Again, as with chapter 86, this one had an embedded music link. I've followed the same procedure here as I did there.

For reference, it is (replace : with . to get a URL):

www:youtube:com/watch?v=PyAdps2W-ZA

I've bolded and underlined the point in the original where the link was.

Dean watched with the rest of the Wards as the impossibly large creature towing the old ship did her ridiculous skit, apparently hugely enjoying herself, not sure what to think.

It was obviously Taylor.

Somehow.

While he knew she had Changer abilities that were just stupidly powerful, this drove home how stupidly powerful they were like nothing he could have imagined. It also made him totally certain he did not want, under any circumstances, to get on her bad side.

Dennis was still mumbling 'Bullshit!' to himself every now and then but seemed otherwise to be almost catatonic. Missy was looking simultaneously enthralled and horrified, Carlos was basically gaping to the point Dean was surprised his tongue hadn't dried out, and Chris seemed fascinated.

He didn't know yet what Sophia made of it, she wasn't allowed out on the roof for some reason, but he thought it likely she was looking from her quarters or the Ward break room.

Peering down at the crowds who were pointing and talking, thousands of cell phones and camera flashes going off everywhere making the mass of people seem to flicker with light, he couldn't believe that everyone was taking it so calmly. He was extremely relieved that they were but still found it strange. He looked over to where his girlfriend was floating over the middle of the park, also watching, appearing to be enjoying herself although also seeming, based on her body language, to be somewhat surprised.

The emotional miasma coming from all the people on the roof with him was hard to deal with, but easier now than it had been when Taylor had rocketed past barely breaking the surface of the water. Most of the PRT personnel had gone very quiet and very worried, probably fearing an Endbringer attack despite the Mayor's words. He was amazingly grateful that the people in charge of the sirens had resisted the urge to hit the button. The panic that would have ensued would have been horrific, and the fallout terrible.

The blue streak in the air, a familiar effect, made him tense all over again. What was Legend going to do? He wasn't at all sure that if the Triumvirate hero attacked for whatever reason that he'd win, and was sure it would cause total chaos whatever happened.

When Taylor held up her hand and made her demand, he watched with an open mouth, his heart hammering with worry.

Paul took his time on the flight from New York, going fairly slowly for him, both to give himself time to think and the ability to think, which his Breaker power whittled away at more and more the faster he went. He could have made the trip in minutes, possibly seconds if he'd really pushed, but he wasn't in any hurry. Based on the live TV broadcast neither was the enormous lizard creature, it had been gently drifting with the current, only correcting the path of the huge tanker and guiding it while letting the incoming tide do most of the work.

He wondered what Rebecca and David were doing, aside from watching the TV and making plans. They were always making plans. Lately he'd begun to have the distinct feeling that he didn't know as much about them as he thought he did. Sooner or later he was going to have to look into that. But for now, he had more important things to think about.

When he arrived at his destination he slowed abruptly from around three hundred miles an hour to zero almost instantly, gaping at the vast creature that was standing erect in thirty or forty feet of water, which was only about half as deep as it was tall. The huge glowing slit-pupiled eyes were fixed squarely on him, the thing having apparently detected his arrival before it happened. The gaze was very unnerving, it betrayed a high intelligence and a calculating one, that somehow felt both young and interested and ancient and knowing all at the same time. He couldn't have said how he arrived at that conclusion, only that it was the instant reflexive response.

The only thing that made him somewhat relieved was that it was an utterly different response than any of the Endbringers evoked in him, although as strong and in some ways at least as alien. Whatever mind was in there, it was a good one and it wasn't human.

His assessment had taken ten or fifteen seconds. Not detecting any apparent hostile intent, only curious inspection, he moved slowly closer, wanting to see what it did. Based on the way that a vast crowd of people was lining every available viewpoint for over a mile down the shore, centered on the City Hall building and the park between it and the water, it didn't seem like anyone present thought there was an immediate threat either. In fact, bearing in mind that he could see a hot dog vendor currently selling several of his wares to a group of individuals while smiling and all five of the people were ignoring not only him, but the huge reptile, the whole thing seemed to have turned into a public holiday.

