His helmet was on the table, a cup of coffee accompanying it. The fluorescent light flickered in the reflection of the dark brew. A Monday, a hectic one at that. He couldn't see anything his team had done wrong with handling the woman, it just seemed that she wasn't willing to work with them directly. He couldn't fault her, too much of his own time was spent doing paperwork already, redundant paperwork at that. If she wanted to clean up the bay with her powers, then she could do so, most of the people in the city wanted to. What she couldn't do was damage public property or harm civilians.
At least nobody got hurt with her last scuffle with the jet-powered beast, but the destruction of the street was intense, not on the scale of the one at the substation, but more permanent. The road was useless and some of the buildings were to be condemned and dismantled. Rebuilding would take money, he didn't know who had the money. The insurance companies didn't like bailing people or businesses out due to cape activity. Sometimes it happened, but a few companies had gone bankrupt following the multitude of attacks on America's home soil.
Piggot was looking at him with the same eyes as the previous morning, steely and stern. More papers lined her desk, some of them handled the requisition of new munitions and equipment, others were personal reports from his team. He was here as the senior Protectorate member, it was his team that chased the woman across the city on his command, and it was his team that escalated the situation. He didn't see it that way, but it wasn't for him to decide. By all accounts they had done the best they could, pinning her in a strip mall where she couldn't escape without being spotted.
It might have gone better if they had a better understanding of her abilities, the little footage that they had of her in action showed a brute power, heightened strength and mobility. Their new report listed her as a breaker, boosting into a mover and brute with a wide array of blaster abilities. The monsters she fought, on the other hand, took centre stage in the report. Brockton's newest rogue focused solely on these monsters and the PRT thinkers concluded that she had an intrinsic connection to them and from their reports, Armsmaster gave her a tentative rating of master 8 after yesterday's aerial showcase. She was a grab bag of high tier powers that only seemed to get stronger as time went on.
Most of the city's interest was on her now. So much so that the mayor with help from his senator friends, forced the PRT to find her civilian identity and attempt to press-gang her into service, an action that wouldn't find success by his measure. Whoever said that the government were the good guys clearly had forgotten that some of the capes on the roster had been hardened criminals in the past. It was unfeasible to try and apprehend her without a triumvirate level cape, Alexandria or Legend could do it, but they were busy.
"Yesterday… what did we learn?" Piggot started, her hands folded on the table, eyes flicking about at the multitude of reports littering her writing surface.
"The monster. I guess that's where we start. After the PRT self-defence turrets intercepted it with three missiles, of which only one hit, it retreated. We got a good video of what I believe to be an arrow of some kind hitting it, after which it seemed stunned and fell to the ground." How could an arrow shoot something out of the sky where tinker derived weapons could not?
"It landed at South-way intersection, on top of Miller and co. most of the building was destroyed by the impact, luckily nobody died, but it took search and rescue six hours to get everyone out. Hunter then engaged the monster in combat, it took about ten minutes from start to finish for her to kill it." Most of the footage was pieced together from cameras around the scene, the masterful work compiled by Dragon at his request.
"She killed it and it faded away within thirty seconds somehow, cameras pick up floating lights drifting off the monster and then rushing into her. In the pursuit, she demonstrated the same red energy that the monster used to people itself. Her new 'rocket' powers emanate from her hands and feet and she can send a bolt of it flying at about nine hundred feet per second. With her new powers, she raised her mover and blaster power with two points." Colin summarised the report.
"Yes, the fight, it was intense and jarring. The monster could give some of our best capes a run for their money. How did the pursuit devolve into a manhunt?" He shook his head in affirmation and stood up to point out the trail on the projected map of the city.
"We chased her from South-way to downtown, she evaded our first party consisting of Aegis and Kid Win so I assigned Velocity to the pursuit. It might have been a bad decision to increase the number of capes gunning for her, but more and more people outside my chain of command were getting involved. Local police and PRT agents, sent by the deputy director, were already chasing her down when Velocity arrived. So, I made the decision that we should have a few more of our movers intercept and corral her, Aegis and Kid Win were only to track her and not to engage her." Colin pointed out the route she took with a laser pointer in his glove.
