38-39

It was hard to describe the constant, genuine torture that a migraine of this caliber was.

It wasn't just a migraine, it was her soul shredding and rebuilding itself to adapt to the summon core, and that only added to the pain, like drinking acid then a jug of lemon juice right after just to get it into those wounds real nice and deep. Conceptual pain, washing over the physical pain.

It was a hypertension in the veins around her head, a phantom sensation as if they were wriggling against the bone like living worms, that feeling like there was an ever-building pressure from the inside out from within her skull, that feeling of an odd pressure on the bridge of her nose and that scraping pain behind each eye mixing with a pain not unlike someone twisting a jagged spike of glass between the two halves of her brain, those were the things rendering her a complete vegetable for the better part of two days.

Learning on the third day that she apparently gave herself severe brain damage in the process of taking Alexandria and escaping, told to her by a silently annoyed Lisa, made her pause and silently be thankful for the Heal summoner spell.

So despite her desire to work, she gave it one more day after relaxing with Bakuda before she got to work, rather than none.

Maybe she'd remember what it was like to not be in pain again. That would be nice.

She still caught up on some of the lighter workload, of course. Absorbing information was frustrating and painful, but it didn't worsen her headache, so she spent her day very very slowly reading reports.

Catching up on what she'd missed was sobering.

Three days, and so much had happened already.

New PRT Director, Lung planning a counterattack on the Empire in their turf within the next day or two, Rune, Imp bugging The Rig, Coil using his shell identities and proxies to salvage whatever of his assets he could while the PRT declared him a national traitor.

She refrained from planning things out just yet, because she honestly didn't trust her ability to think clearly yet, but she went to sleep thinking of one thing in particular.

Those girls in Lung's club, the night she went to save Lisa.

"You sure you're alright?" Lisa asked for the umpteenth time, and she slowly rolled her head back, massaging the back of her neck.

She couldn't tell if the headache originated from there or if that sensation of pinched pain was something that was purely in her head.

"For fighting? No. For doing anything but using some of the basic shared powers? Absolutely not." She replied slowly, rolling her head in a careful circle. "But for planning and talking a little? I can do that just fine. It's been almost four days, Lisa. Coil's working himself to the bone out of guilt, I don't need you doing that too."

Lisa made a dubious sound, tapping her fingers on the table, other hand caressing the handle of the giant revolver tucked against her ribs as if it would reassure her.

"Well, I won't deny the help at this point. I have zero clue what to do with Rune."

She hummed.

"Do you think your assessment is accurate after the talk you had with her?"

Lisa nodded, leaning back to stare at the ceiling with her hands behind her head, her chair creaking with the motion.

"Yeah. She's not hard to read at all."

She nodded.

"Then this shouldn't be too hard. Worst case scenario, we're forced to imprison her until I can write a blood contract and then release her to go off and do whatever she wants."

Lisa groaned.

"How can you say shit like this without sounding the least bit worried?"

She shrugged.

"In my head, everything that can go wrong is inevitable. Even if it doesn't happen. Mental trick to not dwell on losses and just move on without stumbling. Works alright."

Lisa turned to her, making a strange, skeptical expression.

"So you… what, trick yourself into expecting everything to explode in your face so you won't be phased if it does?"

She nodded.

"I imagine it too. Easier to predict or consider outcomes that way. Plans and plans for things that might never happen."

"That sounds halfway between psychotic and genius." Lisa mumbled, her tone considering as she turned back to the ceiling.

"Hnm. I'm calling her in." She replied, and lifted the receiver to her mouth. "Liam, bring her in."

A moment of silence, before an affirmative was buzzed through with light static.

"How do you know everyone's name?" Lisa whisper-shouted, exasperated.

She tapped her lips, picking Evelynn and shapeshifting into a womanly replica of Coil's costume.

"The blood tracking power. He's at the door by the way, shush." She said, then changed her voice.

In the background of her head, she tried to feel for any exertion.

Holding Evelynn and shapeshifting shouldn't take much if any power comparatively, but she was still a bit cautious from the Mordekaiser incident.

That and her head still hurt like a bitch.

The door clicked open, and the merc stepped aside for Rune to walk in.

She looked like a rookie, with her casual clothes and the facemask plus domino mask combo she was rocking to hide her identity.

Lisa was leaning back, Coil was working in the back corner right behind her, and Taylor was lounging on an armchair to the side. The air was thankfully casual enough for the girl to thoughtlessly plop herself into the couch by the door.

Good. She wasn't tense, at least.

"Am I finally going to get an answer, or…?" Rune trailed off, crossing her legs, leaning on the armrest.

"You're going to get many answers." She said, and Rune glanced at her, then did a double take. A moment later, she looked to Lisa, and finally noticed Coil in the corner just past her, the air quickly tainting with suspicious confusion.

"... This is some sketchy shit, isn't it?" Rune breathed out in realization, glancing suspiciously between the three of them, and Taylor forced out a chuckle.

"What isn't, in this line of work?" She replied, and crossed her legs lounging back to appear as relaxed as can be. "So, for introductions. I'm nobody and my name doesn't matter. The information I'll be sharing with you will only be shared because you could be a very useful asset to us if you were to fully join up. For starters, I work for Summoner. And so do the Travellers, Coil, and Insight, formerly Tattletale. So if you were hoping to join the Travellers, be aware that their moniker isn't exactly accurate anymore. They'll be stationed in the Bay for a while, though we might send them around to do some chores. And if you still wish to join them, be aware that you'd be joining this secret circle of sorts."

