Earning Her Stripes

Part Thirty-Five: First Contact

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

A No-Tell Motel on the Outskirts of Brockton Bay

March

May waited until darkness had fallen before she headed out to prowl the night. She'd purposely chosen the motel for its lack of security cameras—the people who frequented a venue like that rarely wanted video proof of their indiscretions—and the incuriosity of its staff. This meant she could stroll out to her stolen car in full costume, though again minus the full-head mask, and nobody would pay the slightest bit of attention.

The parking lot was just as discreet, tucked in behind the main building to make it harder for suspicious spouses and nosy private investigators to spot guilty license plates. As she got in the car and started the engine, she wondered how many other supervillains used places like this as ad hoc bases of operation. It was certainly something to think about.

Once she'd cruised out onto the main drag, she applied thought to the next part of her plan. I need to start acquiring minions. While she was very goddamn effective on her own, having a bunch of people marching to her beat was a potent force multiplier. This worked even for non-capes, which was good, because the villains in town she could potentially recruit to her cause were very few and far between at the moment.

Fortunately, the two biggest gangs in town had literally just had their cape leadership stripped away from them, meaning there were two pools of potential recruits waiting for her to show up and claim them. It was true that the larger of these groups had been members of a white-supremacist gang, but she was an equal-opportunity employer; if they were willing to forget about that part of their lives, so was she.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Step one: find a cop car.

Monochrome

"Okay, so the Empire Eighty-Eight and ABB are falling apart by the day, but there's still a lot to do," Emma noted as Madison strode along the Boardwalk with me riding on one shoulder of the Blockade armour and Emma on the other. "We have ordinary crime, and there's always the chance of new villains coming to town."

"Yeah, Director Piggot seemed pretty sure that was going to happen," agreed Madison. "She's been doing this a lot longer than we have, so I'm not gonna second-guess her on that."

"Absolutely." I hitched myself a little higher and scanned up and down the Boardwalk; despite the fact that only the last fading glow of the sunset was showing over the hills to the west, the overhead street lighting was giving pretty good illumination. The only movement I saw was from people, mostly looking in our direction. "Seems like we've got enough respect around here that nobody's willing to pull any stunts while we're looking."

"That'll be down to you and Firebird." Even with the voice modulator, Madison sounded amused. "When you dragged that one purse-snatcher along the Boardwalk by his ankle, you got everyone's attention."

"Well, it was either that or by the scruff of his neck, and he was taller than me." I shrugged. "Besides, he called me some pretty nasty names when I stopped him. He needed to learn not to do that."

"I think that lesson was well and truly learned." Emma tossed one of her throwing discs in the air, then caught it again and snapped it back onto her arm bracer in one fluid motion. "Are we gonna patrol back along the Boardwalk when we get to the other end, or go somewhere else?"

I considered that for a moment. "The Boardwalk is pretty well covered by the cops and Wards as it is. We don't want them getting complacent elsewhere in town, so we'll move along and check out the Trainyards before we finish up tonight." It was a school night after all, which meant it'd be a good idea to get home before midnight, at least for me and Madison. Emma could get by on just a couple of hours of sleep, the big cheating cheater.

"I'm down with that." Madison's voice was full of satisfaction. They'd told me about the encounters they'd had with the Merchants while they were still building their reputation as heroes. Madison in particular had issues with drug dealers hanging around and harassing people. "If we can clean that area up and keep it that way, it'll make it easier to get the Port back up and running when the time comes."

"Absolutely." Emma waved to a couple of people who'd stopped to take a photo of us. "And if any of these villains do stick their heads up, we'll smack 'em down again. Because that's what we do."

That was my view too. "Damn right."

March

Before she set out to acquire a cop car, March decided to modify her own ride to make matters more convenient. First and foremost, she needed to be wearing her mask when she encountered them, and the roof of the car made that problematic. With this in mind, she used her empowered rapier to slice away the roof, door pillars, window frames, and rear window, in chunks small enough for her to handle. After smoothing off the rough edges, she got back into her newly-converted roadster and began the hunt.

As far as she was concerned, a poor hunter went looking for the prey, a mediocre hunter waited for them, and a good hunter drew the prey to them. So she set out breaking the law in the most flashy and egregious way possible: by blatantly exceeding the speed limit, all the way through town. A speeding car combined an obviously illegal act, a chance to drive fast with the siren on, and the opportunity to yell at someone in the name of the law; by her understanding, it was catnip to the average police officer.

