Do What You Can (Worm x Celestial Forge V3)

by Throwaway1971

All credit goes to the OG author PsylentFox on QQ

14. Chapter 11 - Collapse of a Nazi Empire

[February 14th, 2011]
[Jason Wilke]

I felt my heart leap up into my throat as the Indias pinged me regarding one Taylor Hebert being chased down the street by five big jocks. I didn't need to give the order to engage because I didn't have to- my girls were all about helping people in need, and Python and AK-74U performed wonderfully. The fact that the Sophia Hess/Shadowstalker situation could be resolved without my direct need for interference meant that I didn't have to go for the whole shadowy benefactor deal that would have probably sent Taylor off the deep end.

My original plan had been to make up some really fancy glasses with a built-in camera and microphone and deliver it to her anonymously and have her take her justice into her own hands; recording every interaction and compiling it until she could get a confession out of the girls for her attempted murder. New Hampshire was a "Two-Party Consent" state, which meant that one party could not legally record another party without their consent... but there are exceptions when the recordings are to be used as evidence in criminal proceedings.

Dozens upon dozens of cases (or more) of physical Assault and Battery, and possible attempted murder and manslaughter charges if Sophia trying to push Taylor down the stairs was true. Not to mention something called 'Willful Emotional Assault' that was in the Earth Bet NH Code of Law that wasn't in the Aleph Code- I guess that the legislatures of Bet have taken the whole 'Trigger Event' angle pretty seriously even if most people didn't wrap their heads around severe physical and/or emotional trauma being the primary cause for 'power manifestation'.

I was going to let Taylor dig her own way out, not because I was a lazy ass, but because I didn't know if Taylor Hebert would have accepted someone swooping in and rescuing her. Most of my knowledge of her character comes from well after her triggering and the meteoric rise to the top as the defacto Queen of Escalation. If she could earn justice with her own two hands then she would probably be able to accept that instead of some dude coming out of nowhere and offering to magically fix all of her problems.

Though, upon reviewing all of the footage and seeing just how genuinely terrified she was... seeing the sheer relief when Python and AK-74U showed up... I quickly realized that she wasn't Skitter. She wasn't Weaver. She wasn't Khepri.

She was 'Just Taylor'.

A young woman who had been tormented and ignored, one who was jaded by the apathy or willful negligence of the system, but she still held true to her belief that the system wasn't inherently flawed until Armsmaster's Big Lie- his sequence of glory hounding fuck ups that culminated in him attempting to murder her during the Endbringer Truce and then subsequent unmasking of her afterward.

Even then though, I could be misremembering things- I had completely forgotten about Taylor's almost (possibly lethal?) experience that caused her to take up running every day to begin with. Most stories I'd read- fanfictions, obviously- had started out with Taylor having alt-powers or other somewhat significant changes to the original work, and most of them typically started around canon with the April or "Just a few days before going out to confront Lung" timeframe. A lot of those stories either completely glossed over the reason she started running to begin with or they had misconstrued it as a desire to be in better shape when she did go out for her first time as a Cape and completely forgot it was because she was almost chased down by some jocks 'hired' by Sophia.

I couldn't blame them, because I completely forgot about it as well. My memories from before my transformation were not perfect, the human mind forgot things, details both large and small, and the change to my Promethean and then Super Promethean physiologies couldn't magically re-make lost neural connections. My mind was a lot sharper now than it ever was before, but the enhancements came after.

So, something about whatever I was doing in the Bay caused a change somewhere that led to Taylor being just a touch less wary, which led to her being successfully chased down when before she had managed to escape.

Reviewing the footage a few times from her walk across the street I think I saw what could have made the difference- the primary one being she wasn't walking towards her home; she had her bus pass in her hand, so I could surmise that she was either going to the Boardwalk or towards the Library. Nugget pinged me and provided me with a search history from a school computer, it was shielded by a VPN which had its IP address listed in a different state on the other side of the country, but that was hardly a defense against the Nug. She had been reading the threads on my group, and with there being no computer at her house then that meant she was likely going to go to the Brockton Public Library.

The route from Winslow to her house had quite a few little alleyways and side streets that Taylor could have easily broken line of sight and changed direction, which would have allowed her to escape the jocks even with her shorter stride and comparatively worse cardio. The terrible thing is that even after getting chased down by said jocks in broad daylight knowing that it was Sophia that put them up to it Taylor would have just considered it par for the course and listed it as just another bullshit thing she was able to get away with- nobody would have believed her, not without proof.

I did not set up the patrol routes for the former Merchant territories and their surrounding holdings, that was left up to the discretion of Python, the leader of the Patrol Echelons. It was she and M16A1 that decided that even if the Winslow area and the surrounding blocks were considered "neutral" territory that all gangs laid claim to in some way shape or form - the gangs had junior gangers from all three in the same school without massive amounts of violence- Frontline needed to be visible patrolling and protecting important public infrastructure; especially in areas where the PRT and Protectorate did little to no patrolling of their own.

Schools, hospitals, homeless shelters, soup kitchens, and other public works that aided the community were to be visibly protected when the Protectorate mainly patrolled the nicer areas of town- the Suburbs, the Finanical District, City Hall, the Boardwalk, the Market, etc. With the limited amount of Capes there was only so much territory that they could reasonably cover, and protecting the commerce of the city was cruel calculus but effective. It was a no-win situation for Piggot, and she did the best she could with what she had, so while I wasn't mad (and a few others on PHO who were realists), that didn't mean the people who weren't being actively protected weren't.

That was where we stepped in. We stuck with maintaining the former Merchant territories for now, to discourage the gangs from moving in, but soon we would be expanding into all areas. I knew where Lung and Oni Lee lived, and I was now actively tracking them. Oni Lee, however, was one that was pretty frustrating because he was never far from Lung's side, and he only left it when the ABB Leader had a task for him to do.

However, trying to hit someone who could teleport within line-of-sight was a touch tougher than just putting a tranquilizer in a mundane non-powered Cape. So we were going to sit back and observe him for a little while, and figure out if he ever went out on his own- an ambush would be the easiest way to take him down; we only needed one dart on target and he would be removed from the fight. There were some concerns from the girls about how his teleport worked, but I was reasonably certain that if Skitter's bugs could stay on him during his teleports then anything injected into him would stay as well.

To facilitate this ambush I constructed a mobile sniper hide- it was essentially a plasteel coffin with anti-gravity and propulsion systems, complete with photoreactive paneling and active camouflage, that could float and move around to wherever and whenever it was needed. The marksman would lie within the hide and float around, waiting for the opportunity to strike- no need to post up in a particular building and hope that the target wanders into your sightline when you can simply relocate yourself in the sky and make your own sightline.

The Indias felt like they were onto some sort of pattern with Oni Lee already, but there wasn't enough information to determine if it was random or not. In the weeks we've been observing him he's gone out four times- once in the south ABB territories and thrice in the northern holdings- and made his way to a great many locations to speak with ABB Lieutenants; the teleporting cape receiving information from the un-powered members that Lung didn't want having an electronic paper trail of. The dates seemed random- Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday- the times were narrowed down to 'after sunset and before sunrise'.

Not a lot to go off of, but I had a feeling that if we observed long enough we would see the rest of the days in the week get a chance to be chosen; was Lung using some sort of randomizer or did he just send Oni Lee out whenever it suited his mood? Lung had no problems calling his Lieutenants to come to him personally and gather whenever he had information to disseminate, so he didn't appear to use the ash-porting parahuman for anything other than a trusted man to go around and collect information; though that didn't rule out the possibility of him using Oni Lee as an emergency telephone, it was ultimately irrelevant.

The Empire, by contrast, was much better organized, and thusly much easier to track. Nugget and the Indias were able to come up with whole web-charts and heat maps of everything happening within Empire territory; text messages, phone calls, emails, and geo-location tracking data. We knew everything about them- if Kaiser was fucking his Scandanavian beauties over the table in his office we knew about it. If Alabaster was watching porn but unable to actually enjoy it because his body reset itself every four seconds then I knew what he was watching (he had shit taste). If Hookwolf was sending out a bounty to his underlings to find dogs for the next series of fights then I knew who each text went to.

We were monitoring their every communication in and out of Brockton Bay, from their suppliers of raw materials that they used to create their designer drugs to their messages and reports to the Gesellschaft in Germany and the Herren Clan in Virginia.

We started war-gaming their take-down, and drew up operational plans that would begin tonight. They had numerous distribution centers who pushed their narcotics out to over a hundred street dealers, though some of these dealers wore pressed shirts and dangled baggies in front of the wealthy socialites; their drugs were powerful and surprisingly not that physically addictive, but it was the mental addiction to that supreme high that kept the customer hooked.

'It wasn't harmful, there was no physical addiction, and it won't show up on any drug test, so what was the big deal?'

Only one part of that statement was true, and that was the part about it not showing up on any standard employer drug screening. Drug tests had to be tailored to detect specific narcotics, and must drug test kits only tested for the most commonly available drugs either for technical or financial reasons. A lot of common test kits looked for weed, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines, and maybe one or two other drugs. You couldn't have one test kit that did them all.

The Empire, using Medhall's medical pharmaceutical research, discovered how to create a powerful drug using the byproducts of their legal prescription manufacturing process, and through the use of Gesellschaft tinkers on loan, creating a stable, reproducible formula. Subee had already reversed engineered a small sample taken from some of the drug stashes we recovered from the Merchants; those people stole everybody's drugs- ABB or Empire.

The Forge reached out and popped a tiny star from the "Time" constellation into my orbit like one would pop a skittle into their mouth.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 3.0020 - Rapid Construction - 50CP - Blazing Saddles - Time]
[Re-Forge Successful]
[Purchased: 50 CP Remaining]

It was a pretty powerful Perk and would have been extremely useful if I wasn't already beyond that with the Huragoks- though as I gain more knowledge, talents, and skills this will likely be worth far more than its own weight in CP. Essentially it allowed me to make and repair things up to ten times as quickly, though the higher I cranked the time dilation on the perk the quality of my work would suffer via Fiat; at double the speed I suffered no penalties, but the quality would be reduced by a percentage that capped out at 70% if I used the full 10 times increase.

A little testing in the Enchantment lab concluded that this perk applied to my construction of Glyphs as well. Speaking of testing, we concluded that constructing T-Dolls in the Skyforge led to a 30% increase in strength and durability, but it did not affect speed, reflexes, senses, or anything else; Qi - Type 95- and all of the PR Team T-Dolls were now on par with me strength-wise and were actually about 19% more durable than I was now, but I still had the edge with my other enhancements.

The Hill Base - or HQ- as we were now calling it, had finished its construction after I created new mining and construction robots during the intervening days. It was roughly 50-square meters in size per floor, with ten floors that were 3.0 meters tall; the protection of the amulet was listed at 100 paces, but that was a 100-pace sphere. As long as one T-Doll wearing the amulet was anywhere within our Headquarters then the entire installation would be protected.

