A.N. General disclaimer for all things copyright. I do not own the characters, setting, or lore utilized in the creation of this piece. My work is inspired by the creative thought of the original authors
Shadow Stalker sighed beneath her mask, weary with fatigue from the night's events.
It was largest gang movement in recent months, and it had come without warning. Sure, a few tips had suggested that the ABB were plotting something, but nothing more than any other group was planning. Moving drugs, selling weapons, cleaning money; the conventional movements of criminal groups were obvious and predicable.
Tonight had been anything but predicable.
She sighed again, blinking away her tiredness as if it were an adversary to defeat. She checked a nearby wall clock, a cheap thing with neon green numbers that fell as panels.
6:52AM
Great. It was morning already. She probably wasn't going to be getting any sleep till noon, at the earliest.
Resisting the urge to rest in a nearby chair the young heroine took in the room she found herself in, not for the first time wishing it resembled her bedroom. She paced, partially to distract her but mostly to keep herself awake.
It was a conference room, evidenced by the long table in the middle of the space, itself flanked by nearly a dozen chairs on either side facing inward. A pair of double doors were to one side, metal panels with the PRT logo imprinted upon their faces. On the far wall was a screen, easily twice her height, where presentations could be displayed. In a corner sat a coffee machine and its complements, a few bagels and day old snack food lingering from the previous meeting.
Shadow Stalker huffed, the sound coming out like a growl through the mask.
Why was she even here in the first place? Wasn't there something more important that she could be doing?
"Because we need to debrief about last night."
The heroine narrowed hidden eyes in irritation. She wasn't alone.
The girl turned toward the table, taking in the rest of her 'team'. Aegis, the young man who had spoken, sat in chair, his costume a red skintight suit with a silver-white trim and a stylized shield emblem on his chest. His helmet, a full piece the encompassed his whole head, was turned in her direction. His costume looked dirty, dark smudges, like dirt or ash, streaked his body here and there.
He was the leader of the Brockton Bay Wards, a position that fit the team, his smooth personality motivating the group.
Shadow Stalker snorted at the thought. He was just as weak as the rest of the herd, relying on his powers to keep him alive after what would be normally fatal wounding.
If he were stronger he wouldn't get hit in the first place.
Further down the table sat another teenager, slightly younger, in a suit of armor that looked like something out of a sci-fi movie. Stylized as a suit of full plated medieval knight armor, the colors silver and gunmetal gray, the metal interwoven with lights and electronics. It was slimmed down at the joints, allowing for a wide range of movement for the heavy suit of power armor. The armor on his right arm looked scorched, the metal burned black, as if he had reached into a furnace.
The ward was looking between the other two teenagers, his helmet shifting easily from side to side.
Shadow Stalker narrowed her eyes behind her mask.
If Gallant was reading her again then so help-
Her thoughts were interrupted by the doors opening, a tall man moving swiftly inside, gloved hands closing the doorway with barely a pause. He cut a figure, clothed in a suit of midnight-blue power armor with silver highlights. His helmet was styled in the same pattern, a dark visor cutting across his brow with an opening cut away for his lower face and jaw, his short beard cropped and trimmed. In his right hand rested a futuristic looking halberd, a long weapon that was slim, compact, and dangerously sharp.
This was Armsmaster, leader of the Brockton Bay Protectorate, and their boss.
He took in the teenagers, a small pause leaving the room in suspense, before turning to Aegis, the smallest tilt of his helmet noting the shift in his attention.
"Where is Kid Win?"
Aegis shrugged, an easy motion, replying just as casually, "He's helping the firefighters with search and rescue."
The man hummed to himself, fingers rapping against the neck of the halberd in one quick flurry.
An instant later he started forward, toward the screen, his words echoing out in a measure pace, "That is acceptable. He, along with the other Wards, will be debriefed at a later time."
Aegis visibly cringed while Shadow Stalker smirked as she approached the table. She struggled to stifle a chuckle as she pictured the other Wards, worn out and half asleep, sitting in these chairs and wishing they were anywhere else.
Her attention was drawn back to the situation as the screen flickered to life, a blue loading screen whirring though some process before flashing briefly. By the time she finished taking her seat a series of videos had been brought up, each depicting a singular event from half a dozen separate angles. The event that had taken up the majority of their night.
"Today we will be discussing the events of the night of April 11th, 2011. Namely, the ABB operation that took place in the Docks and the fire that erupted out of said operation."
