Ablation

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Lisa watched as the Empire capes started reaching for their phones, the grunts they left as security notifying them of attacks. The ones who stared at their phones the most were, of course, Kaiser and Victor. Victor, because Lisa spent the last fifteen minutes trading away all of his stocks and emptying his bank accounts. Kaiser, on the other hand, received a very thinly veiled threat from Durasteal to expose his identity on TV and PHO. That would tank Medhall stocks to the ground. There were plenty of right winger millionaires that would jump to buy them out, or even send support. But he will lose legitimacy and business opportunities. He'd also fail the FDA and SEC inspections, considering how much of a scumbag he is, he was guaranteed to have cut some corners. If E88 was selling laced drugs, what's stopping Medhall from doing the same? Medhall-supplied pharmacies were all over the city; they're the closest supplier, after all. And with its literal CEO being a supervillain, how many mergers were legitimate in the first place? Sure, if he was free, he'd put someone to task to make sure Medhall passes those inspections. But Taylor is reliable enough to capture him for good. And Lisa will make sure that he won't have anyone to extinguish that fire under his ass while he’s in prison.

And once the dust is settled and everything is done, they'll hold the majority of those sweet stocks. After all, people need jobs, and people love redemption arcs. But to make it happen, key people need to be gone. And one of those people is directing the grunts right now.

She moves through the crowd not unlike a fish in water. Or rather, a freight train through cows would be more fitting. After several reassurances and tests, Taylor has found the perfect ratio of Durability and Toughness to give her. That made it quite troublesome to ride any non-Taylor-enhanced vehicle because now she weighed like one. And as they say, mass moves mass. Every step she took consumed as much extra energy as an entire city block on a busy day and the immense heat she released by doing so was even more fuel for the extremophile tissue Amy gave her for energy recycling. GOD being a Brute felt good .

And trampling nazis felt better. She had a double layer of protection: her armor and a secret second thing. Her blatant waltzing towards Victor was telegraphed, loud and noticeable. People were running from her, parting like the red sea before Moses, lest they get crushed under her stilettos.

And Victor has noticed her. So did Othala. She sent a skinhead running towards Lisa, his hands lighting up in flames. And Lisa met him with a light jab at his throat, making him crumple from the impact. Next came super speed. And Lisa met the attack by bristling her blades. One very maimed skinhead later, Othala sent an invulnerable grunt after her. This one she had to dodge. And with her dodge, she allowed a certain other grunt to grab her by the elbow. She saw a spectral humanoid flow through the grunt to her suit, where it quickly dissipated. Lisa wasn't sure exactly what caused it. Was it the electric current? Heat? Or maybe her suit being in a constant state of agony? Or can Gewicht only possess humans? The latter . Oh, thanks, Power .

Lisa pretended that she didn't notice that happened. But internally, she set Power to trace the spectre back to its source. Can it jump between hosts indefinitely? Or is there a limit? Where did that guy come from? Judging by his reactions- disoriented, heavily bruised by the mob, walked a long way  through the body press. Spectre would take the path of least resistance if it could jump indefinitely. Chose to pilot one body halfway through the crowd to reach Lisa Wilbourn instead.

Lisa jumped over several skinheads blocking her way and found herself face to face with an amped Victor. By the looks of him wielding a sledgehammer with one hand, Othala rolled super strength for him. Too bad it's not invincibility. A blade shoots out of Lisa’s forearm and slices Victor’s hip and shoulder tendons. She doesn't need skill for that one, all hail Amy’s auto-targeting.

When she's delivering a blunt kick in Victor’s temple, another skinhead tackles her from behind, shredding his face on her spiky armor. But his hand twists over her waist and lands on her bare stomach, as a spectral form rushes from it into her. She looks at the skinhead and around herself. Not near Victor or Othala. Interval too short to be outside of the crowd. Blended in with the crowd but not unmasked.

She freezes. Whoever had the chance has been pushing the crowd to get as far away from the capes as possible, their current positions unfavorable for any sort of attack a normal could use. Lisa has proven that close combat doesn’t work on her, and the chances of hitting their own allies were too high to use firearms. So a very short while later, Lisa and the Empire capes were left with a large circle of the four-lane road empty of goons.

“Finally.” Exclaims a raspy voice. “And here I thought you were somehow immune to my power.”