Everywhere he looked he could see people staring out of buildings, gathered on the roofs, in the streets, or any other available viewpoint, while there were many roads carefully blocked off keeping the majority of the Docks area clear. He rose a little higher to get a better view. Police and civilians in high-visibility jackets with 'DWU Crowd Control' written on them were manning each barricade, talking to each other with casual ease, while more of both groups were circulating in the crowds keeping an eye on everything. He could see over a hundred of the DWU personnel at least.

He also spotted Glory Girl hovering over the park behind the City Hall, wearing a new costume that looked very similar to the one Panacea had been recorded as wearing recently, while the rest of her family were scattered around the place in similar outfits as well. Presumably the same source was responsible for them although why New Wave would suddenly have changed their image was an unknown at the moment.

'Interesting,' he thought. 'Very interesting.'

Lowering himself to eye level for Kaiju, who was still watching him, motionless, he continued slowly moving closer. The immense ship she was towing was gradually drifting nearer, moving at perhaps a mile an hour, the cables that lead from the bow to a harness she had on her torso under the comically large safety gear going slack in the process. Within a minute or two she'd have to start moving again but she didn't seem concerned.

When he was only about two hundred and fifty yards away, she raised an enormous hand, which he couldn't help noticing was large enough to crush him like a beer can and had several feet of razor-sharp talon tipping each oddly human-like finger, and boomed out the words, "Stop right there, please," sounding polite yet determined.

He immediately stopped moving, holding position where he was.

They stared at each other for a few seconds. He noticed something tiny and glittering land right between her eyes moments after she'd quickly glanced to the side, making him look as well. On a rooftop in the distance he could see two young men wearing masks and normal clothes, surrounded by Tinker technology, and a girl who had to be Panacea based on her costume. He wondered why she was hanging around with Über and Leet of all people, as it couldn't be anyone else.

Deciding that could wait, he returned his attention to the gigantic reptilian creature which was standing patiently waiting. "Excuse me?" he said politely. "Kaiju, I believe?"

Taylor inspected the floating figure of one of the most famous capes in the world as it hung in the air a few hundred feet away. Legend was someone she genuinely looked up to, her research had suggested that he really was the hero he appeared to be, publicly and probably privately. The man seemed to be a truly decent person who tried to do the best he could in a very difficult job. As the overall leader of the Protectorate, he'd put himself in harm's way more times than she could remember, attended every Endbringer fight without fail, and generally did all he could to help the world deal with threats.

She was a little worried that he'd see her as one of those threats, but he seemed merely curious at the moment, looking mildly puzzled at her instruction yet immediately following it and waiting to see what happened next. She realized that he'd spotted Amy and the other two when she looked at them following Amy's shout, remembering that his eyesight was supposed to be spectacularly good, possibly even as good as hers. Although she didn't know it if extended outside normal human wavelengths as her Varga-granted sense did. Or whether there was the same boost to hearing or any other senses as well.

It seemed fairly unlikely, as she pondered the matter. 'What do you think?' she asked silently.

"I think we need to be honest with him, although not necessarily fully open." The Varga sounded like he was also evaluating the man floating in the air with great interest. "He doesn't seem to have any hostile reason for being here, I think he's mainly curious. It was inevitable that we would attract high-level official interest as soon as we revealed the Kaiju form in public, and I expect Legend is one of, if not the, best people to get that attention from. We don't have any reason to distrust him, his reputation is superb and well-earned, and his power level is very high. Most likely not high enough to be a serious concern but why invite trouble? I suspect that staying on his good side is a sensible idea."

'That doesn't mean we can't have fun, though,' she snickered.

"Oh, no, of course not," he replied with a mental grin. "As Amy and her new friends are listening through the little device on your head, I would imagine they will broadcast most of this to the city. We should definitely amuse everyone. And ourselves, of course. Life without fun is hardly life, after all."

'OK.' She giggled to herself and him. 'Let's see what happens with Operation: Confuse Legend.' As he laughed in her head, she thought quickly, then opened her mouth.

"Correct," the monstrous reptilian creature replied with a smile that exposed far more teeth than he was used to seeing in someone he was talking to. They were very sharp. "And I know you. You're Mr Foot."

Paul stared at her in confusion.

"Ah..." He couldn't quite work out what the hell she was talking about. "I think you might be mistaken. I'm Legend."

