The cavalry came in the form of the entire Protectorate minus Assault, who was discovering to his misfortune that confoam solvent did not work on insulation foam. They were here to arrest the architect behind the city wide bombing, but with him blown up Empire capes were the next-best thing in the area.

Purity immediately fled the Boardwalk, with Dauntless hot on her tail. She twisted around to fire a blinding beam at him, but he caught it on his shield without even slowing down. In return he shot a crackling burst of electricity, which Purity only barely managed to dodge.

The substandard Lord Dooms had spread themselves out across the city by now, but many of them were still close to the Boardwalk.

Everywhere Taylor had bombed an Empire gathering place of some sort there were confused and scared thugs outside and she had a Lord Doom charge them, armed with a stolen non-lethal weapon.

One Empire gangster, senior enough to be allowed an illegal firearm, put six shots through a Lord Doom's body, pretty close to center of mass. It clipped one drone, but Lord Doom kept on slowly marching forward. The cattle-prod thing Taylor had acquired made a nasty electrical buzzing noise as Lord Doom pressed the trigger to make it arc.

She was just approaching close enough to where she'd have to somehow find an excuse not to actually use the weapon when Alabaster finally ran up behind Lord Doom and slit the cloak open with a knife, necessitating a self-destruct.

Purity, Night, Fog and Alabaster were out in the 'good' parts of town, close to the Boardwalk, running interference. Their mere presence was keeping the regular police at bay, who weren't sure what was happening, but who were trying desperately to keep the peace in the streets somehow. This was good for the Empire because it gave their unpowered members more time to organize and try to salvage what they could.

But more importantly they were ripping easily through the horde of discount Lord Dooms menacing the Empire members. Assault had helpfully shown the entire Brockton Bay how to "kill" a Lord Doom and it seemed the Empire had indeed been paying attention.

By carefully positioning the discount Lord Dooms just right she had led Purity's team directly into the Protectorate. Taylor felt confident the Heroes would prevail there, especially with Night's power on the fritz. Almost like someone was constantly watching her no matter where she went.

The rest of the Empire were split into groups, one moving through their territory. There, in the worse parts of town, the police and Protectorate hadn't even made an attempt at restoring order. The Empire there wasn't trying to protect its unpowered members, they were out for Lord Doom's blood.

Taylor was happy to give it to them, or at least the next best substitute. She had swarms of the substandard ones. Too many for her to control properly, all they really could do was kind of walk forward towards Empire thugs and wave their weapons threateningly.

Stormtiger and Rune were in the forward group, and with Rune's highly mobile platform they swept around their territory. Rune didn't even land, Stormtiger would jump off, slay the Lord Doom, and then jump back on to speed forward towards the next.

Taylor had expected Stormtiger to look happy or bloodlusted or whatever kind of joy Hookwolf's crazy group took in their bloodsports. But instead he was grim and angry. It seemed the PRT wasn't quite as airtight as it believed and Hookwolf's death had at least reached some people.

The rank and file of the Empire hadn't been informed though, or otherwise Taylor would have heard.

The second group in Empire territory were gathered in their last remaining armoury. It hadn't been blown up because it had been a fallback established immediately after the hit on Myriad, kept absolutely top-secret from almost their entire organisation. Now it was the center of their resistance.

Empire thugs from across the city were obeying orders and moving towards it to receive weapons; the Empire had some very nasty stuff stockpiled. Bombs, grenades, machine guns, biohazard gear. It seemed they'd been preparing for just about anything.

Menja alone stood guard next outside the warehouse door leading to their cache of weapons. She had already killed a few probing attacks by Lord Doom. Othala was there as well, constantly giving out regeneration to heal Empire members. Taylor hadn't seriously injured any of them, but many had cuts and burst eardrums. A few had been knocked over and trampled in the confusion and had gotten worse injuries.

The sight of all the injured people made Taylor hesitate. But no, she would never have peace while the Empire existed in the city. It had to be done. She skipped between her camera drones, trying desperately to find the last Empire cape, Krieg.

Oh. Krieg, or rather James Fliescher, had gotten into a car and was driving to Boston with a reckless disregard for speed limits. Taylor replayed some footage, Krieg had fled the moment the bombs happened. He hadn't even bothered to call the rest of the Empire to say goodbye.

Taylor hadn't expected that, but she could cope. She would later call in an anonymous report to the police that Lord Doom had left a bomb in a car with that license plate, that would be enough to get him stopped and searched and hopefully he'd do something stupid. And if not he'd take it as a warning.

It was with a distinct sense of melancholy that Taylor moved the final Lord Doom into place. This was the end of an era, a time in her life she had genuinely enjoyed. She would carry on, but it wouldn't be the same. It wasn't a game anymore and she missed the days when it was. Or at least when she thought it was.

The final Lord Doom swept down from the sky with speed. This wasn't a discount Lord Doom, it wasn't even a regular one, it was the absolute peak of Taylor's current skill built for a specific purpose. It would have to be tougher and better than usual, the environment it had to operate in would be incredibly hostile.

Taylor landed it in the Boardwalk, close to where the Protectorate had been restraining Purity's group of capes for pickup.

Armsmaster was the first to react, twisting away from where he had been cuffing Alabaster to swipe at Lord Doom with his halberd.

Lord Doom moved with impossible speed, dodging the blow. Armsmaster immediately struck again, using the backside of the weapon on the way up. It was still futile, this Lord Doom was fast. Taylor merely had a thought, twitched her eyes, and this Lord Doom completed the motion instantly.

