"Hookwolf is safely contained within a supermax prison, and will be in the Birdcage by the end of the month at the latest. It's possible the Empire will try to break him out before then, of course, but …"
"… but if they do, attacking a federal prison will bring a ton of heat on their heads even if they succeed, which isn't that likely."
"Yes. Barring some dramatic event, I think we can assume Hookwolf has been removed from the board."
"And not before time. [Pause.] In your opinion, Armsmaster, how would the engagement have ended if Lasombra hadn't shown up ?"
"With Glory Girl's intervention, there was a good chance we might have been able to hold on until reinforcements arrived. The issue is that the Empire almost certainly had additional assets of their own they'd have mobilized if that had been the case, and even with Hookwolf out of the equation – which wouldn't have been guaranteed to last for the entire fight, as the initial attack damaged the tranquillizer injection system and I had to repair it after the fight – the Empire would have outgunned us eventually. Do we know where Kaiser and the twins were at the time ?"
"No. There was no sighting of them for the entire night. With the benefit of hindsight, do you think we could have prepared for this better ?"
"I … I do not think so, Director. The decision of using a single modified van was mine, and I knew it would mean fewer capes on our side if we were attacked. But given that the Empire was likely to outnumber us anyway, discretion was clearly the better strategy. I was confident that the team I'd put together could handle a single villain quickly and quietly in the event of a random attack, and my own countermeasures would be enough to deal with Hookwolf if he broke free somehow. I could have changed the team's composition, brought Dauntless instead of Miss Militia for example, but I doubt it would have made much of a difference to the outcome. The issue was that the time of our departure was known to the Empire long enough in advance for them to mobilize several capes and a number of unpowered soldiers to intercept us."
"Yes. That. I assume you didn't tell anyone about your plans ?"
"I didn't, and neither did Miss Militia. Assault and Battery were informed at the last minute, as were the troopers who brought Hookwolf out of the containment cell and into the customized van. It is possible that one of them contacted the Empire immediately, but it seems … unlikely. The level of preparation on the villains' part indicates that they were aware of the plan earlier than that."
"God dammit. I was hoping you had an explanation. There has to be a Thinker involved, Armsmaster. Either that, or our systems are so hopelessly compromised that your own workshop and Dragon's network are accessible to the opposition, but if that were the case the Bay would already be a HoSV."
"The involvement of a Thinker does seem the most likely scenario, yes. But we run into the same question as before : if a Thinker is responsible for the leaks that have plagued us for years, then why do they seem to benefit all the gangs of the Bay ?"
"I know. I'll see about getting some assistance from the rest of the PRT. Hopefully a Thinker who can access intelligence known only to a PRT Director and the Protectorate's team leader and his second-in-command is enough of a threat that someone will take it seriously. In the meantime, it won't surprise you to hear that New Wave isn't happy Glory Girl was involved. I've had a very energetic discussion with Brandish over the phone, but at least she believed me when I told her we'd no idea her daughter would get involved."
"Her support was welcome, and if Lasombra hadn't shown up, her forcefield would have been very useful, if only for us to disengage without casualties."
"Well, that's for New Wave to deal with, not us. Back to the matter at hand, how is Alabaster ?"
"Still terrified out of his mind. He doesn't respond to any outside stimulus. According to Panacea, every time his body resets, his nervous system pumps out a fresh batch of fear hormones into his body."
"That … that's far too close to a Grey Boy loop for me to be comfortable with, Armsmaster."
"I know, and I feel the same. I asked Panacea if she could suppress the fear reaction to break the loop : even without affecting the brain directly, she has shown in the past that calming patients is within the scope of her abilities."
"And what were the results ?"
"Alabaster started calming down, but the moment she stopped maintaining the effect, the terror flooded back in, even before his loop reset. However, Panacea has mentioned that the terror is diminishing from one loop to the next, albeit slowly. She thinks it will take weeks before Alabaster is coherent enough to speak, but she made no guarantee and suggested we try to get someone who is more versed in such matters."