The image of the strip mall replaced the map. "She jumped into the South-end mall and disappeared inside, shifted out of her breaker state and with no knowledge of her civilian persona, we lost track of her. Fortunately, people were willing to assist us in pointing her general direction. I sent Velocity, Battery and myself inside in hopes of getting her quitly, Assault was to keep lookout on the roof. it took a few minutes but luck showed."
A picture appeared of the woman, young with dark wavy hair. "A confrontation with her and a waiter, led to me spotting and pursuing her. I interviewed the man afterwards, privately. He told me that she was causing trouble at his school and had changed dramatically in the last few weeks. He described a meek girl who changed into a self-proclaimed badass. The mark on his chin was from where she punched him apparently. I corroborated the information with Sophia and she identified the girl as Taylor Hebert."
"Who knows of this?" She interrupted his explanation.
"You and I, possibly Sophia. I didn't tell her outright but she'll probably make the connection. The waiter also likely knows, he's already said he'll not tell anyone, but I doubt it. He was a minor and refused to sign our NDA, his parents weren't keen on doing so either." Piggot's sigh echoed Colin's exhaustion.
"Good, keep it off the books, I don't want the gangs getting something out of this. Get a watch on her family and look out for any ABB activity in their area. They haven't been keen on following the rules of the game since the beginning." Collin agreed, the ABB had been a growing problem. He returned to the projection, continuing as the next slide showed Taylor in her red armour.
"Velocity chased her down in the mall but she jumped to the roof before he could cuff her. She shifted into her breaker state before jumping, some of the thinkers think she's limited in power if not in her breaker state. She shot two red blasts at the police helicopter, forcing the pilot to land." The footage of Battery and the woman's talk played for the two, the two remaining silent as Battery talked and listened to the girl's strong refusal to cooperate.
"We know capes aren't usually willing to work with us on their own, but she seemed intensely unwilling to even harbour the thought of working for us. Still, she didn't hurt anyone and showed that she can be quite powerful if backed into a corner. If we had New-Wave there to help, Glory Girl might have been able to chase her down and apprehend her." The footage continued, the fire burst forcing Battery to jump backwards, and a second later the crack of thunder sounded out followed quickly by the boom of crimson jets. The last few seconds of the footage showed the black trail that led away towards the north. Colin waited for Piggot to continue, the director reviewing the facts in her mind before saying anything.
"We are not to engage her further, if she summons another monster we will have to respond with more force. We've gotten some more equipment to fight them off if we need to, but I doubt we'll be seeing them as effective as they usually are. Militia, Battery, Assault and Dauntless are to remain on standby if she does something again, they'll be working as a rapid response force from now on." She scribbled on a notepad, listing her commands in bullet points.
"Non-brutes and unarmoured personnel are not to engage her if they don't have blaster powers. That goes double for the Wards, I don't want anyone making her angry at us. Get a message to her, 'Keep the monsters away from the city or we'll have to come down hard on you.' I don't care how you do it, just make sure she understands that we don't play games."
Colin took his now cold coffee and helmet and bid his boss a good day. Militia wasn't waiting for him outside the office this time.
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"Okay, you're all capes, and I'm here in what? A villain lair?" Lisa smiled, the smile a politician used to win you over, she dropped it, I guess she figured it wouldn't work.
"Yeah, we're the Undersiders." She supplied, I'd never heard of them.
"We're new. We mostly target the gangs, make them work for their illegal gains. Casinos, drug dens, even dog fighting rings." Her eyes tracked to Rachel, the butch girl eyeing me warily while scratching the head of the dog sitting at her feet.
"So, not bad guys, but not good guys either, what? Rogues? Who got you together?" Talking with even more capes my age was surreal. Keeping identities hidden was one of the key points of being a super. And here I was, eating breakfast with three of them. The toast and eggs were nice, the tea of the best quilty.
"Independent benefactor got us working together, got a chunk of cash to do so. Pays us per job along with whatever we can skedaddle out with. Know how much money an illegal casinos slash drug den has? Like almost a million bucks." Money had been tight for dad and me since the accident. Why did I care about money anyway? It wasn't like I was going hungry at home and my powers supplied me with a suit, a suit that I had dismissed at the Chinese restaurant, and gave Armsmaster a solid read on my face.
