Snarl 3.4

The Merchants were disorganized, chaotic. There was no coordination in their tactics, and even saying they had tactics was generous. It was pretty much a free-for-all as each of them went for whatever caught their attention. Some tried to run, some tried to fight, some grabbed whatever drugs they could. Overall, it made them easy pickings. I barely even had to pay attention to what they were doing to direct my savages to round them up and subdue them.

Which was not what I wanted. The Undersiders loomed in my mind. The planned casino robbery was less than an hour away. A knot of unease churned in my gut as I tried to focus on the here and now, but inevitably found my thoughts drawn back to my plan.

It had seemed… well, not simpler, but less real just a few hours earlier, much less when I'd first agreed to it a week ago. Agreeing to join a robbery so I could take out the robbers in the middle of it… I could have called it too high risk, settled on the long way to earning reputation instead of one big moment. For that matter, I still could have. I had a verbal agreement with the Undersiders, but that could hardly bind me to anything. It wasn't like a group of villains was going to take me to court for breach of contract anyways.

I put aside those thoughts. I had decided on a course of action and I would see it through. Go with the Undersiders, sabotage the plan, sabotage them. The Merchants were nearly wrapped up, so I directed a savage to dial 911 on one of their phones. I didn't bother bringing it to me this time, the police could track the call easily enough and the yelling from the Merchants would be enough to give them cause to. Their testimony would suffice to establish my presence here and give me an alibi for the night given my established pattern of activities. Though hopefully it wouldn't come to that.

I headed away towards the meeting place, leaving the savages to watch over the Merchants as an eye-spy circled over me. A week had given me plenty of time to go over the plan myself, figuring out the most vulnerable points and comparing it to what I could find on the Undersiders. I was certain Tattletale was doing much the same thing on me.

For how this would all go down, information was key. The forums and wiki had information on the Undersiders, but as in the case of Regent, there were gaps. Some were things I could work around. Knowing Grue's preferred tactics or how long Bitch's power could amp up a dog would have been nice to know but weren't strictly crucial. Others were more prominent. Regent had been one of those, but I knew his power now. They could have been lying of course, but with the way he reacted to Grue telling me and his general personality, I got the sense that it had been genuine.

That left Tattletale as the big question mark. The planning session had helped a lot with that. She'd made references to her power helping her with combinations, understanding the breakers, and mapping out routes, enough to firmly cement her as a Thinker rather than a pure Trump. That still made her a hazard if she could turn that nebulous Thinker ability on me or my power, but the general plan had notably kept her out of the front line of the fighting. Either her power wasn't the kind that helped in combat or she was willing to throw her entire team off their usual balance just to mislead me.

On the other side, whatever plans Tattletale surely had depended on her knowledge of me. I was still certain she had some source in the PRT, but I'd been exceedingly careful to make sure the extent of my powers remained hidden. I had eye-spies stay out of sight, kept shifters for concealment and movement rather than sending them in to attack, sent beetleings in only to sabotage when there was no one around to see. To the best of my knowledge, only my savages were known to the PRT outside of whatever the Merchants might have said about beetleings after my first night out.

That would leave Tattletale with whatever she'd been able to gather on me herself. With my habit of monitoring the area around me through an eye-spy I could be reasonably certain that she hadn't had a chance to observe me outside of our two in-person interactions, but her unknown power meant she might know all the cards I kept up my sleeves anyways. To be on the safe side, I was assuming none of my minions would come as a surprise to her, which limited my options. Which brought me back to the ideas I'd been turning over and refining for the past week.

Through my eye-spy, I could see the van waiting at the agreed upon meeting place. I checked my watch for the time. It was a recent purchase, one that I'd gouged the last of my bank money for, but I hadn't wanted to spend the money Tattletale had given me. I'd taken that money mainly out of a desire to make use of Faultline's advice and make sure that humiliating trip hadn't been entirely a waste, but actually spending it felt like it would be crossing yet another line into outright benefitting from their crimes.

Quandaries of morals and earnings aside, it was a good watch for its price, waterproof and rugged, and it told time accurately. At that particular moment, it told me the time was a good ten minutes before I was meant to meet up with the van, a time that was still earlier than I was usually out in costume. It had been risky to slip out earlier like this, but it had been necessary to fit in my alibi strike before the job itself. Getting out without Dad noticing had been made greatly easier with an eye-spy I'd summoned in the afternoon, then positioned in a tree outside to watch through his window and tell me when he'd fallen asleep. I wasn't entirely comfortable with blurring the separation between my two identities by using my power at home, but it had paid off.

I leaned against a wall in an alley and considered my options. Waiting in a van would certainly be less suspicious than waiting in an alley for the cops to come collect the Merchants. But that would put me near the Undersiders, and I wasn't quite ready to deal with that.

