"ARCHER BRIDGE'S MERCHANTS CAPTURED
Last night, in a daring raid led by Armsmaster and Miss Militia, the BBPD and PRT struck at the headquarters of the gang commonly known as 'the Merchants', which have been responsible for numerous acts of drug trafficking as well as robberies and murders over the years.
The parahuman members of the group, Skidmark, Squealer and Mush, were all successfully apprehended …"
Extract from the headlines of the newspaper Bay Gazette, January 20th, 2011.
"Omen's intel on the Merchants was correct. After her questions reduced the potential hideouts to a handful of possible locations, we were able to identify the one their capes were occupying using mundane surveillance methods in cooperation with the BBPD.
At the time of the raid, Squealer was working on a new vehicle for the gang's use. It was based on the chassis of a monstertruck and, after studying it, I believe that, had she been allowed to finish it, it would have caused significant damage before we could disable it. It's cloaking field in particular would have complicated the chase : I have removed it and intend to study it with Dragon's help to see whether it can be reverse-engineered for the PRT's use.
By launching the raid within the time window recommended by Omen, we were able to strike while Skidmark and Mush were incapacitated by their drug use. They were arrested without difficulty, and Squealer herself did little more than dent one of the troopers' helmet with a wrench.
It is my belief that Omen's tactical contributions to the ENE PRT alone would be priceless, but I am aware that she is likely to be assigned to the Think Tank once the paperwork for her evaluation is processed. If her parents agree to their relocation, it will be a shame to lose her."
Extract from the after-action report of Armsmaster, logged onto the PRT servers on January 21st, 2011.
"… as of now, we have identified five individuals who were subverted by Calvert, and two more working for the Empire Eighty-Eight. Three more are still being investigated for possible ties to the now-defunct ABB.
Working with Dragon, we have also been able to identify several backdoors in the PRT's computer systems which could only have been installed by someone with passwords beyond what Calvert's position would give him. Between this and the fact that previous investigations of the ENE branch failed to uncover anything of note, the probability of a Thinker power of some kind being involved in the process is a near-certainty at this point."
Extract from the progress report of the PRT Internal Affairs team dispatched to Brockton Bay to investigate the penetration of the organization's local branch by the deceased supervillain Coil, January 23rd, 2011.
"… custody of Aster Anders shall be passed on to Kayden Anders née Russel, as Max Anders' professional duties sadly leave him believing that he is ill-suited to provide their infant daughter with the love and care she deserves …"
Extract from the documents submitted to the court of Brockton Bay by the lawyers of Max Anders, January 24th, 2011.
Over the forty-three years he'd spent in Brockton Bay, Fred had crossed paths with the Empire many times, despite his best efforts otherwise. As a black man, he had been forced to learn which parts of town were safe for him to be in, which ones he should avoid after dark, and which ones he should never step foot in. Oh, the Nazis wouldn't attack you in broad daylight – well, not often – but they'd make a note of it, and pay you a little visit later to teach you a lesson about 'going where you weren't wanted'.
He'd managed to stay more or less safe, apart from a couple close calls in his youth. Now, however, his luck had run out. He hadn't even been doing anything : the skinheads had just pulled over while he was going home from work at the Docks, kicked him around a little, and thrown him into the back of their van without so much as an explanation, just a barked order to stay quiet if he knew what was good for him. Fred had kept his mouth shut, not wanting to risk provoking the thugs into beating him up more; he'd a feeling he was going to need all his strength for whatever was to come.
Now here he was, inside what could only be described as a pen made of head-high walls of sharp metal blades at the center of a warehouse, empty but for a few crates that had been pushed to the walls. There were other people around him, all of them members of one minority or another : Black, Spanish, Asian, a few who were clutching Jewish symbols – there weren't many of those left in the Bay, what with all the fucking Nazis – and even a handful of same-sex couples. All of them had been roughed up, with bruises visible on many faces. There were no children, but that was a small mercy : the youngest member of the crowd looked to be, what, fifteen ? Sixteen ? Far too young to be involved in this. But then, Fred didn't feel old enough himself.
