5.1
Ducking another swipe of a baseball bat and teleporting onto the table behind her, Madison's own return swing took the woman down for the count and she jumped back, teleporting mid-motion as another gang member busy wrestling with a Merchant almost barrelled into her and the table both.
As chaotic as the melee was, it was at least mostly easy to tell who was who. The Merchants had spray painted an 'M' on themselves in apparently whatever colour they had to hand, whilst everyone else had a mixture of leather jackets with most of them having something bright yellow on their clothing somewhere.
Not that it really mattered, since everyone not trying to beat each other senseless was trying to get at her instead if they weren't already running for the door.
Yelling 'I'm a Hero, everybody stop what you're doing!' As she'd entered hadn't done anything to her disappointment and complete lack of surprise and then as more than one pistol was drawn on her she was too busy to do anything else. Still, it had done the job of making a few people bail for the exit, the rest either locked in their own melee or too drugged up or wasted to care what was going on either way.
The bar was actually larger than it looked and had probably been a nice place at one point, though the appearance of size might have been due to the fact most of the furniture was either missing, destroyed or being used as improvised weaponry when it wasn't flying across the room.
Near the start of the fight Madison had spotted a couple of women hiding under a table and when she'd teleported them both outside at the same time she'd paid for it hard. It had been unlike anything she'd felt before, even when she'd teleported a single person the previous night and she'd staggered against the wall with a distinct feeling that she shouldn't try that again anytime soon. Realising how lucky she was a moment later that there hadn't been anyone nearby to take advantage of her in the moment of disorientation that had followed and just reinforcing the idea that it wasn't something she wanted to try again unless she was really desparate. Thankfully by the time the two women had run off she'd felt back to a given definition of normal and seemingly none the worse for wear, she had quickly ran back inside.
Gunshots sounded again from the floor above and Madison hoped none of them would punch through the walls and into any of the other buildings on the street as she dodged back to avoid a thrown bottle and it was anyone's guess if it had been thrown at her specifically. Though considering the devastation Squealer's homemade cannon had wrought at the start of the fighting, Madison was hoping that anyone who was nearby had already decided to get away as quickly as possible.
She teleported back from a Merchant taking a swing with a baseball bat wrapped in a chain and had just enough time to realise her mistake as a bar stool slammed into her side rather than the man the other Merchant had been swinging for, sending them both back harshly against the bar. Madison teleported behind the bar on reflex, her momentum carrying her as she stumbled back into the remaining shelves that hadn't already been broken, some collapsing and sending several of the few remaining intact bottles to crash down into the rest of the mess of alcohol and glass on the floor around her.
Shaking her head, she glared at the Merchant who was looking more surprised than anything, giving the man he'd been attempting to hit plenty of time to give a wordless yell and charge forward to grab the Merchant in a tackle that sent them both down and out of sight.
"Ugh, gonna need a new everything after this." Madison grimaced as she stepped forward, feeling the slick sticky floor under the crunch of glass shards beneath her feet. At least the boots she'd bought a year ago for her father's then, what turned out to be a very passing interest in camping had finally had a reason to come out of her closet. She just hoped she'd be able to get the smell of alcohol and smoke off them or she'd really be getting questions if they disappeared along with the rest of the clothes she was currently wearing.
The Merchant with the bat ran forward to help the one who had just been taken to the ground and Madison grabbed one of the bottles still left standing and threw it at him with her off hand. Her aim wasn't great, but he was basically right in front of her and she still clipped him in the shoulder hard. Teleporting behind him she kicked him in the back of the knee as he staggered, sending him down onto his knees as he briefly flailed for a handhold. Smacking a guy whilst he was down didn't give her the warm and fuzzies, but it was that or let him recover to try and remove her head from her shoulders a second time and so Madison didn't hesitate as she gave him a solid thwack that left him groaning in pain.
By the time she was done the other man, who she wasn't even sure was a gang member had managed to lay a beating on the Merchant he'd tackled and when he spotted her standing over the other one - With her probably very menacing looking crowbar in hand he jumped to his feet with a wary step back as he threw her a cautious look.