"I'll see what I can do. We need to have a word with Lasombra about excessive force. Yes, neutralizing Alabaster is tricky, but after all the tricks Lasombra has shown us, I refuse to believe he couldn't have incapacitated him another way."
"It could have been an unforeseen power interaction caused by Alabaster's own power. But I can't help but remember Lung's message to me."
"Something about Lasombra not being what we think he is, right ?"
"Correct. Now, of course we shouldn't take Lung's word for it, but still …"
"I see what you mean. This is a worrying level of escalation on Lasombra's part."
"Indeed. There's also the beast's name. 'Marchosias' is a mythological name linked to the sources used by the Fallen for the names of some of their capes."
"Christ. You don't think …"
"I don't believe Lasombra is related to the Fallen, no. Their cape names aren't wildly known, after all, and Marchosias is supposed to take the aspect of a female wolf, so it's more likely Lasombra chose that name on his own. But Dragon reminded me that an automated alert was sent to Watchdog when I logged my report due to that keyword."
"Given the sheer amount of requests they receive every day, I'd be surprised if we get a return on the subject within this semester. [Sigh] But I guess I shouldn't complain. Watchdog contacting or getting back to you quickly is never a good sign, after all."
Notes from the meeting between Director Emily Piggot and Armsmaster, recorded by the latter's armor, January 13th, 2011.
In one timeline, Thomas Calvert sat at his desk at the PRT headquarters and went through the bureaucratic tasks that were part of his job as a consultant, while in another, he went over the footage from the mercenaries he'd deployed in overwatch of the battle of the previous night.
In both timelines, he suppressed the frustration he was feeling. While the failure of the Empire Eighty-Eight's ambush on the transport van wasn't exactly a loss for his organization, its outcome hadn't been one he'd prepared for.
It had started well : even the intervention of Glory Girl hadn't been enough to turn the tides against the Empire. If anything, her presence could have been useful to him : Coil knew, thanks to Tattletale's analysis of the videos of her fights he'd sent her, that the girl's supposed invincibility was nothing of the sort. All it would have taken was one bullet striking her shield at just the right time for the Empire to kill an underage cape during a Protectorate operation.
He'd been considering doing precisely that in a split-off timeline, to see what would happen, when Lasombra had appeared and the momentum of the battle had changed at once. Within moments of the independent hero's arrival, the Empire forces had been set to flight, leaving three of their capes and a number of unpowered thugs behind.
In a timeline he'd split off at that point, Coil had ordered a sniper to open fire at Lasombra. All the body-cams had stopped working with Lasombra's arrival, but the shot had been perfectly on target according to all of his men (he had made a note of it in the man's file to use him if ever he needed a marksman who could perform under pressure). However, Lasombra had barely noticed it, the shadow-stuff of his head rippling as the projectile passed through and smashed into the pavement nearby.
All it had achieved was push him to accelerate his defeat of the Empire forces (in that timeline, only Rune had managed to escape, Crusader being engulfed by a swarm of black tentacles) before disappearing and starting to take out not just the sniper who had shot him, but every single mercenary Coil had positioned around the ambush site, moving from shadow to shadow in a display of teleportation that went far beyond what the likes of Oni Lee were capable of. Coil had waited for several minutes, taking notes on the speed at which Lasombra was using his Mover power, before collapsing the timeline. His men had remained immobile and silent throughout the remainder of the fight, before departing once Lasombra had left but before the PRT reinforcements arrived on the scene.
It was clear now that Coil needed Lasombra either brought under his control or eliminated, as quickly as possible. Of course, he would have to be careful, but with his power, that was easily managed. And, thanks to Tattletale's unwilling confession, he had a better idea of how to achieve this than anybody else in Brockton Bay. He didn't need his extensive network of informants to know that both the PRT and the Empire were searching for Lasombra's civilian identity (though the PRT had admittedly more benign intents), but so far, neither of them were having much luck. They didn't have all the pieces of the puzzle that were in his possession alone.
