1.8
-- Lisa Wilbourne --
"... not sure if Hatchet Face's nullification effect would affect you or your spells, but best not take any chances. He's not a very strong brute, so you could probably just drop something heavy on him from outside his range."
I watched the gears turn behind her eyes as I finished recounting everything I knew about the Nine. She really was startlingly good at cape tactics, considering how much simpler magic WWI must have been, where everyone either had no powers or the same powers.
Large scale military operations are very complicated.
OK, fair enough. How should I know? Not like America gets into actual wars anymore.
What should have been startling but entirely failed to be was how much she enjoyed it. I mean, it was the complete opposite of startling. God knows Taylor lives for conflict, and the rest of us aren't much better. The rest of us Undersiders and the rest of us capes. It's not polite to say out loud, but everyone realizes on some level that the vast, vast majority of capes, granted incredible, physics-defying powers, dedicate their lives to fighting other capes, and that's fucking weird. And I know it better than most. I know how Vista is chomping at the bit to get into real fights, and how even Leviathan barely tempered that need. How Shadow Stalker regularly went on 'extra' patrols and still had so much pent up aggression she took it out on civilians at school. How Coil, despite having the perfect power to just sit back and enjoy the good life, decided for no fucking reason that he just had to rule this shit hole city. How Panacea had repressed that basic need, and how that had resulted in... well, her whole personality.
Almost makes me wonder what my power is doing to me. Anything you want to add, Power?
...
Didn't think so. It gets shy when I ask personal questions. Not like I can't guess, anyway.
But Tanya isn't a cape. What does it mean that she fits in so well anyway? Well, maybe nothing. Maybe it's just a natural trauma response. Maybe it always is. My power might not like to talk about itself, but it loves telling me all about those, all the endless ways to further break broken people. It is so full of shit.
I took a deep breath. Not the time. I glanced around the rec room, poorly lit by the glow coming from the mages' orbs, fragments of light fixtures and TVs hastily swept into a corner. Taylor sat next to me, practically radiating tension. It had been all Tanya could do to convince her to stay and let our paramedics check on her dad. It's not like she didn't realize how dumb going herself would be, how all she could possibly accomplish was to draw attention to an otherwise uninteresting civilian, but when had that ever stopped her? Well, I wish Tanya all the luck in the world if she wants to try making Taylor make good decisions, because she's going to need it.
I refocus on Tanya as she responds with a shrug.
"They sound like a nasty group. Luckily, we're not law enforcement and that's none of our business. The dangerous ones can't keep up if we just fly away, not that they'd have any particular reason to try. Shame to abandon this base so soon after we took it, but it'll probably still be here after they've had their fun and left. And if not, well, not like we could defend a fixed position from Siberian or Crawler anyway. Better not to draw attention to it."
What? I mean, seriously, what? That's not what you were thinking 5 seconds ago, Tanya! Where'd all that meticulous blood lust go?
While I was struggling to change gears and Weiss was nodding in casual agreement, Taylor jumped in. Not with the anger I expected, but with cold determination. Not a good sign.
"Bounties. Shatterbird's death is worth 110 million. 61 million for Siberian. 24 million for Jack Slash. Not sure about the rest, but I promise you they're worth your time."
Tanya leaned back, unaware of the danger implied by the fact Taylor hadn't even tried to moralize to her.
"That does change things." She turned to me. "And you're confident they're not recruiting? Any ideas on their ninth?"
That was the question I'd expected before she decided to pretend to not want to fight. There was something odd there. I inspected her closely. Was she... trying to extort Taylor for extra payment for something she wanted to do anyway? But she didn't especially want anything from Taylor. I glanced at Weiss. The other way around, maybe? She felt she had to object for the sake of her men, only to let herself be 'convinced' by the first argument we put forward? That didn't feel right either. For her own sake, then? Looking for an excuse to do what she wanted rather than the safe thing? Much closer, but my power still insisted that wasn't quite it. But I'd already blown too much power on curiosity during a crisis.
"Shatterbird would have held back if they were recruiting, at least until they warned the nominees, which I'd have picked up on one way or another. Killing half of them by surprise isn't Jack's idea of fun. As for their ninth... could be anyone. Not like they ask permission. Maybe not even local. And outside the core membership, they have pretty high turnover. Could be Burnscar or Hatchet Face or even Mannequin has been replaced since their last sighting."
"Well, we'll have to make do with the info we've got. Unless you think Dinah might have survived? Doesn't seem likely if she was holding her phone to her ear, not to mention all the windows and glass equipment in a nice hospital room."
