Brockton's Celestial Forge

by Lord Roustabout

The Celestial Forge is the greatest combination of crafting powers in Jumpchain, meaning it is the greatest combination of crafting abilities in all of fiction. In Brockton Bay a forgotten side character's trigger event ends with him linked to the Celestial Forge rather than his intended shard. His expanding collection of tinker abilities drag him into the city's cape conflicts.

50. 41-2 Interlude Vicky

(Author's note: Once again, I ran into a shortage of writing time thanks to a busy week at work and various social commitments. As such, rather than delay the chapter, I've decided to split it again. I would have preferred not to have this interlude stretch over three weeks, but I want to hold to my weekly schedule, and feel the stopping points work within the story. The interlude will conclude next week, with possibly some addendums that will let us wrap things up and get back to Joe.)

Vicky was surrounded by chaos, fire, the smell of charred metal, and her uncle screaming to be heard over the rain of explosions and the panicked roars of the crowd. Somehow when she left the coffee shop with heroic intentions she hadn't pictured ending up in a situation like this.

She had been in shootouts before, but she couldn't remember the last time it had been this chaotic, or this terrifying.

Even with the recharge time of her forcefield she knew she could take a hit, and how to work around it to some extent. Most people didn't know about the recharge, and her Aunt Sarah had made a big deal from the start about limiting information on your power. So, most people didn't know about that particular weakness, and to the average citizen she was as good as invincible.

She didn't feel invincible crouching behind cover with her uncle as a police officer yelled into his radio next to them. When they got to the scene of the attack Uncle Mike had called her back from following her first instinct, charging in and smashing through the ABB's entrenched position. It was a police operation after all, and he had to follow their lead.

That had saved her life as a grenade bloomed into a miniature black hole directly in the path she was going to take. The cluster of coerced civilians had enough firearms to cause the police trouble, but the two or three tinker tech launchers were more than enough to make them a threat beyond the capacity of any police response.

Her uncle extended one hand over the roof of the car and swept it back and forth. A swarm of glowing projectiles streamed out, moving at a crawl compared to most blaster powers, but that only served to saturate the street with them.

A response came from one of the positions, that damn rocket launcher again. As soon as the missile was away her uncle detonated the nearest orb, wrecking its propulsion and sending it off balance towards another of the slow-moving points of light. Close enough that the detonation shredded the remains of the projectiles.

He smiled at her just as the blasts reached the ABB positions and suddenly it was their side of the street that was awash in explosions. She was reminded of her Aunt Jess's stories. Mike's blasts traveled at a crawl, about 15 feet a second, but he could detonate them at will, and always knew the location of each of his shots. Working together with Fleur's energy seeds the two of them could lock down an area in a way the rest of New Wave could only dream of accomplishing.

It was the kind of thought that brought up all those little 'what ifs?' that always floated around. What if Aunt Jess had never been killed, and her and Mike stayed with the team? How would they have changed things? How many narrow losses could they have covered? How much of a difference could they have made in the city?

That was assuming it would have made a difference, that the rest of the family's problems wouldn't have led them to this place. Well, not this exact place, hiding behind a police car with her uncle signaling to her with one hand while the other laid down another explosive swarm.

She pulled her mind out of the past and nodded at his meaning. Leaning down she grabbed the car and lifted it, angling it to provide cover against the few ABB who had weathered the blasts well enough to still return fire.

Mike had only detonated the blasts that were at a safe distance, close enough to the ABB cover to stun or disorient, but not enough to kill. The same reluctance was evident in the police officers. Despite the horrible situation, despite the firefight, nobody wanted to go lethal against someone with a bomb in their head dictating their actions. The stream of bullets from the entrenched forces effectively forced the police's hands, but they clearly were conflicted about it.

Floating a few inches above the ground she carried the car like a giant shield while her uncle and the police sergeant scrambled behind it towards a cluster of two squad cars with a half dozen additional officers taking cover and occasionally returning fire.

She set the car down, lining it up with the other vehicles to create a barricade while her uncle quickly sent out another wave of blasts before speaking with the officers.

"God damn mess." He began, earning a sardonic smile from the sergeant. "What's the plan from here?"

The man shook his head. "This is happening all over the city. Best I can tell, we're looking at one of the more forward positions, but every one of the attack teams are either set up like an ambush or dug in like ticks." The officer glanced over her uncle's shoulder where the man was starting to detonate his earlier blasts without looking at them. The near constant stream of explosions at least stopped the flow of bullets from the ABB position. "We are fighting on too many fronts and there's not nearly enough resources. We'd need SWAT or sniper support for this group, and that would be beyond messy. Best we can do is try to hold them, unless you have any ideas?"

Her uncle turned and gave her a hopeful look. Vicky felt herself begin to sweat. She might have been proud about not actually being a dumb blond, but there was a big gap between that and being able to spontaneously come up with a battle strategy, at least if you were asking for something more complicated than 'fly in and smash'. This was the kind of situation where Aunt Sarah would be calling the shots, usually after a careful briefing pre-battle. The bank had taught her how poorly her default strategy could go, and she wasn't about to suggest it now.

Not with that mid-street void that had been caused by the black hole bomb. Or the patch of wall that shattered like glass with cracks that were somehow spreading to neighboring buildings. Or the car next to them which was now a puddle of metallic soup.

This was Bakuda's fury. The power she brought to bear, a power it had almost been possible to ignore thanks to the distance she had kept from the fighting, the diminished impact of watching the conflict through news reports and internet broadcasts, and, of course, Apeiron.

The fact that he could look at the potential chaos the bomb tinker could unleash with an attitude of derision could make you lose perspective on how powerful the girl in the gas mask actually was. How she had brought the city to the brink of destruction, and how much further, how much worse it could have been if Apeiron hadn't been there to gut the momentum of her first offensive.

They were seeing her second offensive, second true offensive, not the skirmishes her technology had been tangentially involved with during the past week. Only this time it wasn't the two tinkers fighting in an abandoned facility on the edge of the city. All of Brockton was their arena, or at least as much of it as the ABB could reach.

Based on what her uncle had let slip, that seemed to be the unspoken strategy in dealing with the attack. Containment. It wasn't exactly something that would go down in history as one of the great military maneuvers, but it was the best anyone seemed to be able to manage. They could barely understand the scope of the attack, but there were areas that hadn't been hit, and movement towards those areas. The best idea anyone could come up with, try to push back when the ABB pushed first.

Vicky didn't like it, but she didn't have any better idea, either for the city in general, or for the current engagement. The attack patterns were locking down routes of travel through the conflict zone, either setting up ambushes, or making strikes that left tinker tech explosions effects that made the area impassable. Fliers might have been able to push through, but Protectorate was down to Dauntless, New Wave wouldn't be coordinating a response, and the idea of putting a helicopter over those rockets was insane.

The only person who seemed to be able to act freely within the war zone was Apeiron, or at least his machines. From what she had heard the man had pulled a small army out of his back pocket, but was only just managing against the LARGE army the ABB had produced.

Her uncle seemed to follow her thought process as he replied to the officer. "Cape assistance isn't likely. My guess is they're dealing with the same problem as you, only will probably take longer to figure out any organized response. And be worse if any of the other gangs get involved." He looked back at the collection of parked cars, dumpsters, and alleyways the ABB was using for cover. "If I can get a better vantage I might be able to flush them out, provided you can deal with anyone who scatters."

Vicky steeled herself and spoke up. "I can probably manage that. Uh, I'll probably need to go in fast. Some of them will probably get hurt, but I'll do the best I can."

The sergeant nodded grimly. "Horrible situation, but I can agree. There's no way to manage this with kid gloves. I'm signing off on this. Just make sure you take out anyone with Bakuda's technology, and we should be able to manage the rest."

Manage the rest as in manage a bunch of armed people who were probably ordered to fight to the death. Still, that was a step up over the prospect of whatever those bombs would do to them. There was a crackling sound as the fractures in the building behind them spread again, causing a section of wall to fall to the street and shatter in a pile of bricks.

That was probably why they didn't notice the incoming attack until it was on its way. From a window above the rest of the ABB forces came a whistling sound as a rocket launched down towards their position. Her uncle started spinning and bringing up his hands, but Vicky knew it would be a lost cause. Uncle Mike might be able to lock down an entire battlefield with precision blasts, but if he didn't already have them in play there was nothing he could do against something like this.