Besides, this was my last chance to change my mind. Not go to the van, call the PRT instead, and watch the heroes come deal with the villains. Even as I considered it, I knew I wouldn't do it. I ran through the same arguments as before, that the Undersiders were too good at escaping, that they had sources in the PRT. And of course, if I did that and it worked, I'd be back to square one, with no big victory to show the Protectorate and leverage into joining and with no source to feed me gang targets.

I'd be going to the van as soon as the Merchants were collected. Which would be soon, as I could already hear police sirens through the savages watching the Merchants. If there was one benefit to having this many capes running around the city, it was that the police were very good at responding to anonymous calls about defeated criminals.

Even after my deliberation it was still a few minutes early, but it was time to bite the bullet. I sent my eye-spy out in a larger pattern, sweeping the area. No snipers on the rooftops, no thugs in the alleys, no extra capes watching from windows. As far as I could tell, there was no ambush here, which meant no reason to keep delaying. I took a deep breath and started walking to the van. The short distance seemed to stretch on much farther as I approached, thinking over last-minute alternate plans and regrets. I wished I didn't have to go in person, or that I had more options to work with once things were set into motion. But my power was what it was, and it was up to me to make the most of it.

I felt my power roil, occasionally surging up as I thought, but nothing took form. Maybe I wasn't focusing enough, or maybe I just wasn't in the right situation for it to activate with something new. It was a bit disappointing in that it didn't supply me with a last-minute trump card, though it did save me from creating a minion in the middle of the street by accident.

As I reached the van, I dismissed two of the four savages I had watching over the bound Merchants. If things went poorly here, I wanted the openings for anything new I needed to summon. Besides, I could hear through the remaining savages that the police were pulling up outside. The situation with the Merchants was nearly resolved and my power would soon be wholly freed up. I knocked on the back door of the van, only for it to swing open before my knuckles could even strike the second time.

Regent sat alone in the back of the van, holding the door open for me. At the front in the driver's seat sat Tattletale. No, not Tattletale, she wasn't wearing her mask.

Lisa looked over her shoulder and grinned at me. "There you are. Ready to get started?"

I didn't trust my voice, so I just nodded as I got into the van.

"Awesome." She said, turning back to the steering wheel. "Then let's get this show on the road!"

The van rumbled to life and pulled out into the street. As we began the drive, I brought my eye-spy down and had it cling to the top of the van like a misshapen bat. Through my two savages I could hear the police approaching their position, so I dismissed them as well. I wanted to be able to fill this van with as many savages as I could if things seemed off. My eye-spy helped me track where we were going and make sure Lisa wasn't taking us somewhere other than the planned destination.

Multiple precautions, but they still didn't help dissuade my nervousness. I compensated by staying as still as I could, hoping to avoid giving away my nervousness by fidgeting. It didn't work, as Lisa glanced back at me with the mirror on the windshield.

"You're looking pretty stiff there, Aberration." Lisa said. "You nervous?"

I made a noncommittal noise in reply, which she seemed to take as an affirmation. "Yeah," She laughed, "First big job out, I got like that too. Nearly threw up on Grue's boots during the getaway."

Regent laughed. "Really? You never told us that. Man, I wish you had just so I could have seen his reaction."

"I'm glad I didn't, I would have had to pay for his new boots." Lisa replied. "Though speaking of wardrobes, what's going on with you Aberration? Not wearing the new costume?"

"Sort of." I said, trying to avoid getting drawn into the conversation without coming across as suspiciously standoffish.

I was wearing my original costume, more or less. I'd re-dyed it yesterday to give it a new design on the off chance that someone had seen me in it before. Rather than the assorted dark blotches that formed a rudimentary camouflage pattern, it was now colored in long stripes of black and dark grey. The overall impression was similar to a tiger, though it was only after it was finished that I realized it bore some faint similarity to the Siberian and her infamous striped skin. The thought hadn't been a pleasant one, but it had given me the idea to use the red dye to color my gloves and a patch over my heart. Meaningless details, unless one remembered the same specific news image that had stuck in my head as a kid, but they were ones that would draw the eye and stand out in memories if someone tried to describe me. And as I planned for this to be the last outing with this costume, with those color details discarded along with it, it provided me with yet another layer to distance myself from the upcoming robbery. A particularly paranoid one considering I planned to be in the Wards after the robbery, but my fear of the plan going wrong was enough to convince me to do it.

Underneath that I wore the new costume. It had arrived just two days ago and Tattletale had left it at a drop off point yesterday night. I didn't want to wear it, as that would make it unusable without connecting me to the casino robbery, but it had armor and I wasn't willing to pass that up given the possibility of violence. It wasn't fully extensive armor, as I'd had neither the time nor the budget to get that for tonight, but it had a durable mesh woven through key parts of it that would help with knives and similar attacks. It was hot wearing layers like this but I'd put up with it for the peace of mind the extra protection brought me. The only signs I was wearing it was where the fabric of my hoodie bunched between my shoulder blades and the small of my back, places where portions of the costume were attached but couldn't really fit properly under my other costume.

I held up my hand and pulled my sleeve down a bit, showing Lisa the fabric of my new costume underneath. She glanced back in the mirror and nodded, as if she completely understood after that one brief glance. And given her power, she very well might have.