The Engineers had one of the mining robots drill a 4.2 mile long, 1 meter in diameter tunnel from the bottom of the hill to the ocean and back again, thus removing our visibility problem when it came to nanomaterial gathering. Ocean water was pumped into the facility via one-foot diameter plasteel pipes and gravity took it back down to the ocean.

The nanomaterial collection room was a small cube that had thick beskar walls that could be sealed if/when Leviathan made his appearance; a conveyer belt was installed so that the girls wouldn't have to waste time walking back and forth- the conveyer would automatically move the collected nanomaterials into one of four large mobile containers that would be moved into the warehouse every other day and replaced with empty containers.

The HQ had a very nice dining facility, plenty of bedrooms, storage space, and recreational facilities. It did have a shooting range that could be repurposed into a small shoot house but it wasn't useful for much more than small areas; it would be expanded the moment I got other precognitive protections, but for now, most of the training would remain in the very large hangar.

Much as advertised on the tin, the Hangar space expanded as we constructed the Globetrotter, almost tripling the size of the Hangar as that we could completely unfold the wings and still have room on either side.

This meant we had more storage space for nanomaterials, which was great because the four rectangular silos were already fully capped, even with all of the construction we'd been doing. This surplus was because we could use plasteel in the majority of our construction projects that didn't need more important materials due to the massive 400% increase in durability it receive when items were created in the Skyforge.

With its supremely insane strength-to-weight ratio, and the 1:15 nanomaterial conversion ratio- combined with Forerunner molecular structuring squeezing every last drop of potential out of it (no matter what its purpose)- there was no reason to not use it.

Aside from thin beskar plating to absorb initial stresses on important structures, we essentially built the entirety of the Globetrotter out of plasteel; Phrik, Ultrachrome, Cortosis, Beskar, and Vibranium were used where needed, but the whole aircraft came out to a weight that was nearly 55% lighter than the first drafts.

Really, it was fucking amazing.

I was giddy as shit walking through the Globetrotter's interior bays, inspecting the mobile surgical cubes, and sitting in the pilot's chair- though Echo-425 and 426 would be the pilot and co-pilot respectively.

Though, as cool as that was, however, I had things I wanted to get taken care of, like shoring up support by extending a partnership with local capes that were in good standing.

There were a half-dozen that I wanted to pick out first, if only because they were spread throughout the city, had good track records low-damage arrests, consistent captures, and were in good standing with the PRT and Protectorate. Oh, and because they were veterans who knew how to keep their heads down and didn't bite off more than they could chew.

No, it wasn't just because they gave me the time of day when I was first starting out.

I sent them all a message on PHO, and it read a little something like this:

---

"Hello, XXXXXXXX, I don't know if you remember me or not, but you and I spoke about a month and a half ago; I was a freshly triggered Cape looking for information so that I didn't get myself killed. You helped me out, giving me clear information with the intent of not seeing my name in the obituaries, and that really helped me out.

I was able to smartly keep my head low thanks to your warnings, and now I've found myself with an amazing, capable team to help me out and watch my back. I've come a long way in a short amount of time with them to supply me and fund my research, but I never forgot the Independent Veterans that helped me not lose my head.

I'd like to extend a hand to you for a small little partnership program; my companions told me that the PRT's program would be more than unfavorable, but I didn't believe it until I saw it for myself.

We think that we can do one better.

Power armor crafted by me to help protect you, and a tranquilizer gun and ammunition to help facilitate your arrests in a safe and effective manner.

I won't ask for your information or your plans but considering you are a hometown hero that just wants to keep the peace in your little slice of the community that is more than enough for Frontline. It will aid us greatly if we can have your support in keeping the Bay safe, so if having someone in your corner is something that interests you, then we can set up a meeting anywhere you'd like and go over details.

Stay safe, and good hunting,

~Horizon, Frontline."

---

So far, only Stormwall and Stardust had messaged me back- Trickshot and Pothole read my message but hadn't responded, and the other two hadn't even seen the message.

Stormwall and Stardust were definitely interested, but they had stipulations, one of which was to fulfill our promise to remove the other two gangs from Brockton; the Merchants in their eyes were the low-hanging fruit, and while they both were extremely excited to have better protection and options for keeping the street-level crime out of their neighborhoods, the affiliation with us would paint a target on their backs.

They assured me though that if we nailed the ABB and E88 to the wall then they would have no issues dedicating more time to patrolling their areas so that Frontline didn't have to. We still would, of course, as working hand in hand with them was more beneficial than not, but it meant we didn't have to permanently station a patrol team in that area and could swing by it less frequently.

"Commander," I blinked and looked up from the Corvette that I had picked up two days ago; I had a manual that I downloaded as well as a bunch of spare parts I fabricated after going over the thing with the Dead Space Engineer perk to find all of the faults. I did this all while three fairly high-quality cameras that would be edited into time-lapses and jump cuts by Artie. She would simulate day and night, breaks, chow time, and everything else that would make this appear to be a genuine amateur editing job that would slowly grow more polished as time went on.

It would be posted to the website that we purchased for the business in order to gin up interest; with the Blazing Saddles perk, I was able to go through and diagnose most of the problems within record time.

I would have the Huragoks come in and finish everything up once the cameras were off.

"Yes, Qi?" I smiled at Type 95 as I pulled the respirator off of my face and pulled the plastic hood down; I had just finished up filming a few minutes of stock footage for the painting of the car, and Artie and Nugget would work in a CGI of me copying other car painting videos as a base with my body motions.

"The girls are ready to adopt some animals, and are asking if they can convert a floor of the HQ into a pet place since having the pet location in Skyforge seems a bit dangerous with all of the construction that occurs there." The busty Chinese rifle strolled forward and pecked my lips, and not satisfied with that I bit her bottom lip to stop her from retreating and I deepened the kiss. When I was happy with the level of kissing only then did I break it.

"As long as they make sure the animals get some time outside in a nice fenced-in area and they make sure the Lifegivers look after their health, I have no problem with them picking up some cats and dogs and the like," My lips quirked up as I saw her emerald green eyes sparkle.

She grinned beatifically and kissed me once more, "The girls will be so happy to hear that, Commander!"

I grew more than just a little hard, but that could be saved for someplace that wasn't a barn that smelled like paint, no matter the size of the industrial fans I had set up to exhaust the fumes; it still met state codes though, so anyone coming to investigate could suck it. We had another barn constructed little by little that contained a fully stocked machine shop and forging station, though that was merely to showcase how we were able to get parts so quickly - we made our own with laser-accurate CNC milling tools.

I created a little nook for one of the Echos to hang out in up in the loft of the barn, behind a barrier that artfully looked like shelving and the like, and with a whistle the Huragok floated down and ran over the vehicle, fixing some faults, smoothing out some dents (but not too perfectly, mind you), and then he finished the painting process up by simply dipping his tendrils into the paint and feathering them out. It took him less than twenty seconds to float around the car, and the reason it took him so long was that it was harder for him to not do it perfectly than it was for him to be molecularly accurate; like there was a dissonance that he had to work through to make his work inferior.

None of the Engineers liked this duty, if anything it was treated like any employee would treat bathroom cleaning duty.

It was adorable to see whoever had it shudder in disgust. Granted, everything they did was super cute and totally amazing. These bois and gurls could literally do no wrong in my eyes. They were the perfect being, no doubt.

The Forge spun up and grabbed onto a small star from the "Mundane Small Scale" constellation and pulled it into my orbit.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 9.0030 - Inexhaustible QE Comm-Link - 100CP - Eclipse Phase - Mundane Small Scale]
[Re-Forge Successful]
[Purchased: 50 CP Remaining]

I already had access to quantum entanglement technology from the Forerunners, but that tech was prohibitively expensive to create and use because QE pairs were inherently a limited resource with qubits being expended as data is transmitted; once they were expended then they were expended. There was no recharging them or remaking them; they were gone. Because of that I mainly stuck with Forerunner communication bands that operated on a very different frequency scale and thus were rendered invisible to most if not all scanners, though that might not be true for the Shards themselves... they were bullshit like that.

With this perk, I now had access to completely untraceable, unhackable, point-to-point communications that were so much more efficient than the existing Forerunner tech that it would make the Huragok's heads explode. The qubits were able to freely move between the entangled pair without expending their energy, but as a consequence, I had about as much bandwidth as a 10-gigabit connection. More than enough to stream live video, sensor data, and information feeds at incredibly high resolutions; this would be applied to all of our equipment.

It wasn't perfect, however, as we would have to design a sort of switchboard system to link everything together. They were quantum-entangled pairs, meaning there were two of them- they could only talk to each other and nothing else. So we would have to rig up a system to link all of the "back half" portions of the QECs into a network so that every piece of equipment we had could talk to one another. I pinged Enbee and had him dig through his database so that we could start looking at how to build one- the Forerunners had QEC tech, so they must have a system already to put all of those capabilities together.

As a consolation prize to Echo 23 who helped me with the car, I let him have at the QEC communicators first before sending him into the warehouse while I pulled the finished Corvette Stingray out of the barn with some liquid wax and some shop towels. Qi and I worked together over the next 15 minutes to give it a good coating even though it didn't really need it, and then I poured a five-gallon can of gas into the tank, added the other essential fluids into their respective reservoirs, and then cranked the bad boy up.

The 5.7-Liter engine started right away with a beautiful throaty rumble, and it idled like a dream; the car was practically factory new, and its candy-apple red paint gleamed in the sunlight.

Aw yiss.

I took a few photos of the vehicle from all sides, and Artie would edit out the backgrounds with some generic crappy CGI showroom background that we purchased as part of the online automobile retail pack along with the website.

I pulled out my phone and sent Arthur a message, letting him know that the car was done and that I was just waiting for the clear coat to cure overnight before I delivered it to him.

Soon enough the business would be taking off in full, and I could have to dedicate about half an hour of each day to create the footage for the videos for a single-vehicle. We would build up a backlog of vehicles before purchasing a space and turning it into the car lot, though that was a little bit down the road.

For now, though I had a nice little PR patrol to do with some of the girls before we started our operations tonight against the Empire.

---

[3:00PM, Financial District]

I wore a much less aggressive (and defensive) version of my armor, but even if it was less imposing I still kept the signature shape of my helmet. We started our patrol in the Old Ferry district before working our way up through the Financial District, through New Wave's territory, and into the Boardwalk. From there we would move into North Ferry, into the East Slums, through the Market, and up towards the Boat Graveyard. This was a visibility and PR patrol, so interacting with the public and getting myself out there as the leader of Frontline was important.

Patroling with me were UMP9 and Five-Seven, clad in their PR armors and looking damn fine; Five-Seven kept her hair up in its signature ponytail while UMP9 ditched her twin-tails and had her red hair in a simple french braid- while the twin-tails were quite cute on anime girls, in real-life they looked a lot less cute. Besides, these were adult women, serious women, and twin-tails kind of flew in the face of that.

