"Will you quiet it down over there Alec? Some of us have to actually think to get through the day."
The boy's head rolled back over the top of the couch to smirk at her upside down, his curly hair hair hanging down like a silky black curtain. She was sure he knew how much it annoyed her that his hair came out better than hers. He'd pushed himself far enough that half his torso was pushed over the edge too, a dangerous balancing act that he made look graceful and natural. His mask, a mostly blank porcelain, high school arts project looking thing that would cover the upper half of his face, wobbled dangerously next to him on the back of the couch.
Smug; is glad he's getting on your nerves, will continue to do so.
Bored, apathetic; is using you to get away from them. Wants to show that he's bored, make sure she knows he's bored.
"I thought that's what we had you for though?" He drawled lazily, waving the hand hold the games controller airily at her. In the background behind him, his character died on the overly large television he'd insisted on planting on their coffee table. He didn't care, "Figure you'll do enough Thinking for the lot of us."
He laughed at his own joke easily, uncaring for the deadpan stare he got in return. Before she could say anything particularly biting, not that he'd listen anyway, Brian walked by and poked his finger into the top of Alec's chest. Leaning over the back of the couch as he was, he teetered on edge of falling for a second, flailing his hands wildly before falling and landing in a pile of limbs.
"Hey!" He whined up at Brian from the floor, games controller still clutched in one hand.
Brian tried to look serious, but Lisa didn't need her powers to see the small smirk peaking through. Brian was a good leader when they called on him for it, decisive when he needed to be and deferring to others, especially her, when the situation called for it.
But he always tried to come off as more serious and in control of everything than he really was. That was fine outside, when they were in costume, but here in the hideout it sometimes seemed like he thought they'd all forget about how he constantly worried over Aisha, or that acting like a normal teen instead of an overly strict adult would make them think he was weak.
"Don't stress Lisa out, Alec. Let the Thinker do her thinking." he chided, before turning his gaze towards her, the unasked question in his eyes glaring, at least to her.
There was usually at least one or two of them at the hideout at any one time. Brian would go home when he could, Rachel would go fifty-fifty between here and staying with her dogs. Probably closer to seventy five to twenty five. Lisa herself had her apartment to go back to where she didn't have to deal with the juvenile antics of an emotionally stunted Alec. The boy himself didn't have anywhere to go, and spent most of his time on their couch and Taylor…she spent a frankly worrying amount of time here. The poor heroine spent more time here than at home, and it increased every day. Really, the only time that you could guarantee that they'd all be in one place was if they were on a job or one of them had called for a meeting.
Today, that had been her.
"Wait for Taylor to get here first," she waved away his unasked question, "I don't want to go through this more than once."
'This' being the city going to shit nearly overnight. She'd been connected to the PRT servers through Coil's backdoors into their system, so she'd seen Tyrant blow through the Protectorate team before the footage had been cracked down on from way up the ladder. It had been taken down so quickly and with such brutal efficiency that she'd backed off instantly, scared to touch something that brought that much attention.
More importantly to the team, Thomas Calvert had been the target of and killed by the super-powered team, and with it she got the confirmation that she needed that he was Coil. There was no doubt the PRT would label it a murder, if they even acknowledged it at all, but really it should've been called a mercy killing, at least for her sake. But that did leave the Undersiders adrift without their mysterious boss.
She'd considered not telling the team, the rest of them had no idea their mysterious boss was dead, or even who he was. Her plans for stealing Coil's money hadn't been ready, not entirely. But while she hadn't gotten enough to live comfortably in retirement somewhere far away from Brockton Bay, she had got enough to survive by herself for a good long while if she avoided frivolous expending.
But she didn't want to leave her team, her friends. Then she'd thought about secretly hiring the Undersiders herself, with what she had been able to take from Coil she could keep them funded similar to how the snake himself had. It was possible none of them would even realise, or care in some cases. Helping Brian with his ongoing struggle for custody of Aisha would be harder than it would've been for Coil, but he was never going to actually follow through on his end of the deal. Even without her powers that was obvious, but without that promise it was likely Brian wouldn't have stuck with the team.