"Cool. Want to go over the plan again?"

"Do you have to?" Regent groaned. "We've run through it enough that I hear it in my sleep, I really don't want to hear it again because the guest star can't remember it."

"I'm fine." I said. "I remember it."

"Alright." Lisa said, drumming her fingers on the wheel. Through my eye-spy I could see we were leaving Brockton Bay, heading in the direction of the casino. Everything seemed to be going on-track so far. "Want to talk about something else then? There's not a lot of topics we can cover without edging close to identities, but if you've read any books or seen a movie lately-"

"No thank you." I said. "If it's okay, I really just want some time to think."

Lisa nodded. "Last minute thinking, I get that. No problem."

The van fell silent save for the rumble of the engine and the faint noises from the hand-held game system Regent had pulled out of somewhere, leaving me to my thoughts. The route was the one that had been planned, and if everything else was similarly on track, the second van with Grue, Bitch, and the dogs would be meeting us at the casino.

The van situation was a bit of an annoyance. It kept the Undersiders separated, which meant that bringing down a single vehicle wouldn't get the whole group. On the other hand, it meant that if the van I was in went down, Regent and Lisa wouldn't have immediate access to Bitch's dogs for transport, making them all the easier for the Protectorate to snag as they responded to the casino.

I did my best to ignore the twinge of guilt I felt when considering how the heroes would get Lisa, a twinge that hadn't been there earlier when I was going over the plan. Though I had been thinking of her as Tattletale then.

I glanced at her as she drove. Still no mask, still Lisa. Damn it.

I made myself focus back on my plan. Snag a phone and call the PRT during the robbery, sabotage the vans after the getaway was underway, and then help the PRT take the Undersiders down as they made an extremely conspicuous run for the city on the backs of mutant dogs. It was a relatively simple plan, but it depended on a few things. I had to have access to a phone and I had to be able to get a beetleing into each van, to name the big ones. Lisa would be my biggest obstacle. Whatever the specifics of her power, she might know if I'd called the cops or snuck a beetleing into a van's undercarriage. So for my best chances of success, I had to be ready to capitalize on any opportunity to take her out.

Which was a plan with its own challenges. If the Undersider's plan went off flawlessly, she'd never get in a fight, which meant I wouldn't get a chance to try and evaluate the danger she posed in combat. Though keeping her on the backlines was an indication of its own, especially considering the Undersider's habit of fleeing rather than fighting, I still couldn't discount the possibility that it was a deliberate gambit to hide the scope of her abilities. Whatever her capabilities, they were hopefully less than enough to deal with a pack of savages appearing around her to beat her down. But the Undersiders worked as a group, so it was likely I'd have to deal with at least one of them at the same time or within a close timeframe of dealing with Lisa.

Regent was the most likely to be an obstacle. Like me, he had no fixed role in the plan, serving more as free-floating support for either Lisa or Grue and Bitch as needed. Theoretically he could end up supporting the brute force group while I stayed behind with Lisa, but I didn't think Lisa was dumb enough to leave herself alone with me.

I'd spend quite some time considering his power. Minor control over other's reflexes had sounded weak at first, but the more time I'd had to consider it the more possibilities I came up with. There had been no mention of his limits, whether in terms of how many people he affected at one or how many reflexes he could trigger in one target at once. Depending on what his limits were, he might be able to send a whole crowd tumbling to the ground with one use of his power on everyone in it, or trap one person in near paralytic spasms from the sheer number of triggered reflexes. Grue had described it as minor, so I didn't believe these were likely, but there were still many uses for such a power. If he reacted fast enough he could ensure any attack against him missed, keep himself in blind spots by taking control of someone's blinking, or mute someone trying to shout an alarm. Hell, the heart functioned entirely by automatic reflexes. If things came down to the wire, could he send someone into cardiac arrest? Would he? Hopefully during the initial stages of the plan and encounters with guards, I'd be able to see how he worked in a fight and get a better handle on his capabilities. Until then, I planned to incapacitate him as soon as possible if an opportunity presented itself.

Grue was similarly threatening, though in a different way. He'd been a mercenary for years, which meant he did his job well enough that people kept hiring him. Based on the plan, he was apparently good enough that he was going to be dealing with guards alongside giant monster dogs. It was impossible to tell how much of that was him as a combatant and how much was his power, but I still didn't want to get in a real fight with him.

The problem was that his power made that idea tricky. If a fight started and he wasn't immediately dealt with, he could black out a whole area. From seeing him during the planning meeting, his costume was just a layer of his power covering his own body, including his face, which meant he could see through it. That same meeting had also proven that my eye-spy's nightvision couldn't see through it. So if a fight broke out and he blanketed the whole area in his power, it would leave him as the one combatant who could see. Maybe I could deal with that with a full crowd of savages in an enclosed space that limited his avenues form maneuvering or escape, but I didn't want to risk it. Dealing with him required the first blow to be decisive, either immobilizing or defeating him in the first attack.

