October 30, 2010

The day before Halloween dawned cool and clear. Operation Dragonhunt (named with apologies to the actual Dragon) commenced at eight o'clock on Saturday morning. A column of a half-dozen armored vans waited at the seaward end of PHQ's force field bridge, flanked by an assortment of capes in all the colors of the rainbow. Colin revved his motorcycle for the final pass before they headed out. Protectorate ENE—his team—stood ready to deploy, mounted on (generic yet serviceable) bikes of their own. So did the Wards; not a single one had shrunk from duty. No doubt that gave the Director heartburn, but it would have been egregiously hypocritical to insist on one coming and forbid the others.

For safety's sake, though, the younger Wards had been assigned to ride in the vans. They might be headed into battle, but that was no excuse for biking without a license.

Colin slowly rode from the back of the line to the front. He passed Dauntless and Triumph and Gallant gleaming in their armor. Vista, their escape plan if everything went pear-shaped, peeked out from the back of a van, while Clockblocker and Shadow Stalker formed a contrast of colors. Assault and Battery rode together as always, and Velocity tapped his foot impatiently, perhaps annoyed at having to keep pace with the slowpokes for once. How long had it been? How long since Brockton Bay's heroes sallied forth in such a concentrated display of parahuman might?

He paused beside the lead van of the convoy. This one was unusually tall, and even had a covered turret mounted on its roof. "Blank. Are you ready?" he called out.

The familiar mirrored helmet appeared in the turret's tiny window, safely two meters above ground level. "As much as I'll ever be." His voice was dispassionate as ever. Like always, Colin found himself forced to guess what was going on behind that mask. He'd be shocked if Blank wasn't feeling some sort of inner turmoil right now. Then again, some capes grew colder after their first battle, colder still after their first kill, and he had been cold enough to begin with.

In any case, he was sticking his neck out here, and Colin owed him respect for that if nothing else. "It may not come to a fight." he offered.

"Is that likely?"

"...no." Colin admitted, then moved on without another word. To say anything else would be a bald-faced lie, and he had never been a good liar. Lung was not the sort of man to dismiss his top lieutenant's death with a philosophical shrug.

A deeply buried part of him was almost glad of that.

He took his spot at the head of the procession, next to Miss Militia. His unofficial second-in-command nodded to him. "Armsmaster to all units." he announced over the radio. "Roll out."

There was a satisfying roar as many engines simultaneously stirred to life. The largest patrol this city had ever seen went rumbling down the bridge. It was a good thing they'd thought to arrange a special transport for Blank; the grandeur would have been completely ruined if he nullified the force bridge and dunked them all in the bay. As things were, they made an impressive sight for those brave cape geeks sticking it out on the Boardwalk. Even accounting for the early hour, the crowds were far thinner than typical for a weekend. Natural selection had honed a keen instinct for cape-related trouble among the people of the Bay—when danger crackled in the air, they battened down the hatches and braced for the storm.

He spotted four figures flying from the south as the procession moved onto dry land. "New Wave incoming." he radioed.

One of the quartet, a blonde woman with a starburst on her chest, descended. Colin alighted from his motorcycle, timing his walk to meet her as she reached the ground. The cape geeks might have stayed home today, but it didn't mean they weren't being watched. On the contrary, he counted at least four news cameras in the vicinity. Count on the newshounds to know when a photo op was about to happen.

The leaders of the Protectorate and New Wave clasped hands. Camera shutters clicked. "Lady Photon." he recited, carefully modulating his tone to be gruff and serious, but not unfriendly. "On behalf of the Protectorate and PRT, my thanks to New Wave for the support."

Sarah Pelham plastered a warm smile onto her face. "Of course. Though we may have differences of opinion, the city comes first. We heroes must unite in these uncertain times." Colin almost envied how natural she made the no-doubt rehearsed speech sound.

Manpower leapt out of a parked car nearby, followed (much less flamboyantly) by Brandish and Flashbang. "All right, enough talk. Let's get this show on the road!" There were sensible chuckles from the assembled camera crews. Knowing the boisterous man, Colin thought that line might in fact be unscripted. New Wave's ground-based members merged into the patrol, mounting up on borrowed bikes. Up above, Lady Photon flew back to her children and niece; joining them were the red-costumed Aegis and Kid Win on his hoverboard. The airborne forces would have an important role to play, scouting ahead and warning them of potential ambushes.

