Note: Sorry for the delay! There are more details at the bottom, but this chapter fought me a lot, on top of a fair amount of real life distractions. Hope you enjoy though.
Walking as a Battle Titan, even one of the smallest, was never going to get old. Was the thought running through Taylor's head as she piloted her Knight across the Martian landscape. Given this was a shakedown cruise she wasn't roaming too far from the doors to the Titan hanger, but even in the relatively small Knight this still represented a significant distance around the base of the large mountain.
She would like to be able to say the three hours spent walking on Mars was purely a readiness test for the machine, but it would be a lie. The confirmation of the status checks came back in less than an hour, but Taylor decided she wasn't ready to head back and carried on.
Small obstacles in the path of the war machine were crushed under the heavy tread, while some of the larger rock formations forced her to take minor detours. Even through the protections offered within the chest of the machine she could still feel the heavy and unstoppable footsteps of the Crusader.
Sensors panned across the Martian landscape constantly, each step and each sweep giving Taylor a new view of previously unseen areas of the planet. Even compared to the large windows in her living quarters the view was breathtaking.
By the time she actually started making her way back to the hanger the sun had long since set, the winds were picking up dust from the surface, and she still had a massive grin on her face which was starting to hurt.
Striding into the airlock space and going back through the process of returning to her base, Taylor allowed herself a big sigh of happiness. She may not have much company, but she definitely had the best toys around.
Once the outer world had been sealed off and breathable atmosphere had been returned, Taylor piloted her Knight back into its cradle. Another half hour of work saw the machine connected back to the various pieces of equipment. The machine would now go through a full diagnostic. The basic VI's inside the cradle would check over every inch of the machine, ready for the next time she took it out.
Clambering down the scaffolding, then back onto the moving platform to return her to the main door, Taylor turned back and stared at her Crusader. As she looked it over she came to a realisation and gave word to the idea in a thoughtful tone, "It needs a name."
Thinking furiously, Taylor considered just what to name her Knight. Her first thought was to honour the past engines from the Emperor's reality. Knight class Titans were a common sight in most major conflicts over there, much like the Astra Militarum, Knights had played a part in every notable and remembered conflict since their inception and introduction to the Imperium.
Unfortunately, in the same way as the Astra Militarum, that meant that there were no really celebrated names to pick from. There were just too many, dying too quickly and as most imperial soldiers did, achieved an honourable death.
There were notable houses, but only they tended to remember specific machines after they passed into glory. Picking one out of the millions that had gone before her time was an exercise in futility. Aeldari Titans simply took the name of the main pilots soul, while Necrons didn't name anything, so they wouldn't be of any help here.
Cycling back to the thought of the Knight Questis houses, Taylor hit upon a name that had graced numerous Crusaders throughout the history and included a large number of distinguished heroes. It was also one that resonated with the way she felt right now. Smiling slightly, she nodded and queued up some cosmetic works for the Knight to add its name.
"Unbowed."
Still smiling, Taylor ordered the platform to take her back to the elevator entrance to the Titan bay, staying facing in the direction of the Unbowed as it took her away. She only turned away from the Knight once she reached the doors, dropping from the raised platform and entering the elevator. She quickly sent herself back to the control room.
Once she was back in the control room she quickly queued up information on the cogitators. As much as she wanted to dive into the data generated by her Knights testing and the walk on Mars, her duty came first. That meant an in-depth review of any of the systems sending data from Mars back to Earth. She needed to make sure her walk didn't flag up anything or appear on those systems.
In the future she wouldn't need to be so circumspect, but right now, when she didn't have the external defences and weaponry needed to keep herself safe, her best security was in obscurity. She wasn't worried about the various nations of Earth, or the capes, being able to reach her. The number of them that could get to Mars personally was tiny, with Legend being the only one of significance. And she could take Legend down with ease.
The rest of the possible threats were Tinkers, and she doubted any of their creations could reach Mars without running into problems, and she would have plenty of warning besides due to both her monitoring systems and the scanning devices pointed at her former homeworld.
Thinkers, the only other general group that might be able to point a threat her way, or become one, were similarly blinkered. Through a subtle change in the way Blackstone was created, Taylor, her base and everything in it were protected against Thinker analysis, at least directed Thinkers.
No, the major threat would come once enough people were aware of her current position. Because once that information started spreading it would quickly come into the hands of the Simurgh, who could both reach her, and represented a massive threat.
One day, that wouldn't be the case, but right now she just couldn't risk an assault by the Endbringer.
That meant keeping up her diligent review of the probes and rovers surrounding Mars and ensuring none of them so much as hinted at any changes or information becoming available to Earth. Fortunately, the presence of the Simurgh in near Earth orbit had pretty much killed any manned space missions since her debut. Unmanned probes and planetary rovers were all she had to contend with. So it only took her a little over an hour's worth of work to run her checks.
With that out of the way she immediately removed herself from the Earth systems and brought up the information on her Knight. Pushing back from the bank of computers she sent her chair spinning in excitement, cackling to herself maniacally for several moments, "Data, sweet, sweet data!"
This carried on for a few seconds before Taylor realised what she was doing and stopped the spinning, coughing awkwardly. Suddenly very glad of her isolation so no one saw that. Still, she couldn't remove the smile from her face as she rolled back to the computers and started analysing every scrap of data produced by her tests.
More than just being fascinating on its own merits, this was new and interesting work, so she dug in with a will. At least until she hit her bedtime, being responsible was such a bother sometimes.
Taylor spent the next day doing the same, running data through tests and reviews, ordering tweaks to her Knights systems and generally becoming absorbed in her findings. The day after that though saw her back undertaking her research, at least for the first few hours.
Coming to a logical stopping point, Taylor pushed herself away from the computer bank again. This time not to spin in her chair, instead she stood up and moved to the large holographic planning computer in the rear of the room.
More than ten feet in diameter, the device looked like a raised ring of metal and cables, almost like a futuristic kids paddling pool. But instead of water, there were hills and valleys of mechanical components. Hovering above it was the green light of the holograms, created to good old Imperial standards. Currently the hologram was a detailed representation of Earth. Several points in North America had lines coming away to information labels, but the rest of the world was slowly being filled in as deep space scans were filed.