Rune's apprehension and nerves slowly flared as she talked, and Taylor spread out a hand in a soothing manner, rolling her joints and fingers to smoothen the motion and draw her eye.

"Now, of course, this is not much different from a job interview, but be aware this is not a mere job. We're an organization."

"What're you called?" Rune asked, tense but genuinely curious, tilting her head a smidge.

"Nexus." She replied without missing a beat, then waved her hand in a 'moving on' fashion, rolling her wrist. "Summoner controls our organization, and nobody but a very, very select few are allowed to know anything about them. Do not expect to get information on them. Now, the specifics of our morals and mission statement are important, but they can wait until after you've felt us out a little more. Don't want to be asking too much from you to begin with."

A slight flare of irritation, and Rune crossed her arms.

"No offence, but get to the point?"

Good. She was annoyed with the flowery language she was using to get the girl impatient, but it was one of the steps in this song and dance.

"Bluntly put, the discussion should be about what you want, and what we can provide in exchange for having you onboard. Consider this like a job, and you'll climb high with good work. Consider this as a mission and a personal calling, and you'll climb even higher."

Rune made a short grunt of acknowledgement, a mixture of feelings best described as "interest" rising in the air.

"The first thing you should know if you join, is that we're more morally aligned with vigilantes than villains. We Master unredeemable villains, and for redeemable ones, we put them in the same chair you're in and talk. Heroes are fine to join too, if they don't mind our dubious mode of operation."

Rune stiffened, her eyes widening as they jerked to Lisa.

Lisa scoffed.

"Oh piss off Rune, I'm not mastered. I didn't do anything all that fucked up, so I didn't deserve it. I just joined the normal way. Coil, who was our employer back then, killed my whole team via Lung, all teenagers mind you, and tried to groom a literal child to use her superpowers for himself, so he got the full whammy treatment." Lisa interjected, jerking a thumb to Coil behind her.

"All true." Coil's quiet voice followed.

Rune was as tightly wound as a spring now, but it was best to rip off the bandaid from the start.

With a noisy gulp, the girl nodded.

"Okay. That's… I can get that." Rune slowly nodded.

Her emotions tasted… conflicted .

"Hm, good. Now, the second thing to know if you wish to join, is that you're likely going to end up working with people you hated or were enemies with, considering your position. We're looking into getting a couple of the Empire folk into our midst, and I'm afraid they're not as redeemable as you."

Rune's jaw worked side to side. "And who decides who is and isn't redeemable?" She asked.

"Summoner." She replied simply. "Everyone in the Empire barring Cricket and Othala have entire ledgers full of hate crimes, murders, kidnappings, extortion charges, the list goes on and on. They also don't have the excuse of young recklessness and confusion like you and Insight, for example, so you're not in danger just for having some unsavoury opinions that you never even acted on, don't worry."

Rune did feel a slight hint of relief, but the apprehension remained. She wasn't comfortable with being faced by something this large when she was just trying to join a small team and get out of dodge.

"The third thing to know, is that sometimes, you'll be told to do something, and you'll just have to do it. Sometimes you'll have to act like a soldier. Not all missions are safe to describe or explain. The fourth, is that the benefits for doing good work and keeping one's mouth zipped, are substantial." She finished, and motioned to Lisa.

Lisa sighed, and Rune's eyes went to her.

"Right, so. This is kind of a sales pitch thing to show that if you do good work, you're rewarded, and you are listened to. Like me, pretty much." Lisa started, and rolled one of her sleeves down, pointing a finger at her wrist, or rather, the inordinately shiny silken bodysuit she wore over it.

"This stuff? Three or four times stronger than steel. Not exactly Tinkertech, but definitely good enough to fistfight the guy and call it a draw. I'm essentially covered in three to four inches of steel from ankle to neck. Got this first. Yes it's really fucking warm, but I can take a shotgun to the gut point blank and only leave with a bruise." Lisa started, then pointed at the black bracelet on her wrist, poking and rolling it.

"This stuff? Also Tinkertech, from what I understand. Stamina and healing recovery multiplier. I can sleep like two hours and feel like I'm sleeping eight. I heal four times faster than normal. I've been here for just over two weeks."

Rune leaned forward a little, elbows on her knees, her interest skyrocketing.

Some people were really simplistic.

Rune was that exact type.

As long as she didn't feel too smothered and controlled, as long as she felt valued and respected, she would be a very happy girl.

So the entire pitch was to show her exactly what she wanted.

Progression, achievement, reward, respect.

Lisa grabbed a piece of rebar she'd put on her desk, then raised it so Rune could see it.

"And this little upgrade… " Lisa started, then grabbed the ends of the piece of rebar, starting to pull and twist with a choked grunt.

Her hands and arms shook violently in the process, but the piece of rebar bent and bent, until her knuckles were touching on the ends. She shook out her left hand, and raised the bar with her right to show off its bent shape to a stunned Rune.

"Was for being trustworthy. I got a little Brute package on top of my normal power. I can't exactly fistfight Alexandria, but I'm definitely on the low end of superhuman. " Lisa finished, putting the piece of rebar down with a clink.

