Brockton Bay was what might be described as a target rich environment. The Empire had arms caches, they had safehouses, they had meeting places. Not to mention, their entire drug dealing business was an intricate beast with middlemen, several processing and packaging steps and various stockpiles.

Taylor spared nothing.

Her bomb drones weren't invisible, but they were matte black and they had been moved into place under the cover of night. Essentially they were just a drone platform with a mounting clamp, quite small, but there were lots of them. They detached from their myriad hiding places and flew the final short distance to their targets, a thousand prepared and scripted moves happening all at once.

They detonated, all at the same moment. This was the first wave, Taylor's own homemade bombs. The bang and flash was quite violent and they would produce acrid smoke, but they were ultimately not that dangerous.

The noise echoed all over the city, caught on Taylor's many camera drones. She watched in dozens of places as Empire thugs stumbled out of buildings, still coughing. Some of them had the wits to phone for backup, but most of them were getting a busy signal on their phones. A disadvantage to the Empire's hierarchical organization.

But now her second wave of drones activated. They had a simple two-fold design. First they detected all humans within a small range and confirmed their surroundings were clear.

And secondly, they triggered the Bakuda bombs they carried. At least, the ones Taylor had studied and felt confident enough to deploy, which was a tiny fraction of them. But still a lot, Bakuda had made an insane number of the things and none of them disappointed when it came to wreaking havoc.

A group of Empire drug dealers flinched back in horror; the building where they repackaged drugs into smaller packets for resale imploded inwards with a shriek of air as it crushed every atom into a singularity of nothingness.

An entire arms stockpile was instantly gone, a perfectly circular sphere around the bomb dumped into an alternate dimension, leaving razor sharp edges behind, carved into the walls.

A roaring inferno briefly brighter than the sun consumed an entire shipping container, stacked high inside with piles of neatly packaged cocaine bricks. Taylor hadn't bothered to look up the temperature at which cocaine degraded, whatever it was, it was lower than Bakuda's bomb.

More and more explosions came, all over the city, simultaneously. A multicoloured light show that put Bakuda's fight against the E88 utterly to shame in the sheer quantity and range. This wasn't contained to the docks and bad parts of the city, the Empire was everywhere and Taylor struck everywhere they were.

Almost instantly the Empire's capability to outfit its unpowered thugs and fund their operations had been destroyed. The capes were untouched, on purpose, but the Empire's ability to field their footsoldiers and enforcers was gone. Their drug business was destroyed, their stranglehold on the city gone.

Regrettably, Taylor was forced to destroy quite a bit of their cash stockpiles, but most was kept safe and sound for Lord Doom to retrieve. Not that Taylor could easily spend or launder it, but there was something to be said for hoarding like a dragon. She was planning on making a giant pile in one of her clandestine labs, so that she could have her drones dive in and out of it when she was bored.

Taylor also regretted using Bakuda's bombs, showing off her power and probably pleasing her in prison to no end. Each and every bomb Taylor detonated made the world just a little bit worse. But the Empire had struck at her civilian identity. The gloves were coming off, she was pulling out all the stops. This wasn't the time for compunctions.

A couple of seconds later the noise hit the PRT building, a crackling series of pops, close enough that they overlapped into a continuous roar that shook the windows for what felt like an eternity. Far off in the distance Taylor could hear a car alarm sound, followed by another and another, turning into a discordant chorus coming in from across the entire city. Police and PRT sirens followed soon after.

"Everything OK?" Myriad asked, sounding scared, and it wasn't entirely an act. She had expected it to be loud, but even then, the sheer power of the shockwaves striking the building surprised her. "What was that noise? Is the Empire attacking again?"

"I don't know," Simon said, checking his pager, which was silent. The PRT was still coordinating their response, they had been taken entirely by surprise. "Whatever it is, we're in the safest place in the city. Let's just stay calm and stay put."

Simon stood up and pulled down heavy metal shutters over the window, making the room feel dark and cramped as they prepared to wait out whatever madness was happening to the city.

It would be an understatement to say Taylor had cracked open a hornet's nest. It was more like she had smashed thousands off them all over the city and the metaphorical hornets were swarming.

Disoriented thugs were fleeing through the streets, trying to gather and organize some kind of resistance, but it was a futile effort, Taylor had struck everywhere. There was nothing left to defend.

But the real concern were the Empire capes. They had been ready for something, even if they didn't quite know what form it would take and they had smoothly enacted their plans. They were active all over the city, moving quickly and trying to find Lord Doom.

The authorities were still reeling. Piggot was at her desk, talking into the phone. Every few sentences she took a break to instead shout commands at the people rushing into her office. The Heroes were being organized: the Wards gathering at the PRT building and the Protectorate being sent out onto the streets the moment they arrived, some coming in from their time off.

It was the perfect time for Lord Doom to commit a robbery.

The Boardwalk had been crowded before the bombs, but it had quickly emptied as most people sought shelter. Lord Doom moved along the shops with their large windows, towards his target.

A few people were actually bold enough to follow him at a distance, filming him with their phones. Taylor made Lord Doom give them a cheery wave before he smashed the glass window of a security store.

Entry of the Gladiators by Julius Fučík started booming through the Boardwalk as Taylor hijacked the announcement system. It was a swift march with a lot of chromatic elements and actually musically quite impressive.

Of course, most people only knew it as the clown song.

Dozens of Lord Dooms came marching out an alleyway, stepping perfectly in time with the beat. Taylor's fabs had been working non-stop the last two days and even then she had to make some compromises. These were highly substandard Lord Dooms, but that didn't matter, not for this.

A small crowd had gathered now, people insane or foolhardy enough to want to see the capes up close. A few of them started cheering or booing. All of them were filming on some device or another.