"Truce?"
"Yeah, get out" she replied as she took a moment to catch her breath, gesturing with a bob of her head to the door. The whole reason she had been about to back off from the place to begin with was the amount of people inside and she wasn't going to fight every low life if she didn't have to, especially when they hadn't done anything to her first. The drugs and money were the actual prize for entirely different reasons and probably what she'd find on the first floor judging by the sounds she could still hear of fighting from upstairs.
He nodded at her and she stepped back letting him pass, eyes tracking him just to make sure he wasn't about to change his mind and she tensed as he paused at the end of the bar. But rather than turning around he just gave a grandiose shrug, seemingly to no one in particular before stepping around the bar and grabbing two bottles that had somehow survived everything the rest of the room had gone through before he continued to the door.
"Really?" Madison couldn't help but mutter to herself, though apparently loud enough for him to hear her as he swirled around and gave her a mock bow.
"Waste not want not vicious little stoat! There is something to be gained this night after all! My thanks to you again!" He laughed before he was gone.
Madison paused, only then registering that the music had cut off at some point during the fighting. "I have no idea if I should be insulted right now" she muttered to herself and her audience of unconscious and groaning gang members around her who didn't offer a response.
Madison decided she'd look up stoats later, they were like ferrets right?
After using up annoying amount of her zip ties that she knew she was never going to get back, Madison made her way upstairs as several more shots rang out to the sounds of muffled yelling and other noises she couldn't put a name to.
She was halfway up the stairs when the door at the top burst open and a couple of Merchants appeared, the first immediately seeing her and looked about as surprised as she was to see them as he immediately started trying to back pedal the way he'd come.
"Fuck, cape!" He yelled in panic, the scrawny man bumping into the woman who was still coming down the stairs behind him and Madison teleported closer before he could get away. Her eyes went wide for a moment as she realised she'd overcompensated for the height of the steps, surprise knocking away every other thought as she landed on nothing but air for the moment before the soles of her boots found the stair below a second later. She slipped slightly as her left hand went instinctively to steady herself on the wall, her gaze unfocused in the brief panicked moment of recovery, looking back to Merchants just in time to see the gun come up from the woman behind the man recoiling in front of her.
Two somethings slammed into her as the gunshots cracked loudly in the enclosed space and she only barely registered something sparking off her chest as she fell backwards, hands grasping for purchase as she cried out in shock.
For a moment she saw the plain white overhang above the narrow staircase before in a blink it was replaced by the wooden panelling of the bar's ceiling and her back hit the ground and the various lumpy things she'd landed on with a thud. The air left her lungs and she felt her power complain in the same way it had when she'd teleported the two girls, only with the addition of having her breath completely knocked out of her to go along with it.
Blinking Madison looked down at herself, expecting to see something, but before she could try and figure out what had happened the two Merchants came into view from across the room as they charged down the rest of the stairs in a clambering of hurried footsteps, both spotting her at the same time she saw them.
"There she is! Hit the fucker again, again!"
Madison saw the gun come up and teleported behind the bar, immediately surrounded by the overwhelming smell of alcohol and couldn't help but lament at how ruined her clothes were as she pulled herself up into a crouch behind her cover, belatedly realising her crowbar was no longer in her hand.
Shots rang out, but they were fired at where she had been as little sense as it made and she didn't waste the opportunity, grabbing one of the bottles that hadn't broken in its fall to the ground and teleporting behind the two Merchants who had paused to try and see where she'd gone.
Spinning around as she came up, the unopened bottle of hard liquor met the woman's head with a thud and the woman dropped, gun skidding to the side and the duffel bag she had over her shoulder slipping off as she collapsed to the ground.
The Merchant in front of her turned as he staggered back with a surprised yelp, taking in the fallen woman and Madison standing behind her in a brief moment of panic as his eyes darted between them both.
