A Waken 13.1

Looking at the stars, Exia didn't seem so fast.

The night sky didn't move much, not even when you get high enough to see through all the light pollution. I couldn't help but see that as a metaphor. All our cities and civilization, the convenience and safety of modern life, and it completely prevented people from seeing just how brilliant the sky could be. We were missing something right in front of us and couldn't appreciate how beautiful it really was.

Beautiful bands of light in varying colors, not just dots of white in black. You can see everything. Leaves little mystery to the star or sky worship of the ancient worlds. See that over your head every night and you'd be obsessed with it too.

The proximity warning pinged in my ear.

I turned, rotating Exia around. About two miles to my right, and a few more hundred feet up, a 373 streaked through the sky.

Taking hold of the controls, I adjusted Exia's course.

Didn't want the FAA getting upset with me. The number of capes sucked into jet engines was more than one, and the number of aircraft crashing into the ground because of capes recklessly flying was more than a dozen. No one found either of those things particularly amusing.

Behind me, Kyrios adjusted course while Lafter power-napped. Impressive for someone who didn't find the suit comfortable to be in for long periods of time. In my own opinion, you kind of get used to it.

Rolling Exia to face the ground again, I watched the coastline through the clouds.

"Lafter," I called. "We're almost there."

She mumbled something unintelligible. "Five more minutes."

"Three, tops."

Kyrios righted itself behind me, turning to face the ground.

Complainer.

My thumb tapped a button, and the mechanical limbs on the backpack unfurled. I armed the weapons one by one and checked the systems. It was a big night. I wanted everything to be suitably impressive.

"Don't suppose"—Lafter yawned—"we have time for sightseeing?"

"Work before pleasure." I turned my gaze away from the coast, zooming in on a little island in the water. "Though I have always wanted to see Fort Sumter."

"Is it a library?"

"Probably has one."

"Books. Yeeeeey."

Shifting my focus back to the coast, I zoomed in on the city just a few miles ahead. The system check was green. Lafter was awake. By now, Veda would already have Queen and three Haros in position. Aisha was back in Brockton Bay with Bakuda and Missy's numbers, plus the other Haros. Checking my map, two Turbines trucks were just about to pull off the highway.

I angled Exia down and sent a text to Doctor J, letting him know help was on the way.

In the meantime…

Well, I was looking for a chance to send a message anyway.

"A 911 call was placed eighteen minutes ago," Veda said. "Five men in suits and masks accosted Daredevil, a minor villain associated with Los Verdad."

"The True?" Lafter asked. "What a lame name. It doesn't even sound good in Spanish!"

I looked back at Kyrios. "You speak German, English, and Spanish?"

"A girl learns the words she needs to learn to get from point awful to point anywhere better."

Fair enough. "What happened to Daredevil?"

"He has been arrested by the local PRT." Thus, not my problem. "Green has tracked four of the men who attacked him to an office building in the suburbs."

"Owners?"

"Brace-King LTD."

And that made the entire thing free game.

"Lafter," I said. "Anything goes."

The fins on Kyrios' back popped out and the shields loaded onto the suit's forearms. "Sweet."

Green sat on a rooftop across the road from the building. Three stories, modern design with glass exterior. Looked nice. His sonic cameras highlighted the building, and it was mostly empty so I got a good look around. The empty parking lot mostly assured me no bystanders would be inside.

"Ten men," I said. "One at the center, two guarding the exterior, and seven inside."

There's not a lot of fine detail on the sonic cameras, but there's enough. "A few guns. I see roller skates on one woman. A man has a baseball bat. Another has a hockey stick. There's a Frisbee—"

Lafter laughed. "Are they villains, or the world's most mismatched sports team?"

"Both." I focused on one figure. "One is sharpening pencils."

"Shaking in my armored tux," Lafter said.

"Just play it safe. I doubt these are the type to pull punches." A few of the figures that milled about didn't seem to be holding anything. "Might be a few capes mixed into the bunch."

"Yeah." I heard the smile in her voice. "Not worried. Our punches hit harder."

I grinned. "Too true."

I flicked one last switch on the controls. The missile pod over Exia's left shoulder opened.

"Veda, call the local Protectorate and let them know what's happening."