He'd already been getting impatient with the boss' anonymity, pressing more and more for a face to face meeting over the last few months. Besides, with how suddenly their boss' downfall had come she hadn't been able to suborn the mercenaries that worked for him, and with only an incomplete scraping of his bank accounts she didn't have the funds to maintain Coil's operations. For all intents and purposes, his fledgling criminal empire had fallen apart the moment he died and the money stopped being delivered to his forces, leaving her stranded and scrambling for a plan.
Despite that, Lisa found herself revelling in the freedom of it. No more noose around her neck, no more worrying about what his powers were. None of that mattered with him six feet under and her flying free.
Fuck you Coil, even if I wasn't the one to do it, I win.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever."
Alec clambered back to his feet and situated himself back into his typical lazy slouch on the couch, already losing interest in anything except his game. He kicked his feet up onto the coffee table, crossing his legs over at the ankles.
Staring down at Alec for a moment, Brian sighed, shot her one last look and moved off to his room. Down below, on the first floor of the abandoned factory turned hideout, Lisa heard the scrabbling of claws on concrete and yips of Rachel's dogs playing, or training. Occasionally, she'd hear the girl herself saying something, or barking it, but only rarely; she only ever brought Brutus, Angelica and Judas to the hideout, the rest staying at the kennels Coil had been paying to maintain.
Everything settled into a normal beat, with an undercurrent of tension running through them as they waited for Taylor to show up. Well, Brian had been nervous at least. She doubted Alec could muster up the effort to be worried and Rachel was, well, Rachel.
Lisa herself rolled her chair back into her room and shut the door behind her with a click. She ignored the mess of things in her room, half completed projects, opened laptops with scrolling news feeds and pages scrawled with notes. One of them was still open on the Brockton Bay PHO page.
Instead, her attention zoomed into largest screen in the room, a monitor plugged into one of the laptops for maximum definition. On it, the camera footage from the previous night repeated itself over and over. Tyrant, just a random kid called Ashton of all things and theoretically the PRT had broken the Unwritten Rules first so it wasn't on her, blowing through the wall and the team. If it wasn't so terrifying, it would make for a good action scene for a movie, but being in the same city as that was like being told Alexandria was swinging by to say hi. She'd even been forced out before the best bit, only able to gleam the fact that Calvert had died through a combination of her powers and careful monitoring.
Nothing the Protectorate team had done slowed the teen down at all. With the helmet covering the entirety of his head it was more difficult to discern his reactions, but her powers would have picked up on the smallest of twitches that even Cape's with a lot of combat experience wouldn't have been able to hide. But there were none, which meant they either did something but he didn't feel pain at all or nothing the entire team of Heroes could bring to the table did a single thing. She was pretty sure it was the second, some kind of field around him that fucked with physics. Either way the newest comer to the Brockton Bay Cape scene was bad news, and he seemed to have it out for almost every major faction in the city.
Which put her and her team on his radar. Hopefully, far, far below in priority compared to the big hitters like the Empire or the ABB, but so far his targets seemed to be almost random. Coil would have used her to get information before he'd made any kind of move on Tyrant, his paranoia and careful planning wouldn't allow him to do otherwise, not when he was panicking in a PRT lavatory. At least from Ashton's mother's testimony, the Brute had cause to go after Hookwolf and his encounter with Glory Girl seemed to just be random chance.
Nothing to give her any way to model what his next move would be, apart from just another random strike. Not knowing what a wrecking ball like that was thinking would make anyone nervous.
The barking dropped off down below as the side-door the team used to the outside swung open with a slight creak before clicking closed. Sighing, Lisa powered down the monitor and grabbed one of the laptops off to the side that she'd prepared for the meeting beforehand. Time to face the music.
When she arrived in the shared living room Taylor had already climbed the stairs and had perched at the end of the couch as far away from Bitch as possible, the same couch that Alec was still lounging on. Hunched over and wearing the same kind of well-worn hooded sweatshirt that hung off of her thin frame that she seemed to favour, she looked much smaller than her actual height. Lisa huffed to herself, I'm going to have to take her shopping soon. It was practically a crime how little self-confidence that girl had.