Damn, if I'd thought Taylor was tense before... Her first.
"If she did, she's receiving the best medical care the city can offer. She's the mayor's niece, recall. Maybe even Panacea."
Not likely, mind, since if Panacea had been there she'd need treatment as much as anyone else, but 'maybe' wasn't an outright lie. Now Tanya.
"Regardless, I doubt she's interested in answering questions right now, even if you were willing to draw attention by flying right to the hospital."
"OK. Let's make sure we're all on the same page, then. In terms of general tactics, the Nine don't have a lot of good tools for dealing with fast, durable fliers. They'll want to draw us down and we'll want to stay high in the air as much as possible. Some of the team is impossible to beat, but a lot of them are quite vulnerable to the sort of firepower we can bring to bear, even with Bonesaw's improvements. Siberian can grant invulnerability to the ones she's touching, but she can't be everywhere. We should use our superior mobility to avoid their heavy hitters while picking off their fragile backline. If they're smart they'll in turn try to hide their vulnerable capes from air assault while Crawler and Siberian rampage."
"And how do you plan to deal with that?"
"In the short term, it doesn't matter too much. They can't hurt us and we can't find them. Ultimately, we'll want to coordinate with ground assets, who should have an easier time locating them, but Shatterbird's ability to destroy communication equipment makes that difficult. We should take her off the board first thing before they realize they have to be careful. Fortunately, she's also the most valuable target and one of the stronger members we can beat, so good alpha strike target all around."
"So you plan to just ignore their rampage while you search for Shatterbird?" Taylor cut in.
"Nothing we can really do about them, and there are few plans worse than allowing your enemy to dictate your movements." She shrugged. "Fortunately, there's nothing critical to us on the ground. Taking hostages only works against you if you let yourself care about the hostages."
Weiss broke in, face showing old pain and determination in equal measure.
"It's Arene all over again, right? Let them hide behind innocents once and they'll do it over and over again."
Koenig and Granz, previously ignoring the conversation they couldn't follow, went silent at the sound of that name.
"Correct, Major."
She broke into quick, confident German for a few sentences, ultimately receiving determined nods from all.
"But with a little luck, it won't be us burning the city this time around. Got to count for something."
That actually startled a little chuckle out of Koenig, though he looked a little mortified afterward. Taylor, initially shocked into anger by Tanya's cavalier dismissal, now just seemed horrified.
"Who... who are you? What have you done?"
Tanya's glare contained more weariness than heat. The words that followed fell short of anger, managing only dull bitterness. It was always disconcerting to hear Tanya's words come from a child's mouth, but this was something else. The effect was distinctly chilling.
"War is Hell. Don't you dare look at me as though the honored sons of your own fatherland haven't done as much and worse. As though I had any option but to either fulfill my duty or fail my nation, my men, and myself."
Taylor had nothing to say in response to that. Finally figuring out who our new friends are, Taylor? Better late than never.
After a few long moments, Tanya continued, professional cadence restored.
"In terms of individual assessments, Jack Slash and Burnscar are essentially non-threats we can ignore or kill in a moment as the situation dictates. Burnscar's heat immunity might protect her from optical formulae, but artillery spells are better in general anyway. She can teleport away if she sees you aiming, but a simple illusion can disguise that, and there's no reacting to a supersonic bullet after it's been fired."
"They're certainly threats to me. And don't underestimate Jack Slash. His power might not be too impressive, but he's been one of the highest profile villains on the continent for decades, and he's not only survived that whole time, he's maintained a powerful team through many losses."
Tanya looked unimpressed.
"You have no combat abilities, and hauling you around would slow us down and leave you vulnerable. Why would we take you into combat? Hide here while we handle the killing. We can always just fly back if we need an update from you. As for Jack Slash, well, I've watched artillery kill geniuses and idiots alike. Competence only counts for so much in face of a big enough power differential."
I struggled not to look insulted. Not that I exactly wanted to stare down the unstoppable cannibal or the personification of body horror, but the implication still stung a little. And moreover...
"Didn't you say your plan depends on having no critical assets on the ground? What if they come for me?"
"How would they find out about you? Take off your costume and you're just another civilian squatting in wreckage, and no one knows there's any relationship between us anyway. This isn't a horror movie."
You can't just tempt fate like that, Tanya! Weiss and Taylor both gave her confused looks, though for different reasons. Taylor started before I could work out a way to phrase my objection that wouldn't sound insane.