"In case things like that don't motivate you, we also just pay in cold hard cash. We pay a retainer salary, but when we call, we do expect our agents to respond or be kicked out under a power-enforced NDA. That's the plan we gave Spitfire and Imp, for example. Imp did a job for us and got fifty grand for it. Spitfire is a bit more of a niche case to find a use for. But you… " She trailed off, tilting her head as if considering.

Rune looked at her, her feelings a mix of anticipation, apprehensive interest, and a covetous feeling of greed.

"We could use you for regular jobs, yes, but we can also use you as a weapon of mass destruction in the case of escalation."

Rune reeled back a bit, shaking her head.

"Wait, wuuhuuat? I just throw shit, I'm not a blaster." Rune said, took a quarter out of her pocket, and made it slowly orbit her head, gesturing to it in a ' see?' sort of manner.

"That is because you haven't gotten creative with it. Tell me, Rune, what do you think would happen if you were to simply run your hand over a giant box of grenades? What if you were to start pulling the pins? Could you not become a walking carpet bomber? Hook a finger through ten pins, pull, throw, repeat?"

Rune leaned back, taking in a deep breath through her mouth, blinking at her.

Lisa turned to her with wide eyes as well, not having expected that.

"I- uh… that's… really expensive."

She waved her hand dismissively.

Coil got their income up to twenty million a year by abusing his power as much as he could while she was a vegetable, and also started three offshore online casinos. They'd probably make more money than they could spend in a few months.

"That's for us to worry about. Now, tell me, what do you think would happen if you did the same thing... to a box of tinkertech grenades? Or a couple tons of C4 that the army uses to flatten buildings? "

Rune gulped, audibly.

"Oh. I uh…" Rune said, then covered her mouth over the facemask, glancing to the side. "Holy fuck. I could level half the city." The girl muttered, wide eyed, her emotions a mix of awe, horror, and inflating self-importance.

"We'd rather you didn't, but the possibility is there. We just need to get you to a good vantage point, and you can carpet bomb a place with perfect accuracy."

Rune turned to her, her arms shaking imperceptibly.

"Uh, no offence, but what the fuck would you ever need that much destructive power for?" Rune asked, and she cracked her neck.

"To turn Ellisburg into a burning memory, for example." She provided, and Rune went even more still, eyes wide enough to look a little comical. "That is what Nexus does. We take the monsters and enslave them to do good…" She trailed off, calmly gesturing to Coil as if a show woman on a stage. "Or, we exterminate them."

Her hand dropped to her lap.

"Before long, this city will belong to Summoner, and by extension, Nexus. If you join us, you might have to fight alongside your old comrades, now Mastered to be loyal to Nexus. You might have to fight alongside your old enemies, like Skidmark. You will have to listen and do what you're told sometimes, like a soldier would, and the price of betrayal is the same as with any operation in this kind of underworld. But in exchange, you will have all the support you could ever need, resources, and enough power and safety to never have to run away again."

Somehow, Rune didn't catch the insinuation that they knew of her past, chewing on the inside of her cheek.

"And, of course, if you can immerse yourself in an ideal that isn't centred around race and politics, a cause to believe in . We will make this world better, and Brockton is the first step. It must be, within reason. That is what we offer. Alternatively, if you decline, you'll have to wait a few days for us to draft a power-driven NDA contract that means you won't be allowed to reveal any of the information I've given you to anyone, and then be free to go on your merry way."

Rune gulped again, then cleared her throat, rubbing it and barely stopping herself from fidgeting.

"That's… a lot, lady." Rune choked out, uncrossing her legs to lean forward, chin in her hands, thumbs at her jawline.

"Hnm. Well, we like to operate on the assumption that people appreciate blunt honesty more than obscure 'need-to-know' b.s." She casually said with a shrug, fully aware that she was lying through her teeth because she lied and obscured a lot, especially with those in her employ who were weaker and could be snatched up by anyone with a Master sidekick to ruin her entire operation. Like unpowered people.

A minute passed in silence, the only activity in the room being Lisa giving her side-glances that screamed ' were you serious?' every once in a while. She had a mask exactly like Coil's as her face however, so she couldn't exactly silently emote to her, only whispering a 'yes' inside her mind to appease her curiosity.

Another minute passed, Rune's indecisiveness growing.

"Can I uh, get a couple days to think about this? This sounds like- like way more serious shit than what I was looking for. This sounds more serious than the Empire. I don't think I'm ready for this kinda stuff."

She frowned.

"Just in case I gave you a wrong impression, I'm not saying we'll only use you for gang wars or for mass destruction. Not at all. Most of your day to day won't change that much. Cape skirmishes, some patrols, you might get a small support squad of mercenaries to accompany you, might have to rough up some heroes, et cetera. It's just a possibility. Do you still want to take a few days to think about this?"

Rune shifted.

The girl was tempted. The girl was really tempted. But whatever thoughts were going through her mind kept making apprehension rise just a little bit higher than that temptation.

Rune nodded.

"Yeah. Give me a week, I'll tell you then. Can I still crash at the safehouse with the Travellers or am I getting kicked out?"

She made a dismissive motion.

"No no, feel free to stay. We'll talk in a week then. Take care."

Rune mumbled something out, rubbing at her neck, her coin orbiting her a little more aggressively than before as she rose up and walked out of the door.

The guard closed it, and Lisa leaned forward to groan.

"Holy shit, how do you make everything sound so dire and serious? " Lisa asked, and she dropped Evelynn to sigh.