She dug her hand into the armored side of the police car. Her strength was based on her forcefield, and as such she didn't need to really worry about things like leverage or centers of mass. It was a blessing now, because the only thing she could think of was to hurl the squad car into the path of the attack and hope whatever was being fired at them wouldn't make it past two tons of metal.

There was a sound like a thunder crack and a beam of light rained out of the sky, piercing the missile and sending up a plume of vaporized asphalt from the road. The rocket was consumed in a burst of flame as its fuel tank ruptured and whatever deadly warhead it had carried was reduced to slag.

The shot was immediately followed by a roaring sound as another, more advanced missile, fell out of the sky and made a sharp turn towards the entrenched ABB force. There was a blast that sent her hair streaming back and caused everyone without a protective shield to flinch under cover. When they peered back the former defensive points was a mess of some kind of rapidly solidifying chemical webbing. The feeble attempts the unwilling soldiers made to free themselves only caused it to constrict around them more securely.

Vicky forced her eyes away from the spectacle and up to the window that still sported a smoke trail from the rocket attack. She tensed and prepared to launch herself into the fray when a pair of crackling shrieks drew her gaze further up.

Diving out of the late afternoon light, their wings and claws gleaming in the sun, were a pair of immaculately crafted crystal hawks. Each with maybe a five-foot wingspan of transparent plates suspended around a glowing core. The bodies of the constructs sparked with discharges of lightning and trailed a line of thunder clouds behind them like the exhaust from a jet.

The creatures crashed bodily into the side of the building. Despite their fragile appearance some kind of field surged around them, tearing apart the material of the wall and pulling it into a kind of orbit around them. Not just the wall, but parts of the room behind it, and even the ABB member who had taken a vantage point there.

The second hawk had performed the same maneuver on an apparently random section of the building, but had pulled out another gang member, this one in full gang colors with a larger rocket launcher and what looked like a radio headset. Lightning jumped from each of the hawks and their captives went limp before sinking to the ground along with the collection of building debris torn loose by their attacks.

Then, without the slightest delay, both crystal birds angled themselves directly upwards and launched into the sky, leaving a sparking trail of water vapor behind them. It took Vicky a moment to adjust to the unearthly silence left in their wake. It wasn't just the fact that everyone had been left speechless, but the constant barrage of gunshots and explosions that had been pressing in on her had vanished, leaving a silence that was almost deafening in its severity.

Slowly, but with professionalism, the police officers started moving out of cover and towards the incapacitated gang soldiers. Vicky and her uncle followed, letting them set the approach pattern. It was different from the principle of direct action she was used to, but this was a different operation. She was okay letting them set the pace.

Upon approaching the scene, she could see that the ABB were much more incapacitated than she would have thought. The group, consisting of people from all corners and ages of Brockton's Asian community, was only making a few feeble attempts to untangle themselves from the webbing. Most of them had been knocked down by the first blast with those still on their feet finding themselves badly entangled. She looked at their sluggish movements and drooping eyelids with concern.

"Don't touch the netting." One of the officers warned, causing her to quickly pull back her hand. "We've gotten reports about it from other sites. It's something like Apeiron's answer to containment form."

Vicky looked at the fairly wide mesh of the web strands and gave the officer a questioning look. "Really?"

The man just nodded. "Yeah, really. The stuff is pretty much unbreakable, at least from anything I heard about them trying. Bolt cutters did nothing, and it's too tough for a hacksaw to get through. Apparently it contracts if you stress it too much. Not that bad with normal strength, but it's probably intended for brutes." He gestured to the slumped forms of the people caught in it. "It's also soaked in some kind of tranquilizer. Doesn't take much to put someone down. Luckily you don't seem to be able to overdose on it. Doesn't really make sense but, you know, tinker stuff."

Another officer jumped in. "Heard some of the paramedics managed to get the mesh removed from some people safely, but no idea how they managed that. Tinkers, right?"

Vicky nodded, and looked over the scene. She tried not to feel indignant at how quickly the tinker had resolved the conflict they had been struggling with since they arrived. Two shots and a handful of seconds from his drones and it was over.

"Anyone know what those crystal birds were?" She asked the assembled police, where they were securing the two non-webbed ABB members and trying to figure out how to manage the tangled mess of unconscious suspects/hostages they had been left with.

Her uncle pulled out his phone and sorted through his messages. "Upgrade of those crystal spheres he used to use, probably. There's no sign of the old design, but those things are being reported all over the place."

She followed his gaze up to the ruined side of the building and winced. That kind of power and precision would have made any Protectorate cape proud, and apparently it could be managed by Apeiron's disposable drones. Then again, one of his robots managed to lock down the attack force in the space of a few seconds, and another was apparently holding its own in an attack on Bakuda's workshop.

"How many of those things does he have?" She asked no one in particular. One of the younger officers turned from his work to answer her.

"Nobody's got a clear count. They're moving too fast. Best guess is around a half dozen, but it could be twice that." He didn't sound as worried about the prospect of a robot army as she would have expected. Then again, it was reasonable for the police to take a more pragmatic view. Concerns about Apeiron's power level were something the PRT was struggling with. The BBPD would probably have welcomed ten times the number of super robots if it got the ABB locked down before they could cause more harm.

Honestly, she was kind of with them on that point.

Once the silence had settled, or their hearing had recovered, she realized she could hear the sound of distant explosions. She pulled out her phone, scrolled past the emergency notice from the news service that was still being updated in a piecemeal fashion, and checked her new messages.

The Guard unit Missy was attached to had been deployed towards the boardwalk. The shaker proudly recounted how she had been able to bypass the roadblock blasts that ABB were using to keep them out. They were trying to contain forces towards the east side of the city, but were mainly in a holding pattern. It was still too early in the fight to figure out what would be the plan of attack.

"Uh," She turned back towards her uncle, "what happens now?"

He shrugged. "Mainly we would secure the site and wait for dispatch." He glanced in the direction of a distant explosion. "I'll need to stick with them. They will probably shuffle me around wherever they need the fire power."

The sergeant smirked and leaned in. "Always happy to have a blaster five on our side of the line."

Her uncle smiled back before continuing. "The police aren't going to be taking point in this, probably holding the line while the PRT gets forces deployed." Vicky noticed a few frowns spread through the officers.

She tried not to look visibly nervous as she considered her next move. She WANTED to help her uncle, but he admitted he'd be playing support for support for the main conflict. She wanted to do more. She felt like she needed to do more.

"Um," she started, "part of the Wards are deployed with some Guard forces, up near Grove and Bayside. If things are as confusing as you say they could probably use someone who could give a bird's eye view of… things." She frowned towards the end of her statement, but forced herself to rally. "Are you alright here? If I go?"

Her uncle glanced at the officers and nodded. "I know the guys would love to have you backing them up, but you're right about doing the most good somewhere else." He suddenly turned serious. "Vicky, be careful out there. I know things didn't go that well that last time you worked with the Wards, but please stick with them. It's your best chance to make a difference and stay safe."

There was probably more emphasis on his last word then he had intended, but Vicky got his meaning. That mask of supportive strength was cracking again, and she didn't want to see it fall. "I promise." She assured her uncle. He nodded as she lifted into the air.

"Good luck, Glory Girl." He waved her off, along with a few of the police officers who weren't puzzling over the webbing. She smiled and waved back before taking to the sky at her best speed. For the first time in almost a week she really felt like a hero.

Taking an elevated look at the city she could tell it needed one about now. The ABB territory was ringed with so many crazy bomb effects it was like a dotted line had been drawn around it on a map. Getting more height, she could see the effect of more capes entering the fray, and not the ones people had been hoping for.

A column of smoke was rising from Merchant territory. Columns of smoke weren't hard to come by with the city in its current state, but the rest of them lacked the greasy clawing depth that characterized Squealer's exhaust systems. The other trails of smoke weren't barreling towards the scene of the fighting at a concerning speed that seemed to be taking more of a 'line from A to B' route than paying any attention to the layout of roads.

