43

Chapter Text

She didn't get any time to laze about, even after total victory.

Well, sort of. The Merchants were still going to be cockroaches scuttling about her boots, but she'd get them eventually.

There were a lot of logistical details to catch up with, regardless of the strange attack at the PRT.

Most of it was unfortunately things she couldn't do anything to speed up.

There was only so much haste with which their builders could construct an airtight faraday cage for their server room, especially one that was only to be temporary, and there was only so much her men could do to make Greg hurry the fuck up with his family situation so they could actually move him.

Thankfully, she had a… rather staggering amount of resources at her disposal, so some of the more mundane hiccups were solved through moving assets in between all three factions she had, and using a good chunk of change to grease some palms at the US Coast Guard, for example.

Her lab was on its way, supposedly.

It gave her heart a slight twinge when she read that the boat would smuggle things in through the Dockworker's Association. They'd taken a bribe, for the first time.

She knew things were really bad, and jobs were practically nonexistent in the actual docks, so it made sense that they finally caved into accepting bribes to look the other way about what few things were shipped in, but she remembered her dad taking a lot of pride in the Dockworker's integrity. How they had some kind of honour and would regularly refuse sketchy deals despite the money.

Unfortunately, pride and honour didn't put food on the table, and with the average pay in the Docks being eight hundred a month… they didn't have much choice.

It wasn't exactly a happy occasion, but it made her feel nice, to know that in a… really shady, illegal way, she was keeping the Dockworkers alive, nice and protected under her sharp-edged wings.

Speaking of which, she had to pay the Association's president a visit. Just to make sure he didn't pocket anything more than his fair share of the bribe, which he most certainly would. Nobody wouldn't, when the money proposed was over a hundred thousand extra dollars.

She paused, watching Lisa pant on the training mat below, getting her ass beat by an agent as she tried to force her power into working in combat, brow furrowing as she tapped her fingers on the upper floor's desk.

That didn't sound like something that could wait. She wanted it out of the way.

And she also had to speed the hell up. So many more hours in just this day, she could achieve so much so fast if she put her mind to something instead of thinking in circles in this empty office.

She rose, stretched like a cat, then sighed through her nose, sliding the window open.

"Insight." She called, and Lisa called a pause, turning to look up at her, squinting through the damp training helm. "Going to go settle some business with the dock boys. Once you're done here, gather SS, Lee and Lung, and find someplace where we can have an extended fight without drawing too much attention."

Lisa's expression scrunched up with confusion.

"Extended fight?"

"Roughhouse sparring, let's call it." She shrugged, and Lisa nodded, thoughtfully staring through the wall just under Taylor's arm on the windowsill.

"Sure. Might take a bit. Lee's with our men, putting the ABB's lieutenants into place. And uh, culling some of them, just realized I forgot to tell you." Lisa said, and she paused.

"...Culling?" She asked, quietly.

That sounded very… unnecessary.

Lisa nodded, adjusting her gloves and taking a few deep breaths before replying.

"He just said something about their eyes betraying them. I personally got that he just thought they looked too conniving and displeased with the recent changes, not without dragging some of- Summoner's agents to them to Master them." Lisa said, the stutter in her sentence barely audible.

She smiled, a little.

Lisa was getting better in keeping Taylor's numerous pseudonyms and fake identities separate.

She considered Oni Lee.

He likely didn't want to waste her time with people he didn't consider valuable.

Nice of him, but also kind of wasteful.

She'd deal with it later. A text would do.

"Right. Set it up as fast as you can once you're done here, text me the location. Greg's not a problem at this point, don't bother being paranoid about it. Still keep things tight and vague, but let comms resume, a little."

"Sure thing. Also, have some very good funding news to tell you later, once you're back. We're due to give one of our techies a huge raise. And hire a few more mercs." Lisa said, and she paused, glancing to the open space around them. 

Not a good place to chat about finances or… anything of too much significance.

"Later." She nodded, and ducked back into the room, switching to Evelynn and flying out of the warehouse.

Jeremy Melona was a man of vaguely hispanic descent.

And he was the elected president of the DWA, at the moment.

Which wasn't a huge accomplishment considering it was just a union, but still, he had the most centralised 'power' at the moment, and was the one who'd brought their bribe proposal to some of the more trusted of the workers, who ended up agreeing to look the other way.

Cosmic Insight painted him as a man wracked with overconfidence, an inflated ego, and a good nature that was steadily eroding under stress and frustration.

But, not a bad person. Simply getting there, one bad day at a time.

She let him get to his car, swing into it with a tired groan, and after a brief glance around her, she materialized beside the car, bending down to tap the window in her form which she'd dubbed as 'jacked white dude'.

Without the nazi tattoos. She didn't want to make the man hostile immediately.

She bent down to stare at the man through the glass, and he stared for a moment, surprise and befuddlement mixing in his eyes until he finally rolled the window down.

"Can I help you?" Jeremy asked tensely, hand obviously straying near his waistband, giving her an uncertain stare.

"Nexus sent me to clarify something." She rumbled, calmly, and the man turned into a stiff, hunched brick, his forearm flexing as he likely gripped his pistol, out of her sight.

"And that is…?"

She leaned down, bent at the waist, hands crossed over eachother on the window sill as she gave him a cold stare.

"The security money. We'd like you to equally share it among the workers under you. No pocketing half for yourself, for example. We want our cargo, but if we're going to grease your hands, we're going to prefer that that money ends up spread around. We want people to work with, and we want longevity. And despite what you may think of us, we do value worker's rights. Shortchange someone once or twice, and by the third time, they're gone already. So. It goes against our principles, and it's detrimental to us long term. A hundred fifty grand. Spread it wisely, don't be stupid. We'll get more open about these deals in the future if all goes well."

Jeremy took a moment to digest that, staring at her, tense, bushy brows and thick mustache twitching.

He slowly nodded.

She tapped the window frame on her left with her right-hand knuckles.

"Well, that's all we wished to chat with you about." She said, and made to back up.

"Wait." Jeremy blurted out, brows relaxing from a glare into a confused gaze. "How the hell did you find me?"