He didn't know why they were all here, but he could tell it wasn't anything good. Getting taken off the street by a bunch of Nazis wasn't the kind of thing that led to free cake and drinks. Was this a mass initiation ? Everyone knew the Empire was losing ground and people since a bunch of their capes had been captured recently. Getting a fresh bunch of soldiers of the glorious white race bloodied to bolster their ranks might be someone's idea of a good plan.
Except, when Fred looked through the gaps in the blade fence, he could see that the skinheads looked really nervous by the way they were all looking around all the time, eyes wide, clutching their weapons like security blankets. Even the capes were nervous – and there were far too many of them here, the entire roster the Empire had left if he was any judged, including Kaiser himself. The Empire's head honcho didn't show up for anything but the gang's most important operations.
So clearly, there was something else going on. The Nazis had taken his watch along with his phone, but looking at the window, it looked like they'd been stuck here for several hours; long enough for the sun to set. The Empire goons had started getting a lot more nervous since then, and Fred had a feeling he knew why. Every Brocktonite knew that, since a few weeks, things in the Bay had changed, and what the coming of the night heralded for the gangs.
Fred took a deep breath, and closed his eyes. He hadn't been to church in a long, long time, but he still found himself praying – even though everybody knew God didn't answer prayers in Brockton Bay.
Then there was a sound, coming from the front of the warehouse.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
Fred opened his eyes, and there he was. Lasombra, the cape who had taken down Lung and Hookwolf. The hero who had stopped numerous crimes across the city, always emerging from the shadows, striking down criminals and then vanishing without a trace. He was even more intimidating in person than the stories made it seem, but Fred didn't care. Lasombra could have appeared in a flash of hellfire and be accompanied by the howling shades of the damned, and he wouldn't have cared, so long as he helped rescue him and the other captives.
The Empire thugs stared at Lasombra, who presumably stared back from within the shadows that made up his head. Fred could tell they were scared, and with good reason.
"Ah, Lasombra," said Kaiser. "How nice of you to join us. I expected this little gathering of undesirable would draw you out, but I'm surprised it happened so quickly."
The shadowy cape turned his head around, taking in the whole scene : the Empire capes, the armed goons, and the metallic cage. A shiver ran down Fred's spine as Lasombra's eyeless gaze swept over him.
Then he spoke, a single word that came out of every shadow in the warehouse, thick with threat :
"MISTAKE."
"Yes," snarled Kaiser. "But not mine : yours."
And then, all of sudden, there was fire, and light, and heat. A bright white pillar that plunged down on where Lasombra had stood, blinding Fred and everyone else.
God, Fred thought, closing his burning eyes to shield them from the radiance reflecting on the walls of the cage. Please, no. Not him. Not like this.
Kayden took a deep breath. She'd done it. She'd killed Lasombra.
Max had already signed over custody of Aster to her, and had promised to give her enough money to leave the city and settle anywhere else in the United States after tonight. It would hurt to abandon the career she'd built in this city, both as a civilian and as an independent cape, but a clean break from her past would be best for her and her daughter –
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
No. No, it couldn't be. She'd just killed him ! She'd seen him burn away to nothing !
But it was. Lasombra was here, walking out of the smoke from the vaporised concrete, completely unharmed.
So much for Gesellschaft's vaunted Thinker support, she thought numbly. According to Krieg's briefing once she'd accepted Max's deal, they'd been so certain that sunlight was Lasombra's weakness; it even made sense, given that he only appeared at night or, if the rumors that he'd been involved in Coil's downfall were true, underground where the sun didn't reach. And yet, he'd shrugged off her ambush as if it were nothing more than a minor inconvenience –
No. No, she suddenly realized. Something had changed in Lasombra's posture : he had been angry before, but now he moved with less … control. He had recovered from her attack, yes, but she had hurt him; he was just hiding it really, really well.
Which meant that she could still win this. She gathered power for another blast, but before she could let loose, he was suddenly right in front of her, looming above her. His left hand closed around her face, forcing her to look straight into the faceless blackness that served as his head.