On the other side of the city she could see dozens if not hundreds of white shapes swarming around an area of Downtown known for being an extension of Empire territory. Crusader was opening up in a way he rarely attempted. Normally that kind of force could overwhelm any defense, but she could see a series of dark violet spheres bloom around the edges of the mass, each one carving scoops out of the swarm of ghosts.

Looking towards the north docks themselves she could see the various ABB strikes ringing the area, pushing out in some places, but stalled in others. There was a kaleidoscope of lights and sounds centered on one of the older factories. Between the flashes Glory Girl could just make out a series of shapes buzzing around the building. Apeiron's robot attacking the workshop.

Her instinct was to run in and help. Well, honestly her instinct was to rush in and take down the tinker herself, with a small, petty corner of her mind still wanting to entertain those fantasies about capturing Apeiron and turning him over to the Protectorate, making him answer for his imagined crimes and offences against her family. Logically she knew how insane and impossible that was, but she couldn't stop her mind from jumping there just for a fraction of a second.

No, she wouldn't be charging in. You didn't need to be a tinker to see how dangerous that area was. Three of the surrounding buildings had been consumed by an array of exotic effects. And they were not small buildings. These were industrial estates and storage warehouses. It took work to overwhelm that amount of material, and Bakuda's combinations of corrosive slimes, growing crystals, blinding heat, and what seemed to be complete reality deletion, seemed more than up for the task.

The most telling element of that conflict was that Apeiron wasn't there. She wasn't sure where the tinker was, but if he, the man with all those bullshit protections and defensive technologies, was staying back while he left his robots to take point then she wasn't going anywhere near the place.

Instead, she wheeled towards the Boardwalk, towards Missy's position while continuing to scan the city. There actually weren't as many of Bakuda's explosions as she expected. The threats made in the video had made it seem like she was going to level the city, instead of just a set of isolated if still destructive effects.

She remembered the force they had just fought. Nearly a dozen soldiers with four tinker tech weapons between them. It seemed that even for a tinker as powerful and prolific as Bakuda there were still limits to how many explosives she could produce. Not that you really needed that many, given the damage down by the handful of blasts.

Checking the city again she spotted one of Apeiron's robots. A sleeker and more elegant version of the suits he had deployed on Monday, one of which was currently the centerpiece of Batchelder Square's new display. It roared and banked over the streets, occasionally firing a missile or sending a searing beam of light down from a pair of weapons on its shoulders. Maybe a half dozen crystal birds flanked around it with extreme precision, breaking off or returning at a moment's notice, trailing thunderclouds all the way.

She scanned the rest of the combat zone for the other robots, looking for the flare or robot thrusters or the tell-tale trails of storm clouds. She didn't see any. Not even a hint. Instead, the single robot zigzagged over ABB territory, seemingly disrupting attacks at random. Sometimes it looked like it was chasing something, a red flash bloomed at street level and occasionally dipped above the line of buildings as a crimson blur. Bursts of orange, yellow, blue, or purple light seemed to mark its passing, always in an instant.

It took her longer that it should have to put the pieces together. The robot wasn't chasing the red blur, it was branching off, hitting ABB attacks nearby and then working to keep up. There weren't any other robots in the air, just one moving at a breakneck pace with blistering coordination. And that red blur had the same tone she'd seen when Apeiron had decided to take the fight directly to Uber and Leet's mechs.

Apeiron wasn't attacking Bakuda's lab because he was fighting at street level. He didn't have an army. He possibly had fewer forces than he did on Monday. Maybe just the two robots, plus however many drones he could manage. It was just that everyone else had been scrambling, dealing with the impact of the broadcast and trying to sift through the chaos of the attacks while he had been running a one-man strike team against all of Bakuda's efforts.

No wonder he looked like he had an army. Next to him everyone else might as well have been standing still.

She needed to get this to the Protectorate, or the PRT. Normally she'd assume they would have someone on top of this, but after the last week her confidence in the local cape authorities wasn't what it used to be. She could admit it was probably just overwork causing them to miss things, but when her family were the ones paying for their mistakes it made her a bit less forgiving.

She focused back on the route to the Boardwalk and was surprised to see the perfect vehicle for conveying this information. A blue and red streak, bouncing along rooftops at speeds close to the best she could manage in the air, and something she had never expected to see.

Glory Girl dove down towards the figure, waited for him to complete a jump that took him across a street and onto the roofs of a line of stores, and then called out.

"Kid!"

The young tinker slowed and swung his visored eyes up to her. Rather than make him stop she pulled in alongside, getting a better look at his new equipment.

Well, not new-new. She recognized the blue glow that used to characterize his hoverboard, now streaming from a pair of devices strapped to his shins like soccer pads. He had a matching pair on his forearms, which he was using to assist with steering and in completing the jumps when he needed to clear a street.

Missy had told her about his repurposed technology, but she had the impression it was more of a desperation measure, some kind of attempt to make the best of a bad situation. This looked like something completely new, and honestly better than what he had before. The hover-skating effect wasn't full flight, but Kid Win was hitting speeds and levels of control that he never could have managed with his board.

"Hey Glory Girl." He breathed while maintaining the swinging motion that seemed to magnify his forward momentum. "You heading for the Boardwalk?"

She nodded while keeping pace beside him. "Was helping my uncle, but figured I could help more with the Wards. I mean, if there's not a problem with teaming up again."

She saw the boy smile. "Emergency measures. Well, right now it's probably emergency measures on top of emergency measures. There's not much they can hit us for during this response. Even pulled me off console. Clock will need to make the call, but I know he'll be grateful for the help."

Despite the jarring experience of 1. Being under Dennis's authority, and 2. Somehow trusting him to be responsible in that position, she was relieved. She had barely escaped punitive measures for her actions last Thursday, and that was only because she was on a different team, and the mess with Amy had taken center stage. There was definitely an impression that it would be a long time before the next 'Wards Team Up' opportunity. She wasn't exactly happy about the circumstances that had brought it about, but at least her earlier actions wouldn't get in the way during this crisis.

"Good thing," She replied. "It's turning into a disaster. Nobody seems to have any idea what's going on."

To her surprise the tinker smiled. "Someone does." He leaned to one side, coasting on the thrust from his boots while bringing the device on his left hand. Glory Girl started as a screen appeared floating in the air above it. "I had a holographic targeting system from one of my earlier projects. Never got it to work right, just ended up as… junk." He spoke the last word in a dour tone, then shook his head. "Was able to rig it along with part of a ballistics computer as a mobile display."

The boy seemed almost embarrassed about the method he used to assemble the floating screen. Possibly because of the obvious inspiration for that kind of interface, but that wasn't the sense she got. Regardless, the screen, which was bigger and clearer than the one on her home computer, displayed a map of the city peppered with blinking icons. Live updates modified the map and Kid Win cycled through the entries, bringing up listings of ABB forces, active bomb effects, obstructed roadways, and even listings of downed gang members along with their status.

"This is incredible." She breathed, and saw Kid's smile flicker. "Who put this together? Dragon? Armsmaster?" She had heard the Protectorate leader was partially recovered, if not fully mobile. She realized the idea of the man watching out for them, even from a computer console, did a lot to put her at ease. She was still frustrated with how he had treated Amy, but in a situation like this she wanted the assurance of the reputation he had cultivated over the years.

"Wrong tinker." He replied dryly. One look at his face and she immediately understood.

"You mean…"

"Apeiron." He answered. The slight motion of the fingers of one hand shifted the screen to a detailed list of data. "Custom designed web interface, held on a third-party server. Live updates from what looks to be his scanning systems. Even has the medical status of anyone he's restrained." Another shift brought up a mosaic of websites. "Link's on PHO, the comment section of every article and blog post about the attack, sent directly to media companies, the PRT tip line, and every direct contact the Protectorate and PRT has publicly available."

She blinked at the depth of information, shifting her body in flight to better read the screen. She didn't like flying laterally, even if she could manage it. It felt weird to have that kind of profile against the wind, and it didn't look properly heroic. Still, she endured and looked over the information.

"How did he manage this?" She asked, then glanced back at the city. "He's still fighting out there. I think he might have been since the call with Bakuda finished. Oh, and it's not a half dozen robots, just one moving really fast."