We stopped by almost every citizen that wanted to chat or take photos, either of us posing or with selfies, but we kept our interactions with the layperson on the street professionally short, as we did need to arrive at our destination. Most of the citizens were quite used to this, as they had plenty of experience with the Protectorate and Wards patrolling in this manner, so for now we didn't have any weirdos or crazies trying to ambush us. Brockton News 4 was filming a short news piece about one of the city roads being repaired in the Financial District and took the opportunity to ask us how we felt about it.

I made sure to mention that as Capes our duties were to protect the citizenry and not fix potholes, especially when that would take away valuable work from the City and from the Dock Worker's Union that had been tapped to provide manpower. We kept it open that if there was ever any serious damage that was outside the abilities of the city to provide a swift response to, then the Mayor could reach out to us anytime and we would provide whatever assistance we could to ensure a speedy recovery.

People needed to be able to get to work, and if the roads were too damaged to allow for safe passage then of course we would help! It was what Frontline did- we helped people.

I used that as an opportunity to talk about a few charity events we would be holding, as well as announcing an initiative to not only heal the damages done by the gangs but to improve them. We would be opening talks with the 2254 Builders Union and the Dockworkers Unions as well as City Hall to begin putting together plans for housing renovations and revitalization projects within the Bay Area, focusing on citizen infrastructure -Housing, Utilities, Shopping- and the like.

It would take time, however, as there are laws that needed to be observed and regulatory bodies that needed satisfying, but help would be on the way.

All of it paid for by the gangs, and we oh so thanked them for their contributions to the city and its people; it was only fitting that their ill-gotten gains that were stolen from the people be returned to the people in a fashion that would benefit the city and the people.

Jenna Roberts, the correspondent from Brockton 4 who had once looked like death warmed over, was now grinning from ear to ear once she finished shooting the segment with me; likely her task of taping a story on the filling of potholes from last month's E88/Protectorate brawl was the bane of her existence. Now though? I probably helped her get a seat at the news desk, or at least got her off the scutwork stories.

We got to stop a purse snatching, but that was about it- I didn't even put the guy to sleep either; just caught him, flexi-cuffed him, and waited for the local BBPD patrol car to come by and pick him up after I gave them a copy of the foot pursuit.

It was boring and mundane, but I honestly couldn't bring myself to hate it, or even dislike it really; it was a fulfilling task, and I knew that my girls felt the same way about it.

We reached the Boardwalk around 5:30 PM, and we had a great time, honestly. This was where the meat and potatoes of the PR came in- the Boardwalk was aglow with life as families and teens fresh out of school came around and enjoyed the mild Brockton winter to shop at the boutiques, eat good food, and have fun.

Here at the Boardwalk all of the troubles that the city was experiencing seemed so far away, and that was by design; the City kept more than a few police officers on permanent duty here, and the Boardwalk owners also kept up a pretty sizeable private security team that everyone called the 'Enforcers' because of their black uniforms and stern expressions. If you caused trouble here then you were ejected with surprisingly alacrity, and if you tried to do something silly like steal- from the businesses or the people enjoying the venue- then you were handed directly over to the BBPD.

This was a spot where all the people of the city gathered- rich and poor- and there was an excellent variety of shops that could be shopped in the same price range of your budget; for the very poor there was a pair of thrift shops, one ran by the Salvation Army and the other ran by the Sisters of Jesus, out on the outskirts of the Boardwalk. They didn't want the ultra-poor or homeless coming into the Boardwalk proper, but there were still a pair of Enforcers that protected the place so that people could get what they needed.

Because of that, we could interact with everyone from around the city at one time.

We took photos, answered questions, gave autographs, and generally acted as proper heroes should while doing a PR patrol; no one could say that we were wasting time because we had multiple other teams moving around on the hunt.

Taylor's chase had occurred around 3:35 PM, after Winslow had gotten out, so I had Python and Nugget compile everything we knew about the case and put it into a nice little packet, and emailed it to the PRT's Public Affairs section.

We were concerned citizens who found out about an attempted murder that possibly caused a Parahuman Trigger event, and according to the victim it was investigated but "nothing was found" after it had been taken out of the Brockton Bay PD's hands and placed into the PRT's.

Included in that was all of the video footage from the chase, the admission from the Landon boy, along with everything else that Taylor spoke about including a complete transcript, with allllllllll the names she named. We requested that they seriously consider looking into the case because there seemed to be criminal neglect and malfeasance of public officials, among a multitude of many other crimes that were listed.

Of course, we made no indication that we had any real information, but we were simply compiling everything that we had gained and were sendng it their way to deal with. As a 'heads up'. As a 'you probably already know everything we're sending you, but you should probably look into this a bit more closely if you haven't'.

We of course made note that we would aid them in any way we could, as cooperation between us was paramount. That and if we didn't get a response from Director Piggot in receipt in a timely fashion then we would send it to her directly.

I wanted to see what kind of hoops Coil would have to jump through to try and stop that from getting through. He was probably tearing his hair out in frustration, as we had every patrol route swing through his area, well within the 100 paces needed to cancel out his precognition, and occasionally a patrol would swing through his neighborhood and near the PRT building for good measure.

Fuck that guy.

I almost cried though when I missed an awesome Perk by half a measly charge.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 13.0020 - 0-D for Dummies - 200CP - Megas XLR - Database Mundane]
[NOT Purchased: Insufficient Balance: 150 CP]

Take back the Rapid Construction Perk! I don't really need it! Give me my 50CP back!

My lamentations were cut short as I posed with a young boy, roughy eight years old who sat astride my shoulders while we both held out 'peace signs', the smiley-face emoji on my visor. I felt a 'knock' on the front door to my mind.

I blinked.

[QUERY: ADORE HOST?]

I mentally blinked and locked the door. It knocked again, more insistently this time.

[REQUEST: ADORE HOST.]

It tried again, the Shard pounding on the metaphorical door, but the amulet held strong; it did feel it begin to absorb a little more mana though, but it was almost unnoticeable.

[COMMAND: ADORE HOST!]

I felt relieved to know that the mental protections were indeed working just fine. I turned my head and looked up at Glorly Girl as she lowered in altitude, with her hands on the hips of her white dress and a beaming smile on her face, though it sort of faltered once she touched down and looked up at me. "Hello, Glory Girl."

I looked at the parents standing in front of me- their eyes wide and faces smiling rapturously. With a small heft, I picked the kid up and sat him on the ground, and he too was looking as though a fairy had just descended from the sky and offered to take him to Neverland where he could laugh, and fly, and play all day without his parents telling him to go to bed.

UMP9 and Five-Seven were less than impressed.

I tilted my head as she grinned, "Hello, to you too, Horizon. Fancy seeing you out here."

A waving emoji flickered across my helmet and I motioned for her to walk with us, "Well, I do have to get out into the public sometime- I spend a lot of time tinkering and maintaining parts of our equipment, but that doesn't mean I can't come out and get some sun on my skin. Interact with the public, help people put a person to the name."

She hovered after us instead of walking, and I led her over to the side of the Boardwalk towards the ocean railing. There were people standing around us, but I reached into my back pouch and pulled out a small device that would keep our words from getting out. A small blue sphere projected from it, causing her to flinch, but then the bubble became invisible. Five-Seven and UMP9 went off to distract the rest of the people.

"Relax, GG. It's to prevent sound from getting out since we can't exactly have this conversation in private." I spoke calmly.

Victoria made a noise in the back of her throat as she nodded, "Oh? Armsmaster has one of those! Pretty neat."

"So, what's this you got for me? Some secret information?" Her pearly whites were revealed, "Or maybeeeee you want me to help you in your next big bust?"

I shook my head, "Actually, no, I was asking that you turn your Master aura off. It's very, very annoying."

She blinked. "What?"

"Don't 'what' me, Glory Girl, your Master Aura is cranked at full-blast, or do you not pay attention to your surroundings? Do you think that every person naturally just looks at you like you're God's Gift to Capes? Turn your shit off, Miss Dallon."

She looked around, and despite the Capes standing right in front of them, the people only had eyes for Victoria Dallon. Her face flushed red and with a look of concentration on her face, I felt Fragile One's insistent knocking lessen from my mental front door. I let out an audible sigh.

"Oops?" She had the wherewithal to appear sheepish.

"No, not 'Oops'," I shook my head, "That is by definition 'Assault with a Parahuman Ability', Miss Dallon. Forcing mind-altering effects onto someone is a felony, even if it's just awe or fear. The law makes no distinction."

"I think that maybe you're getting something mixed up," She frowned severely, her fists rising higher from her hips to her waist as if that would make her any more imposing. Or maybe she was going for... Official? "For your information, it's a Shaker effect. Shaker. I've been cleared by the PRT."

"No, it's only a Shaker sub-class, because it is Area of Effect Aura, Miss Dallon. Any sort of mind-altering effect, be it emotional manipulation or otherwise, garners a Master sub-rating. To quote the PRT Classification Guide: 'Masters are parahumans that are either able to manipulate others or to create minions to do their bidding.

They can do this through a variety of ways, including, but not limited to: Building or creating minions, empowering existing minions - like rats, cats, birds, dogs- or manipulating inanimate objects, blah, blah, blah, and the ability to control other people actively or passively, either directly or by manipulating emotions or attitudes.'"

"As someone who attends Parahuman studies courses at Brockton University and is no newcomer to the scene, you should know that already, Miss Dallon," I shook my head, "Now what I don't know is if you can turn it off or not, but what I do know is that I don't appreciate being beaned in the head by your powers telling me to be in awe of you."

Her lip curled up and her fists tightened.

[DEMAND: BE FEARFUL]

"And now it's telling me to be afraid," I hold my hand up as I gesture to the assorted people now looking as though she was about to start going on a rampage, "Victoria Dallon, if you do not get a handle on yourself right this instant I will take you down. You are frightening the public and assaulting me with your Parahuman power. Cease. Now."

I saw a mousy, brown-haired girl stride up in white and red robes while holding a very large cup of coffee in her hand. Her lips were moving as she fast-walked to Victoria, the bubble prevented her warning hisses from reaching us. It was only when Amelia Dallon crossed the threshold of the bubble that she was able to be heard. "-cky! What the hell are you doing!? Are you listening to me!? Turn your damn aura down!"

"A-Ames! S-sorry!" As if she had just been knocked out of a trance the blonde stopped bowing up on me, "I didn't hear you coming!"

"I told you not to go and bother them, Vicky, you know I have a shift at the hospital in like fifteen minutes! Now isn't the time to be socializing, not when I have work to do," She huffed before turning to me, "So, Horizon, right? What are you here for?"

"You mean other than trying to handle a situation without drawing everyone's attention to it? Doing a PR patrol, same as everyone else," I let my hands rest calmly at my sides.

Her eyes narrowed as her lips thinned, "Well, that sounds nice. Anyway, let's go, Vicky."

The grumpy healer grabbed her sister by the wrist and tried to tug her away, but she stopped when I spoke up.

"I'm willing to let this go for now, Miss Dallon, but the next I will be contacting your mother and we will be having words."

