Someone is following you.'
The hair on the back of Lisa's neck stands on end and she barely restrains herself from looking out the window. She and the rest of the Undersiders are currently in Coil's limousine together with Trickster. If things got hairy, there would be an easy way to get them all out of there. In the meantime, though, they were still in the middle of an important meeting. Tonight, they are going to decide on whether they are going to continue and come further into the man's employ or keep themselves somewhat independent.
Not that there's really a choice, she thinks. Not when everyone's practically already decided.
It's annoying more than anything else. If Coil gets spooked and finds them more trouble than they're worth, she wouldn't be able to stick close enough to his operations to appropriate it all for herself. His mercenaries in particular would be made more difficult to bribe if they were told to keep her team away. Lisa would have to continue building up her rapport and dirt on him over a few more years. She doesn't want to waste any more time on that.
With that in mind, Lisa turns her attention back to the conversation.
"...I'm not saying there won't. I'm just saying that there's room for improvement. When I was in grade six, more of my classmates could explain what a K-hole was than name a dozen countries."
"I am not promising quick fixes, Skitter. What I will tell you is that individuals like yourselves would control territories and be responsible for maintaining your own kind of order in those areas, with whatever means you saw fit. Over time, people would adjust to this, crime rates would decrease. I would simultaneously be controlling the flow of product into the city, reducing the distribution of the most problematic drugs, those that would lead to the most societal decay and crime, while making other, more benign product available in their place. Crime and drugs cannot be conquered, but they are animals I believe I can tame."
Lisa takes a deep breath. "Sorry to rain on the conversation here, but we've got a problem."
The rest of the team and Trickster turns to her. Coil doesn't move, but by the movement on the surface of his mask, he's frowning.
Brian is the one to ask. "What is it?"
"Someone's onto us," she says. "They're… hmm…"
'Stranger. Unable to recall relevant information.'
"Shit, it's a Stranger."
Coil turns to the driver. "Stop the car."
The limousine lurches to a standstill and its inhabitants shuffle out of the vehicle. Lisa feels the eyes turn to her as she turns about, trying to see if there is anything wrong.
"Consider this another test," Coil says. "If you're able to find and subdue the Stranger, then consider your wishes granted as far as I am able to provide."
"You should consider it a failure then."
Lisa whips around so quickly that her head spins from the whiplash. She is just in time to see the intruder hit Coil in the back of the head, the man slumping to the ground in an almost comical way.
Their assailant is a woman in an odd outfit and not in the typical cape kind. She had no mask, so her Asiatic features were plain as day. Her hair is a striking shade of indigo with pale tufts that seem to have their own glow. Her outfit is exotic—an intricately cut black top partially covered by a white and purple jacket that has sleeves similar to a kimono, shorts, and asymmetrical length boots where the leg with shorter footwear had some kind of cloud or flame tattoo on her thigh. Lastly, her eyes are an otherworldly shade of purple with an electric glow that Lisa's power assured isn't a trick of the light.
Lisa notes that the other trucks have already stopped. Coil's mercenaries lie scattered and unconscious on the asphalt. She had already taken everyone out before the capes had even stepped out of the car.
"Trickster!" Lisa shouts. The top hat man grunts and points his fingers.
Suddenly, their assailant is replaced with a dumpster. Lisa knows that the nature of Trickster's power means that unless he takes a vantage point, their enemy couldn't have been teleported very far away.
"Grue!"
"On it!"
Black fog starts pouring out of Brian filling the area quickly and blocking out sound. Lisa feels a hand grab onto hers and she allows herself to be guided into safety. Yet, two steps into it, she suddenly has a deep sense of foreboding and uses her weight to pull Brian to the ground.
She is just in time.
Air surges around her. It smells of ozone and crackles with power as the darkness is suddenly ripped away.
Lisa looks up and barely catches the figure of their intruder suddenly arrives where Grue is lying on the ground. She kicks him away with enough force to send the boy crashing into a shop window. Lisa only registers what has just happened when she hears the crash.
"Grue!"
'Superhuman strength and reflexes. Able to project destructive energies that can destroy photo-thermoacoustic absorption clouds.'
No shit!
The woman is quickly replaced by another object, a water barrel this time. Lisa idly notes the way that there seems to be a line drawn across the street, cutting telephone and lamp posts in half while leaving deep gouges on the buildings in front of her. Had she been hit by that, she would have suffered a similar fate.
"Tats!"
Lisa turns to find Taylor and Alec racing toward her. Rachel, meanwhile, is in the middle of trying to get her dogs out of the other trucks.
"I'm okay!" Lisa says then points over to the broken storefront. "Grue's over there and pretty banged up."