Armsmaster's voice carried as he motioned toward the screen, his halberd tilting, aligning itself to an aerial feed. Ruined buildings, brick burned black and wood charred to cinder, stood together, the structures still smoldering.
Shadow Stalker shook slightly, remembering the feeling of the fire and heat. Moving through that area had been hard, dangerous for anyone without some way to avoid the flames.
She glanced at Gallant's arm, noting the damaged armor, plates burned black.
God, that must have hurt.
"The action plan for this debriefing will be the following: discuss the ABB operation, explore the events surrounding Lung, and review the response of PRT/Protectorate elements."
Armsmaster stopped, the screen flashing to a number of ABB gang members in a holding cell in what had to be BBPD holding cell. The asians looked worn out, their bodies slumped and resting, some in clothes stained with blood.
The hero continued, his attention facing the Wards, "At approximately 12:26am, the PRT received intelligence that suggested ABB movement in or around the Docks area. No target or goal was given for the operation, but it heavily implied the involvement of cape related combat. At 2:14am, EMS and the emergency personnel were informed of several encounters between ABB members and civilians. Crimes conducted by the ABB were largely misdemeanor, yet several severe felonies were committed. Regardless, the majority of the ABB involved in the operation were captured and processed."
His head turned toward Aegis before he asked, "Explain what your team was doing during this time."
The young man in red leaned back a bit, crossing his arms in a casual manner, before speaking, "Gallant and I were on patrol Downtown while Kid Win and Shadow Stalker were moving along the coast. Vista was sitting in with Miss Militia on comms and Browbeat was on standby with Clockblocker."
He leaned forward a bit and continued, "When the action started Gallant and I were redirected toward the Docks. We applied for the assistance of New Wave but they decided to sit it out, figuring the E88 were making some kind of move. Kid Win and Shadow Stalker were closest to the fighting so they were immediately directed to engage and suppress."
Armsmaster turned to the girl in question, his words quick and hard, "What occurred between your arrival on scene and the announcement of the recall?
Shadow Stalker frowned. She hated it when he looked at her like that. Sure, his eyes were hidden, but only weaklings needed something so plain and open to really read someone. His stance, hard and firm, his hand just oh-so-casually holding his weapon. The slight grimace on his face, a subtle downward turning on the lips that she didn't think he even noticed.
He had an expectation of her. They all did. She had walked into a mass of gang activity, too much for any one hero, much less two Wards, to handle alone. He expected a slip up, a lack of restraint, a little brutality for those inflicting so much more.
Her eyes narrowed, fist clenching under the table.
They were all just prey! Why couldn't they understand that!?
She spoke, her voice measured, "Kid Win and I walked into a madhouse. There were ABB everywhere, running down civilians and breaking into homes. The first few we captured kept shouting gibberish, resisting to the point where we had to incapacitate them. After ten minutes we decided to split up to cover more ground. He flew northwest, toward the train yard, while I kept moving west."
The halberd wielding hero stared at her for a moment before nodding, speaking as she left off, "What did you find as you moved through the conflict?"
The girl sighed, her tiredness weighing heavily, and spoke, "What I just described and what you already said: a bunch of thugs roughing people up. Some where beaten, others just mugged. It was all fairly standard, considering how they work. It wasn't till I got into the slums that I started to find corpses."
She could see Gallant wince from the term, Aegis just shifting uncomfortably. She ignored them, focusing on her story, "There were a pair of women, young, who had called in a possible sexual assault. I rerouted to their position via the BBPD. When I got there they were sitting on a nearby stoop, shaking and talking quietly. Took a minute to check them out but they were fine, just shook up. They pointed me into an alleyway, which is were I found their assailant."
Just as she finished her sentence the feeds flickered, their forms melding into a single image, a picture. A single body, dressed in ABB colors, lay in what looked to be a dirty, ill kept alleyway. His body was rended, the torso torn from his lower half near the waist, a pair of legs laying a few meters away in a crumbled pile. One arm, his right, was missing just below the elbow, it having fallen not far from the point of view of the camera, a small knife held loosely in the palm.
There was a silence in the room, a quiet that was smothering. Gallant had turned briefly toward the image and then away, while Aegis looked dispassionately upon the body, his body language displaying an intense boredom.
Shadow Stalker let out a small grin.
It was a brutal killing, something that only befit a crime equally brutal. He had died in severe pain, his insides becoming outside, his nerves snapping as synapses desperately clung to life. His body had been cold when she found it, but those last moments of his must have been full of so much life, right up until the end.