Rachel herself stomped over to the other couch, sitting and clicking for Angelica to join her up there. Lisa didn't have to be a Thinker to pick up that the butch girl was still angry about them letting Taylor join. The plan was that she'd get used to it with the increased pay from pulling bigger jobs now that they had an additional member, something that would've happened earlier if the same girl hadn't scared off Spitfire.
Now she didn't know if bigger jobs were going to be an option, at least in Brockton Bay.
Brian sat on the same couch as Taylor, though a respectable distance away, his attention already swinging away from the others and on to her as she strode into the room, laptop in hand.
"Hey Taylor." Lisa smiled at the bug controller and was rewarded with a shy one back, but no response. It was still guarded, as the would-be Hero tried to keep her distance from the team. Oh she had no idea that Lisa knew about her little secret, how the normally smart girl didn't was a different question altogether. Blind hope, desperation to finally fit in somewhere or just unconsciously deceiving herself. Probably a combination of all three, "Thanks for coming over so quickly."
Conflicted, worried: something happened before she came here? An event?
A meeting. Was nervous about it happening in the first place, but wanted it to happen. Meeting with parahuman. Hero.
Armsmaster. About bank job.
Interesting. She cut down on her power's analysis quickly, every minute counted when overusing it gave her the mother of all migraines. She didn't think Taylor would rat them out, yet there wasn't much else that the meeting could be about. It hadn't happened anyway, but it was something to keep in mind. All signs pointed to the girl not needing much of a push to join them fully, and that it would be more than beneficial for her, but until then there was a risk.
The poor girl didn't seem to know what to do with her thanks, unused to it, and ended up just nodding her head stiffly. It was weird to think that this girl had faced down Lung a couple short days ago, it was weirder that Lung wasn't her biggest worry in a Brockton Bay without Coil anymore.
She set the laptop down on the coffee table, sat on the edge of the stand of the television set and crossed one leg over the other. With the whole team gathered around her, everything felt normal again for a moment, not thinking about the ground being pulled from under her by Coil's sudden death and her equally sudden freedom. Now she just had to convince the rest of them that to feel the same way.
"What's this about Lisa?" Brian asked, frowning. He'd never been comfortable around things he couldn't control or in situations where he didn't know everything he could.
Worried, frustrated: Aisha wasn't at school again, wants the group to focus on the bank, suspects that she's analysing the group.
Well he wasn't wrong.
"I'm sure those of us that checked the news this morning would know what this is about," Lisa said with a deliberately mysterious air, flicking open the laptop revealing a collage of paused frames from videos and pictures from PRT reports, "this is Tyrant."
They all looked at the screen uncomprehendingly.
"…Am I meant to know who that is?" Alec asked dryly, already looking like he wished he could go back to playing his games.
"You should do," Lisa chirped, enjoying the familiar rush that came with knowing more than other people, even if they were her friends. Especially when that person was Alec, "because last night he beat the entire Protectorate team."
Stunned silence swallowed the team, well, except Rachel who just looked like she was sizing up the Brute through the screen. Enjoying their reactions, she moved the presentation onto the video that she'd managed to copy undetected from the PRT servers. She spoke over it, leaving it running in the background and letting them watch it while she talked.
"He's a Brute, who knows what rating they'll give him after this but it's high enough that can shrug off anything they throw at him." The fact that if the Protectorate team couldn't do anything to him, they definitely couldn't went unsaid, but she could tell they all heard it clearly, "A few nights before that he beat Armsmaster and Miss Militia, after he'd murdered Hookwolf. Threw down with Glory Girl a couple days before that, no prizes for who won. Panacea had to go heal her afterwards."
If before Brian had looked shocked, now it looked like he'd swallowed something too large for his throat.
"He killed Hookwolf?" Rachel perked up, looking at him with much more interesting now. Lisa could almost imagine her imaginary tail wagging, "Good."