I pressed the trigger.

The missile blasted from the pod at the same time I sent Exia into a straight dive. Green light exploded into the sky, visible for miles given our altitude. I felt a little nostalgic at that. I'd used a similar move the very first night with O Gundam. A brilliant green comet crashing through the air.

This time, as my comet passed through the clouds and rocketed toward the city below, it split into two. Kyrios and Exia spun around one another, the missile at our center.

"Any specific plan?" Lafter asked.

I settled my gaze on the man at the center of things. He sat on a couch, watching a box I assumed to be a TV.

"I'm going to punch the ringleader in his face. After that… I have a knack for making fights as unfair as possible."

"True too."

The missile hit the roof with a pop and kept going. In the building, a few heads looked up around the time the missile pierced the third floor. When it hit the second floor—also the first floor's ceiling—it exploded.

Air and dust blasted out, shattering windows and bowing the walls. I swung Exia's feet under me and when I hit the ground, the debris vacated my space and exposed a surprisingly unassuming man with messy hair and a nice suit.

I gave his shocked expression the usual Newtype greeting.

"Hi."

E-Carbon hit face in an undramatic 'boop' and Bastard Son went sprawling over the back of the couch.

I tracked the movement to my left. An arm pulled a shield off my backpack and blocked Hockey Stick out of pity. I threw the man back and raised the Full Armor's twin-barrel cannon on him. The other mechanical arm on my backpack lifted another shield and covered my flank with it. I turned the missile pod on my left arm on Baseball Bat, while the beam cannon over the right shoulder spun about and aimed at Roller Skates.

I fired everything, right as Kyrios burst through the wall using one of the outside guards as a battering ram. Lafter released her and the woman flew through the air as missiles and beams fired in every direction. She hit the ground hard and flipped over Bastard Son to crash into the couch.

The suited Elites started moving, weapons in hand. The twin cannons blasted one guy across the room into the wall. A shield batted another side. Lafter grabbed one guy's leg with an open shield-claw and tossed him into the ceiling.

Hockey Stick and Baseball Bat flanked me. I swung a shield at one and fired the backpack-mounted beam cannon at the other. Hockey Stick blocked it… With his hockey stick. Baseball Bat parried my backhand and swung his bat at Exia's knees. An audible pang rang in my ear, but it didn't hurt.

A single grenade popped out of Kyrios' back and detonated, showering the room in ball bearings. Baseball Bat repositioned himself for another swing, but his feet came down on the bearings and he slipped. I threw a leg up as he fell and kicked him the other way.

Unfair fights really should be my specialty, but no wonder a bunch of misfits with mundane items could be so dangerous. I'd never seen anyone literally block a particle beam like a Jedi before.

I turned up the power. I shouldered Baseball Bat into a wall and fired my twin-barrels. Hockey Stick moved to block and the beam shattered his namesake and sent him sprawling. Baseball Bat batted at my leg, because he'd managed to sidestep me a bit. I spun about, hitting him with the boosters on my backpack and knocking him over.

Lafter kicked him as he rolled and his body bounded against the ceiling back to the ground.

"They move really good for thugs," she commented.

"I noticed."

'Total mastery' meant exactly what it said on the tin. If I hadn't just fought the Butcher a week ago, I'd probably think of it as the most bullshit power I'd encountered. Thus far.

Roller Skates barely seemed bothered by the ball bearings. She fired guns at us, skating back and forth over the room while a big hulking man lifted Bastard Son onto his shoulders. I aimed and fired. The goon shuddered as the beam rolled over him but remained standing until a third shot put him down.

Lafter chased Roller Skates around the room, but the woman managed to stay just out of her reach. I stepped back and tried to line up a shot. My foot came down on Baseball's bat. The weapon popped up, spinning end over end through the air. Roller Skates must have seen it, because she swung her legs back and skidded to a stop to avoid the weapon.

Kyrios slammed her into a wall before she could skate back and away.

I chose to keep the fact I hadn't known the bat was there to myself.

I ignored the small arms fire coming from three men who didn't seem to have any of Bastard Son's weapons and faced Pencils. There was a pun there. Something about bringing pencils to a tinker fight?

