February 8, 2011 - Tuesday
Late Morning
Taylor considered her two opponents. Assault's power was a good answer to her strength, but it wouldn't do much against Jigsaw's stun gun or any gold widows that got to him. Keeping him in place long enough to take advantage of that would be difficult with Velocity interfering, however. She glanced to the sides. Webweaver was gathering another swarm, encircling the battleground. Taylor's first guess was confirmed through the earbuds.
"They can both outrun my bugs. Hold on until I have enough to come from all directions."
Realizing that that plan could fall apart if the heroes caught on too early, Taylor raised her fists back into the fighting stance Dynamic had drilled into her and poked Velocity with her power. Assault was angry enough on his own after noticing Battery's unconscious form. He started walking towards her, while Velocity blurred forward, dodged around Taylor's attempt to hit him, and started hammering her back with his fists.
To no effect whatsoever. Between Taylor's armor, the two heroes' anger, Vortex and Dynamic trying to keep themselves angry and conscious while incapacitated (Lim had pointed that possibility out during one of the planning sessions), and his own power he simply didn't have the strength to move her even a hair's width. She backhanded him, he dodged backwards and stopped for a moment, shaking his head. Taylor felt his anger drain a bit, but before she could push him further with her power, his mistake caught up to him.
Vortex's field came into being around him, and even as he tried to outrun its formation he didn't quite get out in time. As he tripped, the field crawled over to him, dragging the hero in. He seemed to realize he couldn't break out a few seconds later.
Taylor looked towards Vortex. She was on her elbows and knees, struggling - and failing - to stand up, but when her mask met Taylor's eyes, she nodded and motioned her head towards Webweaver's swarm. The nearest portion of it broke off and headed towards the captured hero.
Taylor took that as her cue to help Jigsaw with Assault. The teenager had avoided getting pinned down by Assault for now, but he was visibly tiring. He'd slip up soon. As Taylor ran forwards to help, exactly that happened. The hero punched Jigsaw in the ribs and grabbed for his arm, but before he could complete the takedown, Jigsaw disappeared. As Assault looked around, confused, Taylor realized two things.
One, Jigsaw must have taken Webweaver's suggestion to leave a piece of him behind with the truck.
Two, one of his fingertips was on the ground in front of Assault. Taylor took the chance for what it was, and went after the hero.
Dodging his swing aimed at her head hadn't been difficult. She was fast, and he was angry enough that it cost him precision. When she followed with a kick to the ribs, his power negated most of the blow, and he grabbed her leg before she could pull it back. Webweaver caught on to the plan.
"Jigsaw, now!"
Her teammate reappeared from where his fingertip was and leapt at Assault, stun gun at the ready. The hero went down, and the bugs went in, Jigsaw giving him another jolt just to be certain.
"Seems we've pulled it off. Jigsaw, drive the truck in. Eris, help Vortex up."
Taylor did as instructed, and as Vortex stood up, she dismissed her field from around a now-unconscious Velocity. Putting an arm around Taylor's shoulder for support, she whispered in a pained voice.
"Fuck, my ribs hurt. It was stupid of me to leave her standing like that, should've tried to knock her around a bit so she can't charge up..."
As Taylor nodded, she heard a groan coming from where Dynamic was. Webweaver was kneeling next to him, hands around his dislocated shoulder.
"It's fine, it's fine. The fall didn't do you any favors, but I think I set it back in enough to last for the trip back to base. You'll probably have to avoid using that arm for a couple of weeks, but it'll work again, eventually. Now, up you go, we have to get moving."
Webweaver helped Dynamic up as Jigsaw drove the truck into the depot. Their driver came out of wherever he'd taken cover when the fight started.
"The job still on?"
"Change of plans," Webweaver answered. "Now that the heroes know about the cargo, it's too likely to be caught on the way out of the city. We're going to hold on to it for a little while while we figure out what to do next." Taylor felt an undercurrent of anger coming from Webweaver.
"I won't be able to drive if you..." The driver trailed off when Webweaver repeated her 'glare with an entirely covered face' act for the second time in as many hours.
"Listen to me very carefully now. Your ineptitude got two of my subordinates injured and completely derailed the operation. The only reason I'm letting you walk away from this without setting my swarm on you is because you didn't tell the heroes anything useful while I was listening. You will give us the getaway car's keys, then walk away and forget you were ever offered the job. Remember I can reconsider my opinion. Do I make myself clear?"
Every bug in sight buzzed along with her. The man shrank back, getting more terrified with every sentence and every path he found blocked by bugs. Taylor noted that the anger once coming from Webweaver was now flowing through every last insect in a block radius, tiny motes of fury she wouldn't have noticed individually if the largest swarms hadn't caught her attention.
"Y-Yes, ma'am! I'll - I'll keep quiet!" the man stuttered out, fumbling the keys and dropping them on the ground before appearing to spontaneously manifest a Mover ability when the swarm cleared a path for him to exit through.
Jigsaw got out of the truck and walked over.
"So what's the new plan, boss?"