She couldn't see who said that as she was currently facing Victor and Othala, the latter helping her husband get up after what should have been a disabling injury.

Her body moves on its own to stand upright and turns around as, through the piles of groaning skinheads, a cape wearing a white ghostly costume over their body approaches her. He'd not look out of place during halloween, if you ignored that the hat part of his ghost costume was pointy.

“Not quite the catch I was hoping for.” Grumbles Gewicht. “But the cape that toppled Coil in his own base would do to appease the Gesellschaft.”

“Unlike her allies, she even seems to be the right sort.” Victor notes, making Lisa belch. But she can't follow through with the motion as her body stopped being hers. “And her power is impressive.”

“Yes. She would produce great second generation capes.” Gewicht agreed. Uh, okay, cut it out. 

“Sorry, bud, but this girl doesn’t do that yucky sex stuff.” Lisa chuckled, startling the three capes in front of her. “I mean seriously, I tried. Roses, chocolate, Aleph-imported music with slightly different lyrics and instrumentals. My tasteful nudes stealthily set up as her desktop wallpaper. You name it.” And Alec had spice in his cereal for the next month for that stunt.

“Did you do that?” Victor asked Gewicht.

“... No. She should be fully under my control.” Gewicht said, voice thinner than before.

“Sorry, sorry. I just- wow, you guys are absolute scum, aren’t you? Even I didn’t go straight up mastering whoever catches my eye and I am literally the cautionary tale up North of what Masters can do.” And Lisa couldn't agree more. Well, for the most part. Whatever Alec did before running from Heartbreaker is between him and Scion. And Lisa is not sure Scion cares. Her arm rested on her hip as a long bladed tendril shot out of her hip and impaled Gewicht through his thigh. He screamed in pain, falling to his knees.

“Impossible! I can feel my power working! It should be working!” He exclaimed. Victor was already reaching out to Othala for another boost when the hip tendril snaked out and cut off his arm and severed his hip tendons again. Othala grabbed his now lifeless arm in shock right on time for the tendril to reach her neck and inject a sedative into her artery.

“Oh, that's right. She is being Mastered right now. That's true.” Lisa’s head nodded. “Just not by you! Wahahaha!” Her finger pointed at Gewicht while her body did an undignifying cackle while doing a tiny jig with her feet. “Tremble before me, as my kung fu is stronger than yours!”

Gewicht created dozens of spectres that all rushed into Lisa and she felt the discomfort of her body trying to move in hundreds of different ways, but one command overpowered them, and that was doing a silly exaggerated walk towards Gewicht. He tried standing up, but Lisa put her hand on his head, weighing him down back to his kneeling position.

“Now, we can do it the easy way. Or we can do it the hard way. You either all surrender and we do a quick interrogation and processing, and then dump you at the PRT’s doorstep. Or…” she stretches her R’s as her hand blooms in dozens of short blades. “I could execute you on the spot? You know, lynch you?” Lisa chuckles morosely. “I do count as a group of people right now. And Tattletale will be exempt from all blame. Because, hello! Master victim!”

“We surrend-” Victor fails to finish his sentence as a tendril lashes out at him and delivers a heavy blow to his temple once again, this time disabling him for good. He falls into a deep sleep just like his wife.

“Sorry, I didn't hear that. What did you say?” Lisa’s hand cups her ear towards Gewicht, her bending at the waist to get closer to him.

“We sur-” Gewicht fails to finish his sentence as Lisa delivers a winded up kick to his jaw, fracturing it and causing him to collapse. Her body relaxes as every specter disappears at once.

“Sorry, you're gonna need to speak up!” She says loudly, then holds her arm up for her other arm to high five it. “Okay, you can let go now.” And Lisa’s entire body slumps and retracts every blade she sprung up. She looks around at the remaining, currently thinning, crowd. “Anyone brave enough to play hero? No? Then I’ll be taking them with me~”

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Chelsea was done freezing her third drug den when the Empire capes arrived. Krieg came without his usual entourage. And Stormtiger, now sporting a full body scar that looked like tiger stripes, also came without his usual companion. Rather, they had a special someone else on the team that promised to be a major pain in the ass for Chelsea. Two special someones. The first one exited the car after Stormtiger, a cape in old faded World War 1 Imperial German soldier uniform, her faded grayish green suit redyed a ghostly green, its edges frayed and tattered. The cape that followed her was Auspicious. 