"I figured about the robots." Kid answered. Another adjustment brought up the map again, only this time with a line jumping back and forth across it. "I've been saving everything since the site went up. He updates everything whenever a group is taken out. Excluding confirmed successful engagements with police, PRT, Protectorate, or National Guard forces…" A pitiful number of the icons shifted color. "and you're left with this." The line vanished, then started to move across the map. A timestamp on the bottom showed the scale of how quickly the attacking groups were being taken out. The important thing was the sequence. No two taken out at the same time in different areas. Always clustered in a tight corridor that snaked back and forth across the conflict.

Everything could be attributed to Apeiron and a single robot, plus his crystal bird toys, which could apparently outdo most capes in the city on their own. It was terrifying, but also confusing.

"Why is he moving like that?" She asked. The pattern made no sense. He wasn't taking out teams in sequence, he wasn't going after the ones pushing out, on the ones more entrenched, or any theme that she could put together. It looked random, but that didn't seem right.

"No idea." He confessed. "The ballistics computer I built this out of has some analysis and tracking programs that I've got running, but I have no idea if I'll find anything. Or if there's anything to find." The map shifted again, showing a red icon near Bayside Road. "That's where Clock's team is set up."

They were approaching so quickly that she didn't even need to ask for details. With a nod to Kid Win she took to the air and saw the battlefield spread out before her.

The ABB had set up in one of the small shopping centers that took advantage of being within a block of the Boardwalk in an area where pedestrian traffic was encouraged. It was really more of a dressed-up strip mall, except trying to skew to the more classy end. There was a modern art sculpture in an open-air fountain and plaza that was ringed on three sides by the glass fronts of stores and a small air-conditioned walkway. The outlets were cheaper than what you found amongst the Boardwalk boutiques, but nicer than the usual offerings for part of the city.

At least they used to be nicer. Now the glass was shattered, the fountain had been split open by a crack in the chasm running through the plaza that looked to be twenty to thirty feet deep. There was a mass of ice cutting off one of the exits, trapping civilians in the crossfire between the ABB and the combined forces of the Wards and National Guard.

What surprised her was seeing the three Wards right in the thick of the conflict. Browbeat was a good half again the size he had been in his bulked-up state at the bank and was acting as a kind of mobile cover for Dennis and Missy. Missy was clearly limited by the panicked civilians either running for their lives or cowering behind what little cover they could get. Even so, she saw distortions in the air above the square and noticed shots from some of the elevated ABB forces curving off randomly.

Shots from positions closer to the ground were more on target, and she could see rounds from rifles and handguns bounce off Browbeat's forcefield. He was lucky in that he didn't seem to have to worry about the kind of recharge she lived with, meaning the effect was closer to her Uncle Neil's powers.

The big cape might have been bullet proof, but she was quickly reminded why she hadn't tried this kind of bold strategy herself. One of the more professional gang members popped up and raised a grenade launcher, sending a round on a tight arc directly towards Browbeat.

She watched the deadly payload close helplessly, images of a hundred horrible fates flashing through her mind. Instead, Missy and Dennis stepped out from behind Browbeat in a nearly coordinated motion. Dennis held up a small object that unfolded like a pocket umbrella. Thin plastic stretched into place creating a disk about four feet wide before freezing in place. It was a massive step up from the sheets of paper he used to throw around, and even though the material seemed as thin as cling film she knew it would be completely indestructible.

But that wouldn't be enough. Maybe it could cover Missy, and Dennis might be able to crouch behind it, but Browbeat was a lost cause unless he could change form much faster than she thought he could. Then Missy showed off her part of this particular maneuver.

The time-frozen film warped and stretched under the iconic influence of Missy's power. What had been a decent sized personal shield became an impenetrable bulwark, completely covering the three capes in a half dome, just as the grenade made contact.

The best way Glory Girl could describe the blast would be an angry void. Dark sections of nothingness flayed out from a pitch-black orb, leaving gouges in the ground that had an unnaturally smooth edge to them. Matter deleted, torn away like nothing.

The blast splashed repeatedly against the barrier to as much effect as a summer shower. The few seconds of clawing darkness seemed like hours, but when it passed a gesture from Missy caused the film to shrink back to its normal size, showing a half circle of destroyed tile and cement in front of them.

The ABB forces were stunned by the display, and the Ward team took advantage of their distraction to close on their position. She watched Dennis and Missy repeat the trick with the plastic sheeting, creating barriers to cover the retreat of the people caught in the plaza. Some of them were even thrown out by Browbeat with the cape's tactile telekinesis. The result was more effective and better spread barriers, but she could see the effort Dennis needed to put into affecting the larger pieces of plastic.

She suddenly realized she actually had no idea what the limits of his power were. She knew he could freeze a person no problem, including everything they were wearing or carrying. His trick with sheets of paper was well documented, but he had always used multiple smaller objects to make barriers. This was the first time she had seen him really exert himself, and the results were shocking.

In the handful of seconds it took the ABB to recover and Glory Girl to close the final distance they had turned the plaza into a set of defenses worthy of a World War One trench line. The civilians were taking the opportunity to flee from the… other civilians who had been forced to fight them. Once again, the insanity of what Bakuda had wrought weighed on her, but she put it out of her mind as she dropped down next to the team.

"Vista! Clockblocker! Browbeat!" She called. The younger cape waved her down and she slipped through the spatial distortions the girl had set above the plaza. A flare of blue energy behind her showed Kid Win had caught up, entering at a lower angle and using some of the frozen barriers as control surfaces to arrest his momentum on the final approach.

She looked around at the time frozen walls, marveling at the combination of powers that had managed to pull off. Vista smiled upon seeing her expression and Dennis was surprisingly reserved in the face of his accomplishment.

"It's good to have you here." He said seriously. "You too, Kid." Chris nodded and brought up his display again, this time showing an aerial view of the shopping center.

"I got some scans on my way in. Looks like nine of the ABB, no idea what the mix of career members to forced recruits is. Six on the ground floor, three on the upper level. One on the roof, two on the second floor of the Urban Explorer store."

Dennis seemed to look at the information seriously, or as seriously as he could appear to be with a full-face mask. "Less than I thought, especially with what it took to make it this far."

Chris shifted the display again. "They have four launchers between them, and a pretty ridiculous amount of ammunition for their other weapons. Assault rifles. Don't even need to aim to be dangerous, just keep people's heads down while they line up the next grenade or rocket." He saw their expressions and continued. "Same strategy they've been using all over the city. The average troops are too dangerous to ignore, and it lets them set up strikes for tinker weapons."

Clockblocker nodded, then looked around. Some of the Guardsmen had advanced and were leading the last of the civilians out of the area. He turned to Vista. "Plaza's clear. You ready?"

Before Glory Girl could ask what they were talking about the tiny cape took a deep breath and let it out. The entire square seemed to expand and contract with her breathing. The girl smiled and turned towards Dennis. "Ready."

He nodded then turned to Chris and Vicky. "We've got a rush planned, it should let us clear the ground floor, but the upper level could be a problem. Can you manage that?"

Kid Win angled his screen towards the shopping center. The image turned blue with three human shaped red-orange blobs standing out prominently. "I can handle the ones on the second floor. Glory Girl, can you handle the roof?"

She looked at the image and nodded. "Looks like he's prone, set up on the edge. Can probably hit him from the back and he'll never see me coming."

"Right." Clockblocker poked at one of the animated clocks on the arm of his costume. "Best if we coordinate the hit. Ninety seconds to get in position, then we move."

Vicky blinked. "Wait, those are clocks? Actual clocks? Like, you can keep time on them?"

He shrugged. "It a design idea from when I started. Idea was to help me track how long something was frozen, back before we confirmed it was completely random." As if to drive home the point one section of barrier unfroze, turning from a completely impervious object to a thin sheet of plastic flapping in the wind.

She just shook her head and quickly accessed the timer feature on her phone. "Fine, ninety seconds?"

"Mark." Dennis said professionally. Vicky took to the air, falling back from the square and looping around once out of sight. She still couldn't get used to seeing Dennis like that. It should be comforting to know he was taking his responsibilities seriously, but that wasn't what was sticking with her. Seeing the shift from irreverent joker to solemn leader, more than anything else, drove the severity of the situation straight home.

