To Lyger 0: Dhuan isn't exactly an invincible force of nature like the Tarasque, or even indestructible like Majestia. But he is extremely strong.


Mecha-Man drifted lower, dropping just below the cloud cover as he scanned the streets below his sensors attuned for any sign of their quarry. Since the bombing late last night, he still had yet to sleep – he had spent more time in the suit over the last two days than almost any time since he had first agreed to take on this job. Since yesterday morning, he had only landed five times, and then only to trade one battery for another while Antoine charged the depleted one. Most of his meals had been in the suit – he'd almost taken a nap in the suit before the suit's autocorrection roused him. All of that, and still nothing had registered on the sensors. He suppressed a humorless chuckle at the irony: the only reason they had the sensor data to scan for the Bearator, Gardur, and the rest was because they had previously been allies – they'd been given ample opportunity to collect the data.

Perhaps some good had come out of the years he had spent working for the Lynchpin. And the Jauffret family before that. And Cuvier before that. And…

He sighed. How many of those could be chalked up to bad decisions? At what point did it become a pattern?

The suit's communicator clicked, stirring Mecha-Man from his reverie. Quickly, he ascended back into the cover of the clouds, trailing a thin line out of his toe.

"Any sign of Gardur?" demanded Antoine brusquely.

"Not yet," Mecha-Man reported. "But I could have sworn I saw him on the road next to the building, right after the missile attack. Between him and the Bearator, there's no way this is anything other than the Lynchpin."

"Dammit," grumbled Antoine bitterly. There was a pregnant pause. "Adine sent me a message before five this morning. Apparently, an explosion in a French student's apartment made the international news in Paris. They didn't include the names of the students who lived there, but she put together the pieces. She said that if our daughter gets hurt, she's leaving me."

"Sorry, boss," Mecha-Man apologized, sighing heavily and shaking his head. "I did as much as I could to keep her safe – we both did. Did you tell her what I heard from that girl on her floor last night?"

"I told her that I know Bridgette is okay, that I heard her voice," Antoine answered. "That satisfied her for now, but after all this is over, I don't think I'm getting back into the apartment unless she sees Bridgette with her own eyes."

Mecha-Man frowned, quirking an eyebrow dubiously. "Didn't you say you weren't going to lie to her again?"

"I did. And that is a promise I fully intend to keep."

And yet, didn't you lie to her this morning… Mecha-Man didn't say aloud. He sighed. "Well, as long as we can actually fulfill it…" Shaking his head to drive away the exhaustion starting to creep in at the edges of his consciousness, he broke out of the cloud cover in which he had been sheltering and dropped lower to fly down another side street, working ever further away from the university. He frowned. Lynchpin always seemed to prefer working along the river in Paris – could that hold true this time, as well? In Paris, that was for ease of escape and to hide shipments in the river traffic; in London, would either of those factors apply? Still, it was a pattern – and the best one they had to go on at the moment. Mecha-Man followed the side street to the next intersection and turned south. "I'm going to check along the Thames."

"I will reassign the drones to scan a wider grid around the school," Antoine responded. On Mecha-Man's display, the two blue dots indicating their active drones diverged, moving in opposite directions away from the university campus. Antoine let out a heavy sigh. "I only wish she would tell me where she is staying. I trust that she had somewhere to stay last night, but how am I supposed to protect her if I don't know?"

Mecha-Man's jaw clenched, and he shrugged helplessly. "Maybe she doesn't want it," he suggested, frowning. "Although after last night I can't imagine why not… You've called her right?"

"Obviously," Antoine retorted, an edge of irritation in his voice. "Right after it happened, and then again this morning. All I got back was a text of three words: 'I'm fine'."

"At least there's that."

Antoine hummed.

Mecha-Man let out a breath. "I'm sorry. I know that if it were Richard who was in trouble and refusing to accept my help – or even to acknowledge to me that there was trouble – I know that I would be beside myself with worry."