He shot seeds at his feet and rode the rapidly growing vines up to the rooftops. If Taylor was here, Chelsea would have said “I told you so”, about recruiting that plant cape from NYC. Taylor could claim that it was actually Anh’s idea, but if she said it loud enough, Taylor’d believe her.

The moment he was up, he shot a projectile at Chelsea, the vine already sprouting mid-flight. She erected an ice wall on instinct, but the vine burst through it like a heated knife through butter, and glanced over her ice mask. Chelsea quickly covered the injured part of her face with ice to mask her rapid regeneration. Seems like his plants, whenever met with friction, no matter how small, would burrow through the material rather than skid past it. Their path of least resistance was always forward. Unless?

Chelsea’s moment of contemplation was interrupted when the ghostly form of Trugbild flew through her ice wall. She dashed away from her, creating a thick ice wall in her trail as another seed shot past her and landed on the ground. In a split second it burst a vine through Chelsea’s torso, which she quickly cut off and sealed the armor back. Oh boy . She thought. The idea of emergency brains doesn’t sound so bad now.

With that cheater of a power, the only way to avoid injury now is to not get hit. And Chelsea was just getting used to being nearly invulnerable. Not getting hit while also dodging a ghost, an invisible compressed air bombardment, and a very angry fake German soldier reenactor was- was she losing a 4v1? No freaking way. Unheard of! She was Tough Crowd’s second in command, the main lieutenant. And currently, she was representing her entire, so far nonexistent, team!

‘Rrraaaaahh!’ Chelsea wanted to scream that, but also keep an image of the aloof and hypercompetent professional. Or rather, the image of a funky and funny jokester! Neither of those two shout battle cries in anger.

“Shame on me! Oh shame! I am failing to be silly and quirky in a fight!” She took the pause in the onslaught of attacks to momentarily kneel in front of an impromptu Mouse Protector shrine in apology, both her and the shrine sliding towards the cape team as she reoriented herself and kicked the shrine’s pedestal right into Stormtiger’s stomach. Sometimes, acting out of pocket threw opponents off. And Chelsea has always known she had a knack for sculpting. Or- just having a vivid imagination, she supposes.

“Not even gonna quip?” She asked Krieg, reorienting the MP ice statue into a waltz dance position and thrusting her icy hand at him. He didn’t dodge, choosing to meet her head on.

“Any verbal jabs at my fencing form?” Krieg’s kinetic aura stopped the statue in its slide, but not the ice rapier in her hands, rapidly growing towards Krieg’s Adam's apple. He wanted to shout something in response but that cut him off pretty quick.

“Or like, a slur maybe?” Oh sure, she can’t freeze him directly, but she has a nasty surprise hidden inside the rapier. 

“You could shout something in German at least. Party pooper.” She pouted. The tiny ice-colored, translucent tendril Amy gave her slid through the length of the frozen weapon and touched Krieg’s neck, encasing his head in a five-foot thick block of ice.

“I always knew nazis had no creative bone in them.” Chelsea said, turning around and putting up another thick wall of ice in front of the Breaker cape. The fact she can pass through walls shouldn’t be reason enough not to put them up. And this way she is ruling out that she can be blocked by cold objects. Now, Lisa had an interesting theory about Trugbild. That is, she needed to breathe. So she was constantly holding her breath while in her Breaker form. Or rather, she didn’t need to always be in it. Usually, she’d have a couple seconds of breathing room in a fight. And Chelsea’s goal today is to not give her that.

Auspicious has stopped sniping her a couple seconds ago. A cursory glance towards the rooftops to see a totally absolutely unfamiliar cape doing a western standoff against him. If Chelsea went by sheer gun size, she’d give the victory to Amy immediately. Good for her.

Satisfied with admiring the view, she turned back and blasted ice at Trugbild again, preempting her movement with ice from all directions. Her flight speed wasn’t that fast, so Chelsea could run laps around her new icy prison.

Just ten seconds in, Trugbild began to struggle. Feeling that going straight up or along the street wasn't an option anymore, she flew towards the buildings.

