Brockton Bay
April 8th,2011
18:26 EST
I start my route, of course, by speeding out of the wall nearest to the outside, and across the roofs. Fortunately, I seem to somehow maintain enough momentum to roof jump, and I travel a few blocks before stopping. Right.
The Merchants hold some territory around town, but it's not much. The docks are almost undisputed ABB turf, and the more well-off parts of the city are held (in most part) by the Empire. The Merchants tend to scum it up in pockets that are uncontested and unnoticed by the bigger, more relevant gangs. I don't think Coil really holds territory either, and if he does I don't know where.
This is both an advantage and disadvantage for me. The more spread out cells mean that I can hit them hard and fast without worrying about timely backup from the other Merchants. On the other hand, I could spend all night looking around town, and either not find any of their capes, or risk my lightning trail giving me up prematurely, causing them to pack up and switch locations.
The obvious solution is to simply locate all of the capes and the major location first, and then hit them rapidly in succession, crippling the Merchants in one fell swoop. OF course, this runs the risk of spooking the Merchants and completely ruining the entire plan. Still, I'm wasting time just standing here, so I end taking off for the north most parts of town. My best plan at this point is to sweep the town, locating Merchant pockets and marking them off to take out once I've found the rest of the hideouts.
The other thing I could try is calling up Dinah or Tattletale and simply playing 'guess where the Merchants are' with a map. I really don't feel comfortable with using Dinah like that, and I especially don't want Tats picking up on any dirt from me. As I reach the north most parts of town, I turn and stop on the highest point I can find. My search pattern is set up like a grid. I can already figure out how I'm going to search from up here, the problem is just doing it. God, this is going to be dull.
I open a hole into the building below me, and drop down. I speed through all of the rooms on this floor before going down to the next one. Let's see, empty, empty, empty, empty, empty, ohgodIdidn'twanttoseethat, empty, oh, look, guns, but no drugs, empty.
That pattern more or less repeats itself before I get to the ground floor. I know that searching an apartment building isn't really necessary, but I can't afford not to search everywhere. I go over to the next building, find nothing, go to the roof, and then repeat the process on the next building. And continue. Ugh
After what feels like hours, I've just barely found a few merchant safe houses. It's around this time that I find a mugging in process. At least, there's a man with a gun pulled on a woman, so I imagine some kind of crime is in progress. Not exactly unexpected, given my location.
Unfortunately, it's just ABB, so I can't even try to intimidate them to find the location of the Merchant bases. Still, I get to pull a Flash and knock them out in half a second and leave without so much a word. I hope that the victim doesn't panic or anything.
Just in case, after searching the next two buildings, I make sure to check back in the alley way. The victim seems to be in the process of running away, so I turn and continue. I feel a bit bad about just leaving her there, but I don't want to accidently have a confrontation with the heroes just yet.
I'm about ready to give up and call it a night a few blocks later, until I go in literally the last building on the block. The front room has two guards in it, both wearing the standard Merchant garb of trashy shirt and pants. What's not standard is the automatic weapons in both of their hands.
Jackpot.
In take off, not standing still long enough for them to notice me. Hopefuly they won't notice me or bother to report it. The next few rooms had more or less what I expected. Weapons cache, sleeping room, storage closet with a dude tripping out in the corner, all check. Then I get to one of the rooms on the second floor, and survey the area. Oh. Huh. Looks like the fanon about the merchant whores was correct.
I quickly back out of the room, and into a closet on the other side of the hall. Okay, logically, it's not like I didn't know that this was a possibility, and I was bound to run into this sooner or later. But I guess I wasn't expecting...that.
I'm kind of against prostitution on principle, though I guess that if a woman decides to do that, than it's her choice. Being forced into it though….I can't let this stand. I was planning on holding off my attack until I found all of the Merchants capes, but now...
Now I'm pissed.
I move out of the closet, and do a cursory sweep of the rest of the building. More guns, guns, yada yada. Then there's the man walking on the third floor through the halls that has pieces of garbage floating around his body. Mush. One of the three Merchant capes. At least this means that this night won't be a bust.
I make sure to quickly check the remaining space in the building, before going up to the rooftop like uasal. With nothing else to take care of, I make my way back through the building. I drop the guards by the stairwell, before moving into the other rooms, and taking any Merchant's there.
Mush is on the next floor down, so I quickly take him down before he can build up any garbage. Without it, he goes down just as easily as the others. It's almost laughable how easily that he goes down, as is the rest of the building. The guards on the first floor (who seem to be just now reacting to my trail) go down just as easily, and then I'm left with clean up.
I take the weapons of all the Merchants that I can find and throw them in the supply closets on each floor. Finding some rope, I use it to tie the hands of all the Merchants, and drag them to gathered locations on each floor. I don't try to be delicate. I don't really care if some druggies get carpet burn after all.
With all of that done, I check in on the unwilling prostitutes. Some seem to be off on drug trips, though a girl nearest to the door notices my entrance and starts crying as I drop out of subjective time. She looks up at me and whispers through her tears: "T-thank you."
...Huh. Time to set them free I guess.
…Wonder if the heroes have a protocol for this.
I phase her hands out of her bindings, only to get tackled by a flying hug as I turn to leave. Well, this is awkward. I slowly pry her off, turn and say: "You're welcome." Really need to work on a better way of not creeping out everyone I talk to.
Before she can say anything else I quickly free all the other conscious people in the , I zoom(heh) back downstairs. Searching the pile of Merchants is an unpleasant ordeal, but it eventually yields me a phone. Being careful not to break the keypad, I call 911.
"911, what's your emergency?"
"There's a merchant safehouse on the corner of…4rd State Street and 5th Ave. The Merchants inside have been detained, and Mush is one of them. Oh, there's also a bunch of women that they were using as prostitutes. Might want to send an ambulance or two for them."
I can't actually see the person on the other side, but I imagine he's slowly blinking.
"Right...Um, I take it you're a new parahuman then?"
No shit, Sherlock. "You could say that."
"Right." Attention captain, we seem to be approaching pre-rehearsed speech territory. "If you'd stick around for a minute to give your statement to the PRT..."
Nope. Don't need this right now. "I'm sorry, but I'm out past my bedtime."
This seems to through him for a loop, as he stutters then manages to blurt out before I can hang up the phone, he blurts out, "Can I at least get your name?"
I pause. Sure, no reason not to. "Zoom."
I hang up before he can say anything else.