Brian spoke up before she could continue, "No, not good." He stared back evenly when Rachel glared at him before explaining further, "The Empire aren't going to take that lying down. The gangs were already in a precarious enough position, without the PRT to keep them in check and a new Cape breaking the rules and killing them they're going to strike back at everyone; for the sake of their image if nothing else. Some no name cape comes in and kills one of Kaiser's top lieutenants? No way they stand for that."
"You're talking about a gang war," Taylor spoke up for the first time, quietly as if afraid to draw attention to herself, "and the PRT won't be around to handle it."
Lisa tutted briefly, "Oh they'll be there, I wouldn't worry about that. I'm ninety-nine percent sure they got Panacea to heal them so they'll all be up like nothing happened. Well, except their bruised ego. But they'll be out to try and turn this around," she snorted derisively, "they'll ignore a gang war but they can't stand bad PR, and they can't exactly hide the hole in the side of their building. Which means they'll be cracking down on everything they can, all the smaller groups in the hopes of starting a new narrative."
"Groups like us," Brian said, grimly.
"Groups like us."
He frowned deeply and leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees and staring distantly at the laptop.
"And when the ABB finds out about Hookwolf, and the Empire can't keep it under wraps forever, they'll push out too, at least when Lung breaks out. In only a few nights of action, Tyrant has pulled the wrong block out of the Jenga tower that is the Brockton Bay Cape scene," she continued dryly.
Nobody said anything for a moment and Lisa was content to let it all sink in. Of the group, only Brian and Taylor seemed to be taking it at seriously as the situation warranted, but that was to be expected when the other two were Rachel and Alec.
"And he's just a Brute?" Brian asked slowly.
She shrugged, "'Just' would be a misnomer, nothing any of the Capes he's fought has done anything to him. All I've got is that he's got some kind of barrier that fucking stops things. Inertia, impact. Who knows what else. Beyond that the PRT are saying he's the standard flying brick, just a bigger one than most of the others. Saying he's 'just a Brute' is like saying the same about Alexandria."
"Alexandria?" Brian repeated disbelievingly, next to him Taylor looked just as shocked. Alec picked at the inside of his ear, "You're saying there's a Triumvirate tier Cape in the city?"
"We've had Lung in the Bay for years Brian, and he's at least close, don't panic just from the name. He's got bigger things to be concerned with than a group like us, we're not even on his radar." Lisa waved away his concerns airily. She was even pretty sure about that too, everything her power had given her said that he was just making it up as he went along, but he was serious about kicking the gangs out of the city. A team of thieves that had mostly only stolen from said gangs, and ran away from the Protectorate wouldn't be a priority, "He is strong though, not someone we can go up against. Most of what I got said that he's got some that field around him, and we don't have anything that could even hope would go through it."
She didn't hide that she was looking at Rachel when she said that, the girl had problems with not realising that she wasn't the strongest in the room at all times. Well, she had a lot more problems than just that.
"We get it," Alec said lazily, "don't mess with the big bad Brute. But does this actually change anything for us? They're still having that big circle jerk about 'taking down Lung' right? They can't be on the lookout inside the city while outside it. Let the big asshole worry about The Empire while we do our thing at the bank."
Right, the Bank.
Something of her reaction must have shown on her face as Brian's attention snapped to her face.
"Lisa."
"Right," she paused, ordering her thoughts, "pretty sure the PRT will try to frame it as an unprovoked attack, or just a blind attack with no reason behind it, but he was there to kill this man." She flipped to the next imagine, an old photo of Calvert in full PRT regalia. It was funny, even knowing now that the dark-skinned man with short cut hair was the man who had been holding the gun to her head this whole time, she still couldn't really see it. Already, she could see the confusion spreading on her team-mates faces so cut off her train of thought and continued, "Thomas Calvert, an advisor turned Commander for the PRT. More importantly to us, he was Coil and our boss."
The bombshell dropped with all the subtlety of a nuke. Brian reared back and Taylor stiffened so much it looked like a light breeze would knock her over, sheer disbelief written across their faces in capital neon letters. As for Rachel, she just frowned and looked down at the dog resting her head on her lap.
Concerned: not about Coil's death, but about the money for her dogs. Doesn't care about who her boss was.
Alec just laughed.