"Surrender." Madison offered in monotone, well prepared to repeat her performance, but more than willing to give the man in front of her an out if he wanted to take it.
She saw the man's eyes darting to her feet then back to her, realising he wasn't looking at the woman as much as the bag that had come off her shoulder. Too late she saw as his frantic eyes skipped to the gun that had skidded under the table closer to him than her before he dove for it with a yell, letting out a cry of triumph as his hand closed around it at the same time she darted forward, grabbing his leg and yanking him back.
He tried to bring the pistol up and Madison threw her bottle at him, the man screaming in pain as it hit him in the jaw. Taking advantage of the distraction she teleported both of them to the street outside, ignoring the pull on her power as she did so and jumped forward, kicking the gun from his hand before he could recover.
"You bi-"
Was as far as he got before she brought her boot down on his chest and he was cut off as the air left him in a gasping wheeze.
"You're under arrest," she started, kicking him onto his front as he grunted in pain. "I assume you have rights, but I don't know them yet so the cops can tell you." She really needed to read up on them, though in that moment she was feeling the only rights he had were the rights to keep breathing after trying to shoot her in the face. She yanked both his hands behind his back, pulling a zip tie from her pocket and cuffing his hands together before doing the same for his ankles, glad for the time she'd spent practising with the zip ties in her room.
Satisfied he wasn't going anywhere and a little pleased he was too out of breath to insult her again she teleported back inside to secure the woman who had just begun to stir.
Madison didn't give her a chance as she repeated the process, part of her hoping she hadn't done too much damage from smacking her in the side of the head. The rest of her not particularly caring as long as she didn't get in trouble for it after what the woman had tried to do to her.
As she was about to go back to the staircase and retrieve her crowbar she paused as she caught sight of the woman's bag slightly off to the side, remembering how the other Merchant had looked at it.
"So what's in here?" She wondered to herself as she stepped over and picked it up. If the Merchants were hitting the place, then it made sense the ones left behind would take all the drugs they could get their hands on over anything else considering their reputation.
Though when she opened it up she had to pause, her thoughts jarring to a very sudden stop as her eyes widened at all off the wads of cash she found stuffed inside instead.
"Score..." she whispered to herself, stealing a glance back at the woman who wasn't even looking at her as she muttered curses under her breath and tried to wiggle out of her restraints.
With a satisfied grin Madison stored the bag away in her Inventory, feeling the slight strain that told her she was at the upper limits of the size of things she could store. Though whether that was the actual size of the bag or its weight or both, was something she'd think about when she wasn't in a den of criminals. "Something to investigate later I guess." She absently noted to herself as she couldn't help but wonder how much money the bag held.
Her crowbar was where she'd expected it to be at the bottom of the staircase and she grabbed it, giving it a quick once over and wincing as she caught the glimpse of blood on the black matte metal under the light, feeling like she should wipe it off, but not having anything to hand to do so.
Whatever had happened upstairs seemed like it was over from the lack of fighting she could hear, but after being shot, again her brain reminded her, she was cautious as she carefully made her way up the narrow staircase to the first floor.
The fact that the door she came to had literal bullet holes in it didn't inspire confidence and after pausing to steady herself she kicked it open violently from where it had bounced back shut after the Merchants had come through the first time. Hoping to startle anyone still standing and give her a chance to teleport further into the room - Or away if she needed to.
Though rather than a den of thugs waiting to ambush her with every weapon under the sun, she ended up walking into the aftermath of what she imagined the downstairs would have looked like if she hadn't interfered. Everything that could have been broken was destroyed and anything that might have been used as a weapon clearly had been.
There were maybe a dozen people in the room and some of the men and women had more blood around them than was probably healthy. Some were groaning as others laid still, no rhyme or reason to where they'd fallen that she could immediately see and some of them still clutching their, in some cases obviously improvised weapons in their hands. The only things that seemed to have largely escaped the destruction were the drugs and the money and as she took in the room properly she realised there was a lot of both.