In his base, he pulled out the files he'd copied from the PRT database on the Shadow Stalker incident. They included not only the address and photo of Taylor Hebert, but also the details of the settlement through which her silence had been bought, which included a transfer from Winslow to Arcadia – a transfer which was scheduled to take effect at the beginning of next week.
That would give him the perfect opportunity to check Tattletale's hypothesis. He could send a team to kidnap the girl straight out of her home before then, of course. But even though the Heberts didn't live in a wealthy part of town, the odds of such a blatant intrusion drawing the attention of the police or the Protectorate were high. He couldn't launch such an assault during the night, as he'd just been shown how useless his mercenaries were against Lasombra, and the possible projection had already proven it could move through the city fast enough to respond to an attack on its Master. Even during the day, it was possible the Hebert girl would be able to summon Lasombra in the time it took his men to break in : they would be racing to reach her and put a gun to her head before she could call up her projection to defend herself.
There was also the fact that Taylor Hebert was still a person of interest to the Protectorate, since they suspected she was a low-level Brute due to the circumstances of what Tattletale was certain was her Trigger Event. All in all, it was better to wait a few days if it meant minimizing the risk – it wouldn't do for Coil to start getting careless even with his throwaway timelines. Such habits could easily lead to his doom : he'd seen it happen to far too many Thinkers. Even his pet Tattletale wasn't immune to it; manipulating the answers her power was feeding her was one of his favorite means of keeping her under control.
And, he reminded himself, even if it turned out that Tattletale had been completely wrong and Taylor Hebert had no link to Lasombra at all, it would be good training for when he had his men go after the Mayor's niece, who his sources told him had recently Triggered with a powerful precognitive power. That one would require a diversion as well, but a rehearsal of his mercenaries' part in the operation couldn't hurt.
Underneath his black and white mask, Coil grinned, as the way to turn this latest setback into an opportunity became clearer and clearer.
Amy collapsed on her bed, exhausted.
You would think that being the greatest parahuman healer in the world would mean she didn't have to waste her time going to highschool, but nooooo. Right after being dragged to the PRT headquarters to see if she could figure out what was wrong with Alabaster, which had taken a good part of the night, she'd needed to force herself through another day of school. She'd barely been able to go home, change out of her heroine costume, and collapse for a couple of hours before her alarm had woken her up.
At school, the news of Vicky's fight with the Empire had already spread, and they'd been surrounded by students clamoring for all the juicy details. At least Vicky had been equally miserable, on account of her late-night patrol, her fight with the Empire, and then Carol dressing her down for jumping into a fight with the Empire on her own. Even Aunt Sarah had gotten into it, telling Vicky that she should at least have called for help before joining the fray.
Checking out Alabaster at the PRT headquarter had been interesting, too. She'd healed more parahumans than she cared to count – her participation in the Endbringer fights had made sure of that – but Alabaster had been a fascinating case, and not just because of whatever Lasombra had done to him. From what she'd been able to figure out, his power affected his brain as much as the rest of his body, and yet he was clearly capable of gaining new memories since his Trigger. So where were the memories stored ? Powers routinely tied physics in knots, but there was usually some kind of logic behind it, and she found that one fascinating.
Also, he was a Nazi, so she didn't have to care that she hadn't been able to heal him from his constant state of terror. Amy had been called upon to heal far too many victims of the Empire Eighty-Eight to not think he and every cape in that gang deserved it. And she was pretty sure the effect would fade on its own eventually anyway.
"Hey, sis," said Vicky as she barged into Amy's room without bothering to knock. "Long day, huh ?"
Amy groaned wordlessly in reply, refusing to move even as Vicky sat down on the bed next to her. Eventually, however, the temptation of spending time with her adopted sister proved too much, and she rolled over and sat up, back resting against the headrest.
"It sure was. Mom's done giving you both barrels, then ?" she asked.
"She is, for now," Vicky grimaced. "I've no doubt she'll have more to tell me tomorrow, and probably for the next week. But it was still worth it, I think. Not only did I help get more Empire capes behind bars and keep them from springing Hookwolf out, I also saw Lasombra fight."