It was probably more intimidating for someone who didn't have an effective Brute rating.

"You seriously want to fight me with pencils?" I asked. She kept coming, so, "And I thought Hookwolf was dumb."

The missile pod opened and a single projectile shot out. The charge exploded, Exia's GN field shimmering as GN particles bombarded the room. Pencils dropped like a rock, along with two of the gunmen.

Lafter hoisted Skates off the ground. Kyrios spun and released her as a missile into the last gunman standing.

That's nine.

The mechanical arms maneuvered the shields in front of me as the tenth Elite entered the room and fired a beam of red light from each eye. I got a warning immediately, not that I needed one. I could see a red spot glowing as the heat started melting through GN-infused E-Carbon. I also noticed the big guy carrying Bastard Son rising to his feet.

A Blaster and a Brute, exactly as Dinah predicted. Made sense. Bastard Son's little experts could handle most capes, but anyone with a good blaster, brute, striker, or shaker package was probably beyond them. He'd need other capes.

"I want the big one," Lafter said.

"Have at him."

I lifted off the ground, dashed right with a quick thrust and then charged. Eyebeams didn't have a name as far as I knew. Quite a few of the Elite didn't really do cape names. They liked operating from a position where no one knew they existed. The woman swept her gaze away from me, following Lafter as Kyrios charged Big Man.

Lafter projected a GN field from one shield, blocking the worst of the blast while firing the carbine in the other. The beams hit Big Man, but didn't stop him in the slightest. Adaptive resistance. That's the name I gave his power after Dinah described it.

She kept her shield raised as the guy spun at her, swinging with his free arm while the other held Bastard Son.

Eyebeams blinked and snapped her head toward me. I drew a beam saber in both hands, swiping with the left first. She unleashed her power and I maneuvered one shield to block the blast as my saber swept low. She jumped over the beam and kicked off the wall in one fluid motion.

Like Bastard Son's experts.

I didn't bother blocking a kick, but grimaced when she swept her eyes over the top of my shield. The mechanical arm holding it severed and I swung my other saber up. Eyebeams hooked one foot around the falling shield and swung it about, blocking the blade and turning her eyes on my head.

Her sneakers.

I jerked left, the heat blasting into my shoulder rather than my head. She swept her gaze right and I rotated Exia clockwise to avoid. The heat kept raking my shoulder armor until I moved another shield into position. I felt her plant both feet on its surface and didn't care to let her do whatever she planned. I fired all of Exia's thrusters at once and drove my sabers through my own shield.

The woman screamed as I pinned her to the ceiling. The heat plume from her power abated. I spun, swinging her around and slamming her into the ground. The arm released the shield and I pulled my sabers from her shoulders.

Given that she probably used her power to roast people at some point or another, I took two searing wounds in her shoulders as karmic justice.

Halfway across the room, Lafter pinned Big Guy to the ground. He punched her side and my brow raised as Kyrios' armor buckled from the blow.

Lafter cursed and squeezed the claws around his throat. Big Guy let Bastard Son hit the ground and grabbed for them. I pierced one hand with a beam saber and pinned it to the floor. The other I pinned with a foot.

Lafter brought her free arm up and punched the man with the tip of her shield.

Then she punched him again and I kicked the Brute for good measure.

Five head blows and a choked airway later, the man went limp.

"Happy you took the big guy?" I asked.

"I had him!"

"Yeah, but I'd rather not rebuild Kyrios right now."

Bastard Son stirred. I stepped over Big Man and grabbed him by the shoulder. He groaned and kicked as I lifted him up.

Finishing the greeting I interrupted with my own punch, I said, "We're Celestial Being."

I felt good saying it.

Bastard Son wheezed. His head hung limp as his eyes opened. Blood poured down his chin from his nose. Pretty sure I broke it.

"StarGazer, PRT?"

"Twenty-five minutes."

"Plenty of time!"

I lifted off and flew out of the hole in the ceiling and Kyrios followed after me. Green crossed the street at a leisurely pace, playing his 'theme music.' He'd tie up the rest of the Elite while I made my point clear.

"You bitch—"

I threw my feet forward, halting my ascent and whiplashing the most violent member of the elite in my hand.