A decently sized coffee table sat against the far wall had collapsed like something or someone had fallen or been thrown onto it and all of the product that looked like it had been stacked on top had largely fallen to the floor around it. The shelf underneath was partially filled with wads of bundled cash spilling out onto the floor, where it looked as if someone had tried to grab as many handfuls as they could and she could see loose dollars and other wads of cash poking out of more than one jacket pocket from the rooms remaining occupants.
The floor and the remaining fixtures were covered in debris and almost every piece of furniture looked like it had been shattered or used as an improved flail on someone else. Beer bottles and cans that had probably been on a table at some point along with baggies of drugs were scattered around the room, seemingly at random. Some of them had been ripped open, pills mixed in with what looked like actual candy spilt across half the floor from a shattered glass bowl along with random dollar bills and bits of broken glass, wood and porcelain. She entered slowly, careful of her footing as she went, parts of the wooden floor slick with alcohol, blood and greasy foods from the obvious signs of a party that had been very violently interrupted.
Though even then her gaze couldn't help but be drawn to what was more money than she'd ever seen in one place in her entire life, a groan and a muttered curse snapping her out of her reverie and her focus turned to the people around her. Madison frowned, annoyed with herself for getting distracted, money was one thing but people were hurt and a Hero didn't leave people to die.
Even as she stepped across to check on the first person nearest to her, the truth was she didn't know how to even check a pulse properly to begin with, let alone actually administer first aid. Though Madison found she didn't need to as she approached the first downed figure and saw just why they weren't getting up, the back of their head a broken mess of blood and other things that made her stomach turn unpleasantly.
Gritting her teeth she moved to the next person, she had... No idea what was wrong with them, but they were laying in a pool of what looked like their own blood and she had no idea if they were still alive or not. Placing a hand on their shoulder she froze in indecision of where to take them, her thoughts turning to Brockton Bay General Hospital where Panacea sometimes volunteered. 'Should I drop them off outside? In the reception area?'
She decided to split the difference, teleporting both of them just outside the entrance and scaring everyone in the immediate vicinity, the guard at the entrance in front of her jolting, but paused as their hand made an abortive move for their holster.
Madison glanced up at him with a pained expression, trying not to imagine what she looked like to everyone around her. She could feel her hoodie as it clung to her back, soaked through with alcohol and probably all manner of other liquids and it probably looked as torn up from the front too if she had a chance to look in a mirror. "I need to bring in casualties from a gang fight, do you want them here or inside the entrance?"
The guard visibly paused before carefully going for his radio, having a brief conversation she couldn't hear before looking back to her.
"How many?" He asked after a moment, his gaze moving between her and her passenger with a frown she didn't care to try and guess who it was directed at.
"About eight or nine I think" she hedged, not having thought to do a full tally before she'd left and kicking herself for it.
"Can you move them to A ?"
She shook her head as her eyes tracked to another guard who emerged from the entrance to join the first and dispersed the few people who had hung around to watch. "I don't know where that is" she admitted with a helpless shrug. She'd only been to the hospital a couple of times before and outside the front entrance and the reception area were the best she was going to manage from memory.
He nodded, not even questioning her on it which she was thankful for and she watched as he quickly made another radio call before turning back to her. "Stretcher's coming for this one, bring the others inside, teams will meet you. Got a name?"
"Ghost Step" she replied without thinking. "And thanks" she nodded before teleporting back.
Nothing had changed in the few minutes she'd left, beyond the one man who had rolled up into a sitting position against the far wall and looked far too out of it to do anything else.
Madison opted to ignore him for the moment, especially when he didn't even react when she went up to the next person on the ground nearby whose arm looked at entirely the wrong angle. She teleported back to the hospital with her new charge and blinked at the sheer change of scenery. From a room of groaning men and women, the sound of music from a tinny speaker set up on a counter and cheap indoor lighting to the sheer brightness and noise of the Brockton Bay General Hospital reception area.