"That's a hell of a cover. I'll bet the PRT are getting their pants in a twist about that, they didn't even find out themselves, had to get told by a Villain," he laughed again, greatly enjoying the image he'd conjured.
"The boss is dead?" Brian cut in before they could get more off topic, "So we've got no back-up and none of the resources that we were promised."
"And none of the bonus money he'd have given us either." Well, she'd gotten some but that wasn't for the team, "The job is dead, buried six feet under with the asshole that gave it to us."
He looked like he wanted to argue, Lisa knew that he needed the money to get custody of Aisha. That he was so close, but she needed him to realise that the job was a no go. She hadn't been joking when she'd said that the PRT was going to clamp down on anything and everything they could; while they were still going ahead with their 'we (temporarily) captured Lung' party for the city's elite, the Wards would still be on lookout and there was no telling if or who the PRT would call in from out of city.
Only the local Director's stubbornness had stopped it from happening earlier, now there was no way she held enough power or leverage to stop it. Brockton Bay was about to see a lot more activity from the Heroes, desperate for a win at the same time the stalemate of the gangs was finally meaningfully broken.
"So we cancel it just like that?" He asked, looking like he wanted to punch something.
Truth be told it bothered her too, she'd spent nights planning everything and considering all the variables, just for some new kid to flip the table with all her planning on it. It was outweighed though by the sheer relief that being out from under Coil's boot brought to her; she'd hug the guy if she wasn't afraid of being turned into paste.
"There's no helping it," she replied, gesturing helplessly, "we're better off keeping our heads down and out of their line of sight until everything's died down. Once word gets out that the Protectorate are, at least temporarily down, things are going to go even more to shit. I would bet money that Lung won't still be in captivity by this evening and I don't think I have to tell anyone why we would be on his radar too. So it's either we keep quiet, or we get far too closely acquainted with fire. Or we get out of the city," she tacked on at the end.
"No way," Brian shut it down quickly, as she'd expected. There was no way that the child protection services would let him take custody and bring Aisha out of the city away from the parents when they were barely, at a push, willing to let him do it while staying close by.
"Then we really don't have a choice. To be honest, Tyrant's motivations are a bundled up mess and I'm not willing to promise he's not at least a little bit insane. I'm in no hurry to get his attention while hiding from big, scaly and angry."
"Great, another crazy Cape. You'd think the literal Nazis and the dragon would have that covered," Alec cut in dryly, though even he looked more serious than normal.
Lisa continued as if he hadn't said anything.
"We've got enough money that we can stay low comfortably for a good while," she raised her hand to forestall Brian, who'd opened his mouth to interrupt, "I know it's not ideal, but we've got to decide what we're going to do without the boss anyway and I'd rather not be looking over my shoulder for him while we do it."
"What's there to talk about?" Rachel asked, frowning and to her there really might not have been anything more to it. As long as they had enough money for her dogs then the loss of their 'sponsor' wouldn't bother her at all.
"Coil was a Thinker, and a seriously powerful one at that. Something to do with probability manipulation or something else equally as ridiculous. On any of the big jobs we took he covered us with it, making sure that nothing went wrong," she explained, seeing the understanding dawn in both Brian and Taylor's eyes. But his eyes narrowed again just as quickly afterwards.
"I got shot by Shadow Stalker and that's him looking out for us?" He ground out bitterly.
"You lived didn't you?"
"And bled all over my new couch," Alec whined while jutting out an over exaggerated pout.
"Not helpful, Alec. But the important part is that you lived," she stressed, trying to get him to understand, "think about it. How many other outcomes were there? If the bolt was just a few inches in any direction you would've died, and you can't say that Shadow Stalker wasn't trying to kill you. Or you could've bled out before we could get you help. Or-"
Brian raised his hand to stop her, the same tired look on his face he always had when he'd given up on arguing a point with her, "I get it, but why couldn't he have 'Thinkered' us out of me getting shot at all?"
"Don't ask me, the guy was asshole of the highest order. I never got a full look at his operations but even just from what I got I know the guy was fucked up. Maybe he just did it because he enjoyed people getting hurt, or it was part of another one of his insane plots. It's not like we can ask him now."