Bitch was the other heavy hitter that I needed to watch out for. In a way, she was like me. No powers that made her a direct threat, though she seemed like she could probably still punch my face in if needed through entirely mundane muscle. Instead we were both commanders of a sort, relying on Master minions for power. Unlike me, her power enhanced rather than created. Removing her dogs from the equation essentially made her a normal person, but I'd rather avoid that if possible. Instead I wanted to focus on Bitch.

Bitch was a lynchpin, both for her power and for the Undersiders. Taking her down would incapacitate her power, though I wasn't certain of the form that would take. Maybe the dogs would revert to normal, maybe they would just go off the leash, but either way they'd lose much of their usefulness to the Undersiders. In either case, taking out Bitch would leave the Undersiders with no transportation if I sabotaged the vans as well. The optimal time would be at the beginning or end of the robbery, where she either hadn't amped up her dogs yet or was powering them down so they could fit in the van.

All in all, my situation was a tenuous one. Four capes to account for, all problematic in their own way. Once I started I'd have to move fast so they couldn't catch on. Grue and Bitch posed the greatest physical threat, while Lisa could likely realize what I was doing the fastest and warn the others. I had to account for who could warn who, the environment I'd have to deal with them in, and a myriad of other details I could only really grasp once it was happening. Dealing with them, sabotaging the vans, making sure I didn't get lumped in with them by any witnesses. But really, once I'd looked over it all from a larger perspective, I'd realized I didn't even need to get all of them.

Turning over all of the Undersiders to the PRT would be a good way to get my foot in the door with the Wards, but shattering the group and capturing them piecemeal would also do nicely. Taking out half the Undersiders would leave the others weakened and give me an opportunity to track them down in the following days or weeks. And I was in a van with half the Undersiders right now.

I considered the possibility again. In a confined space, without much avenue to flee or call for back-up, could I take down Regent and Lisa? I wanted to say yes, but I still hadn't seen them in action. If I would try it now it would have to be with full force to avoid underestimating them, which could go very badly if that turned out to be too much, and that would still leave Grue and Bitch out there. With Grue's darkness and the mobility of Bitch's dogs, they could likely slip away if I tried calling the PRT to collect them at the arranged meeting place, assuming they didn't bail as soon as the other van didn't arrive as expected.

No, I'd be in this same van in the same situation on the ride back if all went well. The only differences would be that then I'd know how they operated and I would have had an opportunity to try and track them to their hideout with an eye-spy. Well, the only differences relevant in the short term. There would also be the difference that I would be an accomplice to a felony then. But it was for a good cause. My hands would get dirty this once and then I'd be able to join the Wards. Besides, I wasn't about to cave and settle for just the two of them without even trying for the full group. They could be a consolation prize if necessary, but I was going to aim for getting all four.

I could see the lights of the casino through my eye-spy on the roof of the van, so I had it release and fly up into the air. I wanted a good look at the casino before things got started. Blueprints were all well and good, but it was hard to really get a grasp of a place by an arrangement of clinical white lines and measurements.

The Ruby Dreams Casino was relatively isolated, surrounded only by a small collection of fast food places, a gas station, a hotel, and its parking complex. It was all a gambler needed to live near the source of their fix. The casino itself was separated from the other buildings by curated lawns and clusters of trees, which seemed starkly at odds with the neon signs decorating the building itself. The whole thing couldn't decide whether it wanted to be classy or flashy and ended up only adequate at both.

My perspective was limited by the eye-spy's position, which was in turn limited by my range, but I could see the area behind the casino. A fenced off area of transformers and power cables, deliberately kept out of sight of the road and the casino's patrons alike thanks to the positioning and design of the building. It was only thanks to the designer's desire to keep the eyesore hidden, which was in turn only there because the casino was distanced from the city's power grid, that the robbery was even possible.

Even as I observed the casino through my eye-spy, I was tracking my position relative to it. The van was moving off the main road down a small side road. I looked past Lisa out the windshield to watch our progress. This road would take us around behind the casino, and from there it would just be a short walk through the trees to arrive behind the building.

I could see the other van parked ahead, and Lisa pulled up alongside it. Regent looked up as we stopped and paused his game, dropping it on the seat as he stood up and stretched with a groan. Lisa pulled her mask from the glove compartment and put it on before turning around.

"Alright, ladies and gentlemen," Tattletale said with a grin, "It's showtime."

I hesitated as the two villains got out. This was it, my last chance to do something before the robbery started and I committed a crime. But it would hardly be a chance at all. All four of the Undersiders in one place? That would be a head-on attack, and a head-on attack would be idiotic. My whole plan revolved around separating them and exploiting circumstances to weaken and defeat them. I could deal with some unsavoriness if it meant doing this right.

I brought my eye-spy down towards us in a dive before having it pull up and perch in a tree. Unlike the city, the trees around us provided plenty of cover for my eye-spy to move closer without being obvious. So when I followed Tattletale and Regent out of the van, I already knew what I'd see.