When I finished Panacea began tugging even harder.

"Excuse me? Hold up, hold up, hold on Ames, just wait," She pulled her arm free from Amy's grasp as she hovered up and got in my face, "Did you just threaten to call my mom on me?"

"Indeed I did," I tilted my head to the side, "Or would you prefer to make this a spectacle? I didn't pull you over here just to lambast you, Glory Girl, if anything I even went out of my way to make sure that no one from the public would overhear anything. Your Aura was way too strong and it was affecting everyone around us, that is a simple statement of fact. I pulled you away from the civilians so you could attempt to get a handle on your... Shaker effect... however it appears that you lack the control you should have over your powers."

"I can't control it!" She ground out, the young woman floating forward to brush against my chest.

The fuck is wrong with this girl? Was her shard so put off with my noncompliance that it was edging her conflict drive? Granted, I am being a touch confrontational, but asking to not have Master powers blasted at me and the civilians around us is not asking for too much. Right?

"Firstly, back off, Glory Girl. I haven't invaded your space, do not do so to me. Secondly, you can get a handle on it, I'm am sure of it, however, I believe the issue is that you haven't had a need to because no one was willing to tell you about yourself. You've been blasting everyone in the vicinity for the past five minutes, Miss Dallon, and that is not acceptable." I firmed my stance up, "You still have a chance to turn this whole thing around, but getting up in my face and threatening me is not the way of doing things. If you won't listen to me then maybe you will listen to your mother, which is the reason I said I would."

"You- you are a real big asshole, aren't you?" She grit her teeth, but she relaxed immediately; I couldn't miss the fact that Amy was holding onto her bare wrist.

"I'm only an asshole to people who are actively committing a crime, Miss Dallon, which you are and have been. By all rights, I should be arresting you and waiting for the Protectorate to show up. The only reason I'm not is because New Wave has done its part to help the Bay over the years. I will remind you that I did not go out of my way to call you out, out of respect, but that respect is rapidly dwindling."

"Vicky? Vicky. Let's go, Vicky," Panacea looked at me venomously, but unlike her sister, she seemed to grasp just how bad this situation was- there were phones out and everyone was staring.

"Fine, whatever," The blonde huffed, tossing her hair over her shoulder before she looked over to Amy, "Let's go, Ames."

I chose not to respond with how juvenile that was, but I nodded as the pair walked out of the bubble and watched as Panacea was scooped up by her sister and flown into the sky. UMP9 walked over with a frown on her face, "That got pretty tense, Horizon."

"Yeah, it was indeed, but it needed to happen; Victoria Dallon is more than capable of controlling her Aura, it's just no one has kicked her in the ass about it. Hopefully, she'll buckle down and get her head in the game, but I won't hold my breath," I replied as I turned off the device and stowed it back into my pouch, "Shall we continue?"

"Indeed, let's," Her smile returned and we resumed our patrol on the Boardwalk.

While we walked I had Nugget package the little interaction with Victoria, scrubbing it of the HUD and data, compressed it to a smaller file format, and then sent it to New Wave's Inbox with a title, "How do you want to handle this?"

I included in it my phone number and other contact details so that we could set up and time to talk, whether in costume or over the phone, public or private. There was a lot that I could stomach, but being beat over the head by Fragile One every time myself or my girls had an interaction with New Wave was not one of them.

---

I was a bit surprised to feel the Forge try to dip into the "Time" cluster for the second time today, but alas the Forge did not have enough charges to budge one of the largest stars in it.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 3.0400 - One-Man Assembly Line - 600CP - XCOM - Time]
[NOT Purchased: Insufficient Balance: 250 CP]

It was seven PM when I got a call from a Brockton Bay area code number. The timing was poor because we were just about to have dinner in the cafeteria of HQ, but I tapped the blinking green icon and lifted the phone to my ear. "This is Horizon, is this Carol Dallon or another representative of New Wave?"

"Hello, this is Sarah Pelham, Lady Photon, from New Wave. I would say that it was nice to finally speak with you- I've seen your team on patrols a few times and we've had some nice chats- but unfortunately, I'm calling about your... altercation with Victoria."

"I would hardly call it an 'altercation', Lady Photon, we merely had some words, but from the looks of it that very well could have escalated, and that would not have been on me," I spoke firmly- Lady Photon was the nominal leader of New Wave, their representative and peacemaker. As far as I knew she did a good job with her two children, Shielder and Laserdream, but while she wasn't Victoria Dallon's mother, she was her nominal team leader.

We chatted back and forth, keeping the conversation calm and very professional, though it was dinner time and I was hungry, so I eventually guided the phone call to the end of its natural conclusion. "Well, thank you for calling me so that we could get this straightened out, Lady Photon. I understand that Victoria is still a teenager, but she is not a child; as a Hero there are certain standards that we have to adhere to. I will leave it at this and we can let it all be water under the bridge; Frontline obviously wants what New Wave wants, and that is a good relationship so that we can keep Brockton Bay safe."

"I think I can speak on behalf of New Wave when I say that we want the same thing, Horizon, so thank you for bringing this to our attention."

'And not out into the public' was left unsaid.

"There is just only one more thing we need to cover so we can both get back to our business; I was just about to eat dinner with the team, maybe do some tinkering after," I chuckled warmly.

There was some very noticeable curiosity in her voice, "Oh? And what might that be?"

That was when I dropped the hammer, "I would like for you to have Victoria retract her statements on PHO and issue a public apology for it."

"What?" She sounded like I just socked her in the chin.

I nodded with a hum, "Yes, I'm looking at a PHO thread she created where she is calling me a 'self-important jerk' among some other things. I didn't realize trying to warn someone off committing a felony low-key was enough to garner such a response."

"What?" She was breathless.

"Yup. It just hit the 'trending' and the view count just popped up by two thousand views. I just refreshed the page, actually, so you might want to get on that, quickly. We'll accept the apology and move on, but I don't think I need to say that this doesn't happen again, right?"

"O-okay," Sarah Pelham spoke, "Victoria-! Victoria Dallon-!"

The line cut out there and I sighed in relief. Dealing with friendly capes was hard- gangers were much easier.

I stood up from the lounge chair in the aptly named lounge room and walked back into the Cafeteria where Enbee was waiting for me with a plate of meat in tentacle with a little chef's hat on his head.

Mah boi!

---

[February 15th, 2011]
[2:39 AM, Hospital District]

The two Hospitals in Brockton were only a few blocks apart from each other, you have Saint Mary's and Brockton Bay Central Hospital just a few streets over- they were situated on different main roads that acted as the arteries that connected the city together.

Typically, when it came to gangs, the hospitals and other key infrastructure was supposed to be neutral territory, as everyone needed a place to get their gangers patched up after a fight. More often than not they were getting patched up before being put into a police van to be taken "downtown", so to speak. However, with the revolving door of justice, most gangers barely spent the minimum amount of time behind bars until they were paroled out. All they had to do was wait a year or two, maybe three if the crime was particularly bad, and they would be back in the Bay with smiles on their faces and a beer waiting in the hands of their compadres.

With Parahuman criminals it was even worse- most barely spend a week inside the PRT jail cells before they're either broken out or rescued during transport.

You have helicopters! Use them to transport the prisoners! What are they going to do, shoot down the aircraft holding their friend? Not even Purity would be so dumb at to do that- what was the guarantee that she could blast her friend out of the aircraft and catch them before they splatted against the ground? There had to be some reason it wasn't done, but in my mind it wasn't worth risking the gang Capes that were just arrested from getting out.

Hell, Hookwolf had a bodycount that surpassed most in the Bird Cage, and that was including the people they killed while inside of it. Oni Lee's official kill count was right up there with him, and no one knows exactly how many Lung has killed. Kaiser's body count was just beneath the threshold, but a Kill Order should have been signed by Costa-Brown for Hookwolf, Lung, and Oni Lee.

In fact, I sent a ping to Nugget to type up a polite email to Piggot asking why there haven't been Kill Orders placed; the criteria was quite public, and they certainly qualified. Should I press it?

That was the question. PHO could be a powerful tool, and while I was riding the hype train the public would rally around me, though the moment I started pressing for Kill Orders to be signed- even if the public felt the same- that was when optics could become bad.

Anyways, I'm digressing.

The Hospitals should be neutral territory, and in any other city it would be because the territory of important public locations like it were protected by the criminal elements under a sub-section of the Unwritten Rules, and that rule is 'You don't shit where you eat'.

However, the Empire doesn't seem to subscribe to these rules, not that I do either, but the six simultaneous raids we were conducting on small little stash houses and an observation outpost- one in an apartment in front of each hospital- was to be the first salvo against the Empire 88. However this was only one action that we would be taking tonight- there were nineteen locations we would be hitting tonight.

With our surveillance, we only needed a three-man team for each location near the hospitals since the number of gangers were few, and taking them out quietly was as easy as it had ever been. After taking down the first six locations we called the BBPD to let them know that we've taken action, and that they can come pick up the drugs, weapons, and perps. Every single one of them had an extensive criminal record, and just the possession of a firearm alone would get them two years- though that would be reduced most likely. Then the drug charges would kick it back up; at least for those within the apartments that had cameras on tripods that were filming everyone that walked in and out of the hospital.

From the footage that Nugget and the Indias scrolled through, they were attempting to identify ABB or possible ABB members; likely the ones wounded in the shoot-out that went down last week while we were prepping for the Merchants. At best the prosecutors could tag a violation of the Two-Party recording laws, but those charges never really stuck, but that was typically within a civilian courtroom- for the gangers they might just stick.

We hit location after location, quiet as a mouse and from the ground level; communications were blocked in and out, and they never managed to get off a single shot. I wanted Kaiser to wake up in the morning and find almost half of his projected power crushed.

Though, with the moles the E88 had within the BBPD I wouldn't be surprised if we didn't have active E88 capes patrolling here soon.

The light flashed green in my HUD, and everyone was ready. "Go."

The front door was kicked in and tranquilizers flew into the living room of the single-story house; the living room had two E88 members in the middle of a raucous round of sex (Do you not have any decency for your fellows? Come on!), the woman took a tranquilizer to the front of her shoulder while the man took one to the back of his. The back door was breached to put down the man smoking a cigarette and loading the magazine for his AR-15. Downstairs in the basement, the small basement window shattered- the wrought-iron grating in front of it deforming as a paralytic grenade was flicked in.

I was standing in front of the heavy steel door and wrenching it open before the last fragments of the door frame hit the ground, and then I vaulted down the staircase to tranquilize the four members that were in the middle of hacking their lungs up as the paralytic slowed their movements. One was trying to unlock his phone, but his thumb refused to work the screen, instead, the number '3' just repeated.

"Basement clear."

"First floor clear."

"Let's move," We grabbed the stacks of cash and stuffed them into the duffle bags that the Empire had so helpfully supplied for us, and then phoned in the location to the BBPD, who was already appearing to be quite beleaguered. They had already contacted the PRT and asked for their assistance because they had only managed to ship off half of the Merchants to holding facilities outside the city to await their trials.