"Sorry," I lied. "Didn't quite catch that."

I shot back down and landed on the roof of the building. He dropped from my hand. As violent and dangerous as he was, Bastard Son posed zero threat to me on his own. Turning my gaze southeast, I dropped Exia to one knee.

"Laughter."

Kyrios took position behind me. Ports of the Full Armor's backpack opened and Lafter pressed Kyrios' hands against them. The GN drives spun up and I started filling the capacitors while Bastard Son weakly pushed himself into a sitting position. I saw the confusion on his face at first, and then he followed the line of light where my cannons were pointed.

He startled and threw a hand out. "Damn it, wait—"

Lafter chortled. "Wow, you don't know her!"

"Not a bit," I agreed.

I checked to make sure Pink was giving the all clear signal. She was. I pulled the triggers.

The night sky ignited and the row of warehouses a mile away exploded.

Brace-King LTD was a small financial firm best known for conveniently buying up businesses and real estate in the wake of the Elite. I managed to scare them off from Brockton Bay. Schwartz Bruder revealed a number of suspicious business practices in several firms, completely demolishing the position of the national quasi-crime syndicate—which is just a pleasant clarification for crime syndicate—poised to enter the city. With Brockton Bay closed off, they started looking south instead and started buying up storage space in Charleston.

Fortunately, Pink got everyone to evacuate their property before I blew the mostly empty warehouses into oblivion.

Mostly empty, except for the mountains of drugs. Tons of heroin, cocaine, and meth, plus ingredients to make the latter. Way more than anyone in Brockton Bay ever put in one place. Not sure if that spoke more to the Elite's boldness and power, or the relative smallness of Brockton Bay in the grand scheme of the world.

Pretty sure most of the warehouses were literally empty though. The Elite held many legitimate fronts. With all the storage space the warehouses offered, moving into Charleston in force would let them corner the local economy hard and fast. That plan just went up in smoke.

They could sue.

Behind me, Bastard Son shouted. "Jesus fuck!"

"Hey!" Lafter pulled Kyrios back and pointed a shield at him. "Second commandment!"

Not sure when that started mattering to her, but I wasn't going to save Bastard Son from verbal abuse.

I rose up, watching as the warehouses in the distance lit up the sky. As if big cities needed more light pollution. Oh well.

The Elite liked to play themselves off as misunderstood and well-meaning business types—and to be fair, I found that was true of a handful of them—but a gang was a gang. They dealt drugs, sex, and blood like all the others. Bastard Son was who they sent in to 'prepare' somewhere for take over, and their idea of preparing meant letting the psycho do whatever he wanted.

Bastard Son forced himself to his feet weakly, watching the fires burn hundreds of millions of dollars away.

"You think you're gonna get away with this, heh?"

Heh? I'd heard he had a verbal tick.

I punched him in the stomach and kicked him onto his back. The rooftop was shadow shrouded, but the light from the GN drive sufficiently illuminated Exia and Kyrios as we stood over him. I wouldn't say he looked scared. Unsurprisingly, I didn't think Bastard Son felt fear.

He did looked confused as fuck. Couldn't blame him. After all, it's not every day a tinker from New England flies down to South Carolina just to punch the Elite's top enforcer in the face.

Standing over the man, I let Exia's eyes gleam with menace. "The last five or six groups to try don't exist anymore."

He stared at me. "Five or six—"

"Groups who tried surviving my attention. I'll keep this simple, Bastard. I'm too fast, too hard-hitting, and too well-informed. If I can't beat your capes I'll simply run away from them, and you don't have the mobility to hem me in. You could try attacking me in my civilian identity, but…"

"Empire tried that already," Lafter pointed out. "They don't exist anymore."

"Fortunately, Reggie"—and then, Bastard Son looked a little bit shocked—"I'm content to play by the rules if the Elite are. Food for thought." He started to speak, and I added, "And StarGazer is probably blowing up Agnes Court's big secret meth lab in Chicago, just FYI. I'm not a 'half done' kind of person, so I thought I'd really sink the point in."

The man grimaced. "How exactly do you think this is going to end, heh?"

"Explosions." I felt the warehouse burning down in the distance really added some weight to that answer.

