April 22nd, 2011.
Thursday, 9:02 AM.
I spent my 18th birthday alone, which didn't bother me that much. I had decided to skip school for the day and caught a bus into the central business district. I wandered around for a bit before deciding to go watch a movie. I ducked into the cinema and bought a deluxe ticket for a comedy movie about a pair of princes' trying to save one of their fiance's. I got myself a frozen drink and some popcorn and sat down and watched it, barely anyone was in the room. I realized that I hadn't spoken to anyone all day, other than the cinema staff. I'd received no birthday greetings or cards with good wishes. It was kind of my own fault anyway, the only people who could have even known it was my birthday would be at school. Even then I barely interacted with them, it was unlikely that anyone had bothered to remember, if they had none in the first place. It sounded pretty sad, when I thought about it.
Don't get me wrong, I got along with people just fine, even if people did tend to become annoyed from my constant jokes. I'd talk to people in my classes, and at during breaks in the cafeteria. I'd respond to questions and crack jokes at people's expense, I was on pretty good terms with most of the kids my age, with only a few enemies around. But at the end of each day, I would go home. None of the people that I interacted with in school ever made an effort to talk to me outside of it, and I certainly wasn't going to reach out and beg for friendship. That was as simple as it was, I wasn't willing to make people give a shit about me by forcing the issue, so I stayed in my lane. I went to school every morning, I left school every afternoon, my school life was completely separated from the outside world, and that was that.
I tossed my half-eaten popcorn into the bin on the way out of the building smiling, the movie was hilarious. Definitely the funniest thing I'd seen all year. I stepped out of the front doors and back into the thriving city life, the sun was shining and there was an empty bench nearby with my name on it. I sat around and just watched people for a while thinking, the explosions had slowed down a great deal once Lung had been yoinked from his cell. There had been a great deal of noise on the news about it this week. I'd tried to contact coil but every time I did it would just ring out. The dude was totally ghosting me, I was considering hunting him down and kicking his ass.
What was even more annoying was that it felt like I was being sidelined. Even when the Lung fiasco had occurred almost a week ago, he hadn't even called me. I felt like I was being sidelined again. I never even got to tell him that I'd succeeded in recruiting Purity either. I guess Coil was busy setting everything up for his meeting or whatever, trying to organize a bunch of crazy villains was bound to be tough. I sighed; I couldn't lump all the blame onto the guy.
Speaking of Purity, I realized like a day after I'd recruited her that I hadn't offered her any money. It made him wonder why she had accepted so easily. Maybe she was rich and didn't need any? Even so, who wants to work for free, I'd have to split what I was getting from coil with her. It would have to do for now, if she wanted more I'd have to pay from my own funds. Yikes, my precious money mountain.
I'd been keeping in contact with Kayden via instant messaging, to make sure she wasn't about to vanish and hang me out to dry. Our chat logs were bizarre, every now and then I would send her a message about something to make sure she hadn't been blown up or assassinated or something. Movies had given me the impression that sending secret messages to a hot older woman would be a lot raunchier.
I'd sent her a bunch of winky faces and "You good?" messages. She would simply reply with variations of "Yes." And "I'm fine." I sent her an eggplant once for laughs and she'd left me on seen for hours. Even last night I sent her a hilarious meme and she didn't even reply! This was bullshit, our working relationship was going to need some work. My phone dinged suddenly and brought me back to the present, it was a message from Coil. The meeting was happening tomorrow night at a place called Somer's Rock. I'd better find out where the hell that was exactly.
Well if I couldn't crack Kayden with winky faces and eggplants, I'd just have to win her over with my charming personality.
April 23rd, 2011.
Friday, 6:17 PM.
I held myself aloft with wires and slowly lowered myself down towards a building. I touched down a couple of buildings away from the roof that Purity and I had fought on facing the road.
