Earning Her Stripes

Part Thirty-One: Sealing the Deal

[A/N: This chapter commissioned by Fizzfaldt and beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]

Recap: Monochrome

As the car approached the garage of the two-storey house, I crouched and then leaped onto the sloping roof. Tiny claws protruding from the soles of my feet gave me all the traction I needed, and I went up to the roof-ridge and down the other side like a startled cat. Hanging from the gutter by my feet (I loved my powers) I peered in through the window to see what was going on. To my satisfaction, Kaiser was there, as were the other two remaining members of the Empire Eighty-Eight.

Excellent. Clean sweep time. Getting my phone out, I waited for the interior door to open and Alabaster to appear before I sent the text confirming the location. It wouldn't do for the villains to simply pack up and leave now that Whitey McWhiterson had shown up, after all.

Relaxing my feet, I dropped down into the back yard and set my protective cover to 'mottled gray' to blend in with the shadows. When they got to the house, Emma and Madison would have the front door covered. If anyone came out the back door, they were mine.

My preparation was rewarded when the back door suddenly opened and closed. It was Alabaster, and he was moving fast. I went totally immobile until he blurred toward the corner of the house, then went after him.

He was fast, but when I wanted my power to go faster, it could. What felt like the next ten seconds or so went by in flickering moments, which blended together into a single stream of consciousness. As far as I could tell, I caught up to him, swung him around, and punched him out. Each time his body reset, I punched him again.

The weird thing was, I felt like I was moving at normal speed; while I knew damn well he was moving at super-speed, my reactions to whatever he tried actually worked, in between the flickers in my vision. When my protective field closed over, I guessed, time worked differently on the inside, giving me time to react and think about what I was doing.

However it worked, I was happy with the results. Though I was less happy with the way he just kept resetting like he did, so I jammed him feet-first into the dirt, all the way up to the top of his head, then put a bucket over him. I was pretty sure that would hold him until we were done with the others. As Madison cut her thrusters overhead, I opened the back door and stepped inside.

Recap: Firebird

Emma crouched on the battlesuit's shoulder, waiting for her cue. Lower and lower they dropped, aiming for the front yard of the house that Taylor had given them the address for. The text had indicated that Kaiser, Krieg and Othala were inside the house, while Alabaster was just joining them.

"Ready?" asked Madison over the radio link.

Emma didn't answer verbally, but she double-clicked the radio button for an affirmative.

"Copy that. One of them's near a window. You can go in through the top floor."

Again, Emma double-clicked.

"Three, two, one, go!"

As she ran through the countdown, Madison applied more deceleration; Emma launched off the suit's shoulder and hit the roof running. A moment later, the THUMP of the suit touching down shook the entire house. There was a window in front of Emma and she dived through it, using her discs to shelter herself from the worst of the shards. Landing and rolling, she came to her feet in someone's bedroom.

Another window shattered downstairs. A moment later, someone came running up the stairs. From the sound of the footsteps, it wasn't either of the men, which left Othala.

Emma came out of the bedroom just as the female supervillain got to the top of the steps. Othala spotted her far too late; holding out her hands in useless supplication, she didn't even try to defend against the heel to the solar plexus that folded her over, or the jab to the chin that dropped her to the floor.

It was readily apparent, Emma mused as she hefted Othala onto her shoulder, that Victor had never bothered to train his partner in even the rudiments of self-defence. Not that it would've changed anything, but at the very least it would've felt less like smacking around a defenceless kitten.

Deputy Director Renick

PRT ENE

Emily paused outside Paul's office and yawned capaciously. "Okay, that's it for me," she decided. "I'll let you handle the rest of the night yourself. Try not to get into too much trouble."

"Copy that." He gave her a nod of appreciation. "Thanks again for coming in. I honestly don't think I would've gotten to the bottom of all that as fast as you did, or at all."

"You would've gotten there in the end." He suspected she was just being kind, but that was the sort of working relationship they had. "Doesn't matter, though. You called me in, and we figured it out. Calvert's under comms lockdown, and we use anti-Thinker precautions on him from now on."

"He came so close to getting away with it …" He grimaced. "Thanks again. See you in the morning. Take an extra hour or two if you need to. I can handle it."