Grue and Bitch were waiting for us besides the other van. Grue looked just like he had before, with the addition that he had a pair of empty duffel bags slung over his shoulder and a third sitting at his feet. Bitch was leaning against the van next to him, her cheap plastic dog mask dangling from her hand. Surrounding them were Bitch's three dogs. They were larger than I'd seen them before, enough that their shoulder level could have reached my ribs. Their skin was tougher, leathery, with spurs and spikes of bone in places, thick ridges that seemed to be more like an armored shell in others. The changes seemed asymmetrical, and I knew from pictures and news reports that their current state was far from Bitch's limits. They could become the size of cars, with those growths increasing into full-fledged armor, jagged spines, and a number of other mutations that left them barely resembling dogs at all. But the plan called for the group to enter through a maintenance door and travel through the back hallways, which meant they had to stay smaller or else be unable to fit. An element in my favor once it came time to make my move.

Each dog had a harness slung around its body, with the long excess of the straps wrapped around to stop them from dangling to the ground. Presumably they could be expanded to fit the dogs' larger forms, but right now they just needed to be large enough to allow each dog to carry a duffel bag on the way out.

The mass of darkness that was Grue's head turned to look over us, giving me a glimpse of a black skull when his smoky power pulled in closer to his head. "No problems?" he asked in that echoing voice of his.

Tattletale shook her head with a grin. "Nope, we're good to go!"

I didn't miss the subtext of the exchange. I hadn't made any moves to betray them yet, and Tattletale had picked up on it. Presumably Grue had been asking about that, but I couldn't be certain how much he knew about what Tattletale had offered me to get me to come tonight. Paranoia made me assume that all the Undersiders were in on the offer Tattletale had made, but with how vocal Bitch had been against my presence, I couldn't believe she'd know about that and hadn't brought it up as an argument against me, which raised doubts about how much Regent and Grue knew as well.

And on the topic of Bitch, her lack of a mask made her glare particularly obvious. My first instinct was to look away, ingrained by months of bullying, but I wasn't Taylor right now. I met her gaze levelly, and even with the goggles obscuring my eyes I remained unblinking.

"Alright then." Grue said. "Let's go."

Bitch was forced to break off the staring contest as she put on her mask, and I took advantage of the break in her gaze to look away and follow the other Undersiders as they began to move. Bitch sent her dogs to the front of the group, directing them to lead the way on the approach to the casino. No one talked, the only noise being the sound of leaves and twigs underfoot. Or at least it was for the most part.

I cast a glance at Grue, who moved with an eerie silence despite the terrain. Could it be a second power? Being able to dampen either sound or light would be a useful trick, and zones of silence would certainly be less noticeable than clouds of darkness. If I was him, I would certainly use the darkness to hide the secondary power. I'd have to reconsider the details of my plan. If he could nullify sound, I'd have to be careful if he decided to sneak up on me. And if it came down to the wire and he was still up and about, I couldn't count of a panicked call to the PRT if he could prevent me from speaking.

I filed those thoughts to the back of my mind as we reached the border of the woods behind the casino. I could concern myself with that later. Right now I needed to focus on the plan. If things went wrong now, they'd just retreat to the vans and I'd be forced to try for the consolation prize.

Grue held out an arm and thin tendrils of darkness snaked out along the ground. They quickly covered the distance between the woods and the casino, streaking up the wall as they collided and angling towards the two cameras covering the power area. As they reached their targets they bloomed into spheres of darkness, encompassing and blinding the cameras.

Tattletale was already on the move. She ran to the fence, quickly appraising it before pointing to one particular session. At a whistle from Bitch, one of her dogs charged forward, growing with every step. By the time it reached its desination its shoulder was as tall as me. It hit the fence like a bulldozer, popping the two poles out of the ground where two separate patches of fence overlapped and leaving an opening a person could easily squeeze through.

Tattletale moved through the gap, followed by Bitch and one of her dogs, the latter of which forced the gap open wide as it bent the fence with its passage. Tattletale moved through the assorted transformers and other pieces of electrical infrastructure, looking over each in turn.

"Any time now." Grue said.

"Yeah, yeah." Tattletale said absentmindedly. "I found what I need. Bitch, come here. When I say so, break these boxes."

Tattletale pointed to a series of transformers before moving to a metal frame by the wall of the casino, just a few steps away from the service door. Affixed to the frame was a panel locked with a combination padlock. For a moment I was afraid she knew about the beetleings and was about to ask me to open it for her. But she began to turn the dial herself and it snapped open a second later.

Curious. That had to be a result her power, in a similar vein to how she'd claimed her power could give her the combination to a vault door. Did it supply her with whatever numbers she needed, even for abstract problems like a combination to a lock? It would certainly be an unusual power, but there were capes out there whose powers only functioned when they were embarrassed or only affected a single specific material, so unusual didn't mean impossible.