Forehead meet table, yesterday was just now returning to me. The PRT knew my face, I wonder if they could get my name just from a picture without outing me.
"What's her problem?" Rachel's gruff voice called out.
"Finally realised how big of a fuckup happened yesterday; the government knows who she is." Lisa explained after taking a sip from her coffee; milk, two sugars.
"And? Hasn't stopped me." I don't think anything will stop her.
"Rach, she's got family and family makes things difficult if people know who you are." I didn't want things to be difficult. I could probably still go home, but only once. What do I tell dad? I lifted my head, cupped my tea and took a long slow sip. Taking a second to think yesterday over.
"Yeah, I guess I've been lucky so far. Yesterday's fight went on too long and I couldn't get far enough away from the 'good guys' to disappear into the crowd. They chased me and got lucky when I slipped them at the mall, idiot from my school saw me and outed me towards Armsie; and he's part of a gang." My frustrated groan refused to be contained; I didn't want the ABB to wield the sword of Damocles and yet now they do. I had no other choice than to tell dad I was a cape now.
"And now?" The dog lover kept looking at the blond.
"If the gang knows who she is, and they totally do, she'll have more trouble than just the PRT." Rachel's realisation took a second, she wasn't an idiot, but her common sense was slow on the uptake. Mom told me that school was more than just learning stuff, but training our brains to think faster and connect dots quicker, training our common sense so to say.
"You guys go to school?" I looked up towards them, Alec sat across me at the table, ignoring us as he sleepily ate a bowl of cereal. He still wore the same white shirt and black denim of last night. Lisa sat on my right, nursing the cup of coffee, her green jacket covered an Alexandria shirt. Rachel sat on my left, opposite of Lisa, her denim jacket, grey shirt, camo pants and big boots told the story of a girl that wasn't interested in looking good. But they remained silent on the matter of school.
Rachel looked at me first. "School sucks." Guess she didn't go then. I looked over at Lisa, she shook her head. "Can't be bothered." Alec smirked but said nothing.
So super-powered teenagers that didn't go to school. How cliché.
"Kind of pointless if you're getting paid enough money to risk your life to fuck over the gangs. You might want to join in, we've got space for a frontline fighter." I weighed the option in my head. Money wouldn't be a problem anymore and I'd be messing with the plague that was the gangs of Brockton. I'd have to think about it more, even if I did want to join in right now.
"I'll come back to you on that one." It was the most I could say to her. I stood up, said goodbye to the other two and moved to the door. Lisa walked behind me, following me as I walked out of the villain's lair into the morning breeze. My baggy clothes gripped the gust of wind and sent a shiver through me. I turned back to the blond, and the memory of how I awoke this morning heated my face and I quickly faced away from her.
"Thanks for the bed, and the food. I didn't think there were people left in the world who'd do nice things to a stranger." My neck itched and my hand scratched it. Another wind grabbed my hair and flicked it into my face, the added cold knocked the blush off my face.
"No problem, if I was out fighting the whole day I'd also be starving. You can always join us later, you haven't even met the leader of our ragtag bunch of rogues yet." I turned and waved goodbye. Social norms be damned, small talk was hard.
[/]
The step at the front of the house hadn't been fixed.
Dad was sitting on the couch, staring at the tv. He noticed me walking in.
My suit adorned me in a burst of smoke and flames, the suddenness of the change caused him to jump back in surprise.
"Oh, geez. Taylor… Taylor, you're a cape."
"Yes, I'm a cape. Been one for a few weeks now." The armour popped away into non-existence with faint smoke wafting through the house, stowed wherever it was for me to call upon again. I sat on the sofa, my meagre weight barely leaving a dent in the stiff cushion. I waited for him to calm down. The talk would be difficult.
"I'm not just a cape dad, it gets worse, yesterday was kind of a mess and now the government knows who I am, also the ABB knows, stupid kid from a gang outed me to the good guys. I came to tell you… I don't actually know, I felt it was my responsibility for you to hear it from me first before someone with a gun and an agenda comes knocking." Knowing how messed up Brockton had become over the years; it wouldn't take long for someone to come sniffing around and causing problems for my old man and then for me.