She knew how bad things were. Her family, her team, would never be the same. The city was scared and exhausted. Entire buildings, landmarks, were just gone. There had been rioting, fires, and unprecedented destruction. She knew there would be consequences to it, changes, but it didn't really sink in how bad it was until she saw Dennis. Dennis was taking this seriously. Dennis, who joked around after the time the Wards had driven off Lung, Dennis who had still had hints of humor when traumatized by Khepri after the bank battle, Dennis was different. Things were serious enough that Dennis wasn't making jokes, and that frightened her a little bit.

Maybe it was temporary. Maybe when he could hand things over to Weld or when Dean was back then Dennis would revert to being the goofy cape with the joke name. But it wouldn't be the same. You couldn't see someone take on responsibility, step up like that, and then pretend they were just a goofball. She knew what he could handle when he needed to, and so did the PRT. They would probably never let him sink back to his former level. It was one thing to see the city change, it was another to see it happen to your friends.

Somehow it made her want to make sure she could live up to his example. She never would have thought of Clockblocker as the inspiring type, but with what he was doing, what he was taking on, at the very least she wanted to make sure she wasn't the weak link in his plan.

She had circled around behind the block and was approaching the rooftop from behind. Above and behind, she remembered that from her Aunt Sarah. Lady Photon had needed to handle her flight training, usually along with Crystal and Eric. Dogfighting principles didn't precisely apply to aerial combat between capes, but some of the principles were still useful. She slowed, holding position until her phone buzzed.

She was confident she was too far away for the man to hear the sound of her phone vibrating, but she wasn't taking any chances. She dove forward, actually aiming for the lip of the roof rather than the man lying on it. Concrete crumbled under her blow leaving the amateur sniper without a stable perch. She turned to grab him and dragged the man down to the ground of the plaza.

On her way she saw Kid Win launch into the air with a pistol in each hand. At the peak of his jump bursts of electricity launched from each weapon, striking positions on the second story of one of the shops. She continued down, watching the ground between the three remaining capes warp like an old TV set as suddenly Clockblocker was right on top of the ABB's defensive position. Any he couldn't immediately tag were sent flying his way by the push from Browbeat.

The entire operation took less than five seconds, and that included the time needed to check her phone. Kid Win did another scan before Clockblocker called in the National Guard forces to secure the ABB and their weapons.

And like that, the fight was over. At least this time Vicky felt like she had accomplished something, rather than being massively upstaged at the last minute. She found a seat on the side of the plaza while the guardsmen went about their duties, and then Missy found her.

"Thanks for your help." The younger cape said as she settled in next to her. The girl was trying to play things cool, but Vicky could see signs of exhaustion on her. Probably an adrenaline crash, but it might just be the effects of the conflict. She knew how quickly even a short fight could burn you out, and Missy didn't have the brute powers Vicky could rely on.

"I think you had things handled well enough." She complimented. "That was really impressive work out there."

Vista nodded. "When he's not being insufferable Clock is actually decent to work with, and our powers work well together."

Vicky grinned. "Time and space?" The younger girl froze, and seemed to realize the implications for the first time.

"No." She whispered.

Vicky looked out at the crowd being held back by the guardsmen, and the large number of civilians who had seen Vista and Clockblocker working together. "What do you think they'll call it? Continuum?"

"Please God, no." Vista sank her head and Vicky placed a hand on her back.

"Don't worry, they won't take things too far. And it WAS really impressive." The girl perked up slightly at that. Vicky cleared her throat and gestured towards the guardsmen. "So, do you know what's next? I'm good sticking around to help, but I'm still not sure what the end goal is. You heard anything official?"

"Not yet. We'll probably get new orders once intelligence is confirmed." Missy's face turned sour. "Kid told me about the scan data. They're probably going to use that to set our deployment."

It sounded like the girl desperately wanted to find some flaw with Apeiron's actions, but couldn't place one at the moment, so was settling for a regular sour mood.

"Any idea how long that'll take?" She asked.

Missy shrugged. "Hopefully long enough for Clockblocker and Browbeat to finish."

"Finish what?" She asked, and then saw the medical equipment being moved in. Missy's stories from Saturday night jumped out at her. "No. Here? Seriously?"

The girl shrugged. "Kid said it looks like the same design, or close enough. Any changes were made to counter Apeiron's technique, not Clockblocker's. No way of telling if we'll get another chance, or if Bakuda will try something with captured conscripts, so they're moving now."

She looked at the pair of capes. Dennis was as stoic as she had ever seen him, but Browbeat looked like he might pass out at any moment. "Can they handle that?"

Vista nodded. "Browbeat's been recognized as a trauma responder, only class two, but they've had him doing medical training since Saturday night. He's got nothing on Amy, but apparently he can do patchwork and rough surgery. Good enough to stop bleeding without infection, and that's like ninety percent of this kind of thing."

The mention of her sister banished the last of the combat high that had been floating in Vicky's system. Missy picked up on her reaction immediately and leaned in.

"Um, how are things going? Did your uncle know anything about it?"

She shook her head slowly. "They're still testing things. There's something there, but he's pretty sure it's not Apeiron." She paused when she saw Missy's expression. "At least not directly. They've taken her somewhere else, observation or something. Did you know she was moved out of the tank?"

The younger girl shook her head. "They keep stuff about Master-Stranger protocols wrapped up pretty tight. But if she's out that's probably a good sign."

Vicky let out a long breath. "Maybe. Whatever my mom's been dealing with, it's not about Amy." She paused. "Or New Wave. There's something else going on, I don't know what it is, but Mom's been putting it ahead of everything else and I can't figure out why and it's driving me crazy."

Missy nodded slowly. "I get it. Not directly, but I get where you're coming from." The admission seemed difficult for the girl, and she turned back to the medical tent. "With everything happening I really wish we had New Wave to fall back on. Don't think I realized how much of a safety net you were. Not just Amy, everyone in the team."

Vicky slumped. "Not sure if there's going to be a team for long. Not sure if we even count as one now. Mom hasn't touched her costume in over a week, Dad's practically a solo cape, Aunt Sarah is a mess, and I don't know what's happening with Uncle Neil. It's like the only stable person is Uncle Mike, and I'm the only one talking to him." She glanced at her phone. "Actually had to sneak out for that. Mom wanted me to stay in until whatever she's working on is over."

Vista looked at the assembled guardsmen and shattered plaza. "Given the situation I think she'll understand your decision to help out.

She smiled slightly and the two girls sat awkwardly, watching as forced gang members were taken into a rapidly assembled medical tent one after another. She was legitimately impressed with the pace, barely a minute per subject, each one leaving with a white scar on their face and an expression of desperate relief.

Vicky felt a sense of pride at that, despite having nothing to do with the process in question. Just the fact that the city's heroes could make a difference like this, could actually save some of Bakuda's victims, it was like they had taken back some ground. They weren't completely irrelevant. Sure, they weren't doing painless assembly line surgery while also healing every ailment the patient had ever experienced, but they were pulling people out from under Bakuda's control. That counted for something.

The work continued as Chris made his way towards them, a concerned expression on his face.

"Something wrong?" She asked in her best attempt at a level tone.

"Not with the surgery." He glanced back. "Browbeat's like a machine. Think it's because he wants it over as quickly as possible but also is terrified of making a mistake. He's kind of in the zone. They got a whole system going." He sighed. "Wish I could get a look at those bombs, but they're too dangerous. Clockblocker's got them wrapped in six layers of time frozen plastic as soon as they're out, and they'll be sealing off the area in case there's anything poisonous, or something that can spread."

"So, what's the problem?" Vista asked. In response Chris pulled up his Apeiron-knockoff display screen again.

"Apeiron's stopped hitting ABB attack teams. Pattern shifted, and there were a couple more strikes, but then it's stopped." He explained.

"Maybe he's given up?" Vista suggested, and looked at the map. "Or maybe one of the bombs took him out?"

The girl made a commendable attempt to hide how excited she was about that prospect, but Chris shook his head. A glance from him at Vicky expressed a mirror of everything she'd been experiencing with respect to Vista's fanaticism on this topic.

"Not likely. Last three strikes were in a straight line, heading to a container yead north of the boardwalk." Vicky instinctively glanced in that direction, despite it being concealed from their current location. "Also, I think I've figured out what he was doing with the random strikes."