Chelsea was hot on her heels, slamming through the brick wall kool aid man style. Technically, she was now denser than bricks. Something Anh took not a small amount of joy in. Anh could go with less of a fortification because she could porcupine up in her Sharpness and vaporize the attackers, best defense is good offense and all.

I wonder, actually, what am I gonna do when she does pass out ? She thinks, covering someone’s flat in frozen air. Now, Trugbild could bamboozle her by momentarily going behind a wall and instead of staying on the same floor, go up or down. But- well she doesn't have a solution for that, but she'll figure something out when it happens. Oxygen deprivation is a bitch and a half and not a great influence on one’s mental faculties.

Oh sure, Trugbild could have trained in breath control, taken supplements or whatnot. But with her allies incapacitated, or in Stormtiger’s case, useless against a Brute, nobody was there to help her out. Not now, not in ten minutes when she's guaranteed to run out of breath. That brings the question of what to do with her to the forefront of Chelsea’s worries. On one hand, she's a nazi and literally isn't leaving Chelsea any other options but to kill her. Letting her go would result in her coming back for revenge with a better strategy, and she won't be holding back, she'll go for the kill. So it's kill or be killed. On the other hand, she was brainwashed into the ideology and maybe could be reasoned with? A couple years in therapy maybe? But then, what place would even contain her, short of the Birdcage?

The choice is taken away from her when a lightning bolt slams into Chelsea’s chest, knocking her away from the fleeing Breaker. 

“That's new. Ugh… did Krieg finally get paired with a Blitz?” She asked, walking out of the pile of bricks she toppled on herself as a result of the strike. 

“Not quite. I'd like to think of myself as the Thunder of Righteousness rather than the bolt from the blue of blitzkrieg. Tor sounds cooler as an acronym.” Says the descending form of Dauntless.

“Hey now. That's my schtick. You should go with a Bolt of Justice.” Triumph chuckles from the ground, also approaching her. Now that she thinks of it, they both went for the ancient knight look.

“Oh, damn! So you are a thematic duo!” Chelsea snaps her fingers in realisation, releasing a beam at both of them with the same motion. Dauntless sidesteps the beam, having seen the motion for what it is. But Triumph fell for it and started wobbling in place.

“Now that you mention it, yes. I am taken… also… Boj?” Dauntless exhales a laugh, charging up his arc lance.

“Whatever came to my mind first, man.” Triumph shrugs as his feet suddenly find purchase again. Chelsea can see a faint sparkle on his boots, definitely a loaner from Armsmaster and/or Dauntless.

“Heh, y-you know, you could have waited for me to deal with the literal nazi before crashing the party, right?” Chelsea said nervously, unlatching the chain hooks on her armor. Those were a fun addition to her arsenal, and a damn convenient way to hide her Amy-tech tendril. At the same time tension released from her back, she crouched down to dodge the much more potent beam of electricity and get closer to the ground so that Triumph’s roar didn't knock her away.

“We couldn't let you kill her. Everybody deserves a fair trial, no matter how crooked they are.” Dauntless insisted, flying closer to Chelsea.

“Is that what you tell yourselves while the people that encourage nazism roam free on the streets, lynching people?” Chelsea unwinds the chain and throws its weighted end at the closest water hydrant. That path coincides with Triumph who is forced to dodge it, after hearing it make an unnaturally dull whistling sound that promised danger. He was proven right when the whip crack sound went off like a small dynamite explosion, knocking the hydrant right off its foundation, opening up a fifteen foot tall geyser. She messed up the angle so it overshot Dauntless and sprayed the brick wall next to him. But it still forced him to abort his next charge and retreat.

That's when Chelsea whips the chain towards Triumph, smacking him with it hard. He blocks it easily, his minor Brute rating earning its keep. But all Chelsea needs is contact. A block of ice encases his arms and torso, making him teeter on the spot.

It doesn't last long, as he releases a resonating screech that shatters the ice that binds him. A screech that masks the charging of Dauntless’ arclance that hits Chelsea in the chest again.

“And they say lightning doesn't strike twice.” Chuckles Dauntless, tossing a confoam grenade at Chelsea’s prone form. She’d have taken offense to such a lackluster way to capture her, like a common pokemon, but then her nose picked up on a certain smell. 

