Brockton Bay Central Bank
Panacea POV
Amy Dallon, otherwise known as the healer Cape Panacea, looked around in shock. One minute she had been waiting in line to deposit some money into her saving account, then the next, she was lying hogtied on the floor. She saw similar confused expressions from the people around her, who were in similar positions to her.
"Ladies and gentlemen, please calm down!" an echoing voice boomed as a cloud of darkness entered the room, disgorging four humans and three…dog-monsters into the bank. She recognised them from when she was trawling PHO; they were the Undersiders, a group of villains that specialised in hit-and-run style robberies.
"This is just your basic robbery." The loud one, Grue the leader if she remembered correctly, spoke in a commanding tone, "A colleague of ours has immobilised all of you to ensure that no one tries any heroics aside from the ones in costume. We will be here only momentarily and gone with no injuries to anyone."
"Might be a bit tough to do that, Grue." A voice said from the other side of Amy. She turned her head to see a tall skinny girl wearing a quartered silver and blue suit with blue boots and gloves, a white helmet with a silver visor and the symbol of a vertically split clock face on her chest. In one hand, she carried a staff with a stopwatch mounted on it. Amy wondered where the hell she had come from.
"What's up, Paradox?" the one dressed in a renaissance faire outfit asked flippantly.
"This girl next to me is Panacea, Regent." The new Cape, Paradox, replied with a nod at Amy, "That means the berserk brick will be here with the Wards, jurisdiction be damned."
Amy felt a bit indignant that they were calling her beloved sister by such a derogatory name.
"Tattletale…" Grue said wearily, "Next time we say 'no' to one of your ideas, remember this before you push things. OK."
Tattletale, in her purple and black outfit, threw up her hands. "How was I supposed to know that she'd be here? I'm not omniscient, you know!"
"Noted." Grue said wryly, "For the moment, that changes nothing. Carry on as planned. Paradox, keep an eye on Panacea. We don't want anything to go wrong today."
"On it." Paradox nodded before looking down at Amy with a polite nod.
"A pleasure to meet you, Panacea. Or would you prefer Miss Dallon as you are out of costume?" she –Amy thought it was a female voice- said to her politely.
"Miss Dallon will be acceptable." Amy replied stiffly, "You do know that I need to touch people to work? There's no need to guard me since I'm tied up like this. How'd you do this anyway?"
"That would be telling." The other Cape replied playfully as her teammates scattered throughout the bank on their tasks, "Suffice is to say, this was easier than having to use Bitch's pets to intimidate people."
"You mean Hellhound?" Amy queried
"She hates the name the PRT gave her." Paradox explained, "A Bitch is a female dog, so she prefers it. Do her a favour and tell that to the PRT?"
"…Ok…?" this conversation was becoming weird.
"Something I've always wondered about New Wave." Paradox mused as she twirled her staff in one hand, "Why are your costumes white? I can't help but shudder at the thought of how much money you must spend on detergent."
"…because we're the good guys?" Amy replied uncertainly. Why was she worried about how much her family and the Pelhams spent on detergent?
"I had heard that your views on Heroes and Villains were rather strict." The other Cape mused, "What about the Wards then? Shadow Stalker wears black."
"She's a hero." The healer protested.
"Because she's sponsored by the government it must be so, of course." Paradox sneered verbally, "Let me let you in on a small secret, Panacea. Not all who live in the light are good, just as not all who dwell in the dark are bad. Shadow Stalker almost killed Grue a couple of months ago by shooting a live bolt into his stomach. Are those the actions of a hero? I think not. We try to abide by the unwritten rules in as much as we can and mainly focus on businesses that are fronts for the Empire 88, ABB and the Merchants. The most damage we have caused to non-Capes is a few minor cuts. By that standard, who are the heroes here?"
Amy was stunned by the quiet but impassioned speech by the so-called villain. She knew that Shadow Stalker was only in the Wards because it had been that or time in juvenile hall for crucifying a member of the ABB on a wall, but surely the other Wards would have stopped her from doing something like that?