The head Lord Doom looted the store indiscriminately through the window, taking any and all non-lethal weapons they had. The marching Lord Dooms came one by one to receive their pepper spray, taser, shock baton or any of the hundred other weapons that sold well in a city like Brockton Bay.

As they each were issued their weapon they took off, flying away into the air. One lucky Lord Doom managed to get a giant cattle-prod looking thing that Taylor honestly had trouble believing was legal to sell openly to people without a license.

Assault burst onto the scene, a giant leap carrying him across most of the boardwalk to land next to the head Lord Doom. His landing was off, far gentler than it should have been: it didn't so much as scuff the concrete.

Taylor wasn't surprised, she had seen him coming and even heard him report to the PRT operations center. A kinetic energy manipulator. Well this could be fun. Taylor had been expecting Armsmaster but one had to make do.

"Hey buddy!" Assault had an insufferable smirk on his face, the same one he wore in all the PR photos. "Knock that off will you? Now is not the time for your shenanigans."

Assaults' orders had been to end the disturbance and drive Lord Doom off. He was to return to dealing with the bombing crisis as quickly as possible, the PRT apparently didn't want to waste a Hero on a mole-whacking expedition with the current situation.

Well Lord Doom wasn't in a being-driven-off mood today and Taylor despised Assault's archetype. The popular kid, the class clown, always making unpleasant jokes at other people's expense.

"LORD DOOM DISAGREES, IT IS ALWAYS AN APPROPRIATE MOMENT FOR SHENANIGANS." Another Lord Doom got a taser and took off into the air.

Some of the spectators moved away, but the rest seemed only more excited by the immediate prospect of cape-on-cape violence. Civilians were apparently remarkably like lemmings. Well, Taylor had never minded an audience, she'd planned for having one in this case, but it still amazed her how willing people were to get close to a superpowered bout of violence.

"Your shtick isn't bad as comedy villains go, a bit overdone but I give it a solid six out of ten. Now buzz off before you find out how serious the Heroes can really get."

"LORD DOOM WOULD LIKE TO POINT OUT HE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE EXPLOSIONS. DOES THAT PERHAPS PUSH HIM UP TO A SEVEN OUT OF TEN?"

Assault set his mouth in a frown, suddenly looking very serious. "You're claiming responsibility? Why did you do this? How?"

"THIS IS THE FIRST OF LORD DOOM'S MOVES AGAINST THE EMPIRE. REST ASSURED HIS VICTORY IS INEVITABLE AND DISRUPTION OF THE CITY WILL BE KEPT TO A MINIMUM."

"Mass bombings? A bit of a step up from your usual style, isn't it?"

Did Assault actually not believe her? Taylor felt insulted! The clown-music was still playing, she shut it off before continuing.

"IT IS LORD DOOM, NOT LORD HAPPY-FUN-TIME," Lord Doom said in his booming voice that echoed across the street. "LORD DOOM CAPTURED MANY BOMBS FROM BAKUDA'S WORKSHOP AND HE HAS FOUND THEM USEFUL."

That did it, Assault finally put the pieces together, he believed her. Hopefully the spectators did as well. He immediately used his radio to report to the PRT and then turned to the head Lord Doom and the four copies still standing around him. "Don't move, you're under arrest."

"GOOD LUCK." The main Lord Doom had handed out nearly all his weapons, but it still had a bottle of pepper spray and a taser left. Taylor made it drop the taser and raise the pepper spray.

Assault moved. In an instant he shot forwards like cannonball and he was upon Lord Doom, ripping at his cloak. Taylor only barely self-destructed her drones in time to avoid exposure, the bottle of pepper spray falling down to the floor with a crack.

Assault bounced away before the remaining Lord Dooms could surround him and he put his fist through a Lord Doom's chest from the back. Taylor tried to grab his hand but it was slick as if it was oiled and within seconds another three Lord Dooms had been destroyed.

The Heroes were being clever, they had figured out Lord Doom needed to be covered by something, although they hopefully ascribed it to him being a Breaker. Assault was quite effective in destroying her foot soldiers by just ripping off their cloaks.

But quantity had a quality all of its own and Taylor had reserves. As Assault moved to face the last remaining Lord Doom it had been given plenty of time to raise and aim its pistol. With a hiss of gas it discharged a plastic pellet that shattered against Assaut's mask; spraying capsaicin laded powder directly into his eyes.

Assault immediately sprang, landing a dozen feet away, instinctively clawing at his eyes. Yet another Lord Doom descended behind him from the air, holding a quite large industrial looking sprayer mechanism.

Containment foam, or confoam, was highly secret Tinkertech only given out to select PRT officers. There was no way it would ever be sold in a regular store in the Boardwalk, or indeed placed anywhere a villain could conceivably get their hands on it.

What Lord Doom used to hose Assault down was in fact little-more than rebranded insulation foam, sold to a gullible public with the slogan 'just as good as the PRT version'. It was flammable and not nearly strong or fast-setting enough to hold down a brute. Not to mention it wasn't breathable.

However, it was incredibly sticky and expanded rapidly, instantly ruining most of Assault's costume. And quite probably his hair as well. Oops.

Despite being blinded by the pepperballs and having foam setting inside the limbs of his armour, he still managed to break free from the floor and jump into a wall, bouncing from it like a rubber ball to land back on the pavement.

Taylor resisted the urge to have Lord Doom play a BOINK sound. Someone on PHO would surely do the work of editing it onto the videos.

A towering pillar of light burst down from the heavens, instantly incinerating every Lord Doom on the street and smashing the pavement open along a long jagged trench.

The Empire had finally arrived, Taylor had honestly been expecting better response times from them. This was not the level of quality villainy the Bay deserved, she'd be complaining to their manager. Or well, she would, if she hadn't defenestrated him.