"LORD DOOM HAS NO QUARREL WITH YOU TODAY ARMSMASTER. STAND ASIDE, HE HAS BUSINESS WITH THE EMPIRE"

"For once!" Armsmaster shot out a heavy lead ball that pushed Lord Doom over, too fast for Taylor's reaction times to dodge.

"Just!" A lightning bolt played against Lord Doom's cloak, damaging a few of Taylor's heavily insulated drones.

"Shut up!" A cutting edge of fire managed to turn Lord Doom's entire left arm in ragged shreds of cloth.

Taylor decided to humour Armsmaster: instead of speaking Lord Doom just held up something in his unwounded arm. A small metal capsule, made from scrap metal and sloppily welded shut. Bakuda took no pride in the appearance of her devices.

Armsmaster's halberd thundered; blue-flames pouring out of the bottom as he shot up into the air. He was out of range immediately, coming back down in a parabola to land at a safe distance.

He was really the coolest Hero. That was the one highlight of joining the Wards, maybe she'd get to work with him. But now was the absolute final moment, the one her plan hinged on. Would Armsmaster be competent enough? Or would she have to make a plan B on the fly?

Taylor rolled the dice and Lord Doom threw the grenade, aiming it with superhuman ability directly at Purity's face.

Armsmaster did something with his halberd and the head shot off, crossing the distance with a supersonic crack, leaving a trail of white smoke behind in the air.

Exactly as planned, the fight was in the Boardwalk, normally the busiest place in the entire city. Taylor positioned Lord Doom correctly, standing tall, his burning eyes facing the world, the glimmering of the dark metal crown just visible under the hood.

Armsmaster's halberd-head struck the grenade and it exploded midair, covering Lord Doom and the captured Empire capes.

The three other grenades Taylor had planted exploded as well. One had been stuck underneath Rune's flying platform. Another caught Kaiser just as he was dropped by the Lord Doom holding him.

And the last one had been in the armoury Lord Doom had 'missed', where the regular Empire members who still felt like fighting had established themselves. Of course Taylor had been aware of it, she'd been aware of every move the Empire had made in preparation.

Bakuda had made one kind of grenade over and over again, trying to get it right. Taylor had found a hundred failed versions. Bakuda had been trying to emulate other cape's abilities and what she had done with Vista's had honestly given Taylor nightmares. Those grenades had been safely shredded and turned into drones.

The four grenades Taylor was using now were 'failures' in Bakuda's terms. Clockblocker's power turned into a bomb that would freeze everything within a certain radius. Bakuda considered the grenades failures because they wouldn't last very long, at most a few months.

The working one Bakuda had used in her fight against the Empire would last for centuries, trapping whatever was inside for effectively forever.

Purity and her group were frozen, still restrained, sitting against the wall of a shop on the Boardwalk.

Rune and Stormtiger hung in the air above the city, a permanent snarl etched on the visible parts of their faces.

Max Anders was eternally falling from the Medhall building, far above the street, utterly in shock that Lord Doom had actually dropped him.

The rest of the Empire, its many unpowered members higher up in the hierarchy, their remaining weapons, Othala and Menja were all frozen at their armoury.

The Empire was gone, completely and utterly gone. Not a shred remained, at least until the bubbles burst in a few months. Hopefully the PRT would have figured out the rate of decay and be waiting for them.

There notoriously was a revolving door prison system for villains. Taylor didn't want that for the Empire, they chose not to play by the Unwritten Rules and they'd serve some real time. For some definition of serving time at least. After a bit of imprisonment in the time bubble they'd be released, no harm done.

And if any of them felt like talking when they got out? Telling the PRT about some link between Myriad and Lord Doom? Well, that would be months later. Even if the PRT somehow believed them enough to investigate, even if the PRT somehow found evidence, then what? Would they tell the world about their Ward's criminal past? Or would they quietly hush it up?

Hookwolf's four thugs in lock-up might be a problem, down the line, but Taylor doubted it. They weren't talking to the PRT now, and if it ever looked like that might change, Lord Doom could pay them a late-night visit in their cells. He wouldn't even have to speak or make any threats, Taylor felt certain after her wholesale destruction of their organization just his red eyes appearing briefly at night would silence them.

The instant the time-field covered the Lord Doom in the Boardwalk every other Lord Doom self-destructed. They died by the dozens, all throughout Empire territory in the entire city, in front of a hundred witnesses. At the same instant each and every one of them collapsed, their empty cloak and crown crashing down to the ground.

The Heroes had slain Lord Doom at long last. Like Lung, he was unkillable by most conceivable means. But Bakuda's bombs broke physics on every level and it made for a plausible story.

The bubbles would fade from outside-in, shrinking as their power ran-out. Lord Doom, close to the epicenter, would take more than a year to be freed. And until then he'd stand in the middle of the Boardwalk, a permanent statue. His majesty and power displayed to all.

Taylor retained just enough control to move him, very slowly from her point of view. Enough to make his eyes flicker and dim over the course of a week, or reposition a limb. Enough to keep a legend alive.

Lord Doom would never again be in the public eye or stream his exploits. As far as the general public and the PRT was concerned he was accidentally killed.

But if a villain ever crossed a line? Went after a civilian identity? Murdered? Well, then they'd rapidly find out Lord Doom was still very much alive and active. And as unstoppable as ever.

The Unwritten Rules were perhaps a wishful tale people told themselves. But Taylor would make them real, by force. As Bakuda had learned, as the Empire had learned, Lord Doom came for those who broke them.

Lord Doom was beyond death after all.