Chapter 4-4

In moments, the darkness had spread and the street fell off my radar. Frustrating for me, but not half as bad as it probably was for the Wards. I could only imagine what it must have looked like for them; staring at a massive wall of black, waiting for the monsters to jump out. Part of me was glad to be up here, out of the way. Another wanted to jump in and help.

No. I'll stick to the plan. No crazy heroics. Last time I did that, I nearly got myself killed. Not making that same mistake again.

Well, at least we still had our bait-and-switch to even the odds.

"Something's wrong." Tattletale said suddenly.

"What?"

"Did anyone else thought Aegis sounded a little off?" Oh. Oh no. "Bitch, go grab Clockblocker. Circus, you're on Aegis." This was bad. Really fucking bad.

"Tattletale, what the hell?"

"They switched costumes, Grue."

Grue stayed silent after that. Fuck, fuck, fuck. "Guys, they figured it out." I warned.

"What?" Aegis cried out. Clockblocker swore something under his breath.

"They know you switched costumes, Aegis."

"How…"

The sound of three growling dogs suddenly disappeared into the darkness. "And they're coming. Right now." Hellhound and her dogs reappeared on the other side, heading straight for Clockblocker. Wait, didn't she…

Before I could finish that thought, the dogs changed course towards Aegis. The lead dog leapt and caught him before he could fly away. I winced at the sound of snapping bones. Aegis and the dog slammed into the ground. A second later, he was up again and punched the dog in the nose.

Clockblocker ran to the boss' defense and took a fireball in the chest. I heard Circus on the edge of the darkness, laughing. She disappeared again when Gallant and Kid Win opened fire. Kid Win turned to shoot the dogs off of Aegis, but he missed. Then he started to spaz and fell of his hoverboard. Space warped, shortening the distance between him and the ground. How did he fall, anyway? A Master power? Regent?

Fuck, we were getting our asses kicked, weren't we?

Doesn't matter. I had a job to do. I'd just have to trust the Wards that they'd handle their part. Aegis told me to start picking off Undersiders once they were engaged and I wasn't going to do that by sitting on the roof, doing nothing. But first: Glory Girl. "Okay, the bad guys are tied up."

"Where're the hostages?" The heroine immediately snapped back. I took a deep breath. The hostages would have to be extracted quietly. The Undersiders couldn't know what was happening until it was too late. Luckily, I had much of the building figured out and figured out a fool-proof plan to get everyone to safety.

"South side of the lobby. If you go through this…" Before I could finish, Glory Girl blasted off and flew through a window. "…There was a door…"

Just when I thought I had a fool-proof plan, the universe makes me put up with a bigger fool. Seriously, fuck you, universe.

I went inside, closing my eyes so I could better focus on the sounds around me. Hellhound, Circus, and Regent were still outside, popping in and out of the darkness. Aegis was caught between two growling dogs using him like the rope in a tug-of-war game. I didn't like that mental image at all.

Clockblocker was fighting with Circus, the clown always staying just out of reach. She really was that fast, wasn't she? Superreflexes. Damn. Suddenly, space warped and the two were brought a little closer together. Just close enough to touch, if Circus hadn't set Clockblocker on fire. Clockblocker had to freeze his costume to keep himself from being roasted. One of our heavy hitters, down for the next ten minutes. Fuck.

A third dog hurled itself at Vista who was desperately trying to keep the monster away from her. Browbeat came to her rescue, sending the dog flying with a telekinetic punch. The animal hit the ground with a crash before getting back up and charging. Hellhound whistled and the dog changed course. Both vanished into the darkness again.

Fuck. I don't know how things normally went with the Wards, but it sounded like Team Good Guys was losing badly. No. Focus. I had a job to do. Grue or Tattletale. The Wards would handle the others.

Grue was nowhere to be found. If he was hiding in the darkness, I probably wouldn't be able to catch him unless I bumped into him by accident. That left Tattletale. The villainess had run into one of the offices on the first floor. Well, there's my target.

How was I going to handle this? I didn't know as much about Tattletale as I'd like. I knew she was probably dangerous and that she had to be stopped, but other than that… My current situation was the complete opposite of last Sunday. Lung may have been powerful, but he was a known element. Everyone knew what his power more or less did and what he was capable off. On top of that, he fought like an animal: wild, raging, throwing fire around and hoping he'd hit something. A Thinker like Tattletale was a completely different kind of threat.

She was smart. Probably smarter than me. In a fair fight, this would have been a foregone conclusion, but I knew for a fact that she wasn't going to fight fair. I wouldn't have either, if I only had a Thinker power to work with. Assuming, of course, that that was her only power. I had more than one. So did Aegis, Gallant, and Glory Girl. Who's to say that Tattletale didn't have an ace up her sleeve? I'd never actually seen her fight. All I really knew about her power is that it lets her figure things out somehow. She knew what I did to Lung. She knew that Aegis and Clockblocker switched costumes. Does that also mean that she'd know my weaknesses? A kink in my armor that she could exploit? Worse still, I couldn't go all-out against her like I did with Lung. As a Ward, my options were limited. PR mattered and carrying a beaten-up teenager out of the bank would reflect badly on me and the Wards as a whole.

