4.3
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Amy ended up agreeing to meet up in costume on Saturday to try working on a project. She looked like she was even more excited about it more than I was. It also made me consider the whole Amy situation. It didn't take me more than a few minutes of reflection to figure out what dad had been laughing about when we had met up on Saturday. I wasn't entirely sure what to think about it. I hadn't really had the opportunity to think about romance before gaining powers, and now, the idea would be complicated.
I didn't really have any problems with it per se. The considerations of a single body these days were so unimportant that I could easily see forming attachments to pretty much anyone who interested me enough mentally. But that was part of the problem. A relationship between a single body of my swarm and another person would be a very unequal relationship. After mulling the problem over for a while, I decided that anyone I was legitimately interested in pursuing a relationship with would have to be told about my true nature. It also meant that I would need to trust them a great deal before ever beginning the relationship since that information would be very damaging to me if it ever got out. But enough dwelling on problems.
Testing went well after lunch. Since most of them were timed tests, I didn't get an opportunity to finish them early, even though I filled out all the questions in half the time. The joys of standardization I guess. When I finished my last one for the day, I was in a rush to get home. I was looking forward to my first real patrol despite the fact that I knew from following the Wards around that patrols were mostly calm. The Protectorate patrols got a little more exciting, but so far, I hadn't needed to intervene in any of their fights since I started shadowing them. The local Protectorate members were quite competent.
As soon as I made it home, I scrawled off a note to my father and went in to the basement to get my armour on. I ran all the way to the PRT headquarters, grinning the whole way. It might not mean much in the grand scheme of things, but this was going to be my first outing as an official hero.
Turning visible about a minute away from my destination, I enjoyed seeing the looks of recognition on peoples faces. It was nice getting approving glances and the occasional photo snapped. Going through the front door, I waved my still new Wards phone in front of the elevators, allowing me access. When I got to the Wards room, I held my face up to the scanner and spoke my name. After a second to process it, the door opened with a click.
Missy was sitting on the couch, already half armoured. She had her visor sitting off to the side as she watched cartoons. When she heard me come in, she quickly turned the cartoons off, embarrassed. "Hi Taylor. I didn't know anyone else would be here so soon after school. It usually takes the guys a while longer to get here. You're on patrol with me and Aegis today right?"
Opening my helmet for slightly more human conversation, I replied. "Yeah. Do you guys often do patrols with three Wards? I haven't seen it yet."
She shook her head, blonde hair flying everywhere. "Nah, that's just 'cause we're showing you the ropes. It would mess the schedule up if we needed two thirds of us here just to run normal patrols. We usually rotate so that everyone has three patrols per week, two on weekdays and one on the weekend. With two on patrol and one on console, only half of us need to be here to run patrols, so it works out to have a patrol from somebody almost every day of the week."
Nodding, I went over to the couch and turned on the TV. Missy blushed slightly at the slightly juvenile cartoons, but I figured she wouldn't mind the excuse to keep watching them if I was the one to turn them on.
I asked a bit about the upcoming patrol while we waited for Aegis to show up. Turns out we would be taking a safe route, mostly just to teach me the protocol. Missy didn't think we would run in to any trouble, especially since the area by the boardwalk wasn't really claimed by any of the gangs, but you could never entirely predict the Merchants.
When Carlos got here and got dressed, Missy stuck her helmet on and we were ready to go. Carlos was explaining the usual procedure over the radio while we left the building via the front entrance. I had a swooper and a runner discretely follow us while invisible.
"First things first, we radio the console to let them know that we are beginning our patrol. 'Aegis to console, this is Aegis, Vista, and Hive, beginning patrol.'"
"Console acknowledges." Replied Chris' voice.
Aegis continued. "On the routes that start further away from base, we'll usually ride a PRT transport to the start of the route unless it's just me and Kid Win, since we can both fly."
"Well, I sometimes just walk, but I cheat." Vista butted in, grinning. "Speaking of which, want to come with me on the rooftops? It's fun, I promise."
I nodded, may as well get the full experience. With a slightly eye watering stretch, the nearest rooftop was suddenly close enough for us to step on to, while still being at the top of the building across the street. Aegis took to the air while Vista and I started walking along the rooftops. Every time we got close to the edge, she would stretch the rooftops together so we could continue on as though we were walking on a level surface.
From the air, Aegis was pointing out things on the street level. "When we're doing the safer routes like this, we usually try to be seen, and sometimes stop to do things like give autographs. The more dangerous routes we tend to try to hang back a little more, looking for trouble. The things you're actually looking for are the same either way. We're listening for gunfire, breaking glass, screams, that sort of thing. If you smell smoke or see someone running, they are also cues to investigate. As soon as you notice something out of place, you let your teammates know, then radio it in."
We continued in silence down the boardwalk, before turning off to go deeper in to the city.
It was about ten minutes later when something odd happened. I could sense a large vehicle approaching with echolocation, but there was nothing visible. I decided that it warranted letting my teammates know.
"Hey Aegis! There's an invisible vehicle approaching from the North. What do you want me to do?"
He turned to look down the road, squinting to see if he could somehow detect it. "It's probably one of Squealer's drug running vehicles. Can you disable it safely?"
Instead of answering him, I had my invisible runner take aim at where the truck was moving and launched my vehicle net at it.
'Thwoomp.'
Immediately, the net disappeared from view, but I could tell that it had done it's job of tangling the vehicles tires, because black streaks on the pavement appeared where the wheels had spun out. I ran my runner at the front end of the vehicle and punched the hood as hard as I could, leaving a huge dent and causing the invisibility effect to fizzle out. The engine also started giving off alarming amounts of smoke.