With great reluctance, Amy rolled over and opened one eye to look at her sister. She knew Vicky well enough to realize she wasn't going to leave, and she was curious about the newest cape of Brockton Bay as well. Sure, there were a lot of those who'd popped up over the years, but none of them had made as big a splash in so short a time.
"Is he as impressive as PHO makes him sound ?" she asked.
"More, if anything," replied Vicky. "The fact he can't be recorded on video is doing as much harm to his rep as good, I think. The mystery is feeding the rumors, but without seeing it with their own eyes, some people can't help but downplay what he's done. Also, without video evidence, the online nerds can't calculate just how strong he is – as if that's the most interesting thing about his powers."
"Oh ? And what is the most interesting thing about his powers, Miss Parahuman-studies ?"
"Well, to start with, his tentacles could touch Crusader's ghosts, even though we know his projections are Manton-limited."
Meaning only flesh could interact with them, something the Empire cape had used to terrorize countless people by sending his ghosts through walls. There were plenty of rumors that he'd also used them to kill people without the Empire publicly admitting it : it was difficult to tell the difference between someone who'd slipped down a flight of stairs and broken his neck and someone who had been pushed, after all.
"So what," Amy frowned, "you think these tentacles are part of his body ?"
"Well, that would make sense, wouldn't it ?" said Vicky. "He has to be a Changer, or his identity would already be out by now – unless his look is a costume, but having seen it, I don't think it is. Maybe the tall, dark man in a suit is an attempt to look less scary ?"
"Less scary," Amy said in as drily a tone of voice as she could manage. "The faceless man who speaks in the voice of the damned and out-punches Lung."
"I didn't say it was a good attempt," Vicky argued back with a smile. "And he sure could use the boost to his image. Dean told me that Armsmaster ran some tests on the Empire building where Lasombra encountered the Undersiders. Apparently, there was a freezing room there that was used to …" Amy's sister swallowed, her enthusiasm visibly dampening, and forced herself to continue : "to store the bodies of the animals who'd died in the fighting pits. The E88 thugs who got caught at the scene even confirmed it. But Armsmaster didn't find any biological trace of the animals in the room. It was completely clean, even though the gangers confessed that it had been full before."
"That seems like a weird thing to lie about," frowned Amy.
"I know, right ? And Armsmaster has been working on some kind of lie detecting software, which told them that they were telling the truth."
"So, what, you think Lasombra created his wolf from the corpses of the animals the Empire had murdered ? That sounds very close to VoidCowboy's theory, sis," Amy teased.
"Even a broken clock is right twice a day, and Void has been wrong a lot," Vicky replied. "It was inevitable that he'd be close to right eventually."
"I'm not sure that's how probability works," Amy deadpanned.
"It is if I say it is," grinned Vicky.
The remaining Empire capes were meeting in a nondescript warehouse, rather than one of the Medhall affiliated buildings. They had several safehouses like this scattered across town, and Crusader had guided Rune here after the disastrous events of the previous night, once the flier had made sure they weren't being followed.
Kaiser had come in armor, and the rest were all in costume. Fenja and Menja stood behind him, while Krieg and Victor were sitting on empty crates, Othala staying near her husband. Outside, a few Empire soldiers were keeping watch, just in case someone was stupid enough to attack such a mighty gathering.
Kaiser very carefully ignored the voice at the back of his mind that told him that the sun had set, and that Lasombra might be out and about even now.
"Rune, Crusader, I'm happy to see you are well," said Kaiser. He paused, then asked : "You are well, right ?"
"I'm fine, boss," said Rune. "But Justin – sorry, Crusader …"
"What's wrong ?" asked Kaiser as the teenager trailed off, clearly uneasy.
"I can't call on all my ghosts," replied the adult cape. He, too, looked ill at ease. Until now, Kaiser had simply attributed it to the fact he'd failed in an important mission and was afraid of being punished. "Several of them got ripped to pieces by Lasombra, and I can't bring them back out. It feels like … like something's missing ? Or, broken ? I don't know how to say it."