She snorted. "I might just take you up on that." Turning, she headed down the corridor toward the elevators.

Paul went back into his office and closed the door. Settling himself into his chair, he heaved a sigh, more of relief than anything else, at the way matters had turned out. Not only had the Calvert leak been nipped in the bud—or crushed under a concrete slab, to coin a totally original phrase—but they also had Rune and Victor in custody, to go along with the other Empire and ABB capes.

That's going to draw the Empire all the way down, he decided. Kaiser, Krieg, Othala, and Alabaster. No real heavy hitters like Purity was, or even Menja and Fenja. If the ABB hadn't already jumped the gun, Lung would be strongly thinking about it as soon as he found out about this debacle.

His desk phone rang, and he picked it up. The caller ID noted that it was coming from Operations. "Go for Renick."

"Sir, this is Sergeant Michaels. We just got a call from Firebird, about the Empire. They got them, sir."

Paul blinked, then frowned. "When you say 'they' got 'them' …"

"The Real Thing, sir. They just took down the last four Empire capes." There was real satisfaction in the sergeant's voice. "Firebird has requested a PRT pickup."

"Well, now." Paul smiled. "That is good news. I presume a van has already been dispatched?"

"Four vans, sir. One for each of them. We'll let you know when they get back."

"That would be appreciated." Paul put the phone down and leaned back in his chair. It seemed the Real Thing were as good as their word; they'd told Emily they were going to take down the Empire, and that was exactly what they'd done.

Emily's going to be annoyed that she missed out on this moment. But hey, why should she get to have all the fun?

Lt Lassiter Reeves, PRT

"Pull over just up there." Lassiter pointed out through the windshield of the van at where the eight-foot-tall suit of power armour was standing in the roadway. Arrayed on the footpath were the four supervillains they'd been sent to take into custody; each was bound hand and foot as well as blindfolded.

The precautions were well-founded, Lassiter decided as the van rolled to a halt. The Real Thing had evidently done their homework when it came to the Empire villains. He appreciated working with capes like that, whether in the Protectorate or otherwise.

The other three vans pulled up in turn behind his vehicle. One per villain might have seemed like overkill, but he knew quite well that capes of this calibre were best separated in this way during transit, so they couldn't collude or assist each other in escaping. It helped that they had no powered allies on the outside, but he couldn't count on that remaining the case forever.

"Check them over and get them loaded up," he ordered. "Appropriate restraints. All due precautions."

"Sir," his sergeant responded, then went off to relay his orders to the troopers.

He knew the situation was well in hand—his people knew their job—so he turned his attention to the heroes responsible for this little coup. They turned to look at him as he approached, and Firebird gave him a polite nod. "Good evening, Lieutenant."

"It's definitely a good evening," he agreed. "Nobody hurt?"

"Krieg's got a broken arm and leg from when I pulled him through the window," Blockade offered. "But he should live."

Lassiter's eyebrows rose and he turned his head to study the front of the house more closely. Now that it had been pointed out to him, he could see the curtain wafting out through the shattered front window. "Whose house is that, anyway?"

Monochrome's shrug was a masterpiece of indifference. "I have no idea, but whoever does own it had no problem with four prominent members of the Empire Eighty-Eight holding a meeting in their living room. Not to tell you how to do your job, but I'd suggest you get someone to ask the owners some stringent questions about their affiliations."

"That sounds like a good starting point, yes," agreed Lassiter. He suspected that there wouldn't be much opposition to getting a search warrant for the property, given that supervillains had been captured on site. "You guys took down Victor and Rune earlier tonight, correct?"

"They did, I didn't." Monochrome leaned nonchalantly against Blockade, crossing one ankle over the other. "I was following Alabaster … well, to here, actually."

"Actually, I wanted to ask you about that," Blockade said. "When I got Rune, she totalled someone's house with the chunk of concrete she'd been flying around on. Has the homeowner been contacted? What's going to happen with that?"

"Ah." Lassiter knew some of what was going on there, but not all the details. "That's something I haven't been read in on. You're going to have to speak to the Director about that one."

"About a busted house?" Firebird leaned forward, curiosity strong in her tone. "What's so top-secret about that?"

Lassiter shook his head. "Like I said, that's above my pay grade."

"Hm." Firebird nodded slowly. "Okay, thanks. We might just do that."