“Ah. A dream pokeball.” She says, her vision going dark.

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Anh wakes up wrapped in foam. Her hands are unbound, but her mask is gone.

“Hrn.” She grunts disapprovingly. She knew they’d unmask her because they used a knockout gas on her. It’s common sense that they would want to check if her breathing was unobstructed. But it still grated.

“Good morning, Cutting Edge.” Sounds Miss Militia’s voice. Did they pick her because she was the most experienced cape at hand, or because they felt a woman’s voice would put Anh at ease? Anh had no faith in Miss Militia. She’s been around for seven years, yet did nothing to stand for the community. Only for the government. And she started the conversation with deception.

Instead of answering the question, Anh started focusing all the Sharpness she’s accumulated on the surface of her palm. A slight movement of her hand shredded the foam in its path, and she moved the Sharpness down to her forearm. A minute of shimmying later, she was mostly free of foam. She sat up, rolling her shoulders. They weren’t stiff by any means, she doesn’t remember when they were stiff last time.

“Cutting Edge? Now that you’re up, could you answer a couple of our questions?” She asks.

“... Wow, that is the softest good cop I’ve heard.” Anh admits.

“There won’t be a bad cop, Cutting Edge.” She says like Anh just told a mildly funny joke.

“Sure. Let’s hear it.”

“How are you feeling, for starters?”

“I slept well. I’m… not as unhappy about my situation as I could be, at least.”

“And why would that be?”

“I was done with my mission. While Chillax went no contact before finishing hers. She's here somewhere as well?” Anh looked around like she’d see Chelsea anywhere in this padded room.

“That mission of yours, did you do it willingly?” Miss Militia asked, not letting Anh take control of the conversation.

“Well, yes. That was me acting out the power fantasy every kid in my neighborhood had if they ever got powers.“ And it was true. They’d gather in someone’s home and rant about what they would do if they ever got powers. The first thing they always said they want to do was to rob a bank and get rich as hell. And then, if they got a strong power, kill an Empire cape. They wouldn’t dream of fighting Lung, that was- the dragon of Kyushu has sown the seed of fear in every Asian citizen of Brockton Bay, and it has taken a deep root in everyone’s hearts. If you paid protection and hid your kids well enough, then you’d be relatively safe. That’s why you always walked in groups of three or more. To not get lynched and to not catch the eye of an ABB goon with exceptionally loose morals and exceptionally loose pants.

“So, the reason you joined Durasteal’s gang was because you had a common goal of fighting nazis?

“Uh, no. Durasteal, she’s-” Anh takes a deep breath. Now is the time to end this conversation on a high note. She could tell them the real reason, she could gush about Taylor’s righteous spirit, and how she saved Anh from suicide by dragon, and how the gang and… their friendship in general has provided her a distraction from her grief. But she had an agreement with Chelsea. “She’s hot as fuck.”

“... What?”

“Have you seen her legs? Hot damn . And that hair!” She whistles like in one of the old school cartoons. “Woof woof! Arf! Arf! Awoooooga!” And prays. Prays that Chelsea or Taylor don’t get their hands on the footage. “The things I’d do to her-” What she said next made Hannah want to take a long shower and never look Cutting Edge in the eyes ever again. That part of the recording was beeped out for the sake of the Wards’ sanity during their next meeting.

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Chelsea wakes up in a cell. She sits up and takes a quick glance around. Its walls were padded in plain grey fabric, the bed had soft edges and hung from the wall with no chains or legs suspending it. Solid metal. There was a toilet bowl in the corner, and a sink with a very smooth angled faucet. It reminded her of some psych-wards. Nothing to hook a rope to, nothing to choke on, nothing to beat or cut herself with. She even suspected where exactly she was imprisoned.

“Hello, Chillax.” Sounded a soothing female voice. Miss Militia? Battery, maybe. “How are you feeling?”

“Hm.” She jingle-jangles her handcuffs. “Not stellar. You could have done without these. Not like there’s anything I can do with free hands that I won’t be able to do bound.”

“How are you feeling about being in a villain gang? Did you join it willingly?” The voice asks.

Chelsea shrugs. “Well, as willingly as you usually join gangs, you know? I was in hot shit with Accord, Durasteal offered safety. And I took it. And I liked her ideals. She’s got an interesting vision for her gang and I want to see it through.” An obvious bait to change subjects.