You're across the street from your office, dipshit, is what she wanted to say, but she swallowed down that unnecessarily mean comment and gave him a dry stare.

"We've got eyes everywhere, buddy. Don't bother lookin' for em, you'll just turn paranoid before you find something. And no, I'm not trying to threaten you, just the truth. Have a good night." She calmly said, gave a lazy half-wave, and turned to walk away.

The car didn't move an inch until she turned the corner and burst into fog, swirling about in the air above the buildings to either side.

Her eye was drawn to distant figures flying in and out of the Rig, in the far distance, barely specs of white and black in the distance.

New Wave was probably helping the Protectorate.

She didn't pay it too much mind. It wasn't exactly a new development.

Flying back to the warehouse, she spent the trip thinking about what she had to do, what she had to wrangle together.

Coil's and Accord's contacts could get her a good team to work with soon, but having a lab would make things a little more organised. 

She also had to figure out what she wanted to do with the absurd amount of resources she suddenly had at her disposal.

The Empire might not deal drugs in the Bay, but they exported a lot.

And watching Kaiser's financial report made her mouth sour with a simple fact she already knew. 

Crime paid.

Crime paid a lot.

Rounding it all up made her feel so… accomplished in a way, even if she knew she'd have to do a whole lot of cleanup before this petty kingdom of thugs and druggies was anything substantial.

Just from selling cocaine and meth and exporting it to Canada, Europe, and Russia, most of it through Gesellschaft, the Empire was making roughly one hundred and twenty million dollars a year. Enough to support itself, without considering Medhall's income, which after taxes and the like, sat at a comfy three hundred and forty one million in pure profit.

Because pharmaceuticals were an evil, very profitable business when you were as big as Medhall.

Lung's gang made a nice ten million a year left over after paying its members their due and paying for their supplies, which was a good addition to their resource pool, but it surprised her how economically weak the ABB was without the sex trafficking to prop them up.

Coil's liquidations and then his quick shift to investing in weapons dealing to the rest of the world was also netting them another comfortable thirty six million. His legal ventures, fifteen.

It wasn't a huge amount, but ironically enough, it was the safest bunch of their income. Safe, legal, and stable.

She'd cut their gun trafficking revenue stream the second this current order was fulfilled. She felt gross, providing people more effective means with which to slaughter each other with. 

They'd find a way to do it regardless, she knew, but contributing to a problem never made things better, even if Coil barely had five percent of the arms dealing market.

She'd rather move those facilities and people into the Bay so they could manufacture weapons and ammo for her very numerous current troops and the general law abiding American citizen rather than exporting AK47's to Africa so child soldiers could kill each other for mad dictators.

Besides, ammunition and gun factories needed a lot more jobs to fulfil than one might expect. It would help the Bay a lot to move five hundred jobs into the city. People were desperate.

And damn it, fixing that was one of her main goals for taking over this place.

Her accountants were going to be foaming at the mouth with how annoying it would be to sort this all into a manageable system. Especially with trying to move their revenue streams into something more ethical.

Aside from revenue streams, the saved up cash of each of the gangs was… well, suffice to say she was effectively a billionaire now.

But that was a good problem to have, all things considered. She felt quite good about it all.

Flying into their pseudo-HQ's office through a cracked window, she was surprised to find a sweaty, exhausted Lisa flicking through windows and chats and various screens, a look of utter focus on her face.

She materialized a few feet away, then dropped Evelynn, adjusting her face mask and peeking over the office chair at the screens, curious, throwing an elbow onto the back of the chair.

It creaked back an inch or two.

"Hey, Sam?" Lisa asked, and she hummed questioningly, flicking her eyes from one string of words to the next to try and catch what was going on.

Lisa blew out a long breath, eyes nailed to a security camera video that showed a floating speck of something, moving, moving, then slowing, stopping, and turning in a completely different direction before shooting off-screen with a much faster pace than before.

"That's Glory Girl, carrying Panacea." Lisa mumbled, and her mind quickly snapped back to the seeming swarm of fliers buzzing about The Rig like flies.

Shit.

Any levity she had left, quickly vanished.

She scowled, dragging out a creaky old chair and plopping down next to Lisa as she tabbed between windows and open chats with the information guys.

"What happened this time?" She asked, with a faint tone of tiredness she couldn't help but express, and Lisa spent a couple seconds snapping back a reply to one of their techies, before half-turning to her, eyes on another screen.

"So, we're facing a few possibilities here, according to my power and our information." Lisa said, rubbing at her mouth with her free hand, clicking from window to window like a hyperactive toddler on a sugar high.

Was she even reading them, with how fast she was checking?

"First possibility, Glory Hole over there just decided her sister shouldn't be around a recent bombing site and took her away in an act of protest towards her team's directions. Optimistic, thus, unlikely. Throwing aside a half dozen other speculative ideas… I think someone Mastered Glory Girl." Lisa breathed out, tapping keys on the board to rewind the video, before pointing and resuming.

"Look, look how she's moving. Confident, tense but not worried. Then it's like she just slowly realized she left the stove on at home, until she stops. You can see Amy Dallon squirm and turn, likely trying to ask what the fuck she's doing. Well, sort of, it's like ten pixels, but you can see movement from the front. Then something or someone tugs GG to go somewhere, and she seems to just go along with it, rushing off. Their phones and tracking devices are gone less than five minutes later, and they've just completely vanished. So… I think someone Mastered GG right in front of us."

She took a deep breath, putting her elbows on the table, steepling her hands and putting her mouth against her fingers, glaring at the video as she felt her chest tighten with worry.

"And who the fuck has the gall to do something like that?"

Lisa nervously swallowed, and Taylor's gaze slid over to her friend.

"... You know something."

Lisa bobbed her head, brushing sweaty hair back.

"I think Heartbreaker's giving us a visit." Lisa said, dropping the metaphorical bomb, and she felt her body tighten, almost instinctively, dots connecting.

"...He's trying to find Regent, isn't he? Why the fuck else would his cult of crazies wander down here?" She asked, getting up to pace, thoughts whirling.