"NAZI. SCUM."
Purity saw colored faces staring at her in terror, and heard the sounds of screams begging for mercy. She recognized some of them as the criminals she had struck at since breaking away from the Empire – Asian whores and their matrons, thugs planning to rob white-owned stores, wide-eyed drug addicts huddling in the shadows of dirty alleys as they indulged in their vices. They stared at her, and she saw things move behind their wide eyes, terrible and unknowable, reaching out toward her to drag her down into the black with them –
Then the cane hit her in the side of the head, and there was only darkness, and the howling of nightmares.
How dare they.
I was fucking furious, in a way I hadn't felt since the ABB brothel on my second night out. When I'd laid down in bed, closed my eyes and projected my consciousness into the Abyss, this place had been as close to a blazing beacon as could be imagined within the infinite darkness.
I'd known it was a trap the moment I'd extended my mind through the shadowscape. Kaiser couldn't have made it more obvious if he'd hung up a big neon sign above the warehouse spelling 'AMBUSH WAITING HERE'. But what else was I supposed to do ? There were over thirty people being held in that building, and somehow I doubted the Empire would just let them go if Lasombra didn't show up. I could have called the police or, given how many villains were present (and the open secret that the E88 had sympathizers in the BBPD who were sure to warn them in advance), the PRT, but Lasombra didn't have a phone, and even if I dismissed my projection and called them myself, what was I supposed to tell them that would convince them to act swiftly enough ?
… No, I was lying to myself. Even if I couldn't call the police directly, I could've called Tattletale, and have her contact the heroes : I was sure she would've figured out a way to get them to take the tip seriously. The real reason was that I couldn't turn away and ignore the problem. It didn't matter that it was a trap specifically made for me : what mattered was that there were people who needed my help, and who were in this situation because of me, however indirectly.
And so here I was, facing off against the entire remaining roster of the Empire Eighty-Eight, with a bunch of innocent people at risk of being caught in the crossfire.
I could feel how scared these people were. Even now that I'd shown up, they were still in an enclosed space with a bunch of capes fighting, and they all knew how dangerous that was. My appearance and seeming invulnerability to Purity's blast had given them hope, but it was a fragile thing, outweighed by their very reasonable fear of being collateral damage.
I wouldn't let that happen, even if it meant I'd to kill every single Nazi in the building. I'd still try to take them alive, because that was the right thing to do and because the PRT could use prisoners to dismantle the entire organization root and stem, but if the choice was between their life and that of a hostage, then fuck them.
Fortunately, things were going relatively well for now. It was clear that Purity had been the Empire's ace in the hole, the counter to Lasombra they'd been relying on. I'd read rumors on PHO that she'd broken off from the Empire Eighty-Eight to do her own thing, but it seemed they'd just been that – rumors. Whether the break had been genuine and she'd come back to the Empire for one reason or another, or it had all been some kind of twisted ploy didn't matter : she had stood by and done nothing while the Empire kidnapped and held people hostages.
Her light had burned, oh yes. It had banished the shadows which made up my projection, and hurled my consciousness back into the Abyss. But the pain had been … dull, for lack of a better word. Far less biting than what I'd felt when I'd burst out of Coil's underground lair and into the sunlight.
Was it because I was feeling it through a projection, or because Purity's power lacked some undefined quality of true sunlight ? I didn't know, and now wasn't the time to figure it out. Instead, I had hurled myself back out into the world, rebuilding Lasombra from the stuff of the Abyss as fast as I could and acting as if he'd simply tanked the attack without problem. Then, before she could recover from the shock of seeing her attack apparently fail, I'd hit Purity hard enough that even with her transformation's Brute rating, she'd fallen unconscious, her body returning to normal as she collapsed.
Before I could move, the rest of the E88's capes went on the offensive. I had to admit part of me was impressed by their courage. The thugs opened fire with their guns, but I ignored them : their bullets couldn't harm me, and the metal fence should keep the hostages safe from accidents. I was more preoccupied with the pair of blonde bodyguards wielding melee weapons who were charging me, growing taller with every step. These would be Fenja and Menja, then.