"I know. And a Leg End is a foot." She rubbed her chin thoughtfully while inspecting him, as he shook his head slightly, the confusion deepening. "Or perhaps a hip, if you're going the other way. But normally you wouldn't consider that end of your leg the actual end, would you?"

He stared, then, as she seemed to be waiting for an answer, replied slowly, "No, I suppose not."

"Exactly. So it's the other end. That's a foot. You're Leg End, otherwise known as Mr Foot. See? Perfectly logical." She smiled at him.

Shaking his head a little harder, he tried to recalibrate his world view. Whatever he'd been expecting, an eighty foot tall Godzilla clone that seemed to like word games and bad puns wasn't it.

Amy listened with amazed amusement, then tapped Leet on the shoulder again, a shoulder that was heaving with laughter. "Broadcast this until or unless she says not to, it's fantastic. It'll make people laugh, which will make them less worried. And for god's sake record everything."

"Trust me, that I'm doing," he snickered, tapping a control. Taylor and Legend's dialog began spilling out around the city. "I've started at the beginning and I'll edit out some of the pauses to get it to sync up with real time," he muttered, fiddling quickly with the control pad, while she went back to watching and listening. On his other side, Über was laughing so hard he couldn't speak.

'Holy crap, Taylor, you and your friend have some confidence talking to Legend of all people like this,' she thought with wild glee as the conversation proceeded. 'I wonder what he thinks about it?'

"So, Mr Foot, what can we do for you? I'm afraid you're either going to have to back up about a hundred feet or wear these." She held up a hard hat and another, much more human sized, high visibility jacket, on the palm of one Brobdingnagian hand. "As the signs say, this is a construction zone. OSHA regulations, you understand, I'm sure. No one can be in a construction zone without the correct safety equipment. I could get in trouble, we don't want the DWU boss shouting at me." She glanced both ways, then raised her other hand to her mouth, whispering in a tone that half the city could hear with ease, "Between you and me, he's sort of scary when he gets mad."

"If you don't want to wear it, you'll either have to wait until I finish this job or shout from way over there," she added, lifting her hand a little while pointing at the line of marker buoys with her other one, one long talon extended.

With an air of unreality, Paul stared at her, apparently sincere, expression, then shook his head a little and flew over, somewhat gingerly landing on her hand then bending down and picking up the hard hat, putting it on while feeling like an idiot. Retrieving the jacket he looked at the writing on the back, thinking that perhaps he should have stayed in bed.

Mr Foot AKA LegEnd

Triumvirate Hero

Visitor

"I'll save you, Ma'am"

Sighing slightly, although internally somewhat amused in a surreal manner, he put the thing on over his costume. Glancing down, he pondered the fact that he was standing on a single hand large enough to support a decent sized car, shivered a little despite himself, and lifted off again.

"Great. Now, what can I do for you today?" she said, sounding pleased. "Oh, hold on a second, this thing is going all sideways." The tanker had caught up with her, as she said slewing around to float at an angle. Rather than straighten it out as he expected, she braced herself with her hind legs and the enormous muscular tail he could make out under the water and caught the ship, stopping its momentum and only sliding about fifty feet or so, a feat he could hardly believe. The mass of the thing had to be in the high tens of thousands of tons minimum and she'd stopped it like a normal man with a heavy shopping cart.

He watched, his mouth a little open, as she carefully shifted the tanker to point directly up-current, then let go again. "We'll have to talk on the move," she said, walking away from it to the ends of the cables, the water coming up to her upper chest by that point, then started swimming again. Turning her head around in a way that looked rather uncomfortable, only possible because of the long neck, she regarded him as she propelled herself along with her tail, her other limbs either trailing behind her or tucked out of the way against her body. Paul flew alongside her a dozen or so yards away.

"What brings you all the way from New York to Brockton Bay?" she asked calmly. "I thought you had enough to deal with down there. I haven't been there myself, though. Perhaps when this job is done I should swim down and visit?"

Alarmed at the thought of a creature like her wading ashore on Staten Island or something along those lines, he shook his head quickly. "Ah, Kaiju, I don't think that would be… entirely a good idea. Not at this precise moment."