She tossed the lock over her shoulder and looked over a series of switches inside, then flipped several. "Now!" She called.

Bitch gave a series of brisk whistles, each followed by a name and a pointing finger at a particular mechanism Tattletale had pointed out. "Brutus! Angelica! Judas!"

The dogs pounced on command, crushing the boxes beneath their weight. No sparks issued from the destruction, which was to be expected after Tattletale used the maintenance panel to divert the power flow to others. But as the dogs backed away from the destruction they'd caused, Tattletale flipped the switches back and redirected power back through the ruined transformers.

Now sparks shot from the boxes, making me glad I hadn't yet stepped into the area. It only lasted for a second before stopping. At the same time, through my eye-spy I could see the lights of the casino flicker off. Less than a second later a different section of the power area roared to life and the lights came back on. The casino was on generator power now. The patrons wouldn't much care so long as their games continued, but the staff would notice and send someone to check on the problem.

Grue left the bags with Bitch and moved to flank the door along with Regent, leaving Bitch, Tattletale, and me to generally wait around until the maintenance door opened and gave us our way in. I considered taking this time to summon a beetleing to send back to the vans, then decided against it. I'd been vocal enough about not using my power where it could be identified that it would raise suspicions to use it now, plus they'd notice if it didn't follow us into the building.

I tried to take the time to examine Grue and Regent to determine something about their plan of attack, but found myself thinking in circles. I was too tightly wound right now to really get anything useful out of my attempts at analysis with the little I had to go on. The observation that Regent was holding his scepter like a weapon but not like a club just let me to run through every possibility I could think of to explain the behavior, over and over without actually getting anything useful out of it.

Luckily I didn't have to wait long. The door creaked open and a main in a utility uniform walked out looking at a clipboard and talking over his shoulder to someone behind him. He was only a few steps out the door and looking up when Grue was on him. With the billowing darkness, which only surged up further as he grabbed the man, I couldn't see what exactly he was doing but it looked like a choke hold.

The door began to swing shut as whoever was behind him turned to run, but Regent grabbed the door and flung it open. I heard a loud thud as the running person fell bodily to the floor. Reflex control and running didn't seem to mix. Regent took a few steps into the hallway and jabbed down with his scepter, then danced back to shove his foot in the gap of the door before it could swing closed.

A few seconds later Grue let the other man sag to the ground unconscious. "Let's go." He said.

Regent held the door open and gave an overly dramatic bow as Bitch's dogs entered the casino, followed closely by Bitch herself. I ignored the instruction for the time being and knelt beside the man Grue had just choked out.

"What are you doing?" Grue asked me. "We're on a clock."

"Just a second." I responded. The man seemed to be breathing fine, so I rolled him onto his side and arranged his limbs in the recovery position. I was very conscious of Grue watching me, so I suppressed the urge to pat the man down for a phone.

As I was about to get up, Tattletale leaned past me to grab the man's outstretched arm and use a zip tie to secure his wrist to the base of the frame holding the maintenance panel.

"Hey!" I protested. "You already knocked him out, you don't have to tie him up!"

"He won't be asleep forever." Tattletale replied. "We have to make sure he doesn't go running off once he wakes up. We also have to make sure…"

She trailed off as she reached into his pocket and retrieved his phone with a grin before pocketing it. "He doesn't just call the cops." Despite the words, her grin made it clear she knew what I'd been trying.

I didn't give her the satisfaction of answering as I stood and followed Bitch into the building. The hallway was dimly lit, with no decoration. It was only one step above being a bare concrete tunnel, a far cry from the opulent decorations of the main room I could see through the five story tall window-wall that dominated the front of the building.

The other guard was lying on the floor, unconscious, with the scattered remains of a broken phone beside him and one of his hands ziptied to an exposed pipe running from floor to ceiling. I'd only seen Regent jab the scepter at him, and yet he was unconscious, which narrowed down some of my suspicions about it. A built-in tranquilizer injector maybe, or a particularly strong taser. I knelt beside him and put him into recovery position as best I could with his secured hand. If I was going to be here for this, I was going to do my best to minimize the harm caused.

Tattletale and Grue stepped in behind me, the door swinging shut behind them. "You know where you're going?" Grue asked.

"Yeah." Tattletale replied.

"Good. Go deal with the breakers, we'll get the security office. Meet us there once you're done. Bitch, with me."

Grue headed off along with Bitch and her trio of mutant dogs, leaving me with Tattletale and Regent. Tattletale moved off in a different direction with Regent, leaving me to decide which of the groups to accompany. With Grue and Bitch headed to the security office, going with them would give me better opportunities to snag a phone or trip an alarm. On the other hand, letting Tattletale deal with the breakers without me there to keep an eye on her was just begging for her to leave the security feeds on and put me on video with the Undersiders.

I moved to follow Tattletale and Regent. The path led down a service corridor, even more barren than the one we'd entered through. The walk was silent, save for Regent's quiet humming. I couldn't quite make out the tune, but I suspected it belonged to the game he'd been playing on the way here.