Walking up to the lead position for the machine, Taylor stopped and stared at the revolving almost sphere. Keeping her thoughts to herself she remained silent and watched the machine as the minutes stretched. Finally leaning forward to prop herself up against the machine, Taylor started talking to herself, "I need more information."
The slightly whispered tone was quiet, but it was more for herself than for anything else. "I need to be able to project some kind of presence on Earth to interact with people." She mused. "I should try and get ahead of myself, so what else do I need?"
Tapping her fingers randomly against the machinery, Taylor started pre-planning, working out what constructs she might need that would become useful in the future. Absently noting to herself that this was a good sign for her mental health, finally planning for her own future, Taylor none-the-less started to get into some in-depth work, queuing up important requirements that needed to be seen to before she delved back into general research.
…
In the wake of the tests on the Unbowed, and the excitement she'd displayed at the change in pace and task with the data following those tests, it became clear to Taylor that she was becoming stuck in a rut. Even the lure of incredibly interesting and widespread work on the various technology bases hadn't stopped her human mind from succumbing to a certain level of boredom. Not one that expressed itself greatly, but one that sapped at her thoughts silently and slowly.
As such she decided that she needed to add different work into her routine to prevent her boredom causing problems down the line. Of course, that begged the question of what exactly to do. After nearly half an hour of fruitlessly searching for an idea Taylor eventually sank back into the memories and details from her benefactors. Either there would be a ready-made option for her in the memories, or some problem they encountered would provide a challenge.
Strangely, she hit upon an option almost immediately after starting to look at Imperial records. Or, in point of fact, the poor nature of Imperial records.
Based on the history of Earth, as known to the Mechanicus, human civilisation had been destroyed so many times that they had lost massive amounts of history and data. The parts that remained were essentially based on oral traditions where proper records hadn't existed for centuries at a time and were fragmented to boot.
In point of fact the entire Imperium, or at least the parts she was aware of, had more knowledge of ancient Greece and Rome than they did about modern day Earth. And even there the exact names and details hadn't survived distortions.
And that was just the history of humanity. Nearly every Earth species had been wiped out and made extinct. Again, there were mutated versions, the faux lions of the Dark Angels, or the Wolves of Fenris, but those had been created afterwards by geneticists during the Dark Age of Technology.
Smiling to herself, Taylor quickly decided that creating a data vault sounded like a worthwhile hobby to pursue. Deciding to get the storage facilities organised first, Taylor moved back to the holographic display and switched to the view of Mars, including the full specifications of her base.
"It needs to be future-proofed, obviously," Taylor murmured to herself, "Necron tomb vaults survived mostly intact through millennia, but not where subject to directed attack. Same for Imperial data caches, STC's and pretty much all of the Eldar technology. The question is, will combining them introduce weaknesses?"
Tentatively at first, then with growing confidence, Taylor started to design a data vault that would sit in the very centre of her base. Initially based around Necron Tombs, it also included Imperial and Eldar equivalent protections and defences. A fit of whimsy had the door designed akin to a massive bank vault from Earth. Metres thick and round, the Mechanicus skull and cog symbol took centre stage on the door. Around the cog were flowing lines of Eldar design. The sides of the door were Neron Blackstone, done with glowing green symbols of the personal heraldry of her two benefactors.
Sitting at the end of a long elevator drop, followed by a tunnel bristling with her most dangerous weaponry, it was more akin to something from an overblown spy story than anything realistically found on Earth.
She may have gotten carried away designing defences.
Obviously, it didn't actually need that level of protection. Her base should be all the vault needed, but if she was going to create a vault deep underground she was going to satisfy the trope, dammit!
This was a vault any would be one that any cat burglar would take one look at before deciding that trying to pants Alexandria was a better career choice. No amount of laser dancing or drilling would avail any would-be thieves. This would be a vault to take any attempted break-in, laugh in their face, them cover them in lava and gunshot.
Inside, Taylor designed teeming banks of cogitators two metres wide and towering to the overly high ceiling. Between banks of computers were specialised housing for the repair and maintenance drones the place would sport. These were specially designed and built for the role, to ensure longevity in the records.
Arching gracefully between the banks of machines were thick vine like decorations of Wraithbone, finally connected in to the computers, it looked like a tree had been grown above the structure and its roots penetrated the ceiling, pushing and crawling across the vast room. Each one was a glowing white and would serve as the data back-up. The information would be kept in the cogitators as a first resort, but would also be copied by the Eldar works made to look like decorative lighting.
Now she just needed something to store there.
Fortunately, Earth was finally getting more digital in the storage of information, so she immediately started writing programs to copy as many books and images of history as possible. That would cover copies of artefacts, ancient writings, as well as books on and from history across the world.
Taylor would need to create some kind of archivist, or employ one, eventually. Their main job would be sorting the fact from fiction in those books labelled as fact. There was no point having some of the clearly biased propaganda texts in the fact sections of her archives. They would still be saved, just labelled in such a way as to ensure they weren't regarded as accurate.
Alongside the automatic systems pulling data in from digital records, she also repeated her tactic for acquiring funds and stole them from Gesellschaft. These funds were put towards purchasing books that were not available in a digital format. Each book was sent to a safe-house she established in New York, from there drones would scan the document in.
Any normal books would then be donated to charity. However she also used the funds to buy books with historic value in and of themselves. First editions, or early editions signed by famous individuals and such. Where such items were available to the public she bought them and transported them to Mars in specialised storage containers. Each one would be added to her vault for future generations.
Eventually, those operations would be expanded to include important video and music recordings, as well as artworks. For the most part, the truly historic items were already cared for in museums and collections across the world. As a compromise Taylor assigned drones to watch those items. If they ever came under threat the drone would teleport it direct to Mars for storage.
The next step was acquisition of DNA data. First of all she needed something from every known species in the world, which was going to be a pain for the bugs (which she might just skip), but she should also collect enough different samples to allow for sustainable populations.