"Take the truck to one of the garages near our warehouse. I'm dropping Dynamic off at his place - would you mind staying there for a day or two? I think I set his arm back in properly, but it would be better for him to not be on his own for a couple of days, just in case there's complications."
"Sure thing, boss."
"And take what's left of his gun with you. No need to let Armsmaster poke at it. Eris, Vortex, I'll drop you off at your places along the way to Dynamic's."
They drove off, Taylor and Jennifer hiding their costumes under heavy jackets, Vortex laying down across the back seat. Jennifer's mouth was moving in soundless curses for most of the trip.
~o~o~o~
February 12th, 2011 - Saturday
Afternoon
"Managed to deal with the cargo. Meeting at 5 PM - Vortex will pick you up for it."
One hour of uneventful waiting later, Taylor was getting in the car with Cameron.
"Heya, Taylor. Sounds like we're finally getting paid, huh?"
"We'd better be. We've sure gone through enough trouble for it..." Taylor winced. "Sorry, that was insensitive. You guys were the ones that got hit, even if I'm the Brute..."
Cameron started the engine while waving her off.
"Don't worry about me, really. I got my share of bruises, but nothing that won't heal in a week or so, the pay will be worth the pain. Can't speak for Dynamic, though..."
"Yeah. How do you think Jen got the cargo to Blueblood, anyway?"
"Don't know. We'll have to ask her, won't we?"
As they drove out into the street, Cameron stopped talking to focus on the driving. When they arrived to the warehouse, they found themselves the last ones in. Jennifer greeted them, as usual.
"Right on time, girls. Come on, there's things we need to cover."
"Oh, there sure are. We did get paid for the job, right?"
Jennifer chuckled and turned the laptop on the table around. The screen proudly displayed an email.
From: Blueblood
Subject: Tinkertech Delivery
The shipment arrived this morning. While the delayed delivery and scaring the original driver I'd contracted into leaving the city is not appreciated, I understand complications happen in our line of work. The payment has been transferred to your account to distribute to your team as you see fit, minus the costs of removing the accessories and repainting the equipment to no longer look like Nerf guns.
Everybody cracked up within a few seconds of each other. Jennifer spoke again once the chuckling died down.
"I'll take the hit for that last one. Imagining the face he made when he saw the shipment is worth it. I've wired your shares to your bank accounts. Here's the details for your own, Taylor, including contact information. The Number Man does good work, if you can afford his services." Jen handed Taylor a slip of paper.
"Now, to answer the question you should have asked first, Cameron," she continued in a false chiding tone, "Dynamic's arm seems fine. We won't have him on jobs for a few weeks, though, so we'll have to lay low. We'd normally do that anyway, considering an Endbringer attack is due in the next month, but now it's more than just a courtesy. Last thing to discuss - Coil. We suspected he's a Thinker already, and getting information straight from the PRT subtly can be done by any number of Thinker powers, but the fact we got ambushed by heroes is bad news. He'd have had to arrange an anonymous tip-off with little information or advance warning in a way that the heroes wouldn't get suspicious of a trap - at minimum, he has someone loyal to him high up in the ranks."
"Isn't that the PRT's problem, not ours?" Lim asked.
"A Thinker with an unknown power and spies everywhere will be everyone's problem soon enough. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if he has moles in the other gangs - any of them that have henchmen. Which, unfortunately, will mean we'll have to hold off on recruiting our own until he's out of the picture - if we start recruiting now, spies will slip through."
"If he's employing ordinary mercenaries, he might have parahumans in his pocket too," Martin pointed out from the seat he'd taken.
"You're right. I want everyone looking into local villains, everyone who isn't one of the ABB or the Empire. See if anyone's been timing their crimes to match Coil's, didn't get into fights with him, or is a mercenary."
Taylor groaned. Who thought villains still get homework?
"Lim, Martin, Cameron, you can go. Taylor, are you up for a spar?"
As the other three filtered out, Taylor raised an eyebrow.
"Are you sure about that? Even if you're not angry, I'm not exactly at baseline human anymore..."
"Nor can I count on whoever gets past you and my bugs to be such. But your own strength is what I'm actually concerned about here."
"Hm?"
"You're holding back to not hurt people too much, and that's a good thing, but you never had to hide you're a cape since you were outed from the get-go. However, now that you've changed your look, your secret identity is a concern again. Brockton Bay's a dangerous enough place that someone might pick a fight with you out of costume, and it wouldn't do to blow your cover over some random thug."
Taylor nodded at that, and they both went to one of the rooms they'd converted to the women's changing room to grab the sports clothing kept there before moving on to the sparring room. Taylor held back for the first bout, and got tripped by Jennifer.
"You're holding back a little too much, I think. You can probably pull off more than that without stretching believability. You're tall for your age, and you've put on a little muscle since you've joined us. Hm, we didn't really test if you can still build muscle from exercising, did we? Some Brutes are unlucky like that, while some get muscular even without exercising. Maybe I'll have you come in early for the next training session."
They practiced for another hour or so until Jennifer was too tired to put up a real fight. Taylor had won most of the fights, even the ones where Webweaver didn't call her out for using too much of her strength.