Hours later in the middle of the graveyard shift Deputy PRT Director Rennick read the Wards after action reports taken on the way to the hospital where Panacea was before she went home for the evening.

Supplemented by video from the BBPD cameras as well as the convenience store's own footage gave them an excellent overview of what happened.

New power armor Tinker Trainwreck used jumper cables as an improvised cat-o-nine-tails versus Shadow Stalker.

She was faked out by the car battery hidden in his fist, thought the cables up his arm were attached.

Kid Win was double teamed by Squealer who ran over a fire hydrant which gave Moist plenty of water to work with.

Even though his Hoverboard was barely attached to his back it stayed on under the hydrokinetic assault, but he did lose one hard light pistol, the one out of its holster.

So far no success in tracking the Wards' stolen equipment.

Deputy Director Rennick sipped his coffee and typed his own reports, assigned preliminary power rankings for Trainwreck and pulled together other reports of increased Merchant activity, especially the rumored new insect Master mercenary.

ABB and E88 would see the increase in membership as an escalation and act accordingly.

Have to schedule extra patrols this weekend... Shit, that goddamn mandatory Dance thing was the day after tomorrow.

Just have to stack the deck with as many Wards tonight, tomorrow morning, and Saturday to free up the Protectorate capes to deal with it.

He scheduled a PRT representative to go to Anders Memorial Hospital and follow up on the reported muscular rogue who self-healed in the ER, try to get to him before the gangs recruited him.

Too bad Miss Militia had to reinforce Kid Win and Shadow Stalker instead of doing new cape outreach so now the trail had grown cold.

Just our luck he'd end up in one of the gangs, or worse in the Merchants and delude Skidmark he had enough firepower to take a run at E88.

He uploaded the first draft to the server and went to refill his coffee mug before editing his report to send to Director Piggot .

_

Timeline A: Coil's computer chimed as he received an automatic download of Deputy Director Rennick's report from the backdoor he'd had Tattletale hack into the PRT systems for him. It made for fascinating reading.

Timeline B: Thomas Calvert rolled over and went back to sleep.