They moved again. Ignoring the reporters' shouted questions, Colin led the party to the edge of Lord Street. Rather than turning as most patrols did, though, they headed straight forward into the Docks. The last alliance of Elves and Men, he mused wryly, off to face the Dark Lord in his lair. He didn't know why he'd suddenly thought of a book read long ago, one of the last things he'd read for pleasure alone. Hopefully this worked out better for him than it had for Gil-galad or Elendil.

Even a couple blocks into the Docks, the signs of urban decay were impossible to miss. Weeds sprouted in the cracked asphalt of the roads. Boxy buildings of weathered concrete enclosed them on both sides, grim even by Brockton Bay standards. Half the windows didn't even have glass. Colin had read the reports; he knew some of these buildings lacked even water and electricity. That was certainly against housing regulations, but he doubted this area had been inspected anytime recently. A breeze arose, carrying with it the stink of uncollected trash and raw sewage and who knew what else. His nose wrinkled.

And yet, here humanity still endured. People, a lot of people, called this place home. The Docks' notorious tenements could cram a dozen families into space meant for a quarter that number. The streets were deserted in their wake, but Colin could see faces peering out from darkened windows. Most of them were Asian, and some wore the telltale red and green of the ABB. The expressions they wore...he didn't need Gallant's power to decipher them. In better neighborhoods, excitement usually greeted the appearance of heroes on patrol, together with a perceptible easing of tension. There was an ingrained belief that for all the dangers of Brockton Bay, you were safe with a Protectorate member physically present.

Not so here. The people of the Docks were not hostile, exactly, but wariness and suspicion hung in the air. Clearly, their presence was regarded as more an occupation than a liberation. It rankled at him. Had the heroes' star fallen so far that they preferred the rule of a murderous, sex-slaving gangster? Or perhaps it wasn't due to any positive feelings toward Lung, but rather that they had no faith in the Protectorate actually protecting them.

The worst thing was, he couldn't honestly say they were wrong to feel so. After the fiasco two years ago, when Lung had single-handedly chased them from the neighborhood, the PRT had made a conscious decision to focus patrols on the part of the city they could still reasonably hope to control. It had been a logical, unsentimental choice, aimed at preserving their lives to maximize the amount of security they could provide. He had agreed to it at the time; they had all agreed to it. On an intellectual level, he would defend that choice and make it again. Seeing the real-life result of that cold equation, though, made it it very difficult to feel good about it in any way.

A few blocks further and they veered sharply north, following a route that would take them in a loop around the center of the neighborhood. PRT brass had vetoed the idea of shooting straight for the heart of Lung's territory, fearing it would provoke him into immediate attack. Instead they would nibble at the edges, hopefully near enough that he couldn't ignore the challenge and far enough that he wouldn't assume they were out for blood. Privately, Colin wondered if there was any point to this restraint. Even if Lung displayed hitherto unprecedented humility and accepted terms, what then? Could they trust his promise of peace any further than they could throw him? At the very best, it would be a return to status quo ante bellum. The Docks would drift further away with every passing day. Lung would keep living like an emperor. Young men like Blank would keep being pressured into the gang. Young women would keep being trafficked and raped. The city would keep slowly spiraling into entropy.

Entropy. Colin had recognized Brockton Bay's downward trajectory long ago—it dated at least to the late nineties, when Leviathan gutted the shipping industry—yet for some reason, now he loathed that word more than ever. The implication that chaos would inevitably triumph over order in the long run, agency and free will be damned...unbidden, that image drifted again into his surface thoughts. Two vast beings coiled around each other, shards of pure power flying off them and leaving wispy trails of energy behind. Trails? Or strings, strings for a puppet to dance on—he ground his teeth.

Half an hour passed in this fashion. They reached the northern apex of their route, near the Trainyard. All remained calm and quiet, save the hum of engines and grinding of wheels on asphalt. If Lung didn't give them a sign, this was going to be a colossal waste of time and resources. Well, to hell with him. Colin was willing to camp out overnight if he had to.

It was a downright relief when the transmission came through. "I've got eyes on Lung!" Laserdream radioed. As the fastest flier of their group, it was no surprise she'd spotted him first. "No sign of ramping up. He's standing in the middle of Walker Street, just past the intersection with MLK. Looks like he's waiting for us. About forty—no, more like fifty?—gang members behind him."

Forty to fifty. Colin grimaced. That comprised a significant chunk of the ABB's fighting strength."Copy." he replied. "We'll reroute to meet him. All units, proceed with caution and prepare to stop."