Missy and Vicky sat by as Chris walked them through a complicated set of visual data from Apeiron's map. Finally, a new set of icons appeared, specifically highlighting interactions between different ABB attacks.

"Wait," Vicky exclaimed, "They're building on each other?"

Chris nodded. "Combined bomb effects. A lot worse than any individual hit, and you know how bad those are. Apeiron was breaking sequences that would have merged the impacts of multiple strikes. He got most of them, but now that he's stopped some of them are combining. There's some kind of poisonous fire towards Downtown, and an allotrope of ice is spreading through the water mains in the South Docks. Probably more that haven't been nailed down."

"How bad is this going to get?" Vicky glanced up to see Clockblocker walking towards them, a queasy looking Browbeat trailing unsteadily behind him.

"No way to know." Chris admitted. "Did you get all the conscripts?"

Dennis nodded. "They were talking about sending us to the sites where other forced recruits have been captured, get as many of them cleared as possible." Browbeat looked over the spread of green dots on the map indicating such sites and looked like he might pass out. "But if this stuff is going to combine like you said they might need all hands-on-deck to counter it."

"Maybe." Chris admitted. "I guess that depends on why Apeiron left the fight." He pointed at the line he had traced from the three points. "Any idea what could be happening here?"

"Container yard?" Clockblocker shrugged and turned to Vista and Glory Girl. Vicky didn't have anything to offer, and Missy was in the same boat, but seemed happy to be consulted. Dennis shook his head. "I'll have to call in, and check with the CO for the Guard to…"

Chris made a frantic gesture, but Vicky didn't need to guess what it was about. Not with the tone coming from her phone.

Uber and Leet had a new video. The odds that they were premiering their 'out of city' job during the conflict, barely half an hour after Bakuda's broadcast, wasn't even worth considering. It was the ABB. They had something they wanted to show.

Around them they could see members of the crowd and even some soldiers get the same alert. The sense of dread in the air was tangible, and Chris was looking to Dennis for permission to open the broadcast.

"Not out here." He whispered. "We don't need the public filming a Wards React video. Not with what could be in that broadcast."

Missy stood up and nodded. With a gesture space warped and the five of them found themselves a step away from the roof of the shopping center. Dennis gave her a nod of thanks as they crossed the compressed distance and the girl returned space to its normal configuration.

With a sigh Dennis nodded to Kid Win and the tinker made some adjustments. The screen expanded to its largest size and the broadcast began.

At first it was just a black screen with a 'incoming broadcast' message, the same one Uber and Leet always used. There was the faintest hope that it might be a false alarm. That died immediately, not because of what was on the screen, but because of the echo of thunder that rolled through the city.

It sounded like a dozen blasts fighting to be heard over each other. The roof beneath them shook like an earthquake had hit the city. Flares of light shot up from the direction of the suspected container year, then seemed to spread deeper into the city.

"What the hell was…" Dennis started, but before he could finish his sentence the video sprang to life.

The scene displayed was over so quickly that she could barely recognize what had happened. But it was repeated from another angle, and another, at least four shots of the same event played on a loop and then slowed down, finally letting things fall into place

Apeiron, launching through the air, striking a clone of Oni Lee, but impossibly recovering from a spin out. Truly impossibly, like something out of a cartoon. And then he was swarmed. At full speed it was like a mass of Oni Lee clones suddenly appeared around him. Slowed down you could tell what was happening, at least if you were familiar with how the assassin cape fought.

One clone would appear, and another immediately followed. Well, that would be the original, popping in within the first copy's sightlines, but angled differently. Reversed in position, so that he could immediately move again, changing position, and so on. The rate at which he copied was insane. It was a maneuver that must have taken intense practice and timing. The cape would have to have known his next three destinations before he began his first teleport.

The result was the most deadly suicide attack she had ever seen, or could ever imagine. The entire mass went up in a cloud of bluish-purple light, which was immediately overwhelmed by a roar of every kind of energy Vicky could imagine, streaming out of the cluster like Legend had decided to open up with everything he was capable of.

"What…" She gaped. "Was that some Bakuda bomb? Did she get Apeiron with one… with, like, fifty of her blasts?"

"Not Bakuda." Clockblocker said confidently. "At least not at first. That blast? It was March's power."

Vicky felt her gut's wrench and remembered the tinker's reaction to the rabbit cape during the last broadcast. "I know it's supposed to be strong…"

"It brought down my time stop." He said harshly. "That's never happened. It's not supposed to be possible, but she did it. She was confident she could do it." He gestured to where the attack was repeating again. "If anything in the city would work against Apeiron, it's that power, and I think March knew it."

"Do you think he's dead?" Vista asked. Her voice had a complicated emotion to it. Vicky couldn't tell if she was hopeful, upset, or disappointed. Or maybe the girl just didn't know how to feel.

"I don't know." Vicky admitted as the broadcast changed. The new shot was like a container yard from hell. She could see the signs of a horrible battle, and that wasn't getting into the building walls of elemental energy stretching out from where she guessed the previous attack had taken place. The obviously handheld camera began to move forward, with the video cutting out to scenes of other attacks. Strikes on one of Apeiron's robots and various crystal drones. Not as closely shot, but there was the same effect at play. Oni Lee appeared in an instant, followed by that purple-blue explosion that left ruin in its wake.

The video cut back suddenly, showing the camera advance on a broken form spread on the ground. Really spread, in an almost artistic pose. It was as beautiful a position as a broken body could appear.

Broken was probably too generous a word. The young capes stopped breathing as Apeiron came into view. Shattered would probably better describe the cape. His costume was a tattered wreck, his limbs were splintered, and he had suffered horrible injuries across his torso. Miraculously, his chest and head were mostly undamaged, though his visor was half gone and his mask was shredded. If it wasn't for the fact that he clearly was in horrible pain she would have assumed he was already dead.

"Jesus," Muttered Browbeat. Vicky was immediately grateful for Dennis's foresight in moving the team out of the public eye.

Dennis's foresight. Dennis. Foresight. The words made sense individually, but just didn't seem to fit when you put them together.

"How is he still alive?" Chris asked the world in general. It was something Vicky couldn't answer. She wouldn't have liked the man's chances if Amy had been standing right next to him. Just from the scale of the wounds she would guess he had minutes of life. Maybe seconds.

The video cut to another shot, showing a roaring wall of flame. It was one of the discharges from when Apeiron had been attacked. On reflection she doubted it was one of Bakuda's devices. "Is that, all that stuff, it that from when he got hit? When his equipment was damaged?"

"Nobody knows what he uses to power his technology." Chris admitted. "Most of it doesn't make sense, and apparently he has low maintenance fusion technology on top of God knows what else." The boy gestured to the screen floating above his wrist. "You blow apart any power source, it's going to get messy. Hit the kind of thing Apeiron uses and…"

"Yeah." Dennis replied dryly. "Does that thing, I guess all those things, extend as far as it looks like they do? Because that could get… messy."

Vicky glanced up. "I could head up, try to get a look at…" Her suggestion died when the wall of flame parted.

Striding through the fire, ten feet tall and bristling with silver scales, was Lung. The leader of the ABB. The Dragon of Kyushu. The lynchpin of the current crisis. It was almost funny. Last Monday New Wave had been meeting to discuss the implications of Lung's capture, how the removal of a major power from the city's cape scene would impact things, and how they would deal with the aftermath. Now the man stood there, in shining glory, leading a team that just struck down perhaps the most promising tinker since Hero.

Lung was fully covered with scales. She had encountered him often enough to know what then meant. He had been fighting. He had found another warm up match, just like he did on Tuesday night, when he moved from one conflict to another until he reached the point where they just had to step back and let him destroy as much of the city as he wanted.

Then she saw how he had been able to ramp up. What Lung was dragging behind him. The crumbled white and gold form, stained with blood. As the dragon-man moved forward he tossed the body aside like a piece of trash. Vicky was speechless. They all were. Finally, Vista managed to get out a single word.

"Rory." Her voice was empty and wispy, but everyone was hit the same way at the sight of the former ward leader's crumpled form. Even Browbeat, who joined after Triumph left the team, was stunned.

"Is he…" Chris swallowed and looked at them hopefully.