"Shit."
Trickster interrupts their conversation by clearing his throat. "We better get a move on. Can't hold the woman off forever."
"You're right about that."
Lisa's heart races as the woman is suddenly there beside Trickster. The man doesn't have time to turn around and use his power before the woman grabs his neck. She slams him into the floor. He stops moving.
Lisa doesn't need to use her power to know that Trickster had just been knocked out cold, leaving the three of them alone with her.
Alec throws an arm around. Then he cries out before collapsing to the floor. Lisa nervously turns to their assailant, who observes the boy's writhing with a detached sense of curiosity.
'Inhuman biology. Human biology. Imaginary Form.'
What the hell?
She ignores the confusion as her face morphs into a reflexive smile.
"Can we have a timeout?"
The woman tilts her head, causing Lisa to break into a sweat. It takes the woman a moment to answer as if she truly is considering it.
Finally, "I'll allow it."
'Faint accent. Japanese but not quite. Extraterrestrial.'
Huh.
Lisa breathes a sigh of relief and glances at Skitter. The other girl makes a subtle nod, indicating that she is summoning her swarm.
She turns back to the unknown woman. "Well, how about we introduce ourselves? I'm Tattletale, and the girl beside me is Skitter. The guy in white is Regent while the one you punted into a building is Grue.."
The woman nods. "Acheron, Galaxy Ranger, if that means anything to you."
'An alias.'
It doesn't, but Lisa isn't about to complain. Not vocally, at least.
"Is there anything we can do for you so that you'll let us go free?"
"None," the woman says with a note of finality. Well, I tried.
Still, if that is true, then for what reason are they still standing there?
"Then, do you need us for anything else?"
"I do," she says, then points at the limousine, where Coil is currently being dragged toward by the driver. The man himself stops in his tracks as he realizes he's being watched.
"Take me to that man's base and help me root it out. Types like his have all sorts of things going on in the background and it'll prove itself as a rot that will tear down the entire tree."
Lisa's eyes widen. Wait, this is actually a pretty good chance. If she gets me to his account, I could take everything and put them into shell companies.
She chances a look at Taylor. It's hard to see anything behind the mask, but Lisa's power is there to the rescue.
'Apprehensive. Considering. Wants to take down Coil but worries for the fate of the team.'
Lisa smiles. "If we help you with this and promise not to make any more trouble, would you let us go?"
"Perhaps," the stranger says.
At that moment the snarls of three giant beasts are heard approaching them. Lisa scowls and turns to the noise, finding Rachel on a mounted charge toward them.
"Bitch, wait!" she cries out, but it is too late. The three monster dogs are already at an unstoppable collision course toward the woman.
Acheron turns into a blur and before Lisa knows it, three mutant dogs are falling out of the air. Acheron herself could be seen landing with an unconscious Rachel on her shoulder on top of the limousine, where the driver was just about to enter the driver's seat.
The man takes a step back, shaking like a leaf. Acheron steps down from the car's roof and then as if she is talking about the weather, says, "Why don't we load everyone in the trucks, now?"
Lisa swallows. They had accidentally caught the attention of a monster and she can't help but feel that they won't be escaping its clutches anytime soon
"Your leader's base is here?"
She turns to the two teenagers—and they are teenagers. Only teenagers would think that striking it out on their own, committing crimes, and not depending on anyone is a good life. Though, she supposes that there are also adults who deny the pain and confusion of living in complete uncertainty, but they are much rarer. In either case, both made a choice and walked the path it laid out. She might respect that decision, but that doesn't absolve them of its consequences.
The three of them are standing within the city's sewers. It doesn't stink as much as the other places that she could still remember, but having a lower standard does not make staying any less unpleasant.
She had tied up the others and placed them somewhere for the local law enforcement to see. The bindings were done using steel girders from the incomplete Endbringer shelter topside because of course nobody expects villains to bring handcuffs or the like. Trickster, especially, has most of his head wrapped in some smart metal she can barely feel. The bug girl—Skitter, which she'll hopefully remember tomorrow—had offered to tie them up with spider silk, to which she had refused.
"I am not so forgetful as to let an enemy handle incapacitating one of their own," she had said. "And to that end, I want you to call the local law enforcement before we go inside."
Either way, that brings them to the sewers, and her opinion of the snakesuit man seems to drop even lower the more she learns about his plans. Apparently, he had made his base of operations in an entire underground complex buried underneath an ongoing construction site. Having the entrances go through the sewers is unnecessary theatrics, and having the whole place buried underground speaks of either even more unnecessary flamboyance or a secret that needs to be hidden from the world.
