April 16th, 2011.

Friday, 8:47 PM.

There had been bombs going off all over the city since yesterday, and every time I heard another, I got more and more annoyed. When an explosion went off only a couple of blocks over, I almost had a heart attack. I immediately thought that somehow, we had missed another of String Theory's bombs, from years ago and that it had finally exploded. I found out this wasn't the case with a series of breaking news stories that had taken over the internet and a bunch of TV stations soon after.

There was a parahuman laying waste to Brockton Bay, again, just how many tinkers where related to bombs exactly? Was Swallow going to go off the deep end next and go on a rampage? The explosions were small in comparison to the one that String Theory had used years ago. It appeared they preferred quantity over quality, at least that's what I had thought before I had seen some of the insane effects of these things. Bakuda was apparently a quantity and quality kind of girl.

With Lungs detainment, Oni Lee and Bakuda had clearly come to some sort of arrangement. A short clip of her taking credit for the explosions played on repeat while the newscaster spoke in a solemn voice. The first bomb was thought to have detonated yesterday at 6:05 PM it was followed by about twenty others in quick succession. They had slowed down a great deal by this point, but they were still going off every couple of hours all over the city.

The thing that made this bomber scary was that each of the bombs had some strange secondary effect. There was a video that was being played on the news that had been recorded with someone's mobile phone, the vertical framing was awful. It showed a twisted spire of ice that originated from a building, the part of the building that had been inside of the blast radius had been transformed into ice and not just covered in it. You could tell because when the ice had started to melt, so had the building.

Another of the videos showed the front of a café that had a massive sphere cut out of the front of the shop. Everything was simply missing where it had exploded, with a perfectly clean line. I repressed a shiver, it looked reminiscent of the same type of explosion that had killed Belle. I turned on my computer at some point and was checking over half a dozen news sites for more information. I was had my window open and was keeping an ear out in case I had to go outside and show Bakuda why it was a bad idea to come near my apartment.

There was a link that had begun to show up with increasing frequency, it had been condensed into a short URL with no identifying information. But once you clicked on it was obviously Leet and Ubers live streaming page. I clicked the play button and it showed an entirely one-sided fight between them and the Undersiders. Bakuda had made a dramatic appearance afterward along with half a hundred other people, but by then the Undersiders had beaten the two unconscious already.

I replayed it to get an idea of how Bakuda did things, I couldn't really get a good read on how the Undersiders fought. Bitch and her three mammoth dogs weren't present either. The Undersiders managed to fight their way free of the ambush and ran from the deranged woman. She was following them on both feet, and then a jeep all the while taking shots at them with a grenade launcher. Jesus Christ, I checked the time code and found it started around 5:57 PM and Bakuda showed up around 6:10 PM.

The upside was that I was certain that if it wasn't an ambush that left me debilitated, I could wreck her shit If it came down to it. I wondered why Coil didn't contact me, this was literally what he had hired me to do. The video was replaying the part where the Undersiders slowly, as if in slow motion, ran from an explosion before they hit invisible barrier. As soon as they hit it, they shot forward at normal sprinting speed. The camera feed went black abruptly and the video ended.

It was possible that Coil had no idea about this until afterward. It was an ambush, the Undersiders probably didn't have time to contact him while they were running for their lives. I took my phone out and immediately called him, I'd best make sure; He picked up after three rings.

"Urchin." He said, sounding harried.

"Dude I just watched the Undersiders get destroyed by Bakuda, Lee and Uber." I said in a rush, "What on earth is going on?"

He paused for a moment before replying in a strange tone.

"You saw them fighting?" He asked accusingly. I blinked trying to figure out the problem, oh, he thought I'd watched them get wrecked.

"The Livestream that Leet and Uber have?" I ventured, "I just saw it online. What should I be doing?"

"Oh, of course." He sighed; I'd never heard him this stressed. "I currently have no tasks for you."

Like hell, people were getting fucking murdered outside and he didn't have anything for me to do?

"Coil," I said with forced calm. "I'm not sitting back and doing nothing while this crazy cape is blowing up my city. Do we know where she is, where any of the ABB is?"

He didn't say anything for a long while, I'd have thought he hung up if not for the continued sound of quiet breathing.

"That fight was at the Train-yards," I continued quietly into the silence. "Do the ABB have a base there?"

"We do not know the current location of Bakuda," He finally replied. It was like a punch in the gut, fucking crazy super villains.

"So, we do nothing then?" I asked miserably. This was bullshit, there had to be something I could do. Maybe I would just go out and starting raiding ABB locations.