My first blow smashed into the left giant Nazi's knee, but I didn't hear the sound of the bone breaking under the impact. I knew Menja and Fenja had increased resilience when they transformed (also that they blatantly violated the square-cube law, but I could hardly throw stones when it came to bending the rules of physics), but not to that level.
Ah. Invulnerability. Right, that was one of the powers Othala was capable of bestowing on people.
But that protection was only physical, and I wasn't restricted to mere punching. I sent a mental command, and Marchosias leapt from my shadow and bit deep into the giant Nazi's shoulder. She screamed, her Brute rating completely useless against my familiar's terror-inducing fangs. Her sister tried to help her, but the moment her hand closed around Marchosias, the black she-wolf disappeared, before emerging from the shadows the lightbulbs cast across the roof and drop on her back.
The second giant screamed, too, and joined her sister on the ground, their size already decreasing – presumably they needed to maintain some level of focus in order for their power to work, and I knew Marchosias' bite wasn't exactly conductive to keeping a clear head. I was already moving, catching a tossed crate from Rune and hurling it back at her. Before she could use her power to catch it back, a black tentacle rose up from her shadow and wrapped itself around her.
She screamed in surprise, and the distraction was enough for the crate to hit her. She went down, and I extended a few more tentacles to keep her from breaking her neck on the floor. Strangely, the sight of a teenage girl being surrounded by black tendrils seemed to cause the Empire goons to panic.
A swarm of spear-wielding ghosts charged me. Rather than waste my time dealing with them, I reached into the shadowscape, found their source, blinked in front of Crusader, and punched him out, all in a handful of seconds.
"I can't get a grip on him !" shouted Krieg, his arms stretched in my direction as he tried and failed to use his power on my projection. I wasn't sure why that was : presumably my projection's nature as a construct of Abyssal energies was messing with his power. But I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.
I blinked right in front of him, and punched him in the chest, right where the false medals of his stupid Nazi uniform were. I felt some unusual resistance as he tried to use his power to protect himself, but I was more than strong enough to overcome it, and he went flying before crashing into a pile of precariously balanced crates. Clearly whoever had cleared the warehouse's floor for this ambush hadn't been trained by the Dockworkers' Association, because the whole thing collapsed on Krieg with a thunderous noise. I could still feel his mind underneath, so he wasn't dead, but I doubted he would be getting out anytime soon.
By this point, the unpowered thugs were well and truly freaked out. I straightened and turned toward Kaiser, who was looking a lot less confident with every one of his minions I dispatched. Good. I wanted him to be afraid, to feel even a sliver of the terror he'd inflicted on so many people for so many years.
Also, his power was the greatest threat here : not to me, but to the hostages. I needed to take him out, fast – and as a bonus, seeing their 'glorious leader' defeated would probably make the thugs run. Loath as I was to let anyone who would participate in this grotesque scheme escape, anything which reduced the risk to the civilians was good right now.
I stalked toward him with intent, wanting him to stay focused on me. My cane tapped the ground with every step, and I reached out to smash a few more of the high-powered lamps which hung from the ceiling, making the shadows deeper.
"Night, get him !" ordered Kaiser, with more than a little panic creeping into his voice.
Something smashed into me, something dark and large, with too many legs and razor-sharp claws. The impact brought Lasombra down, and I rolled on my back to see my attacker –
Except the moment I did so, the nightmarish form of Night's Breaker state had vanished, replaced by a woman dressed all in black. Her mask left her eyes exposed, and they widened in shock and confusion.
Without questioning my good fortune in how our powers had interacted, I knocked her on the side of the head with my cane's pommel and stood up as she fell unconscious, only to be immediately enveloped by a thick white fog. I extended my perceptions through the shadowscape, and immediately got what was best described as a three-dimensional view of the entire warehouse. The fog was focused around me, and I recognized it as the Empire cape of the same name, who, along with Night, was among the most feared villains of the Bay.