Lung's position was about five minutes away at current speed. The capes didn't react to that news with open terror as a normal person might, but the signs were there to see. Muscles tensed and faces turned serious. Weapons, for those who carried them, were subtly shifted so they could be drawn a fraction of a second faster.

After three minutes, they made the turn onto Walker Street. Colin saw him now, a distant shirtless figure wearing a metal dragon mask. An indistinct crowd in red and green milled about in the background. Lung stared down the heroes as they approached, not moving an inch. The pageantry of making them come to him, like petitioners to a local king, was not lost on Colin. He assumed there had been lookouts keeping Lung apprised of their location; it would've looked stupid if they showed up only for him to be facing the wrong way.

About a street's width away, he ordered the halt. This farce had gone on long enough. He rode over the remaining distance alone, halberd unholstered but aimed at the ground for now. Up close Lung was muscular, but not supernaturally so; tall, but not noticeably more than Colin himself. "Lung." he boomed, voice amplified by his suit's speakers. "Are you here to surrender?"

Lung threw his head back and laughed, a deep and guttural sound. Some of his lackeys half-heartedly joined in. From the way their hands shook, hovering near the handles of knives and butts of guns, Colin suspected not all were here my choice. "Armsmaster! I did not know you could tell a joke!" he chortled. "You have brought many guests to my home, I see. Do you think to frighten me?"

"This isn't some sort of pissing contest." Colin spat. "I'll be direct—don't even think about revenge for Oni Lee. This is your only warning."

Lung glared at him. The disturbingly bloodshot whites of his eyes could be seen behind the mask, although his irises were a perfectly ordinary brown. He cast his gaze over the force gathered in the street, then looked up at the fliers circling overhead. When he next spoke his voice had lost all traces of amusement. "Strange that you should mention Oni Lee. So many capes, and I do not see his killer among them. Where his he?"

"You will not have him." Colin promised.

"No?" Lung said mockingly. "One would think him unfit for the name of hero. You are normally so sensitive about killing. Against your sacred unwritten rules, is it not?"

"Don't speak to me of unwritten rules!" It might be undiplomatic, but the sheer hypocrisy had him seething. "Not after what you did. Not after you attacked our Ward for what he was born as, as if he belonged to you."

"Oh, but he does." Lung disagreed. "Recruit from the other races as you wish, but he and all his people are mine. For the Asians, as there can be only one sun in the sky, there can be only one sovereign on Earth. Is that not so, my Azn Bad Boys?"

The grandiose statement was rather ruined by the juvenile gang name appended to the end, not that any of the 'Bad Boys' themselves dared say so. "Yeah!" "Hell yes!" "Tell him, boss!" came the scattered cheers.

Colin scowled. "Spout whatever drivel you like. Blank is one of ours, until he chooses not to be. That is non-negotiable."

A growling sound emerged from deep in Lung's throat. "So you will give me nothing?" he hissed.

"Yes!" Colin snapped. "Don't act like you're the victim here! You sent Oni Lee after a cape whose power you didn't understand, and he lost, fair and square. We don't owe you a thing. Try us and you'll find twenty heroes ready to put you down. And you think Kaiser isn't waiting to swoop in now that you're all alone, or the Merchants?" He slammed the butt of his halberd on the ground for emphasis. "Here's my offer to you: stand down. If you give a damn about the people you claim to protect, if you value your miserable hide, stand down!"

The ABB members were openly gaping. Most assuredly they had never heard anyone address their boss in such a manner. Even Lung seemed taken aback by the tirade. For a moment he was rendered speechless, and Colin had the wild thought that he might really give in, slink away back home with his tail behind his legs—

Then his eyes lit up in orange rage, and he roared.

The negotiations were short.

Having never witnessed Lung in action first-hand, I hadn't appreciated how quickly he could ramp up. The mental image I had from reading reports was that it'd take a minute of sustained combat before he started to actually resemble a dragon. Instead, one second he was a man and the next, he was slashing at Armsmaster with a scaled hand tipped by razor-sharp claws. He'd grown a foot in the blink of an eye, making the hero look like a toy soldier in comparison. For a moment, I wondered if Armsmaster had bitten off more than he could chew, but of course he hadn't survived this long by being incompetent. He stepped nimbly aside, his halberd scoring a bloody gash across Lung's chest in return. The wound knitted almost instantly, silvery scales replacing torn flesh.