The voice pauses briefly. “But you could seek shelter with the Protectorate, no?” Bait failed.

“I could. And you’d lock me up behind seven doors or place me in some watchlist.”

“The Protectorate wouldn’t do that to a young cape in need of help.” The voice says. Sly . Chelsea thinks. She didn’t actually answer my question . Sure, that’s what they’d do in general. But did that apply to her? 

“I see. Well, I heard you have a fun probationary program here?”

“We do, and you haven’t committed any major crimes yet. We could even chalk up your fights with other villains up to vigilantism.”

“That sounds neat. But I think I’ll pick juvie over it.”

“... But why?”

“Eh. You guys are happy with the status quo and let nazis walk freely. I think we’d do more good by being villains than by being the kind of heroes that you are trying to be.”

“There is more to being a hero than fighting villains. Without keeping the balance in the city, you get incidents like the Boston Games.”

“Well, easy. Get a heroic team to pretend to be villains, make them take over the territories of the least favorable villains and make them hold territory. You heroes’ presence does jack shit. Villains are more ready to invade territories not held by other villains even if they’re “protected” by heroes. They could then keep up a facade of crime, selling legal drugs like marijuana. Did you know weed is legal in Canada? It can be made legal here. And the shady alleys would only sell the experience of doing crime. Soft drugs, legitimate security business, just framed like rackets. That kinda stuff. You could do that, as a government agency. Right? You could make it happen. But you don't. So some people have to do it for you, just less legally.”

“Is that what you’re trying to do then?”

“... Maybe?”

“That’s why your first act of heroism is to kill Hookwolf. And your second is suffocating another cape.”

“What was that about me not committing any major crimes yet? Seems kinda contradictory to me.” Chelsea raised her eyebrow. Her assumption was that every non-Empire cape tacitly approved of that act. “You got any proof that we did it? Maybe Hookwolf is still alive? You don’t know that.”

“Your teammate was seen wearing his mask on her shoulder, and Hookwolf has never been seen since.”

“Absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence. He might have left BB on some off-town errand. And it’s a fashion statement and a complete coincidence on our side.” As long as she doesn’t admit it. Guesses, hunches and even Thinker testimonies prove nothing in court of law.

“Then what about Trugbild? You very publicly trapped her in an unescapable situation where she would have suffocated to death. As far as we know, you have no way of actually removing your own ice.” She presses.

“What do you want me to do? She can’t be captured in any other way. She can’t be held in prison. She can’t even be brought to court without escaping or being broken out by her buddies. What I, allegedly, was doing, was just reducing the amount of her future victims from an arbitrary two to three digit number to zero.” Chelsea shrugs. That’s what Taylor would have said.

“Do you believe you are above the law? That you can freely enact your vision of justice?”

“Vigilantes do that all the time. Only the stupid ones get caught.” Gavel, Shadow Stalker. The list is kind of short.

“Yet you did not declare yourself a vigilante team.”

“Invites more trouble.” Chelsea shrugs again.

“That way, you could have at least allied yourselves with the PRT!” The woman insists.

“I think you’re hearing me, but not listening. PRT and Protectorate hold vastly different values than ours. Allying ourselves with you means Jack. Shit. And also, I’m not saying we’re not gonna be committing crimes. I’m just not saying we are, either. You know. For court stuff.” She pauses, letting the woman process it, and interrupts her before she speaks, just to be a little shit. “I won’t be asking for a lawyer though. I don’t think you’d provide me with a competent one. I don’t trust you, and also go fuck yourself, Battery .” She finally figured out who this is. Both capes were very much sticks in the mud and sticklers for rules. But Battery was more lenient towards villains, especially teenage villains. Miss Militia wouldn’t have lasted this long without bringing up patriotism, America or some obscure law.

“... I-” Chelsea freezes the speaker. The conversation goes nowhere and she’s proven that she’s coherent enough to hold a debate, probably passing at least one of their M/S procedures. Still, she knows better than to freeze the entire room. Something about air ventilation. And she’s pretty sure they’d just use that sleep gas again if she acts up. But she still freezes the door, just in case. Now it’s time to lay in wait.

