Chapter 1.5

Wednesday, April 6th 2011

"Another one gone, another one gone," Alkaline sang.

"Another one bites the dust!" Knockout finished.

A large warehouse was just beginning to burn in full as I stood atop a building overlooking my latest conquest. And conquest it was — I was racking up a very healthy nest egg of cash and weapons, enough that pretty soon I would be able to call myself a millionaire.

It said a lot about my situation that I barely twitched when a loud explosion tore through part of the roof as something combustible made itself known. In my head, Pyromaniac cackled. "Burn baby burn! Disco inferno!"

How many ABB holdings does this make now?

"Seven, if you count the brothel on Monday," Stratego said. "You'll need to increase your surveillance of Empire locations soon, the ABB has been rendered effectively extinct. The remnants will die out without our interference."

"Wanna try for eight before you have to be home for breakfast?" Fester asked.

A quick check of my watch showed it was ten after three. Skipping school had been doing wonders for my heroics, allowing me to work almost around the clock. The results spoke for themselves. Scouting locations in civvies during the day and hitting them at night was a winning strategy so far. That it kept me from murdering the bitches three was just a bonus.

I might have time to scout something, but I'd have to wait until dad goes to work to actually hit the place.

"Boo! Hit it anyway," Butcher demanded.

My eyebrow rose under my mask. Did I just hear someone say I should hit the Teeth?

The collective rioted at the suggestion and I had to laugh. It was part of the agreement we had come to over the last several days. They don't give me shit for my heroics and I avoid hitting their precious Teeth until there's nothing else left in the Bay. We'd renegotiate things from there. So far, it was working out quite well for us and when they got bitchy or crossed one of my lines I would just threaten them as I had just done.

I could hear the sirens in the distance, which marked my cue to leave. I didn't feel like dealing with the night shift Protectorate at the moment, Miss Militia tended to put me on edge in most of our recent encounters and I wasn't looking forward to yet another dissertation on excessive force.

I turned and felt for a good bug to target when my danger sense screamed at me to move. Picking a bug at random, I teleported to a distant roof and spun to reorient myself. From my new vantage point, I was able to watch as the figure that had tried to knife me turned to dust.

Oni Lee! Useful shit only.

"He was aiming for a kidney, he's going lethal from the start," Alkaline said.

"Then we should do the same!" Sabertooth cried out.

I meant strategy! I mentally yelled as I teleported yet again, this time away from a fucking grenade. Weaknesses. Anything!

"Stop being a pussy, you can take a knife," Butcher mocked and I slammed the prick into the void. As though to prove the point, Oni Lee materialized next to me, striking immediately with a knife that didn't even manage to cut my spider-silk costume. I grabbed his arm and tried to use Fester's power on him, but he dissolved into ash almost instantly.

Of course, he had only teleported behind me, but my teleport delay had reset and I was able to jump to another roof and draw a knife of my own. It wasn't the best example of Damascian's tech, since I was still working with substandard materials and tools, but it was deadly enough for this sort of work. Come on, I'm sure you guys must have fought Oni Lee before!

"You could try to get in a lucky hit," Ironsides suggested. "Damascian's precog —"

"Our adversary is well aware of the limitations to my power, after our initial fights," the Tinker retorted.

My danger sense pinged, and I swept backwards with my knife without a second thought. Oni Lee still ended up hitting me, but my blade nicked his arm enough to draw blood. He crumbled into ash before the blood hit the ground; despite that, I felt a grin stretch under my mask. "So he can be hurt."

"Of course he can," Knockout said sarcastically. "No one is invincible."

"Except Alexandria," Chisel replied. "Remember that time in Philadelphia?"

"Shut the hell up," I muttered. "Ok, new plan…" I trailed off when some of my bugs smelled blood, and it wasn't the ones hiding in my hair. In fact, it was a group several rooftops over, and a quick check revealed that there was only one person on the roof — and he teleported as soon as my swarm got too close.

We played cat and mouse like that for a few minutes. I would try to sneakily bring in my bugs, and Oni Lee would puff away into ash as soon as he detected them. Still, I managed to get a few bugs onto his costume, and to my surprise, the bugs went with him. That gave me just enough warning to spin around and face the crazed teleporter when he tried to appear behind me, and he stumbled backwards in shock when I lashed out with my own knife. I didn't hit him, this time, but he vanished all the same.

"I hate this fucker," Sabertooth growled.

The others chimed in with their agreements, and I nodded along while doing my best to swarm Oni Lee with more bugs. He tried to jump me twice more, and both times my preemptive warning meant that I was in a position to block his strikes — once with a force field, and another with my own knife.

However, when I tried that a third time, his knife cut through my own in a shriek of protesting metal. I barely managed to teleport before his new armament could be brought to bear on my armor. Spider silk was good, but a blade that cut through metal —

"Where the fuck did this bastard get one of my knives?" Damascian demanded.

"If he had one of those, why wait till now to use it?" Alkaline pondered.

"Are you sure it's one of yours?" Sanguine asked, but the Tinker just snarled at him.