Lisa leaned back in her chair, rubbing at her face.

"Ta- Sam-" Lisa then gave up with a groan, "God I fucking hate this spy ops bullshit." Lisa snarled to herself, then turned the chair to her.

"Maybe. He might be here for Regent. But we can't do anything about that, and much as I hate it, I just don't fucking know. This is a weird thing for the bastard to be doing, you know? He avoids authorities, he doesn't fuck with them for the sake of it. But now he's just… probably the one sending suicide bombers to the PRT and kidnapping heroes in broad daylight? It feels like he's trying to send a message to either the world or his kids, that harboring or hiding one of his children is a bad idea and running away is futile."

She considered that, pacing slowly, fingers itching for a weapon.

If he felt the need for that, that meant his children were rebellious or displeased enough to try and run. It wasn't just Regent.

"What he's trying to accomplish is a secondary concern. The real problem is that the heroes have no fucking clue that GG got Mastered because they don't have anything to work with." She said, with calm that didn't express her inner alarm.

Lisa took a moment to think, puzzlement taking over her face.

"I- I mean, I guess? We have the footage, they don't. They just have a graph from the Dallons showing them that Victoria randomly switched directions before her tracker went offline, so they're assuming that there's some kind of fight somewhere that they can't see, or that Victoria was baited and captured by us or one of the gangs. And Armsmaster, the protocol-hounding dumbass that he is-" Lisa gesticulated in the rough direction of The Rig.

Taylor froze, pausing mid-step.

"He split them up in pairs. All far away from each other." She cut in.

"Yep." Lisa said, dropping her hand. "And now they're mixing with New Wave and expanding further to try and both patrol, just to be safe, and try to find the duo. The last fucking thing you do when you're up against a Master is split up." Lisa huffed. "If the suicide bomber was Heartbreaker's doing, then Armsmaster is playing right into his hands with disturbing effectiveness. So, since I think this might be the case, and either Heartbreaker or some of his fucked up kids are mucking around in the Bay for some fucking reason, we either use the heroes as bait to get to the bastard, or we let the heroes know everything we do, and let them cut their losses, probably negotiate with the fucker to get the girls back and throw Regent at him. Assuming they listen to us." Lisa added, a constipated look on her face.

Which made sense. Regent was the sole survivor of Lung's assault on the Undersiders. Of course Lisa would be sour about him getting tossed back to his father.

And the option of not trading him was likely even worse in her eyes.

But that was defeatist bullshit.

She turned to Lisa, brows furrowing.

"Let them cut their losses? Lisa, we're not letting them cut their losses, we're cutting Heartbreaker's fucking head off." She stated with a low growl, then resumed her pacing.

She couldn't personally head into this right now, and she didn't want any of her people getting mindfucked by Heartbreaker and his hellspawn. It was fixable, of course, but she worried about how the overlapping influence of two masters would affect them…

But she wanted to kill him.

She didn't know anyone affected by him, not personally, but she took his existence personally.

Because he was the exact thing she hoped to never be compared to, and he was what made a large section of powers be pushed towards villainy. Masters were mostly hated because of examples like Heartbreaker.

That, and killing him would give people hope. Would hopefully make them start trying to live rather than just shuffle about, waiting to die.

So she wanted to kill the bastard for more than the simple reason that he deserved it a million times over.

How would she go about it…

She needed a name, a face, and some kind of familiarity. Some assumptions and connections to the person.

Her only option was Victoria, and then… maybe. Assuming she knew even the faintest bit of the girl, she could likely use her to get to him.

But Victoria would be a hostage that would surely fight her to the death before she even got close to Heartbreaker, or whatever bastard child of his was playing footsies around her territory, nevermind the other thralls surely guarding him. If he was around.

Best case scenario, she killed him.

Bad case scenario, she'd have to fight and neutralise dozens of innocents without really hurting them… Heartbreaker's kids mostly included, and he wouldn't even be nearby. 

If they were young enough.

The 'how' was still a question. She had very few people that could keep up with her if she went full throttle.

She needed to lull the perpetrators into a false sense of security, make them overstay their welcome.

Sharing her info with the heroes would just put everything on high alarm, and Heartbreaker or solid leads to him might be just around the corner, ready to scram if things got too hot.

She wanted to tell the heroes.

But she also wasn't sure she should.

Her gait stuttered as she glanced to Lisa, who was giving her an uncertain stare as her computer setup continued its incessant beeping and clicking behind her. 

"We need to let me recharge my power. I'm still having that sparring session. Send whoever can get Lung to ramp up and a private place for us to fight. Get Greg to send an anonymous tip to the heroes, asking for a meeting under truce. Tomorrow, early morning. What was that neutral place?" She asked, vaguely remembering something.

"Somer's Rock?" Lisa asked, and she nodded.

"Sure, that'll work. I don't care if we have to kick Greg's door down, get that done please. Try to find everything you can. The heroes will never work with us, but if we tell them anything now while none of us can move and get into a fight we know nothing about, they'll light the Bay up like a Christmas tree, call a quarantine like they did up in Montreal when they thought he was passing, and they'll just scare the Master away before we can do anything about them. So, we tell them tomorrow when I say so, then move immediately while they scramble to respond. If anyone else is caught in the meantime..." She trailed off, feeling her chest tighten.

"I..."

Shit. Shit, shit.

What the fuck would she do if not sharing her info got another hero captured?

"I mean... you could fix them afterwards, right?" Lisa asked, and she deflated.

"I could. But do you think the heroes would ramp down their aggression if they knew I was a Master strong enough to unfuck Heartbreaker's victims' mind, or ramp up?" 

Lisa's mumbled 'touche', because the answer was damn obvious. She'd basically be telling them Nexus had someone who was a couple steps below Heartbreaker, and then, connecting the dots would be trivially easy to realize she had infiltrated Coil and the ABB, even if her attack on the trafficking ring was a nice false flag to steer suspicion away.