"Depending on the case, I kind of have to be. I don't know what I might ask of someone when I get them by my side, but if I give them a false impression or a wrong idea of what to expect, they might reach a breaking point where they decide to turn on me. If I tell Rune I only want her to be a basic cape for muscle, then randomly decide to use her with Bakuda's bombs to glass Ellisburg into ash, she might naturally be extremely unprepared and stressed."

Lisa made a dubious face.

"Mentality and pressure are the most important things when it comes to managing people to fight in a war when they're not trained soldiers." She explained further, fighting not to dive back into her memories of trying to wrangle civilians and foreign populations into some kind of cohesive formation to face the Void in their last stand.

"Trained soldiers don't register pressure as much because they've been broken down or are simply used to it. That is the entire purpose of military training. That is what drill sergeants are meant for, and what every military wants. A perfect soldier is not a person, but an intelligent, methodical killing machine. When I don't have that, and I'm not sure I want to have that, my only option is to plan what I want to do with my people to the best of my ability and try to manage problems before they pop up. Like not randomly dragging Rune to smoke an S-class threat in the middle of the American countryside and expecting her to just roll with it without problems or hiccups. The soft pitch worked on Spitfire and Imp because we were their only option, and they didn't have much desire to strike it out on their own or leave. Rune is biting her nails to get out of the Bay, and you said she wanted either independence, or a feeling of advancement, or being important. I gave her so much of what she wanted with the latter two, that she's overwhelmed. She will join once she calms down a bit."

Lisa stared at her, her expression turning thoughtful and introspective, earnestly paying attention like a student in class.

"That… wow. I keep forgetting you've got uh, capes in your head." Lisa mumbled, and she snorted, tapping the side of her forehead gently because her head still hurt horribly.

"I don't have capes in my head, I was them. Now, tell SS to come back and stop orbiting her house and trying to approach her mom for the tenth time. It's been four days, she's not getting accepted back. If she cared about her mom that much she shouldn't have fucked us both over." She said simply, then dragged her phone out to catch up on reports.

"I think I accidentally started a new gang war right as I stopped the last one in its tracks." She mumbled, rubbing at her forehead.

"Maybe pulling all of our men back was a bad call on my part…" Lisa mumbled, rubbing at her face with an air of pure stress. "How bad is it?"

She tilted her head.

"Not that bad. Merchants are trying to butt into our territory, thinking we're gone 'cause the secret base isn't so secret anymore, being a hole and all that. Lung's going to move tomorrow into Empire territory. He doesn't care about us much anymore. Hookwolf is getting moved into max security next week, unfortunately, but the twins are being moved tomorrow. Around when Lung wants to hit the Empire. I don't think that's a coincidence. Lung somehow knows as well. He's going to strike at their territory while they're trying to get their losses back. And without the capes there, most of it is just going to be him torching Empire safehouses uncontested, if he knows where they are, at least until Purity gets back to him."

Lisa peeked up at her, and frowned.

"So why the fuck are you smiling?"

She smiled wider, baring her teeth, eyes half-lidded to limit the light coming in from the cracked window and torching her eyes.

"Three birds with one stone. I think it's time for 'Summoner' to start building a reputation around these parts. In the underworld, that's the shield and sword."

Lisa frowned deeper, and gestured around them.

"What about any of this screams 'time to make ourselves known' to you? Like, obviously you're way better at this than me, but logic is screaming at me that we should keep our head down."

She leaned back, and spread her hands.

"We're too spread out to hurt in any way that matters, and the things that do matter have a small, concealed army surrounding them. We're actually quite alright at the moment, though I would prefer a stable, super secure base. That, and t he clock is ticking. We need to go faster. "

So many things were piling up in the back of her head. She couldn't afford to slow down if the Cauldron bastards were truthful with her. She had to get stronger fast, in every way conceivable. Authority especially.

Lisa looked at her like she was insane.

" Faster? It's barely been two weeks since you came back from the asylum and you've got this- " She gestured around them, "-already. How much faster are you planning to go?"

She pretended to think really hard, looking up at the ceiling like it held answers.

"Yes." She simply replied, shoulders shaking with a silent chuckle.

Lisa rolled her eyes, grumbling something to herself.

Well, time to launch another one of her objectives.

"I'm calling the Travellers. It's high time they paid homage to their name. And tomorrow… three birds, one stone."

Lisa huffed.

"Okay dark and broody, gonna tell me what that means or will you keep speaking in villain quotes?"

"Shush. Evilly plotting my villainous plots right now."

"You're such a fucking nerd." Lisa groaned.

"This nerd is going to get a pet fucking dragon." She grinned, feeling nerves ramp up her spine.

Lisa's head jerked up with a wide eyed look, which slowly turned into a glare.

"Is your headache gone?"

"My headache can eat shit. Lung's more important than my recovery or our base."

Lisa huffed.

"And the other two birds?"

She opened her mouth, paused.

"Shouldn't Faultline be exiting Boston sometime soon?"

Lisa blinked at her, and nodded.

She hummed, tapping her fingers on the chair, her other hand rubbing her temples.

So many possibilities, so little time.

She'd just have to settle for three measly birds and a couple feathers.

"I'm going to call her to pick up an extra package. Going to use our favour on this. No, you can't know what it is. Some things I'm the only one who should know. Sorry."

Lisa glanced at the side with a deep breath, made a ' what can you do' sort of expression, then turned back to her with a sigh.