She picked up her expected tail just a few minutes later, after her third four-wheel-drift around a random corner. He was still a ways back, though, so she decided to make him work to catch up with her. From what she remembered of the map, the waterfront was just up ahead: a boardwalk along the shore, paralleled by a long boulevard called Lord Street.

She'd let him chase her until she found a nice quiet place to conduct business, then the chase would be over and the next stage in the plan would take place. This would possibly entail the cop dying, depending on how stupid he wanted to be. It would absolutely end with her driving off with her very own cop car, slightly used, one previous owner.

The reason she wanted a cop car was simple: police-band radio, with wheels attached. At some point, the remnants of the Empire Eighty-Eight and the ABB would try to supplement their current savings with some crime, petty or otherwise. Without their super-powered protectors, they would almost certainly fall afoul of the law.

Whichever cops responded would call it in, and she'd hear about it. Whereupon she would turn up and save the mooks from the cops, then make them the strongly worded offer to work for her. They would almost certainly accept; while she'd never worked for another cape in her life, she understood that the minion mindset never really went away.

And then, once she had her ducks in a row, she would start learning Flechette's roster times and patrol routes. Brockton Bay was smaller than New York, which meant it would be harder than ever for Flechette to hide from her.

She couldn't wait.

But in the meantime, she was in the process of actuating the first stages in her plan. It was never a good idea to look too far ahead and lose sight of the here and now. As the cop car closed in from behind, she threw the car into a howling, smoking drift that left four distinct black trails on the asphalt and took her around the corner onto Lord Street.

With a nice long straightaway ahead of her, she gunned the engine. The car began to accelerate again, just as she noticed the three capes off to the side, on the boardwalk itself. She whipped past them, leaving her with the image of a large blocky set of power armour carrying a costumed teenage girl on each shoulder, all three turning to look at her.

Unless one of them is a speedster, they'll never—

Taylor

The car came around the corner behind us, rubber shrieking on asphalt, the burning smell borne to us on the wind. Just as we turned to look, it roared past us, already dangerously fast. Behind it, a police car screeched around the corner with siren wailing and lightbar flashing.

"Was that—" Emma began.

"—a rabbit driving?" I finished. It had certainly looked like it, with white fur, long ears, and a cute little round cap.

"Cape," Madison filled in grimly. "Database says March, out of New York. Also says she's dangerous."

"Got it." I gathered my feet under me and leaped.

I might have been inclined to allow the cops to deal with a speeder, but a cape doing the speeding was a whole other thing. For starters, capes were a lot less likely to tamely allow themselves to be pulled over and arrested. Plus, we'd just finished telling Director Piggot that we'd help deal with any new villains in town. March definitely qualified.

And if she thought she was dangerous? She hadn't seen dangerous yet.

She was doing twice the speed limit when I passed over her, but that was no big deal. I was going faster than her, and all I needed to do was get in front of her. She looked up at me as I rotated laterally in the air, going from head-first to feet-first, utterly ignoring minor matters such as wind resistance and aerodynamics.

The next bit was going to be a little tricky. I hadn't even had my powers for a day when Uber and Leet had hit me with a car, utterly wrecking it when I didn't give way in the slightest. This time, I wanted to do better.

Allowing gravity to notice me again, then telling it to notice me, I dropped out of the sky. The idea was to land on the hood of the car, envelop the entire vehicle (and her) in my personal protective field, then put my feet down on the road. Any amount of friction from my feet meant I could stop instantly; nothing within my protective field suffered from inertia or gravity unless I wanted it to. The car would stop on the instant, allowing us to take the unharmed perpetrator into custody, hand her over to the PRT and go on our way.

At least, that was the plan.

As I fell toward the hood of the car, March anticipated my move and swerved to get clear of me before I could drop that far. (She was, I would learn, very good at anticipating moves). What she didn't seem to expect was how fast I was accelerating downward. Increasing the value of g for myself was a somewhat niche trick, but it came in handy occasionally.

As it was, she peeled around me with more than a foot to spare, but not quite out of my reach. I made a hasty grab, and my fingers closed over the top of the front passenger-side door. The instant I made contact, I layered my protective field over the car and all its contents, and it stopped.