I dropped down into a seated position and quietly looked around the area. The trip from my own apartment to where we had fought was less than a minute of flying at a fast speed, I probably should have called before I'd left. On my way over I'd located more of the barriers and roadblocks that were set up all over the city. The military, the police and the PRT were all working in conjunction to block off areas that were deemed to be a likely target or simply too dangerous for civilians due to spent bomb effects. I got my phone out and sent a message to Purity telling her to 'meet me near the alley' we had fought in, with a couple of winky faces and she agreed almost immediately which sent me mixed signals. I frowned, oh yeah of course she responds to work-related stuff but ignores the memes, this was completely unacceptable.
I continued to look around, the height of the building let me see a fair distance down the road. There were patrols heading all around the city waking the pavement. The dudes in military gear were carrying assault rifles as well, which had to mean that shit was getting really serious on the Anti-ABB front. What all the 'good guys' didn't know was that the upcoming meeting was going to be the nail in Lung's big dragon-shaped coffin. The protectorate was copping a lot of flak for 'allowing' the dangerous parahuman to escape custody which was the dumbest thing I'd ever heard. I never understood why the public always goes ape shit when something like this happens. It's not like they opened his cell and held the fucking door open for the guy, they did everything in their power to contain the dude sometimes shit just happens. I'd like to see the normies try and contain fucking Lung, bunch of assholes.
I spotted a door opening on the building in front and to the left of me. Kayden stepped out covered in heavy coat and sweatpants. Oh wow, maybe that was why she had attacked me; she lived literally two buildings away. Whoops. She stopped when she spotted me sitting on the roof, legs dangling off the edge she looked incredible uncomfortable. She wandered into the alleyway and then about a minute later she appeared on the end of the roof glow receding as she crested it. She'd removed the coat and sweats, having worn her white bodysuit underneath. She dropped the last few feet to the roof and her light faded entirely. She stood looking tense for a long moment before she said anything.
"Urchin." She said coolly. Uh oh, she sounded way too serious.
"Yikes," I said back and the tension vanished. She looked unsure for a moment. "Just chill out, you look like you're going to a funeral." I continued after a moment.
After a moment of silence, she let her shoulders relax, she let out a sigh.
"The only funeral I want to go to is Lungs." She said dryly. I laughed, what a shit joke. I loved it.
"That's the spirit, we'll get to that in a moment." I said still laughing. "First we need to address the elephant on the roof."
She tilted her head slightly and narrowed her eyebrows at me, I abruptly realized that sounded like I had called her fat. I coughed into my hand awkwardly.
"Which is?" She asked sounding annoyed.
"I sent you the funniest meme I've ever seen," I said passionately, "and you fucking left me on seen!?"
"Oh, for fuck sake." Kayden said exasperated.
"The Full-Frontal communication network never goes dark got it?" I ranted, "I'd be well within my rights to bust your ass back to training!"
"I haven't gotten any training!" Kayden said sounding pissed off but keeping her voice in a whisper, "I'm more experienced that you! I should be training you!
"What! I am your commanding officer!" I yelled at the top of my lungs thumping my chest with a fist, "You aren't treating me with the respect my station deserves!"
"What kind of commanding officer sends eggplants to his subordinates?!" Kayden furiously whispered trying not to draw attention.
"The best kind!" I yelled not backing down, "Drop down and give me twenty!"
"Fuck off," Kayden scoffed, but was fighting a smile. "You're an idiot."
I considered that one a win and let out a laugh.
"What are we going to do about this meeting anyway?" Kayden did her best to refocus me, "There are going to be big names at this thing. Kaiser, Coil, and Faultline." She listed them off.
Funny that she didn't mention the Undersiders or the Merchants.
"Yeah, if Coil managed to get everyone he wanted," I added. "Nearly every villain and mercenary in the bay is going to be there."
Kayden turned and started pacing on the roof, she looked pretty stressed at the thought.
"How are we going to handle it? Do we just stay silent on the sidelines?" She wondered aloud. "Do we go in hardcore, so they don't fuck with us?" She turned back towards me.
I was looking at her strangely, I hadn't even thought about it. Did something like this matter? Was I supposed to put on a show or something? Try and intimidate everyone? Hmm, I scratched the back of my head in wonder. Eh, fuck it I'd just wing it.
