Crashing the Party 2.1
Evening
Taylor didn't want the entire neighborhood to think something was weird with bugs, so while she kept breeding them (letting the flies feast on garbage and as many other insects as possible on the flies), she kept most of them in alleys and other dark areas no one would check. Still, she kept enough out on the open to keep an eye on the immediate area. These let her detect Lisa running down the street before she could see the warehouse.
"Lisa's back—"
"Already?" asked Lily. "Pretty early for her, isn't it?"
"—and she's running. Everyone get ready for the worst."
Rachel gathered her dogs. She had about a dozen now, but she only trusted four enough to even consider using her power on them. Still, even one dog would be a great asset in a fight when it was the size of a van and armored with thick muscle and bone. Lily grabbed a few crude darts she had made from junk lying around the warehouse—hardly the best weapons, but they would need to do. The others grabbed more makeshift weapons, from a kitchen knife to a broken chair's leg, and headed for the door.
Lisa burst in. "Am I being followed?"
"Not that I can tell," Taylor said. "What's going on?"
"Keep an eye out for blondes and let me rest. I ran basically all the way here from Junior's place."
"I see a blonde right now," Alec said.
Lisa punched him in the gut before flopping down on a chair. Everyone put back their weapons of choice and waited for her to start explaining.
"Junior met a Huntress," she started. "Turns out, they can be as bad as Armsmaster. Scratch that, Shadow Stalker."
"What happened?" Taylor asked.
"I missed the first part, but the first I saw was right after what I think was the Huntress hitting Junior between the legs. I got the vibe that it wasn't provoked, or at least it wasn't proportionate retribution. Afterwards, she basically beat up everyone in the club who didn't run fast enough. She didn't beat up any customers, but still...she was using a pair of shotgun-gauntlet things."
Brian frowned. "So...she's a mass murderer?"
"I presume so. No one was moving afterwards. No blood, my hunch is that she was subconsciously using a telekinetic Semblance to keep the skin from breaking, so she didn't feel like she was killing."
"That's…almost Bonesaw-creepy," Lily muttered. Brian shook his head; Lily didn't notice and continued. "I think I see why the PRT's afraid of Manton-bypassing telekinetics."
"That said, she was throwing them around like rag dolls, plenty hard enough to cause brain damage or worse. Probably cracked some skulls, broke some necks. Not to mention that more than a few people got thrown into glass fixtures. Broken glass isn't healthy...I booked after I saw Junior thrown out the front window. He's almost certainly dead."
Silence.
"Do you know why the Huntress attacked you guys?" Lily asked.
"No, I missed that part."
Taylor frowned. "What did she look like? Any chance she'd come after us?"
"Tall, blonde, and buxom. Long, thick hair, kinda messy. Boots, too-small leather jacket. Thick yellow bracelets that unfold into shot-gauntlets, black gloves. I didn't get a good look at her, but that should help you identify her. And I don't know what she was doing, or if she would attack us. She had someone waiting for her, small with a red cloak and hood. Didn't get a good look at it, since I was kind of trying to run at the time, but it looked like a kid."
"It?" Sabah asked.
"Dunno if it was a boy or a girl."
"So," Alec said, "Is the big bad blonde going to try and hunt you down?"
"She might want to, but I'm pretty sure she didn't get a good look at me, and I'm almost certain she couldn't track me here. Red-cloak didn't notice me before I ran, and I think Red and Blondie were paying more attention to each other than to me."
"Some good news," Taylor muttered. "But if she does…"
"She's a Striker, so stay out of range. Her gauntlets can use normal or fire-Dust rounds, so bugs probably aren't going to last long, and she can shoot relatively accurately from a distance. Not too accurate, luckily, but the Dust rounds explode well. If we face her, I'd say Alec screws with her while Lily lines up a shot. Her Semblance shouldn't be able to stop that.
"And Red?" Brian asked.
"Unknown factor."
"I love those!" Alec sarcastically gushed. "They're so healthy."
"Likely a noncombatant, though. Maybe a spotter of some kind, to watch out for any backup Junior might call? Not a terribly attentive one, luckily. Maybe a child or other younger family member Blondie had to take with for some reason. Maybe Red showed up on his own accord."
"Maybe Red had a gun and was supposed to shoot people who tried to escape?" Rachel suggested.