I knew that Fog's power inflicted damage on people trapped inside, but I felt fine; another advantage of using a projection. But while Fog couldn't hurt me, I couldn't hurt his intangible form either.
With a howl, Marchosias leapt down from the blond Nazi twin she'd been riding and landed into the fog, claws and fangs out. For the briefest moment, the sensory information I was getting from Lasombra seemed to glitch, and there was a sound that was like a human screaming, but not. Then Marchosias was at my side, and Fog was back in human form, his costume a grey copy of Night's. Incredibly, unlike everyone else who had been subjected to Marchosias' tender mercies, he was still conscious, albeit staggering as if he were drunk.
I caught him by the shoulder and raised my cane to knock him unconscious. As I did so, my gaze met Fog's, and I saw –
I saw –
God. God, no.
How ?! How could anyone do something like this ?! I could see it, in Fog's reflection in the shadowscape, made perfectly clear as I stared into his eyes. They looked empty, devoid of emotion, but that was only a mask, and beneath it was pain, layers upon layers of pain, inflicted with a cold, methodical, deliberate sadism.
I wasn't fighting a man, but a puppet with strings woven of horror and agony.
I recoiled, pushing Fog aside, and flickered across the warehouse to appear right in front of Kaiser. He summoned a bunch of metallic blades from the ground, all of them aimed at me. I slammed my cane down and pulled on the Abyss, calling forth a multitude of black tentacles in response. The two powers clashed, and mine bought me enough time to reach for Kaiser's throat with my right hand.
He tried to dodge, but I was too quick, and wrapped my fingers around his armor's neck, hauling him up so that his masked face was right in front of Lasombra's featureless visage.
I would have answers from him, even if I had to squeeze them out of his skull with my bare hands.
"WHO ?!" Lasombra screamed. "WHO, WHO, WHO ?"
Every word was like a hammerblow to Kaiser's brain. He couldn't focus, couldn't even lash out on instinct to cut everything around him to ribbons like he'd done after his Trigger.
"Gesellschaft," he gasped, and now that he'd started talking, the words poured out of his mouth : "European far-right organization. They made him and Night and sent them here to help us. I had nothing to do with either of them –"
Lasombra threw him away with all the care one would show to a discarded piece of trash, but Kaiser couldn't find it in himself to care, so long as he didn't have to stay close to that … that creature. He tried to rise, but found that his trembling limbs weren't obeying his commands. He tried to use his power, to attack Lasombra or just to kill the vermin they'd taken captured to draw Lasombra out – if he were to fall, then let the other cape choke on his victory – but he couldn't muster the mental strength to do so, either. His skull still felt like someone had taken a jack-hammer to it, even though it was still covered in armor.
All he could do was lay on the ground, hurt, and watch Lasombra stalk toward Geoff, before picking him up with surprising gentleness and raising him up until the Empire cape's face was right in front of what passed for his own.
"REMEMBER," Lasombra said.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then Geoff started to scream.
He remembered.
He remembered everything.
The command was not kind, nor was it gentle. But there was mercy in its sheer ruthlessness, as it tore through the layers of conditioning and ripped through the identity which had been forced onto him by torture and Master effects, until it reached the man buried underneath – a man he'd thought was dead, but who now was being dragged back to the land of the living.
And so he screamed, but it was a scream of release and rebirth as much as it was one of unfathomable mental and physical strain. He screamed as he stopped being a puppet of meat and bone and parahuman power and became a man once more.
He stopped screaming as his lungs ran out of air, and spent the next few moments blinded by lack of oxygen as he coughed and gasped, held in place by the firm arms of his savior.
"Thank you," he breathed once his vision had cleared enough to look into the swirling pit of darkness that was Lasombra's visage. The shadows didn't seem nearly as terrifying now, for some reason, he thought, still more than half-delirious. Then a sudden thought cut through the haze over his consciousness, and he forced himself to raise a trembling arm and pointed toward Dorothy.
"Please," he begged, tears running down his face under his mask. "She's the same as me. Please help her."