It was Dennis who stepped forward. "He's moving." Really he was twitching, and possibly moaning, but technically that was true. "Rory has a healing power. If he's not dead he'll pull through." His voice sounded like he was trying to use a drop of confidence to cover a small ocean of fear and apprehension. Still, she appreciated the effort. They all did.

She knew his healing factor wasn't that good. Plenty of times he'd been patched up by Amy instead of waiting for his injuries to manage themselves. Plus, there were hundreds of ways complications could happen, and that was assuming the ABB actually left him alive or let him go.

None of that would have helped right now. Instead, she focused on the sneering maw of Lung's transformed face as he approached the prone and broken tinker. The broadcast actually switched between cameras, cutting from Lung's approach to Apeiron's shattered body, then to a close up on Lung.

The camera on Apeiron was shifting angles, but despite the injuries, the blood, the destroyed clothing, the tinker still managed to look good. It had to be some kind of appearance power working in the background. Nobody should ever look that dignified in a condition where none of their limbs were bending the right way and they had massive open wounds in their torso.

"So…" Lung began in a coarse, growling voice. "The mighty, fallen. Upstarts, ignorant children who think they can challenge Lung, that they know the meaning of power. They all learn. All that have tried to oppose me have paid for their insolence. One more link in a chain of failure."

Vicky realized that may have been the longest she'd ever heard Lung speak. At least the longest in terms of full sentences, not growled insults said between flurries of fireballs. Had Lung ever spoken publicly? There was limited footage of his fights, just because the ramp up effect made them either too short to film, or too dangerous to approach. This may be the best look the world had ever gotten at the man, and it was terrifying.

Not terrifying like Apeiron had been, where he radiated menace by looking down slightly and shifting his stance so that you were suddenly wondering when he would unleash the apocalypse brewing in his eyes. Terrifying in the promise of violence, the certainty behind his actions and character. Lung wasn't complicated, but that didn't mean he was simple. It was a direct form of terror. Lung was feared because of what he had done and what he would do.

The man was strong enough to make sure anyone who crossed him would pay, no matter how much damage happened as a result. Even a tinker as incredible as Apeiron had failed to counter him. It was clear, this wasn't a power play, or an assassination. Lung was making a point.

A single scaled hand gestured to the side and a bank of fog, also thrown off by the attack on Apeiron, parted revealing a tiny woman in a familiar outfit. Familiar except for two details. The giant sword being carried before her, and the black hood over her head, with holes cut for each of her rabbit ears to poke through.

A shiver went through the group. It should have been obvious, and really she didn't know what else she should have expected, but seeing it displayed so blatantly, so crassly, she didn't know how to process what she was seeing.

"It's an execution." Missy's voice sounded empty.

They stood in silence, watching the cape saunter happily forward, swinging the giant ornate blade back and forth. The camera followed her approach, showing the purple-blue trails left by the blade as the tip swung through the ground. Trails that sparked like little lines of gunpowder before popping just as she stepped over them.

"Striker power." Dennis said robotically. "It can counter my time stop. The blasts can injure Apeiron. A direct hit…" He trailed off, and the tension in the group rose another octave.

Vicky glanced towards the north end of the boardwalk. If she launched herself right now, and moved at her top speed she could get there… just in time to see Apeiron die. And then face a ramped-up Lung. And March, the cape who everyone underestimated terribly. Oh, and Oni Lee was there too. So just her against the combined cape forces of the ABB, possibly save Bakuda, but with her technology in play regardless.

Even if she could somehow carry everyone here, could they get there in time? Could they make a difference? Could they do anything but watch the man die?

She hated it. She hated the powerlessness of her situation. She hated how BAD everything had gotten. People were supposed to be in charge to make sure things like this didn't happen, that it didn't get this bad. Except everyone 'in charge' had been tripping over their own mistakes and reacting to everyone else's. Now where were they? The city was being torn apart, slave soldiers were fighting in the street, and the only man who had made a difference was bleeding out and waiting to be executed.

That's what she hated the most. That dark monkey's paw wish tracing back to moments of frustration and selfishness. If she had been told a week ago that the tinker who equipped the Undersiders would die in a fight with the ABB would she have felt any remorse?

Maybe, if a camera was on her at the time. Along with some cheesy statement about evil meeting evil ends, and the tragedy of it, all while singing inside her heart that the world had proven her right. That the people she was angry with were bad people, of course, because why else would she be angry with them?

A week ago, she would have silently cheered his death, and the certainty of that disgusted her.

A giggle drew her attention back to the screen. March was approaching Apeiron, or what was left of Apeiron, and laughing in a disturbingly innocent manner.

"So here we are. Little dominos, all falling down."

The tinker coughed in response, and something wet, stringy, and bright red leaked down his chin, much to March's amusement. There was a crackling sound and a flash of sickly green light.

Reactions rippled through the capes, causing Lung to tense, Oni Lee to flinch, Triumph writhed and vomited, and March, in direct contrast, sighed and seemed to sink into the effect.

"Like at the storage yard." Chris said. "Capes react to his damaged technology."

"But why?" Vista asked. "And why isn't it affecting him?" The boy could only shrug as March leaned over the brutally injured tinker.

"Re-markable." Her voice was like a song. "You really did it. You saw it as well." Vicky's mind jumped back to the earlier broadcast, things only they knew. Warning lights were flashing in her head, and she could see the Wards putting the pieces together for themselves.

The ABB thinker leaned in and started to whisper something. It was too low to hear clearly. Vicky could only pull a few words, "Curtain", "Finish line", Stepping stone".

"Did anyone get that?" She asked hopefully.

"It's still on the broadcast, but it's really faint." Kid Win offered. "Might be able to reconstruct it from the audio, but…"

"Oh," March spoke up suddenly, "Is that regret? Disappointment? Someone didn't grab the brass ring when they had the chance and now it's slipping away." The thinker looked back as the discharge happened again. Actually, slightly before the discharge happened, and once again seemed to relish the experience. In the background Triumph flailed so hard she was seriously concerned for him. Nobody that injured should move in that way. Really, nobody fully healthy should move in that way.

Before anyone could comment March spoke again. "Did you even know what you had, or was it buried under all that other technology? So many new ideas that you let the best one pass you by."

The tinker cougher in response, once again managing to look dignified and somehow poetic as he did so. It was almost enough to distract from the terror of March's words.

"Uh, does anyone have any idea what that was about." Clockblocker's question was met with blank expressions, except for the slightest twitch from Kid Win.

In this situation it was enough to get everyone laser focused on him and Apeiron continued to writhe artfully on the screen.

"Okay, this is just a theory, right?" Dennis nodded to the younger cape and he continued. "Right. Uh, there are a lot of theories about how Apeiron's specialty works, how he can build so fast, and so much. Some of them are pretty out there, but one idea was he tinkers… with powers."

"What?" Vicky asked, then realized she had been part of a chorus composed of most of the group.

Chris rubbed his neck and awkwardly continued. "Like, his technology, or his specialization, is about modifying or emulating powers." He gestured to the screen. "That's why his broken tech affects capes, because it's reacting with their powers somehow."

"But what does that mean? And if it's true, what does March have to do with it?" Dennis asked.

Chris turned back to the floating screen as March leaned down over Apeiron. "Probably nothing good."

She was whispering again, something about doors and eternity. Right, just what you wanted to hear from people who were potentially messing with powers. Suddenly March reached towards the tinker.

"Oh, one last thing before the last thing. I promised Bakuda I'd give you a present, especially from her. Unfortunately, she wasn't able to get her toys ready before you decided to send that inconsiderate houseguest of a robot, so this will have to do."

The entire group, even Missy, flinched when March extended a finger towards Apeiron's face. "Now, don't flinch, or we'll miss the big finish."

The tip of her glove started on the man's forehead and traced down, followed by an obscene closeup by whoever was holding the camera. It left a shimmering, watermark-like trail as it moved down his face, over a blood-filled eye, and finishing mid cheek.

Then it started to spark.

Apeiron held rigidly still through the whole process, even as the spark passed over his eye. When it reached the end of the shimmering trail the entire line exploded with enough force to send the man's head slamming back and bouncing against the ground.

Where the trail had been there was now a bloody chasm in his face. Incredibly he was still alive, but with one eye destroyed and the other behind a shattered lens he was helpless and blind to what was happening around him. It was about the most frightening thing she could imagine.