"That's … worrying," said Kaiser. "Has it gotten worse ?"
"No," Crusader shook his head. "I think it might be getting better ? I'm not sure. But I can still use my power ! Just, not as much as before. Othala tried giving me healing, but it didn't help."
"I see," said Kaiser. This was worrying : never before had Crusader's ghosts been damaged in such a way. They'd been defeated before : mundane weapons may not touch them, but that didn't mean the energies of powers and Tinkertech devices couldn't. Every time, however, Crusader had been able to call them back again almost immediately.
He hoped Crusader wasn't lying in order to avoid being disposed of as useless (which Kaiser wouldn't do in any case, the impact on morale would have been devastating). But only time would tell.
"Keep me informed of how this goes," he said after thinking for a moment. "If the issue persists, I'll see what I can do."
Maybe their contacts in the PRT could find something similar in the organization's databases. Ultimately, it was only a secondary concern compared to the greater issue they faced.
"What do we do now ?" asked Krieg, bringing the conversation to that very matter.
That was a very good question. The Empire hadn't suffered a defeat like this one for years, not since the death of Iron Rain, Kaiser's sister. Back then, Allfather had reacted by swearing revenge on Marquis, using that oath to solidify his hold onto the nascent Empire Eighty-Eight. Now, the organization was much more established and powerful, but its roots were still the same.
"Brad is lost to us," Kaiser decided. "But the rest of our comrades aren't. We need to free Alabaster, Stormtiger and Cricket, no matter what."
"We can try to use our influence on the local justice system," suggested Victor. "There are many judges in the area who know the importance of the work the Empire does to keep the city safe from the wrong sorts. They could send them to one of the lower-security prisons in the state, and then we can arrange a breakout. It has happened before, and it will happen again."
"That is a possibility," accepted Kaiser, "but it will make us look weak. Freeing them before they can leave the city would be a greater victory than them escaping prison – which would take weeks, if not months to arrange."
"Let's say we can arrange another ambush when the PRT moves them out of the city," said Victor. "What do we do if Lasombra shows up again ?"
Silence descended on the assembled capes. That was the million-dollars question, they all knew. Even with their numbers diminished as they were, Kaiser was confident they could still face the local Protectorate on more than equal ground. He would have to take to the field himself to balance the scales, yes, but it wouldn't be the first time nor the last.
But if Lasombra showed up, then things were more difficult. His tentacles had been able to pry Brad out of his transformed state : Kaiser had little doubt they could do the same to his own power-created suit of armor. The twins were potentially stronger than him once fully grown, but if that wolf-thing had been able to incapacitate Alabaster, it might be able to do the same to the two Brutes as well.
There was only one reasonable option, no matter how reluctant Kaiser was to take it.
"I will talk to Purity," he said. "I'll make her see reason and understand that her assistance is required for the Empire to remain able to protect the good people of Brockton Bay. From Rune's and Crusader's description, Lasombra's power is based on some kind of shadow manipulation : her power is tailor-made to counter his. And we certainly could use the help of Night and Fog too."
It would cost him, he knew. With the ABB gone, he'd lost his greatest argument in convincing his ex-wife to return to the Empire : telling her that only they stood between the city and the Asian warlord. And because Lasombra had taken down Lung first, presenting him as a threat to the city would be difficult to say the least.
But if he didn't do anything, the Empire would fall. The momentum was firmly in the PRT's favor now, and with the clean-up of the ABB almost complete, they'd soon be free to focus their efforts on the Empire. Coil was a nonentity, and the less said about the Merchants the better. The only reason Skidmark's gaggle of hooligans had been allowed to remain in the city that long was that a new iteration of the Merchants would inevitably pop up if the current one was wiped out, and they made a useful boogeyman for the Empire's propaganda thanks to their diverse recruitment base.
He could scatter the Empire, he knew. Send the capes away, tell the soldiers to go to ground, and focus on being Max Anders – hell, he could even go on a vacation somewhere else for a few weeks or months. God knew enough wealthy millionaires did the same all the time, even with tourism as an industry being in a downward spiral for the last two decades. But the thought of giving up what was his filled him with revulsion.