Tattletale stopped at a door marked with a yellow warning sign for electricity. She pulled out a key ring and spun it on her finger before selecting a key and unlocking the door. Whether that was a lucky guess or a use of her power I couldn't be sure.

She looked back and noticed me staring at the keys. "Snagged 'em off the maintenance guy." She said, answering a different question.

Tattletale used a second one to open up a large panel in the power room, revealing a large array of switches. She barely even glanced at them before flipping one after another with a dramatic flourish. "Aaand, done!" she said as she flipped the last one. "Aberration, want to check my work?"

I cast her a suspicious glance and stepped forward to read over the now turned-off breakers. Each was labeled with a letter-number combo, but I remembered the key ones from the planning session. Security office, money storage, alarm subsystems….

Everything that had been planned to be deactivated was deactivated, and nothing extra had been flipped. Unless Tattletale had forged an entire fake set of blueprints for the planning session, complete with false electrical records, everything was safely on plan. I gave her a curt nod.

She clearly wasn't expecting any more from me, because she turned on her heel and started walking out of the room. "Let's go meet up with the others." She said over her shoulder. "Though Aberration, if you wanted to leave something behind to guard the breakers, that would help stop someone else from coming along and flipping them back."

I hesitated mid-step. Tattletale was already out of the room, with Regent close behind her. I looked over the room for security cameras, and found none. I hesitated for a moment more, then used my power.

Two beetleings formed within the breaker room and I immediately had them scurry for hiding places. I stepped out of the room before Tattletale or Regent could turn around, pulling the door closed behind me. I gave it an experimental tug to make sure it was locked, then hurried to follow them.

Tattletale made a good point. Keeping the breakers secure would ensure some random janitor wouldn't just turn all the alarms back on and get me trapped along with a group of super villains in a casino vault. But that wasn't my main reason. Tattletale had just given me what I'd been hoping for: a chance to use my power without any of the Undersiders around to witness. The least I could do was make use of it.

Once we were far enough down the hall to be back where we'd entered, I reached out to one of the beetleings. On my command it crawled out of its hiding place and sought an air vent. In a matter of seconds it had pried it out of the wall and was crawling into the ducts, seeking the outside. One beetleing would be enough to watch the fuses. The other would seek out the vans and nestle in the underbelly of one, prepped for sabotage as soon as I sent the order.

Ahead, I could see Grue and Bitch in the hall along with the mutant dogs. "Guards are taken care of, security console's trashed." Grue said.

I peeked in the open door to the security office beside him. Inside, half a dozen security guards sat back to back, all zip-tied together. Two walls of the room were dominated by what had been computer consoles, which were now little more than wrecks of broken glass and metal.

"Satisfied?" Grue asked. I started a little when I realized the question was directed at me.

"What?" I asked.

"No one's severely hurt, consoles really are trashed." Grue said. Even through the unnatural tone of his voice, I got the sense he was exasperated. "Are you satisfied?"

I nodded and he held up a hand, filling the security room with darkness before closing the door and making sure it was locked.

The Undersiders moved forwards towards the goal. Bitch's dogs led, followed closely after by Bitch and Grue, with Tattletale and Regent trailing behind and me bringing up the rear. It was seeming more and more likely that I wouldn't get the chance to get all of them during the robbery itself. It would have to be during the getaway.

The group turned down the last corridor and I followed them. This was it, the final stretch before the safe. It was lit only by the lights from the adjoining hallway, making it harder to see as we approached the safe. I could see the slots where security doors would fall from the ceiling. Or perhaps where they still could, if I reactivated power to this hallway.

A plan started forming in my mind. I'd have to be careful, getting trapped in the same stretch of hallway with the wrong portion of the group could end poorly for me. But if I waited until they were in the safe itself, then bolted for the end of the hall and dropped the doors, I could put a few between me and them. If I was fast enough, I might even be able to avoid getting caught at all, leaving me free to go call the PRT while the Undersiders were left to wait for the authorities to collect them.

I was broken out of my thoughts by a loud curse. Turning my attention back to the Undersiders in the present, I found Tattletale examining the safe door by the light of a flashlight held by Regent. It looked like a smaller version of the bank vaults that showed up on TV, save that it was the size of a normal door rather than an entire wall. It was made out of shining steel with a number of fancy wheels and bolts, with an electronic keypad at the center of it.

It was that last feature that was eliciting the cursing. "I thought you said it was analog!" Grue said, barely restraining his frustration to avoid yelling.

"It was supposed to be!" Tattletale shot back.

"Well last I checked, a thumbprint scanner isn't analog!"

"This is a new addition, put in sometime last week. None of the documents we had could have indicated this!"

"Well, great." Regent drawled. "Looks like we have another addition to the 'TT was wrong' list."

"Not helping!" Tattletale snapped. "Give me time to think."

"We can still bust down the door." Bitch suggested.

Grue shook his head. "Not quietly, and not quickly enough. Heroes would be here before we could get in and we'd have to abandon the score." He turned towards me. "Aberration, can you do anything about the door?"