"We can't tell them. Or help. We just stay silent until we're ready to move, drop the bomb, then go kill the bastard." She mumbled, and promptly plopped down on the beaten couch in the corner of the office, covering her eyes.

"I... Okay, not to say he doesn't deserve to die, assuming he's actually around here, but wouldn't it be more efficient to just... you know, Master him back? You're spending a lot of your power Mastering people left and right, you know? He could do that for you, and you could just Master the deviant freak out of him and turn him into a puppet or something." Lisa suggested, and she raised her head to blink at Lisa.

She furrowed her brow.

"I don't need Heartbreaker for that. One of his kids, those reaching their twenties and following in their father's footsteps, and then I just throw them into Noelle, and I'll be golden. Or just, any Master, really. Heartbreaker himself needs to die, because the world needs to know Nexus and Summoner don't fuck around and lie about this kind of stuff. If the public learned I just took the worst people in the world and made them mine after I told them I killed them off... there goes any kind of trust or public perception. Any chance of... even passive cooperation with the heroes, too. And no secret stays one forever, Lisa."

Lisa chewed on her cheek, deflated in her chair with a sigh.

"You sound fucking old." Lisa snarked in reply, and she rolled her eyes, a smile tugging at her lips.

How to get to Heartbreaker before he scurried off with his spoils like the damn rat he was…

He didn't usually go for kids, but everyone knew what he did to women he Mastered. She had no reason to assume his goals were changed in any way just because the girls were a couple years under age.

The thought of what might happen to Victoria and Amy Dallon made her claws itch to burrow into flesh and claim his head for a trophy.

…

Wait, nails. She didn't have claws anymore.

She groaned, and sank lower in the couch.

One fucking day without a crisis popping up would be real damn nice.

She materialized up on the walkway above, leaning on the railing, watching her capes below, awkwardly standing around.

Shadow Stalker, Oni Lee, and the main reason she was even here, Lung, looking inordinately pissed off.

Reasonable, all things considered. Betrayed, and then enslaved.

Served him right. She had less than zero sympathy for the fucker.

Oni Lee looked as he usually did, indifferent, and Shadow Stalker was practically vibrating with tension and energy, unable to sit still for a moment, pacing, tightening her gloves, fingering her new knives and fiddling with her crossbow, looking like a rabid dog that was foaming at the mouth for a fight.

She'd have it.

She shifted, and Lung tore his eyes off Stalker, jerking his head up as the whisper of shuffling cloth reached him.

The aggression in his eyes faded, almost unwillingly, and he nodded to her.

Thank god she didn't mess him up with her Mastering, at least.

The others looked up too, and they all went still.

"So, are we fucking doing this or what?" Sophia asked aggressively.

She took a deep breath, considering her headache.

Mild… a slight scrape of pain behind her right eye, throbbing annoyingly, but nothing debilitating.

And she had a lot of Legends that didn't need much if any energy to use and maintain. It would get worse, but not by much. She was essentially just getting another human body with different muscle memory and musculature, overlaid with hers. That was very much not difficult to do for the summon core.

Pushing away Evelynn, returning to her real self, she cracked her neck.

"SS?"

Sophia tilted her head.

"Shut the fuck up and start hitting him." She dryly ordered.

Sophia did as asked, turning in a smooth motion, whipping her crossbow around and off her back one armed, a snappy crack foretelling a bolt that was aimed straight at Lung's shoulder, turning to mist to reload.

Lung slapped it away with his wrist, ignoring the large gash that caused, his expression twisting into a furious snarl as he turned.

To Oni Lee.

The resulting tornado of fire that spewed out of his knuckles resulted in two clones disintegrating before a third stabbed a knife into Lung's forearm from the side, dodging the man's backhand by ducking under, placing a gun to the edge of his chin from the side, and firing.

Flesh, teeth, and bone peppered the thick, foam-padded walls of the dark warehouse, lit by two fluorescent bulbs and heaps of flame.

She had so much appreciation for Lee, what he could be if he just worked on himself a little more.

Utterly ruthless, he was a half-decent fighter, and he was efficient and smart. He just had to train his melee and shooting skills for cases where blowing everything up just wasn't an option. That was his glaring weakness.

She thought of how she wanted to structure things, watching Lee and Lung play a blood-fueled game of cat and mouse, while SS peppered him with bolts.

She thought of what roles she wanted these people to play.

Oni Lee was a one man army, a teleporting killing machine that only had to keep his real self safe, and could theoretically deal with an entire Protectorate squad if he improved a little.

He would be surprisingly effective in exterminations. When she wanted groups wiped out, when she didn't care about espionage or subtlety and wanted people to know.

SS's power seemed to be the most geared towards picky, quiet assassination. Flanking and stabbing into weak points, dashing in to take out priority targets, killing pillars of the enemy's formations then vanishing and stalking about for another pick.

If she wisened up a little, that was.

Taylor could speed up that 'wisening' process.

Lung's biggest weakpoint was his fighting ability, ironically enough. He was too goddamn willing to take a hit, and too bad at purposefully dodging. Sometimes he did attempt to pull back of twist out of the way of some strikes, but all he managed to do was lessen the damage or make himself stumble rather than actually dodge.

On top of that, he just didn't know how to fight. His fighting style was more suited to a coked up street thug that thought he was invincible. Just punch, grapple, charge. That was it.

Yet another thing that required her attention. How she wanted these people to develop and advance, how she wished to use them.

She could probably explain what she wanted to Coil, and get him to do the micromanaging for her. He was good at that.

It took twenty seconds for Lung's eyes to start glowing like two hellish suns, his fire to nearly double in volume, and another foot to be added to his height, tunnel visioning on Lee.

He was pissed. Good.

She slowly put one leg over the railing, then another, sitting on it.

She picked the Rune of Resolve, and locked in Akali, the Rogue Assassin.

The kama in her hand felt so familiar it almost hurt.

"And you said I would probably never get to fight a dragon… look at me now, Master." She murmured under her breath with amusement, mixing with that background frustration and the thrill of a fight.

She scooted forward, and dropped in, kama raised high.

Her left foot landed on Lung's left shoulder, her right on his quickly balding head, barely making him budge.