Lisa shrugged. "Not impossible that he had a handgun, but I doubt it. Seems like the kind of thing he'd want to have on hand, if not drawn, and I didn't see anything. Only way that's likely is if he had it under his cloak, where it wouldn't be easily accessible."
"So, we just need to deal with a crazy telekinetic chick with shotguns, who most of us can't do squat against." Aisha groaned. "Much better."
No one had anything to add.
"So," Alec said, "Junior's dead. Did you hear of any other crime lords that were hiring during your time with Junior?"
Lisa shook her head. "That reminds me of something, though. That Torchwick guy I heard about? Junior met with him tonight. Tochwick wanted to hire some of his boys for a Dust shop robbery."
"Did you catch where?" Taylor was beginning to have a glimmer of an idea.
"Yup. A shop called From Dust Till Dawn, on 20th not far from Glade. Are you thinking what I think you're thinking?"
"Given your track record, probably."
"...We could probably take them, yeah."
Taylor explained her idea. It was simple: A bunch of teenagers catching a high-profile thief would be noticed. Ideally, the Undersiders would get invited to the local Protectorate or Wards equivalent, but even without that they should get some notice.
Lisa nodded. "I think it's our best shot."
A quick vote was held. They were split; Taylor, Lisa, Lily, and Sabah were for it, but Alec, Aisha, Brian, and Rachel were unconvinced. They thought the probable danger outweighed the potential benefits, and weren't convinced the chance of benefits even existed.
"I still don't see what's in it for us," Alec noted.
"I don't see how you can't," Lisa replied. "Remember how we decided to stop being capes once Coil was dead? Neither do I. We were going to keep being warlords for the foreseeable future, every one of us. Some people are capes because they have to be—the Travelers, for instance. Us? I don't think so. I'm not sure what brought you three in, but I'm guessing you had a chance to run away…or not become a supervillain in the first place, just sticking to common crime or even abiding by the law. Taylor, you could have gone to the Wards or kept your power secret, or even left for good one of those times, but you picked the path of most resistance in order to do as much as you could. Aisha could have just stuck around at Brian's headquarters, hiding if attacked—"
"But I'm not a wimp, so I didn't."
"Exactly. Even you two, Lily and Sabah, must have had some reason to stick with us. Sabah could have bailed once we settled our debts to each other, and Lily could have stayed with the Wards."
Lily spoke up. "I don't think you're reading—"
"All of us choose to do this, not because it is easy, but because it is hard. 'Cape' isn't something you can put on and take off, like a costume, it's something you are, and I think we're all suffering a bit from not living up to our potential."
"I'm pretty sure you can put capes on and take them off," Alec pointed out. "If not, I'd wonder how Eidolon showers."
Brian sighed. "So, we're just capes at heart and therefore should risk our lives at the first chance to pretend to be superheroes? I'm not buying it. And are you really sure I've healed from those injuries that you made me miss a few days of work over?"
"You're basically healed up," Lisa said. "Besides, you probably won't need to do too much actual fighting. Torchwick hired four of Junior's boys, we'll outnumber them almost two to one. The boys aren't totally incompetent at fighting—better than Alec, for instance—"
"Hey!"
"—but they still shouldn't be much of a problem. They don't have powers. You should be fine. Really, we should all be fine."
"But what if we aren't?" Brian asked. "What then?"
Lisa sighed. "We don't have a choice. Junior's dead...but the White Fang aren't. They will try to attack us again. We fought them off last time, but what about when they send more? Because they will. They didn't send much of a force because they didn't believe the reports. Now that they do, they'll send in the big guns. Two White Fang agents destroyed a squadron of combat robots guarding a train owned by one of the most powerful corporate families in the world—almost certainly without their Trump helping. How many attacks can we endure? Could we last one, if they sent several of those elites?"
"What's your point?" Rachel asked.
"I planned to have Junior broker peace between us and the White Fang, or if that failed provide us protection. He had safehouses. We had options. Now? Now we're alone. The way I see it, we have three options.
"One, we can fight. By which I mean, lose. Yeah, I don't like it either.
"Two, we can run. We'd lose basically everything and be back to square one, except the White Fang would probably still want to get revenge on us."
"And the big bad blonde," Alec said.
