Chapter 1-Interlude

"Well, that was anti-climactic." Alec muttered as he crashed on the couch.

Brian, chuckled besides himself. Yes, tonight had been anti-climactic. The Undersiders had been discussing strategy for hours, trying to prepare for every scenario they could think off. The ABB was the second strongest gang in the city and Lung himself was probably the most powerful parahumans in the city. More importantly, he was a killer and Brian knew that he wouldn't have held back on them. For the first time since the group had come together, the Undersiders thought that their luck had run out. That at least one of them was going to end up maimed or killed by a teleporting assassin or a raging dragon-man. The group even toyed with the idea of turning themselves in to the Protectorate. Sure, they'd go to jail and lose their reputation, but prison's better than getting murdered.

In the end, they decided to go on the offensive, take the fight to the ABB and hope for the best. Lisa, AKA Tattletale, mentioned that that option was probably going to suck the least. Still, Brian, or Grue once he put on his mask, didn't feel that confident. Even in the best-case scenario, they'd be fighting for their lives with no back-up and probably no escape. Compared to the kind of jobs the Undersiders usually do, tonight was fixing to be a recipe for disaster.

But then Oni Lee ran away and Lung ended up gutted like a fish by a literal no-name cape. Either his group had the devil's own luck or Tattletale's somehow managed to warp reality in their favor. Both seemed equally terrifying.

Alec had turned on the TV and started watching some mindless action flick. Brian joined in. It would be good to unwind for a while. Just get their minds of off things. Lisa had disappeared in her room the moment she arrived. Odd, Brian though. She, of all people, deserved to let their hair down for a little while, especially after a day like this. Everything had turned out better than they could have ever dreamed: either the ABB was taken out of the action for good or they'd be too busy trying to hunt down the cape that beat up Lung to bother with the Undersiders. Then again, Lisa might have interpreted that as a case of 'too good to be true'. Now that he thought about it, she had been acting funny ever since meeting the rookie. When the movie was finished, he'd have a chat with Lisa, see what's up.

Brian's mind started to wander in the movie's umpteenth badly-choreographed fight scene. (Seriously, why does Alec even like this crap? Doesn't he get into enough scraps already?) The new cape was…an oddity, to say the least. Few capes were powerful enough to go toe-to-toe with Lung, even if they started fighting him before he transformed. A cape that has that kind of power on their first night out? Someone like that could be an absolute terror…or an opportunity. While Brian didn't have Lisa's thinker power, he knew enough about people to know that the girl had been as surprised by her beating Lung as the rest of them were. Judging by how she talked, Brian guessed that she hadn't been recruited by any of Brockton Bay's major powers yet. If the Undersiders could get their hands on such a powerhouse…

Screw the movie, he needed to talk to Lisa about this.

Lisa herself was talking to the phone, oblivious to his presence. Of all the Undersiders, she was the only one who really used her room as an actual workplace. Tattletale was, after all, the closest thing their group had to an intelligence officer and the only one who had a direct link to their boss. It was a responsibility that she took very seriously, even if she didn't act like it at times. Basically, it meant that one of the walls was covered in post-its with facts and events written on them, with differently colored strings connecting everything in ways that made sense to Tattletale but no one else. Brian had been here several times, but even he wouldn't bother trying to get into Lisa's head. Still, he came by every now and then to look over her notes. If nothing else, it gave him a good rundown of what happened in Brockton Bay.

"I'm telling you, it's a bad idea. She beat Lung, dammit, and my power says that she's a magnet for trouble. If she decides to turn on us, we're gonna get our asses kicked without question."

In the middle of the wall was a note labeled Lung's defeat. Made sense: the defeat of one of the biggest villains in town would change everything. From it was a spider-web of possible scenarios, most centered around the idea that the ABB would fall apart. Then again, that probably was inevitable anyway. Even if Lung somehow escaped prison, he no longer had the reputation of being invincible. Not after getting his ass kicked by a little girl, even if it had been one with powers.

E88 expanding into ABB territory. Should prevent this. Coordinate with boss if E88 turns too aggressive. The white supremacist Empire 88 may have been the largest and strongest gang in Brockton Bay, but the ABB tended to keep them in check. With the ABB falling apart, there was little to stop them from taking over the city. That would be bad for business, for everyone involved.

"I know my power isn't perfect, but we can't just take her in. It will blow up in our faces. I'm telling you: have someone watch her, just don't recruit her."