"I'm… afraid," Antoine admitted. "I worry that she might have discovered what we have been doing, and that might be why she has largely refused to speak to me for the last year."

"Hopefully she'll come around," Mecha-Man responded. "If what we were doing drove her away, then perhaps what we are doing will be better."

Mecha-Man shot down lower, rocketing along the Thames only five meters above the river's surface, scanning the docks and buildings on either side as he passed. A few people looked up at him in surprise, with a couple raising their hands to wave, only to freeze on their second look. His jaw clenched beneath the helmet. Last time he had been in London, people had run away from him in terror – and they had been right to do so. But last time he had been here, he and Antoine had been trying to put together enough money to rebuild the suit and feed their families. And while they hadn't come away with as much as they had hoped, he had at least been able to bring Richard to a Saint-Germain match in the fall… after trashing their stadium with Night Bat, of course.

Of course, looking back on everything they had done the last time they were here… He couldn't remember which of them had settled on using bombs as a distraction for the heroes, but it could so easily had exploded in their faces – literally. After that, they deserved Iron Maiden's suspicions from last night, the doubtful glances he was getting from the Londoners now.

All he could do now was try to make up for it today.

It was as Mecha-Man was reaching the edge of London that he spotted her.

Castutrice lounged against the wall of a warehouse, watching the road with one eye. Casually she shook her head and glanced back at the building behind her, only for her head to turn a little further and catch sight of him. Mecha-Man shot back up toward the clouds, but too late. Their eyes met, and she opened her mouth in a shout, leaning back away from him. Without hesitation, Mecha-Man launched a spread of rockets at her, two of which veered off and crashed into the side of the warehouse beside her. Castutrice whipped her oar around and swung, connecting with the last rocket and sending it straight back at him with a sneer. Mecha-Man rolled to avoid the rocket, which exploded behind him as he dove for the water, evening off at two meters and pointing both fists at her. His jetpack thrust him forward, and two beams of energy lanced out at her from his wrists. Eyes wide, she dove to the side as the warehouse door opened and another four people emerged.

Mecha-Man banked sharply, just as two beams of energy shot at him from energy weapons held by two of the newcomers. A third man grabbed a chain from around his waist and swung it around once to gain momentum before lashing out at Mecha-Man. The chain whipped about with a crack and wrapped loosely around one of Mecha-Man's arms, pulling him off balance in the direction of the warehouse. With a yelp, Mecha-Man nearly crashed into the side of the warehouse, catching himself at the last minute, stumbling to the ground and landing on one knee not far from the side of the warehouse. The fourth man sprinted toward Mecha-Man as he landed on the ground, jumped into the air, drew back a fist that crackled with electricity, and punched Mecha-Man in the chest, sending arcs of lightning across the metal surface of the suit. The man landed in front of Mecha-Man, drawing back his metal fist as he did so, and punched Mecha-Man's helmet again, sending another wave of electricity coursing over him. Gritting his teeth, Mecha-Man rose to his feet and held up one arm to block the man's electric fist. As he did so, he turned one energy cannon on the man with the chain, who ducked just in time as the energy cannon whirred to life, the end of the barrel glowing white. Mecha-Man drove his boot into the one with the electric gauntlet, knocking him sprawling away. A smoking hole in the side of the warehouse marked the spot where the chain-man had been standing, as he dove aside and came up to one knee, his eyes trained on Mecha-Man.

"What are you doing here, traitor?" hissed Castutrice, swinging her oar at Mecha-Man in a wild chop from the opposite direction. The oar clattered off of his helmet, and Gaston's head bounced on the padding, sending sparks of light through his vision. Castutrice jumped into a spinning kick, but Mecha-Man dropped one foot back to brace himself, and she pushed off of his chest and fell away from him into a high spinning backflip.