Considering things for a while, Taylor decided to take the simple route and limit her collection to the most visible species. She would include various insects and such, but only the common ones for the time being. The first step of her plan would be having drones visit every zoo in the world. There they would collect DNA information from everything that zoo had.
After that the more in danger animals would be tracked down in the wild to add additional information sources.
Taylor's work would boil down to reviewing the information and uploads for issues. Mostly watching for data corruption, but she would also be checking the classification of data sources as she went. It would also allow her to create a complete database of current knowledge by combining books and details, kind of like a more detailed Wikipedia.
She would also have to contribute by reading all of the fiction books, since her meagre stock from the supermarket heists was running out. But that was something she was going to enjoy.
…
The next few weeks remained quiet across the board. There were various small scale fights between gangs and heroes, but no large scale battles took place and other than the usual devastation in those countries run by parahuman warlords, there were no world changing events.
Taylor was glad of the quiet, all things considered. It allowed her to further her research and to get ahead of any material needs she might have. There were now numerous drone miners among the asteroids in the system, busily collecting valuable materials for her creations and research.
She did notice a tendency towards talking to herself developing though, partly to ensure her voice wasn't suffering from lack of use, but also to fill up some of the silences in the base. After thinking it through, she decided to lean into that somewhat, and started making video journals and notes regarding her research. Part of her evening routine was then sorting the videos and flagging up anything that needed to be followed up on.
She also started playing music in the lab, generally at a low volume, but the additional noise helped immensely, as her sleep pattern quickly showed.
It was only in the last week of March that she received a ping from her monitoring systems in Brockton Bay. Normally they would list updates and information for her to review later at night, but the automated systems apparently pushed the current information up the priority list.
Breaking off from more research, Taylor rolled across to the monitoring station and brought up the details. Seconds later she couldn't help but blurt out incredulously, "What the hell?!"
Seeing the written notice in front of her, Taylor honestly couldn't believe what she was seeing. Deciding quickly she brought up the feeds from various security cameras, as well as using her own video, to bring up the actual events and confirm the events.
Once the currently progressing event popped up though, she had to again call out, "What the hell?!"
She was watching the Undersiders, a small time gang, as they robbed a casino widely known to belong to Lung. Face-palming incredulously, Taylor could only shake her head as her mouth started running, "What kind of idiot tries to rob Lung? What. The Fuck. They aren't even making a token effort at hiding who they are. Everyone will know who to blame. This is just going to piss that asshole off."
Realising that Tattletale was actually a Thinker, Taylor pulled up the records from her surveillance, in particular the files taken from her laptop. Desperately hoping Taylor started reviewing the planning data and information.
As she reached the end of the information, which encompassed everything Sarah had looked at and done during her planning, that hope died a fiery death. Just like these idiot teenagers were going to. "Nothing. Absolutely no mention of Lung, no plans to cover their tracks, prevent identification or deal with Lung afterwards. How does a Thinker not pick up on that? HOW!?"
As her voice rose to a shriek at the end of her speech, Taylor dropped her head down into her hands, "Fucking idiots."
Sarah hadn't even looked to double check that Lung wouldn't be around to reinforce the casino. She'd just been given a window by her boss and done no other research on the matter. They were lucky Lung was out of town, looking for a replacement for Oni Lee from the messages he'd left behind.
"Somehow, this is going to become my problem. I can just see it." She sighed.
Eventually she decided to go back to her research desk. The Undersiders were obviously going to get away, barring the sudden introduction of other capes, and Bakuda had been forbidden from revealing herself or her devices for the moment. It was also completely obvious that everyone in the building was going to be able to point the finger at the team for the theft.
There was only so much stupid she could deal with in a day anymore, and that hit the limit like a drag racer on an open highway. Muttering the word nope to herself multiple times, she left the monitoring station behind for the time being. Nothing was going to happen for the short term, so she could try and calm down again after finding out just how incompetent an apparently high-ranked Thinker could be.
On the screen behind her, the Undersiders rode away from the casino on top of the dogs Rachel Lindt was famous for, in broad daylight and plain sight.
…
Two weeks later she was proven correct, as Lung had started organising his men to flush out and kill the Undersiders. Apparently the teen's boss had informed them of the upcoming assault, and the group were now trying to work out a plan of action.
The one upside to the whole affair was Lungs failure to recruit any new capes during his trip away. Alongside his arrogance Lung had decided that he only needed a couple dozen of his gun totting gang members as support while he dealt with the blow to his pride.
The down side was the four panicking teens who didn't have a clue or a hope on dealing with the literal rage dragon that went toe to toe with an Endbringer. Tapping in to the surveillance devices in their base, Taylor listened in as the group discussed tactics for avoiding a fiery death. None of which involved the incredibly obvious move of notifying the PRT of Lung's whereabouts.
No, instead the team were going to attack him directly. In the middle of the street. Where people lived. What. The. Fuck?!
Wishing she had the time to face-palm, Taylor instead was desperately attempting to come up with a plan to take the gang leader down. While the Undersiders were reckless idiots, they didn't deserve to die for those mistakes, well, yet at least. It would be trivial for her to let get Lung the teens, or kill the teens outright and avoid the collateral damage their current plans would cause. Unfortunately, it wouldn't sit right with her conscience to do so.
Which meant she had to do something herself, and right now the only options coming to mind for dealing with Lung would cause even more damage than ignoring the situation would. Imperial Knights, as excellent as they were, did not normally consider splash damage as an issue. More akin to a dirty word, actually.
However, if she didn't do something personally there was going to be a major throw down, involving Lung, in the middle of a populated area.
Her personal weapons could solve the issue, she realised moments later. The only downside being that she would have to be fairly close, or some of her drones would be. The Entropic Lance was the most likely to work. Assuming Lungs regeneration couldn't outpace the aging.
Pausing in her frantic rush now that she had a workable solution, Taylor was about to order a dozen of her drones to attend her to be armed before coming to a complete stop as an idea came to her.