It was obvious she wasn't where they'd expected her to appear as the people sitting in the row of seating just next to her let out shouts of surprise and she caught sight of the staff with waiting gurneys notice the sudden commotion and make their way over.
"You got this okay?" She couldn't help but ask as they reached her and set to work while she took a step back and watched, feeling oddly guilty about showing up with someone bleeding all over their nice clean floor.
"Do you know the extent of their injuries?" One of the women asked as they carefully checked the figure over and Madison belatedly realised they were probably checking to see if they could be moved at all. Briefly she was caught wondering how she might teleport the man onto the gurney directly, but she doubted they wanted her to drop him onto it from any height. And that was to say nothing of the fact she'd need to try teleporting herself into the air for the first time to do so anyway.
Madison was quickly realising there were a lot of things she didn't particularly want to try and find out for the first time under life and death circumstances, but the idea stuck in her head enough that she wondered how she might test it some other time when she or someone else wasn't in mortal peril.
"I got there in the aftermath," she replied with a shake of her head. "Some of them probably have bullet wounds from the shots I heard going off, but I have no idea who's who."
The woman nodded curtly at her and she wasn't sure if it would be okay to interrupt and ask if she could start bringing the other people through.
"Do you want me to bring the others over there?" She asked instead, gesturing to where the gurney had come from and the woman paused in her examination, looking from her to where she was indicating and nodded.
"if you can then do it, get the next one now, the crash team will tell you when they're ready to receive the others."
Madison nodded and disappeared from the hospital, reappearing in the room above the bar and looking to the next person that they'd probably want her to deliver next. She had a moment to notice something was off, a slight frown beginning to form as she turned her head before something heavy crashed into her back.
She yelped as the hit bowled her over, her hands going out to catch herself but slipping on soaked dollar bills and plastic bags and only a reflexive teleport to the other side of the room stopped her from taking a follow-up hit as she landed hard on her stomach with a startled cry, barely stopping her head smacking into the ground.
Looking around she realised the man who'd hit her was the one she'd ignored early and Madison cursed internally as his manic gaze swung to her, lifting his bat from where he'd tried to bury it in the floorboards and rounding on her with a laugh.
"You think you can steal from us you fucking druggie?! You're fucking predictable trying to save your friends bitch! Gonna get me some primo rewards when I beat your ass here and send your head back in a fucking box."
"Lesson learned." Madison grunted, not bothering to correct him as she pulled herself up, realising when he'd hit her she'd let go of her crowbar which was at the gang member's feet. He saw where her eyes were and grinned a little wider as he spotted her weapon and she could only watch with surprise that the man clearly took for fear as he proceeded to kick it across the room away from them both with vicious laugh.
"Well that's one way to screw yourself" she threw back conversationally, idly wondering how long it would take before bad guys realised the movie cliché of 'kicking the gun away' was essentially giving her a free action when they fought her.
Without giving him a chance to respond she spun to the side, reaching down as she did so and teleporting just as the gang member seemed to realise her expression wasn't the fear he'd first thought it was.
She appeared by the crowbar, her hand in the perfect position to snatch it up in her low turn and teleported again to her previous position, just as the man wheeled around on the space the crowbar - And herself had previously occupied.
She teleported forwards as he tried to turn back to her again, but wasn't quick enough to stop her slamming the flat of the hook into his upper arm. The bat dropped from his hand in a howl of pain as he rocked to the side, suddenly losing one foot under another as he stumbled back and going down with a cry of surprise that was abruptly cut off as the back of his head caught the broken table.
"Crap, I hope he's not dead" Madison exclaimed aloud to a suddenly much quieter room, rushing across the small space between them and wincing at the blood on the corner where the man's head had hit. "Well I guess I have my next patient" she frowned, deciding to zip tie his wrists together for good measure before storing away the crowbar back into her Inventory.
She did a quick once over of the rest of the room to make sure there weren't any other nasty surprises in store and was briefly satisfied that everyone else was either in no fit state to try anything or were very sensibly playing dead whilst she was there. Not that that stopped her from then spending the next several minutes zip tying everyone still breathing, before teleporting back to the hospital with her newest unwilling patient in tow.