"It's the safe bet," Lafter agreed.

"Heh. You think the Elite are gonna take this lying down?"

"I don't blow up people when they're down."

I punched him again. His head snapped back and hit the roof. That should keep him out for a while. I doubted I could actually intimidate Bastard Son, but trying would be my MO. Punching him worked for me too. Guy was a total psycho.

Down below, Green finished tying up the rabble and collected their weapons in a corner. Baseball Bat did try to wiggle his way free of the zip ties around his wrists, but a piece of debris dropped from the ceiling and knocked him out. Lafter's power.

Eye Beams got a simple metal blindfold. She could burn through that if it suited her and take her face along with it. Big Guy got a healthy dose of Armsmaster's anti-brute serum, version four-twenty.

Still not sure if he numbered it like that on purpose.

Protectorate should be along soon enough to collect.

I checked on Veda, pulling up Queen's camera feeds and watching as some poor sap got thrown into a ceiling and another through a wall. Some cape in a suit threw something only for a Fang to shoot it down. The object exploded, and Veda charged through the smoke to swing a saber into the cape's collar.

It seemed like she had it handled.

Lafter stepped out of Kyrios and kicked Bastard Son onto his stomach. I left her to zip tie him, not that he was a threat now, and dialed.

My eyes scanned the rooftops, looking for the flashing of lights and sirens in some distant street.

Lafter finished binding Bastard Son and stood up. "When do I get a Full Armor system?"

"After Behemoth."

Didn't really have time to design another one before the next Endbringer hit. Exia looked more refined than Astraea, but maintained the same general design. It could use the gear without any need for retooling.

The phone picked up.

"Hey," Mikazuki said. "Was that explosion thing you?"

"Yes."

"Orga's here."

I heard a shuffling as he handed the phone off, and I wondered why he bothered asking about the explosion and nothing else. Kid was weird.

"We're finishing up," Orga explained without preamble.

"You have Doctor J?"

"They're here."

"Put me on speaker phone." He did, and I got a brief chatter of shouting. "Doctor J?"

"Right here," he said.

"A rather flashy entrance for a simple moving job," G added.

I shrugged inside my suit. "I think the threat of mutually assured destruction will be the best way to keep the Elite from escalating this further. After all, I'm only showing how far I'll go to protect my allies… You guys are sure about this?"

"Long distance relationships never work out," H chortled. "It'll be easier to coordinate our efforts in Brockton Bay."

"We planned to pack up and head your way ourselves," J said. "Didn't expect the Elite to come knocking."

Neither did I, and I couldn't complain. The Foundation helped me a lot and continued to help me. Moving them to Brockton Bay made it easier to keep them safe. Dinah could only answer so many questions. It's not like she could cover every threat in North America.

The Empire had a numbers advantage in Brockton Bay, but the Elite held a numbers advantage in North America. There were hundreds of them. Now wasn't time to get cocky and overconfident. I won Brockton Bay by playing smart and I'd keep doing that.

Thankfully, Bastard Son handed me the perfect excuse to get rid of him. His decision to try and browbeat the Foundation into signing up or suffer the consequence of being outsiders was a small boon in my favor. Without their attack dog, the Elite would find their options more limited.

"How is Master O?" I asked.

"Fine, fine. The arm will heal."

"Okay."

"Alright. Orga and his guys will help you pack up. I'll see you in Brockton Bay in a few days."

"Give us a few more days to set up shop," J said. "Then be sure to drop by. We've finished the prototype."

My jaw slackened. "It works?"

"Yes."

I couldn't help but grin. "I'll look forward to that."

Movement on a nearby roof drew my eyes.

"We want you to confirm the design," G expounded. "Once you have, we'll get started on the other seventy-one."

I zoomed in on a figure and watched as it leaped over a street from one roof to the next. The jump covered far too much distance for a normal person.

"I'll see you in Brockton Bay. Thank you, Orga."

"Job's a job," he said. He hung up and I directed Pink north toward their position. She'd join the trucks on their way back to Brockton Bay and let me know immediately if anything went wrong.