Aegis was calling it in. "Console, Squealer's invisible vehicle disabled on 4th and main. Skidmark spotted, two unpowered- Get Down!" He screamed.
The two unpowered Merchants in the back of the pickup were bound up in the net, but the two that had piled out of the truck with Skidmark had both climbed out with beefy machine guns with huge drum mags. They opened fire with a huge racket while Skidmark started laying down his boosting fields in front of them, making the bullets whine past even faster. Me and Vista were under cover of the corner of the roof, with much of the wall in front of us bent up to also be between us and the very large guns. Being in the air, Aegis had already been hit at least twice, but he managed to dive behind a large rooftop air conditioning unit.
I tried shooting nets at the ones with guns, but they were deflected enough by the boosting fields that they snagged uselessly on the truck. Skidmark appeared to be swearing up a storm like usual. He was yelling in to a cellphone, but was totally inaudible over the roar of the guns.
"This is console. Orders are to disengage and wait for backup."
All three of us started creeping away from the truck, and the bullets started coming our way a little less frequently. My runner could see the barrels of their guns steaming while my swooper made it's way to the other side of the Merchants to launch nets from that angle.
I looked over to Aegis for a reply, but he had a throat wound from one of the bullets. It didn't appear to be causing him any trouble other than the fact that he couldn't talk at the moment. When me and Vista realized that he wouldn't be talking, mission control technically switched over to Vista, who replied to console.
"This is Vista. We're back out of range and Hive is bothering them with her creatures. Aegis has a throat wound and will be unable to talk for the duration of the mission." She spoke in a no nonsense voice, inflection gone from her normally bubbly speech.
I got one of the Merchants with a net, but Skidmark was considerably faster on the uptake than I was expecting and managed to lay down a field to deflect the second shot. Even as the swooper dove to get a better angle, Skidmark laid down a third field, roughly covering his small group in a triangle of fields facing outwards.
"Shit-sucking cunt muffins won't get me that easy! Come get me you rotten ass wounds!" Floated Skidmark's distinctive voice. I flew the swooper a little higher, hoping to get a shot over the field's effect, but another deflected shot proved that they extended up quite far.
Just as I was contemplating what to do next, two heavily modified cars screeched around the corner and squealed to a stop by Skidmark. Skidmark gave two great tugs at one of crates in the bed of the truck, before giving up and swearing viciously.
I wasn't sitting idly by though. I fired my other vehicle net at one of the cars, and stuck two doors and one wheel on the other one with regular nets.
Since the other two couldn't see what was happening, I relayed what was happening. "Hive to console, two more vehicles showed up with more Merchants. I've got two of three vehicles stuck, but the Merchants are shooting up the place.
They were firing wildly, trying to hit either of my creatures. Either not knowing or not caring that the smaller guns that they were using didn't have much hope of actually hurting one, unlike the boosted big guns from earlier.
"Console acknowledges. Try to avoid further injury and wait for backup."
Three more merchants went down to nets, but I was starting to run out and I really hoped to bag Skidmark before they got a chance to run away. Skidmark was already doing a running retreat to the last working vehicle, shoving one of his merchants out of the way to get to the car.
"Most Merchants down and bagged, several trying to escape in the last remaining vehicle." I added, trying to sum up the running battle in as few words as possible.
He was laying fields behind him as he ran, so I missed with two of my last three nets, but I finally managed to get his legs with my last one. I was just about to cry out in triumph when he wiggled out of his pants and finished the run to the car. Burning rubber with three wheels, while the fourth one had a net on it that stuck it in place. My runner was leaping to slam in to the hood when the wheel finally tore a chunk of the wheel well off, spraying plastic bits everywhere but allowing the car to drive.
My runner crumpled the rear of the roof of the car, but tumbled off the back as Skidmark started accelerating wildly with the car belching flame and smoke out of it's tail pipes.
"I'll get you ass-licking donkey fuckers back for this!" Screamed Skidmark as his car pulled away.
Console decided that now would be the time to pipe up. "Remain on scene and disarm any immobilized gang members, do not pursue, I repeat, do not pursue."
With that instruction given, Vista started bending space again to get back to the ground while Aegis just flew down. They started grabbing guns out of ganger's hands as I made sure that the one big gun we had captured was staying down. A few of the Merchants had escaped, but we had captured two of Squealer's modified vehicles as well as several gang members. I was thinking that was it, when I noticed one of the boxes that had been smashed by gunfire in the back of the truck that Skidmark was driving in.
It looked like they were smuggling close to half a ton of cocaine in to a stash house with the invisible truck. No wonder Skidmark brought out the big guns immediately. This was millions of dollars worth of drugs.
Some PRT vans arrived less than a minute later. The troopers swarming out and making sure that everyone was disarmed and bound, before starting to secure the scene.
One of the men called for wagons to come and pick up the gang members while the rest were still focusing on making sure everything was safe. One of them walked over.
"Hey Hive. Good job finding one of Squealer's cloaked vehicles. The higher ups might take issue with taking action without checking first, but I appreciate it. My cousin was killed by some of that Merchant crap they call drugs. Looks like you just took a lot off the street." He nodded to me with respect, before walking back to his post.
Odd source of recognition, but I would take it. Overall I was pretty happy with my first day out. I knew that it would take forever to get through all the debriefing, but for getting this amount of crap off the street, I would gladly do it twice over.
Hopefully, with so much of their product missing, some of the Merchants could get clean a little easier and the gang would calm down a little. I could always hope.