Lasombra nodded, softly laid him down on the ground, then rose and walked toward Dorothy. He knelt by her side and seized her head, and when she began to stir, repeated the same command he'd given Geoff.
She screamed too, but stopped soon enough, and started sobbing and laughing all at once. Geoff dragged himself toward her, crawling on all fours, and Lasombra stepped aside, letting him hug her with trembling arms. She returned his hug, and for a moment, despite all that had been done to him, all that he had been made to do, Geoff felt that everything would be alright.
They were free. They would never be the same as they'd been before Gesellschaft had raped their minds and remade them, but they were free.
"Console, this is Armsmaster. I believe I've found the missing people we were looking for. I have thirty-one civilians here in need of medical attention. None of them are in immediate danger, but they all show bruises and other traces of having been beaten."
"Copy that, Armsmaster. What about the Empire ?"
"… They are all here."
"All of – Armsmaster, pull back and wait for reinforcements –"
"Console, I misspoke. My apologies. I meant to say that all currently known Empire capes are here, but unconscious, with the exception of Night and Fog, who appear to be undergoing some kind of mental breakdown."
"… Armsmaster, please confirm your last statement."
"Console, I have Kaiser, Fenja, Menja, Krieg, Purity, Crusader and Rune all defeated in the building, and Night and Fog hugging each other and alternating between crying and laughing. I am in the process of restraining them, and – ah. Lasombra is here. Good evening, Lasombra. I suppose you're the one we've to thank for this ?"
"[burst of static] YES."
"Am I correct in assuming that this whole thing was a trap for you ?"
"[burst of static] YES. [pause] THEM."
"Night and Fog ? What's wrong with them ?"
"[burst of intense static] GESELLSCHAFT. BRAINWASHING. BROKEN."
"… I see. We will take care of them, you have my word."
"[burst of static] GOOD."
"Lasombra, before we leave, this situation could have gone very wrong – and he's gone. Console, do you read ?"
"Armsmaster, we do read you. Please confirm that was Lasombra speaking ?"
"It was. If you could hear him, then I am pleased to report that the audio-only transmission system I added to my armor seems unaffected by Lasombra's Stranger effect. How long until the ambulances get here ?"
Excerpt from the PRT communications, January 25th, 2011.
Looking at the video footage of the man and woman in drab hospital clothing holding each other's hand even as they slept in the PRT's hospital room, it was difficult for Director Piggot to accept that she was looking at Night and Fog, two of the most dreaded E88's capes.
"They are cooperating fully," said Armsmaster, standing at attention in front of her desk. "Both of them seem determined to do everything they can to hurt Gesellschaft. We've already sent the location of several safehouses in Europe they were aware of to Interpol. Also, while I'm aware that protocol would demand that they be interrogated separately, we have had to keep them in the same room. They … they panicked whenever we so much as hinted at separating them. I believe Gesellschaft fostered a co-dependency between them as part of their brainwashing process that wasn't undone when Lasombra did … whatever it was he did."
"Understandable, given the circumstances. Do we know if they were married before ?" asked Piggot. It wasn't really important in the grand scheme of things, but the question gave her time to organize her own thoughts.
"No," Armsmaster shook his head. "They met for the first time while in captivity, and it will take time and a lot of psychological help before they're able to speak of what happened then. But we got their names : both of their civilian identities had murder cases which were closed years ago. From what I understand, the German authorities have re-opened the cases and are looking for an explanation as to how they were closed the first time. Interpol has taken over the investigation, expecting it to lead them to more of Gesellschaft's operations in Europe."
Emily grunted. That was all well and good – anything which hurt Nazis was good news in her book – but it wasn't her problem. Her responsibilities were restricted to the ENE area, though most people thought she was in charge of the Bay only (an understandable misunderstanding, given that until very recently, managing this nightmare of a city had taken all of her working hours and then some).