"So, did you need us for anything else?" asked Monochrome.

"No, no, you're good to go." Lassiter knew he was going to be busy for a little while longer. Making sure the villains were properly secured was something he needed to do in person, and then some troopers would have to be detailed to guard the house until the search warrant came through.

A PRT officer's work was never done, but sometimes it was made a whole lot easier by the heroes.

The Next Morning

Director Emily Piggot, PRT

"I know, I know, I could've taken more time getting in." Emily paused and gave Renick a suspicious glance. The man could do deadpan in ways that classic English butlers only wished they could pull off. Right now, she had the suspicion he was laughing his head off without so much as cracking a smile. She sighed and gave up the incipient staring contest, then continued on down the corridor. "But when I read the précis of last night's events, I decided that rest was for the weak. How quickly can we get Anders into an interrogation room?"

"He's already in Interrogation One, ma'am. I had him put there as soon as you notified us that you were on the way in."

Renick, Emily decided, took after those English butlers far too closely for comfort. But there were other topics she wanted to discuss. "So, how exactly did he manage to slip through the cracks when we unmasked Purity as his wife?" She shook her head in disbelief. "His wife, goddamn it!" Mentally, she made a bet with herself that he'd been just as curious when he found out.

"I checked up on that, ma'am. He had a whole list of impeccable alibis for the times of Kaiser's most public crimes at the time. Lunching at the Augustus Country Club with local luminaries such as Commissioner Norton, Mayor Christner, and even Dawson Stansfield."

The latter of whom just happened to be the father of Gallant, she knew. While Anders may have tempted the others with campaign contributions, Stansfield wasn't strongly into politics (any more than any other local mover and shaker, she amended) and his personal worth was comparable to that of Anders, so bribes were not on the table. "Okay, so how did he get to Stansfield?"

"I don't think he did, ma'am." Renick frowned. "I think everyone saw Max Anders at those lunches. But what nobody thought to check at the time was … did anyone see Victor at those widely publicised heists?"

Emily blinked. "That's … actually a very good point," she conceded. "Everyone knows Max Anders, so nobody thinks twice when he shows up late. He's relatively young to be so rich, which means people automatically give him the benefit of the doubt if he seems a little off in a public situation. And Victor is of course a world-class actor." She gave him a side-glance. "So, did anyone see Victor at those heists?"

He smiled slightly, proving that he was indeed on top of the situation. "I had some people run the reports down. While a few of the eyewitnesses claimed to have seen him, none of the footage or photos show him on site during the robberies when 'Max Anders' was at the Augustus."

"I'd be interested in seeing the bank accounts of these so-called eyewitnesses," Emily mused. She was fully aware that eyewitness accounts were possibly the least reliable type of evidence available. People's memories were easily skewed by assumptions, prejudice, and literally hearing someone say something to the contrary of what they'd just seen with their own eyes. And that didn't even begin to cover people being paid to say they'd seen something, or someone.

"We can call them back and interview them again," Renick suggested, not overly seriously. "If they're still insistent on that story, we'll know they've been paid to tell it that way." It was a minor paradox that people who were trying to be accurate eyewitnesses would often change their stories when new details were suggested, while those who were lying would stick to their version through thick and thin.

Emily sighed. "Not much point now. It's done, and Kaiser's actually in custody. In any case, the statute of limitations has probably run out." She grimaced. "I'm more pissed at myself than them, anyway. That happened on my watch. I signed off on it without even digging deeper or checking into Victor's whereabouts. They showed me what I wanted to see, and I took it at face value."

"Don't beat yourself up too badly," he said. "That bill of goods was masterfully presented, and we all signed off on it. And at the end of the day, like you said, Kaiser is actually in custody. We have him, and we know exactly who he is. The Empire Eighty-Eight just lost their primary revenue stream, which means Gesellschaft just lost a good chunk of the reason they've got their tentacles into the region. The bad guys may have been dancing around us up until now, but this is a huge win."

"Thanks to the Real Thing," Emily reminded him. "If they'd asked me permission to go after Kaiser, I would've told them not to. I still haven't made it untenable for villains to come back into the city."

Renick tilted his head. "So, are you in favour of this or not? I'm getting mixed messages right now."