The staff she appeared in front of had looked concerned as they'd looked her over, though she decided not to ask if that was because of her appearance, the man she'd brought with her, that he was zip tied unlike the last person or simply that she'd taken so long to reappear at all. There were a couple more security guards too and Madison wasn't sure if they were more wary about her or her passenger, but smiling at them and trying to be as unthreatening as possible seemed to help somewhat. Not having a bloodied crowbar in her hand probably helping a whole lot more to ease any concerns they no doubt had.
The next fifteen minutes or so had her grabbing most of the rest of the room's occupants at the hospital staff's direction, bringing them back to the improvised drop off point they'd arranged for her and on Madison's final trip back she blinked in surprise at noticing someone she thought she'd never meet.
"Panacea?" She couldn't help but ask of the white robed figure crouched by one of the women she'd brought back a few minutes earlier and with a chance to look properly she knew it had to be Panacea with the red cross motifs and scarf bunched around her neck and Madison couldn't help but wonder if the other girl had been called in to deal with the little emergency she'd dumped on the hospital staff or had been there the entire time.
The cape in question looked up from the person she was crouched over, fingertips still touching their hand and Madison remembered reading how Panacea, or Amy Dallon (public capes were so confusing) needed skin contact for her power to work.
"What?" Panacea didn't quite snap as she looked back to her with an expression that was just shy of glaring. The other girl looked tired and Madison suddenly felt very guilty for dropping a load of work on her when she'd no doubt prefer to be in bed.
"Um, sorry, I didn't mean to give you so much work."
Panacea somehow managed to roll her eyes without doing anything at all. "Right."
And that was apparently the end of that conversation as Panacea went back to ignoring her and Madison hovered, not really wanting to leave things at that after probably ruining the other girl's night.
She scooted a little closer, getting a look from the other girl that was clearly questioning what the hell Madison thought she was doing. Panacea was surprisingly scary Madison thought to herself, wondering if all the girls in her age group had some terrifying side to them that was waiting to be discovered, though she struggled to imagine Daphne so much as giving her a mean look.
"Did you get called in because of all of this?" She asked, trying to break the awkward silence. Well awkward for her and it definitely wasn't silent as the reception area was busier than ever with her inadvertently having turned part of it into a temporary triage area.
Panacea sighed, though it seemed more in resignation that she'd actually have to endure more conversation than anything. That or she was just tired, she definitely looked tired. "No I was here already, volunteering."
"Oh cool, pretty late though?" Madison couldn't help but comment, she couldn't imagine her own parents letting her out at two in the morning or whatever time it actually was, even if it was to help people like Panacea was doing.
The Hero in question just shrugged as she got up and moved to the next person. "Nobody minds, I'm supposed to help people."
Something about that struck Madison the wrong way as she followed Panacea and she frowned slightly, though before she could get her thoughts together Panacea spoke up again. "So you're new then?"
"Hmm? Oh yeah, everyone's calling me Ghost Step" Madison replied as she watched Panacea take the hand of the man they'd arrived at, skilfully not admitting to the other girl who she actually wanted to respect her that she had come up with the name 'Ghost Step' herself. Belatedly Madison realised she was probably botching the whole first impressions thing and quickly pulled off her glove, offering her bare hand for the other girl to shake. "Pleased to meet you."
Panacea gave her a look of absolute bemusement before apparently deciding to indulge the idiot in front of her and took her hand in a curt handshake. And since that meant Panacea wasn't questioning just where the name 'Ghost Step' had come from, Madison considered that an unmitigated success.
She was broken from her impromptu thoughts as she watched Panacea visibly frown and stare down at their hands with a quickly forming scowl and Madison wondered how her handshakes could really be so bad that the most famous healer in the country thought they were worth scowling over.
"Are you blocking me?" Panacea said after a moment, levelling the same glare towards Madison herself, though didn't let go of her hand.