"This is an opportunity." She whispered to herself. On the one hand, she was now considered a non-entity in the landscape of the Bay, most people under the impression that she'd fled. If she was going to get people on side, and end her lonely days eventually, she would need a good reputation.
On the other hand, this was Lung. As a young girl, even one that didn't think of themselves as attractive, you always feared Lung. It was because of him that there were so many women listed as missing in the Bay. It was well known that he was a sex slaver. Finding groups of Asians after dark was a terrifying experience for any women.
Considering the situation, Taylor came to a decision. Removing Lung entirely was the only option available to her, and she wouldn't be able to prevent the war after he died, so she needed to make a statement with his death. Prove Hookwolf wasn't a fluke, so when she made her presence known again people would take her seriously.
By that same token, she couldn't reuse her Entropic Lance. It lacked the fear factor after being used on Hookwolf. "Plasma bolts and Wraithbone weapons will work," Taylor muttered to herself, "not exactly a big statement item though. Guass rifles?"
Considering the idea for a moment, Taylor wobbled her head a little, "Put it on the maybe pile. Is there anything else that will really make a statement though?"
Turning back to her station, she started flicking hurriedly through her database and asset list, looking for anything else she had available, or could build quickly, which wouldn't escalate the situation and result in the fight destroying entire blocks of her home city but would still make the statement she wanted.
She needed something quick, something precise and focused, something that couldn't be broken or stopped by close combat with a rage dragon. She needed... that!
Stopping on the perfect option, Taylor's mind was racing as she planned this latest engagement. The idea percolating in her head was easy enough at its core, because she already had the weapons she needed, now she just needed to plan how to use them properly. As long as her gear was seen, and recorded, it would definitely make a statement as well.
Bringing up the control programs she quickly started adding details, restrictions and information to the computer banks that powered the weapons she needed. Twenty tense minutes passed in this fashion before she finished. Looking up to check the status of the developing situation she realised that the Undersiders were just about to engage Lung. The large dogs had scattered the gang members, but their leader hadn't moved an inch since the teens appeared on the street.
Well, his feet hadn't moved, but the man was growing up and out as his power activated faster than before.
Wheeling around after chasing the Asians off the side streets (a good tactical decision to make sure they didn't get shot in the ass while fighting Lung) the dogs then charged at the currently seven foot tall figure.
Coming from two directions, the gang leader was blasted in the face by the smoke from Grue. Regent added to the mess by twitching Lungs limbs so that his initial plan of catching the charging dogs failed. Roaring his anger out Lung quickly recovered and started trying to manhandle the dogs, or claw around them to reach the riders.
The situation on the ground quickly became confused with three dogs, four teens and an Asian gang leader involved in furious melee. Smoke screens flowed hither and yon, while blasts of flames scorched the ground and pushed into the sky.
Thanks to Necron sensors, Taylor was able to clearly 'see' through the smoke Grue was using, but it was slowing report times a little, so Taylor added that detail to the plan before she opened the portal in the skies above the fight.
Through the portal her chosen weapons darted forward on anti-gravity drives. Canoptek Wraiths were actually construction and repair devices. But like all Necron technology they looked amazingly intimidating to human sensibilities. Pure black Necro-dermis carapaces and nauseatingly green glowing lights were combined into a form that was only four feet long, but had another four of twisting tail. From each side were blade like appendages shaped like scythes. These were actually repair manipulators, but combined with their dimensional destabilisation drives they had proven to be deadly weapons on thousands of tomb worlds across the galaxy.
In eerie silence and unnatural sync the six dark machines swept out of the portal and floated down to settle on rooftops surrounding the fight. Once in place they watched the brawl for several moments, confirming none of those involved had realised their presence. Which was kind of a relief, as it meant the anti-thinker effects Taylor had built into her creations was working, since not even Tattletale realised half a dozen four foot long bugs from some metal hell were staring at her.
A dimensional destabilisation drive took an enormous amount of power, as such it could only be used in short bursts. And, unlike when they were involved in most repairs, to avoid getting damaged during the ongoing fight, the wraiths would need to shift the entirety of their bodies. As such the plan was simple, in teams of two the wraiths would burst across from one roof to another, stopping to materialise their claws inside Lung and shred as much of his arteries, ligaments and organs as possible during that movement.
There was definitely an upper limit to the amount of regeneration Lung could produce in a specific span of time. Taylor was going to overload that limit until the gang leader went down.
She rather expected the Undersiders to run once they realised what was happening, but that was alright, Armsmaster was close enough that he'd reach the fight in time to see the climax. Glancing at a screen to her side, Taylor also smiled upon seeing that someone was recording the fight. God Bless idiots with no self-preservation instincts.
Sighing at the fact this would be much simpler if she had any small scale weapons available, or at least pinpoint damage ones, Taylor mentally made a note to branch out from the huge war machines she'd been more focused on, and more specifically, the Imperial weapons. As excellent and straight forward (relatively) to make as Imperial weapons were, they could basically be described as "See that guy there? Fuck him up and everything around him."
From that point the range of destruction they unleashed only went up.
Still, a girl could be forgiven for focusing on the nice, shiny, forces of elemental destruction. And she had the means to bring down Lung, it was just a little more complicated.
Focusing back on the fight, Taylor tensed in her seat while waiting for the opening she needed. She just needed the stupid kids and the dogs out of the way.
Given the manner of how Lung normally fought, it didn't take long to get an opening. The capes themselves had dismounted from the dogs once Lung got big enough to start manhandling them. It was a smart move, they would be just as dead if the massive dogs landed on them as if Lung fried them. And even if they didn't die straight away, they'd be left injured enough to make a good target.
Right now though, Lung was big enough to start throwing the dogs entirely, which meant the Undersiders had already lost. Nothing they had left could hurt him, and he only needed to ramp up a little more too permanently put the dogs down before they were helpless.
Despite that obvious fact they were still giving it their all. Regent was throwing the larger cape off, while Grue kept messing with his sightlines. The two girls added what they could to the mix, mostly a few pointless gun shots from Sarah, but it was essentially hopeless at this point.