"So we go independent," the Master shrugged, uncaring, "it's not like the big guy was heavy handed in running the team. We were doing just fine, I don't see how that much has changed honestly. Didn't know the guy's name before and now his name doesn't even matter."
Not that heavy handed for you, maybe, Lisa thought bitterly. The memory of her 'recruitment' wasn't something that she'd ever be able to forget. That feeling of helplessness and being trapped that still woke her up in cold sweats some nights.
"Maybe not for you," the dark skinned teen turned his glare onto Alec, spitting out, "some of us have more to worry about than when the next video game is coming out."
Raising his eyebrows in deliberately feigned surprise, as if he didn't full well know what the other teen spent most of his time brooding about everyday. He looked ready to say something back, no doubt something incredibly 'witty' that would only serve to piss Brian off more, a fact that he'd enjoy to no end.
Before she could interrupt the brewing argument, a great, echoing clang rang up from below them, like something heavy had been thrown against a metal slab. Or, the rusted heavy duty doors on the first floor of the hideout. It came again, and again, a low knocking on the door.
"What the hell?" Brian trailed off, his voice undercut by the rising growls of Rachel's dogs.
He shot her a look, but she was as confused as the rest of them. Nobody other than Coil should have known where their hideout was, and he wasn't in a position to tell anybody anything. Taylor wouldn't have been followed, she hadn't even made an appearance as part of the Undersiders yet… though she had met with Armsmaster this morning. Eyeing the girl, her power read the bug controller as just as surprised and worried as the rest of them.
But who else could it be? The sound had been something heavy, the Tinker with his power armour would fit, but even if he hadn't just recovered because of Panacea, she didn't see the PRT Director being desperate enough to break the Unwritten Rules in coming after them here. Her mind raced as she considered the other options, worries about Coil forcibly pushed from her mind.
Heavy, repetitive knocking: more force than a non-parahuman would be able to apply. Parahuman, Brute
Lisa felt the blood drain from her face. A harsh clank came from outside the factory, followed by the rattling of the hefty chain that 'locked' the door dropping to the ground.
Quiet: no tools, broken with bare hands.
None of the major factions of Brockton Bay knew where their base was. She was relatively certain that Coil wouldn't have allowed his toys to be compromised and they were all careful to never leave any trail while in costumes. That only left someone new, someone that knew more than they had any right to.
"It's Tyrant," she hissed urgently, seeing the others' bodies go taut.
"What?" Brian's voice was just as quiet but far more harsh, he stared at her with wide eyes, "You said-"
"I know what I said, but he's out there. Get suited up. Now." she snapped before he could finish, already running to her room. Out of the corner of her eyes she could see the others burst into motion. Alec snatched his mask off from the back of the couch, hurriedly throwing it on. Behind her, footsteps thundered in her ears as Taylor and Brian ran after her, each of them throwing open the doors to their cubicle-like rooms. Further back, the growls of the dogs grew deeper, a rumbling that she could almost feel in her bones accompanied by the scratches of elongating claws scraping down the spiral stair case before they got too large.
Her costume was where she'd left it, strewn over her bed in a haphazard pile. The bodysuit wasn't something that could be changed into quickly, so she ignored it in favour of the domino mask on her desk. It wasn't nearly enough, but it was better than nothing. Affixing it to her face, she tried her best to do it like she normally did, but relying on muscle memory and without a mirror, Lisa could feel that it wasn't right from how it felt against her skin.
Grimacing, she turned and made her way back into the living area as the screeching of metal being forced to bend came from below. She came out of her sprint before she left the tight hallway between the rooms, forcing herself into a calm walk and slowing her breathing into something resembling a relaxed rate.
Brian was already out, motorcycle helmet and leather jacket on and standing new to the opening to the stairs. Anxiety radiated off of him like a physical force, but she could see him fighting it down as he straightened, noticing her looking at him. Taylor must have still been in the room, her costume even harder to get into than Lisa's and without a domino mask she was stuck doing a full change. For a moment she considered going back and giving one of her spares to the other teenage girl, but as the sounds of the dogs downstairs she decided against it.