"When I figure it out, I'll let you know." Emily opened the door to Interrogation One and stepped inside.

Grue

Lisa could be irritating, but usually she kept it quiet. This morning, however, her whoops of laughter brought Brian out into the living room far earlier than he really wanted to. He found her positively cackling on the sofa, in a way that reminded him all too readily of Aisha.

"Okay," he grumbled, "what the hell is going on, and what's got you so happy?"

Lisa leaned back on the sofa in her fluffy pink dressing gown and propped her equally fluffy (and equally pink) slippers on the coffee table. She grinned up at him, then turned her laptop screen so he could see the picture on it. "A lot of assholes got what was coming to them, last night. And we didn't, mainly because I saw shit on the horizon that nobody else did." The amount of smug radiating off her should've set off the smoke detectors.

Brian frowned at the image; it looked like a car-sized chunk of concrete had partially demolished a suburban cookie-cutter house, ending up in the backyard. An electricity pole in the foreground had been partially snapped off, and was sagging against the wires holding it up. "Okay, that's kind of impressive, but what's the big deal?"

Lisa rolled her eyes. "The big deal is this. That was Rune's doing. Last night, as far as I can figure out, she was part of a concerted Empire effort to track down the Real Thing and make them pay for the Hookwolf-Menja-Fenja-Crusader capture. This did not go as planned."

After considering her words for a moment, Brian finally figured it out. "The Real Thing captured her?"

"Them. The Real Thing captured them." Lisa ticked off points on her fingers. "Blockade is the only member of that team who can fly, as far as I know. He can apparently outfly Rune, so she's in custody. Of the rest of the team, Kaiser probably wouldn't show up in the field until it's a done deal and Othala isn't a front-liner, so they likely had Krieg, Victor and Alabaster on the ground against Monochrome and Firebird. And you know what isn't anywhere online, even on the sites that the Empire think only like-minded people visit?"

It took less time for Brian to work that one out. "Any news that the Real Thing has been taken down."

Lisa touched her fingertip to her nose, then pointed at Brian with it. "Got it in one. If they'd gotten even one member of the team that beat the living fuck out of Hookwolf—no easy feat, that—and captured three other members, they'd be crowing it from the rooftops. But not a single word. Not from any of them. About anything. And after Victor left a 'watch this space' on these sites last night … that's very telling indeed."

"Wait." Brian felt like he was suddenly on the back foot. "Are you saying … none of the Empire capes at all are posting? About anything?"

"I'm saying more than that, Watson." Lisa's grin became a mischievous smirk. "I'm saying they're not because they can't. I'm saying that the PRT are investigating a totally innocuous house in the suburbs, which has a couple of broken windows and a spectacularly trampled flower bed, but nothing else wrong with it that would suggest villain involvement. But if a few subtle dots get connected, that's where the Real Thing tracked the Empire down to, and the final capture was made. They're all in custody. That's the only possible conclusion."

"But … how?" Brian was getting more out of his depth by the second. "Even discounting Othala as a combat cape, the rest of the Empire has people I do not want to tangle with. If there'd been a fight there, more than a couple of windows would be broken, trust me."

"There wasn't a fight, that's how." Lisa shrugged, though the smirk was still in evidence. "The Real Thing came at them so hard and fast that the Empire was beaten before they realised there was a problem."

"… oh." Brian was inclined to scoff at this until he recalled just how abruptly Monochrome and Blockade had ended the battle royale between the Empire and the ABB. "Well, that sucks. For them, anyway."

Lisa's expression morphed back to a grin. "There's more, but I'm still figuring that out. Right now, you know what we've got the chance to do?"

Brian frowned suspiciously. "No, but I'm sure you're going to tell me."

"Stash houses. Empire and ABB both. We can hit a whole bunch of them in a short time before anyone's the wiser." Lisa spread her arms wide. "Fuck the drugs, we'll take the cash. All that lovely, filthy lucre. Hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth. Maybe millions. All ours for the taking."

Alec chose this moment to peer around the corner of the corridor. "Did someone say something about millions, and ours for the taking?"

"She sure did." Brian turned and headed toward his bedroom. "Suit up. Get Rachel up. We're doing this."

Behind him, Lisa closed her laptop with a clack. "Mwahahaha."