I shook my head. "No, nothing I can do."

It was only after I said it that I realized it was actually true. A beetleing could probably break the keypad, but that would just leave it sealed with no way to open it. Which, come to think of it, would be a good way to ensure they didn't get anything out of this.

Bitch scoffed. "Figures. Why the fuck did we bring her, anyways?"

"Shut up!" Tattletale said, turning back to the group. "New plan. There has to be people in the building at all times who can open the vault. The money handlers could do it, but we can't get to them without getting seen by the people in the casino. We need to go to the top."

"Oh no." Grue said.

"Yes." Tattletale said with urgency. "There's no way the guy in charge can't open the safe in his own building, and there's got to be someone working the night shift up there. We grab them, flip power back on to this hall, then get them to open the door for us."

"Fine." Grue sighed before looking over the group. "Bitch's dogs won't be able to get upstairs, so I'll wait here with her. Take Regent, bring our guy back."

I saw my chance. "I'll go with them."

Grue gave a brisk nod as he leaned against the wall to wait, arms folded over his chest. Even through the shroud of his darkness, he seemed on edge. I followed Tattletale and Regent again, this time to an elevator.

"An elevator?" I said skeptically. "This doesn't seem like a good idea."

"Don't worry." Tattletale said, waving a hand dismissively. "I know a trick."

Thankfully the elevator was empty when it arrived. We got in, with Tattletale handling the buttons. "See, just hold the buttons to close the door and the floor you want to go to and…"

The elevator doors closed and it slid into motion. Tattletale released the buttons with a grin. "One stop trip with no interruptions! It's the same trick the police use."

Unlike TV, there was no elevator music to break the silence and distract myself from the fact that I was sealed in a box with two villains I planned to betray. Luckily, I had my thoughts to distract me.

This was almost perfect. With the Undersiders split up I could deal with them piecemeal, and the circumstances were even better than I could have hoped for. Bitch and Grue, the two with the move firepower and the most potential for an escape, were waiting by the safe, which meant they were waiting in a hallways that could be sealed off by security doors on a moment's notice. All I had to do was deal with the Undersiders here with me, then get whoever was in the office to activate the security doors, then just wait for the to arrive.

I glanced at Tattletale. Did she know what I was planning? She had to know I was up to something, but was she good enough to know exactly how I planned to do it?

The elevator dinged and the doors slid open. We stepped out into a hallway with plush carpet and nicely painted walls. It was leagues better than the service corridors, as to be expected when this hallway was meant for the upper crust of the casino's employees. One wall was nothing but a solid row of windows opening into the interior of the casino and looking down at the tiers of slot machines and card tables to the main floor of the building.

Tattletale pointed to a door at the other end of the hallway, ignoring all the others as well as the branching hallways. "Conference room, in use. The person we want's in there."

She walked straight for it, Regent close behind as he twirled his scepter in one hand. I lagged a bit behind, checking over my connections. One eye-spy outside watching the casino, one beetleing in the breaker room, and one beetleing that by now was in the woods approaching the vans. I could drop the first two easily, the third if I had to. Now that I was away from Grue and Bitch I could summon another as soon as Tattletale and Regent were dealt with, but I wanted to keep it in reserve so that in case things went poorly for me, then at the very least I could screw with their escape plane.

The conference room would be where I made my move. If there were any security guards in there, they would be a distraction, another facet of the situation the two Undersiders had to focus on. It helped, thinking of them like that, not even individuals but as part of the collective.

I glanced at Tattletale again. Much easier to consider when thinking about Tattletale, the villain who planned a casino heist and had a habit of being far to smug. I tried not to think about Lisa, who joked about how I was her favorite vigilante and gave me advice for color schemes for my new costume.

The pressure seemed to build with every step towards the conference room. I had to do this to become a Ward. I'd come this far, I refused to be stopped by my own hesitation. My power surged up, on a metaphorical hair-trigger. It was now or never.

We reached the room. Tattletale flung the door open wide, with me and Regent flanking her. I took in the room in an instant, trying to evaluate what would work for me, my power already about to activate and begin my attack on Tattletale.

What I saw stopped me cold. As Tattletale had indicated, the conference room was in use. On one side sat a man in a business suit who was clearly surprised at the interruption. Flanking him were several men who had to be bodyguards, all wearing neat suits with a tense air about them.

The people at the other side of the table were far different. They wore an eclectic mix of clothing styles, their only unifying point being that their clothes all incorporated red and green and that they were all Asian.

Standing at the front of the group was a man dressed in a black bodysuit. Bandoliers adorned his body, each laden with an assortment of knives and grenades. A Japanese-style mask covered his face, depicting a demonic face with a leering ear-to-ear grin full of fangs. It had the same color scheme as the men and women around him, primarily a deep crimson with a green stripe running down either side.

Whatever Tattletale had been about to say died in her throat as Oni Lee turned towards us, a knife already in hand.