Judging from their actions though, they were aware of this. The action spoke more of stalling for time, rather than an attempt to put the regenerating brute down. Presumably then it had been Sarah that had directed Armsmaster to the area.
Taylor's first opening came seconds later. Lung caught one dog charging at him with both hands, pivoting and throwing the animal at its master, catching one of the other dogs at the same time. Lindt managed to get out of the way in time, but her third dog was out of position to help, so the gang leader was able to move towards Tattletale, or at least start to.
With the dogs out of the way and the teenagers backing away from Lung, this left the gang leader in his own bit of space. With the benefit of computer aided timing two of her canoptek wraiths struck. Blurring across the intervening space as fast as their drives could take them, the entire machine went slightly out of phase with the current dimension just before they entered the fiery aura Lung was putting out.
On each wraith two repair manipulators returned to the normal phase inside the eight foot tall man. Inside his body they sliced muscles, veins and organs to ribbons as they raced behind and in front of him. Returning to normal phase once they were out of range they returned to the rooftops at such speed that the fighters below only saw a black and ominous green blur.
Given the small window of opportunity, their positioning wasn't the greatest. Alongside the limited time they had available the damage was focused more on pinning the large cape down rather than ending his threat.
For this part, Lung screamed out in pain and collapsed. Only the top of his chest, head and one arm was working as he collapsed to his knees, propping himself up with the remaining arm. The rest of his body just stopped responding at all. He could feel his regeneration working overtime to restore the limbs to function, but that still left him in the humiliating position on his knees in front of the teenagers who stole from him.
In her base, Taylor just smiled as she realised her plan would work.
…
Sometimes, life was really unfair, thought Sarah Livsey, also known as Lisa Wilborn and Tattletale the cape. And sometimes, she mused, it went out of its way to ensure you were aware that it could hold a grudge.
Take her current situation, as an example. Hired at gun point by a megalomaniacal villain, she'd been forced to dig into the personal lives of every cape in the city, used for her power in a manner worse than her own parents, and all the time there was a death threat hanging over her head.
And the latest indignity? She'd been told that her boss wanted the team she put together to hit a bigger, flashier, target and he'd chosen a casino frequented by people in the underworld of the bay. And it was owned by Lung, which her boss definitely hadn't mentioned.
And now they were in a fight for their lives. One she'd led them to. Sure, she'd put a call into the PRT and was kind of relying on the heroes turning up to allow them to escape, but right now she wasn't even sure they were going to turn up in time for the Undersiders to survive, let alone escape.
Case in point, Brutus had just been thrown across the street by the gang leader, nearly hitting Rachel and slamming into Judas instead. All three of the massive and tough dogs were now out of position to cover her. Grue, and Angelica was still recovering from her last blow and was slumped against a wall further away from the duo.
With such a good break in the action the huge man started stomping his way forward, growling out "O'nna 'ill oo."
Her power helpfully translated that into the statement that he was going to kill them. Good going power. Such obvious.
Desperately looking around for something, anything, to keep the rage dragon at bay, Lisa only just caught a blur of movement. The impression of green lights and black armour coming to mind before she was witness to a miracle.
Collapsing to his knees and one hand, Lung fell forward and stopped approaching her. Seconds later, with one arm hanging useless, he roared out in pain and anger.
As Lung bellowed and twitched meters from her, Tattletale's power kicked in and she quickly went pale as she realised what had happened, 'Body shredded internally by extremely sharp blade. Blade bypassed outer skin and scales completely. Regeneration struggling to keep up. Lung unable to move quickly."
Gasping out she tried to call to her team mates, but the words got caught in her throat. Managing to stand from next to the car she was hiding behind, she focused and opened her mouth to try again. This time the words failed because she was staring straight at Lung as whatever was damaging him appeared and disappeared again.
With the much better look at the movement blur she was able to pick up on more details, such as the fact that they were phasing out of reality. But most of her mind was caught up with how hideously lethal those blades could be. As her body froze, her eyes tracked the blur up to the rooftops. Baleful glowing green eyes stared down at the scene from all around them. Immediately she changed what she was going to say, no way were they sticking around for this.
"Guys, he's occupied, we need to leave! NOW!"
Typically, she was ignored by Bitch. Scrabbling across to where Grue was propping himself up on a light post, she slung his arm over her shoulder and started leading him away from the fight. Strangely, Regent quickly joined her, a glance at his face told her that he'd see the nerves being shredded in real time and wanted nothing to do with whatever achieve do that.
Tottering awkwardly across to where Rachel had finally managed to get to her feet, she stepped in front of the slightly feral cape to shout again, "Bitch! He's not going to survive. We have to get out of here before we find out we're next! Come on!"
Again, the feral girl was set to ignore her, starting to step around Tattletale to continue directing her dogs until Lung was put down. Unlike usually, however, Tattletale was not going to let the thuggish thinking of Bitch to bring the wrath of those machines down on the Undersiders.
Side stepping awkwardly with Grue still leaning on her, Tattletale moved in front of Bitch again, this time deciding to spell out just what would happen if they stuck around. "Bitch, the things hitting him are ignoring his armour! They won't bother with the shell around the dogs, they will just kill the dogs! We need to get out of here before they start on us."
Thankfully she was able to get through to the immensely angry girl this time. Probably helped by Lung making it to his feet, starting to turn towards them before being dropped to the ground again. He was facing them this time, glaring in hate as they organised their hasty retreat. Although that glare was reduced by the fact he was unable to get his hands under him this time, so he was sprawled out in the road, fire pouring off of his unmoving form.
Giving a sour grunt, Bitch finally accepted the reality of the situation and moved to help Grue.
Transferring Brian to Rachel's much stronger frame, the group resumed moving away as Rachel whistled to call the dogs to her, allowing them to stagger into a nearby alleyway. Once out of sight of Lung, and more importantly, the deadly machines seemingly playing with him, they helped each other up onto the dogs' backs and set off.
As soon as he was settled on top of Brutus, Grue started questioning the reason for their exit, "What the hell was doing that to Lung, Tattletale? Is it after us?"
