When the PRT arrived I discovered that when it came to the authorities. There was a significant difference between a Parahuman trying to turn over weapons, and one trying to turn over a bound up, blood covered half naked guy.
Namely they were a lot more comfortable and eager when I handed over the latter.
I gave a basic statement, encountered two villains kicking the crap out of each other with explosives and bullets, kicked the crap out of them, one got away, the other guy I managed to tie up. I was a bit worried they'd ask for in depth details, mostly because I was fucking exhausted at that point but they apparently accepted a brief debrief.
Heheheh, brief debrief. Gods I needed sleep, if I was starting to laugh at humor as bad as mine.
After that I wandered off a bit, my anima died down almost immediately after I stopped actively flaring it so getting to relative cover was actually kind of easy.
Then I put on another disguise, this time just being lazy and mimicking a character I knew from a videogame. Average height, average build, blue eyes, white hoody, hood pulled up, black leather jacket pulled up over my head, blue jeans, work shoes. Not a direct copy mind you, but a good enough pattern to use and one that seemed oddly fitting for the local area.
That done I slunk away and called up Tattletale again. There was no one to listen in now, so I could finally get some details.
She answered near immediately, "You're clear?"
"Near as I can tell," I said in an award winning Barry Pepper impersonation.
"And you're disguised, good. I need that phone, where's a good spot to pick you up?" she asked.
I grunted at the tone, she was still ordering me around, "I'm half a block North from where you got the PRT to pick up Alabaster, black jacket and white hood in jeans- You mind answering some questions?" I asked her letting some of the irritation bleed through.
"Not at all," she replied in a tone that was polite as it was irritating.
"Right, how did this mess happen? Did you seriously tell Kaiser everything?" I questioned.
"No!" she said at once defensively, "Of course not, well not directly... I may have nudged him in the right direction. Given a few access codes to that supercomputer he has, well had in the bunker you showed me."
Wait if she only knew about the bunker when I pointed it out, how did she... Whatever, probably used some variant of whatever logic trick she used to get her power to spit out computer passwords on demand. That was exactly the sort of thing it did after all, get fine details out of limited data.
I moved on, "Nudged how?"
"I told him about his power, hinted at some theories," she explained. "Indirectly of course. I didn't actually contact the head of the empire itself! I just... told someone who knew someone," she commented sounding almost bitterly amused about it. "Things kind of spiraled."
"Right out of your control," I sighed.
"You told me we had to act fast," She reminded me. "You were the one rushing everything!" It was more defensive then blaming.
My aggravation flared regardless as the age old stupid monkey instincts told me to 'win' rather then 'learn' as the conversation threatened to turn into an argument.
Fortunately I also knew full well how stupid those impulses were, so I let out a grunt of agreement rather then try to pass the blame back.
"Anyway," she said calming down a bit, "Anyway, Kaiser found something big. Something that spooked him bad, so he attacked on all fronts. He also found out that Coil had his hands in Fortress Construction. Though maybe he just figured that out from the bunker. I mean how else could have gotten that crazy James Bond Villain base built?" she questioned. "So Kaiser went after that to get his attention, arranged a low profile assassination? Anyway he also started hitting up Coil's direct holdings, forcing him to make a split. I think his plan was to just keep distracting him, information overload. It's worked on Thinkers in the past. He just made too many problems for Coil to focus on any one of them."
"Apparently that worked," I grunted, a bit to tired for anything else.
"Really well. Fortress Construction basically just... stalled out halfway though things when Coil stopped directing things, so he managed to buy that out. I don't think he got much of his underground resources. The fight at the bunker got... messy," she elaborated.
"Lung," I responded.
"That I actually have no clue about, well no, I mean obviously Lung keeps track of Kaiser's movements just like Kaiser tracks his. Both want to own the city, and their main opposition outside of the protectorate is each other," she elaborated.
"So... he saw Kaiser was going after Coil and decided to... what jump in on his own? Hit Kaiser's enforcers while they were away from home and vulnerable?" I questioned.
"It might have just been to deny The Empire resources. Coil had a lot of shiny and expensive toys down there, and pretty much all of them were wrecked by him showing up," The Thinker estimated.
I blinked, huh, didn't consider that...
I shook my head, "Right. Okay thanks for the explanation. You know if Lung took out the Empire mooks inside?" I questioned.
"I can't pull information from nowhere," she responded. "Give me a bit."
"It's not a priority just yet," I assured, "When can you guys pick me up?"
A van pulled up beside us, and Brian looked at me over from the drivers seat, he looked... well he looked like how my night had been doing.
Well that was convenient.