She was driven from her train of thought by Grue alerting the Undersiders that the Wards had shown up. Tattletale came waltzing smugly out of the vault, with Bitch following her with her monster-dogs loaded down with saddlebags full of cash from the vault. Regen came in, dripping with jewel necklaces and the like taken from the security deposit boxes.
"Regent, put the damn jewels away before you blind someone with the sun bouncing off your bling." Grue said in a long-suffering voice.
Somehow conveying a pout with mere body language, the other Cape complied.
"Is he always like that?" Panacea found herself asking.
"Regent? It's hard to get him to stop unless there's money in it for him." Paradox replied.
"Fuck you, Paradox." Regent said lazily.
"Back at you." The blue clad cape shot back before freezing, then staggering back. Tattletale grabbed her and helped her teammate stay upright.
"What's the situation?" Grue asked calmly.
"Aegis and Clockblocker have swapped uniforms to try and trick Bitch into setting them on the wrong people." Paradox replied, "Glory Girl is standing on the roof and is planning on at breaking at least one bone for us holding her sister hostage. She won't be eager to listen to reason, and will be a pain in the butt to take down for anyone but me. She'll be even less happy when Bitch puts the hurting on Gallant. Vista's on standby to warp space to either protect her teammates or draw them close to Clockblocker. Kid Win's on his hoverboard and has a laser, but Regent should make short work of him. There's a new Ward, Browbeat. He's a point-blank telekinetic, but Bitch's dogs can shrug off his punches. No sign of Shadow Stalker. Damn, do I have a headache."
"Thinker headaches suck." Tattletale said sympathetically, "Grue, time to start planning."
A Short Time Later
Paradox POV
Taylor Hebert looked out through her new helmet's visor and grinned. Joining the Undersiders had been an easy decision after she had beaten down Lung. Her ability to alter the flow of time, much like in the Earth Aleph game Prince of Persia, had made beating the Dragon of Kyushu feasible for the Undersiders. Watching Lung move in way slow motion had been very funny to watch, with Regent pouting only because he couldn't interfere with Lung's body through Taylor's time field.
Two grand a month, plus a cut of the profits, was very nice, but it was the friendship that she had with the villains that meant the most to her. Sure, Bitch had tried to attack her, but that was a non-issue thanks to her ability to speed herself up and slow down Brutus, Angelica and Judas to the point that they barely moved.
Most of her 'reward' for helping the Undersiders out had been spent on this costume, purchased from the Toybox. It was made of double-layered lightweight Tinker-made Kevlar, with inertia neutralising gel in between the two layers. The visor was light reactive and bulletproof, as was the rest of the helmet, and the staff was a prop designed to make people think I was a Tinker who could create devices that could control time.
"Ready, Paradox?" Grue called.
"Ready." she replied and spun her staff around before pointing it at Bitch's dogs just as Grue dropped the curtain of darkness, revealing the Wards outside the door.
"Brutus, Angelica, Judas! Rend!" Bitch ordered, and the three mutated dogs snarled as they leapt forth to do their mistress' bidding. Paradox made time speed up for them and they turned into blurs that leapt on 'Clockblocker' and started tearing into him.
The rest of the Wards started to react, but Grue threw a cloud of darkness over them and charged in, a cry of pain from Kid Win signalling he was doing his thing.
As 'Aegis' staggered out of the cloud, Taylor waved at him cheerfully.
"Hello there…Clockblocker." She said, "You'd be a pain to fight, so a time out for you."
Before he could do more than start to run towards her, she spun her staff once and pointed it at him, freezing him in his tracks. Eliminated with a much more powerful version of his own power.
Bitch, meanwhile, prowled outside the barrier of darkness and was in position when Vista was thrown out by Grue. The canine Cape slammed a fist to the back of the most experienced Ward's head, knocking her out.
Gallant emerged next, flying from the top of the cloud in his armour. In a flash of white, Glory Girl appeared next to him and Taylor felt her self-esteem as a female take a hit. Victoria Dallon made Emma look like Taylor by comparison!