In the meantime, maybe I'd make dinner? Amy said it might be a good idea. I checked the time. A Gundam needed about three hours to get from Charleston to Brockton Bay. I'd wait for the PRT to collect the prisoners and have plenty of time to pick up ingredients for mom's lasagna.

It was the only thing I remembered how to make, but I hadn't made it in months.

"Lafter."

"Yeah?"

"You want lasagna?"

She shrugged as she climbed back into Kyrios. "Sure."

And Aisha made four. I still remembered all the measurements for that many servings. Maybe I should buy more than I thought I needed. Extra could just be lunch the next day—lasagna usually kept for a few days.

The cape in the distance drew closer. I could make out two figures, actually. It was hard to make them out. One rode the other. A woman atop a gangly figure. It reminded me of Hellhound, but the mount wasn't a monster dog. It looked mostly human, but with absurdly long arms and legs.

Case-53s?

The limbs were gangly in a way that outstripped my own. Long arms and legs, with the arms being so long they reached the ankles.

"Veda," I said. "ID?"

"Nyx and Nix," she answered. "They are independents."

"Nyx," I mumbled. "As in Slaughterhouse Nine Nyx?"

"Yes, though it should be noted she left the group when Jack Slash took over."

That would be nearly twenty years ago.

Not sure I cared much about that caveat. "Laughter."

Kyrios turned and took a position at my side. I remembered the two vaguely by their names. Twin sisters with nearly identical powers, like Fenja and Menja. Or so the story went. Case-53s didn't remember their pasts, but only one of them was a 53 and Nix insisted Nyx was her sister. There was drama a long time back before I was born over it, when one was a villain and the other wasn't. A Slaughterhouse Nine villain.

"Who are they?" Lafter asked.

"Pair of sisters," I said. "They make illusions that explode into gas. It can be acidic."

I wasn't sure how well the armor protecting both of us would protect against that. I'd proofed the suits for hazmat because of Bonesaw, but those protections covered biohazards, not acidic gas.

"Villains?"

"Nominally, Nyx and Nix operate as heroes," Veda noted. "Nix is formerly of the Protectorate."

Nyx leaped, crossing the road and the parking lot with ease and landing deftly on the roof. They wore the same costume—black and blue spandex with hoods covering their heads. Nix looked like any woman, but Nyx's body was elongated, as if someone stretched her and she never snapped back to regular size.

Neither wore masks under their hoods.

"Who are you?" Nix asked.

Kyrios' head turned. "I thought we were famous."

"Not that famous, apparently. I'm Newtype. This is Laughter. We're—"

"Celestial Being," Nyx finished, her word slightly drawn out like her body. Her eyes narrowed as she looked past us at Bastard Son. "Long way from Brockton Bay."

"Bastard Son"—I nodded Exia's head toward him—"threatened some friends of ours. We took exception to that."

"They were minding their own business," Lafter quipped.

Nix turned in the direction of the warehouse I destroyed and whistled. "The news doesn't exaggerate. You blew that place to kingdom come."

"I evacuated it. Except for the drugs. I left those to burn."

"We heard the Elite were in town," Nix said. "Didn't know it was Bastard Son."

Nix seemed relaxed, but her sister took to keeping a distance from him, muscles coiled like an animal waiting to pounce. "Where are the rest of them?" She didn't take her eyes off us, and I returned the favor.

She made my skin crawl and my damn fucking unending headache got worse looking at her, which I hoped very much wasn't some form of latent 'ism' on my part.

"Downstairs," I revealed. "Green is tying them up."

"Green?" Nix asked.

"Little basketball-sized robot," Laughter answered.

"Oh. One of those Hiro things?"

"Haro," I clarified. Without turning my head away from Nyx, I glanced at Nix. "Why are you here?"

"We live here," Nyx scoffed.

"Saw the explosions." Nix pointed a hand toward the sky. "You made quite the entrance. We assumed it was some new villain trying to make a show of themselves. Didn't remotely think it would be someone from so far out of town. Waiting for the Protectorate, right? Should be along—" She stopped and leaned to one side. "There."

I finally took my eyes off Nyx and looked up as three capes flew in from the sky. They settled on the roof. Two women and a young boy. One woman wore red and yellow armor that reminded me a lot of Hero's, while the other dressed in a long cloak over an elegant dress. Both wore visor masks over their faces. The boy's costume was surprisingly similar to Aegis' but blue instead of red.