"Don't worry I've got it handled already," I said confidently. "Stay chill, I'll handle the negotiations. Try not to explode anyone unless they attack us first, got it?" She looked surprised that I'd thought ahead but nodded in agreement.
"Alright cool, we should probably head over now anyway," I said glancing at my watch. 6:31 PM.
"When does it start?" Kayden asked curiously. I lifted myself into the air, she followed lighting up the immediate area. I had to look away from her.
"About a minute ago," I said and took off.
She yelled something up at me, but I couldn't hear her over the wind. She pulled up alongside me and we crossed the city towards 'Somer's Rock'. It didn't take long at all to get there at our speed, we stopped and hovered in the air just above the rooftop rooftops and scoped the place out.
A bunch of people dressed in bizarre clothing headed for the door they spotted Purity and the guy in the top hat waved. I returned the wave. Clearly capes by their clothing, and almost certainly villains by their choice of a watering hole. Somer's Rock was a mess of a building with every curtain and window closed tight. There was a single wall light above the door with the glass casing mostly shattered, even without the case it barely illuminated the entrance. I looked at Purity and she was floating calmly beside me; she was hard to look at with all the light stealth clearly wasn't an option with her.
"Alright," I said to her and she snapped to attention. "Just like we planned, remember?"
I started to lower myself to the ground and landed near the door, she landed next to me and made an aborted grab for my shoulder. No doubt she wanted to know when exactly we had planned anything, and what exactly it entailed. I kicked the door open and strode in like I owned the place.
"The big booty bitches are here!" I yelled striding into the room.
Purity followed behind me in shock, her shoulders in a bizarre meld of confidence and embarrassment. Hilariously, half of the people in the room jumped up out of their chairs in an instant and were facing the door where we had come in. Nobody made a move to attack and I wandered up to stand next to Hookwolf, who had been one of the few who hadn't even bothered to stand up. I spotted Coil at the head of the table and nodded to him. He was sitting extremely still, and just staring at me. Shock, awe or pride? I couldn't tell with the mask and everything. That'll teach him for ghosting me. Kaiser was the first to talk, he sat opposite Coil at the other head seat.
"Purity," Kaiser said calmly. "How nice of you to join us." I gave him a look over.
Kaiser was covered in a pretty awesome looking set of armour. All interlocking metal pieces, it looked intricate as all hell, I wondered if I could make my own look as cool as that. I went back to looking around at all the people, the Undersiders were sitting to the side behind Grue, who sat at the big boy table in the middle of the room. I nodded to Regent, who nodded back. Tattletale, Skitter, and Bitch were all there as well. I almost made a crack about Panacea quitting the team but managed to hold myself back. Hookwolf was looking up at me curiously, practically sprawled in his chair with Krieg and an unknown man and woman sitting around him.
"I'm not here for you." Purity said back just as calm, after taking a moment to collect herself. "I'm with Urchin." She waved her hand in my direction.
Kaiser looked supremely unbothered by his absolute cuckening, which probably meant he was pissed off. He better not try and put a spike up my ass for stealing his ex-enforcer or I was going to have to whoop him.
"I see," Kaiser replied after a moment. "You should work on your entrance." He said to me before turning away.
I snorted and people started to sit back down after we hadn't attacked anyone. Fenja and Menja were sitting behind Kaiser looking at Purity with matching looks of disgust. They both had blonde hair and looked like supermodels with matching armour. Damn, Kaiser was living his best life.
"Heh, I almost went with, 'Get on the ground!'," I said to Kaiser while looking around the room, but he said nothing in response.
I spotted something interesting in the corner, the three members of the Chorus sat watching us quietly. Aural stood up and waved.
"Aural," I grinned. "How's it hanging?" She lifted her hand and tilted it to the left.
I laughed and Swallow grabbed her on the arm, tugged her back down and began whispering furiously into her ear. The table over from there housed a bright orange dude with a tail, a tall fat pale man and a bunch more people I didn't know by sight alone. The orange dude was 'Newter', and the big guy was 'Gregor the Snail'. Urchin couldn't recognize anyone else from their group.