The collective's spike of anger fused with my already considerable frustration about this fight. "Fine, fine, I'll get the knife back." Oni Lee teleported on top of me almost before I had finished the sentence; I twisted around and put my fist through his chest.

The clone exploded a second later.

Getting caught in a grenade explosion was not fun. The blast threw me backwards, and while I didn't feel pain, being sent skipping across the roof was uncomfortable and disorienting. Another clone dropped a grenade almost before I had rolled to a stop, and I had barely pushed myself up before that one went off and threw me onto my back.

When the mad bomber tried for a third grenade, I used my own power to teleport down into the dark interior of the old brick building that we were using as a battleground.

"Those bugs sure are handy," Stratego rumbled.

"Yeah," I mumbled, wincing as my ears recovered with a pop. Outside, Oni Lee was teleporting around the perimeter of the building like a madman, making a complete circuit in the course of several seconds. When he stopped for a moment, I took the opportunity to sneak more bugs onto his costume. Interestingly, he swatted at any that landed on his mask.

"Think he gave up?" Alkaline asked.

Stratego shook his metaphorical head. "No. He's obviously looking for a way in."

"So why not just teleport?"

I considered Alkaline's question for a moment, then glanced around in the darkness. Now that my eyes had recovered, it was clear that the lack of light was due to something other than flash-blindness. "I think his teleport is line-of-sight."

"That… makes a lot of sense," Quarrel admitted. "How didn't we notice that before?"

While the Butchers descended into insults, I started moving my bugs to actually do something about the threat. It was relatively easy to order all of my bugs to seek out humans nearby, which immediately swarmed the ABB goons who were inexplicably hanging out by their burning storehouse. They ran, and I realized that I needed Oni Lee to remain in my range.

So, I returned his earlier favor and teleported on top of him.

Unfortunately, my immediate punch to the kidneys went into a clone, but my taunt could not have been more effective. We began our dance again, with me striking repeatedly while he tried to both stab me and drop grenades at my feet. The grenades, in particular, were causing a great deal of destruction that I only avoided by staying on my feet. In his inexplicable, single-minded fury, he never seemed to notice that I was building up a swarm on his costume.

He certainly noticed when I had them attack his eyes.

I made sure to teleport as far as I could as soon as I gave the order, which proved fortuitous when he threw several grenades in my direction and teleported one last time. I wasn't expecting him to lose his vision that quickly, but given his complete disregard for collateral damage, I needed to finish this fight sooner rather than later.

"Are you sure you don't want to be a supervillain, Taylor?" Marauder asked, only to cackle as I forced him down into the dark.

"How the hell else were we going to stop him?" The collective laughed at me, so I just waited out the last few bites of eyeball before teleporting up to where the assassin was twitching on the ground. Unbidden, thoughts of the brothel from Monday night percolated to the front of my memory — Fester's doing, I realized. I knew what she wanted, and I knew that it was a bad idea, but…

"What would your mom say, Taylor?"

Goddamnit. Fester didn't need to show me any more memories of Mom to know how she would have reacted, at least in her college days. The girls, the drugs…

I unleashed the pain blast on the sex-slaving bastard and tried not to smile as he writhed on the ground.

By the time I was done, Oni Lee was comatose on the ground. I busied myself with reclaiming Damascian's good knife and fitting it into a sheath so that I didn't think about what I had just done to the other cape. Despite seeing the horror of the ABB firsthand, I still wasn't totally convinced that what I had done was justified, but I had stopped the crazed assassin and extracted some well-deserved revenge.

"You did a good thing," Alkaline said as I carried him back across the roof, towards the street where I had webbed the remaining stragglers. "Thanks to you the ABB is done. Be proud of what you've accomplished."

The chorus chimed in with their agreements, and it felt good to be recognized by someone for doing some good in this cesspit of a city. The ABB were human traffickers and slavers, and I had uprooted them in full in under a week. It was all thanks to me.

Before I could get down to the ground, Miss Militia rolled up on her bike ahead of two PRT transports. Assault and Battery disembarked from one while an entire squad of troopers came out of the other. Well, I suppose I should turn this asshole over to the heroes.

"Letting the bastard live will bite you in the ass, can't wait to see it happen either!" Butcher cackled as I plunged him back into the void. Fucking prick.

I hauled Oni Lee over my shoulder and jumped off the rooftop. My freefall lasted only seconds, but I still wasn't used to the sensation — my own instincts still wanted me to scream. I landed feet first on the concrete sidewalk, sending cracks outward like spiderwebs with the sharp retort of splintered concrete. Miss Militia spun around, her power shifting into an impressively large LMG in her hands, which she immediately aimed directly at me. I couldn't help but gulp.

"An M240, not my first choice but still a solid piece of kit," Pyro said.

"I miss the minigun…" Ironsides complained.

"Who do you think has it? PRT or our boys?" Alkaline wondered.

"Hold your fire!" I yelled. "I have Oni Lee ready for pick up!"

The patriotic cape did not, in fact, lower her gun. When she spoke, her voice brokered no argument. "Set him down gently then back away, Weaver!"