Then she heard Lung speak.

"Enough. Finish it."

She tensed, and saw the reaction mirrored by everyone in the group. Frantically she glanced from the screen to the direction of the container yard. There had been enough posturing, showmanship, and gloating, that if she HAD left at the start she would have arrived in time to do… something. Anything. Anything but stand by helplessly as March hefted the giant, ornate blade for a final strike.

The scene was getting darker, shadows stretching ominously from storage crates. March prepared the swing and looked to Lung, just as the last rays of sunlight were vanishing.

March had some kind of timing power. She used it to bring down an electrical grid over multiple states. She used it to make Uber and Leet viable threats once more. She used it to coordinate a strike against the strongest tinker in a generation. And apparently she was using it so that when the sun went down on the scene it would also go down for Apeiron. Permanently.

They stood, watching in disbelief. Nobody had breathed since the spectacle began. How many people was this reaching? How many were going to watch Apeiron die?

Lung posed like a Roman Emperor and lifted an arm. In a single dramatic sweep, he dropped it, signaling March. The Rabbit cape turned back to the prone and bloody tinker, tightened her grip, and began to swing.

The world fell into shadow around them.

And then everything went red.

A particular shade of red. The red that had snaked over Apeiron's body when he fought Uber and Leet. The red that had danced between buildings as Apeiron had worked to shut down Bakuda's attacks. The red that, somehow, had enough physical presence to bodily push March back, away from the tinker's body.

Whoever was handling the camera was struggling to keep it on Apeiron through the force of the crimson light pouring out of him. It was so bright it was actually hard to see the Apeiron beneath the red glow.

The force of the… whatever it was actually began to lift the man's broken body off the ground. He was still moving, struggling, and managed to get his feet under him. A massive burst levered him forward, leaving him slumped into a forward hunch.

The overwhelming energy passed, or condensed, or something, finally letting the camera focus on the form that was somehow standing despite being broken beyond belief. Vicky had to steel herself against the sight of it, and Missy actually took a step back from the screen.

She had thought Apeiron's wounded form was the most severe thing she could imagine. She was badly mistaken. The man stood on broken legs. Legs held together by the binding of red fibers that writhed and twisted from his open wounds. Hundreds of them, thousands of them, glowing like the gates of hell and moving independent of any direction.

They wrapped around the tinker's broken limbs, pulling them back into shape. She could see them dip in and out of broken skin, moving inside open wounds. It looked like the most painful thing she could imagine. She didn't know what she was looking at, how something like this could exist.

And then she heard the laugh. A wet, panting sound that coursed through his entire body. The fibers pulsed in tune with it, flaring and dimming with each unsettling chuckle, casting harsh shadows over the assembled ABB forces.

Then he spoke.

She wouldn't have thought there was enough of his lungs left to breath, much less form words, but she was wrong. In a deep, pained, but somehow amused voice Apeiron called out.

"Proto… Aima…."

The words almost sounded like gibberish, but it dredged something up from the depths of her mind. The courses she took at the university, mostly parahuman studies, but sometimes she got snippets of exposure, random discussions from people who wanted to show off the focus of their studies to the visiting cape. One was about Greek, Ancient Greek. How the pronunciation had changed. Single and double consonants, short and long vowels and word accents.

They were all there. Perfectly there, even spoken through pain and a broken body being assaulted but nightmares. Spoken as naturally as she had ever heard it. Which meant, in modern Greek, that would be…

"What did he say?" Browbeat asked meekly, glancing around in concern.

"Proto Aima." Vicky replied. "Greek for first blood."

There was a wave of doubt and concern that spread through the group like an electric current. "That's not what he said." Chris countered, playing back the disturbing line.

"He said it in Ancient Greek." They looked at her questioningly. "Perfect Ancient Greek pronunciation, as far as I can tell. I have no idea why…"

"Apeiron is a Greek word." Browbeat offered, like that explained anything.

"Yeah," Missy spoke up, and swallowed nervously before continuing. "But 'First Blood'? In another language? What does that mean?"

On the screen March raised the giant sword towards Apeiron's twisted form. Despite the insane state of his body, he was still somehow carrying himself with a level of certainty. It was insane; he looked like he was held together with… she really didn't want to think about the word string right now, but somehow managed that same level of striking appearance he had before. Striking for a very different reason, but still striking.

"You…"

March's words died as Apeiron snapped upright, then too far back. Slowly he pulled his head forward, revealing the massive gash in his face where his right eye used to be. Only now, instead of a bloody mess, it was zig zagged by those red fibers, seemingly working to pull the fissure closed. All across his body she could see the… things… at work. Pulsing in and out of skin, holding wounds together like burning surgical stitches, or flailing in the air around him, seemingly looking for anything to connect to.

Even through the video screen Vicky could practically feel the rage radiating off him. The tattered costume, once immaculate, now looked like something from a post-apocalyptic or barbarian movie. Red fibers interwove with the shredded clothes giving the man an even more severe look. There was a sense of coiled power, or danger waiting to be unleashed.

Blind, bloody, unarmed, injured, and thirty feet from Lung, and Apeiron came across as the most dangerous thing in the city, if not the planet. She didn't know what she should expect.

Then March adjusted the grip on her sword and Vicky found out. Apeiron vanished, leaving a furrow in the ground behind him. Suddenly he was standing in front of, over March, holding the wrist of her sword arm in a crushing grip. The ground beneath them exploded on his arrival, breaking the thinker's footing and leaving her dangling from the arm of the taller cape.

March started to scream, and Vicky saw the reason. Red fibers, flailing loose from some closing wound on Apeiron's arm, had wrapped around March's wrist. The fibers, the same fibers snaking inside the tinker's body, were flaring with light as they BURNED through the girl's costume and did God knows what to the skin underneath.

The rabbit cape flailed in his grip while shrieking in pain. Desperately she tried to strike out against the larger cape. Before any blow could begin, much less land, the tinker pulled his free arm across his body and, almost contemptuously, backhanded the other cape.

The apparently casual blow struck with enough force to tear the girl out of his hand. The sword went flying off in a separate direction from the thinker, who bounced along the concrete before impacting a shipping container near the crashed robot. There was a bloody smear on the tinker's left hand, the result of March being torn from his grip by the force of a simple backhand.

With barely an instant to let the event sink in, Apeiron launched forward again, landing a shattering punch directly into the leader of the ABB. Shattering, as in scales shattered from the impact. Unlike the previous backhand this had his full power behind it, and the results showed. Lung shot back like a cannonball, crashing into a wall of containers, ploughing through the first and causing the rest to collapse around him.

For a second there was a surge of hope. Confused hope, but hope. Even Missy seemed happy to see fortunes turn around, but that may just have been from the point of view of villains fighting villains. There was hope. Apeiron was doing the impossible. Blind, injured and half mad, he was fighting. He could win.

And then he screamed.

Apeiron hadn't screamed when Oni Lee's ambush took him. He hadn't screamed when March split his face. He hadn't screamed when his body became held together by a nightmare of burning threads. But he was screaming now.

He dropped to a knee and cried out in a voice that shook Vicky to her core. The sound had an almost physical presence. They could see the containers shake around him. Specifically, they didn't need to question if the broadcast was live, not here. Not when they could practically feel the sound emanating from the north boardwalk.

"What the…" Chris started, then fell silent as he realized what he was looking at. It started as a jagged yellow line on the man's exposed flesh, then more colors joined it, different shapes, different tones, but all bright. Burning with energy, and snaking across any exposed flesh they could see. The energy bleeding off almost took on a tangible form, smoking, sparking, flowing, even seeming to merge with the ground.

Victoria took a step back. They were three levels past the impossible now. This was beyond her earlier helplessness, this was insanity. Apeiron didn't just break the rules, he was playing an entirely different game. They were watching an unknown force apparently consume the tinker, a different unknown force than the last one that had shown up, all while the ABB was still active and their friend was lying nearby injured.

Apeiron shifted his body and Victoria decided she was done. She would take this one thing at a time. Apeiron was supposed to be boundless, or infinite or whatever, and that was fine. She watched the man stretch a clawed hand into the air and decided then, nothing he could do would surprise her any more.

"TRAUMA!"