"Blocking you?" She could only dumbly repeat back, glancing back down at where their hands met and not seeing anything out of place, wondering what the other girl meant.
"I can't read your body" Panacea replied, which Madison assumed was supposed to be an answer before it clicked that Panacea was referring to her power. The other girl looked back down to their hands and Madison caught how her gaze noticeably stopped on Madison's ruined hoodie for a moment, leaving her suddenly feeling very exposed from Panacea's surprisingly intimidating scrutiny.
A scrutiny that was quickly brought to bear as the other girl met Madison's eyes again. "Did you get shot tonight?"
"I think so" Madison shrugged helplessly as Panacea finally released her hand, she'd definitely got shot at, that much she was certain of.
Panacea's glare softened into a frown as she processed the admittedly less than helpful answer. "Do you have a force field? My sister's can block my power like that sometimes."
'Do I have a force field?' Madison wondered to herself. She hadn't really been focusing on the whole 'I think I just took several bullets to the chest' thing when there had been so many other things actively trying to murder her outside of that. But it did make sense unless she had iron skin or a brute power like that, which would have made a sort of sense too considering how often she hadn't quite landed on solid ground.
"Ghost Step, is that all of them now?" One of the nurses interrupted and she blinked at the non-sequitur.
"Um yes," she replied hesitantly, pausing to look around as one of said number was wheeled off. "That's everyone, I should probably head back shouldn't I?"
She hadn't meant it as a question and thankfully no one answered it, turning back to Panacea who was giving her a look she had nowhere near the mental energy to try and figure out.
"It was nice meeting you Panacea, or should I call you Amy? Which do you prefer? I've never met a public cape before." Hell she hadn't met any cape before Squealer had decided to blow her up in a fight that was already feeling like it was hours ago.
"I don't care, Panacea's fine."
'Right because that isn't a massive lie' Madison thought to herself with a roll of her eyes to Amy's obvious confusion, which the other girl quickly caught, killed and turned into what Madison was beginning to think was Amy's default scowly face.
"Well it was cool meeting you Amy, I've gotta go and- Wait did I call this in?" She abruptly interrupted herself as the thought struck her.
'Nope' she realised a second later. It had just been one thing after another that she hadn't even thought to call the police, or the PRT when she thought about it, considering Squealer had gotten involved.
"Crap, I need to head back and call it in, um I'll come visit you at the hospital some time so we can chat properly, bye Amy!"
Madison was pretty sure she was imagining the brief look of alarm on Amy's face as she teleported back to the room above the bar, caution making her appear at one of the edges of the room, even if the couple of people left should have still been tied up and gagged after the fourth insult they'd thrown her way.
She heard what she thought sounded like people moving about below, but her attention was caught more by the odd light dancing at edge of the blinds she was next to. Pulling it up slightly she looked down at the street and felt her own eyes widen at the realisation that she didn't need to call the police or the PRT anymore.
There were already several cop cars, an ambulance and two PRT vans getting organised in the street directly below her. As she watched, the sound of another engine came closer before a sleek midnight blue motorcycle slipped between two vehicles and came to a smooth stop in front of the building and a man in an identically coloured power armoured suit stepped off. She watched with no small amount of glee as he unlatched his Halberd from where it sat flush against the frame of the bike before strolling confidently up to two PRT clothed men who were coming to meet him.
"Awesome Armsmaster's here" she grinned and then her smile dropped like a lead weight as the realisation sank in.
"Oh crap Armsmaster is here!" She hissed in alarm and mounting horror as she looked back at the sheer mess and devastation surrounding her, having no way even started grabbing any and all the cash she could carry.
"Okay he's still outside, I've got time!"
Trying to loot a drug den of any money she could find before Armsmaster appeared, like she was some sort of teleporting hyperactive squirrel was definitely not how she'd envisioned ever meeting one of her heroes. But that was somehow what her life had become as the various piles of cash littered about the room rapidly began to diminish in size.