An end carved out by no hero, but something else entirely.
Armsmaster's voice carried across the room, refocusing the Wards, "Ho Chen. Age 26, five foot six inches, and 146lbs. He was arrested several times for possession, but got time off for good behavior. He joined the ABB recently, having bloodied himself against the E88. His crimes include everything from armed robbery to attempted murder. This would make his first attempt at sexual assault, armed with a knife no less.
He paused, leaving a moment for the teenagers to take in his words, before he continued, "Clearly, he won't be trying again."
Instantly a second image appeared, falling in alongside that of Chen. It was clearly taken with a phone, the image slightly distorted from the setting. Another dank alleyway lay as the backdrop, this time filled with trash and discarded boxes. The main subject of the image looked to be a girl, but it was hard to tell. She was tall and slight, a thin build that lay hidden under a set of armor that made her look like some kind of witch hunter. Dark leather with bonded metal over the gauntlets and boots, a long coat that draped down to her shins, and a cap with rear swept protrusions that looked like wings. At her hip, just slightly visible, rested some kind of metal object, a cane. She was walking away from the picture, into the night of horror and chaos.
The hero's voice carried over the room as the teenagers took in the image, "Several eyewitness accounts corroborate the presence of an unknown cape moving through the zone of operation. This cape performed limited participation in the evacuation of civilians and provided medical aid to those who needed it. However, this pales in comparison to her participation against the ABB threat."
Several images blinked into existence, pictures of the cape fighting and moving. One image, set upward on what had to be a store's wall, showed the girl squaring off against five gang members. Another, toward the bottom of the screen, was a still caught in the midst of a battle, her cane cutting a furrow across a man's chest, blood whipping toward the camera.
The center image was one that turned the stomachs of every Ward in the room. Dozens of bodies, each lying down in an alleyway in a growing pool of blood. A few were scrunched up, defensively resorting to the fetal position, while many more lay stricken, their bodies missing arms and hands. In the middle of it all stood the cape, covered in blood that seemed to drip from her like water, her cane resting comfortably in her right hand, like a sword.
Shadow Stalker's eyes grew wide, her breath catching as she looked upon the work of such a dark force. The gang members weren't just beaten into submission like so many who encountered the heroes. No, these men were broken, most permanently so. Some would die, but many would never be the same, always plagued by lingering injuries.
She smiled behind her mask, a small thing that rarely happened while part of the Wards.
Maybe the girl really could save the city. She certainly had the stomach for it.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the hero leading the group, the man speaking, "So far the number of casualties left behind in this new cape's wake has surpassed what we collectively performed during the entire night. Most were non-lethal take downs, focusing on joints and disabling blows. Upon examination, the victims of her assault were left with key joints that would require replacing and organs nearly crushed, evidence that heavily suggests some measure of Brute rating. Her weapon, something akin to a cane blade but without the sheath, was employed but in measured amounts, her tactics favoring crippling strikes and wide lacerations. The cane's secondary function, a whip, was employed several times against ABB members with lethal weapons, firearms mostly. To this the cape's response was severe, employing lethal strikes, often removing the offenders weapon via their arm."
He paused before continuing, "Make no misunderstanding, while the cape practiced some measure of limited force, it was based off of her own range of damage. The majority of these men, when captured, had to be taken to the hospital, where they will being undergoing treatments for months. Panacea has been called to heal the many members who EMS personnel arrived on time to save, hopefully giving us the ability to question them further about tonight's events."
He paused, bringing up the first picture of the cape, before turning to each Ward in turn, "Before we continue I will tell you that, as of now, the PRT has put into effect a limited contact policy for this cape. She is classified as highly dangerous and, should you encounter her, must be avoided at all costs. We do not know the full range of this cape's powers yet, though they appear to focus mainly on melee combat. We will be working out a rating for her as more information develops, but bear in mind the level of carnage that she is capable of. Do not take any unnecessary risks."
He waited for each Ward to nod in acknowledgment before turning to Shadow Stalker, "You are the only Protectorate member to have encountered this cape. Go over what happened when you made contact."
Shadow Stalker felt the eyes of her teammates on her as grated her teeth. Like he wasn't already reading the transcript from her earlier report now.
Fucking Tinkers.
She spoke, her words slightly flippant, "She wasn't much. Yeah, the pictures make her look like a bad ass, but she looked tired. Not physically, but mentally. I tracked her fleeing the scene of the fire just about twenty minutes after Lung left."
There was a moment, then Armsmaster nodded, responding with, "What did she say when you spoke with her?"