"Oh. Pity. I was led to believe that New York was an interesting place." She smiled toothily at him. "One of my sisters might visit instead, at some point. Umihebi is always interested in you land dwellers. She doesn't go on shore much."

"Umihebi?" he asked, feeling worried. There was something in the tone of her voice… "Is she as big as you are?"

"Oh, no," she smiled, shaking her head.

He exhaled silently in relief.

"She's quite a bit bigger. Or heavier, anyway, and longer, I suppose. She can swim a lot faster as well."

The relief had turned back into dread.

"Bigger?"

"Yep." She looked back at the end of her tail, twisting her head around a full hundred and eighty degrees, then turned back to him. "Probably around fifty feet longer, I'd think, but we haven't measured her recently."

"Is she… likely… to want to visit?" he asked slowly.

Kaiju shrugged. "No idea. She's her own person, I don't control her." She smirked at him. "She may well want to go and have a look. But probably not soon, there are other things going on we're busy with."

"Oh, god," he mumbled to himself, wondering how big this 'Umihebi' actually was. And what the name meant. He was going to have to do some research.

"Excuse me?" she queried.

"Oh, good, I said," he quickly improvised, watching as her eyes narrowed just a little and hoping she hadn't heard him before. "I mean, we're not really… quite ready… for someone as large as you. Or bigger. I mean… Um..." He found himself lost for words, not knowing quite how to continue, in the face of that unnerving stare. He was somewhat out of his depth, facing something that looked like it ate Endbringers by the handful as appetizers yet was quite prepared to carry on a calm conversation while doing large-scale civil engineering projects. A major threat like Behemoth, that he could face with equanimity, giving a speech to raise the morale of a lot of capes who were probably going to die, that was something he was used to. This? This was weird.

After a moment she smiled, apparently amused. "You're funny," she chuckled. "I think I like you. Anyway, back to the main point. Why are you here? Just watching, or did you have some other interest in Brockton Bay? Or maybe you have a job for BBFO?"

He'd noticed the writing on her absurdly large jacket, having spend a few seconds once more puzzling over the meaning of the last line which was in a language he was unfamiliar with. The commentators on the Boston TV special hadn't known what to make of it either. The concept that this creature was a member of the Dock Workers Union was also one he was having trouble wrapping his mind around. It had sounded ridiculous on the news, it seemed much more so now that he was only fifty feet from her.

Another thing that had him puzzled, curious, and intrigued was this BBFO, LLC. The news team had quickly looked it up and found all the company details, the various permits, licenses, and everything else that essentially meant that the operation could legally employ parahumans, specifically members of what was being called 'The Family' but not limited to them. The list of services that the company could provide was impressively, and just a little worryingly, long. Whoever had set it up had done their homework, that much was certain. He hadn't realized that it was even possible, as he'd always thought that the various Parahuman commerce acts more or less banned capes from profiting from their powers in most cases.

Even that oddity paled into insignificance after the most burning question in his mind, though, which was basically, where the hell did she and her sisters come from?

Saurial, when she'd popped up a month ago, had been fairly easily explained as either a Case 53, although she claimed otherwise, or just a rather physically divergent Trigger who had acquired a grab-bag selection of useful powers to go along with the reptilian body. Unusual, but not unprecedented. He'd planned on arranging to meet her eventually, mainly just out of curiosity, as Brockton Bay was so close to his home city.

The appearance of Raptaur, a much less human-looking and far more dangerous individual, had made him do a little research. The way she had casually dealt with Hookwolf while looking mildly disappointed in how easy it was showed beyond doubt that she was extremely dangerous and powerful. But even there, she seemed oddly peaceful, wandering around the city stopping crimes if she came across them, as did Saurial, but not generally going out of her way to actually look for them. It was… not normal, in cape terms.

The fact that both reptiles had very similar if not identical power sets was very strange, although again, not unprecedented. If they were in fact related as they claimed it would go some way towards explaining it. Siblings did sometimes get identical or complimentary powers if they happened to Trigger at the same time or very close to it, and power types often ran in families. Brockton Bay itself had several examples of both phenomena, in the case of Menja and Fenja of the E88, or the various members of New Wave.

So it seemed possible, just rather unusual. Again, something to look into one day, but it seemed a stable situation and he always had more important things going on.