Unfortunately, her foot was still on the accelerator, so the engine was roaring and rubber was howling against asphalt. Using just the pressure of my fingers and thumb on the door, I gently lifted the entire vehicle until the back tyres were no longer in contact with the road. That got rid of part of the noise, but not all of it.

"Turn the ignition off and exit the vehicle, March!" I shouted over the bellow of the engine. "You're under arrest!" I didn't actually have the power of arrest, but I could sure as hell hold her until the people who did showed up.

The rabbit head was turned my way. I had to admire the workmanship that had gone into it. The thing could've been cartoonish but it actually looked realistic, if a six-foot rabbit could look realistic.

The rest of her costume was … hyper-militaristic, if that was a thing. Bright colours, fringed epaulettes, polished brass buttons, with the cap on top between the ears. It looked like a crossover between Alice in Wonderland and Gilbert & Sullivan.

"And which one are you supposed to be?" she asked. She eased off on the accelerator, but then I saw her pick up a long skinny sword from the passenger seat.

"I'm Monochrome," I informed her. "You need to put that down right now. It won't hurt me. Nothing can hurt me. And if you try, I'll take it away from you and tie it in a bow."

"Really." Then she stabbed me.

I was kind of expecting it (in a ha ha, what's she going to do with that, stab me? way) but mostly not, because I was holding the car a foot off the ground with one hand, and that sort of thing tends to breed caution in others. What I wasn't expecting was for it to actually fucking work.

Her lunge was faster than my eye could follow; Emma probably could've seen it coming in time to do something about it, but all I knew about it was a flash of silver straight at my chest. I fully expected it to attempt to hit me in the chest, but I did not expect my force field to simply pop like a soap bubble, nor did I expect the skinny blade with a very pointy end to be driven deep into my chest cavity.

I stared down at the embedded weapon, stunned.

This … this was actually happening.

I wasn't prepared for this.

Before I could do anything, she whipped the sword back out of my chest. I took one stumbling step back, then I was tumbling. I fell hard, but I didn't feel the ground. I simply … stopped falling. Staring up at the sky for a second, there wasn't a cloud in the sky, and remembering the weather forecast, I coughed around the wetness that filled my throat.

Rain, my ass.

I heard shots being fired, though they were muffled … like a long way away. My fingers were starting to get sticky, and I lifted my hand, staring for a few seconds at the red liquid that covered it. It took me a second to remember it was blood.

My hand got really heavy and I closed my eyes, but on an up note, my chest didn't hurt any more. In fact … nothing hurt…

I felt the shadow of someone or something falling across me, and then there were people screaming.

I just really wanted them to shut up so I could sleep.

The last thing I remember was the sound of fabric tearing, and thinking that a bandage wasn't quite gonna cut it …

Firebird

Emma knelt tensely on the sidewalk, knowing her gloves were covered in blood but not giving a shit, as Panacea laid her hands on Taylor's unconscious body. Glory Girl stood back out of the way, apparently unconcerned regarding the outcome. With the assistance of the first-aid kit from the patrol car, Emma had managed to keep Taylor alive up until this point, but her vital signs had been really bad toward the end.

Madison had overridden Emma's demand for an ambulance, instead directing a call to New Wave, requesting Panacea's assistance. The call-out would cost four hundred dollars—her usual rate, plus double time for short notice and outside working hours—but Emma considered it cheap at twice the price. Glory Girl was apparently used to ferrying her sister around, and had gotten Panacea to them in less than five minutes (though to Emma, it had felt like much longer).

"Done," Panacea announced, settling back on her heels. "I've fixed the damage, and she'll be waking up in about ten seconds. She's going to need to have a full meal and rehydrate, to replace the blood she lost, but otherwise she'll be okay. What was it, some sort of bladed weapon?"

Emma stared as Taylor's eyelids fluttered open, a warmth spreading through her chest. Oh god, thank you. She's going to live. "Uh, yeah," she managed, trying not to ignore Panacea. "March carries a rapier. According to the database, she can cut through anything with it, and make things explode." It would've been good if Taylor had waited for Madison to reach that part of the entry.

"Hmm." Panacea frowned. "Well, from what I can see, whatever cutting power she had wasn't working. The blade scraped off a rib before it went into Monochrome's chest, which saved her from a much worse wound, possibly even a fatal one. Thanks to you, she didn't even suffer from anoxia." She gave Emma a brief smile. "When people do first aid properly, it makes my job so much easier."