No. Anything was preferable to that.
To persuade Kayden to help him, he might have to give up on Aster's custody, which wasn't something he would give up lightly. But if the alternative was the Empire being dismantled piece by piece, then securing a potential heir to his legacy would have to wait. He was still in the prime of his life : he could make another child if need be.
Besides, he might be able to draw Kayden back into the fold after Lasombra was dealt with, once new gangs arrived in the city to fill the vacuum left by the ABB. He knew his ex-wife well, and she had far more in common with the Empire than she did with the PRT and the other 'heroes'.
As for Dorothy and Geoff, they would follow Kayden's lead just as they had when she'd split from the Empire. Admittedly, neither of the Gesellschaft capes had played at being a hero like Kayden had (the image of Night trying to pluck a cat from a tree, or Fog intervening in a mugging, nearly made him burst into laughter). Nobody really understood why the couple seemed to have imprinted on Purity, for lack of a better word, after arriving in the United States, but they would come back from Boston if she called.
It wasn't like they had anything tying them there : according to the men he'd sent to check on them (and who had been very disturbed by what they had seen), they were playing the same routine of playing husband and wife day after day after day, down to the exact same conversations. Kaiser had asked Krieg to make sure their bank accounts were topped up so Dorothy could keep doing her weekly grocery run during which she always, always bought the exact same things – he didn't want to know what would happen if they ran out of money, and wanted Accord angry at him even less.
"Rune," he said, "you will go back home with Victor and Othala tonight, and back to school tomorrow. Crusader, you stay here and focus on recovering. For now, we'll focus on gathering more information while I get in touch with Purity."
Lasombra would pay for making him go through this, Kaiser swore. Whatever it took, whatever it cost, the master of the Empire would ensure that much at least.
Topic : Lasombra : 2 ; Empire : 0
Bagrat (Original Poster) (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
Posted On Jan 13th 2011 :
If you live in or near Captain's Hill, you may have heard an explosion and some violent noises last night. If so, you hopefully kept your head down, and are probably wondering what the hell happened. Well, friends, this morning, thanks to a PRT press release (and a few questions asked to friends who live in the area), we now know what all of that was about.
As you all know if you haven't been living under a rock (which many may consider a preferable alternative to living in Brockton Bay), Hookwolf has been in the PRT's custody for the last three days, ever since Lasombra beat him unconscious and left him for Armsmaster to pick up. Given that the villain has a Birdcage sentence for the many, MANY crimes he was found guilty of in absentia, the local heroes needed to get him out of the PRT headquarter's cells and into a proper prison until he could be transported to the Birdcage.
How the Empire knew where to launch their ambush is a question for wiser minds than mine to answer, but know it they did. They attacked the transport at around 11PM, with a group consisting of Stormtiger, Cricket, Rune, Alabaster, Crusader, and a bunch of armed thugs. Meanwhile, on the hero side, there was Armsmaster, Miss Militia, Assault and Battery.
Joined by Glory Girl, the heroes were able to hold their ground, but things were looking dire, until who should show up out of nowhere ? That's right, our dear friend Lasombra !
Lasombra gave the Empire a chance to surrender, which they, predictably, refused. This, equally predictably, did not go well for them, as the night ended with Alabaster, Cricket and Stormtiger in PRT custody and Hookwolf safely out of town.
Also, apparently Lasombra's big wolf did … something to Alabaster that, even with his regeneration, he wasn't able to recover from. His scream has been described to me as 'the howl of a damned soul' and 'the most pant-shittingly terrifying thing I've ever heard'.
So, another victory for the PRT thanks to Lasombra.
Letes
Replied On Jan 13th 2011 :
Man, Kaiser is going to be pissed when he hears about this. Good.
Brocktonite03 (Veteran Member)
Replied On Jan 13th 2011 :
No, not good. Until now, Kaiser has been playing the civilized warlord standing against the 'barbarians' from Asia : it's how the E88 has been able to recruit so many morons to their cause. If he stops playing and decides to go hard, he could do a lot of damage before being taken down.