Now, though… Now he was getting worried. This semi-mythical 'Family' that PHO had been chattering about for weeks, a group of steadily larger and more powerful reptilian capes with identical power sets living somewhere in the waters near Brockton Bay, and only now for some reason starting to come ashore and make themselves known…

He didn't know what to make of it, to be honest. After all, he was aware, as almost no one else was, that aliens did indeed exist. Could these reptiles be aliens, as some of the wilder theories had suggested? The ones promulgated by one specific local swivel-eyed lunatic that they were demons here to take over the world was clearly totally laughable, but aliens, or inter-dimensional travelers, that wasn't entirely impossible.

Unfortunately.

Although it had to be said that if this actually was their origin, they must have been around for some time as they seemed well up on the language, customs, and popular culture. How this could have happened without anyone noticing until now, and why, if that was the case, they had chosen to break cover, was also an interesting question. It was extremely peculiar to say the least.

As was the fact that only one of them was ever seen at any one time.

He'd heard various suggestions as to why, since other people had also noticed, and the most likely one seemed to be the one Raptaur herself had recently half-confirmed, which was that they didn't like to have more than one of them away from home at once. Some unspecified threat was implied.

Staring at Kaiju, he wondered what the hell that could be, if it made something like this worried, or at least cautious.

"Mr Foot?" she asked, sounding mildly curious. "You've gone very quiet and thoughtful."

"My apologies, Kaiju, I was thinking about your questions, and trying to work out the right answers. I'm afraid I'm a little confused by this entire thing, and it threw me off my game. Let me start again."

"Go ahead," she invited, still smiling a reptilian grin that seemed genuinely humorous more than anything else. He got the impression she was having fun.

Looking around he saw that a considerable proportion of the city was watching them with extreme interest while laughing quite hard, and suddenly became aware that his voice was somehow being broadcast to the crowds. He stared at the small device sitting on one of her scales between her eyes, then at the distant figures on the warehouse roof. He sighed, as she grinned more widely.

"I can ask them to turn it off if you want," she commented, clearly knowing full well what he'd noticed and who was responsible.

Debating with himself, he shrugged after a moment. "That might be better for the moment, thank you."

She nodded, saying, "Guys, shut it down for a while, will you please? Sorry, everyone, Mr Foot needs a quick private talk." Glancing over at the still distant forms on the roof, she nodded a few seconds later, apparently hearing a reply, which implied her hearing was extraordinarily good. "There we go." Looking over at the crowd who seemed both amused and disappointed, she waved, smiling, then returned her attention to him.

Hannah peered through her binoculars, desperately wishing she could hear what Legend was saying now to Kaiju, or what she was saying back. So far everything seemed polite and peaceful but who knew how fast that could change?

She'd nearly had a heart attack when that fucking enormous thing stood up out of the water, not expecting it at all. The previous pass had made her worry that the sea serpent construct was in the bay, but no, there was now a fourth one, which looked like an aquatic version of Raptaur only scaled up by about a dozen times. It was easily eighty feet tall, well over double, nearly triple, the size of Leviathan, and much more solidly built. The thing had to weigh hundreds of tons. And yet again had a very odd sense of humor.

Who was making them, where were they doing it, and most importantly of all, what the hell was it all for? She couldn't figure out why anyone, never mind some shadowy secret cape organization, would make half-scale Godzilla monsters then just use them for marine salvage operations. It didn't make any more sense than anything else about all this did.

She was beginning to get a headache.

Lowering her binoculars, she glanced at Colin, who was talking in a low voice to Dragon, both of them apparently very excited about something. After another thirty seconds or so, Dragon motioned at Kaiju, he nodded, and the pair of Tinkers left, presumably heading to his lab. She wondered why, and hoped it wasn't to come up with some weapon to attack the vast creature, at least not until it was out of the bay.

Turning back to the cityscape, she raised her binoculars again and watched along with most of the Rig staff while Legend had a discussion with the reptilian ship mover.

Erwin snickered, looking over at Pat, who was standing outside the door to his bar, staring at the great big lizard beastie standing in the water a quarter of a mile away, playing practical jokes on Legend and obviously enjoying herself. "Told you," he said with satisfaction. "Told all of you. I met a huge polite lizard in the bay, but you all said I was nuts."