Come on, step your game up, BBPD.

It was a decidedly uncharitable thought, but the fact remained that they only had so much space in their jail cells.

We would have to call it quits for a while until after the BBPD worked through the backlog. Though, to be fair, we already told them that we were going to arrest everyone we got our hands on, so they should have already filed the paperwork with the State to get access to their holding cells outside of the city.

We left that location as soon as the first patrol vehicle showed up- ah, it was Officer Baker and his partner Officer Toomey- hey guys! I know we just saw each other at the last location, but we're off again! Don't worry, we already put pants on the male and female for you!

They looked like they wanted to kill me and then drink a gallon of coffee. Or maybe they wanted their coffee first?

Regardless, we were already at the next waypoint, where Teams 1 through 5 were already waiting for us; I opened up the door to the warehouse, we tossed the bags in, and then we were off like a shot to handle the last six locations for the night.

The target my team and I, Team 6, were going after for the last hurrah before punching out, was a very fluffy cash stash. The Empire received the money from their various smaller dealers and consolidated it, counted it, and then packaged it up to send Kaiser's way.

With every additional phone we scanned, the web-map of the Empire Network kept opening up, wider and wider, and it would serve to be the foundation for the Herren Clan; they were out of state, yes, but they were supplying the Empire with weapons and bodies "for the cause".

It didn't help that they were also very much like Gesellschaft in that they purposefully created Parahumans via breeding programs that were... only slightly more ethical than the Fallen or Gesellschaft; their breeders were volunteers. Half of the children were sold to Germany to widen the "power pool", and that was what we were able to glean just from the Intel section's cursory surveillance. A small portion was given to the Empire as tribute, with the latest member being Rune; Victor and Othala were also supplied to the Empire through the Herren Clan.

There was one more cape that they handed over, and that was Gewitter, or Thunderstorm in German... but he got himself murdered by Lung nine months ago. He thought that the amperage he could put out would be enough to kill Lung before he went Rage Dragon, and he lost; that, and once he got hot enough the heat started fucking with the pathing of his lighting. According to the grainy, shaky video that was leaked online, his death had not been a kind one.

Lung really needed to be put in the dirt.

There were two sentries on the roof that went down to two successive shots from PSG-1, the T-Doll nestled in her invisible floating coffin as her tranquilizer rifle speared out from two hundred meters away; the two darts arcing beautifully in the air to impact their extremities.

I suppose that they were expecting us to come from the sky?

Ha! No, that was saved for next time. Er, well, the time after next. Next time we were going to come in from the sewers; we strike high, we strike above the belt, then we strike below the belt. Those were the main locations where they wouldn't be able to move their materials out without attracting a lot of attention. They would have to defend those locations until they could break down their stockpiles into smaller, more easily transported parcels; there were thousands of rifles and tons of drugs, and lots of cash.

The cash would no doubt be moved first, as that would be the easiest to transport, with the drugs right behind that- it was easy to toss a duffel bag into the car of every 'employee' that worked at the 'warehouse'. It was a lot harder to move crates full of weapons.

My biggest target though, was going to be the airport; Medhall had a private hangar there, and lots of important things were held there- including lots of money- for when Max Anders flew to Germany to speak with his "shareholders" abroad. Though, that would be hit last, as the airport was a more... delicate operation; we would actually have to get PRT and Protectorate support to pull an OP on the airfield.

The cash that the Empire had at this location was easily in the millions, but that was chump change compared to the vault that they head in the basement of the Med Hall building. That money was laundered into the various businesses surrounding the Bay and in Portsmouth just 20 miles up the coast; we hadn't yet had a chance to track one of the Empire convoys leaving the city yet, but on the next one- one that would surely happen soon- we would follow them with surveillance drones and royally fuck it up.

Once the cash was cleaned up, the money was wire-transferred out to Germany through a number of intermediaries where it would then find its way into Gesellschaft's hands.

It was only a matter of time before we went international.

Organizations like Gesellschaft cannot be allowed to exist.

Nugget killed the security system on the door and we slipped in the backdoor of the autobody shop, only then did he kill the communications for the area. One of the goons had been watching something on his phone, and the sudden loss of connection clued him in; he shouted out "THEY'RE HERE!" and reached for the landline on the wall.

I punched into the wall and gripped the cord on the phone before yanking it out the hole. He stood there with the receiver in his hand. "Mother fucker."

The girls were already inside, putting them to sleep and zip-tying them while I shot him in the belly with my pistol through the hole I just made.

Without any bags for all of this cash, I opened a door into the warehouse and a few large steel carts were rolled in, and the cash was quickly transferred.

"Sir," PSG-1 spoke up, "I have a possible ID on Victor; he is outside the scan range on the drones. Permission to send one?"

"You don't need my permission for that, send one," I spoke as I assisted the girls in rifling through the pockets of the unconscious Empire goons, "What's his location- action?"

"He's currently climbing up the fire escape of a building roughly 550 meters to the north; he has a large case on his back- more than likely a rifle. He will have a clear sightline on the stash house you're currently inhabiting."

"Size of the case?" I asked, plugging Nugget into the phone to jack a copy of the memory.

"Large. Anti-material at the minimum, 50. BMG. I suspect Anti-Tank, 20mm is more likely." Her smooth German accent rolled through, "We have been out in the open long enough for them to try and arm up against us, but it is also possible that they could have had this in inventory. During the transport break in October of last year, a rifle such as that was used to shoot the engine of the lead transport vehicle."

I hummed, I really didn't want to chance myself or my girls taking a 20mm, not after seeing what NTW-20 could do with hers; you don't take risks you don't have to take.

"Relocate to a position where you have a shot on him, should be easy enough; he might be wearing armored clothes, if anything it's guaranteed. Shoot wherever there is exposed skin- though not the eyes of course. If you have to take him down manually then do so, but it would be best if you had another team intercept him." I rolled my head to loosen up my neck, "I don't want to reveal the existence of the mobile sniper hides if at all possible."

"Understood sir," The German rifle replied, "Drone is in range now. Weapon is a... I've never seen anything like it before, sir."

My jaw dropped within my helmet. What the FUCK is that? I had the drone slip in closer to get a better look at the weapon through the case, activating the Strategy Trance as I communicated rapidly back and forth with Enbee.

That was a 30mm sniper rifle?

The cartridge was larger than a beer bottle by far, and the weapon case only held eight rounds in its padded foam case. The weapon was five feet long from the stock to the barrel, and it appeared to be a quasi-Barret M99 design; with the springs in the system the barrel was designed to reciprocate- likely because if Victor fired this thing wrong he'd dislocated his shoulder.

Kaiser probably wanted to kill at least one of us tonight; he couldn't allow himself to be handled like those chump Merchant junkies. The 'King' would have to send a stern warning- no one messed with the Empire.

Cool story, my guy.

I communicated all of this in a data packet and sent it to everyone, and I dropped the Trance just long enough for the drone to move closer, and once the area around Victor was illuminated for a whole block I engaged the Trance again. The Drone's sensor package began scanning every single building around him, a wireframe being built in real-time; my main focus was on the roads and alleyways large enough to accommodate a vehicle. And discounting that I would begin scanning the rooms on the building that linked to the fire escape; my guess was that Othala touched him, granting him either invincibility or regeneration.

From what I remember the more powerful the ability the longer it lasted; we'd only had eyes on the Cape for twenty seconds, so we didn't know whether or not he came from the ground on the- no, upon looking at the scan of the fire escape it was not down on the ground. He would have had to of come in through one of the apartments linked to the fire escape.

Thanks to the ludicrous time dilation of the Trance I was able to pick out an apartment on the third floor that had its window open. There were two vehicles parked behind the building in an alleyway- one was busted all to hell, a scrap heap, and the other was a late 90's Ford F-150 that's engine was still hot.

I focused the drone's scans on the apartment and found the outline of a woman sitting on a couch in the living room start to fill in. She was in the process of bouncing her leg up and down, with her arm wrapped around her waist while her hand covered her mouth. It filled in even more, revealing that she wore a tight bodysuit, with a cap that covered her hair, and an eye patch over her left eye. Once the "Odal" rune was filled in on the eye patch I knew we had her, Othala.

Victor was in the process of dropping down onto his knees, the clips on the hardcover of the case he was carrying already opening up under his skilled and trained hands.

Skills and training that he had stolen from other people. How many people? Only Victor knew, but the man was talented beyond his years in practically every single field you could think of- PHO believed he'd traveled to Washington DC and stole the driving ability of a member of the Secret Service, while others posited that he stole marksmanship abilities from PRT strike teams. IT and technical knowledge were stolen from hackers who had been caught trying to steal from Gesellschaft.

Depending on how much he took and how hard he took it the person affected might be able to regain their talents, but some survivors claimed that he took everything from them.

I had subjective hours of time to think inside the Strategy Trance, so I decided to use some of that time to observe him and think. Of course, after I shot off the "PRIORITY TARGET" data packet to the QRF team above the city. It would take them 20 seconds to free-fall onto the target- no, it appeared that they were goosing their thrusters to increase their fall speed.

You crazy girls. Granted, the members of the PR team didn't like being solely relegated to PR while the Assault Teams got all of the action. A situation like this popping up was just the opportunity they were looking for.

G36C and Vector would drop right on top of Victor while UMP40 and RO635 dropped at little bit further to angle themselves through the window to take down Othala.

Less than two real-world seconds passed, and I just kept on observing. A ping showed me a vehicle had just entered into scan range, and the drone began filling in the structure of the truck from the headlights to the taillights. The truck had two men in the cab, and the bed had a dozen all armed with small arms; sub-machine guns and assault rifles. The men in the truck were Alabaster and Crusader.

Victor had just gotten the case lid opened and was grabbing the weapon by the barrel, his hand going down towards the beefy bi-bod.

I dropped the trance and activated it about five seconds later as the warehouse closed up- the millions of dollars of cash secured- the T-Dolls shooting down like a rocket towards the rooftop just now entering the range of the scanner.

My lips quirked up into a smile as I saw PSG-1's dart exit the barrel of her weapon- a flick over to her helmet HUD saw the woman found a gap in between the man's mask and the high collar of his body armor. Huh, he had forgone his usual attire, which was a simple black soft-armor vest with a red shirt and black pants, and upgraded something definitely more tactical, long thick sleeves that looked to have a very dense metal mesh woven into it.

He had just gotten the rifle set up and was in the process of slipping one of the 30mm rounds- the round that was used in the A-10 Wathog's main canon- into the angled breech on the back when the dart impact the side of his neck. If the man hadn't been locked into place by the sheer weight of the weapon he probably would have moved just enough for it to miss.

Sorry girls, it looks like just missed him. The two T-Dolls were already flaring their thrusters hard as fuck to stop their break-neck descent and-

Oh?

What's this?

I watched the needle of the dart press against his skin before the tip bent sideways and the projectile started to ricochet off, though his natural flinch caught the dart between his neck and armored collar.