She stabbed down into his left pec, and raked her blades up, prompting a snarl, and a twist, his left arm pushing up and back to throw her off as his right swirled with flame.

Pushing with her right foot to unroot herself, she planted her left on his left hand wrist as it swung outwards, and moved her center of balance forward, letting his arm cruise by under her and dropping down into the gap left in front of his chest.

His right fist spit out a belch of flame where she was, over his shoulder, barely a lick of it catching her boots as he tried to correct himself and awkwardly angle the flame down while already overextended. 

She watched it in an instant as she fell to the floor, looking up at him upside down and inwardly scoffing at his performance.

He just didn't know how to fight, doing manoeuvres that his own body would block for her.

Her upper back hit the floor, and she rolled forward to her feet, away from Lung, and lunged away right as a cleave of flame warmed her skin, Lee taking over the assault with two gunshots and a clone scattering around a flaming fist.

She rolled, turned, wound up, and threw her right arm forward, a swing from low to high, throwing the kunai.

They barely went blade-deep, hip, shoulder, and rib.

She straightened, half-jogging in a wide arc, waiting for an opening, for Grasp of The Undying to charge a strike, putting her right kama in its holster as she took out a kunai.

A second later, both the opening and Grasp showed themselves, and she dropped low to the floor, lunging forward, chest brushing dusty, scorched concrete, swinging wide with her left kama, her right arm throwing the roped kunai to the right, rope burning her forearm as it unwound.

Her blade cut a shallow line through his calf as she flew by.

Green, misty flame rushed through her blade, into Lung, and back out, carrying lifeforce.

It sunk into her hand, and she gasped sharply in surprise as it washed through her like a tidal wave, crashing and washing away her flesh with groaning marble, feeling like someone injected her with a liter of adrenaline, skin tingling and writhing with energy, eyes bulging as she tensed with surprise.

That was almost as much life force as she'd gotten from hitting Alexandria…

And he wasn't even growing scales yet.

Lung's right foot swung clumsily back towards her, and unable to redirect herself, she instead yanked with her right arm, the roped kunai snapping taut and jerking her out of the way.

Letting go, she rolled to her feet, breathing hard.

It took her a moment to realize that a manic grin had found itself on her face.

It widened as the high of a Grasp proc faded.

She could start turning lifeforce to Qi in no time, if this continued.

And she had a few hours.

Time to see how many times they could escalate and de-escalate Lung in that time.

She switched out a kama for a row of kunai, and began to jog around the fight, watching Lung tower over them at eight feet tall, his snarls puffing smoke out, neck starting to glow with flame in tune with his breaths, his hair gone entirely, flame wreathing him from fingers to chest.

Lee was starting to tire and preserve his energy, by now. They'd have to take a break and restart soon-ish.

She threw a kunai, to stay in the fight and let another Grasp of the Undying build.

It barely stuck into Lung.

A quick lunge to scratch his back, darting back.

Green energy danced about her fingers, and she tossed another kunai, watching the energy flash to the blade as it struck, then back to her.

She kept her stride steady this time, feeling her cheeks burn as she continued grinning just a little wider.

That one felt even stronger.

It felt like she was made of wood rather than flesh.

Was her flesh stronger than Lung's? She had a lot less of it, but it had to be.

And she hadn't even begun to refine the extra lifeforce into Qi yet.

She burst out into elated laughter, throwing her head back, feeling a ball of stress she'd been carrying for ages dissipate.

The sounds of battle paused.

She took a deep breath, tore Akali's mask off, then grinned at the three confused parahumans staring at her with varying degrees of confusion.

She pushed Akali away, and dug her phone out, dialing Lisa.

Two rings in, she answered.

"Yea?" Lisa asked.

"Call in Hookwolf and Crusader. We've going to fight until we drop." She said, then waited for Lisa to hum positive, before she shut her phone, staring at the trio.

Lung had stopped growing, but he still looked like he was barely holding himself back from swinging again.

She picked Akali, filling her hands with kunais, taking a stance and starting to circle.

Lung snarled, and swung his fist wide with a torrent of fire, scorching the walls black and forcing Lee to start teleporting again as she sprinted to the nearest wall and ran up it for a few feet, feeling her skin sizzle from the flames barely missing her ankles. 

Shadow Stalker would form up in the air, pop off a shot, then retreat to reload, and repeat.

She did the same, roughly. Circling, tossing kunais, waiting for Grasp to charge up, then dashing in for a meaningless nick, or simply throwing yet another kunai if there was too much fire being thrown about.

Grasp of the Undying felt less… effective, from range. Not by much, but there was a noticeable increase the closer she was to the target she was taking lifeforce from.

Two, three, five, fifteen times, she felt the sensation of lifeforce flooding her, until she started feeling weightless and genuinely invincible. A dangerous thing to feel.

By the tenth time, the sensation had become so intense it was almost bowling her over and forcing her to muffle some likely… obscene groans into her own throat.

Things got a lot harder ten or twelve minutes in, when Lung started properly using his tail and wings to attack, looking like Leviathan's angry cousin and making the inside of the enormous warehouse feel like a closed oven.

Eventually, Lung's tail clipped Lee on the knee, and with a crunchy snap and a startled grunt, the man fell, his clones fighting for another few seconds before scattering.

Lee teleported.

Lung moved forward, stomping on the head of the clone left behind, hunching over as if to charge at Lee, and she scowled.

"Kenta. Back." She growled, and Lung shook with obvious rage for a moment before forcing himself to lumber around towards her, his mouth elongated into a snout, his back hunched over and his four arms almost dragging on the floor. Towering almost half a dozen feet above her, a small mountain of silver scales and mangled musculature with nubby wings, slowly growing, he was a grotesque, impressive sight.

"Let's call a break and wait for the nazis to get here. We start again, then. Lee, don't move. SS, go up to the breaker board and flip the switch for the ventilation system. We can barely breathe in here." She ordered between deep breaths, and Lee nodded as Sophia wordlessly went to do as asked.