She felt Glory Girl's fear-inducing aura wash over her and fought it. She really hated people who manipulated emotions without powers, so this did not leave her feeling warm and fuzzy towards the girl.
"Stand down." Glory Girl ordered flatly, "Or else."
"When we're the ones kicking butt?" Taylor scoffed, "Hardly likely. If you're worried about Panacea, don't be. The worst that she'll suffer is minor rope burns from being hogtied."
The look of anger on her face decreased at that, but she was still implacable. "Villains don't have the right to negotiate."
With that, she sped forward, fist cocked back to pound Taylor into the ground. Paradox raised her staff and a circular shield appeared in front of the Alexandria-type, who bounced off it with a yell of surprise. With another gesture, the silver and blue Cape slammed Glory Girl down to the ground with a moving shield to the stomach.
She was taken aback when the blond girl shrieked with pain when she struck the ground. Wasn't she supposed to be invulnerable? Resolving to find out what the deal was later, Paradox waved her staff at Glory Girl as she struggled to sit up and froze her in place.
"Vi-Glory Girl!" Gallant cried and tried to blast me with some weird beams of some kind, but Paradox sped herself up and avoided them. She was panting by this point, as using her power so often and with no rest is still difficult for her.
Regent strolled out with Tattletale in tow and waved his hand at Gallant, making the armoured hero punch himself in the faceplate. Leaping up, Paradox made a series of time barrier platforms like stepping stones that led up to him and ran up them, grabbed on to the armour and triggered her power.
In seconds, the metal armour was rusted to uselessness, the limbs locking up to keep the Cape within locked up tighter than a drum. She deliberately left his helmet alone and put a barrier underneath him, lowering him to the ground safely.
"Sorry about that." She said to the Cape trapped by his own armour, "In this armour, you're way too much of a threat to take lightly. Kid Win can probably get you fixed up in no time."
The sound of Grue grunting in pain came to her ears and Paradox spun around to see him stagger back, the darkness dispelling as he lost his grip on his power from Browbeat punching him on the helmet. She could see the crack in it from where she stood.
Bitch sent her dogs, which had turned Aegis in Clockblocker's costume into the world's largest chew toy up until this point, at the telekinetic, who yelped in shock at seeing three dogs the size of lions stalking toward him.
"You know, considering your teammates have been disabled, you could just sit down and let us go." Paradox suggested amiably, "Seriously, this is your first outing as a Cape, so the Protectorate won't give you grief about it. The unwritten rules against escalation and all that."
"Man!" the cape moaned at sat down. Around him, Vista and Kid Win lay unconscious, Gallant was entombed in his armour, Clockblocker and Glory Girl were frozen in time and Aegis was still recovering from Bitch's dogs.
"Undersiders, let's get gone." Grue ordered and covered his gang in a curtain of darkness as they moved, loping away on Bitch's dogs. Under her mask, Taylor had to smile.
Life was good.
Now all she needed to do was figure out who had used Parachronal Cognition just before they had left their base and she'd be happy.
Always wondered how a time-related hero would be, because Clockblocker is too limited in scope and the only time-powered Cape other than him that I can recall is the Grey Boy. Parachronal Cognition is the fancy name for Coil's power.
Shaker: 7 (Can alter the flow of time up to twenty meters around her to be fast, slow or halt completely. She is able to freely interact with anything or anyone she has frozen in time, but cannot harm them. Can create shields made of solidified time energy to halt or slow down enemy attacks.)
Striker: 7 (Can age non-organic objects into either a decrepit condition or into dust. Can rewind the time of any non-organic object, restoring it to being as good as new.)
Mover: 4 (Can speed own self up to appear to be moving at super speed. Can use Chronokinetic shield as mobile platform or as air stairs.)
Thinker: 9 (Can sense when other time-users use their power, as well as what power is used. Can see flashes of possible futures before dangerous situations. Always known what time/date it is, irrespective of time zones and adjusts accordingly. Can instantly know the age of a person or object at a single glance down to the microsecond.)