He stage-whispered at her, loud enough to be heard through the helmet but muffled, "They're both downstairs already." His helmeted head glanced towards the rooms.
"Bug'll be out in a minute," she cut him off, reading his intent. He hesitated a moment before nodding and gesturing for her to go down ahead of him.
Another deep, fortifying breath later and Lisa started down the stairs, her boots clicking loudly against the metal steps. She was greeted by the sight of van sized, spiked dogs throwing themselves against the Brute she'd just been telling the team about, jumping over and around the detritus that littered the first floor of the factory. The clothes were the same ratty quality, even if the graphic art on it was different, but the helmet was definitely the same; all crude rusted metal and corners folded by amateur, too large fingers. He was almost of a height with the dogs, even with them grown as they were only the spikes that sprouted from their shoulder blades went above his head.
Behind him, the metal doors that hadn't been opened in years were bent inwards in a way they clearly wouldn't be able to recover from. There were indents from where he'd pressed them open, palm prints like something out of a cartoon. With the hideout opened to to the outside, if the fight escalated anymore than they risked exposing it. Luckily, they'd chosen the spot based on that risk, this was the docks. Loud noises and disturbances were investigated about as much as a murder in this area, which was to say not at all.
One of the transformed dogs, only Rachel could tell them apart when they were under the influence of her powers, leapt towards him, a deep growl vibrating the air in the hideout as it did. It wasn't graceful, Bitch's powers grew the dogs unevenly, the way the balance was thrown off leant the attack more of an air of accelerated falling rather than a jump.
It didn't matter when a few thousand pounds of spikes and rippling muscle crashed into you. Unless you were a Brute like Tyrant.
One moment he was standing neutrally, the next a hand was wrapped around the base of one of those sharp points. Tugging, the huge teen threw the enlarged dog aside like a normal person would an irritating bug. It sailed through the air, crunching against the brick wall of the factory. Particles of dust and small shards of brick pattered down on the thick 'skin' of the canine as it wearily got back to its feet, shaking its head and sending the tiny debris flying.
Thrown with no effort, weight unnoticeable. High Brute rating. Doesn't know the limits to his strength.
Rachel herself was near the bottom of the spiral staircase, cheap plastic mask in place but barely covering her agitation. The muscles in her neck were pulled taut, and those were the only ones Lisa could really see, she looked like she was considering jumping in with her dogs.
"Bitch!" She called quickly before the other girl could do anything stupid. Should've known that she hadn't listened or paid enough attention to know that her dogs were more likely to hurt themselves than Tyrant.
Frankly, as her mind whirled and the black of Grue's smoke-like power started to drift down from above, his far heavier footfalls muffled by it, she doubted that anything the Undersiders could do would slow Tyrant down where the Protectorate had failed. Hell, she doubted they could even run. The time between Coil's base exploding and him blowing through the side of the PRT Headquarters had only been a matter of seconds. Here? Where the distance between them could be measured in feet rather than blocks?
"You should've said you'd be coming by," Lisa said, voice far calmer than she felt, "we would've ordered some pizza."
A/N:Okay so, hear me out. This chapter has been mostly written for more than a month. In fact, this is only about half of what I have written for this chapter so far. The issue is that the second half of this thing has been fighting me tooth and nail, and it's not unlikely that I'll be rewriting most of it, especially as always the dialogue.
Also, I have a legitimate excuse that I moved to the other side of the world (for a year) and have been settling back into finally having classes again after more than a year and a half. It's exciting, it's scary, it's fun, and it doesn't leave much time for writing unless I do what I do now and stay up later than I know is sensible.
I actually thought I would, and was relatively close to, getting this whole thing posted before I flew out. Which sucks, because it's now two months later and it's only half the 'planned' chapter. Finally, I decided to just split it, so that at least something would go out. If I'd made this decision earlier we could've had this chapter out almost two months ago...
As always, I'm really sorry for the wait everyone. Hope you're all doing well and that this chapter was somewhat, maybe a little bit, decent. I'll see you all next time, or in the forums or whatever.