"You are nuts, you old lunatic," Pat muttered, not looking away from Kaiju. "Everyone knows that. You were just right as well."

"I can live with that," he grinned. Waving his empty pint mug at the barman, he added, "I could do with a beer chaser and some ham sandwiches, if you don't mind."

"This isn't a restaurant," the other man grumbled, but he still collected the glass and went back inside.

Contented, really quite drunk, and in a very good mood, the old fisherman leaned back in his chair and enjoyed the day and the free show.

"Thanks. I don't want to interrupt you, but I need some answers to a few questions," he said politely. Marshaling his thoughts, he asked, "Where do you come from?"

"Here," she said, raising an enormous hand out of the water and waving it around to indicated the city and bay, her voice quiet enough now that the crowds could probably only hear a distant rumble.

"Originally, I mean," he clarified. She looked carefully at him for a moment, one eyebrow-ridge raised a little, and he got the impression that his addition had made her very curious. And might have given more away than he'd expected.

"Same answer," she smiled. "I was born only a few miles from here. Most of my family was, except for our big brother. He comes from further away."

"I see," he slowly answered, studying her with the same interest she was using on him. "I think. Much further away?"

"Oh, very," she nodded. "Very far away indeed."

"And is this big brother of yours around now?" he asked, not sure he wanted to know what she considered 'big'.

"He's fairly close," she replied. "He can get here quickly if needed, but normally he stays away. Everything is too fragile, you see. He doesn't want to step on anyone."

Paul winced. The thought was… somewhat unpleasant.

"How many of you are there?" he asked after a few seconds. "Aside from Saurial, Raptaur, you, and this Umihebi and your brother."

"A fair number," she told him, looking thoughtful. "To be honest I'm not entirely sure. Enough, anyway."

'Enough for what?' he mused with some alarm. She met his eyes with hers and the corners of her mouth raised a little, making him sure she was aware of the direction his thoughts were taking him.

"What are your intentions?" he finally asked, the main question that was worrying him. She inspected him closely for a while, then turned her head and scanned the shoreline, before looking back at him. The crowd had gone silent as far as he could tell, watching them closely to see if anything interesting was going to happen. He couldn't work out who, if it came to a scuffle, they would actually root for, which was a little strange.

"We just want to live our lives, help out where we can, and make the world a better place," she smiled gently, radiating an air of truthfulness. "Like you, Mr Foot. That's all. We'll defend the city, or larger areas if necessary, we'll do what we can to make sure things run smoothly, and we're not going to start fights. But if someone else does… Well, we'll end them." There was a tone of finality to that statement that made him wonder exactly how she meant it.

"The fights... or... the capes?" he asked after a moment's thought. Her grin was much less friendly this time.

"Whatever it takes to make sure people can live their own lives in peace," she replied.

He shuddered a little. The look on her scaly face seemed to suggest that she didn't see much problem with either solution.

"We're not inherently violent, we're peaceful, but we are not pacifists, you see," she continued after a moment. "We don't look at the world the same way so many of your people do, as good guys and bad guys. Everyone has good and bad in them, with rare exceptions. Even some bad people do good things, and good people do bad things."

She studied him as he listened with interest. "I'm sure you could think of examples of both. Just because someone is labeled a villain doesn't prevent them from helping others, and just because someone is labeled a hero doesn't stop them causing harm. None of us are going to decide how to think of someone because of their label. We'll evaluate them on their own merits." The huge creature looked meaningfully at him. "Personally, I know there are people in this world who are truly evil. There are a few who are truly good. Everyone else is a mix. And of course people can change, either way."

"I see," he finally said, half-truthfully. "An unusual attitude."

"So people keep saying," she chuckled. "We think of it as a pragmatic approach. There are better things to do than fight constantly. Some people understand that, some don't. I had to… persuade… one of the local problems to go away just the other day, in fact. He was annoying my sister and she asked me to help. He seemed to get the message after we talked."

"Who was it?" he asked curiously.

"Some little Salamander who fancied that he was a Dragon." She smiled a little as he coughed in surprise. "He has promise but he's no Dragon yet, trust me. Perhaps one day."

"You… talked Lung into going away?" he asked slowly, staring at her.