Glancing back warily, then scanning the rooftops just to be sure, Tattletale shook her head once they were a block away, "No, they aren't after us. I think it was some kind of Tinker device. It was shifting out of phase with reality to shred his insides, there were more than one. Enough to kill all of us at the same time, but it only hit Lung when we were all out of the way."
Glancing at Tattletale from behind Grue, Regent was the next to speak up, "So, what, we have some murder-Tinker on our side?"
Immediately shaking her head, Tattletale knew that whoever they were, they were not on their side, "Absolutely not. If I had to guess, we just provided an opportunity, or they took advantage of Lung being in the open. They weren't there for us, not really."
Deciding that was the end of that conversation, Lisa quickly started calling out a route through the city that would not only take them directly away from the fight, but also avoided the converging heroes. Watching from a darkened path as two motorbikes when tearing down the road, Lisa could only scoff, "Late as usual."
…
Speeding down the road on his tinkertech bike, with Miss Militia close behind him, Armsmaster was completely focused on the upcoming fight. And there was no doubt in his mind at all that there would be a fight.
When the call came in from a member of the public that Lung was going out to fight they had taken the information with a grain of salt. Lung was typically careful about being seen approaching a fight, not liking it when his quarry left before he could attack. So most sightings of him were when he'd already ramped up, not before.
Rather than sending people out to attend what could just be a prank, they started trying to get confirmation on the sighting. And that came in the form of Lung's typical attitude. At which point the alert for the Protectorate finally went out and the heroes scrambled to engage him before he ramped up too far.
Since then they had received a lot more calls, and could now hear the typical roars of Lung engaged in combat. Still being a couple of minutes out, Armsmaster felt his heart sinking slightly at the realisation they would be engaging an already ramped up dragon. If only they had been closer his sedatives could have put the gang leader down without a drawn out fight.
Unfortunately, with recent distractions the formula was nowhere near ready for use against the fast regeneration Lung enjoyed while ramped up.
Which meant that both himself and Miss Militia were about to be involved in a fight for their lives, the best outcome being they stalled Lung long enough for the area to be evacuated before disengaging.
The alternatives got much worse from that point.
Mentally reviewing every piece of equipment he had access to on the bike or in his armour, Armsmaster spent the time travelling trying to come up with a plan of action once they reached the ongoing fight, sparing a bit of attention for the roads as he went.
The duo rode in silence for another minute, sometimes slowing to traverse difficult streets or obstructions, but generally keeping the speed as high as possible. They were about a minute out from the predicted location when things changed.
Up until now their advance had been emphasised by the increasing amount of fire, both lighting up the night from whatever had caught alight, and also the blasts that Lung let off. Alongside this were the roars of the gang leader, a clear indication of his less than pleasant state of mind, and the barking of engorged dogs.
During a period where no new blasts of flame appeared, the tone of the noises also changed. It wasn't unusual for a brief period of quiet, but the scream of pain was unusual.
Exchanging a glance with Miss Militia as she drove alongside him, Armsmaster quickly focused forward again, "Armsmaster to console, do we have eyes on the fight?"
Instantly the PRT trooper on the other end of the line came back with a response, "Negative, Armsmaster. Observation VTOL is still two minutes from eyes on."
Grunting sourly, the veteran Tinker carried on driving forward, now hyper focused on the noises from the ongoing fight.
Several changes were immediately apparent, like the complete lack of mutated dog barks, growls and yelps. There were also fewer blasts of fire, and those were not just being sent out in all directions, hitting properties around the fight, instead they seemed to be more focused, reaching upwards as much as anything.
It was a worrying development, since anything that was unpredictable around Lung was dangerous, but it also suggested a change in the fight, which could bring opportunity.
For a moment, Armsmaster wished he had enough optimism to feel that such an opportunity would bring anything good, that he could be hopeful for a few moments, but experience in the city and against Lung specifically crushed any possible hope before it could form.
Shortly after the duo pulled to a stop as close as their bikes would get them unnoticed. Signalling to Miss Militia, Armsmaster took the lead and lead them along the row of houses to reach an intersection which would give a view of Lung's position.
Activating a camera probe, Armsmaster carefully fed it around the corner to see what was going on. What he found was nearly enough to make him stumble. Collapsed in the middle of the street the clearly ramped up form of Lung was lying face down, head closest to their position.
Every now and then there was a blur of black and green, followed by a series of twitches in the gang leader. Obviously something that was attacking him somehow, his extremities, including tail and wings were shredded into a red mist with each twitch. The blur reappeared each time Lung's limbs started regenerating enough that he might use them. The frequent gouts of blood coughed out suggested similar damage was happening internally.
The mere fact that the gang leader was laid out in such an undignified position was enough for Armsmaster to be shocked, the fact that someone had clearly gotten the better of a cape who went toe-to-toe with Leviathan would have only added to that shock.
Instead, the shock was because of what was sitting in the air above Lung himself. Floating in the air was a massive mechanical creature that looked like a nightmarish version of a spider, eight bronze coloured legs ended in sharp looking blades, the front pair being a split double version, small arcs of green lightning crackling between the pylons.
The abdomen of the creature was much large than normal, extending some way back but still a flattened oval shape. This and the legs were attached to a circular, bowl shaped core for the machine. The abdomen included a ridge in the middle from which pointed what looked almost like a capped weapon barrel, and the head included only four eyes as well as elongated and exaggerated mandibles.
But it was the light of the powered parts that caused the most shock. The poisonous and disturbing shade of green lit up the scene light something from a nightmare. The other piece of nightmare fuel was the silvery dust being sucked up from Lung into the abdomen of the creation. That silvery dust were the scales Lung was constantly regenerating being ripped off and apart by the spider-like creation.
While it was obviously not what was keeping the man down, this thing was clearly harvesting his living body for materials.
The fact that he could recognise the basic aesthetic did not help Armsmaster relax in the slightest.