"Urchin," Coil said after a moment, "Please take a seat, we can start now that everyone is here."
I wandered over and pulled the chair out that sat across from Faultline and the dude with the top hat who on closer inspection was also wearing a red mask. Kaiser was sitting next to me on my left, completely calm and looking regal. Someone had knocked a seat over at some point, so I picked it up and set it right again. Purity sat at the table directly behind me. Aural wandered over and took the seat next to Faultline, guess she was their designated spokesperson. Heh.
The seat I put back in place was still empty and sat between Grue and me, I looked around. The merchants were sitting at the side of the room, Skidmark, Squealer and Mush with no Trainwreck to be seen. I blinked at Skidmark's expression, he looked furious and Squealer looked pretty uncomfortable as well. The less said about Mush's appearance the better.
"Hey Skidmark," I called, "This is your seat, isn't it? Move your ass buddy, it's go time." I motioned him over, he grinned suddenly, anger forgotten and shot up to his feet.
He strode over and sat down next to me with a shit-eating grin. Faultline, Grue, and Kaiser all turned to stare at me in silence, I stared back uncaring. They were angry for some reason, I frowned at them from behind my mask and realized they couldn't see it.
"You got a fucking problem?" I asked in general waiting for someone to speak up but there was just a moment of tense silence before Coil drew everyone's attention to him.
"That should be everyone." Coil began completely ignoring the tense atmosphere, " It would seem that Lung won't be coming, though I doubt any of us are surprised, given the subject of tonight's discussion."
There were some murmurs of agreement and nods from around the table. I stared at Coil, was the man on drugs? Why the fuck would Lung be coming to the meeting about kicking the shit out of Lung? What a strange way to begin the discussion I thought, but I didn't call him on it.
"The ABB," Kaiser replied. "They are causing some property damage." He mentioned it like it was a small inconvenience to him, annoying but not an actual problem.
Faultline sat forward and drew attention to herself, Aural leaned back and watched her.
"The ABB is being reckless." Faultline said, voice firm. "The increase in law enforcement is becoming an issue. It's a problem for all of us."
"Homeland security and military forces having been setting up blockages all across the city in response to Bakuda's attacks," Coil added afterward. "Even the heroes from neighboring cities are being drawn to Brockton Bay."
Coil paused a moment before continuing.
"It is making business somewhat difficult." He stressed the word. "This meeting is to decide what exactly we should be doing about it."
Grue joined the discussion then and outlined what he and the Undersiders had witnessed during Bakuda's ambush. Hundreds of people kidnapped and having bombs surgically implanted in them. Forced to follow Bakuda's orders or be killed gruesomely. Bakuda had even started ordering her captives to go out and find more people, she was like a one-woman factory at this point. Input people; output unwilling suicide bombers. Grue handed out a disc to everyone.
"This is a video recording of Bakuda's ambush on us," he said calmly, "She left it behind when she ran, it should be useful to find out how she fights."
When he got to me, I declined.
"I've already seen it, I'm good thanks." I nodded at him, and he hesitated for a bit before continuing on.
There was a quiet moment where they all fell into thought before Coil spoke again.
"We're in agreement then?" Coil asked after Grue had ceded the floor. "The ABB cannot be allowed to continue operating in Brockton Bay."
Everyone was making noises or gestures of general agreement; the man had actually done it. Coil was bringing together this motley assortment of villains and mercenaries under one banner. I restrained myself from clapping, the guy had charisma.
"Very well, then I suggest we establish a temporary truce." Coil said simply. "We refrain from everything that isn't essential to our businesses and we remove the ABB from Brockton Bay."
Faultline immediately spoke up.
"My group won't be getting involved with this unless somebody is paying us. If the person paying is the ABB, then I'll be on the other side of this fight." She her voice steady.
I immediately laughed; she was helping talk up how big of a threat they were not five minutes ago and now she wanted to play it off like she was going to join fucking Lung? Who was going to pay her exactly? The only person here who even used other mercenaries was Coil.