The one called Tattletale leads them through several turns before stopping before a metal door. The peephole slides open, but before the man on the other side can so much as breathe a word, the door is already falling over, its hinges sliced in half.
"Spare us the pleasantry," she said. "I'm not here to receive it."
Soon, the man finds the gun he was holding cut in half before he can finish raising the weapon. The next moment, he sees stars and slumps to the ground on the other end of the hallway.
Of course, that is when the alarms begin to blare. The lights turn red and speakers cry out in a rhythmic pattern.
"Wait," Tattletale says as they reach another metal door. "You can't just—"
And the door is cut in half.
Then the hallway fills with light as whoever on the other side opens fire with plasma weapons. For a second, she considers dodging out of the way, but such action would lead to the two behind her dying a gruesome death, so she summons Naught in her hand and, without unsheathing the blade decides to fight off the salvo in its entirety.
The world slows as she accelerates and cuts and slashes. One, two, seventeen, forty-five. She catches it all on Naught's sheathe without error.
To the ordinary person, she appears as a blurry figure to which the rain of fire splashes harmlessly against. She walks forward like an unstoppable storm. By the time she is inside the next room, the salvo has ended and the gunmen are staring between her and their overheated weapons in dismay.
"My turn," she says.
They are unconscious within seconds.
-ø-
Taylor should be feeling elated. Her long-held goal of joining the Undersiders to find out about their big boss is coming to fruition. Hell, she doesn't even need to send a message to Miss Militia; her helper for the full takedown appears just as she is thinking on how to tell the Protectorate.
So why is it that she feels afraid more than anything else?
They continue to walk through the halls of the underground base, neither Tattletale nor herself needing to do anything as Acheron cuts down all obstacles and opposition in their way. Taylor finds Acheron terrifying. The way the woman moves with supreme confidence and treats every encounter with indifference—it almost feels like she is meant for some greater problem and taking care of Taylor's friends is just a chore for her.
No. Not a chore. A distraction.
"We're almost to the control room," Tattletale says, her voice more subdued than usual. Normally, she would be chatting the woman's ear off, trying to poke holes and probe for weaknesses, but now she's quiet—and that's the most disturbing part.
They come upon another door, another blockaded hallway. "Stay here," Acheron says, instructing them to stay in the corner, likely so that they wouldn't be liabilities to be protected like the previous encounter. Both villains nod and shuffle out of sight. Pleased, Acheron turns to the door and slashes it open just like last time.
"What's wrong?" Taylor asks just as the firefight begins.
"Well, several things." Tattletale shrugs. "Did you know that aliens are real and that there's a whole several galaxies-wide community out there? That there's a god of literal nothingness that you can't look too deep into without feeling like you have to die?"
"No?"
The other girl stares at her for a second before releasing a shuddering breath. "Well, figured. The world's insane enough; what's a few thousand more?"
Taylor runs the girl's words through her mind. "Are you saying that she's an alien?"
"Turns out, a lot of sentient species are basically just humans out there."
Taylor isn't sure what to say. It seems rather sudden and she honestly feels more concerned about their current situation than anything else, like if the woman is going to take them to jail after this or if they can negotiate being let free.
"It's done."
Taylor jumps to find that Acheron has indeed finished with her work. The woman turns to Tattletale and the other girl takes a deep breath before peering into the hallway.
"There," she says pointing at a door. "That's the control room." She pauses and turns to the other doors. Swallowing, she points to one beside the control room. "You also might want to check this one out."
"What's in there?" Taylor asks.
"It's better if you check it out for yourself."
They turn to the woman, who crosses her arms and nods. Together, they head toward the door. Taylor has her swarm scout ahead and finds… a bedroom?
She explores the room, searching for its occupants. She finds a stuffed toy on the floor: what seems to be its head has been ripped out and the fillings are splayed all over the room. There is a TV, a table where a plate of cold food sits, and a figure on the bed huddled in a blanket.
A chill goes up Taylor's spine. The woman cuts open the door and the falling pieces barely get a reaction out of the sleeping figure. Her bugs finally reach under the blanket.
It's a child.
Before she knows it, Taylor is already marching forward, barely aware of pushing past the woman so that she can rip the cloth away to reveal a pre-teen shivering in a fetal position. Then, Taylor froze.
The kidnapped girl grunts at the sudden light and shields her eyes. "Candy?" she says, her words slurring. "Y-you have?"
The world spins. Taylor stumbles back, choking on a breath. She's barely aware of a pair of arms catching her as her legs give out.
"Sorry, but we don't," Taylor hears the woman say through her delirium. "But you're safe now. You just need to hold out a little longer."