"Okay, but the two other birds you mentioned aren't a part of that, so, tell me."

She shifted.

"Right. First, we're going to need a space to house… about two hundred and fifty people total, and a trustworthy fed we can keep at arms length, that isn't corrupt or connected to the gangs in any way. I think Coil's got a few of those in a folder, just in case he wanted to give anonymous info on his enemies to them."

"I do." Coil quietly piped up, and she gave him a thumbs up that he didn't see.

Lisa's gaze turned deadpan.

"This is going to fucking suck, isn't it?"

"It's not going to be glamorous or cool, but we'll do something good. Purely good, for once. Open a general mission form for the tech team to send to the strike teams, explain the plan as I tell you."

Lisa nodded, and turned to the computer, cracking her fingers.

She observed her picks.

All people she'd gotten blood samples of and Mastered.

"Gentlemen. Do not draw attention to yourselves, at all. Remain glued to your posts until further notice. Once I've dealt with the first batch, you will move on to the second batch, and then immediately rush to the last two. The file has everything you need to know in it, but I'm going to state this again. Nothing traceable. No security cameras, one single burner phone, no cards, purely mechanical vehicles, all rentals, low tech motels, change clothes frequently, everything outlined in the security section. Understood?"

A mute, almost synchronized nod from the five men.

"Good. Your flights all leave tonight, some sooner than others. Go."

They saluted in a bunch of different ways, some doing classic American salutes, some doing African ones and one doing a... European one? Something quite odd to see even without their civilian clothes.

They scattered to their vehicles.

With that taken care of, she had another hundred mercenaries to mobilise and organise for a type of mission she was sure they were not familiar with.

And some PR to prepare, just in case she needed it. This new Director seemed like a pain.

She flickered, opened her phone, and called a familiar number. A ring, two.

"Hello?"

"Maria. I need you to do something." She said, not bothering to change her voice.

The woman gasped.

" Oh, of course! Right now?"

"It's a process, but I want you to begin today. I'll send an encrypted file with instructions, password is the day we met. Give it five minutes."

" Alright!"

"Have a good day, Maria."

" Thank you T-, er, Sam. You too."

She flickered back to herself and to Evelynn again, fast enough to seem instantaneous, ended the call, and dug a stack of golden glowing cards out of her jacket, waving over the nearest mercenary, barely visible through the afternoon murk and the stacks of supplies in the way, half-covered in tarps.

He came to her, and she handed him the stack.

"Don't drop these. Take them to the TMN safehouse just over, give them to Rune. Tell her they're stun cards, as a gift from upper management."

He nodded, and immediately rushed off.

God, she fucking loved how professional these guys were. So much time saved on pleasantries and managed egos.

Evelynn and Mastering just helped that along even more, even if she hadn't Mastered all of them yet.

She rolled her neck with a slight sigh of relief.

She'd almost forgotten what it was like to not be wearing earphones or earplugs of varying degrees.

Brockton Bay stretched out before her, warm midday sunlight crawling over urban decay, caressing the shattered sidewalks and bringing life to the reeds popping out between the cracked bits of concrete. A soft sea breeze mixed with rust and smoke wafted into her nostrils as she leaned back, eyes half-lidded, sitting against a power box on an abandoned factory, seven stories up and feeling like the world was suddenly oh so insignificant, the thick concrete rough against her pants as she shifted.

Her hand gently brushed up and down her phone, waiting for the buzz as she enjoyed the peace before the storm.

Five minutes passed.

Ten.

Finally, it came, and she opened her phone.

L: driving

L: 20 mins

She liked how Lee texted.

She turned her head up, enjoyed the last bit of relative peace she'd find for a bit, prayed to gods that didn't exist that her headache wouldn't coast back into a migraine by the time she was done, and got up, sitting on the edge and flicking to the custom blackbox app her men used to communicate.

She typed a simple message, rushed through two passwords, checked all the team captains, and send it.

Go.

She didn't have to wait more than thirty seconds for the first eruption of full-auto gunfire to crack through the rumbling background buzz of cars moving through Coil's territory.

Much as it felt like a waste, a message had to be sent.

She already got some of the extra feathers.

Now, to wait for the PRT to foolishly send people to check what's going on, and get the birds.

She picked Evelynn, as per usual, and flew high over the Bay.

Her territory was covered in gunfire, and soon, dead Merchants would litter the gutters where rats like them crept through, whether those gutters were literal or not.

It wasn't unheard of for gangs to use the sewers to smuggle drugs.

Thankfully, having professional soldiers eased her mind about accidentally killing any innocent people. Trigger discipline was generally good, and very few of them were war criminals.

… When she put it like that, it actually sounded significantly less reassuring.

But all that was a mere distraction.

She turned, an invisible mass of smoke, and flew towards Empire territory, switching to the Rune of Domination and locking in the Predator effect, thinking of Oni Lee as her prey.

Almost immediately, the Predator effect ramped up and she sped to twice the speed of the average car, a thin trail of translucent red ribbons of energy following behind her as she dove up towards the clouds.

Two minutes later, Ultimate Hunter pointed her down, and so she dove down, swapping Runes to get rid of the effect.

Below, a simple, nondescript Honda Civic calmly moved down the street, and cut to the right, towards an equally unassuming apartment building.

One that she was sure was only open to Empire members.

All she had to do now was wait.