"Talked, persuaded, threatened… A little of everything." She grinned slowly, licking her lips with an enormous forked tongue. "I wasn't hungry enough for anything more permanent and he was a minor irritant at best anyway."

"I'm not entirely sure what to think about that," he admitted. The implication was somewhat disturbing.

She shrugged. "Well, nothing happened after that. He left, Raptaur went off with her friends, I got back to work. Everything worked out OK." She fixed him with that glowing gaze. "But the lesson he learned is, The Family protects its own. From everyone. Understand?"

He understood, all right. It was a declaration of intent, one that was backed up with teeth. Big pointy ones. There was a new faction in Brockton Bay and apparently it didn't take shit from anyone. They were prepared to deal on an equal footing with hero, villain, or normal citizen, by the looks of it. That could well explain why she seemed perfectly OK with Über and Leet doing whatever it was they were doing, and allowed Leet to land some sort of audio pickup on her. It looked like Panacea was also part of this whole thing which was odd to say the least.

There were a lot of things about this entire scenario that seemed very strange to him. The more he looked at Kaiju the more he became certain that she wasn't actually a Parahuman at all, which was what he'd assumed Saurial and Raptaur were. Which implied neither of them were either. He wanted to simply ask, but wasn't sure the public venue this had turned into was the right forum for the answer. Either way it would make people very confused, and confused people often turned into scared people. So far the city seemed weirdly laid-back about all this, and if anything somewhat proud of their new reptilian neighbors. He didn't want to risk upsetting whatever delicate balance there was going on by asking a question to which the answer would cause panic.

"Why are you all so friendly with the DWU?" he asked curiously, another thing he'd wondered about.

"They're good people, so why not?" she replied. "Like I said, we want to help out and do our best to make this city a better place. It's our home. Those men and women work very hard to keep things going, which we respect, but there have been all sorts of things that caused problems, like this." She indicated the ship placidly floating behind her with one enormous thumb. "Mayor Christner said it better than I can. But it all boils down to the fact that they're the ones who are needed to make this recovery work. I can provide the heavy lifting to move things around, but those guys are the ones who are going to do all the rest. They've treated us fairly, we'll do the same back, and everyone comes out ahead."

"Hmm." He nodded, absorbing her words. She seemed sincere, and if she was indeed telling the truth, it seemed likely that the Mayor's plans were viable. He was aware that the crime statistics in the city had gone down considerably since Saurial arrived on the scene, dropping even more once Raptaur turned up, having checked a while back out of curiosity. Now, with this enormous new one, it seemed likely that it would take a fairly brave or confident opponent to cause trouble.

Although, of course, there were a lot of Parahumans out there who would see the mere existence of something like Kaiju as a challenge. Hopefully there wouldn't be a rush of them to try themselves against her. He couldn't see that ending any other way than badly, whatever happened.

"One last question, then. Are you prepared to help in Endbringer fights? I suspect that you on your own could make a large difference." He watched as she considered him for a few seconds, before slowly nodding.

"We are. Contact has already been made with local Parahumans about the matter. I can't say any more right now, but we'll help where we can."

Paul looked at her for a moment, curious about the deliberate wording of her answer. It was pretty obvious that there was a lot more to it but for whatever reason she didn't want to announce it to the world. Even though she was perfectly happy to disseminate the answers to his previous questions. Wondering about the caginess, he glanced over at the Rig, where practically the entirety of its inhabitants were standing on the flight deck, watching them, much like the city was from the other direction. He could see Armsmaster standing next to Dragon, the pair of them clearly discussing the current situation but looking less worried than he'd have expected, and in fact less worried than many of the people surrounding them.

'Again, very interesting. I'll need to make some inquiries, I think.'

"Does that satisfy your immediate concerns, Mr Foot?" she asked politely, looking amused, as he thought.

"Yes, I suppose it does," he answered. "I will undoubtedly have a lot more questions when I've thought about the situation, though."

"Of course. You're welcome to stop by BBFO and chat, if you want. You can find the phone number on the web, we should have a phone installed tomorrow, and we'll have an answering machine. There isn't anyone there all the time right now. Or you can contact Mr Hebert at the DWU, he can give you either Saurial or Raptaur's phone numbers, you can call them directly, or he can probably answer a lot of your questions himself." She smiled at him. "It was nice to meet you, my sisters and friends will be jealous. If I had anything handy I'd ask for an autograph. We've always admired and respected you."