The woman in the cloak and dress tilted her head. She stood at the front, so I assumed she was in charge.

"Nighthawk, right?" She focused her attention on me. "Newtype."

She hid her surprise well. The two behind her didn't.

"As in Brockton Bay's Newtype?" the boy asked.

"We covered that already," Nix said. Her sister stepped behind her and looked at the Protectorate Capes, and Ward, warily. I got the sense I wasn't the only one who remembered the Slaughterhouse Nine thing. "Nice to see ya Glaive. Mortar."

"Hi, Nix," the boy said with a cautious smile.

"Who's that?" Nighthawk looked right at Bastard Son. Then she raised her head and looked at my bonfire. "And that."

"Bastard Son and some real estate the Elite are going to miss," I responded easily.

Again, the boy—Mortar—asked, "As in the Elite Bastard Son."

"Language," Glaive warned.

The boy protested. "I didn't name him!"

"You're picking a fight with the Elite now?" Nighthawk asked slowly. She shifted uncomfortably. "In Charleston?"

Figured. I doubted distant PRT and Protectorate departments wanted me waging war in their cities like I had in Brockton Bay, especially since most cities weren't as bad as Brockton Bay.

"They picked a fight with me," I stated. "I'm just giving them a little reminder that I don't pull punches." Ironic, given that I was pulling my punches. It just works better when it's not obvious. "There's two more capes downstairs. One Brute. One Blaster. Plus seven others. They're all tied up."

Green jumped up onto the Full Armor's backpack and saluted Nighthawk. "Mission complete, mission complete!"

"Have a nice night," I offered.

The GN drive ignited and I threw Exia into the air.

"Bye!"

Kyrios quickly followed.

The trip back to Brockton Bay was a long one, and far less soothing as the sun started to rise and block out the stars. Bright side, nothing to distract me from hitting my second bird of the night. Or, the third? Whatever number of birds.

I set Exia to autopilot and started tapping away. My suit didn't have a full keyboard or mouse, but I adapted. Veda planted the worm as intended, and with all the destruction dealt to Agnes Court's meth lab, no one would really be looking. Hopefully. If anyone was that paranoid, it would be the Elite.

It's what made an AI come in handy.

"Did you destroy the equipment we needed?"

"I have," Veda answered. "Along with most of everything else."

"I do like a job to be completed in full."

It took an hour, but someone tried to send Agnes an email informing her of the damage done to her lab. Someone in the local PRT. Brockton Bay wasn't the only place with moles. Our worm followed the email through the system, tracking the communication as it went from address to address.

"I missed this," I sighed. "Stopped working in Brockton Bay. Everyone wised up."

"The Elite may catch on."

"Then we'll make a trade. I don't want them at the moment."

I watched as someone in 'receiving' got a message informing them of what materials Agnes needed replaced. Of course she wouldn't give up her lucrative meth business after one setback. No, if it were that easy the war on drugs would be over! Suited me.

She used a lot of high tech gear in her labs to refine a pure product. Good stuff, and it of course needed to be rigorously maintained. She'd find replacements easily enough. Probably buy them from Omni-Tech like her company bought most of her gear.

It's a shame the little criminal enablers were about to come down with a nasty case of ransomware.

"Alright, Saint..."

They might even be required to replace some of the tinker tech they used to make the stuff.

Screw yourself for me.

Lafter and I made it back to Brockton Bay ahead of Veda. Apparently, she ran into Mouse Protector and she wanted to have 'fun.' I chose not to think too hard about that. Hopefully Mouse wasn't a terrible influence.

"Home sweet home!" Lafter declared. "These suits are still uncomfortable."

Green leaped off Exia's back and arms swung down from the ceiling to start removing the Full Armor system.

"You slept half the trip. Both ways."

"Yeah. I wanted to sleep the whole trip! Got any plans for the day?"

I turned my attention to the reactor on my workbench. "Tinkering."

"I'm gonna watch TV."