Dad just sat there, unsure of what to do with the knowledge. His mouth opened and then closed, opened again and closed again. He turned to me, stared me in the eye and swallowed.
"Wards. I'm getting you into the Wards." I shook my head; he didn't stand up and go for the phone.
"I don't think that's your decision anymore. Remember a few years ago, you, me and mom were walking down the boardwalk with ice cream. You saw something and pushed us into the store next to us. The gunshots of that day kept me awake for months." His eyes were hard set. The day had changed our happy little life into something a bit more real, mom's smiles were a bit sparse and few between for the weeks that followed.
"Mom later told me it was Merchants, five people died that day dad. Because some hyped-up junkies wanted to get some money to scratch their itch. She said if you didn't push us away, we would have been in the crossfire." It made me realise that the world wasn't sunshine and rainbows.
"I've got the powers to clean the city up now, but the good guys could have done it long ago, what other city has as many government capes as Brockton? No, they've been sitting on their hands for years, doing nothing but letting the city get worse. I can make a difference now."
"Taylor, you're talking about fighting dangerous people. People that will try kill you if you mess around with them, people that will kill me if you mess up." I squeezed my eyes shut, the truth stinging my eyes and heart.
"I know, but I can't sit around and do nothing anymore. I have a chance to make this city a place mom would be proud of." A miasma of emotions crossed his face, anger and sadness, the only emotions he's been feeling for years, mixed with despair and nausea. Times have changed, his daughter was no longer the happy little chatterbox of years prior, I was now a cape willing to fight for my home. I stood up and walked to the front door, he followed behind in a rush.
"Taylor, please, don't leave." I brushed off his hand and stepped through the doorway, the mid-day sun greeting me.
"Sorry dad, I've made my decision. Keep safe." I turned around and walked down the street, after a few steps the walk became a run. The run transformed into a sprint. I ducked through an alleyway and came out covered in red.
[/]
It was on the tallest building in the bay that I received a flying visitor. I stared at the streets below me, searching for a place to start 'not-minding my business'.
"Yo." With a heart jumping to my throat I spun around to see a white-clad blond hovering five feet in the air behind me. The blond hair, tiara and gripped fists all fit the description of one very dangerous barbie. Glory Girl. My distress must have been visible as she raised her arms in the classic 'I mean no trouble' gesture.
"Don't worry, I'm not here to fight you, just want to talk, really. You're about the only thing the city is talking about anyway. Care if I join in on your dramatic gazing?" She floated next to me, her movements in the air reminding me of fairies from Disney movies, swooping and without effort.
I didn't know what to say, so I defaulted to being polite in a sense. "The more the merrier right. Nice to meet you I guess." She didn't turn to me, instead, peering out towards the hospital a few miles south of us.
"Yeah, likewise. I'm Glory Girl, but you can just call me Vicky." her intentional pause in the conversation was painful, the situation being awkward as it was, didn't lend to small talk going anywhere.
"So, you want to talk right?" Her blond hair bobbed a fraction in acknowledgement, but she remained silent.
"So… ask away."
"Sorry, just looking at something." I tried to see what she was staring at, but couldn't find anything out of the ordinary down in the streets below, nor the hospital far away.
"Nah was nothing. Sorry, I get distracted sometimes. Oh yeah, I wanted to ask you if you're going to keep fighting monsters? Cause if you are, I'd like to take on one too. It looks like fun." Fun wasn't the word I'd use to describe it.
"What do I say to that? sure, yes. You can come kill one with me if you want, but I'm not going to take one on for a while." She didn't seem disappointed at my admittance. I hadn't had the feeling of taking on the horrors of the world yet, maybe at the end of this week I'd be needing to do something.
"Okay, sounds like fun. But I also have a message from the good guys, directly from the head honcho." I was glad she didn't see my stunned expression; it would probably have made her laugh.
"Yeah, she says not to fight any more monsters in the city, if you do, they'll have to bring the hammer down. They'll let you go this last time but if it happens one more time, they're branding you a criminal." I couldn't blame them; I had probably cost them the same amount in a month that other minor gangs would cost them in a year.