The recommended PRT counter-measures if forced to fight him were to hit as hard and fast as possible, and pray to whatever deity you believed in it was enough to put him down. If it wasn't—well, the Protectorate found that out in their first battle. If all the gathered heroes attacked at once, it was a gamble whether that would kill him or transform him into a pseudo-Endbringer. But no one moved to aid Armsmaster in those opening moments. No, this time the plan was to cheat. "Ready." I said over the radio. I put a hand on the van's interior door handle. The PRT trooper at the wheel glanced nervously back, then returned his attention to Lung. I didn't blame him. Briefly, I contemplated the fact that I was about to jump out of an armored vehicle and run towards the most feared villain in the city. What the fuck was I doing with my life?

I reminded myself, as I had a hundred times since last night, that as counter-intuitive as my actions were they made logical sense—like the Monty Hall problem, but with murderous dragon-men instead of goats. The longer Lung was allowed to ramp up the more dangerous he became, so confronting him right away was the safest thing to do.

In response to my message, Armsmaster leapt acrobatically to kick Lung hard in the jaw. The recoil launched him several feet back, and the impact even made Lung stagger. That didn't seem natural. Tinkertech strength enhancement, most likely. Before Lung could recover a barrage of lasers struck him from above. Laserdream's bright crimson beam was most prominent, with Lady Photon and Shielder's mixed in somewhere as well. I didn't catch more than a cursory glimpse, since I had more important duties than watching fireworks. Yanking the door open, I leapt from the van and dashed down the street. Lung was already getting back up, wreathed in fire and smoke. He was now eight feet tall and entirely covered in scales. When he saw me sprinting his way, I could swear his burning eyes brightened a notch.

"You." he growled in clear recognition. Flattering. With a flourish of his paws, he sent a stream of yellow-orange flames flying at me. Even with two months to internalize my powers, my primal instincts still screamed at me to dive aside, or at least shield my face. I ignored them. That would accomplish precisely nothing. Instead I kept powering forward to meet the flames head-on. Was it insane of me, to literally bet my life on my power? Some people might say so, but every moment of the day you bet your life on your heart and lungs and brain continuing to function. This wasn't so different.

If this were a movie, Lung's fire might have deflected aside, or broken upon the null field like a wave. Reality was nothing so dramatic. Two meters in front of my face, the fire simply ceased to exist. Not an ember made it through, nor even a joule of convected heat. An inferno raged right before my eyes, but all I felt was a mild autumn chill. The flames intensified from yellow-orange to pure yellow. Perhaps Lung thought to break through my defenses with more heat, but that wasn't how things worked with me.

His towering silhouette was very close now. I lunged. The shroud of fire that surrounded him abruptly fizzled out.

I could say that something spectacular happened at this point, like a flashy de-transformation sequence, but that would be a lie. If there was indeed a period of transition, it happened too fast for me to perceive. I was two meters away from Lung, and he was a man again. Simple as that.

His eyes widened in shock underneath the metal mask.

I tased him.

The prongs stuck into his bare chest, right through the face of a tattooed dragon. What could I say? It made for an obvious target. Lung screamed. My momentum sent me crashing into him. He was taller than me, but only by three inches or so, plus he was actively being electric-shocked. Down he went, like an axed tree. Despite the horrible agony he was no doubt feeling, he somehow retained the presence of mind to shriek out one coherent word. "HELP!"

The ranks of the ABB stirred. The red-and-green clad rabble had pulled back to avoid the developing cape fight, but at their boss's cry a few of the bolder members rushed forward again. More and more followed in rapid succession, until the entire gang was thundering forth, shouting multilingual battle cries. Damn lemmings! Were they so used to blindly obeying Lung's orders, or so susceptible to peer pressure? Our Blasters leapt into action; a shot from Laserdream knocked two flying, while Lady Photon took out another. One collapsed, sobbing, from Gallant's emotional blast, and Miss Militia strafed the crowd with presumably-rubber bullets. But there were simply too many to put them down in time. Several of them were drawing guns—

Ah shit, not good! My costume might hold up to a low-caliber bullet or two, but I did not want to test it against an entire firing squad. I dived for the ground. Given the lack of nearby cover, that was the best I could think of. A fraction of a second later, a bulky blue figure jumped on top of me. Oof. It was a little hard to breathe under that weight, but I wouldn't complain. Even with the Tinker aspects nullified, Armsmaster's costume looked a hell of a lot more bulletproof than mine.