I frowned under my mask but did as she instructed, raising my hands as I stepped back. I knew from my inherited memories that I would get an instant's warning if she switched to something truly dangerous, but I still didn't want to chance it. Militia signalled and the squad moved in; her gun plus the guns of the squad members not wearing medic stripes tracked me as I continued to move off to the side. Having one of your childhood idols point a gun at you? It wasn't pleasant, that was for sure. Especially when I hadn't done anything wrong.

"Welcome to the world. Where you can do everything right and still get shit on," Ironsides said.

The squad surrounded the disabled assassin and pile of goons; the medic rapidly got to work. I could tell when they removed his mask — not just because my bugs were still under it, but by their reactions to the sight. One of them threw up on the spot. There was frantic yelling from the one holding their radio mic but I couldn't parse the words.

At that, I noticed the bugs I had on Assault begin to move rather quickly towards me. When I turned my actual eyes upon him and between his gait and posture, I hardly needed Stratego's power to see that he was ready for a fight. Since I had no intention of fighting heroes, I did what I could to relax and appear unthreatening, including dismissing all visible signs of my swarm… even if all they did was hide in the dark shadows of the street.

The red-clad hero stopped about six feet away. "Weaver, can I have a word with you?" His voice was so different to how it had been on Friday.

"There's a complete absence of levity in his tone," Stratego pointed out. "He seems agitated and has likely been told you've fallen to our influences."

"He's not entirely wrong though," Butcher said with a chuckle.

"If only," Sabertooth mumbled.

I pushed the pair into the dark.

"Dumbasses. You would think they would have learned by now," Chisel mused, shaking her metaphorical head.

"How can I help you, Assault?" My voice was shakier than I would have liked, so I pushed more of my reactions off into my swarm. Bugs skittered and died in the darkness.

Thankfully, my reply seemed to relax the scarlet hero. "You've been busy."

I nodded. "Yes sir. Just doing what I can for my city, you know, taking out drug dens, saving girls from brothels…"

Assault tried and failed to pinch his nose through his visor, which made the voices in my head chuckle; at least, those not sneering about the word 'sir.' He muttered something under his breath before he turned back to me. "You really see nothing wrong with what you've been doing?"

I tried to think of something, anything, that could explain why he would be asking that but came up blank. Alright, anyone got something for me on this one? The sudden clamour of the chorus was almost deafening, I threw them all into the void on reflex. Alright, gonna try that one more time… Ironsides, your thoughts?

"Sheesh, wasn't expecting all of us to jump in like that. Best guess? A difference in methods. You've been exceedingly direct with your actions, and efficient in a way they simply aren't thanks to the bureaucracy they oh so love."

Ah. "I suppose I have gotten results in a way you don't quite approve of?"

"That would be putting it mildly, Weaver. Let's start with why you felt it necessary to maim Oni Lee."

I let out an extremely undignified huff. "The bastard tried to knife me with one of Damascian's Tinkered knives. I didn't take that too kindly. And besides, how else was I supposed to stop a line-of-sight teleporter? He was switching to grenades when I finally dropped him… and, well, I remembered that brothel."

Assault paused for a long moment while he considered that. "My superiors will see it as excessive."

"The amount of government dick you suck is excessive!" Quarrel shot back.

Marauder shook his head. "What a fucking shame. Madcap was fun, back in the day."

I blinked as he shoved a series of memories forward — Marauder had been bound for the Birdcage? And Assault had been a villain? The idea stoked the flames of hope in my chest, because if the heroes could forgive him, maybe they could work with me.

"Weaver?" the hero in question asked, dragging me back to the present.

"Sorry. I, uh. I just wanted to stop him, permanently. Besides, why do you care so much? He's done way worse to his many victims, and now the ABB won't sell girls into sex slavery anymore."

"Your mom would be proud," Fester tried, but I ignored her.

"Could you at least put an effort into toning things down?" Assault asked, and he almost sounded pleading. "I can tell you're nothing like the previous Butchers, but my superior has a stick up her ass and isn't convinced. I need something I can point to that shows you're in control that doesn't involve arson and ambulances at every turn."

I rolled my eyes, not that he could see it. "Let me guess, taking down the Empire wouldn't help her opinion of me either?"

Assault just shook his head. "Maybe if you dismantled the Teeth instead. It would at least show you aren't working in their favor."

I reflexively shoved all of the voices away, but their shouting was still noticeable. "They're last," I said forcefully. "Part of my agreement with the collective. They don't bitch about my heroics, I don't break their Teeth."

I could tell that wasn't the answer he was looking for. "Is there anything I could say that might get you to change your mind?"

"Nope. Does that mean we're done here? I need to get started on my recon of Empire territory."

He seemed resigned as he spoke. "I guess we are. Stay safe out there Weaver."

I smiled at that — he was one of the good ones. And, now that I had seen a bit of his history, I knew why. "Thanks, I'm glad someone is in my corner at least."

With our conversation over, I targeted a bug about a block away and teleported. It was a short jog to retrieve the cash I'd liberated tonight, and soon I was chaining teleports back towards my base. I'd be busy the next few days, then I would topple an Empire.

I couldn't wait!