"Tell your boss, I won't be taking any more fights in the city." She whirled around at that, her stomach was at my eye level, it made her look ridiculous as she peered down at me with her tiara capped locks.
"Not my boss. But sure, you have to promise me that you'll let me know if you go hunting again or I won't tell them you'll be on your best behaviour." What was the danger barbie's problem? Were her powers and subsequent bashing of crooks, not enough excitement for her?
"Okay yeah sure, how do I get in touch? Not like I've got a phone or anything." She shot me a look, surprise mixed with exasperation. It didn't seem that she had a pen and paper on her either.
"No phone, in this day and age. Look you might be some badass soldier type, but communication is the numero uno when playing cape. You want to be all rogue and mysterious, fine. But you need to let people know when shits about to go down, and not having a phone is the same as going in naked." Getting a lecture from Glory Girl was not something I thought I'd live to see. But here she was going on about how I needed to prepare for fights. I didn't stop her and she didn't seem interested in stopping yet either. A hand dipped into a pocket on her skirt and retrieved a roll of silvery tape.
"Tape! Know how much you can do with tape." She stowed it and again rummaged through another pocket on her semi-rigid skirt, only now I realised that her being able to fly probably meant that she could carry around a bit of weight in equipment.
"Pepper spray! I've maced more people than I'd like to admit, just makes putting down crooks easier. If I don't want to punch them and get blood on my skirt, that is." She continued with her tirade, getting more and more stuff from her bottomless pit of utilities. It was funny, the blond Alexandria package that everybody thought a bit of a ditz, was highly organised and willing to use tools to get the job done easily. Her pride in being a hero made it clear that she wanted to be one of the bests desperately.
"Back to the phone. Get one, even a simple one that can only do text and calls, it will work wonders." I crossed my arms, "If you don't have one by tomorrow, I'll tell the PRT you said 'Suck it'."
Extortion and yet her point still stood, so far I'd been relying on my powers to provide everything I'd need to fight, from weapons to bombs, but I'd need more if I wanted to do this right. If I wanted to fight gangbangers I'd need to get people to help me. And communication was 'numero uno' like she said.
"What if I can't get a phone?" The look she gave me wasn't pretty, her face scrunched up, ready to blow a fuse in frustration.
"You can give six capes the slip but not grab a phone. You're a superpowered, flying tank for god's sake; go knock some skinhead's head and take their cash, or even better take their phones. They've always got some burners lying about." Vicky was way too involved in my shortcomings at planning to be a cape. Not that I had planned to do a lot of caping, the whole situation thrust upon me in a blur of smoke and fire.
"Thanks, I might just go do that. If you still want me to get your phone number, I'll meet you here tomorrow same time. Sound good?" I offered as an olive wreath.
"Yeah, whatever. Go do some dirty work and think about what you're going to be doing as a Brockton cape, the gangs eat rookies for breakfast, you're not something special okay. If you make too many waves without a team they'll send some rather nasty people to make your life hell, or even worse, dead… Later." She spun around and flew slash floated away. It was elegant, much more pleasing to the eye than the brutal violation of nature I used.
I took a long look down the streets of downtown, I wouldn't be finding any gangers to bash there. Coil's men were hidden most of the time and I didn't want to figure out if I was laser resistant. Skinheads had the more westerly and southern end of the city, where the predominantly white areas were, far away from the hustle and bustle of industry. The east side of the bay had more Asians and other assorted minorities. It was where the ABB made their home, I didn't want to poke that dragon yet.
A leap off the edge had me falling from the high rise, the air rushing to greet me, whistling in my ears as it entered through the slits of my faceplate. A jet of crimson from my feet rocketed me forward and pulses from my hands halted my downward momentum. Learning to fly via jet-powered appendages was both easier and harder than I'd have thought, easier when I let my powers do the driving, harder when I wanted to land without breaking my knees.
The black smoke trails I left would make anybody aware of my heading and position. It's what clued in the Brockton super barbie to where I was in the first place. The south side and commercial district awaited me, some snooping would have to be done to find a suitable location to enact justice on some Nazi scum.