Right then, he agreed with the sentiment.

Director Emily Piggot

Interrogation Room One

Renick had not been idle in the time between Kaiser's capture and her own arrival back at the PRT building. Every potential hard surface in the interrogation room had been padded to a fare-thee-well, and Kaiser himself had been blindfolded. Even the handcuffs with which he was secured to the (padded) table were themselves covered with fluffy felt, from which Kaiser could grow no metal spikes.

"I have to say, this is shaping up to be a really good week for me," Emily said as she sat down. "First, Hookwolf and Lung and your twin nuisances get taken off the board, and now you and the rest of your merry little band of fuckups have joined them. I'm going to have to put some serious thought into the size of the fruit basket I owe the Real Thing." She chose not to say anything about Coil as yet. There was no sense in giving Kaiser any more information than necessary.

"I presume I'm talking to Director Emily Piggot." Kaiser wasn't begging or pleading. Instead, he was speaking with all the cultured diction she'd learned to expect from Max Anders. "You need to listen to me. There's been a terrible mistake."

"Ah, yes," Emily mused. "Let me guess. The real Kaiser mugged you and dressed you in his armour just before the Real Thing showed up and arrested you?"

"Not precisely like that, but you have the gist, yes," Anders insisted. "It's what happened, I swear. I'm not Kaiser. And this automatic disbelief is precisely what he's counting on. If you keep focusing on me and don't start looking for the real Kaiser, then who knows what he'll do to free the rest of his gang!"

She had to admit, he was really convincing. The way he'd skated out of the prior incident with Purity was becoming more understandable all the time. Kaiser had made a career out of making a lie look like the truth and the truth look like a lie, all under the nose of the PRT.

"Hmm. You know what, I think we'll keep you here for the moment," she said, dragging it out because god this was fun after all the years of these bastards rubbing her face in the dirt. "We'll keep our eyes and ears open because that's basically our job, but just to cross all the T's and dot all the I's, I'm thinking we'll put you through the MRI machine and see if you're sporting a corona pollentia with an active gemma in your brain. Because if you are, that'll simplify matters dramatically."

"Seriously, Director Piggot? An MRI?" Kaiser was good at this. Even now, when most men would be shitting bricks, he was playing the role of the misunderstood businessman to the very hilt. "Do we really have to go this far? Because I can guarantee you, I do not consent to illegal procedures like that, and once I'm cleared of this ridiculous allegation, I will be suing your entire department into the bedrock."

"Well, no, not illegal." Emily slapped a piece of paper on the table. "Oh, sorry, you can't read this. But you'll have to take my word for it that this is a search warrant. One of several I've had prepped today. This one right here literally allows us to search your brain for evidence that you have active powers. So put your mind at ease. You won't have to go through all the aggravation and cost of a lawsuit, because you have no grounds for one."

Kaiser paused for a long moment. "I'm invoking my Sixth Amendment rights to a lawyer. Contact my office. They'll know who to send in. I'm not saying another word until he gets here."

"Absolutely." Emily smiled. "But in case you were under the impression this would delay the MRI, think again. We're totally going ahead with that. We just won't be asking you any more questions until the legal eagle gets here."

Kaiser was tough nut to crack. "I will make one statement, just to show you how badly you're going wrong here. Remember when Purity was arrested, and a big deal was made about how she was my wife? It was suggested then that I was Kaiser, too. I proved I wasn't then, and that proof still holds true." He sat back as far as the cuffs would let him, a satisfied expression written all over the part of his face she could see.

"Well, no." Emily would've said something about being sorry about bursting his bubble, but she really wasn't. "You provided an alibi at the time, which we unfortunately swallowed: hook, line and sinker. Too bad Victor isn't out and about in the city to provide a convenient sighting of Kaiser on a rooftop, hmm?"

His shoulders didn't slump; he was made of far sterner stuff than that. But they did twitch downward just a little. "I'm saying nothing more until my lawyer gets here."

She nodded. "Probably wise."

Getting up, she went to the door and signalled the crew with the gurney. Like the interrogation room, it was padded wherever possible. The MRI was, in the end, a mere formality. As she'd said, a crossing of the T's and dotting of the I's.

But it was on such things that solid cases were built.

End of Part Thirty-One