AN: This "Patrol Log" occurs concurrently with "The Return," Chapter 3.
Flying through his assigned portal as the rest of the group dispersed to their assigned patrols, Mecha-Man found himself hovering high above the countryside just south of Lyon. North of him, the city stretched to the east and west, with smaller towns to either side of him. Checking his altimeter, the portal had opened 200 meters above the ground, just above the highest buildings in the city. Behind him, the portal closed with a whoosh, leaving Mecha-Man alone in an empty blue sky. He let out a breath. The portal was supposed to open again in an hour; by then he needed to finish everything he had come here to do.
But what if the portal didn't reopen? What if they just left him here? Logically, he knew that it didn't make sense: the Heroes of Paris needed to find the Tarasque, and if it were in Lyon, he was the one who would tell them. So they couldn't afford to leave him behind. And – he chuckled humorlessly – even if they did abandon him here, he still had friends in the area. But still… He and the Heroes of Paris had been on opposite sides for so long, he couldn't help the twinge of unease that came with working alongside the people who only a few months earlier had tried to arrest him – and whom he had in turn tried to hurt.
But he didn't have the time for doubts and self-recriminations. He had come much too far in trying to help against the Tarasque to stop now.
Rising another 100 meters into the air, Mecha-Man spun in a quick circle, confirming in moments what he had already guessed: the Tarasque was nowhere to be seen. However, based on the timer displayed on his HUD, he was going to be here for another 55 minutes at least; he still had two other assignments to carry out. Quickly he activated his suit's new sensors, installed by Biladurang and Maroodiga Cawlan – under Antoine's direct supervision – for this mission. As the readout came up, he frowned, his brows furrowed in concern. The numbers and charts made little sense; Gaston had only barely passed his lycée science requirement – but he didn't need to understand the data to understand the story it told. While the level of poison in the atmosphere was minimal, it was still present, and at a level detectable even this high up in the air. The poison was spreading, and he could only imagine what that might mean for the people of France.
What that might mean for Colette and Richard, still trapped back in the ruins of Paris.
Slowly, Mecha-Man flew north toward the city, drifting west to overfly the Rhone and descending until he was only 50 meters above the ground as he passed within the city's limits – still above most of Lyon, but low enough for his cameras to make out what was happening below him in greater detail. According to the sensor readout, the level of poison in the air rose steadily as he descended. Examining the Rhone more closely as he skimmed along above it, he could make out a thin sheen of green clinging to the surface of the water. "Damn," he muttered to himself. Looking at the banks of the river, the poison did not appear to have risen much beyond the waterline, but the plants growing closest to the water had all begun to turn brown and wither. At a command, the suit recorded a dozen images of the river and its banks. The Heroes of Paris would definitely want to know about this… just as soon as he returned to Angola. He glanced up at the timer in the upper right corner of his HUD: still fifty minutes to go before the portal would reopen. He sighed, resigned.
Time to switch over to his second mission, from Elettrisicario.
Turning to the north, Mecha-Man flew up the first major street he found, one he recognized from his last time here but the name of which escaped him. Very little of the normal city noise could be heard. Searching the city to either side as he passed, he could see people out on the streets, though less than he had expected after his last visit to Lyon. However, in just the first kilometer he passed no less than ten police vehicles; on each block were a pair of what appeared to be civilians wearing red berets with blue patches. Mecha-Man cocked his head in confusion, studying the berets closely.
"Can anyone read me?" Mecha-Man rose higher into the air until he could see above the tops of the buildings and adjusted his communicator to the Heroes' frequency.
No response.
Of course, he hadn't expected anyone else to respond; Ladybug and Cavalière Lavande hadn't divulged where the other scouts were being sent, but he somehow doubted that they would have concentrated their forces too close together. Sighing, he shifted the frequency to a different one. "This is Mecha-Man. Is anyone there?" Silence. "This is Mecha-Man. Does anyone copy?" Still no response. Mecha-Man flew a little further north, studying the buildings he was passing for any indication of his contact's location. After a couple minutes he was ready to give up and turn toward the river, when the communicator clicked.
"'Mecha-Man'?" a vaguely-familiar voice repeated incredulously. "What the hell are you doing here? We haven't heard from the bosses in at least two months; we assumed everyone must've been killed in Paris!"
"No, we're all still alive," Mecha-Man replied. "Although we've spent something like six weeks in a refugee camp in Africa, so…"
"Fair enough. I–" Jacques' voice cut off abruptly with a curse. Mecha-Man could hear grunting and shouting in the background.
"Jacques?" Mecha-Man rose higher into the air, searching his HUD for a bearing to the signal. Finally he spotted the flashing red dot on the horizon, somewhere to his right, further toward the east side of the city, and turned in that direction, accelerating rapidly. "Everything okay there?"