Taylor doesn't see how the little girl responds, but through her bugs, she can tell that the victim nods and closes her eyes once more. Gently, the woman picks the girl up and starts walking out of the room.
"Tattletale," she says, "take your friend and go to the control room. I will try to find something that will relieve this one."
"On it."
Then the woman leaves with the child in her arms. Taylor feels her mask come off—then yelps as a slap stung her cheek. Blinking, she glares at Tattletale and the momentary rage gives her the strength to get back to her feet.
"What the hell happened here?"
Tattletale's expression is somber as she answers. "That's the mayor's niece," she says. "Dinah Alcott. She has a power, a really good Thinker power, but no one believed she had it, and ended up being kidnapped by Coil back when we attacked the bank." She sighs. "I should have known."
"You really should have," Taylor says, suddenly feeling angry. Tattletale winces but doesn't disagree. Instead, she turns toward the door.
"C'mon," she says. "Power's telling me this place is rigged to blow. We need to check out the control room."
Taylor nods and they leave.
The control room is much more lavish compared to the rest of the facilities. Where the halls are left with bare smoothened concrete, this room is covered in whitewash. Paintings, large and expensive, hang from the walls interspersed with potted plants and furniture.
At the center is an office table with several monitors. Tattletale makes a beeline for it and quickly boots up the monitor. Then she snickers.
"Can you believe this guy?" she says. "His password is 'King of the Bay 2011'!"
Taylor blinks. Tattletale presses the enter key, then in a few moments, she goes down a chain of inputs on a text terminal.
The alarms stop.
"Alright," Tattletale says. "That's both the alarms and self-destruct stopped…"
She hits several keys, opening several windows. Taylor sees several digits cited in dollars on at least five of them.
"What are you doing?"
Taylor jumps as she suddenly finds Acheron beside them. She still has Dinah in her arms, but the girl is now sound asleep instead of the trembling mess she was when they first found her.
"So you gave her 'candy'?" Tattletale asks.
"That's right. I might be many things but a healer isn't one of them. Giving the child one now might make it worse for her down the line, but for now, we have no better way to help her." Her eyes narrow. "So I ask, what are you doing?"
Tattletale holds up her arms. "Relax. I'm taking care of Coil's assets, the ones he has hidden everywhere away from this place. Or other things: failsafes, some hires we don't know about, or some other contingency. That way, he can't just hit us with something we didn't see or make a comeback if he somehow manages to get out."
The woman raises a brow. "Us?"
And there it is, the certainty that despite the good she's doing now, Taylor would still have to face getting arrested once this is all said and done.
She grits her teeth. It's not fair, she thinks. She spends all this time gaining the Undersiders' trust to find out about their boss and she's getting punished for it?
Taylor remembers Armsmaster's words black at the gala.
"Don't expect anything other than a prompt arrest for you and your companions for your antics tonight," he shook his head, "A bird in the hand, after all…"
And now this woman, one, who, unlike with Armsmaster, she can do nothing about. At least, not without the woman getting Taylor first, and she hasn't tested if her bugs will continue to follow her last orders while she's unconscious. Would it even be worth it to try?
"What the hell?" Tattletale says, jolting Taylor out of her thoughts. She along with Acheron approaches her teammate. "So that's what the Travelers are about."
"What is it?" Taylor asks.
"Coil's deal," Acheron says. "He promised his help with their teammate in exchange for their services."
"And the thing with their teammate is that her power is fucking her up," Tattletale continues. "She has this abnormal mutation that turns the lower half of her body into some kind of monster that's slowly taking control of her mind, making her hungry and homicidal."
She goes through a few files. "Forty missing in… Can make evil duplicates of other people and capes…" She pauses. "A Simurgh victim? No, all of them?"
Taylor sucks in a breath. The combination of that power and that background does not bode well. The Simurgh is known for making sleeper agents that come to fruition years down the line. The phenomenon was so well-documented and caused so much panic and chaos that the Protectorate even has a word for them: Simurgh Bombs.
"We need to tell the PRT," Taylor says absently.
Tattletale snorts. "Yeah, like they'll take this seriously. At a minimum, this is an A-class going on S-class threat. From what Coil has, it doesn't look like it can be solved with just the local Protectorate."
She stops, then slowly turns to Acheron. "Unless… you're game for taking on a mini-Endbringer?"
Acheron frowns and closes her eyes. For a moment, nothing is said. Then she opens her eyes and, with a straight face, asks, "So what exactly is an Endbringer?"
At that moment, the facility decides to shake, followed by a deep, guttural roar from multiple throats. Then the alarms start blaring once again.