"Ugh …" groaned Taylor. "What happened? How did she even do that?" Between one instant and the next, her force field came back, covering her from head to foot.

"Her blade can cut through anything," Emma informed her. "How do you feel?"

"Like I got stabbed with a blade that can cut through anything," was the tart reply. Taylor sat up, then finally registered Panacea. "Oh, hey. I'm guessing you're the reason I'm feeling a lot better right now?"

"Good guess." Panacea stood up, then dusted her knees off. "Looks like Crystal wins the pool."

"Pool?" asked Emma as she helped Taylor up; it wasn't like Taylor actually needed the assistance with her force field on, but there was a psychological element there.

"Yeah." Glory Girl rolled her eyes. "On which of you three was going to need Panacea's assistance first, the way you've been tearing through the local bad guys. I had my money on you."

"Did anyone have anything on me?" asked Madison curiously.

"Just Manpower." Panacea smirked. "He was so sure he was gonna win too, given how easy Tinkers are to hurt once they're out of their armour."

"Who'd you have your money on?" Taylor asked her. "And thanks, by the way. I really appreciate it."

"Oh, I wasn't allowed to be in on the pool." Panacea shook her head and snorted. "Something about a conflict of interest. Anyway, you're welcome. Glory Girl has your billing information?"

"I've already transferred the four hundred to your account," Madison assured her. "I'd apologise for dragging you out on a school night, but you don't seem particularly upset over it."

Panacea grinned. "Hah, no. Thanks to jobs like this, my college fund is really healthy, these days."

"And I get five percent for flying her here," Glory Girl added. "We'll probably get takeout on the way back. Win-win."

"Well, thanks anyway." Emma waved her hands vaguely, aware of the blood on her gloves. "See you around." She watched as Glory Girl expertly gathered Panacea into a bridal carry, then rocketed into the sky. "Okay," she said. "That happened."

"March's sword popped my force field," Taylor said, in an 'I want to speak to the manager' tone. "Nothing's supposed to touch my force field. How did she get a power like that?"

"I'm getting the impression that your power and her power cancelled each other out, but she was still holding a sharp piece of steel and you were soft squishy meat," Madison offered helpfully. Emma couldn't help noting that Madison's good steel would very likely protect her from any sword March wanted to point in her direction.

"Ugh, okay, fine." Taylor huffed in irritation. "How bad was it?"

"Pretty bad," Emma said candidly. "I had to give you CPR, before Panacea got here." She still recalled the taste of Taylor's blood in her mouth. It would likely be with her forever.

Taylor nodded slowly. "Got it. Thanks. Remind me to save your life sometime."

"Anytime." Emma tilted her head. "Go ahead, ask the question you want to ask."

"Okay, fine. Did you get her?" From the tone of Taylor's voice, she already knew the answer.

Madison shook the head of her power armour ponderously. "No. We were all concentrating on you. After you dropped the car, she got away in the confusion. But don't worry. We'll catch up with her again."

"And when we do," Emma stated with conviction, "she's gonna learn why she shouldn't mess with the Real Thing."

Some Way Out of Brockton Bay

The party was dying down as Butcher leaned back in her chosen seat, watching her followers stumble about in search of booze, a bed partner, or somewhere to throw up. Hemorrhagia staggered up and flopped down next to her, holding a bottle by the neck. "Spree'ss so drunk, hee'ss havin', havin' a drink'n c'ntest with, with hisself," she announced out of nowhere.

"Wouldn't fuckin' surprise me." Nothing surprised Butcher anymore about the Teeth. So many members had come and gone, among the powered and non-powered members alike, that if she hadn't seen basically everything there was to see, one of her predecessors would have.

Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately) the layered powers that came with being the Butcher meant that she couldn't get drunk easily and she couldn't stay drunk at all. Which meant she was just drinking for the taste and the mild buzz.

"So where're we goin'nex'?" Hemorrhagia went to take a drink from her bottle, but it was empty. She looked drunkenly disappointed.

Butcher had been thinking about that. "Heard that Brockton Bay's been nearly cleared out of villains. Empire's gone, ABB's gone. Sounds ripe for us to go take a cruise back through our old stomping grounds."

Hemorrhagia blinked owlishly at her. "I nev'r been."

Butcher smiled; it wasn't a pleasant expression. "It's gonna be fun."

End of Part Thirty-Five