"I am currently preparing a meeting of the minds," He offered. "I will require you to attend it a week from now."

A meeting of the minds? I wondered what that meant, we had done all our job stuff over the phone for a long time. A meeting in the flesh was unusual.

"Who's going to be there?" I asked.

"The entire villain population of Brockton Bay, if I can manage it." He said calmly. All the villains?! "To address the threat Bakuda poses, and the ABB in general."

So, we were doing something after all, I sighed. I just had to wait a week before shit got done. Couldn't they speed that up at all? That was a long time to wait with this crazy woman blowing shit up.

"Anything I can do to speed that up?" I asked, "Get in contact with people for you? Extend the olive branch?"

There was another long pause, I heard some noise in the background but couldn't make it out. I was pushing hard for something I knew, but I needed to do something.

"I have something for you after all," Coil said suddenly. "Purity, formerly of the Empire has been non-responsive to any form of contact."

Fuck yeah, here we go. Put me in coach I'm ready, I'm ready.

"You want me to get her on board?" I said outwardly calm, but inside was an entirely different story.

Recruiting Purity, this sounded like it would spice things up. Looks like the Full Frontals were going to be making a resurgence.

"It would be good to have her at the meeting." Coil replied distantly, his attention elsewhere.

"Alright," I said, "Where are we meeting?"

Coil told me he would send me a message later with the details and then abruptly hung up. I didn't care at this point; my mind was racing as I put together everything I knew about Purity. She would probably be a tough nut to crack, she had ditched the Empire at some point. That had to of taken some balls, they were the largest group of capes in the city. If she could walk away from that without problems she might not want to join.

Eh, what's the worst that could happen.


April 17th, 2011.

Saturday, 9:30 PM

The entirety of this week it had been raining almost non-stop and grey clouds still covered the sky. It wasn't raining right now, but it certainly had the potential to start at any moment; it was just a matter of when. It certainly made it easier to spot Purity as she streaked across the sky every now and again. For whatever reason, she had been super active last week, convenient for me.

I had seen her three times over the last two days alone, which was when I started looking for her. I was currently seated on the top of a skyscraper and watching the skyline for more appearances. All three of the sightings so far had been on the south side of downtown. I made sure to keep a low profile and remained still on the roof; until eventually I spotted her again. She blasted straight up into the sky from in between a cluster of buildings. She stopped on a dime and hung in the air before zipping across the city and stopping again before diving into an alleyway and vanishing.

She was unbelievably fucking fast, but there was no fucking way she could fight at that speed; I refused to believe it. Velocity the fastest cape in the city was faster than ever Purity, but his power stopped him from being able to interact with things because otherwise all sorts of strange shit would happen. There had to be a distinction between movement speed and actual combat speed. When Purity was going super-fast, she seemed to stick to moving in straight lines; and there were never any obstructions in her way. I wondered if she could track anything at that speed, I'd never seen a video of her fighting at that kind of speed either.

She was fast in the videos, but her top speed was far, far greater than what she had ever shown in a fight. When I went my maximum speed, everything blurred around me and it made it impossible to use in a fight. If I did try to, I would just be crashing into things and testing how strong my Armor was. I would be completely out of control and just fuck myself up not being able to react to anything around me. I think the same thing applied to her, but I couldn't be sure.

Her power set was supposed to be a variety of Blaster/Mover, she absorbed light, could shoot that light as a beam attack that hit with kinetic force and fly. She was talked about in the same breath as Legend on occasion. There was nothing that ever mentioned anything about enhanced reflexes, or super perception or anything. Either way, I would find out soon.

I had already decided on a game plan if I ended up having to fight her or run away. I would stay at a medium range, create a bunch of wire panels and keep them between us. She had no great durability feats of note and no strength feats either, if I could manage to snag her in wires, I could hold her. I would have to make sure her hands weren't pointed at anything important though, so make sure if I could capture her to point her hands straight up into the sky,

In the videos I'd studied she tended towards strafing runs while remaining at a distance, which made a great deal of sense given her powers. If somebody got close to her she could make some distance instantly with a burst of speed in any direction that was clear of obstacles.

I felt like, if I could take her by surprise, I could beat her 10/10 times.

If she ganked me instead, I would be screwed for the same reasons. She had enough fire power to level buildings and really ruin someone's day. If I got hit head on, I would be down instantly. I would need to get my shield panels up immediately and then sneak-shot her with a wire from behind. But luckily, I wasn't here to fight I was simply going to pop in give her a recruitment pitch. If she said no then it would be a pain in the ass, and I'd have to beat her up and make her join the Full Frontals by force. I'm sure we would have a nice polite discussion; she would agree to join, and I would be on my way.