The girl frowned, slightly wary of the hero. That girl, for all the good she could do for the city, was in some deep shit now that the Protectorate caught wind of her. Sure, she wanted to hunt prey and clean out the filth, but she wasn't going to be able to do that with the hero groups breathing down her neck. The cape had made a pretty clear point in that they were both hunters and that there was prey everywhere, so it would be stupid not to share a bit.
Still, that didn't mean she had to stick her neck out for the girl.
"She told me that she wanted to clean up the city, that how we do things weren't actually fixing the gang problems. She said that she was going to target the Parahumans, like Lung or Kaiser, and that with them gone the gangs wouldn't have a backbone to fight with."
Armsmaster hummed, fingers tapping against the halberd. Gallant spoke, his voice echoing out through this helmet, "So, how does she expect to do this then? Targeting the gangs is only going to cause more civil discord and warfare, leaving people hurting and injured. Besides, it'll turn the PRT building into a bigger target, since she'll have to dump the villains off here."
Shadow Stalker smiled as she responded.
"Not if she kills them."
The silence was deafening, interrupted only a small 'tick' as the clock turned over.
Aegis spoke, his relaxed figure coming undone as he leaned forward on the table, "So, let me get this right. You saying this cape is dead set on wiping out the major gang villains to stop the warfare, going so far as to kill them to keep them down. If that's true then there's going to be a major power vacuum, one that she could take if she wanted to."
He turned to the tall hero, waving a hand in his direction as if asking for something, "Do we have any idea on what her beef with the gangs are?"
Armsmaster shook his head, a slight movement, prompting Aegis to continue, his arms coming to rest behind his head as he leaned back, "Then maybe that's just it. She's trying to make a power play."
The hero hummed again as the images of the fire blinked back onto the screen. He spoke, "We'll leave speculation to the Thinkers. For now, we have classified her as a villain, despite her assistance to the civilians. Her wanton use of lethal force cannot be ignored, nor can the trail of maimed and broken survivors. We need to learn more about her intentions, especially if they have to do with the gang leaders."
He motioned towards the screen, a video of the raging inferno from hours earlier playing, before continuing, "For now, we can surmise that there was some truth to her words. Witnesses and video footage does place her path of travel headed directly into the heart of the fire, where Lung was found. Shadow Stalker's report reveals that the cape did fight Lung, though how she escaped virtually unscathed is a mystery. Her intent of unfinished business all but assures that there will be a repeat occurrence sometime in the future, which we'll have to be ready for."
The man turned to Aegis and asked, "Where was your team during the general recall?"
The cape straightened a bit, speaking plainly, "Well, I called for everyone to pull back south and set up a few blocks from the inferno. Making it to the rally point was a no go, since we would've had to run either through the fire, and Lung, or maneuver around the blocks that were already lit. Because of that, I sent everyone to start evacuating people from their homes closest to the fire and sent Kid Win to help the firefighters that were already arriving."
He made a slight motion to Gallant, noting the scorched arm, "We had a situation come up where an apartment got lit up. Gallant had to pull out a family that was pinned under some debris, which left him wounded. I called in the situation to central and was told that everyone was on standby while Lung burned his anger out. After that, we received orders to set up a small section of the perimeter that went up around the fires."
He motioned in Shadow Stalker's direction briefly, saying, "I told her and Kid Win to keep an eye out via the rooftops and the sky for whatever could come out way. Gallant was still suffering from his burns so I stayed with him on ground level. Clockblocker and Browbeat showed up not long after Lung cleared out."
Armsmaster nodded, motioning toward the images of the fire. He spoke, words that seemed to echo everyone's feelings on the matter, "This is nothing short of a tragedy. Dozens lost their lives in the fires, gang member and civilian alike, while hundreds have now been made homeless, their homes and possessions gone. Lung has rarely displayed this level of destruction, relying mostly on his reputation and strength to end fights quickly or prevent them entirely. If this new mystery cape did hunt down Lung in the middle of his operation and was capable of pushing him to this degree, then it shows that she should not be underestimated. Likewise, if she did escape with so little damage, it will tarnish Lung's reputation, a slight he will not ignore. It is entirely likely that he will become more aggressive in the coming days, so you will need to be prepared."
There was a finality in his words, a solemn end point that highlighted just how wrong the night went for everyone involved. The mood grew dim as each Ward nodded, one at a time, agreeing to do what needed to be done.
Shadow Stalker's smile grew just a little bit more.