Protectorate might intervene; attack while others are stretched thin. Can defeat smaller gangs but not E88 with current numbers. May ask for help: New Wave, other cities, new capes? The Protectorate has been fighting a losing battle against the various gangs of the city for decades now. With Lung gone and everyone else too busy helping themselves to ABB territory? No way they'd stay out of the fight. If they play their cards right, they might end up taking back the Docks.

New factions? Faultline? Boxheads? Travellers? Unknowns. Could be here for Boss, could be here for themselves. Need more data. In a cape fight, knowing what the other guy can do is just as important as the fight itself. Being blindsided is probably the quickest way to lose one. Newcomers were rarely a welcome sight in the supervillain business.

Another note really surprised him: Merchants seen with tinker-made rifles. Trainwreck? Squealer? New tinker? Imports? Need more data. Tinker-made technology was often decades or even centuries ahead of anything produced by normals. It tended to be one hell of a force-multiplier. While the Merchants were little more than bottom-feeders and drug addicts, Brian didn't like the idea of them getting any stronger. Merchants with laser guns? While they'd never be able to defeat Empire 88 on their own, they were still one of the larger gangs in town and the Undersiders couldn't afford to ignore them. Especially if they found someone crazy enough to make them even more powerful.

"Thank you. I'll let the others know." Lisa said as she turned off her phone. "Oh, hi, Brian. Didn't know you were there. Been listening in?"

"I overheard. Thinking about recruiting the new girl?"

"Boss did. I had to talk him out of it." The way Lisa kept biting her lip…she was hiding something.

"You know that's not your choice to make, right? We're a team, we do this together."

"You'll thank me later. Trust me."

Brian hated it when she said that. Yes, he trusted Tattletale, but that didn't make him feel much better. "Then give me a reason to. Spit it out. Why are you so scared of that girl?"

"You mean apart from the fact that she singlehandedly beat a guy who picked a fight with Leviathan and won? Do you really need more?"

"Yes, I do."

Lisa gave him a dirty look, but answered anyway. "You're not letting go, aren't you? Great. Cliffnotes version? My power's off its meds."

Brian blinked for a second before muttering: "What."

"You know my power tells me things, right."

"Yes, and it's saved our asses more times than I can count."

"Cute. Now, what if I told you my power shat fucking bricks when I saw that girl."

"I'd have to ask you why."

Lisa sighed. "That girl…when I tried to use my power on her, it was like I stared at a hole in the universe. I…I don't know what she's doing, how she does it, or if she's even aware she's doing it in the first place. I don't even know if it's a power like what we have or if it's something else entirely or…"

"Lisa, you're rambling. And scaring the crap out of me." Near-perfect intel thanks to Tattletale is the one advantage the Undersiders always had over the other groups. If there's someone out there who could somehow mess with her abilities, it would put them at a huge disadvantage.

"Look, I don't know what's going on, but when I saw that girl, my power was practically screaming for me to get away from her as fast as possible. That's a big problem, especially if we're going to recruit her."

Brian started putting two and two together in his mind. "You can't vet her with your power."

"Exactly. I can't trust my power with her. What if she's a mole, and I can't see it coming? What if my power convinces me she's going to stab us in the back, even when she doesn't want to? What if…there're too many what ifs. We're walking a dangerous line. I need information and my power can't give it to me. I could read Lung, I could tell the Protectorate was coming, but that girl is a blind spot and I don't know why."

"Well, I guess that explains why you've been antsy all night. I suppose it's better not to recruit her, then. Last thing we need is somebody screwing with our heads at the worst possible time."

"My head." Lisa corrected.

"Hmm?"

"My head. You guys weren't affected. Just me, and only when I'm trying to figure out who she is or where she comes from."

"Right. You think she'll be trouble?"

"I'm counting on it. Girl that strong...someone's gonna pick her up by the end of the week."

"Your power telling you that?"

"Experience. I'm not helpless without my power, you know. I still have a working brain."

"Right." Brian couldn't help but frown. She was way too calm for his liking. "It's okay to have a freak-out. That girl just hard-countered your power."

"It's gonna happen to all of us, eventually. We all run into that one person we can't beat sooner or later. Bursting into tears isn't gonna help." Lisa yawned. It had been a long day for everyone. "Besides, it's only one person. It's not like there's more of her running around…"

"Don't tempt fate." Brian said. "But we can worry about that later."

"Yeah…later."