Laravelo
Replied On Jan 13th 2011 :
You can't just not go after criminals because they might hurt people as a result, though ! For Christ's sake, the E88 are effing NAZIS. They hurt people in the Bay EVERY DAY. Sure, it sucks if you need to cut off your hand because it's rotting, but it's still less likely to kill you than not doing it !
Brocktonite03 (Veteran Member)
Replied On Jan 13th 2011 :
Calm down, that's not what I meant. Obviously more E88 capes being taken off the streets and no longer able to attack minorities is a good thing. I'm just worried about what a powerful supervillain like Kaiser will do in response. The man is clearly a megalomaniac (I mean, who the fuck call themselves 'Emperor' ?), and people like that tend not to take defeat well.
Reave (Verified PRT Agent)
Replied On Jan 13th 2011 :
I can confirm that what Bagrat wrote is true. The assistance of Glory Girl and Lasombra were very welcome, and Hookwolf is currently in a state prison beyond the city's borders.
We are currently trying to contact Lasombra in order to establish a formal relationship, either by having him join the Protectorate directly or as an associate similar to New Wave and many other independent teams across the nation.
While to our knowledge Lasombra doesn't have a verified account on PHO, Lasombra, if you are seeing this, please get in touch with us. We believe that we can achieve great things by working together.
Sapphire_Prophet
Replied On Jan 13th 2011 :
Speaking of super(?)villains, does anybody know what the Merchants are doing ? I don't think I've heard of any of their capes doing anything since this whole mess started with Lasombra taking out Lung. I mean, keeping out of sight and not drawing his attention is definitely the smart move, but I find it hard to believe a bunch of druggies are making the smart move, you know ?
Venturain
Replied On Jan 13th 2011 :
I think Skidmark might still be high from his latest trip, and hasn't learned about Lasombra yet.
Sapphire_Prophet
Replied On Jan 13th 2011 :
That's … no. Surely not. It's been, what, almost a week since Lung was taken down ?
Brocktonite03 (Veteran Member)
Replied On Jan 13th 2011 :
I mean, I want to say I cannot believe it, but from what I know of the Merchants, that's 100% plausible.
Joyful_Bard81
Replied On Jan 13th 2011 :
I live not far from where the ambush happened. I kept my head down when the noise of the crash woke me up, because I'm not a moron, but at some point I heard a scream that made me nearly shit my pants, it was so horrified. Does anybody know what that was about ?
Laravelo
Replied On Jan 13th 2011 :
Lasombra's big wolf, maybe ?
Joyful_Bard81
Replied On Jan 13th 2011 :
No, it was definitely human.
Laravelo
Replied On Jan 13th 2011 :
Then I've no idea. None of the news reports on it are mentioning anybody getting killed, though, and we are the town with Panacea, so whoever screamed should be alright … eventually.
Closing PHO and shutting down my computer for the day, I sent a mental call to Marchosias, and she stepped out of my shadow and laid down on the floor. Stroking her fur absent-mindedly, I tried to ask her what exactly she'd done to Alabaster.
What I got in return could best be described as a sense of contentment, akin to what one felt after finishing a large meal following an intense day of activity. Marchosias had fed on Alabaster's terror, to a far greater degree than what she'd done to the Empire thugs when I'd faced Hookwolf; his pain, however brief, had been incidental to her goal.
That was … on the one hand, it had worked in taking Alabaster out of the fight, which would have been tricky otherwise. Someone who could regenerate from any wound almost immediately was a nightmare to neutralize. The best idea I could come up with was using my shadow tentacles to hold him in place until the PRT could trap him in comfoam or just strap the proverbial cuffs onto him. But the issue was that I still had a time limit on how long I could keep Lasombra out, even if I didn't know what exactly said limit was.