He couldn't help smiling back. "Thank you. I appreciate that. One thing?"

"Yes?"

"Could you stop calling me Mr Foot? Please? It's… a bit weird."

She grinned widely. "Of course, Legend, if you want. I was just amusing myself and breaking the ice." Looking him up and down, she added, "You can keep the safety gear. You might need it, and it's a nice souvenir."

"Thanks, I think," he replied a little uncertainly, shaking his head in mild confusion. The entire experience had been surreal. "I need to go talk to some other people. Good luck with your work."

"It's going well so far," she said in satisfaction, looking back over her shoulder at the ship, then ahead to the docks. "The tide will be turning in a couple of hours, but I'll be most of the way there by then."

"Out of curiosity, could you pull it faster?" he asked.

"Oh, sure, I could have got it from the reef to the docks in about five or six minutes or so, but the waves would have swamped the shore and flooded half the city," she chuckled. "No one would thank me for that. We talked it over with Mr Hebert and decided that letting the sea do most of the work was the safest option. It also gives everyone an afternoon out and a good long look at me, so they get used to me. I'm going to be around quite a bit and we don't want people getting upset."

"OK, I can see the logic in that." Paul watched her for a little longer. "I have to say this isn't quite what I expected to see when I woke up this morning," he laughed.

"Very few people really did," she snickered. "There were some wonderfully confused looks from the crowd. I'm having a lot of fun. Leet and Über's music added a lot to it as well. They picked some really nice tracks."

"Friends of yours?" he asked, looking over at the slightly nearer duo and Panacea, who were watching them through binoculars now.

"I think so," she laughed. "Raptaur met them a while ago and had an interesting talk, and said she thought they were nice guys."

"For villains?"

"For humans." She met his eyes and grinned. "Panacea, of course, is a very good friend of the Family. We value her very much indeed. Glory Girl helped Raptaur demolish some warehouses and is also a friend. None of us have met the rest of her family very much yet but they seem good people and were willing to help out in case anything went peculiar, which so far it hasn't done. Hopefully things will stay calm."

"Hopefully," he nodded. "In that case, I'll leave you to it, and be on my way for now. Thank you for being open with me, I'm sorry I interrupted your work."

"It was no problem," she said, dismissing the concept with a wave of a hand. "I've always got time to talk to you."

Smiling, he waved to her, then headed for the Rig, mulling the conversation over in his head. Behind him, he heard music start up again, having fallen silent during his visit, shaking his head as he heard some Irish voices start singing 'Puff the Magic Dragon' rather well.

"Hey!" A yell from Kaiju made him look back, to see her staring at Leet and his two companions, then shrug, before resuming swimming, this time on her back, waving her arms around as if she was directing the music, an enormous conductor's baton having appeared in one of them. He watched for a moment, shook his head in disbelief, and resumed flying.

"You realize I'm a sea monster, not a dragon, right?" Kaiju's voice rumbled out over the bay. He was almost certain he could hear laughter from the crowd, but didn't look. There was only a certain amount of surreality he could take at once.

"Very interesting," Über commented as the Protectorate leader headed off towards the Rig. Amy nodded slowly, thinking over the conversation they'd been privy to. It seemed that Legend was being his typically polite and responsible self, mainly wanting to see what was going on. One or two of his questions were a little odd, though. The one about where Kaiju came from 'Originally' was intriguing. The way he'd said it, he hadn't been implying somewhere like Europe, he meant somewhere a lot further away. Taylor had clearly picked up on it as well, or the Varga had. He'd obviously been advising her in her answers, she recognized some of the speech patterns.

"Mr Foot," Leet snickered, looking through tracks on his controller. He stopped on one, laughed more loudly, then selected it. Amy started giggling instantly at the first couple of bars of music. "People are going to remember that one."

"Won't do him any harm," she smiled. "It humanizes both of them, her playing a joke like that and him taking it in good spirits."

"Hey!" a deep voice shouted, making her laugh again. All three of them were rolling around on the roof when Taylor rolled over in the water and produced a huge baton, which she used to direct the music.