April 17th, 2011.

Saturday, 10:47 PM

Purity was a busy bee this dark and stormy night, rushing to and fro flickering across the sky, not unlike a flash of lighting. I'd seen her a bunch more times in the last hour. I was wondering when she would finally call it a night as this was starting to get boring as fuck, I'm not going to lie. I spotted her streak into the air and stop for a moment before angling back towards where she started earlier. I had over the course of the night moved closer to that cluster of buildings, hoping that she would head back, and it looked like I was in luck. I stood still on a roof and waited a moment. She streaked across the city and stopped above me, but I still didn't move.

She shot towards the ground and landed in the alleyway the bright light abruptly vanishing and leaving a short figure in a clean white bodysuit standing alone, her shoulders sagged she must be tired after the patrol. I jumped off the roof and landed behind her quietly.

"Hey, Purity!" I shouted from right behind her. "Join my team!"

She jumped about a foot in the air and let out a shriek. I started laughing and then everything exploded. Holy shit, I yanked myself back up to the roof and away from the shining white figure that stood with her hand pointed up at me. I juked to the right and then pulled back to the left and over the roof. A white burst of light smashed into the lip of the roof and showered me in debris. If I hadn't purchased my brand-new anti-Purity tinted ski-goggles I would be blind as fuck right now, as it was it was still hard to look at her at all.

"Wait!" I yelled still laughing, diving to the side as she cleared the roof and shot again. "Hang on!" I yelped falling onto my back and yanking myself across the roof.

"Who are you!?" She shouted angrily. "You would come after me here?"

She was still fucking shooting, maybe I should have done this differently? It seemed funny at the time, but she seemed pretty mad.

"Stop-fucking-shooting-at-me!" I said jerking myself away from each shot. "and I'll answer!"

She paused for about a second and as soon as I stopped to explain; she shot me again. This, bitch. It clipped my shoulder and spun me to the ground in a dizzying spiral.

I reeled myself away and brought some of the panels I'd created in between us.

"Hold your fucking horse's lady!" I shouted. "Calm down or I'm going to spank you!"

I created some hands that hovered around my shoulders and made chopping motions in the air. She stopped for realsies this time upon seeing all the random shit I had just pulled out of nowhere.

"You're that mercenary, starfish or crab guy or whatever!" She said still angry as fuck.

"I'm not fucking Crab-Man. My name is Urchin!" I said back, kind of pissed off. "I want you to join my team!"

She still hadn't lowered her hand at all. Pointing it threateningly at me.

"Why the hell would I want to join your shitty team?" She said harshly.

Shitty team!?

"Excuse me," I said shocked, "You're one to talk considering you were the one on the shitty-ass-bitch-boy-nazi-team!?"

She shot me again. Fuck this, we were going to do it the hard way. I moved the panel in front of the shot, and it punched about a third of the way through, shit. I thickened the other panels in response and sent the arms up into the air to come down at her from an angle. She strafed to the side and the arms stretched endlessly following her path closely. Purity avoided them with ease moving in a serpentine path with brief bursts of increased speed to jaunt out of any traps.

She continued shooting the entire time and her shots started puncturing through my newly reinforced panels.

I thickened them again until they were about a foot deep and great big dents started to show up on them with each shot. Jesus Christ that would one tap me easily, I thickened my own Armor until I was surrounded by meter-thick walls of metal. This caused her to start hammering away at my fortress with massive bursts that dug trenches into it. I increased the size of it again and moved down to the bottom left of the pyramid-like structure. I repaired them within moments and started flying the triangle-made-of-circles thing towards her.

She started flying back towards her alleyway and heading lower to the ground, what was she doing? I cleared the roof and came down towards her and she hit me with the biggest attack yet.

It dug straight through the front wire wall and over my shoulder halfway into the next one. I gaped at the melted hole and looked out of it down at her, she was panting on the ground back in a plain white costume. What the fuck woman, that would have killed me, exactly what type of fight did she think this was?

"Hey, asshole!" I yelled at her, pissed off for the first time. "That almost took my head off!"

My fortress grew massive arms and reached out and lifted her into the air. Her arms were trapped and only her upper body and head were visible, she struggled against the massive articulated metal fingers. I frowned down at her waiting for her to try and explode me again, she eventually stopped struggling and stared sullenly up at me.