Huh, looks like you girls will get your chance afterall.

His flinch was halted in what I could only assume was someone's honed instincts he'd stolen because Victor was already shoving the heavy gun off to the side and falling towards his back out of what he assumed was out of PSG-1's line of sight; I could see his eyes open up wide as the flare from Vector's and G36C's thrusters finally caught his attention.

Victor was fast on the draw, even while falling prone, it was like watching a swiss watch tick as his hand shot down -tick- and gripped the handle of the Desert Eagle in his holster -tock- and it was drawn -tick- and brought up -tock- for a good sight picture -tick- and then the first 50AE cartridge was fired -tock-.

All of that done in .67 seconds.

Quickdraw competition shooters could get as low as .208 seconds at the World Record Level, but they didn't aim- they fired from the hip. Of course, I could do it way faster, but I was a Alien-Human Super Soldier!

Much props, Victor. You did well with the skills you stole from someone else.

R0635 and UMP40 were already flaring hard as well, the pair skirting at an angle that would allow them to slip right through the window; UMP40 was just a half-second ahead of RO635. I sent a packet to her with instructions to evacuate with Othala once she was captured while RO635 would meet at the firefight that was about to happen out in front of the garage.

I watched UMP40 glide perfectly through the window and poke Othala in the neck before the woman even had a chance to finish her jolt in fright.

Victor was already secured with his hands wrenched behind his back while G36C quickly packed up the weapon into the case. Vector had the man thrown over her shoulder with a needle testing the skin of his thigh while she waited out the remaining seconds of his invulnerability.

I turned my attention back to the arrival of four more trucks, with each one containing a pack of E88 mundanes. Already my three-man Echelon was moving out the back while my other Echelons were converging on our location at a pretty decent clip; checking the helmet cameras they were using the grappling hooks to great effect.

I sent a packet to those carrying the cash to meet me on a rooftop on the next block, it had a covered roof access on it that didn't have any other buildings overlooking it. We would consolidate the cash there and they could have fun with the Empire goons while I did the thankless job of tossing all of those duffel bags and sacks filled with money.

With my cloak engaged I stepped out of the back of the autobody shop and moved towards the street. I dropped the strategy trance just long enough to hear Crusader crow out- "-its OVER for you, Frontline! We have you surrounded! Cut off! Hookwolf will be here in just a minute and that that we'll shred you to pieces!"

I nodded my head as four more trucks pulled up on the opposite side of the fence behind the autobody shop; there was an empty lot with a fucked up wooden fence on both sides of it. The men were already dismounted, and I could hear the cocking of weapons filling the air.

This was like... 83 men, not including the Capes? Very nice. Their BBPD moles probably told them which locations we already hit and they figured out the trackline we were running towards this location. I mean, it wasn't like we were being subtle- this was the largest stash they had on the outskirts of their operations, and it was a no-brainer what we would hit.

Kaiser probably left it as bait thinking that he could draw us into a trap.

Their timing was off though because Victor and Othala were either early or Crusader and Alabaster were late. Huh, I wonder if Othala was waiting down in the apartment for Victor to tell her it was safe to come up? It wouldn't make sense otherwise- the shootout wasn't going to start until Hookwolf arrived, and her invulnerability didn't last long enough.

My grapple hook shot out and it latched into the roof of the apartment building with only the smallest 'zzzt' as he dragged me up; my fingers clamped onto the side of the roof and I hefted myself up easily.

Star, G41, and G36 dropped their cloaks from behind cover before stepping out into view of the assembled gang members. "That's a lot of tough talk for a bunch of trash."

G36 was speaking to them in fluent German, and G41 nodded her head. "Yes. Trash. Not even fit to call the sewers of Germany home. Garbage."

I watched in amusement as Alabaster and Crusader looked at each other in astonishment. G36 pointed to the half-American, half-German flag on her pauldron. "I'm German. I'm American. I'm German. I'm American."

Star locked up for a second, so quickly that I only noticed it because of the data packet that was popped into her implant.

What was that?

The other Echelons started to filter in while G41 and G36 talked mad shit. One of my dolls was missing though. The one I was most worried about.

I was taken away from that thought as the sound of steel smashing into concrete began to echo off the walls, and my drones caught sight of Hookwolf as he loped into their range; he was three meters tall at the shoulder, his tall form eating up the distance.

He cornered around the side of a building, losing his balance- no, instead of falling he turned sideways and his four legs flowed around his body instead of cornering like a normal wolf. It was pretty cool looking. The Changer Cape made of shifting blades slowed his outright sprint into a more relaxed gait as he caught sight of my three girls out in the open and surrounded.

He slowed his trot down to a steady walk, the chuckle that escaped his maw sounding like two chainsaws grinding together. "Ha, ha, ha, ha. Well, if this isn't a pleasant surprise. I'm happy to see that you didn't run off. Glad to see that you got some fight in you- after all that sneaky tactical shit you did."

"Why?" G41's small voice was carried across the parking lot.

"Why... what?" He shifted his body, the blades rippling as eight chains with sharp meathooks on the end lashed through the air.

"Who would we run from?" She tilted her head to the side, the large articulated ears on her helmet flicking, "You?"

G41 began to laugh. It was the first time I'd heard the kuudere fox loli laugh before- she usually only did one of those cute little small smiles.

Then it grew louder and more boisterous, evolving into a full-on evil loli laugh. "HAHAHAHAHAHA! Don't make me laugh! You? YOU!? You fools don't even speak German and yet you claim to be kin of Hitler's mangey dogs!? Really!? We're supposed to be afraid of YOU!? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA."

It ended just as quickly as it began. Her head nodded as her ears flopped with the movement. "Yes. Hilarious."

"I... ain't ever killed a kid before," Hookwolf's form screeched as he ground his metal teeth, "At least on purpose."

"Your fight is not with us, however," G36 spoke smoothly, her beautifully accented German ringing out across the road.

My brows furrowed for a moment as I saw a falling form enter the range of the sensors. "M16A1, where is Negev?"

"Uh, sir... she..."

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!"

"16?" My Vice-Commander flinched.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

"She grabbed onto the bottom of HJ02, and had it carry her up to 20,000 feet. Sir."

Down below, Star pointed up into the sky. "Your fight, Hookwolf is with her."

"DDDDDDDDDDIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

KRACK-THOOM!

Just before impact Negev's hollering form righted her body, course-correcting before she locked her armor and slammed into Hookwolf's shoulder blades feet first. Steel and scrap shot off in all directions as Empire mundanes were scattered by the shockwave. Some were struck with shrapnel, and I used my Strategy Trance to mark those struck for immediate incapacitation and medical treatment.

The armor lock allowed the Master Chief to survive a fall from orbit, and he wasn't nearly as strong was my girls were, nor was his armor nearly as good as mine.

The sound of Negev's machine gun tore into the silence as tranquilizers filled the air. Crusader shouted in surprise and managed to duck behind Alabaster who absorbed the founds, started to slump over before he reset and popped back up. The Desert Eagles in his hands fired off into the smoke as he roared out his displeasure at being shot.

"Go."

The rest of the girls sprung into action, the girls that were with me except M16A1 all hopped off the building, splitting in half to assault the Nazis to the front and the Nazis to the rear. "Cover me, eyes on the sky, 16. I don't want Rune seeing this."

If anything I directed one of the HJs down to two thousand feet and had them monitor the sky for anything flying in it that wasn't us.

While the sounds of tranquilizers, gunfire, and screams I stuffed the warehouse key into the door and opened it just enough to start tossing the large duffle bags of cash inside.

"GET UP, HOOKWOLF! WHY ARE YOU LAYING ON THE GROUND!? GET UP AND FIGHT!"

Negev leaped over the unpowered, a handful of bullets pinging off of her shields as she landed next to the once-massive wolf's form; the impact had sheared his upper body from his lower body, significantly reducing his size. He was only two meters tall now; the steel of his form ground out in fury as he rolled onto his feet and leaped- Negev swung her rifle like a baseball bat, the Beskar-reinforced stock shearing the steel wolf's head off and sending it careening down the street.

Sparks flew each time it bounced.

Over half of the unpowered members were asleep, and it wasn't even 45 seconds into the gunfight; the girls were already pulling them out of the line of Negev's one-sided stomp. Wounds were being stuffed with a new form of bio-foam, this one didn't burn like a motherfucker as it was being injected. That was after the shrapnel had been pulled from their bodies. So far there were no lethal injuries that would require medical robot interference, though one Empire member was almost flattened. Only G36 stepping in and batting his metallic form back towards Negev prevented him from being turned into hamburger meat.

I shut the door and removed the key as I watched Negev grab onto his hindlegs - he was the size of a horse now- and was swinging him around before smashing him into the concrete.

Out the corner of my eye, I saw two figures being snuck up by RO635- she'd gotten the drop on them; the woman reacted immediately, as did the male. The man seemed to flow around the submachine gun's initial shots, and the woman was pretty quick too- the two tranquilizers sailing towards her were deflected by the twin kamas she had in her hands.

The woman started screeching and the remaining Empire members that were still conscious started to vomit their guts up, which made it nice and easy for the rest of the girls to put them down for a dirt nap.

That was Cricket and Stormtiger.

A grin split my face as I swapped over to RO635's helmet camera, and at the mouth of the alleyway was Negev standing there, with her helmet cocked to the side and Brad Meadow's unconscious body dangling by the back of his neck- her armor gripping him tightly. "Oh? More Nazis? Were you friends with this one? I think I played with him a little too roughly."

"You filthy jew bitch!" Stormtiger seethed, but there was no way to miss the sweat that was pouring down his brow- the winds quickly evaporated it, but with the fidelity of the scanners in this area I could see practically everything.

"Yes, I am a Jew. What was it that gave it away?" She looked down at the tabard she wore over her armor that had the Star of David on it, then over the scarf that also had the Star of David on it. Then to the half-America/half-Israeli flag on the pauldron.

She wanted three scarves, but I would only approve it if she used them to wrap around the necks of little Jewish boys and girls she came across out on patrol; for combat? No, no three scarves. No one else is doing it.

RO635 sighed and kicked the glass bottle, her fight stolen by Negev as she dropped Brad Meadows and stalked forward.

A cough stopped Negev in her tracks, and she looked up to see TS 12 standing on the side of the building. "You had your time with Hookwolf. I'll take his cronies."

"Counter, you can get Kaiser."

"Sold, to the Jewish lady with the stylish scarf. Have fun."

It was just as one side as Negev's fight against Hookwolf.

She definitely pulled her punches more though, the Israeli light machine gun keeping her speed and strength to something that was just outside of their reach. She was particularly enjoying the reactions from the two as they felt the blows coming with their powers but neither the wind nor the sound could reach her.

After about a minute I called out over the comms. "That's enough, finish it, but let one of them go. We'll follow them back and continue the assault."

"I thought we were ending it here for the night?" M16A1 asked, her head dropping down towards the gangers that were being lined up nice and neat.