"Aren't you from World War One? Where'd you learn about horror movies?"
"Oh, Tattletale has been filling me in on Bet culture," she brazenly lied. "And 'Great War,' if you please. There's no guarantee the course of history in my world is doomed to follow yours, and I'd like to think we have a chance to avoid having to number our world wars."
Having successfully distracted both of them, she turned back to me.
"Oh, are you concerned about the money? Of course, all bounties any member of the team earns will be treated as team revenue. I'm not devaluing your contribution."
"It's not that. Don't you think they might find the base suspicious?"
"If they find it, I guess. Well, if you're that worried about it, we can fly you out of the city. Should only take a few minutes."
I breathed a sigh of relief, then froze. Was I tempting fate now? She ignored my incipient panic and continued down the list.
"Mannequin might or might not constitute a real threat. Depends on what tricks he's prepared and how tough his shell is. But his weapons are usually short range, he's not that quick, and he can't fly. Probably best to try to take him out from range with heavy firepower. Same for Hatchet Face, more or less, so we'll handle him the same way. Shatterbird has OK mobility and firepower, but she's not too tough and she can't match our reflexes. And it'll take her a bit to get glass into the air. Ideally, we'll take her by complete surprise and a couple simultaneous artillery spells will take her out before she has a chance to respond. Otherwise, some of us distract her with illusions and harrying fire while another sets up their shot. An overpowered optical formula from extreme range and an unexpected direction, maybe. Just burn a hole through her head in an instant. And once we've killed her, we can fetch new radios from another city to coordinate with the non-mages."
She took a breath.
"I think that's everyone we can take, excepting their unknown member or members. We can't do anything to Crawler, but he's strictly ground-bound. Just avoid him. Same for Siberian, though she's both more maneuverable and more dangerous, she should still be slower than our flight and have at least some difficulty reaching us high in the air. Bonesaw would be easy enough to kill, but no one will thank us for triggering her dead man's switches, and capturing her isn't worth the risk of exposing ourselves to her biological agents. Kill her creations if they get in the way, but ignore her otherwise."
"All that sounds right to me. What's our first move?"
"Establishing contact with the other villains, maybe? Can't imagine they're happy about these roving crazies interrupting their business."
"And the heroes. The Nine are an S class threat, which means truce rules. They're likely already trying to organize a meeting, maybe even giving out non-silicon-based communicators."
"Hmm. This'll be our first real introduction to the cape scene, then. Any thoughts on how we should play it?"
"Well, you could just tell the truth, leaving out a few details. I bet they still have Armsmaster's lie detector sitting around, so probably better not to try to get too tricky. The only way to really wipe your slates clean from the Dauntless thing is to join up, which really, really wouldn't work out for a lot of reasons, but the heroes probably won't go after you too hard if you explain the whole situation. Especially with your age and past, it would be terrible optics. On the downside, making excuses might make you look weak to the villains. The heroes might try to insist on quarantining you over fears of interdimensional disease, and once you let them lock you up, there's no guarantee they'll let you out once they're satisfied on that point. Probably won't try to force the issue during a truce, though, especially because you've already had a couple days to spread disease if you were going to. Longer term, if you present yourselves as independent, you mark yourselves as unknown factors, which no one likes, and as potentially up for grabs while you're still finding your footing. Expect a lot of recruitment pitches, some polite and some very much not."
"Not a bad option. I don't care too much if I come away from this meeting looking weak. I'll have thoroughly proved myself before the truce ends. I imagine I'd leave out you and Coil?"
"Yeah, that'd be for the best if you're going that way. You'd just be putting me in the line of fire if you brought me up. And Coil makes two dead capes, a worrying pattern."
"Actually, are you sure they know about Dauntless? The fight was quick and we didn't leave any of them alive."
"The helicopter at least would have been relaying video. Dauntless might have had a body cam somewhere, too, though I didn't see it. And I'm certain at least some civilians caught video. Would have been pretty awful quality at that distance and speed, but probably enough to identify your uniforms. No idea if the heroes got their hands on it already, but if they haven't Shatterbird just destroyed the originals."
"OK, decent option one. Give me another."