With my face being mushed into the street, I could only guess via sound what was going on overhead. Gunshots. The stampeding of many feet. Blunt impacts. Shouts of pain, and of exhilaration too. "Get him out of here!" Armsmaster bellowed. The weight upon me lightened. Strong hands seized me and pulled me upright. I caught a glimpse of Armsmaster straining to stand in his de-powered suit, arms spread out to shield me. I winced as a bullet pinged off his back, but he didn't move an inch. Then the black armor of the PRT hemmed me in as a phalanx of troopers half-carried, half-dragged me away from the fight.

They ended up depositing me back among the armored vans. Sheltering behind an opened door, I had a decent if slightly blurred view of what was going on through the bulletproof glass. The intersection where Lung and I had our 'battle' was a complete mess, a roiling sea of red and green speckled with other colors. It was hard to tell precisely what was going on, but I got the general sense that the ABB was getting absolutely demolished. Hard not to, given that they were up against at least a dozen capes and an equal number of PRT troopers. Pretty much all of our close-range fighters seemed to be in the mix; every couple seconds some poor bastard would simply go flying like a rag doll. People fell one by one to ranged attacks, to lasers and tranquilizer darts and confoam and stranger things. I was pretty sure I'd seen Triumph knock a man out by shouting at him.

Yet due to sheer numbers, it was taking a non-trivial amount of time just to physically subdue them—well, Miss Militia could blow them to bits with a few rockets, but I guess that would be frowned upon for a hero. Lung wasn't wasting the precious moments sacrificing his cannon fodder had bought. Behind the melee, I spotted a shirtless man running down the street. Damn it. That was the downside of tasers; they only incapacitated the target for about five seconds. He wouldn't have walked off a real gun so easily. Sadly, my request for firearms training was still somewhere in the PRT bureaucracy. We certainly had capes who could catch up to him, like Velocity or Vista, but (quite understandably) none of them wanted to face him alone—

"I'm going after him!" Glory Girl declared over the radio.

"Vicky, NO!" another woman shouted. A white blur hit Lung from behind, sending him sprawling. He rolled back to his feet, the fresh scales on his arms glinting in the sunlight. Glory Girl pressed the attack, only for a two-fisted blow to smash her into the sidewalk. I could hear the crack even from where I was. Ouch. Laserdream, quick on the uptake, fired a blast to protect her downed cousin. She needn't have bothered. Rather than try and finish off Glory Girl, Lung had immediately taken off running again, vanishing around a corner and out of sight. Laserdream cautiously followed him at high altitude.

The street battle with the ABB had entered its closing stages. As the herd thinned, some of its individual members began to realize how badly they were losing, or that their boss had abandoned them. They knelt in surrender or made a break for it themselves; the latter didn't make it far. The majority, though, lacked such intelligence and instead went down swinging. I saw one thug try to menace Dauntless with nothing more than a switchblade. A casual swipe of his arc-lightning lance swept the idiot off his feet. Total time in combat was about forty-five seconds, a minute tops. It was almost aggravating how easy it all looked. Were these seriously the same guys I'd spent the first two years of high school tiptoeing around? Why couldn't the the heroes have done something like this earlier?

Oh right, Lung was why.

"Status check on Lung." Armsmaster demanded.

"I've lost sight of him." replied Laserdream. "He went into a building."

"Copy." Armsmaster sounded disgruntled. "Aegis, Kid Win, rendezvous with her. Keep an eye on the exits. I'll have drones sent from HQ." Props for the effort, but I suspected (and suspected that he suspected) Lung had effectively gotten away. Though he couldn't have run far in a minute, the innards of the Docks were like a maze. Every building had its share of unauthorized extensions and secluded back-alley entrances, not to mention the rumors of secret ABB tunnels used to smuggle drugs and guns and people alike without attracting undue attention. Plus all he had to do was remove his mask and put on a shirt, and hey presto, he'd blend in with the common folk of the neighborhood.

The heroes turned to the grunt work of getting all the gang members disarmed and restrained. My PRT guards emerged from cover to assist, and I trailed behind with some trepidation. Armsmaster looked up as I approached, and I saluted him. That wasn't the usual protocol, but I felt it wise to tread carefully at the moment. "Sir." I said stiffly. "I apologize for the failure."

"You call that failure?" Assault scoffed, midway through zip-tying some guy in a green sweatshirt. "I never thought I'd see Lung running like a little bitch—"

"Language." Armsmaster warned him.

"—a little dog. No offense, puppy." Assault nudged the nearby Battery, who didn't dignify him with a response. "Man, I hope someone took pictures."