"I'm going to want Rune too," I recognized the figure that was flying about three hundred feet overhead- Echo-420 had tipped me off to her coming into our range.

"Cricket, preferably, that way Rune has to come in low to pick her up. RO635, you follow them under stealth, and when you're ready take them both down."

"Then I want one of the giant twins, Commander," Negev spoke up plaintively as she punched through Stormtiger's windshield and injected him.

He retaliated with the single strongest blast of wind I'd seen him generate thus far, and Negev allowed herself to leap with the blast, sending her careening away head over heels in an apparent uncontrolled fall; the force shredding asphalt and digging a deep furrow into the street that stretched from one end to the other. "And you will have them, Negev."

Stormtiger collapsed to the side, his chest heaving. I could make out the words by reading his lips through the scanners as his wind didn't allow the sound to carry. "Run, back to Kaiser, let him know we faile-..."

R0635 had already backed off and was now high above the buildings- I sent a drone to follow Cricket as she tried her best to run away. Staying outside of her sound domain was quite easy as it constantly radiated from her throat but terminated in a 30-meter sphere around her.

The sounds of the PRT sirens were off in the distance, but Armsmaster's Armscycle was distinctly heard ahead of the pack. No doubt the fight garnered a lot of attention.

I watched through RO635's HUD as she watched Rune swoop low on what appeared to be a slab of solid steel, the teen seated directly in the middle. Cricket showed off her impressive athletic ability by leaping almost eight feet into the air to grab onto the edge of the slab and pull herself up.

"Cow-ard." The woman ground out.

"You saw what they did to Hookwolf! I can't fight that!" Rune protested loudly, and that was when RO635 struck, the T-Doll leaping off the building, and using her thrusters to speed her descent down.

Cricket's head shot up the moment RO635's boots entered the sphere, but she was too slow to not catch the boot to the chest; the T-Doll slid off the plate from the momentum, her arms wrapping around Rune's waist while the other cradled her head and neck. Rune had already been injected by the time the screech of fear left her lips and they started to fall the 20 intervening feet to the ground.

Cricket managed to land on her feet and tumble with the roll, but there was a small -pop-, and she collapsed to the side; probably blew out her knee.

Ouch.

RO635 sat Rune on her feet and drew her rifle before popping off a trio of shots. Despite the pain of her injury, a single kama was raised, the blade deflected one while the wooden haft intercepted the other. The third one I feared had punched her melon, but I watched in the time dilation from the Trance as she lowered her head and caught the fucking tranquilizer with her teeth.

There was a supreme sense of accomplishment from Cricket as she spat the tranquilizer, as well as two of her front teeth, onto the cracked pavement of the alleyway. "That's fucking hardcore, Cricket. You might be a Nazi but I can respect the fight in you. Go to sleep now though."

RO635 raised her rifle and snapped off half a dozen shots before smoothly reloading her weapon; two more tranquilizers were deflected, two more were dodged by a twisting of her torso, but the other two were unavoidable; with her arms occupied, her torso twisting, her legs were currently engaged with the ground.

Though, son of a bitch, Cricket still managed to lift one leg up in an attempt to pirouette with her twist, and the fifth one missed- just scraping by the hem of her torn blue jeans. The sixth tranquilizer punched into her thigh though.

A few seconds later she was falling onto the ground, the warrior Cricket falling asleep.

The phones were confiscated, copies made, and geolocation tracking data searched.

Of course, I already knew that Kaiser was located at the Medhall building, but now that I had them all originate from the same location? Now I had probable cause to hit the place.

I watched RO635 pick the two of them up before making her way over to us just as Armsmaster rolled up.

"Frontline! We were informed that there were Empire Capes in the area."

He swung off his bike and looked around at the destruction wrought by the fighting, to the sleeping and injured gang members that were treated.

Then to Hookwolf, Crusader- the other girls just touched down with the unconscious Othala and Victor- Stormtiger was placed gently onto the ground (and I meant gently; no mishandling the prisoners in front of the Protectorate). RO635 rounded the corner not ten seconds later, loping off the side of the roof- her thrusters flaring to ease her onto her armored feet.

"Indeed, there were Empire Capes, and we were fighting them," M16A1 spoke as she hopped off the roof and landed across from Armsmaster a respectable distance away, and I did the same, "However, as you can see, we drew the Empire into a decisive battle, and their Capes are defeated- some are bruised and battered, but mostly unharmed. The mundanes that were injured from friendly fire or from the fight with Hookwolf; there was a lot of shrapnel."

He nodded, but his lips were tight, "This was quite reckless, Frontline. The Empire are no push-overs, and their roster has been known for being competent and slick; this could have gone very badly. It was made only worse by the fact that you strung Protectorate capes along, having us handle the mundane Empire members while you sought out the Parahumans on your own."

"That is not true at all, Armsmaster," 16 shook her head, "While it might have appeared so, our call to you and the PRT was to aid the BBPD with the influx of Empire mundanes we captured this evening. We had only contingencies for tonight to engage only if engaged, and we did not believe they would try to make their stand now as opposed to later. We were surrounded and thusly forced to engage."

A low sigh escaped his lips, "Will you be taking any more action this evening?"

"Yes, we will. We have the location of Kaiser, Krieg, Fenja, and Menja. We have an opportunity to collapse the Empire 88 tonight," She reached into her pouch and pulled out a tablet, the geolocation data popping up as the phone signals from all of the Empire capes all originated from one single location.

"The Medhall building," Armsmaster ground out, "I had always suspected as much, but I could never gather enough conclusive evidence to obtain a warrant; the District Attorney's office constantly stonewalled us. Now I know why. Lots of money flowed into their offices through charities."

"Would you like to spearhead this assault with us, Armsmaster?" I asked, extending an olive branch.

He stiffened at that, almost shocked that I even offered, "I... will gladly help lead this operation."

The Armsmaster straightened up and thumped his halberd onto the ground, "The Empire ends tonight."

It wasn't until the action had settled down that I allowed myself to look at the two perks that I had acquired throughout all of this.

[Attempted Re-Forge: 36.0490 - Shipping the Product - 400CP - F.E.A.R. - Quality Resources]
[Re-Forge Successful]
[Purchased: 650 - 250 CP Remaining]

[Attempted Re-Forge: 34.008 - Reliable Invention - 200CP - Kim Possible - Quality Durability]
[Re-Forge Successful]
[Purchased: 50 CP Remaining]

I blinked as I read the Perks and M16A1 pulled up the map surrounding the Medhall building; HJs 1, 2, and 3 were coming in for pick-up, and this was going to be a hot drop. We didn't know how many members were at the building, but we were going to let Armsmaster take the lead; Echelons 1 and 2 were going to go in from the ground floor while Echelon 3, myself, M16A1, and Armsmaster inserted on the roof.

Negev still wanted either Fenja or Menja, and TS 12 decided that she would settle for the other.

I worked out a plan with Armsmaster- I would strip away Kaiser's armor, and he would go for the knockout blow; he'd apparently gotten approval to "field test" my tranquilizers, which I hadn't yet been told were approved (I would bring that up later), but I did permit him to utilize it for this takedown. He was creating a tranquilizer to combat Lung, but that hadn't yet entered into the testing phase.

He seemed... inordinately excited to be 'leading this action', but considering everything that's been happening we could stand to help the guy out. We were pretty much invalidating his whole career in Brockton so... a nice official capture of the Super-Villain Kaiser would look great on his resume.

Of course, we promised to edit out the make the footage look suitably heroic while we went through some canned lines where we both heroically decided to work together- with Armsmaster's wealth of experience against Kaiser he was the obvious choice to lead this assault. We would edit those in, while we would edit out the claims that we were being reckless. It would be 'give and take', but for Armsmaster the PR win for the Protectorate and PRT was worth far more than the painting us as 'reckless'.

The PRT Troopers arrived and began rounding everyone up, with Miss Militia following right behind them. We loaded up in the aircraft while Armsmaster spoke to his second-in-command.

"We cannot let Kaiser escape, I will be spearheading the assault on Kaiser's immediate location- Miss Militia, you have control on the ground here; make sure these Villains are in the PRT cells."

She gave a short salute while eyeing us before she turned around and began directing the Troopers; the men and women of the Protectorate quite seasoned at rounding up sleeping prisoners. They had a lot of practice as of late.

I patted the open bay of the Helljumper and Armsmaster sat beside me; he startled a little bit when his armor was locked in place by the magnet, but a wide grin spread from ear to ear like we were a bunch of Delta Force Operators lifting off on the side skids of a Little Bird.

We ran him through the formations we used, and I offered him my tranquilizer pistol, but he declined it. He did take the portable Overshield I gave him- "Just activate it and slap it anywhere on you."

"This is excellent work, may I keep this?"

"Actually, you know what? Yeah, you can keep it. Just make sure you set up a time with Dragon so we can all Tinker together, okay? Just because we didn't agree to the restrictions of the partnership program doesn't mean we have to let that rule the other aspects of our personal and professional relationships."

"Indeed, I agree as well. The things we can accomplish are limitless; I just wish more Tinkers could stand to work around each other more often." He nodded as he placed it against his chest plate, activating the magnets before a softly shimmering field enveloped his armor.

"Excellent."

---

[15 minutes later]

I had sent a bunch of drones to scour the Medhall facility beforehand, to make sure that Kaiser was still there. Thankfully, he was, but he had staged his helicopter on the landing pad and the aircraft was in the opening stages of its take-off procedures.

Of course, he knew he was fucked; he tried to call Victor's phone on the flight over, asking what the hell was taking so long. I answered the phone of course, which sent Max Anders into a fit of apoplectic rage.

"NTW-20, keep that bird on the deck," I ordered, and from 1,900 meters away a 20mm +P+ API round smacked into the crankcase of the helicopter- thankfully we got here before the pilot could get the Augusta AB-139's rotors up to speed; if we hadn't then the damn thing would have likely shaken itself apart.

As it was right now it stuttered and jerked before the movement ground itself to a halt and the pilot began shutting down the engines.

Already Echelons 1 and 2 were freefalling off of their Helljumpers and surrounding the building.

M16A1 and I grabbed Armsmaster and locked his armor to our hands as we jumped fifty feet out of the aircraft and onto the deck, our thrusters flaring as we softened the impact; Armsmaster insisted that his power armor could take such a fall, but we insisted that there was no point in possibly causing damage to his equipment and thus forcing him to spend time repairing it when we could slow his fall while still making it look properly heroic.

The door to the helicopter slid open and Fenja and Menja got out, masks on and weapons armed as they started to grow in size.

God, thank you for stupid villains.

If they'd just stayed in their civvies they could have at least made it actually painful for us; we'd have to fight all sorts of bullshit from whatever Gesellschaft appointed lawyers if they'd done that. Attacking them in their civilian identity?

They still would have lost that fight, but it would have been agonizing.

Nope. We're attacking Fenja and Menja, and who else would be in the helicopter with them besides Krieg and Kaiser?