"Don't tell me you just gave up?" I said, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Why did she go back to the ground anyway? She could have just flown away if she thought she was losing, and as far as I could tell she was slapping me around for a while there. I couldn't catch her easily, and she had been hammering away at me. Up close I could make out her features somewhat. Brown hair, brown eyes, short, she was probably in her mid-late twenties. I'd never seen her before in my civilian life, and it felt strange that this pretty but rather plain woman was a super villain.

"Fuck off." She said without heat. "I ran out of juice, idiot." I blinked at her.

I'd never heard of a cape that had a limit to how much they could use their power. I had never felt tired after using mine or ran out of whatever powered my ability. I'd run into resistance before whatever strangeness had removed my width limiter. Just who exactly was the weird one here?

"That's okay sweetie," I said soothingly, "I hear that happens to a lot of women." She snorted.

"You're an idiot." She said, "Are you just going to keep me here forever?" She jerked her head at the hands holding her.

I was thinking about it, I'm not going to lie. This exchange had gotten me a bit heated, probably the near-death part but who could truly know?

"I'll hold you all night long if that's what you want," I said lecherously, waggling my eyebrows behind my mask.

"Uhuh," She said archly, "I'm sure a kid your age has plenty of experience with that right?" Oof, she was a ruthless beast. Besides I was turning eighteen in five days!

"Okay getting back on topic," I coughed once, "Thank you for joining our team, The Full Frontals!" I stared to clap and gestured to her.

She sighed and sagged a little bit.

"What is the team for? What are its goals?" She asked.

That's a great fucking question, I didn't say. I have no idea, Coil said we needed help for the meeting about the ABB. Rebuilding the Full Frontals was kind of a recent decision, so I hadn't really thought about it. I guess it would just be an extension of my mercenary job, but now as a team. Yeah!

"We are pretty much just here to kick everybody's ass," I gestured to her vaguely as an example of an ass I had just elegantly kicked. "Next targets on the agenda are Lung, Bakuda and Oni Lee."

Something changed in her expression at that, interesting.

"Ohoh, interested, are we? Primarily the Full Frontals are a Mercenary group. We do jobs for money." I said grinning. "What say you Recently-Defeated-Girl!?" I shouted and pointed at her.

Annoyance flashed across Purity's face for a second, before she sighed.

"Fine, I'll join your team," She said with a nod. "and you won't tell anyone who I am?"

I blinked behind my mask, who the fuck even was she? Did she think I knew who everyone in this stupid city was? How arrogant to presume that I the incredibly famous and daring Urchin would know who she was.

"You got yourself a deal." I floated up to her and held out my hand, she just stared at me.

I stared back uncompromisingly.

"You've got my arms pinned, idiot!" She said after I just continued to stare at her. Oh right.

"Just testing you," I freed her arms and she shook my hand with a sigh.

I lowered her to the ground and vanished the wires, we stood around awkwardly for a minute unsure what to do. I whipped out my phone and pointed at her.

"What's your number sparky?" I asked, reaching out and elbowing her in the arm. Purity slapped my arm away.

"Don't call me that." She said annoyed. She looked over at the building behind her and hesitated for a moment before sighing. "You already know who I am what does it matter at this point?"

She pulled a phone from somewhere I didn't see.

"Wow, that plus-one inventory space coming in strong huh?" I nodded towards her. Purity looked at me strangely.

"I have no idea what that means." She said. Oh. She gave me her number and I put it on my phone. "What should I put you down as?" She motioned to her phone.

"I'll show you mine," I said, "If you show me yours!"

I snatched her phone with a wire, and she yelped and swiped at me, I floated upside down out of her reach. I typed in 'Booty-Call#1' as the name of my contact in her phone. She was throwing a tantrum below me, so I tossed her my phone instead. I clicked back onto the contacts and found a picture of herself with 'Kayden Anders' as the name.

What a silly name, jokes totally incoming. I glanced down and she was still looking through my phone, I click onto the camera and then onto pictures. I nosed my way through a bunch checking for any goodies.

Nothing.

"It's the current year!" I shouted and tossed it back down to her. "Where is the god damned nudes?!"

She huffed and messed with my phone for a bit longer before holding it out for me to take back.

"Andy Bowman," She said afterward. "aren't you worried that I'll tell someone who you are?"

"Kayden Anders," I said back to her, like a fucking cool-guy. "consider it a trust-building exercise."

She nodded hesitantly.

"Besides if you fuck me over, I'll spell your name out in the sky in hundred-foot letters."

I tugged off my mask and grinned at her, she sighed.

The Full Frontals were back in action.


Author Notes:

There is number 18. I'm a bit late with this one, I got married a couple of days ago so I've been pretty busy. We are rebuilding the Full Frontals again, any guesses on the next team member?