Checking the recordings Armsmaster quickly deduced that the repeating green blurs were in fact a kind of drone attack. Larger than the small scarabs Taylor had used before, but not as big as the spider hovering mid-air. These creatures didn't seem to have any guns, instead using bladed forearms to do their damage. From the pictures the blades were bypassing Lung's armour somehow, although the exact method wasn't immediately clear.
Speaking quickly and quietly, Armsmaster updated Miss Militia on the situation, as well as sending the conversation back to HQ. Given past experience, if Taylor wanted to tap into his systems, he couldn't stop her. It was highly likely that she already knew they were here anyway. Just to be sure, he muted the connection to the PRT though. If the director was listening in, which she absolutely was, he didn't need her bigoted ranting on the line while trying to deescalate things.
With that in mind, the duo stepped around the corner and spread out a little, approaching the scene by a few feet.
Armsmaster queried the larger form floating above Lung's prone body, "Miss Hebert?"
The disturbing creation shifted position, obviously taking up some kind of attack stance as the front lowered and arms spread menacingly. A noise like a combined hiss and mechanical whir came from the drone, which Armsmaster took as confirmation of her identity.
Moving a little closer, he paused at a good distance from the scene, close enough to speak clearly, but far enough away to show he wasn't making, or about to become, a threat.
Remaining calm and doing his best to avoid any kind of accusation in his tone, Armsmaster spoke, "I'm asking you to stop whatever you are doing to Lung; he needs to be taken into custody."
Seconds later a green hologram appeared above the back of the main drone, the mechanical visage of Taylor Hebert showing before she spoke, "For what he's done? He deserves to die."
The tone was mechanical, but there was definite disgust in there as she talked about the downed man. Privately, Armsmaster had to admit he agreed with her, but there was more at play than just the life or death of one of the major menaces in the bay. Figuring that carrying on with that line of thought was his best bet, Armsmaster changed what he was going to say, hoping he could explain things to the young woman without tripping over his legendary people issues.
"Personally, I agree. I have been privy to a great deal of details of the consequences of his arrival in the city, there is no redemption, no excuse for any of that. But this isn't about what you or I want, Taylor. The people he has effected, the victims of his time here, it's about what they deserve, and they deserve to see justice done. He'll be going to the Birdcage, you have my guarantee, for what it's worth." As he spoke his tone shifted, almost dropping in to pleading as the veteran hero desperately hoped he could get through to Taylor.
There was a much more visible reaction, although Armsmaster ensured he didn't show any kind of reaction to it, but the hologram and indeed all the drones, ceased their movements.
The eyes of the hologram bored into Armsmasters facemask for several long seconds, Miss Militia instinctively avoiding doing anything to break the deadlock, remaining behind and to the left of him.
Lung himself had long since stopped twitching, although that had been the only change as the scales that had finally stopped regenerating were stripped away.
Eventually, Taylor looked down at her captive, breaking her staring at Armsmaster and tilted her head to the side slightly for a moment. In response, three of the drones that had been attacking Lung all struck at once, there was an exhale of breath and sound from the villain, and then he slumped on the ground and went completely still.
Neither Armsmaster nor Miss Militia were able to avoid a slight twitch as it felt like they had witnessed the man's death, but both kept themselves from doing anything else with the ease of long experience.
Armsmasters sensors kicked in at that point and showed Lung was still alive, his rapidly changing form proved he'd been knocked unconscious as his form reverted to a normal, if large, human.
Looking back up from her study of the man, Taylor returned to starting at Armsmaster for a couple of seconds before she spoke again, "Very well. You make a good point. Do you have anything capable of keeping him out long enough to take into custody?"
Trying not to slump in relief, Armsmaster nodded and gestured slightly with his halberd, a small dart revealed itself from the base of the weapon to give his point, "With him unconscious I do. It wouldn't have been enough when he was ramped up, but in a few seconds it will be effective."
A glance from the hologram at the half dozen smaller drones had them zipping away from the scene, all of them moving over the rooftops and quickly out of sight. Clearly Taylor wasn't going to allow the chance anything would be tempted to exploit her split attention to do something like throwing a tracking beacon through a portal to find her.
The larger construct lifted up in the air and started moving backwards much more slowly. Although this seemed to only be so Taylor could speak one last time, rather than a mechanical limitation. "I pass him off in to your custody then. Although given your track record with holding capes, I will add this. You have this one chance to prove you can effect real change in this city, one chance to demonstrate any competence at all. And should you fail to hold onto this piece of filth? I will return to collect him. Am I clear?"
Nodding in agreement, Armsmaster decided to try and add one last point, "I know you don't have reason to think so, but we aren't your enemy, we're trying to do the best we can with the resources available. What happened to you was wrong, and wholly regrettable, it was the result of trying to ensure children weren't targeted for trying to do the right thing. I hope you can see that one day."
That got the teenager to stop, returning her gaze back to the duo as her voice came out in an almost hiss, "You had better not be suggesting that your director's actions were right and I should have bowed down to slavery."
"No." came the instant rebuttal from Miss Militia in a firm voice filled with conviction, "Every aspect of what happened to you was wrong, Taylor, the plans for after you were in custody more than most. The unfortunate truth is that we just cannot afford to appear weak in this city. The director would and has been punished, but we had to ensure the gangs wouldn't have another avenue of attacking us."
Sharing a glance with Armsmaster, Miss Militia got a slight nod before turning back to Taylor, "It isn't public knowledge, but the only reason we haven't completely abandoned the city is that we've been able to play the gangs off against each other. We all know that we haven't been able to protect nearly enough of the people in the city, but if we ventured out into claimed territory the retaliation could have pushed us out completely."
Taking up the explanation while keeping a wary eye on the tense visage projected by her drone, Armsmaster tried to explain, "What happened to you was part of that. Because, in the first instance the people who should have been watching Shadow Stalker were stretched thin and not doing their job, but we also needed to be sure none of the gangs felt that they could successfully escalate against children. The size of our reaction was more for their benefit than yours. As well as that we could not, cannot, afford for you to be taken in by one of the gangs."