"Lung's retreated from battles before, but that was the first time I've seen him flee outright." Armsmaster concurred. "Even against Leviathan, they say Kyushu broke before he did. He's used to relying on his power to escalate until he wins." A spiteful smirk crossed his face. "I suppose when it failed him, he had no idea what to do."

"He still got away." I pointed out.

Armsmaster's smirk vanished. "That...cannot be blamed on you." he grumbled. "Your power performed as well as could be expected. Lung brought more unpowered backup than anticipated. More willing to sacrifice themselves than expected, too."

"Well, I think the boy's got a point!" an angry female voice called out. Brandish was stalking over, the rest of New Wave at her back. Glory Girl was among them, looking a bit shaken but otherwise uninjured. Her Brute rating was really something, huh? "What have you done?"

"Driven Lung off and captured half the ABB?" Assault said cheekily.

Brandish ignored him. "This was supposed to be de-escalatory! Not an excuse for you to start an all-out war!"

Armsmaster folded his arms. "Conflict was always a possibility. I believe I made that very clear."

"Were you even trying to negotiate?"

"Should I have groveled at his feet?" snapped Armsmaster. "Maybe that trick works on judges, but not Lung—"

"Well if you hadn't been so belligerent—"

"Enough!" came the shout from Lady Photon...and Miss Militia too. It seemed the latter had assumed Piggot's diplomatic role out here in the field. "What's done is done. Recriminations can wait until things stabilize." the Protectorate hero added. Her eyes were hard above the flag bandanna. "Safe to say, that won't happen while Lung's unaccounted for."

"Are we just going to comb the Docks for him?" Velocity questioned, perhaps wondering if he would be tasked with said combing. As the cleanup progressed more capes were clustering around us, attracted by Armsmaster and Brandish's rather loud exchange of views.

"No." Armsmaster said bluntly. "I will recommend to the Director that we immediately enact Operation Downfall."

Murmurs broke out. Operation Downfall was, as I'd learned yesterday, a potential contingency plan for re-establishing control over the Docks in the event the ABB collapsed. Why it was named for the WWII-era plan to invade Japan, I could only guess. Perhaps there was some fatalism involved, considering the original had never happened. Over the last couple years, PRT intelligence had developed a decent sense of where major assets were located—brothels, front companies, storage depots and the like. The idea was to swoop in and seize said assets before another gang could inherit them. Of course, the plan was predicated on the ABB having collapsed already. "Isn't that premature?" Dauntless objected.

"Lung may be able to hide, but his properties can't." Armsmaster was smirking again. "If he won't show himself? Fine. He can watch us snatch his kingdom out from under him."

Someone whistled appreciatively. I had to admire the audacity of the plan. So much of Lung's credibility was tied up in his ability to defend his own. With every ABB stronghold the heroes conquered, the more he would look like a paper tiger (paper dragon) and the more his aura of invincibility would deflate. If he didn't act, he would be left without a foothold in Brockton Bay, and if he did I was the trump card (or rather Trump card) waiting to be played.

This had became far bigger than merely restoring the peace. We were talking about wresting an entire section of the city back from one of its two most powerful gangs. I could feel the excitement that rippled through the listening capes. I knew that the heroes had been slowly losing ground the last few years, but most of them had lived it. This—if, if we pulled it off—would reverse that narrative like a bolt from the blue.

Not everyone was caught up in the enthusiasm. "You're asking New Wave to commit to a protracted campaign." Lady Photon said carefully.

"Yes." Armsmaster admitted. "Of course, you're free to bow out. We aren't running a gang here. I trust that the Protectorate can handle ourselves."

He had noticeably raised his volume at this part. I wondered why, until I noticed we were no longer alone on the street. With the fighting over, some of the braver local residents had trickled out of their buildings to see what was going on. If New Wave chose to break the alliance now, no doubt the news would be all over PHO in hours. It was surprisingly devious of him. Manpower broke the tension with a booming laugh. "Ha! You won't get rid of us so easily. Can't let you lot have all the fun, can we?"

"New Wave started out as the Brockton Bay Brigade, and we remember our roots." Lady Photon didn't miss a beat. "If it's for the good of Brockton Bay, we'll answer the call every time." That woman was good. I couldn't tell if she genuinely meant it, was playing to the public, or some combination of both. "I look forward to working together to put the city to rights."

Was there subtext to that final sentence? Possibly, from the way Armsmaster's jaw tightened slightly. "Good. The police will be here soon to collect this lot." He gestured at the battered ABB members, still scattered across the street like so much refuse. Oh, someone had called the police; we weren't all standing around like idiots. "Then we move."