[/]
My fist connected with his skull, a splatter of blood coated my fist as I crushed his nose, the dark red almost imperceivable on the red of my armour. The lookout collapsed at my feet, the thunk of his body drowned out by the chaos coming from behind the door. Night was setting in by the time I found the dingy bar, flooded with red bandanas and an overabundance of bald overweight men in white tees and shades. Hell, the lookout had the old German cross on the back of his neck, just to nail any doubt I had into the coffin.
Bar, drug den, strip joint, brothel, fighting ring. It could be anything really, all I knew was that if there wasn't a cape here, I had pretty decent odds of dismantling the place if I needed to. I snuck through the door, staying low as much as my bulked frame could allow, the thump-thump of music echoing off of the yellow-stained walls. The smell of cigarettes wafted here in the back hallway, years and years of overuse staining the ceiling yellow. Several doors lined the hallway and not much could be garnered from their looks, each door had a sturdy build to them and they rarely creaked as i shifted one open. A storeroom greeted me behind the first door, a few isles of cardboard box filled shelves filled the small backroom. The music raising in volume as I neared the other end, I could make it out clearly now, country and western, with a distinct nationalistic tone to it. The buzzing of people also became clear as the back door opened up to a kitchen.
I didn't want to enter the main floor proper, I wanted the back rooms and manager's office, rob them blind and bash someone important. Show the Empire I was willing to target them at their soft spots.
I backtracked and swung open the second door in the decrepit hallway. A set of bare stairs lit by a flickering lightbulb hanging above them. I snuck up carefully, lightly placing my feet as I rose to the second storey of the building. More doors and a wooden floor that hardly creaked. A window peeked at the end of the hall.
If I was a smart cookie, I'd bet the manager's office was the door furthest from the entrance and the door closer would either be the break room or toilets. I pressed a helmeted ear to the furthest door, realised how pointless it was and opened the door slowly.
"John, you better be here with the reports!" I wouldn't have taken the man to be a ganger, clean denim, striped shirt, slick hair, he looked more like a store manager than the man in charge of a neo-nazi establishment, but that's how it worked. Not everyone was showing colours all the time.
"John, don't ignore me. How much are we getting tonight?" He didn't turn around, too focused on the laptop in front of him, his fingers clacking away at a spreadsheet, a cigarette jerked up and down between his lips as he spoke.
"John isn't coming," one-liners were definitely not my forte but it got the job done as he spun around quickly and jumped in fright at seeing my armour-clad form. "Whoa whoa, listen, I'm just a clerk here, if you want the cash, you can grab it, it's on the table right there." He pointed to the table blocked from my sight by the door. I stepped in, gave him a long look and moved to look at the cash table. Twenties, fifties, and a few hundred-dollar bill piles sat neatly wrapped with rubber bands.
The strike to my head caught me off guard, at least my helmet absorbed and deflected most of the blow. I whirled around; the man was hefting a dull silver baseball bat. And plastered me in the face with it again. The second strike sent me stumbling but I recovered quickly enough.
His third swing missed, I stepped away from the overhead swing and punched him, his jaw made an awful cracking sound. I hadn't meant to swing that hard. He crumpled like a sack of rocks. I turned back to the table, grabbed a handful of hundred dollarydoos and made to split from the building before more people came up from the stairs.
I stepped through the doorway when I stood face to face with the biggest man I'd seen in a while, his muscles bulged under the ripped denim jacket. His dark eyes were wide as he saw me. "Cape!" He shouted, thrusting his hand into his jacket and retrieving a massive revolver. it fired before I finished processing the situation. The magnum shot hit me in the chest, my armour didn't tear as the bullet impacted me, the shock and weight behind it sent me stumbling instead.
A second shot reverberated through the small hallway and sent me crashing through the small window. The ground greeted my back and left me disorientated, adrenaline sharpened my mind as the skinhead lost his blur and sharply came into focus, the street light reflecting off the massive hand cannon's barrel. His giant fingers, which barely fit inside the trigger, squeezed ever so slightly, and the earth erupted into a volcano next to me, missing my head an inch. another shot repeated the pattern, but thankfully I was already moving away.
The street zoomed past as I fled the scene on rocket-powered jets.
Next time I'd do more than steal some petty cash from the gangs, more scouting and information would be needed before that. Lisa said that they targeted gangs, maybe I could use their help.