Lee swayed, awkwardly balancing on one foot and letting the other dangle, panting heavily and stiff with pain, literally smoking, steam wafting off of him.

And not a word of complaint.

She didn't want to play favourites too much, but Lee was definitely her favourite mastered cape, with Bakuda as a close second.

Lung was just a weapon for her to throw at Endbringers.

She walked over to him, ignoring Lung as he walked past her to the warehouse's corner, snarling and puffing to himself while he shrunk.

She put her hands on Lee's shoulders, staring into his mask's eyeslits. She patted him, smiling.

"Amazing work. Relax a bit." She said, and Lee did as asked.

She cast 'Heal', and with a meaty, grinding crunch and a spew of green motes of light, his leg jerked, his knee seemingly snapping back into place.

Lee didn't move or make a sound.

She cast it again, and backed up.

Lee experimentally put his foot on the ground, moved it left to right, then stomped down with force. He turned to her.

"Gomen." Lee breathed out in a rasp, barely audible through the combined panting of the three of them and Lung's growls in the corner.

She blew out a long breath, and looked down at her forearm, curious.

Glancing up at Lee, she extended her right arm, pushing Akali away, back to her regular self.

"Stab me. I want to see and feel the improvement."

Lee took out a combat knife, took a step, and without a shred of hesitation, grabbed her wrist, and stabbed down.

Naturally, she tensed, expecting it to hurt .

Instead, the tip barely went a centimetre deep before stopping cold.

She stared in disbelief, and flexed her forearm, muscles outlining clearly against her skin, blood leisurely pooling in the indent of the knife and crawling down her arm in a thin trail.

The knife moved before Lee's hand did, her muscles forcing it to move before tearing.

She wasn't any stronger, but her flesh was tougher.

"Try to dig in."

Lee pushed down insistently, and she grit her teeth mutely as the knife worked in further about half a centimetre, Lee's arm starting to shake and quiver with the strain.

"Alright, pull it out."

Lee did so, and immediately started cleaning his blade from the gory mixture of her and Lung's blood.

She turned around, sitting on the floor cross-legged, letting the blood stop flowing on its own, ignoring the injury.

Lee sat down next to her, continuing to clean the blade with a scorched cloth

Above, SS flit about the breaker boards and wiring, flipping switches.

Lung sat opposite them, giving Lee a death-stare as he quickly shrunk and started the gross process of turning back to a human again.

Something occurred to her, then, as she saw his naked state, his clothes burnt to ashes by now.

"... Did you bring replacement shorts or something?" She asked.

Lung snorted derisively.

Yeah, that answered it.

She didn't mind, because hey, Lung was quite physically attractive, and he obviously didn't give a crap, but it would probably be awkward for the others.

Oh well.

She wasn't sure how in the absolute hell things ended up like this, but they had.

Hookwolf did come, as did both Cricket and Stormtiger because 'they had nothing better to do and they wanted to fight', because of course.

Then Bakuda started spamming her phone begging to come over and hang out with her which she felt too bad to deny, even if Bakuda only knew about this 'sparring' because she literally had Oni Lee's phone bugged. She'd scold her about that later.

Crusader somehow ended up giving Krieg a ride to the place, too, so they had another extra.

Which ended up in the strangest goddamn night of her cape career so far.

Holed up in a warehouse she owned, covered in insulation and large enough to house two whole ass planes, surrounded by asians, nazis, a metal wolf and a giant dragon.

The area somehow felt cramped.

Watching them fight had gone from a mild annoyance in the back of her head to a genuine frustration, however. The amount of teamwork was... nonexistent, pretty much. 

So what ended up happening was that Hookwolf and his crew would fight Lung with Krieg, Crusader and Oni Lee joining in whenever he had regained enough stamina to at least fight using his clones, and Taylor would throw shurikens or just shoot Lung to build up a charge, and dart in and out, focusing on… well, essentially just activating Grasp of the Undying as frequently as possible.

SS was relegated to watch duty, flitting about the rooftop and watching out for any suspicious movements or undue attention, and double-checking for any noise leaks to the outside, which they couldn't afford with the heroes on a hair-trigger.

Bakuda was… still batshit insane, unfortunately, but it was mildly amusing in its absurdity when she came over with her bike loaded to high heavens with refreshments, snacks, and a goddamn lawn chair for herself.

She just sat on the side and screamed encouragements at Taylor and only her like some kind of murderous cheerleader that seemed to have an odd fixation with trying to get her to rip Lung's balls off, rambling about complete random bullshit in between.

Which Taylor half-listened to and occasionally inquired about to make her feel heard, which then prompted more snarly, giddy rambling about her 'lung annihilator nine thousand Bakuda trademarked nuke' or… something like that.

Of course, it got on some people's nerves, but having a nine foot tall metal wolf covered in blood from head to toe snarling at her to 'SHUT THE FUCK UP' did nothing to deter Mia, who just pulled out a grenade launcher off her back and grinned at Hookwolf like she wanted him to charge at her so she could test what her bomb would do on him. 

That mixture of dysfunctionality which forced her to reel the idiots back in line every couple minutes so they wouldn't start killing each other, and their… generally speaking, grating lack of coordination or genuine fighting ability eventually ended up making her so frustrated she just took matters into her own hands.

By teaching them. During and after the fight.

It was a stupid idea, but Lung wasn't going to grow any bigger and they were all boiling in their clothes and literally steaming sweat off while panting like dogs, so they had to take breaks. Which meant downtime of ten to thirty minutes.

Once she got into the role of instructor, the more and more she found wrong with how they fought.

Pacing around after gathering her thoughts for a few minutes while she regained her breath, she pointed to the WW2 reject.

"Krieg, I don't know how your power works exactly, but why aren't you picking up the razors and wires Hook's dropping while he's getting shredded and throwing them at Lung's face? Or trying to tangle his feet? Or a dozen other ways to mess with him? I've seen you toss my kunai without touching it a dozen times." She pointed at a Lung who seemed less angry and more just… cranky-tired, by now.

Krieg tilted his head, seeming contemplative. 