Nothing to do for now but wait. There were quite a lot of capes here I'd never interacted much with; should I try to socialize with my peers a bit?

Haha, no. I wandered back out to the relative solitude near the PRT vans. Clockblocker and Vista were chatting in an open doorway; when I neared they abruptly fell silent, their heads swiveling in my direction. "Uh...hey..." Clockblocker began.

"You're fine." I waved him off and kept walking. The throng of onlookers continued to swell in number. Some of the troopers had organized themselves into a makeshift cordon, although that was only from an abundance of caution. This was no powder keg crowd, the mood more curious than anything. Understandable, given how rare a sight heroes were around these parts. An old woman at the forefront caught my eye, gesticulating wildly. It took a second to realize she was waving at me.

[Young man!] she called out in Chinese. [Young man!]

I hesitated, then cautiously picked my way over. No one in the crowd was wearing red and green, and even if there were hidden ABB sympathizers mixed in, there were plenty of troopers around to protect me.

Besides, I was raised to be polite to elders.

I stopped behind the PRT line, raising a hand in greeting. [Hello, grandmother.]

To clarify, she wasn't actually my grandmother; that was merely a title of respect. Although given her age—in her seventies at least, maybe pushing eighty—she was about the right age. She was stooped, with a face full of wrinkles and liver spots, but the grin she gave me was perfectly lucid. [You understand! Looks like the rumors were true.]

I sighed. [The whole city knows, does it?]

[Ah, it's nothing to be ashamed of.] The woman actually reached past the nearest trooper to pat me on the shoulder. The trooper twitched, but did nothing else. I supposed it would be terrible PR to beat up an old lady. [I think it's quite good. You can be a role model for our youth.]

[A role model?] I echoed.

[You're not an adult yet, and you've already got a real job.] she explained. Oh, okay. That was a much more practical reason than I had expected, feared, or hoped. [Look at my grandson. He's already 19 years old, and that useless guy stays at home all day watching cartoons.]

[Grandma! They're not cartoons!] A young man complained. I eyed him up for a second, before concluding he was far too out of shape to be an ABB fighter.

I rubbed my neck. [Eh...I only got the job by luck.] That was true. Unless her grandson happened to have right kind of bad day, he couldn't exactly follow in my footsteps.

[Don't be so modest. I can see, you have that can-do attitude. Just look at Oni Lee's fate!] Her grin widened. [It's a pity that Lung got away. Don't worry. Next time you'll 'solve' him for sure.]

[Thank you for the confidence, grandmother.] I bowed my head to her. [It seems the police are almost here. I need to attend to my duties.] That wasn't an excuse; I really could hear sirens in the distance. Surprising, considering how bad response times usually were in the Docks. Having the PRT call really lit a fire under their asses, or so it seemed.

[Good luck!] she said cheerfully. She'd literally told me to 'add oil' but that didn't translate very well. An interesting, albeit mildly bloodthirsty interaction. Still it was nice to know I had at least one fan out there.

The warehouse was imposing.

Its thick outer walls were topped by barbed wire, with a locked steel gate as the sole entry point. The main building, a bulky rectangle of sturdy concrete, gave little hint as to what lay inside. Whatever enterprise it had been constructed to house was long defunct, shuttered at some point during Brockton Bay's decades-long economic downturn. If you'd lived in the Docks, you knew that any industrial building which looked this well-maintained had to be a gang hideout. According to our intel, this one served as a weapons depot to be precise. It was the kind of place that before, I wouldn't have dared enter in a million years. And now here we were, ready to crack it open like an egg.

Glory Girl returned after flying a lap over the site. "No one's in the courtyard." she reported. "Mind if I do the honors?"

"Go ahead." Miss Militia said warmly, while Armsmaster merely shrugged.

Glory Girl shredded the lock with extreme gusto, fragments of metal chain flying all over the place. Then she slammed the gate wide open. The heavy steel door nearly flew off its tracks, bouncing off the wall with a loud metallic bang. That seemed uncalled for. I suspected her pride was still wounded from her failed attempt to solo Lung. How bullying an inanimate object made up for that, I wasn't sure, but I chalked it down to cape logic.

I just hoped the gate wasn't too damaged. We might still need to use it, after all.

Our motorcade rumbled through the gap, giving me a nice safe view from the backseat. The courtyard was spacious, containing a few beater cars, a couple forklifts, and the odd shipping container. The warehouse had two large garage-style doors set into this side, as well as a smaller one which presumably led to offices.