Which brought her back to the biggest reveal of last night. Unmasking villains was always a complicated business, but with every Empire cape in custody, it had been inevitable. The PRT had known that the Empire had ties to what passed for Brockton Bay's high society, but it had still been a surprise to see that fucking Max Anders was Kaiser. The owner and director of Medhall, one of the largest employers of the Bay and a major contributor to its struggling economy.
Thousands of people in the city owed their jobs to Medhall, either directly or indirectly. If the company went under, so would the Bay, and having your CEO revealed as a closeted Nazi and gang leader wasn't going to help the company's stock price. Fortunately, a lot of people understood that, and various agencies were at work making sure that the company would continue to run, albeit in different hands. Anders' son and heir was a teenager who had apparently known his father was a supervillain but had, quite understandably, kept his mouth shut about it.
According to the preliminary questioning, Theo Anders didn't share his father's racist views. And while anyone in his position would have claimed as such, the investigators involved were more than capable of seeing through a teenager's attempts at lying. The boy might not look like much on the photos of him Emily had seen, but not giving in to the Nazi propaganda for fifteen years was still testament to some impressive willpower. For now, he was staying in his father's mansion along with a security detachment, just in case some Empire remnant tried to use him as a figurehead.
The fact that Purity had turned out to be Kayden Russel, formerly Anders, only made this mess more complicated. All of Purity's previous attempts at playing heroine by beating up minorities didn't mean anything compared to her participation in Kaiser's scheme. Given her power level and membership of a group like the E88 for several years, it would take a very good lawyer to avoid being sent to the Birdcage alongside her ex-husband. Her daughter was being kept in the same house as her half-brother, with someone trained in caring for an infant (and apparently, young Theo had been helping with her care, which probably helped him as much as it did the girl).
"Armsmaster," she said. "What do you think of what Lasombra did to them ?"
"That's difficult to say for sure. The Schmidts aren't in a fit state for M/S screening, but the exams we've been able to run seem to indicate they aren't under the effect of any Master power at the moment."
"A Trump who can remove Master effects, then ?"
"Possible. But I've asked some of our contacts at Interpol, and they told me Gesellschaft doesn't merely use Master powers to enforce the compliance of their … converts." It was rare for Armsmaster to lose his cool, which made the amount of venom he'd put in that last word all the more surprising. "Maybe removing the Master components of the conditioning would be enough to bring it all down : I'm not an expert on these matters. But I find it … unlikely."
Piggot sighed. "I understand what you mean. On the other hand, Lasombra didn't have to reveal these capabilities by healing Mister and Missus Schmidt. From all accounts, he healed Fog because he noticed there was something wrong with him, and then did the same to Night because Fog – no," she corrected herself. Those names would have to be used on the paperwork, but she shouldn't use them when talking about them. It was … disrespectful. "He did it to Dorothy because Geoff asked him."
"So it appears, yes," Armsmaster agreed.
"Then we can continue to treat Lasombra as a heroic independent, even though we'll need to update his file and the countermeasures in case he goes rogue." Which would be a nightmare scenario all by itself, but she'd more pressing concerns. "With the Empire gone, all of the city's major gangs have been removed, and we both know what that means."
"The Boston Games," the Protectorate leader said softly. "The power vacuum in the underworld will draw in others seeking to fill it."
"Exactly," Piggot nodded grimly. "Villains from all over the East Coast and beyond will be coming to Brockton Bay, hoping to seize the territory of the fallen gangs for themselves. And while I doubt any of them will be able to inflict as much long-term damage to the city as any of their four predecessors did, especially with Lasombra still out there, open warfare in the streets is unacceptable."
"It is possible that fear of Lasombra's intervention will dissuade some criminal groups from coming to the Bay," Armsmaster offered.
"Oh, I'm sure the smart ones will stay well clear of the city, at least until they can get more information on our dear independent friend," Piggot snorted. "But I'm not worried about the smart ones, Armsmaster. I'm worried about the idiots and the damage they can do before being stopped."
In her experience, criminals typically weren't smart. The image of the smooth mastermind plotting in the shadows and running his criminal operations like a well-oiled machine was nothing but fiction : as a rule, smart and well-adjusted people didn't turn to crime, not unless they were driven to it by desperation, which didn't allow for much in the way of long-term planning.