"You just said that they were being reckless, and causing trouble for everyone," I said staring at her.
Coil leaned back in his chair looking at me curiously. I got you buddy; I'll protect your money mountain. Besides I was going to have to ask him for a raise for Purity, it was less likely to happen if Coil was haemorrhaging money. Faultline turned to look at me the blank face of her welder's mask glinting in the light.
"What's your point?" She said darkly as if to dare me to start shit. Well if you insist, I thought.
"My point is everyone else here has the exact same problem with them." I shot back, "They aren't asking for money. You want us to do the work for free, but your team gets paid? Fuck off." I laughed.
Faultline leaned forward and started to respond but I cut her off.
"If you want to go join the ABB and fight us, go ahead. I'll kick your ass as well." I said grinning, "No skin off my nose."
I relaxed back into my chair. Tattletale made a strange noise from her table and Faultline sat back and crossed her arms. Everyone was staring at her now, she had to be feeling the pressure.
"Fine," She said after a moment. I could almost feel the glare through her welder's helmet. "Pro bono, we'll help."
Coil watched me for a moment before he re-joined the conversation, getting us refocused on the task at hand.
"Kaiser?" Coil asked.
"I think that a temporary truce is acceptable," Kaiser answered.
Grue spoke up next without waiting to be addressed.
"We were thinking of something similar anyway, count us in," Grue added. The guy in the top hat joined in a moment later.
"Sure," Top hat said, "Not a problem."
I looked over to Skidmark but he was staring at the side of Grue's helmet.
"Skidmark, you guys in?" I asked to speed things up. He turned to me and grinned again.
"Fuck yeah, we're in." Skidmark said and I nodded at him.
"Aural?" Coil asked. She nodded in agreement I gave her the thumbs up and she stuck out her tongue at me. Cheeky.
Cool beans, everybody that had turned up was onboard. Lung was fucked, Bakuda was fucked and Oni Lee could probably fuck himself if he was quick about it. Looks like the meeting was a smashing success.
We started to wrap things up after that, with everybody swearing their undying fealty to the cause, some had wanted to air some grievances, Hookwolf had some beef with Hellhound. I couldn't care less. We ducked out right behind the dude in the top hat, who's name I never learnt and left quickly. I would have to look that guy up later. I was confident in my power, but I wasn't sticking around in case any of these assholes had some funny ideas or some esoteric powers. Purity followed beside me, the dream team in action. Purity alone was one of the strongest capes in the city, nobody wanted to fuck with her, that was probably most of the reason they had let me get away with so much shit in there. I had Purity glowing brightly directly behind me, hard to forget her.
I was well aware of just how strong she was, don't get me wrong. I've seen footage of her in other fights. She usually doesn't blow her load as quick as she did during our fight, I had managed, through sheer luck, to catch her in a moment of critical weakest. Days of bad weather resulting in a lack of light to absorb. She had been patrolling for several hours and used up a fair amount of her rationed internal power. Then I came along and made her waste the dregs of her remaining power to try and punch through my defenses.
The fight would have been a much longer and nastier one, if I had caught her during the day with the sun out. I would have had to somehow get her out of the light and then keep her buried in more material then she would be able to destroy. The fight had escalated pretty quickly but, in my defense, she started going lethal almost straight out the gates, which made more sense now than it had at the time. I hadn't realized I had literally attacked her outside of her home; it had probably come off as a lot more sinister then I'd intended. I hadn't been trying to hurt her at all, only get her to calm down.
In a full lethal fight, no restrictions, I was sure she could kill me just as fast as I could kill her and I'm glad it hadn't come to that. I dropped Kayden off at the place we had met, like a well-mannered gentleman. I made a top hat like that dude at the meeting and took it off, bowing and everything. Kayden shooed me away exasperated but was smiling. I told her to contact me if she needed to and then skedaddled.
What a day.
Authors Note:
Another one done, I was pretty late on this one, my week got all kinds of strange. Keep on keeping on my dudes.