Rushing in and disabling her with a taser seemed like a good idea at first, until I realized that I wouldn't be able to back out if she surprised me. No, I should be careful. Tattletale wouldn't have lasted this long in Brockton Bay if she wasn't very good at what she did. The last thing I needed is a well-placed shiv or some sort of bomb. It's my first official Wards mission. Dad would kill me if I died here.

Tattletale was in an office, rapidly typing away at a computer. As far as I could tell, there was only one way in: the front door. No side doors I could enter. No skylight either. The windows weren't much help: if I went that way, I'd be vulnerable to the fighting outside. I could probably make a hole somewhere, but that would probably lead to a hefty repair bill even if I didn't accidentally bring down the entire bank. Besides, I'm a hero, not a battering ram. Smashing down walls isn't going to impress anyone. On the plus side: one way in means that there's only one way out. If Tattletale wanted to leave, she'd have to go through me first.

On reflection, that might not be a good thing. People do strange things when they're cornered and I don't want to injure someone because they do something stupid.

I walked through the door and was noticed almost immediately. My instinct told me to silence her and move in for the take-down, but I squashed them quickly. Shutting her up might cause her to do something rash and get either one of us hurt or worse.

Tattletale's expression shifted from surprise, to annoyance, to the largest grin I've even seen on a girl's face. Fuck, she had something planned for me, didn't she?

"You." She said. I shrugged. "You're a fucking hero. Wonderful." I wasn't really sure what to say. 'Stop right there, criminal scum'? Nah, too corny. "And here I thought it'd been Glory Girl, up on that roof…"

I reached out with my power, looking for the hostages. Glory Girl was already leading them to safety, along with another girl. Must have been Panacea. Good, they were safe. "She was there too. Scooped up all your hostages."

"Hmm." Tattletale started pacing back and forth while fumbling with something behind her back. What was she working on? "Funny. Stealthily extracting a group of civilians? Sounds like a job you'd be better at."

"Glory Girl wouldn't have it. Panacea was with them."

Genuine surprise. Good. "She was. Shit, I missed that. Grue's going to murder me when I get out of here." When, she said. I didn't miss the choice of words. "But, I'm going to have to get past you first, don't I?" Her playful tone of voice was more than a little creepy. I still had no idea what she was planning.

"Guess so."

"Still not much of a talker, aren't we?"

"I'm really bad at this whole hero-villain banter. Can't we just skip to the part where I put cuffs on you and throw you in prison?"

Tattletale snickered. Okay, now I was thoroughly creeped out. "Cute, but we both know that's not going to happen."

"Oh?"

"You're not a fighter. Sure, you're fucking good at it, but you don't have the mindset. You're scared of your own power, and rightly so. If it comes to blows, you'll have to hold back. I won't. Trust me, if we fight, either you go down or I'll be killed and I know you won't let option two happen no matter what. So why don't you save yourself the trouble and just let me walk out of here?"

I smirked. It was obvious she was trying to throw me off balance. Was she waiting for me to look the other way so she could shove something explosive in my face? "I gotta try…"

"Why? Trying to prove something to someone? To yourself? Think you have a reputation to uphold? Newsflash, girl: you taking out Lung was dumb luck and everybody knows it. The PRT's putting up with you because you're too dangerous to let go. You're too deadly to be a hero and you don't have it in you to be a killer, so really, what use are you anyway?"

I suppose that the proper response would be to snap back, to drop a kick-ass one-liner before punching her lights out, but I couldn't. I was too busy laughing. "Seriously, that's your plan?! Bully the unstable teenage hero? Are you stupid?"

Tattletale frowned. "For the record, I hate…"

At this point, I wasn't even listening. I could handle Emma Light, especially now that I could hit her without getting in trouble. "And really, what did you think was going to happen? What if I went nuts and ripped your legs off? You know I could've…" I paused. There was something wrong with this picture. Tattletale was way too smart to try something as stupid as high-school-level bullying. There was something bigger at work here.

I reached out with my power and eventually found a pair of stomping boots. Someone was running up the stairs. While swearing. Profusely. The Wards were still outside, Glory Girl and Panacea had left my range, and the troopers hadn't moved in yet. Must have been Circus. Then, it clicked.

"You're stalling…" I growled, feeling like an idiot. No time for caution. Not anymore. I walked over, grabbed Tattletale and cuffed her to the heavy, oaken desk. She resisted, but the girl didn't have the strength to get away. Not from me.

"Hey, it almost worked. You were singing like a bird." Tattletale said. I pushed my taser against her neck and she dropped like a rock. I briefly checked her pockets for weapons, bombs, or anything else. Nothing. I could've just walked up to her and knocked her out. All this worrying over absolutely nothing.

Christ, that was embarrassing…

Suddenly, a door swung open and I found myself staring at a very angry looking clown. A small ball of flame appeared in her hand.

An angry, pyrokinetic clown.

Wonderful.