Mecha-Man grunted, twisting around and punching her squarely as she landed, and Castutrice stumbled backward, rubbing her shoulder. One of the two men with energy guns spun his gun around to hold it by the barrel, hitting a button and uncovering the axe blade built into the butt. Growling, he swung the axe at Mecha-Man's shoulder, and Mecha-Man reached up to grab it, the blade biting into the metal gauntlet and sticking there. The man hit another button on the gun's barrel, and the axe blade revved, cutting deeper into the metal of his gauntlet. Mecha-Man's grip tightened and he growled, lifting the gun higher and wrenching the gun away from him, but the man's grip tightened. Drawing himself up to his full height, Mecha-Man lifted the man off of his feet and swung him backward and forward before spinning him around and aiming him at Castutrice, who dove backward out of the way as the man sailed over her. The man's eyes widened in fear, his knuckles turning white as he desperately tried to hold onto the gun. The man with the chain sprang back out of the way, flicking out his chain in Mecha-Man's direction and only lashing the axe-man for his trouble. The axe-man hit another button on his gun, and the butt let out a shrill piercing whine that reverberated in Mecha-Man's ears. He winced and released his grip on the axe blade, hurling the man away and into Castutrice's gut as she landed, just as the gun's butt released a sickening green cloud that covered both the axe-man and Castutrice herself before expanding out to encompass the other gunman in its stench.

Coughing and gasping for breath, Castutrice pushed the axe-man away from her in annoyance, covering her mouth and glancing around her at the scene of chaos surrounding her. The other gunman at the same time edged in the opposite direction, moving out of Mecha-Man's way.

"Tell the Lynchpin to back off!" Mecha-Man shouted at Castutrice, as the chain wrapped around his wrist. Mecha-Man caught the end of the chain in a tight grip and jerked the chain, pulling the man holding it off balance toward him. "The Engineer's daughter is off-limits, or I will straight-up murder all of you!" He pointed his free arm at her and unleashed a massive energy blast. "I am not messing around here!"

Castutrice scoffed, spinning her oar in a shield, and deflected the blast away, into the side of the warehouse next to hers. "You can tell him yourself when we bring you in, traitor!" Spinning away from him, she swung her oar up and at Mecha-Man's head, just as he hurled the chain-man at the other gunman. Mecha-Man moved forward a step, and Castutrice only narrowly avoided striking the man with the gauntlet, who dove away from her, stumbled, and fell into the Thames. Castutrice whirled around to face Mecha-Man and frowned, her eyes darting around the scene. "Perhaps we'll have to arrange the meeting another day," she called, glancing up into the distance and slipping away from him into the shadow of a warehouse.

Mecha-Man drew back his fist to punch the chain-man, who dropped his chain and held his hands up to shield his face.

"And what do you think you're doing?" demanded Iron Maiden, landing beside Mecha-Man.

"Stopping a bunch of criminals," Mecha-Man retorted. "They're working for Lynchpin."

"You mean this one guy?"

"What?" Dumbly, Mecha-Man turned in either direction, scanning the area around him. The warehouse beside him showed a half-dozen new smoking scorch marks burned into its walls. But not a sign of the people he had fought. He dropped the chain to the ground and lowered his fist, and the man scrambled back away from him, running down the street away from him in a panic. "But there were four of them here, along with Castutrice."

Iron Maiden held her hands out. "You're the only one I see here."

"But she was just here a couple minutes ago!" he insisted. He shook his head, trying to clear the cobwebs from his consciousness.

"I want to believe you," Iron Maiden told him. "But I didn't see you fighting a group of criminals. All I saw was you beating up one man."

"He attacked me! I'm telling the truth!" He blinked. "They, um, they were in here!" he told her, pointing toward the warehouse next to him.

"Let's see if you're telling the truth." Iron Maiden ripped the warehouse door off of its hinges and looked inside to find it completely empty. She turned to face him and cocked her head to one side. "You were saying?"

Mecha-Man groaned as Iron Maiden rose into the air, watching her carefully as she drifted away from him. "That could have gone better."

"She didn't believe you?" Antoine demanded.

"Didn't seem that way."

"Dammit!"