"The field is pretty small, so length would be an issue, but it's not... impractical." Krieg said in that fake German accent of his.

Then she pointed at Hookwolf.

"Stop flailing like a moron who can't decide if he's a dog or a guy and failing at both. You're a goddamn shapeshifter and you're not restricted to a wolf. You could make some giant whiptail made of razors and decapitate half the people in this room from twenty feet away if you'd use your damn brain. Cut Lung's tendons instead of punching him and trying to stick to him until you start melting when you're clearly doing jack shit to him and just making it harder for the others to attack him."

Hookwolf sneered.

"Do I look like a coward?"

She dropped her hand, and glared at him.

"If you think attacking from range is cowardice I'd like to hear you say that loud and clear to Purity's face. I think you'd have about four seconds of life to regret your words before you're melted putty buried fifty feet into the floor."

Hookwolf snorted, scratching his neck.

"Killing me wouldn't change a thing. She'd still be a coward."

She raised a brow.

Hookwolf had the mentality of a literal teenage thug.

It was quite disappointing, honestly.

"Really? Has it occurred to you that the only reason you're willing to go into melee with Lung is because of your powers? If you were a regular person, or had some Thinker power or something, you couldn't, and wouldn't, go near him. Not in a million years, whatever your ego is telling you. You'd get turned to fucking paste in seconds." She said roughly, and Hookwolf's movements slowed, his head which was half-tilted in disinterest angling towards her to stare.

"A coward is someone who is scared, and runs away. Someone attacking with what they're given isn't cowardice, it's called not being suicidal. If you were a regular person and I told you to fight Lung, would you walk up to fistfight him, or would you grab a gun, you-"

Stupid motherfucker, she said internally, but held it in by sighing instead.

She didn't want to lower the level of this… impromptu lesson by speaking like a gangster. They'd get her better, but she wasn't stooping there.

She stared at Hookwolf as he considered her words, seeming to actually think, and think hard, judging from the furrowing brow.

Seeing as he wasn't gonna answer, she turned to Oni Lee.

"Do me! Do me!" Bakuda screamed from the back, hopping up and down and waving her arms like a lunatic in concert, grenades and random… welding tools or something, bouncing in tune with her.

She rolled her eyes.

"You're not participating in this because your power isn't applicable here. I'll give you points of improvement some other time." She dismissed, and ignored Bakuda's nonsensical cheer to turn to Oni Lee.

"You're excellent with using your power, timing things, distraction and confusion. But, to be blunt, your melee combat skills are simply above average and your aim at range needs a lot of work. Your gun isn't a melee weapon, and you use it like a second knife more than an actual gun. It's effective, but it hinders you and your clones. Additionally, you're not good at working with people. I watched your clones die more from Stormtiger's blasts than Lung's heat or strikes because you kept surrounding him right as people started firing. You need to stop forgetting your allies exist and think about things from their perspective, what they're seeking to accomplish, what you're seeking to accomplish, and try to find a way to achieve both with minimal effort or interference. You stick around with my soldiers regularly, ask some of the melee instructors to teach you melee and teamwork. They might not have a power but they could still kick your ass if you didn't either, and they all work in teams, they know how to teach you to cultivate that mindset."

Oni Lee gave a stoic… half-bow, almost.

Ignoring the surge of nostalgia she got from being even vaguely reminded of Ionian customs such as bowing instead of waving 'yes ma'am', she turned to Stormtiger.

She thought of his way of fighting, what she observed.

"You actually are really good at teamwork despite blowing up half of Oni Lee's clones. I noticed you never shot when you could hit someone on the other side of the encirclement if Lung somehow dodged it or got moved, and you only shot at Lee's clones and Hookwolf all the time because both could take it. Or that's my generous interpetation of it. If not, you suck at teamwork. I'm going to choose to think you don't. I also noticed you kept shooting for his extremes. Feet and head. Were you trying to destabilise him or just hitting whatever the others weren't?"

Stormtiger shifted.

"Destabilise. Hook's good on the ground. Grappling's his thing. Lung can barely roll over if he hits the pavement, not with those wings." Stormtiger replied, and she paused, as this was the first time she actually heard his voice.

It was actually surprisingly soft for a guy who looked like he drank steroids instead of water.

She hummed, and nodded at him.

"Nothing much to criticise. Good aim, solid strategy, good teamwork. But get a goddamn vest for fuck's sake, why are you shirtless? One bullet and you're dead. A civilian could literally kill you with one lucky shot. I've no idea how half of you people are even still alive. Regardless, well done."

He might not have done it consciously, but he did straighten up a little, as if proud. Then he nodded stoically.

She imagined his efforts to be a supportive kind of fighter were rarely noticed or recognized.

Moving on to Cricket, who seemed to be very eager to fight her rather than Lung, with how she was eyeing her like a piece of meat, likely due to Akali's strange similarity to her own fighting style, she tilted her head.

"Honestly, not much to say here because Lung's a horrible matchup for you. You didn't get to do much if anything for me to point out. Good job on trying to disorient Lung later into the fight rather than charging in. Also, good effort on immobilising him early on by slicing half his tendons, but you almost got decapitated by both Krieg and Crusader in the process. Don't take such risks for advantages that won't last. I don't care if you don't give a shit about dying, I want you alive. Understood?"

Kricket did nothing but tilt her head, still staring at her.

A slow, slow nod.

Turning to Crusader, she gathered her thoughts.

Honestly, he was carrying the entire team at the end when Lung had wings and was practically melting Hookwolf by just breathing on him, because he was the only one who could punch through Lung with ease and relative safety. His spectral spearmen or whatever his power was trying to mimic were also a perfect match for fighting something like a literal dragon. The matchup was good for him.

"You're good at teamwork. Precise, patient. But, you're too reckless when you do commit. You overcommit when you see an opening, before you can see if the opening is a trap or not as wide as you thought. I spotted three times when you committed so many soldiers on Lung that he could and should have been able to punt Hook aside and just charge you before you could bring them back to you, and you'd be dead."

Crusader's lips pursed, but he nodded.