I would need to be careful about this in the future. Nazis were an acceptable target to every American who wasn't one, but Lasombra's image was already spooky enough without it being known that his giant pet wolf fed on the terror she inflicted on her victims. There were limits on the kind of behavior the PRT was willing to accept from independent heroes before they got labelled as a villain, and I didn't want the Protectorate to go after me. For one thing, Taylor Hebert was already known to them due to the whole thing with Sophia, and while there were apparently rules against unmasking a cape without their permission or using one's civilian identity to go after them, I'd a feeling these rules were more guidelines than iron-clad principles.
I didn't want to fall into the trap of overconfidence, but I felt relatively certain I could take on the Merchants as Lasombra without trouble. Their capes' powers were well-known compared to those of the Empire, and from my research they didn't have anything which could pose an issue to my projection.
Removing the Merchant capes wouldn't stop the drug trade, of course, but it would enable the BBPD to start enforcing the law in parts of town they couldn't go without risking being crushed to paste by Mush or run over by one of Squealer's abominations against the laws of God and the road.
If I wanted to do that (and I did), I would have to hurry. After the week-end, I would start going to Arcadia. Going to school during the day and having homework to do (and which wouldn't be stolen by the Trio) would cut into the time I could spent researching the opposition online, but one of the many nice things about my power was that I could still go out and fight crime without endangering my civilian life.
Also, now that I knew I could call Marchosias without interfacing through my Lasombra projection, maybe I could figure out some way to establish contact with the PRT. The first thing that came to mind was standing outside the building and have Marchosias walk in with a letter in her jaw, maybe with a throwaway PHO account on it we could use to communicate.
The first issue with that plan was that I wasn't sure how people would react to a giant wolf strolling into the building. I would have to avoid doing it while a tourist group was inside, that was for sure. The second issue was that Marchosias didn't like sunlight at all, so I'd have to do it at night, and while dusk was still early this far in January, Dad would freak out if I didn't come home straight from school.
Finally, there was the fact that I doubted whatever spy tricks I could find online would be proof against the investigative skills of the PRT. I should only make contact in so blatant a fashion if I was comfortable about the PRT figuring out my civilian identity, because there was a big chance they would eventually. And after the Empire's ambush on Hookwolf's transport, it was clear that there were some pretty big information leaks in the organization.
Somehow, the heroes I'd read about never seemed to face problems like this. In the comics, it was all punching evil in the face and figuring out where the villain's base was from the dirt on his henchmen's shoes.
I was beginning to suspect comic books might have lied to me. Truly an Earth-shattering revelation, I thought wryly to myself. How would I ever recover ?
I smiled to myself as I continued stroking Marchosias' fur. The expression no longer felt quite so unnatural as it first had when I'd discovered my powers, which was another unexpected benefit of this whole miraculous change of circumstances that had befallen me in the last ten days.
AN : To pre-emptively answer the most obvious question, Coil's shard was able to simulate what would happen if his snipers shot at Lasombra because it is using the data from Lasombra's previous fights. I could have made Lasombra completely immune to Coil's precognition bullcrap and it would have made sense, but it wouldn't have been satisfying, and more importantly it would have set a bad precedent.
And while this story is undeniably a power fantasy (though I'd argue that Taylor as a character deserves all of those for the shit she goes through in canon), there still has to be some tension.
Don't worry, though. I'm sure nothing will go wrong for Coil when he actually tries to kidnap Taylor in a throwaway timeline. Certainly nothing deeply karmic and satisfying. After all, he is an Evil Genius™ whose plans canonically never turn out badly for him.
... of course, first I must write a scene of Taylor at school. Which I have so far managed to avoid thank to how quickly events are happening in this fic. Well, frak.
Also, if you enjoy Worm fanfics and you enjoy my stories (which I'm going to assume you do), then you might want to check out We were meant to burn slower. This fanfic by MsMaeveOfTheSky is a crossover between Worm and my own Youjo Senki fanfic A Young Girl's Weaponization of the Mythos, taking place after the end of the later. The premise is "AYGWM!Tanya in Brockton Bay on Taylor's first night out", and I have really enjoyed what has been published so far.
As always, I hope you enjoyed reading this chapter and look forward to your thoughts and comments.