So she did, materialising on the lip of an opposing roof and calmly watching as the car slowly rolled to a stop on the curb, almost politely so.

Oni Lee and Lung walked out of the car, swinging the doors shut and walking with casual disregard towards anyone watching.

She switched to the Rune of Resolve for the sub-effect of Overgrowth, and burst into invisible smoke again, floating closer.

If people had to die here, the least she could do was hover around to steal some of the fading lifeforce off their corpses with Overgrowth.

After punching Alexandria, she felt much more solid in her base form, even if she didn't have enough lifeforce to start Qi training just yet, so every bit counted.

Since her base state was additive to any Legend she equipped, her real body was almost more important than any one Legend she could think of.

Lifeforce excess also helped her recover from overusing the summon core. It might have taken her a bit under a week to recover if not for Alexandria's generous contribution.

She floated close enough to hear what they were saying.

Turns out, it was nothing.

Neither of them were men of many words.

One of the pretend-bums lounging around the front steps finally saw them, and his eyes bugged out as he opened his mouth, tensing his legs.

A blink of an eye later, in the middle of the man jumping to his feet, a second Oni Lee had a giant combat knife shoved through the soft spot of his chin and into his brain, the clone left behind pausing and watching as the man briefly jerked, pawed at Oni Lee's mask, then collapsed on the steps, crimson pouring down his front and down the steps.

Lee wiped the knife on his vest.

The man's soul detached from his body, and his lifeforce detached from his soul, like a doll falling apart at the stop of his heart.

Overgrowth plucked a piece of that fading lifeforce and shoved it into her.

It didn't feel much like anything, simply like she had a few seconds of idle rest, but if it was even noticeable, it was worth it. One little piece at a time, she'd grow tougher.

Oni Lee stepped around the man, and moved to the back of the building as Lung strolled in over the corpse, fire wreathing his fists as his eyes began to softly glow.

There wasn't anything she would be doing here, so she floated close to the man's corpse, and felt at his soul, idly, not wanting to strain herself at all before it was time to.

There wasn't much the soul could really do here, in this world. There was no afterlife nor spirit realm for it to go to, so it would just sit here in a void-like limbo until it faded into nothing with time. Depending on the man's will and the soul's weight and strength, that could be anywhere from a couple days to a decade.

She inwardly hummed, wracking her brain as the first blasts of fire and screaming began to sound out from the building to her right, largely ignoring it.

Souls…

Some Legends could put souls to good use.

They were also a wonderful forge ingredient, however dark and immoral the practise might have been considered in Runeterra. Here, the souls wouldn't go anywhere regardless of what she did with them, so that moral dilemma was eliminated. She could make some wonderful artefacts with a few hundred souls…

She had to do a quick experiment.

She looked to her right, at the broken lobby wreathed in fire and a couple charred corpses, and flew in.

She picked Thresh, The Chain Warden, softly landing on the melting linoleum floor with metal greaves.

Instantly, the idle souls in the lobby and just outside grew a little more corporeal, his unworldly presence distorting the world just enough for them to be visible as green motes of softly bobbing lights, like candle flames.

To her, they were far more vivid and descriptive. Like little animated snow globes, showing her the essence of who that person used to be.

Without much delay, she stepped through the flames, and lazily swung her lantern close to the souls by its chain, brushing over the flaking corpses' bodies.

Expectedly so, the souls flew into the lantern, pulled in by its grasp as if magnetised.

Mordekaiser's mace, Nightfall, was just a gigantic, modified version of Thresh's lantern. It took in souls, chewed them into soulfire, and spit them out for power and violence.

Thresh's lantern on the other hand, was simply a prison for the souls. Storage, so to speak, so the sadistic spectre could bring them back to his broken mausoleum and torture them for all of eternity.

She raised the lantern up to her face, stepping to the side slightly to avoid a direct sightline with the street outside, and curiously watched the two souls swirl and bob along their infinite prison.

Better than oblivion, as far as she was concerned, but not by much.

She flickered back to Evelynn, and with a simple hope, turned back to Thresh, lantern in hand right where it used to be.

The souls were still there.

That opened up so many possibilities. She could theoretically store souls for however long she wished.

She turned back to Evelynn, and flew back out through the flames before banking upwards, sticking to the outside balconies and slowly rising to match Lung's rampage through the apartment building as he torched what had to be hundreds of thousands dollars worth of supplies, drugs, and manpower, content to wait for her bounty of souls.

If Oni Lee did as planned, she'd get her visual cover very soon, and she could move in to snatch some souls. Maybe she should stalk back to her territory tonight and catch some of the Merchant's souls as well.

More gunshots sounded out, and three minutes in, with the lower half of the building bellowing flames and smoke like the angry roots of a forge, Lung stopped and began to make his way back down the staircase.

She dashed up to the building's rooftop, ignored the locked door being rattled by a panicked group, and flickered, phone in hand.

Only one Hero showed up to the pandemonium her men unleashed, alongside two dozen police cars.

Thankfully her men weren't morons and were currently using the exit and retreat routes to lose the cops rather than fighting them.

Which was perfect, because Brockton Bay police might be about thirty to forty percent gang lackeys, but the rest were the only thing keeping this city somewhat upright. She'd need them in the future, no sense killing innocent, good people.

Mostly.

It wasn't going exactly according to plan, but it had worked.