The office door burst open, its occupants alerted by the racket we'd made. The party that greeted us was...an anti-climax. They numbered a mere half-dozen. Either Lung hadn't expected anyone to attack here in the seat of his power, or he'd taken the best fighters to use as human shields. Three were teenagers, my age or younger. They had guns, as expected at a weapons depot, but from how gingerly they handled them I wasn't sure they knew which end the bullets came out of. Two were older women who looked more like cleaners than hardened criminals—one of them held a broom instead of a gun, for heaven's sake. The apparent leader was a skinny man wearing a green baseball cap, of all things. For the sake of his dignity, I really hoped he wasn't Chinese.

"What the hell is—" he began, before his brain processed the sight of the entire Protectorate at his doorstep. The entire group froze in place, their eyes bulging comically wide like the proverbial deer in the headlights.

"Good morning!" Miss Militia said in a friendly manner. Somehow, that came across as more menacing than Armsmaster scowling and calling them criminal scum, as I was sure he would have. "Just to let you know, we're commandeering this building for the Protectorate and PRT—"

"And New Wave!" Manpower interjected.

"And New Wave." she echoed. "Your cooperation would be appreciated."

"B-b-but..." the ABB man stammered. "But that's...illegal." Armsmaster cast him a silent, withering glare, and he shrank back. "Uh, not that there's anything...I thought heroes couldn't do that."

Lady Photon crossed her arms. "Brandish. Your opinion on the legality of this?"

"Speaking in my capacity as a New Hampshire bar-certified attorney..." Brandish let those words hang in the air for a second. "It's legal."

"Also, you're all under arrest, on suspicion of membership in a criminal organization." Armsmaster added.

The warehouse staff looked at each other, then collectively put their hands in the air with expressions of utter resignation. I had to hand it to them, they were far more intelligent than the ones accompanying Lung had been. "Y-you're making a mistake." the leader said feebly. "Lung will—"

"Lung? Where?" Assault made a show of looking around in mock panic, even checking the skies like a sailor. "Oh, look, he didn't show up. Too bad."

"This isn't a comedy club. We've got a job to do." Armsmaster scolded him. Assault still paused to condescendingly pat the confused ABB man on the head, before joining the stream of heroes and troopers moving in to ransack the warehouse. I stayed in the van. This wasn't a job for me, at least not until the others confirmed there weren't any nasty surprises waiting for us. Instead I kicked back and watched, as the ABB stronghold was gradually converted into our forward command post. What were we even going to call it? PRT-Protectorate-New Wave Temporary HQ-Docks sounded like quite the mouthful.

Someone eventually got the garage doors open, revealing crates filled with more guns than I'd ever seen and even what looked like explosives. A squad of troopers busied themselves sorting through them. More troopers came out of the office carrying boxes of papers. Armsmaster stalked from place to place, sticking little Tinkertech gadgets to the walls that did who-knows-what. An ABB banner with a dragon's head had hung prominently in the storage area, and it was soon taken down. A little while later, someone put up one with the PRT's shield logo to replace it. I didn't even know where they'd gotten that.

We were taking the concept of planting our flag quite literally, I saw.

There was a knock on the van window. It was Gallant. "Hey! They said to tell you it's safe to go in."

I nodded. It was, I reflected, the first time today one of my teammates had come up to talk to me. I was surprisingly relieved that he spoke to me like normal. "It's bigger on the inside than it looks." he said as we crossed the courtyard. "Not as nice as the Wards base, but I'm sure we can survive a few days."

"A few days?" I questioned.

"Well, no one really knows how long the emergency will last." Gallant admitted with a shrug, before clapping me on the back. "Look on the bright side, we're definitely getting overtime for this. Hazard pay too."

He was a stand-up guy, that Gallant. Even without his power, he knew what to say to cheer me up.

So this story was at 280-something follows before the last chapter, and now it's 380-something. I have no idea what happened, but thanks.

Armsmaster makes a terrible diplomat, who'd have thought? The space worm vision has been eating at him the last couple months...hope I was able to imply that without hammering you over the head with it. The suspicion that some eldritch creature might be behind everything definitely exacerbates certain tendencies of his.

I tried to put a veneer of plausibility on the Lung 'fight', but I worry him escaping still feels like author fiat. He had to stay on the loose for MAX CHAOS potential. At one point I was running through all the capes on the heroes' side, trying to see if I'd missed an obvious insta-win. If I did...let's pretend the heroes missed it too? God knows they don't always make the best decisions under pressure.