I laughed to myself as Negev and TS 12 unloaded into the two giant villains, the two women toppling over as the tranquilizer worked its way into their systems; they reduced incoming attacks relative to their size, but it took them some time to get to their full height. At that point, Negev had pumped 20 tranquilizers into her and TS 12 had fired down all three of her shotshell tubes.

The two Israeli T-Dolls attached their weapons to their backs and charged forward, the gravel of the roof kicking up behind them as they crashed into the knees of the twelve feet tall women and pulled them down to the ground.

M16A1 sprinted ahead of us to crash into Krieg, though he had managed to actually repel her- the cape easily redirecting the force of her tackle and using it to fling her with surprising strength; M16A1 had to engage her thrusters to not be tossed off the roof. The paralytic grenades she'd dropped at his feet exploded, a large cloud of gas enveloping him. He wore a costume that was very SS-like, with polished jackboots, the grey pants, and a white shirt that was tucked into his pants- the grey uniform top nestled onto his shoulders. He wore an SS cap on his head, with the E88 symbol on a red and white armband.

Krieg had a gas mask that was part of this uniform, but that wouldn't do him any good here; if his clothes were permeable, the paralytic would soon be taking effect.

I dropped out of the weakened Strategy Trance that I'd unknowingly slipped into while we ran, and Kaiser stepped out last, the man clad in his armor.

Spears of steel shot up from the rooftop, the cape using the metal to sprout his weapons; I didn't care, however, as I just bulldozed through them. More and more and more sprouted up while Armsmaster rank in my wake, hidden by the shiny bright lights of my flicking shield and hiding in my shadow with his halberd ready.

I allowed my shields to drop just before I reached Kaiser, and I punched through the barrier he sprouted from the frame of the helicopter. My hulking form slammed into him, and my fist tore out a huge swath of his chest armor.

Armsmaster slipped his halberd under my armpit and thrust forward, the tip homing down-!

I slipped into the Strategy Trance just so I could fully appreciate what was happening.

The needle was rushing towards Max Ander's chest, bearing down on his left pectoral where his armor had been torn away. The armor was already reforming, and to add to that, spears of metal were sprouting from the metal of Armsmaster's halberd.

His halberd stopped as the steel spines on his weapon contacted the reforming armor over Kaiser's chest- the needle stopped just a few inches short as the armor continued to reform itself.

To anyone else this would have looked like Kaiser's moment of triumph- the last-ditch effort to take him down before the brawl got started thwarted by some pretty ingenious use of his power; for any normal capes, this would have been the moment he shiskebab'd us.

However.

I could see the viciousness in Armsmaster's smile as his thumb pressed a trigger on the halberd, and the needle shot forward the last three inches and delivered its payload into his chest.

Through the scanners, I could see the exact moment when he realized he lost. Watched his lips curl back in rage as his eyes narrowed, seething in pure hatred.

I planted my feet and pressed my back into Armsmaster's sternum before I kicked off with judicious force. I could hear the air leaving the Protectorate capes' lungs as we skidded across the gravel and towards the edge of the room.

The entire portion of the roof surrounding the helicopter had been turned into a literal forest of blades. Almost half of the roof had been turned into a death trap, and when Armsmaster saw that he put whatever complaint he was going to give me on hold.

At least until he regained the functionality of his lungs.

"Exc- heeee, exc-hehllent judge-hee-ment call."

"I could say the same for you, that little extending jab? Inspired." I chuckled with a wheeze (feigned) as I slowly picked myself up to my feet; I extended a manly helping hand, and he gripped my wrist like we were Viking battle-brothers still living after having vanquished old Kaiser 'One-Eye'.

Shut up, that analogy totally works.

Besides, it would make for an excellent outro as he looked at Kaiser's porcupine nest. TS 12 and Negev were already breaking through it all with extreme prejudice, the pair wanting to tranq him again just to be sure it hadn't been watered down or tampered with.

Fenja and Menja had been pulled out of the way after Negev and TS 12 beat their faces in until the tranquilizer had done its jobs and put the big, beautiful, bodacious Scandanavian model babes to sleep. Krieg was slumped over onto his side; he was paralyzed but since he was still conscious his power was still working.

M16A1 was getting annoyed at having the finger pokes she was attempting to give him redirected. Instead, she just cracked open a tranquilizer round and vaporized the liquid, wafting it into his nostrils until he passed out. Then she jabbed him again.

I blinked as I received a packet from M4A1 SOP MOD II. The lil' Operator Chick had a fun time downstairs.

When Echelon's 1 and 2 stormed inside there had been a bunch of confusion with the regular security guards who were wondering why Frontline was blowing their doors in, but they shoved them aside easily enough, telling them to seek cover in their armored security office (it was Brockton Bay).

They faced more stiff competition from the guards who were in the know, and a raging gunbattle ensued that they had not a snowball's chance in hell at winning. They still fought anyway, which was about the only thing I would give them. My teams blew through the opposition like shit through a goose; with no more Capes left there was little else the non-powered members of the Empire could do except roll over and take a nap.

Soppy was pleased to announce that we had captured Kaiser's cash vault; I tasked Nugget with hacking into Kaiser's accounts and stealing all of his money, and the little Nug was more than happy to do so. While the laptop Kaiser had in his bag was destroyed, the desktop computer had been wiped.

Not enough to thwart us though. I hopped off the side of the building before brandishing my lightsaber- the purple blade scoring a hole into the glass and I kicked the circular pane out. I grabbed the desktop computer and rushed over to the closest door with a lock and opened up the door to the warehouse so that I could slide the computer into Enbee's greedy tentacles. He stripped the machine apart and put it back together before patting me on the helmet.

I directed Nugget to doctor the footage of the cameras to show me merely sitting down at the computer and waiting for it to boot up. The door shut and did just that, quickly connecting the cables in record time; and the computer screen came on just as Armsmaster slid into the room with the grappling hook.

"Was that a lightsaber? It sounded very similar, also, may I ask what you're doing?"

"Checking the computer, obviously," I nodded at him as I slipped the copy device in and began making a complete flash of the drive; Nugget grabbed the username, password, pin, and everything else from the computer that was saved onto it. There were to be some hurdles to jump through to get the answers to the security questions on Max's personal and company accounts-

Shit. Could I take the company accounts? There were shareholders and stuff- the majority of it was owned by Gesellschaft but there was more than a good amount of it owned by the employees.

Only maybe half of the Employees were Empire, and the rest weren't. Would it be fair to steal all of their money? Especially once this broke the company WOULD be going under, unless it was purchased out by someone else; it was still a highly profitable company, but the stigma of being Nazi owned would be difficult to overcome.

Besides, the PRT would likely step in and freeze all Med Hall assets, especially once it was brought to light the Gesellschaft ties.

No, I would settle for Kaiser's personal accounts instead. Let the chips fall where they may.

"I've made a copy and will do a thorough analysis; I would recommend you do the same; no doubt there is a treasure trove of information here."

I was out of the chair, making way for Armsmaster to take a seat and then leaping out the hole in the window; I corrected by fall and flared my thrusters to ease me onto the ground. I strode down the hallways at a good clip, passing by one member of my team every so often who watched over the captured Empire members and to make sure no one was trying to destroy evidence before the PRT got their hands on it.

My destination, however, was the big fucking money vault where Kaiser kept all of his cash that was waiting for money laundering. Soppy gave me a give salute as a kissy-face emoji popped up on her helmet. I knocked my helmet against hers as she spoke, "Be sure to love me all day tomorrow, okay, Sir?"

"M-me too, Commander," M4A1 turned her helmet to the side.

Then the comms channel exploded.

"Me too!"
"Hey, don't forget about K2!"
"This Type 95 will be more than happy to share the bed with all of her wonderful sisters, hu-hu."
"Woah! G41 would never forgive me if I didn't vouch for her! Two fox loli's at once, Commander! Think of the fluffy tails!"

"Cash, girls," I opened up the door to the warehouse from the closest door with a lock, which was almost on the other side of the floor; all the doors were of the sliding variety (either up or down) but with no physical locks there wasn't any way I could use them.

I had to settle for a janitor's closet. It worked just fine.

The girls hustled in with the carts, cash that was piled high was transferred and pushed into the warehouse; it was a quick train, with empty and full carts being hustled around. It took five minutes for the girls to strip the vault bare, and we were super-soldiers in power armor; that was how you knew it was packed. I doubted the Brockton Bank had this much cash on hand in their vault.

We did some deeper scans of the building, making sure to unlock everything important for the PRT- the drug labs were really locked down; no doubt they thought if the cash was somehow stolen then they could still rebuild if the drug equipment was still around.

When we left the building an hour later, the PRT Troopers rushed past us as Agents moved in to secure the entire building, it was to the tune of raucous applause. Armsmaster was beside me, and we gave each other a nod.

"I don't know how much money we secured during these raids, Armsmaster, but once I know the total amount I will let you know in an official report."

I could see his jaw twitch at that, "Very well. I will keep my eye open for it. Until we meet again, Horizon."

"Armsmaster."

The forge sputtered but didn't grab a star, the charge too weak and the star so large I couldn't even grasp its name.

[Remaining: 150 CP]

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- Note: I actually rolled two perks that I already got twice this chapter, which necessitated a re-roll: Huragok Ally and I Can Whip Something Up.

The third roll was Reliable Invention, and thusly it was chosen.

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NOTE: Sniper Rifle picture was found on google images. Used without permission, so if the author sees this and wants the imaged removed just message me and I will do so. His Deviantart account it here - [ARTIST]

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Special thanks to Lmc9389, Xodarap4, Artillery, DrkShdow, AuraofCalm, Zerak, Mioismoe, Zath, Splendid, D. Wongsonegoro, Darkarma, Acrimonius, T. Balewood, Randall Randall, Dominyx Black, CyberCrisis, Blue, Russ Stilter, Legion_13, Mike Fatal_Bullet, P. Nguyen, Fred65, K. Nielsen, J. Ricardo Passos, B. Rison, K. Weierbach, R. Alderman for being Patrons!

You guys rock!

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Rapid Construction (Blazing Saddles) (50CP)
You are not only a truly excellent carpenter, you are an exceptionally fast worker. Any form of construction or crafting will be completed in a tenth the time it would otherwise take, though your overall quality will suffer if you use this at full effect (times ten). At times two, you'll sacrifice none of the quality, but as you get closer to times ten, you'll sacrifice more and more of it.

Shipping the Product (F.E.A.R.) (400CP)
Prototypes are one thing, but what about actually getting the damn thing distributed? An item or weapon doesn't help anyone if it's the only one of its kind. You will find your ability to create has increased dramatically in efficiency, letting you use the materials for three of the same items to actually make five while streamlining production lines rather quickly. As a bonus, logistics have increased enough where your shipped supplies are harder to intercept, keeping any allies you have fresh with resources!

Reliable Invention (Kim Possible) (200CP)
Anything you construct is only broken when used improperly or purposefully targeted with attacks. The items you create do not malfunction and are completely resistant to damage caused by regular usage.