Her idea had been to draw PRT resources towards her men right as the transport began with a Bakuda bomb to make people think capes were involved. That way, by the time Lung began his rampage, the heroes would already be engaged in two different activities, guarding the convoy from the Empire and chasing her men. Lung could rampage through Empire territory without any heroes interfering.

After Lung and her defence of her territory started, the secondary objective would start, and her remaining men would regroup and sweep through the ABB's human trafficking business. Lung would be busy, there would be believable reasons for Bakuda and Lee to not get involved, the Empire would be busy, the heroes would be busy… her men would have complete free reign to quickly bulldoze through Lung's primary business, even if something went horribly wrong and she ended up not getting Lung under her thumb.

Inwardly, she was still a little nervous about giving over any of the girls to the official authorities.

Perhaps she was overly paranoid, but she did not trust the Brockton Bay police with handling trafficking victims, especially this many of them. She understood that roughly less than half of the police officers were corrupt, but when talking about a police force, that was still a horrid track record.

Hence, Coil got them a generally trustworthy FBI agent based in Washington who would be very grateful to them for making his career. After all, if it was merely her men who did the entire rescue operation and transport, there wouldn't be any need for the PRT to get involved.

Great as that plan was, it had holes, and already, one of them was blown open. She hadn't expected the PRT to send one Hero to the shootout.

The door continued to rattle behind her, and she briefly debated opening it, before discarding the idea with an annoyed sigh.

The building was going to ex-

Right on queue, four bizarre, almost bell-like scrapes and pops sounded out from below, and a shockwave moved through the building.

She flickered to store her phone back with her real self, and burst into smoke again, flying off and turning to watch the building be wracked by vibrations one wouldn't find in historical earthquakes, undulating and twisting, plaster and concrete snapping piece by piece in seconds all over the building, balconies crumbling to the bare rebar within, windows breaking and feeding fresh air to the fires below.

Then, almost like a planned demolition, a testament to Bakuda's mastery, it just collapsed in on itself, the resulting dust wave mixing with the fires below.

She dashed down as it fell, rushing around the building, feeling bits of lifeforce rush within her piecemeal from the dead and dying inside.

Fun fact she learned from her many, many, many days spent making makeshift explosives in Zaun and Piltover…

Many, if not most types of dust can be detonated if their particles are fine enough and closely packed enough to create combustion.

She jerked to a halt in sheer surprise as the building exploded, a relatively dry burst of flame before it extinguished, leaving her startled and expecting immense amounts of pain for a moment before she remembered that she was currently incorporeal.

The explosion could barely be called such, there was no concussive force to it, but the sound was loud.

With only a bit of internal annoyance, she moved above the building, picked Thresh once more, and dropped like a rock within the swirling dust cloud, the chain leading to her lantern rattling through her gauntlet as it extended out like a living thing, prodding and floating, swimming through the dust, souls dragging through rubble to her lantern as she dragged it in a wide circle, digging her greaves into lopsided chunks of concrete and fighting not to lose her balance.

If Lung saw a haunting green light moving through the dust in wide circles, that might be a slight issue, so she did her best to be quick and to keep the soulfire inwards, making herself as dark as could be when using a sadistic glowstick to gather souls. 

After feeling about two dozen or so souls squeeze through the lantern and nestle together within, she stopped, deciding that getting more would take too long, and turned back into Evelynn, going invisible and dashing upwards to the sky.

The first thing she saw was Lung, half-turned towards the rubble of the building and watching it like a hawk, just twenty paces off the edge of the rubble.

Ah, crap.

She had assumed he would have just gotten into the car immediately to go to the next target.

She floated closer.

Lung continued to watch the dust, before he marginally relaxed, turning towards the car, smoke and steam wafting off his shoulders.

"Chains…?" He rumbled to himself, wary confusion wafting off him as he walked to the car, which made sense since both Hookwolf and Stormtiger had chains involved in either their costumes or power.

Still, he heard her? Through the sound of a dozen tons of shifting rubble?

Enhanced senses were so damn annoying.

They got in the car, and Oni Lee began to drive.

She dashed ahead, already knowing their route, and a mile down, sat across the street from the defunct little house the Empire used to stockpile their guns, flickering back and forth to place her phone in her hand.

Luckily, the console operators took in the frantic reports of her men and made a summary for her in real time.

The assault on the Merchants had worked, but could have gone better. Most of her men were out, but one team of five got cornered and were now in a barricaded shootout with the cops, while another had lost a man to return fire from Merchants.

The Travellers weren't around, and Shadow Stalker couldn't help because they couldn't have her associated with Coil. The narrative for her was that she escaped Coil's capture and went back to her vigilante roots.

Lisa and Coil were handling it, thankfully, though the summary was vague enough to frustrate her on how. She wasn't sure what Spitfire could do against a police encirclement, and it was very dangerous to send her into that. She hoped they weren't about to lose the girl.

That barricaded squad bothered her.

If they were Mastered, they would rather surrender to the cops and the PRT than risk actually killing law enforcement.

If they weren't Mastered, they'd likely stall and be very trigger happy, because risking their life and employment with her was preferable to rotting away in a prison for twenty years for the dozens of charges they'd get for their involvement in this business.

Lee's car sped down the street, and she idly watched, moving her phone down out of sight of the vehicle.

Being invisible was so nice.

She glanced down to her phone for the second ongoing mission, though judging by the ever-increasing amounts of gunfire in the far distance, she could guess that it was well underway.