"God damn it all," Jacques grumbled, sounding out of breath. "There's all these vigilante assholes running around the city these days and making life difficult for us. A couple of them just ambushed us."
Mecha-Man groaned. "On my way." As he neared the source of the radio frequency, he shifted his HUD's sensors to focus in on the ambient audio, searching for any indication of who or what the vigilantes in question might be. He could pick up the noise of pigeons fluttering on the roof he was passing, the sound of a radio's static, even car noises from several blocks away. But apart from Jacques' grunts, he heard nothing of the fight. Finally, as he turned around the last corner, he found Jacques and three others standing outside of an electronics store, fighting against three people wearing the by-now-familiar red berets, the leader of whom towered over Jacques and carried a saber. Jacques raised a silver pistol and aimed it at the leader of the vigilantes, who dove out of the way just as the shot was fired, narrowly missing him before striking and melting through an electric cable.
"Don't let them escape!" the vigilante leader shouted, swinging his sword at Jacques' head. Jacques ducked beneath the blow, backpedaling away and raising his pistol for another shot.
Flaring out above them, Mecha-Man dropped to land between Jacques and the vigilante, grabbing Jacques' pistol with one hand and the vigilante's sword with the other. "What is going on here?" he demanded, jerking both weapons out of their wielders' hands.
"Who asked you, criminal?" the vigilante shot back, snatching for his saber as Mecha-Man held it away from him. Stepping closer, the vigilante narrowed his eyes. "I know who you are, Mecha-Man. And I know who you work for. And I'll be damned if I step back and let you just take over – not after all the effort Liberté has put into keeping this city safe!"
Mecha-Man threw the sword and pistol away and folded his arms, turning to face him. "Your bluster is all well and good, M. Liberté, but I'm not here to take over anything."
"It's 'de Gaulle'," the man corrected, jerking his head toward his companions. "And this is Résistante and Maquisard. I started Liberté after the world started going to hell a few months ago. And lately we've been helping the police protect this city from looters, along with criminals like your friends over there."
Mecha-Man furrowed his brows beneath his helmet and turned on Jacques. "What's going on here?" he demanded.
Jacques shrugged. "When we lost contact with Paris we didn't know what to do," he explained. "At first we were just doing what we'd been told, but then that didn't seem like enough. People started getting worried. Then the refugees from Paris and elsewhere started flooding in. There was a run on food and stuff, and suddenly the city erupted into chaos. We've just been trying to stake our claim." He clapped Mecha-Man on the shoulder. "We coulda used you a few weeks ago – with you here, we could be running this city by the end of the week!"
Mecha-Man shrugged Jacques' hand off his shoulder, knocking it away in annoyance. "I am here," he agreed testily. "But do you know where I've been for the last six weeks?" Jacques shrugged noncommittally. "Angola, with the Heroes of Paris, along with half the superheroes in the world! And do you want to know why I'm back here today? It's because we're hunting down the Tarasque, and as soon as we find it we're going to kill it, and then the Heroes of Paris will be back. And when they find out you've been causing trouble back home while they were away, they will descend on you with a vengeance. And that will bring all kinds of heat down on the boss. And there is no way in hell that I'm getting in the middle of that cluster when you were the assholes trying to set up your own little fiefdom in the chaos!"
"What the hell?" Jacques shot back. "That's the whole point of us getting involved here in the first place: expanding our interest! And here's a perfect chance to do just that!"
Mecha-Man shook his head. "Trust me: it's not worth it – not now, when we are so close to the end of this thing. Besides," he added, eyeing them suspiciously, "the boss sent you orders before the Tarasque arrived. If he comes back and finds out that you were doing dumb shit like this instead of doing your job…"
Jacques cocked his head in confusion. "What, you mean watching his–"
Mecha-Man let out an electronic whine, drowning out his next words. "Yeah, that job," he confirmed, poking his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of de Gaulle. "So…?"
"It's all good; they're safe," Jacques assured him dismissively. "A few of my guys are with them all the time."
De Gaulle frowned, a calculating look in his eye.
"He will be relieved to hear that," Mecha-Man told Jacques. "Make sure they stay that way, or it will be your head. Now–" Mecha-Man rose into the air on his jetpack "–you play nice here. Because the Heroes of Paris will be back – inside of a week, tops."
"Wait!" shouted de Gaulle, waving his hands over his head. Mecha-Man turned to face him, and he stared up at Mecha-Man nervously. "They're really going to be back?"
Mecha-Man nodded. "That's why I'm here," he confirmed.
"So what can we do?"
"At this point?" asked Mecha-Man. He frowned beneath his helmet. "Try to keep the violence and chaos to a minimum."