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"They both are lying." Armsmaster said gravely. "It's pinging for different reasons, though. Cutting Edge isn't being sincere when she said that she joined the Tough Crowd because she was attracted to Durasteal. And, more concerningly, Chillax wasn't genuinely interested in Durasteal's... ideals in particular. She agrees with them to a point, but that doesn't seem to be her main reason for joining her gang."

“Interesting. At least, she isn’t fanatically agreeing with them, I suppose.” Director Piggot says, steepling her fingers. “And I thought Cutting Edge was rather… convincing in her speech.”

“My analysis algorithms only detected mild dread and surprise at her own words. And regret.”

“How long do we have to hold them in M/S containment? Are they being cooperative?” Emily asks.

“Two more days per procedure before we can send them off to New York.” Miss Militia says. “Cutting Edge is refusing any attempts at persuading her to join the Wards, while Chillax thinks we’d lock her away despite her joining.”

“Because of her past… exploits?” Emily raises her eyebrow.

“I suspect so. She has changed her name and her combat style, but she assumes we already know.” Armsmaster answers. “It is the mindset of every ex-villain cape we have captured. They have it drilled in them that the Protectorate disappears them away into containment zones or worse, if they agree to join.”

“What about the new cape in town? Is she also part of the Tough Crowd?” Asks Velocity.

“We have captured Cutting Edge only because Malady provided her assistance in the fight.” Miss Militia admits. “We didn’t expect her to be so hard to put down, Chillax was the one more famous for fighting multiple capes at once with ease. If not for Panacea’s timely assistance later on, Assault and Battery would have died from blood loss. But she has also captured four E88 capes and we are not sure what she did to them.”

“What are our threat ratings for Malady?” Emily asks, flipping the slideshow to photos of Malady of varying qualities.

“Tinker 6!” Armsmaster says quickly, then puts his hands on the table to hide his excitement. “I couldn’t get my hands on her tech but her energy readings told me that she has several high efficiency nuclear generators both in her power armor and her blaster. I suspect her specialization lies in chemicals and-”

“Her threat ratings, Armsmaster.” Emily grinds out.

“Tinker 6, with her tech granting her Brute 6, Mover 2 and Blaster 6.” Armsmaster says, more calmly.

“Those are high numbers.”

“Her power armor was proven to be impervious to firearms and she released an acid that dissolves containment foam. Her weapon has at least five firing modes, each more destructive than the other. And we found footage of her receiving a supposedly lethal injury from Auspicious, a fist-thick vine pierced through her lung and she kept fighting like it didn’t happen. I am tempted to remove her rating of Tinker and replace it with her being a Case 53 for that feat. If we didn't have proof that she can make it for others.”

“And… Tattletale.” Emily adds.

“She’s suspected to have left the Undersiders and joined Malady, and received her own version of that power armor. And we finally know what her power is. She’s a mid tier Brute and Changer, able to sprout blades from her body and regenerate injuries at lightning fast speeds. We believe she could be a second generation cape, probably Hookwolf’s daughter who disagreed with his-”

“Hookwolf’s?” Assault interrupts Armsmaster’s speech. “I thought she’s Kaiser’s kid. The ages match better and Hookwolf has a very flimsy belief in secret identities, he wouldn’t have the patience to wait so long without revealing that he has a cape daughter.”

“If she was Kaiser’s kid, I don’t think she could run around with the Undersiders for four months.” Battery notes.

“That’s true. And her being a Brute Changer supports the Hookwolf theory.” Miss Militia agrees. “And he could have been a teen dad and wasn’t aware of her existence. That would explain why she joined Malady, given Malady’s open antagonism of the Tough Crowd, who have, allegedly, killed her father.”

“Her threat ratings.” Emily interrupts them again.

“Brute 4, Striker 4, Changer 4. Her blades don’t seem to be as lethal as Cutting Edge’s power, but she also has a weapon at all times and cannot be disarmed. But she doesn’t seem to be stronger than an average cape. Very well rounded. Rather, she is on the weaker side of powers.” Armsmaster says. “But the new addition of power armor to her arsenal does seem to have improved her combat efficiency.”

“Very well. Update the database, and stay on high alert. Durasteal will try to break her teammates out, I'm sure of it. And I want all hands on deck when it happens.” Emily says, concluding the meeting.