She walked over to the lounge and took a seat in The Recliner—Lafter insisted on proper nouns—while I gathered up my tools. The Tieren was almost ready for testing, just needed to get the reactor up and running. It was slow going since I didn't want to use my power, but we were almost done. I had a whole Sunday free to work on it.

"Welcome back."

I stiffened at the sound of Charlotte's voice. Still getting used to the fact she was working for me. I had a lot of employees, but most of them weren't my friends.

She looked at the workshop as she walked, eyes wide. She liked seeing it, though she'd resisted pestering me or lingering. I appreciated it, though I didn't really mind if she wanted to look around. Nothing was really dangerous on the main floor since I'd moved everything dangerous down into the new sub-basement.

I noted the papers Charlotte carried. "What's up?"

Her eyes turned to me and she lifted the pages. "Kati wrote these up. Stuff to say for the reporters when they try to corner you."

Right. Our new 'let the reporters get the jump on me so they would quickly ask poorly prepared questions I could easily answer' plan.

My fingers flipped through the pages. "Thanks, Charlotte."

"There is another thing." Her face turned a little red. "She's um, back."

I frowned. "Again?"

"Yeah. She's been waiting out by the front gate."

I sighed and set the stack of papers down. "How long has she been waiting?"

"Since sunrise."

Fuck.

"Fine."

I stood up and started toward the stairs.

I could just ignore her, but it wouldn't do any good—tried that the first time and she ended up standing outside my factory for hours. With the crowd of Blue Cosmos outside, she was probably drawing all kinds of attention I didn't want to deal with.

"Why do you think she keeps coming back?" Charlotte asked.

"I don't know. Because she likes to torment me."

"Isn't that Lafter's job?"

"Don't tell her that."

"I think she already knows."

The factory buzzed with activity. The line was in full spin, the first shift of the day working to produce a hundred Helpers. We'd be demonstrating them soon for PRT approval if everything lined up right.

I'd be nervous if we weren't so well prepared.

"Hey boss," one of the men said. The two on either side of him nodded to me and I waved. "Charlotte."

She waved too. "Hi."

"They know your name?" I murmured curiously.

"I've been in and out every day for a week," she replied softly. "They're nice. For…"

She lowered her head slightly. Right. Her brother OD'd. Probably got the drugs from the Merchants. Should have thought of that before giving her the job, but she had to have known. I didn't hide the fact I'd hired a bunch of ex-Merchants.

"You okay?"

"Yeah. Sorry."

Charlotte followed me all the way to the front gate, where my annoyance stood waiting with a smile. Straight brown hair blew in the wind, and blue eyes watched me as I approached. She was pretty, on the shorter side, and slender. Her costume was a simple suit, with black gloves and a domino mask over her eyes.

I maintained a healthy distance from her, mostly because I still didn't know what Facade's power was. Veda couldn't find anything on it. Obviously, she wasn't as flashy as any of her teammates. That led me to think Stranger or Thinker, or worse, Master.

"I hear you had quite the adventure," she said. "Vacation down south?"

"Bastard Son deserved a punch in the face," I answered.

"Which I'm sure you delivered." She leaned forward slightly, holding her hand out like she wanted to shake. "Kind of out of the way isn't it?"

I refused to take her hand. Either she noticed I didn't want to shake it and liked taunting me, or her power worked on contact. Either way, no hand shaking.

"What do you want, Facade?"

She pouted at me and withdrew her hand. "I'm just being friendly, Taylor." She sat up straight, folding her hand back behind her. "Hmm. Not very fair I know your name but you don't know mine."

"Comes with the territory."

Seriously, what did she want? I delivered my ultimatum to the Travelers like I'd delivered it to the Adepts. They seemed accepting, insofar as they were. Ballistic gave me a nasty look, but the rest? Facade hadn't seemed so annoyingly creepy then. I knew they were a weird bunch. I couldn't quite peg down what the Travelers wanted. They weren't heroes, but they didn't really commit crimes either, save for a few battles with members of the Protectorate or Wards and a few corporate teams.

The fact she kept coming around made it weirder.

"I don't like it," she mumbled. Her shoulders shrugged, and she smiled. "Fair is fair. Not like I have any family left outside the Travelers anyway. Hello, Taylor!"

Wait, what is sh—

"My name is Noelle."