"And possibly the big bad blonde," Lisa agreed. "Three—we take this opportunity. We take a shot at making ourselves known to the authorities, making us seem worth protecting. The White Fang probably wouldn't think it was worth attacking us, if they even realized we were the people who took the warehouse. We'd be on the big bad blonde's side, so she couldn't attack us even if she wanted to. It would be a chance to make a legitimate living, using our best, most marketable skills."
"Except for Sabah," Aisha said.
"We all know how good the local job market is for new weavers," Lisa replied.
"I don't know," Brian said. "It seems so...dangerous."
Lisa sighed. "Junior's boys don't have Semblances, they're just normal goons. It'll be like beating up a bunch of Merchant or ABB thugs."
"And this Torchwick guy?" Lily asked.
"Unknown. So it might be like beating up a bunch of Merchant thugs lead by Skidmark."
"Or ABB thugs lead by Lung," Alec said.
"Oh, come on. If Roman had a Semblance anything near Lung's power, it would have been mentioned in the news. He doesn't have anything worth worrying about, period."
Alec snorted. "Really."
"Oh, I bet."
"Wanna put your money where your mouth is?"
"No," said Brian.
"Sure," said Lisa. "Say, a thousand lien? Yours if Roman has a problematic Semblance, mine if he doesn't."
"It's not even odds. A thousand if he doesn't, two if he does?"
"Fair."
"Who decides if a Semblance is problematic?"
"A neutral trio."
"You're insane," Brian said.
"Brian, Taylor, and Lily," Lisa continued.
"Brian, Taylor, and Aisha," Alec countered.
"Deal."
"Deal. Let's do this."
Brian sighed and rubbed his forehead. "It could be worse. I guess Lisa did have a point..."
Lisa smiled. "Now that we've decided, I think we need to start planning. We've got more time than we did for the Gallery, but not by much."
"The Gallery?" Lily asked.
"We hit the Forsberg Gallery before you came into town. We only had part of a single day to plan. I'll tell you later—we only have a single day to plan."
The plan was fairly simple, as these things go. The Undersiders were to get to the Dust shop before Torchwick, hang around, then take them down before they have much of a chance to react, get credit. But the devil is in the details, and they had too few. They knew just about everything about Torchwick's four goons, but about Torchwick himself?
"He could be a Trump," Lisa said. "It would fit with him always picking new minions, and if he wanted to keep that secret, he would have a reason to abandon them at the end of his crimes."
"That's possible for most tricks he'd have," Alec pointed out. "And if he gave his minions powers, wouldn't it make sense to keep them so they could learn how to use them better?"
"Maybe it's like Leet, and it doesn't work a second time?" Taylor suggested.
"He could have something that feeds off of his minions, somehow," Lily said. "Or maybe like King, who shunted damage onto other people to protect himself. Some kind of power that uses other people for his gain would discourage people from working for him twice."
"He could have a secret weapon," Rachel mumbled. "Maybe he's a Tinker?"
"Are there even Tinker Semblances?" Aisha asked.
"Or maybe he doesn't have a Trump Semblance or special weapon or any other kind of secret at all," Brian said. "Maybe he just doesn't care about his minions and sacrifices them to save his own hide."
The simple fact was, they didn't know anything. Lisa went to the library to find all the news reports on Roman she could find. Even her power couldn't help much, with details as sparse as they were.
"Did you find out anything at all?" Taylor had asked.
"His cane is also a gun, and he's good at slipping away from the authorities. He doesn't mind trying unusual tactics, and almost certainly has a trick or two up his sleeve. No known Semblance."
Alec chuckled. "Aside from the gun thing, that's more of a list of what we don't know."
"Remind you of anyone?" Lily asked.
Taylor nodded. "Yeah, sounds like he's more suited to hit-and-run tactics than a straight fight, like we used to be. But now I've learned a lot more about the violent applications of my power, we have Lily, and perhaps most importantly, we have both greater numbers and surprise. We should be able to win."
"Will it be enough?" Sabah asked.
"Of course," Lisa said.
"Are you sure?" Brian asked. "I mean, we don't know much..."
"Of course I'm sure. When have we had trouble dealing with a bunch of thugs?"
The night grew late. The Undersiders went to bed, a half-complete plan to finish in the morning and execute in the evening.