"Present yourself as Coil's agents, maybe? Say he was injured in Shatterbird's attack and you're attending on his behalf. Not like he's going to contradict you, and you can always dress someone up in the costume later if you need him to make an appearance. He did that often enough. Should give you enough plausible deniability to pretend to be normal capes with existing, nonthreatening allegiances. Probably wouldn't hold up to scrutiny long term, especially the kind of scrutiny you'll attract if you kill two thirds of the Nine, but it'll muddy the waters. And there won't be any awkward questions if you want to call on Coil's resources. On the other hand, the Dauntless situation looks a lot worse if you knew who he was and the situation in Brockton Bay, though you should be able to sneak by on the technicality they resorted to lethal force first and didn't bother trying to talk. And Coil is no one's favorite person right now since Echidna escaped from his base. You'll have to talk around the lie detector, but it shouldn't be too hard."
"I like that better. Security now when we need it most, while we're getting established. And a strong first impression never really fades, even after the truth comes out. And if the heroes really get pushy, we can always reveal the real situation then and rely on the lie detector to convince them."
"You really are too good at turning other people's thinker powers to your benefit. It's unfair."
Was that a hint of a smile under Taylor's mask? Thanks, Taylor.
"It's obvious. All warfare is deception, right? But I suppose you don't have any formal tactical instruction at all."
OK, Tanya, I believe you. I'm certain any old Prussian warhorse with the same 'tactical instruction' dropped onto an unfamiliar world playing by dramatically different rules would also be running circles around the locals a couple days later. Does she even get how much she's insulting us by extension? The way she swerves between breathtaking arrogance and absurd self-effacement with absolutely no apparent cognitive dissonance is... well it's not the weirdest thing about her, but it's definitely top twenty. Well, orphan child soldier, definitely undersocialized, I guess you have to expect some rough edges. If she's really as bad with people as I've been thinking, I'm tempted to say she's just mimicking behaviors she doesn't understand, but I've caught her acting and this isn't that.
Wait, is she really that bad with people for a twelve-year-old? A traumatized twelve-year-old? Well, maybe, but it's definitely a smaller gap. Once you start talking to her, it's really hard not to see a fully formed mind, defects and all, that just happens to reside in a child's body, but maybe it's not that simple. Uneven prodigy. If little Tanya had an adolescent's willpower and capacity for rational thought paired with a toddler's emotional intelligence, it's easy to see how she'd come to rely on the former and suppress the latter. She'd learn ways to muddle through social situations on intellect alone and ignoring her feelings would become a habit. Maybe she wouldn't even realize that isn't normal, because who would think to explain how emotions work to someone who to all appearances possesses an adult's mind? That'd be... kind of hilarious, actually. And tragic. They really ordered a little girl to burn that city down, didn't they? And she did it. And she doesn't even realize what it cost her. They gave her a family, a sister, let her get attached, then made her send her to her death.
Maybe she's not that fucked up, all things considered.
A throat cleared. It occurred to me I'd just been staring at Tanya for a good 20 seconds.
Well, none of that changes the fact that she's one of the most dangerous people I've ever met. And that I kind of really need that dangerous person right now to put between me and the fucking Slaughterhouse Nine. Let's circle back around later. Maybe much later.
"Uh, I suppose you could present yourself as Undersiders, or as our patrons. Coil's been steadily raising our profile, even having us take individual territories recently, but we don't have the Travelers or his power or connections to back us up anymore. The muscle you bring to the table would do a lot to forestall challenges from groups who think we don't seem that tough."
"Absolutely not! You want to tie the Undersiders to hero killers? Sure, they've got an excuse for Dauntless, but do you really think they're going to stop?"
Tanya shot Taylor a cool look but didn't engage.
"I don't think so. A public association would just let everyone know who they should attack to get to us when they can't beat us directly. Didn't you already bring that up? Probably better to just give up on the territory thing, or condense down to one you can all defend since Coil isn't around to make you follow through on it either. Long term there's no reason to share this city with other villains, but that's no excuse to overextend right now."
Er, yes, I did already bring that up. Not a great idea, but I was a little distracted. Let's move on.
"Well, that's all my good ideas. You could try to pretend to be members of the Elite or something, but they'd notice and object. You could get new concealing costumes and keep quiet to avoid the Dauntless association, but that looks even worse than the Coil option when they figure it out, and won't last nearly as long cause everyone loves a mystery."
"Well, option two it is, then. Try the PRT HQ first, you think? They should at least be able to point us in the right direction. You two should meet up with the other Undersiders and attend separately. We'll meet up again afterward, you'll tell me what you thought about the meeting, and then I'll fly you out of the city."
A\N: Well, here it is, The Plan (TM)! I'm taking bets on how long it survives first contact with the enemy. Negative timespans accepted!