Taking a deep breath, Armsmaster desperately hoped that their analysis of Taylor's character was correct, and remained unchanged, as he said his next piece, "We made a mistake, and for that I apologise unreservedly. Our initial information painted you as a budding villain, from several sources, and that seemed to be verified by the implants found in your father. Everything else was ignored due to the rush needed to stop more lives being endangered in the long run."
Miss Militia took over the plea again at that point, her tone switching to a more conciliatory one than the previous conviction, "Nothing we can say or do will ever make things right for the wrongs done to you, Taylor. Although we would have tried once the truth came out before you would have had to sign that contact, and it would have come out."
Watching the girl relax a little, or at least as much as she could through the bulky robes and new face-plate, Miss Militia decided to end things on the most positive point she could, "The analysists that looked at your case after the fact reported that if you have been given the chance you would have been a hero, don't let our failures stop you from doing that, or push you into being a villain, please."
There was a long silence at that point. The heroes were willing to leave things there and waiting to see if Taylor would have any response, Taylor meanwhile had settled back from her offended posture and her eyes were bouncing between the duo slowly, clearly in thought.
Eventually, she huffed out an odd sound, part sigh, part laugh. The hologram fizzled for a second, both of the two physically there almost expecting Taylor to carry on leaving without saying anything further. Instead, the view returned, but Taylor had changed. Rather than the bulky armour and almost nightmarish amalgamation of human and machine, there was a normal girl stood before them.
Dressed in dark red robes that covered her body completely, her face was clear and her long hair fell down her back. She had a silvery headband with various pieces of technology integrated, two wings came down from the band sweeping over her ears to end above the neck. She was also wearing an obvious harness over the robes from which the mechanical tendrils came. Finally, the robe sleeves stopped just below the elbow, showing wrist and hands covered in more technological aids with an unknown purpose.
It was an obvious reassurance for the duo, she wasn't endangering herself or slicing pieces of herself off in some violent mania as they had almost feared from her previous looks. Instead she looked fit and healthy.
Nodding her head, Taylor finally addressed them, "Thank you for the apology. I doubt it will change anything in my situation, but hopefully you can learn for the next time something like this occurs. You can also be assured that I am not intending to lead the life of a villain. I will save lives when I am ready to act. I will not, however, submit myself to any authority that I feel cannot be trusted with my equipment. That is the best I can say."
Accepting that the kind rejection was the best they were going to get, both heroes nodded and started moving on Lung. The drone Taylor was projecting from returned to leaving the scene over the buildings. Speaking as he brought his halberd to bear on the gang leader, Armsmaster spoke to close the conversation, "Thank you for listening. We'll take him into custody and get him charged immediately. Look after yourself, Miss Hebert."
Laughing a little at the comment, Taylor only replied with a short, "Good day to you both."
Then the drone reached the rooftops, the hologram cutting out before it went above roof level and leaving the mechanical thing to speed up and over the buildings and out of sight. By unspoken agreement the heroes didn't speak immediately, waiting until Armsmaster gave a signal that his scanners indicated the portals were closed.
Immediately opening up the contact with HQ again, Armsmaster provided an update and request to the PRT, "Armsmaster here. I need a prisoner transport detail to my location for Lung. Current status is sedated after capture by the independent cape Mechanicus. Scene is secure. Over"
Armsmaster was undertaking a constant scan of his surroundings, mostly to ensure they weren't ambushed while taking Lung into custody, but also reviewing the log of the energies picked up from Taylor's creations. Watching as his sensors showed a portal opening up two streets away, his teeth gritted in anger when he realised none of his passive scanners had reported the event back to him. It was another sign of problems in the PRT.
Vaguely, he recognised a shocked tone coming back through his communicator, "U-Understood, Armsmaster. Lung rated transport being dispatched to your location now. Over."
Dropping the conversation, Armsmaster remained where he was, staring out across the scene while he thought about the results from his detectors. He was quickly working through the ways the devices could have been compromised, and not liking the results at all.
Having come to a halt at the realisation of another internal issue, it was only when Miss Militia queried his name that he started moving again, shaking his head at her and giving the sign for sensitive information, he resumed moving towards some marks near to Lung's unconscious body.
"Look at this, Miss Militia," he commented, kneeling down to examine the marks in the pavement more closely, "I've seen something like this recently, when we raided the warehouses Hookwolf was using for his fights."
Following her boss, Miss Militia moved over and peered over his shoulder. Humming slightly in agreement, she commented, "During the time he was in custody?" She queried, before continuing on in a thoughtful tone, "Very similar. Given those marks and the fact that there are no Empire gang members nearby we can make a good guess who was fighting Lung."
Grunting in agreement as he stood up again, Armsmaster spoke, "Hellhound. Which likely means all of the Undersiders were here."
Standing up, Armsmaster grunted sourly seconds later, "It seems likely that our anonymous source was, in fact, Tattletale. It would have been nice to get some further information on their abilities, although there will doubtless be some jokes on the subject once Assault learns who pointed us at the fight."
Smirking slightly, Miss Militia worked hard to repress any snorts of laughter at the put out tone of her superior. The fact that he recognised there was a joke in someone called Tattletale calling in information was progress, he didn't need to know she was laughing internally.
After that bit of levity though, it was a fairly tense twenty minutes while they waited the van to load Lung up. Both veterans worked through the area, one of them staying close to Lung at all times, working to fill in the gaps in knowledge based on the scene. In the end though they gave it up, too much of the damage was caused by either Lung or Hellhounds dogs to add much to their files on the Undersiders.
The brute ratings for Hellhounds dogs would need to be updated, but that was it.
Once the PRT team arrived Lung was quickly moved onto a stretcher, strapped down then bundled into the van. 10 minutes after arrival the area was silent and empty again.
A/N: Sorry again this took so long. The Lung section just did not want to work. I'm still not happy with it really. I had an idea for how I wanted her to beat Lung, and a reason to keep that confrontation in the new timeline, but it just felt really contrived the entire time. Parts of it got written several times, and I wanted to cover the PRT after action side of things, but eventually I decided to stick a nail in things & call it there. I'll be better off mentally starting a new chapter with those things, hopefully.