"Understood. I'll be working on that." He said, sounding oddly grateful.

A nice surprise. He wasn't a grumpy shit like the others.

"Good. Lung. You're going to learn hand to hand combat, both in human form and dragon form. Go with Lee for hand to hand. I'll teach you how to fight as a dragon later. Alright?" She 'asked', trying not to be too much of a hardass, and after a long second, Lung scoffed, going back to staring at Lee.

She furrowed her brows.

"Yes, or no?"

He glanced at her, genuine annoyance in his eyes, his scales slowly sinking back into his skin.

The emotion faded quickly.

He grunted something vaguely positive sounding, then turned to stare at a far window.

Shadow Stalker… she had some suggestions, but none that were urgent. She'd text them to her soon.

Plus, she wasn't going to go fetch her. They needed a lookout.

"Alright. Lee, come here."

He stepped close.

She extended her forearm, and pointed specifically at the upper muscle winding around her elbow.

"Shoot here."

He took out a pistol, and carefully aligned the barrel.

She tensed.

He shot, and she jerked her arm to her chest by instinct, letting out a startled, grunting cry that trailed off into a hiss.

She extended her arm, and looked at the red mess, pushing around it with her fingers, teeth grit as blood gushed out and hit the floor.

No exit wound.

Where the f... there.

She dug her thumb in, then up, jaw trembling with tension.

A crumpled, bloodied bullet clinked softly to the floor, and she spat out a sigh of relief, bending her head down to look, trying to judge the damage despite the blood hindering her.

The bullet had made it… about a third of the way through her upper forearm before it was stopped cold.

She wasn't bulletproof, but she was bullet resistant.

From just a couple hours of 'sparring'.

And she hadn't felt so… vibrant and full of life in a long, long time.

Sure, she'd lose much of this toughness when she converted and refined all this lifeforce into Qi so she could use it for more things, but this was… very significant progress for very little strain on the summon core.

And Lung was only fighting six or seven capes. How large could they get him if she brought everyone over and let him ramp up, carefully?

How much could she extract from him?

It certainly didn't affect him like it did her men. He looked fit as a fiddle, if somewhat exhausted.

She cast 'Heal', watching the injury flare green and fill up in an instant, like a reverse video of her injury played at a thousand times speed.

Lifting her head, she regarded the odd crowd around her.

Technically speaking, they were all just her slaves. Horrible people forced into servitude.

Still, she couldn't help but… appreciate them, somewhat, as they lost interest in why Lee was shooting their new boss, and scattered off in the corners to chat, or just laid flat on the floor like a starfish, choosing to take a power nap, in the case of Hook and Crusader.

Or they brought her an iced tea thermos, like Bakuda, beaming at her like a kid on Christmas.

She smiled at her, genuinely, and took it, staring down at it.

Manufactured as this… entire group was, it felt nice to have someone care so much they brought half a bag full of snacks and drinks just for her. Small thing, but nice all the same.

She rolled her neck with a sigh, pushing her face mask up and taking a sip.

It was pretty good, all things considered. Refreshing after boiling in a closed room for two and something hours.

She turned to a nervously expectant Bakuda, and pat her head, earning a… slightly manic grin.

"I like it. Thanks."

Bakuda fist pumped, practically hopping in place.

"Can I hug you?" Bakuda rushed out right after, and she opened her mouth to say no, immediately.

It didn't quite escape her.

She should put some distance here, realistically, but she felt bad for Bakuda. It would feel like kicking a murderous, deranged puppy with some extra guilt sprinkled in because she created the aforementioned puppy. 

That, and she still had Heartbreaker stalking about her mind, hovering around in the background of her thoughts, demanding she say no.

She was a bit conflicted.

She had about two hours left before she'd stop and start formulating a plan for the Master stalking about the Bay, so she forced herself to put the thought mostly aside, and turn to Bakuda.

"You know what? Sure." She said, and Bakuda surged forth, tools and clanking bits digging into her as Bakuda squeezed her like a paste tube, making a low, long, excited squealing noise of sorts.

She tentatively patted along her back, feeling a tad too uncomfortable to really hug back.

Unable to take another sip of her thermos, she lightly tugged Bakuda back, and Mia pulled away, beaming so bright it almost burned her eyes.

Bakuda leaned close, as if to whisper, and she tilted her head.

"Nuke's almost ready." Bakuda breathed out, barely audible.

Cricket's head shot up, staring at them.

Resisting the urge to groan, she sighed through her nose.

"No radiation, correct?"

Bakuda bounced in place, grabbing her shoulders and catching her eyes.

"None! Eco-friendly nuke!" Bakuda whisper-shouted.

She smiled at both how absurd that sounded and Mia's infectious joy, and Bakuda grinned so wide it was… kind of disturbing, like wow her cheeks could stretch really wide.

She nodded, and went to the lawn chair Bakuda had unfolded, sitting in it and resting as Bakuda bent down to show her a bunch of pictures off her phone. Mostly selfies and videos of her losing her mind about why one bomb wouldn't work or just vibing to music while handling dangerous explosives, singing along horribly and dancing in her chair.

How Mia hand't blown herself up yet, she wasn't sure.

Twenty minutes of humouring an extremely happy Bakuda later, she rose with a groan, and the capes took the hint, faint chatter pausing as everyone looked her way, and reluctantly got up themselves.

Bakuda moved her things out of the way, waving at Taylor as she took out a bunch of tiny mechanical parts, welding stuff on her lap in a crappy chair with a flashlight in her mouth and a magnifying glass taped onto a pincer arm she yanked out of nowhere. 

Tinkers.

Everyone took their familiar posts, Lung already starting to exhale smoke in the middle of their haphazzard circle.

She picked Akali once more.

"Go."

Chaos erupted, and for the first time, Lung actually dodged first instead of immediately attacking.

It probably shouldn't have made her proud, but it did.

Notes:

hoo boi this story is TOUGH

gonna go chill with Mom Militia chaps for a bit.

Next chap, action!

If you enjoyed, drop me a comment or two, they really motivate me and make me smile. See ya soonish maybe