"With the Empire in the process of being dismantled, their sympathizers in the BBPD will be handled by the federal investigation," said Armsmaster. "Combined with the removal of Coil's moles within our own ranks, we'll be in a better position to meet these new gangs trying to move in than we ever were before. I won't say it will be easy, but we've one of the most experienced and battle-ready teams on the East Coast. I'm confident we'll prevail, ma'am."
"I'm glad to hear it. Still, we must speak with Lasombra, Armsmaster. I need to know what he's going to do now. More importantly," she grimaced, "the higher-ups also want to know. It appears that the request for Watchdog to investigate a possible link between Lasombra and the Fallen ran into some kind of anti-Thinker power, and they are worried about what it means."
"I think after everything he has done, we owe Lasombra some trust," said Armsmaster. "Actions speak louder than words, and his actions have been to the benefit of Brockton Bay and its people."
Piggot nodded. Much as she was inclined to distrust capes, and especially independent ones, she couldn't deny what Lasombra had done for this city. Even if he was related to the Fallen – which was a big 'if', as the odds that he just had a very unfortunate naming sense were much higher in her opinion – it was most likely going to be as a rebel who'd fled the cult and was trying his best to do good.
"I agree with you, but someone who can stump Watchdog makes people nervous. And with the level of power Lasombra has repeatedly demonstrated, I honestly don't think we could handle him if he went bad – unless you think you've figured out a way to counter him ?"
"No, Director," Armsmaster shook his head. "Before today, I thought that he might be vulnerable to concentrated light, but the fact he took one of Purity's full-powered blasts head-on and survived apparently unharmed disproved that theory. And with his Mover ability, even forcing a confrontation would be all but impossible, since we don't know its limits. I do still believe that he has some kind of time limit on how long he can use his powers every day, but without the capacity to hold him in place or detect him once it runs out …"
"Hence why we need to speak with him and confirm his goals," said Piggot.
"If he wanted to join us, he's had plenty of time and opportunities to do so," Armsmaster pointed out. Piggot waved him off.
"Don't worry, I most definitely don't want to turn him against us by going too hard. He doesn't need to join the Protectorate, though make no mistake, the higher-ups would love that. Just come in for a chat. He's never had an issue leaving the perps he brought down for us to bring in : this is just about formalizing our relationship to reassure the paper-pushers."
"Understood. But that leaves the question : how do we achieve this ?"
That was a very good question, and Piggot wished she had an answer.
AN : It is common, in Worm fanfics, to give a pass to Purity for her actions and allow her to find redemption as a heroine. There are several reasons for this, the most important likely being what happens to her daughter in canon.
But while writing this chapter, I went back to Interlude 3.5, which is from Purity's perspective, and was reminded that even after leaving the E88, she was still a rascist bitch, who only left the Empire because she didn't like her husband's controlling tendencies, and who went back to leading a Nazi gang the moment Kaiser died against Leviathan. Frankly, Theo and Aster deserve better than her.
By contrast, Night and Fog were both broken and remade into weapons by Gesellshaft, enslaved to serve an ideology that we can assume they never believed in out of their own free will. Canon doesn't give us many details as to how this was done, but, well. Nazis. In my opinion, they deserve a second chance a lot more than Purity.
What Taylor did in this chapter is technically possible with the use of the Dominate Discipline, which is one of the Vampire powers of the Lasombra Clan. Usually, Vampires use it to mind-control, twist and erase memories (and let me tell you, running a praxis without having at least a handful of people who can edit the memories of humans is almost impossible), rather than break through layers of existing conditioning, but this felt like a good first attempt for Taylor.
Oh, and the Merchants were taken care of off-screen by the PRT with the help of Dinah. Congratulations if you saw this coming. And now that all the major gangs in Brockton Bay are dealt with, an era of peace and tranquillity await !
Eh.
As always, I hope you enjoyed reading this chapter, and look forward to your thoughts and comments.