No progress reports other than one of the brothels they were clearing out having a few prostitute casualties due to some of the girls being given guns by the gangsters, and another location having a hostage situation that was stalling her men out.

Imp was sent to that one.

Not the best introduction to this life for Aisha, having to infiltrate a seedy brothel and see a heap of gangster corpses on her way into a hostage situation, but things just didn't always work out perfectly.

A hail of gunfire came from across the street, and she glanced up, flickering her phone back to her real form and bursting into invisible smoke to float closer to the squat, burning building, absorbing life force as Lung and Lee did their grim work, clones flashing around within the insides of the windows with flashes of light and sound accompanying them, Lung busy with melting down the first floor of the two-story house.

She wasn't going to risk getting more souls, not after he heard her, so all she could really do was stick close and wait for the inevitable.

It was a rather morbidly mundane thing to do, to just sit there and watch carnage happen, glancing at the uneven jagged skyline and waiting for a star to come shooting past any second…

Lung got in the car again, leaving police and firemen sirens to slowly trail in the wake of fire he left behind, and Lee began to drive once more.

She frowned, flitting up above the urban sprawl and squinting into the distance, swapping to the Rune of Precision.

She could see the flashes of white light in the far side of the city, right at the edge, but that was it.

Purity wasn't coming.

They didn't have Rune either, and that was about the extent of Movers the Empire had.

She frowned.

They either left their territory undefended completely to get the twins back, or left behind someone she wasn't expecting.

The first felt unlikely.

She also couldn't even think of interfering with what was going on with the convoy, or else Coil would go into a seizure or something. She wasn't even sure which timeline this one was, not unless Lisa texted her to do something.

She pursed her lips, and flew higher.

Her head jerked to the side, catching something… very glittery, rushing towards the burning buildings, and another, more indigo in color.

It took her a couple seconds to realize New Wave's Lazerdream and Shielder decided to butt their heads in, and with a frustrated humm, she swerved in wide circles above the car like an invisible vulture.

It took a second, but she caught sight of Glory Girl tailing the car from down low as well, seemingly disconnected from her siblings. Or was it cousins?

No sight of Empire capes though.

And why the hell were New Wave bothering with fires rather than the massive fights erupting across half the bay?

Maybe the kids were sent to something less dangerous while the adults brawled with the Empire? But since when did the PRT have such good communication with hero teams?

Was this Tagg's work?

And where the hell were the Empire capes? She refused to think Kaiser was stupid enough to not consider this possibility.

Something was off, but not in an alarming way, just in a way that didn't quite fit.

She stepped on the metaphorical gas, and zipped to the next safehouse, an abandoned-looking office building absolutely full of illegal contraband, wafting in through a window and sweeping the building.

Then she paused, materialised, and swiped razor-sharp claws through the top of one of the cocaine sacks, picking up a bit of the powder with a tip of a claw then running her tongue over it.

She scowled.

It was flour.

She floated down to a room where music was blaring, and wrinkled her nose.

Guns, cigarettes, pizza boxes, game console, weed, and six morons…

These guys didn't look like Empire gangsters, they looked like bums and junkies with nazi tattoos.

She tilted her head, trying to think like Kaiser.

It wasn't hard to figure out what he did.

The Empire had prepared for someone to try to fuck over their house while they were away, so they set up decoy resources and put up the least useful grunts as a sacrifice to make anyone who attacked think they were actually achieving something.

Maybe they were even stationed here because they were moles, or disloyal to the cause, or just general, low quality degenerates.

Kaiser seemed to think a lot like her. Three birds, one stone. Protect his assets, get rid of internal problems, and also gain a way to whip his supporters into a frenzy over their 'brothers' being killed by the japs, a nice morale boost centred on revenge, most likely.

She had a feeling she'd quite like working with the scumbag when she grabbed him, current character aside.

What this meant however, was that the Empire hadn't bothered with stationing someone for defence, most likely. And it also meant they wouldn't be sending anyone to soften up Lung for her.

Thankfully, Glory Girl might be able to pick up the slack. The girl was indestructible as far as she knew.

She turned back around and rushed to the car, floating outside it and reaching for Oni Lee's mind.

Glory Girl is tailing you. She's going to do the Empire's job. Act normal. Distract after retrieval and run.

Lung looked out the window, and Lee took the opportunity to nod in acknowledgement.

She turned back towards the same office building she'd left behind.

This time, she touched down to the side of the entrance, hiding behind an overgrown bush as she flickered her phone back into her hand, sending a simple message then flickering to put it away again.

Floating up a little, she watched the car roll to a stop over the course of a long minute, from all the way down the street, and followed closely as Lee and Lung walked out.

She glanced up and to the side.

Glory Girl had taken her phone out, far above, and was watching it with clear hesitance, gaze flicking from the duo to the screen and back.

She switched to the Rune of Inspiration, and raised a brow at what she got.

Well well, Victoria Dallon had a vicious streak, and once had a destiny of greatness.

She hoped her existence hadn't derailed that, truly, but right now, she just wanted the girl to go down and beat the fuck out of Lung. She'd do it herself, but first, that would eat up her summon core time, and second…

If Lung ramped up from danger, it raised some issues with Mastering him.

That meant his power had some measure of control over him, and she couldn't exactly afford to just ambush and take him, on the off-chance he ramped up while she was Mastering him.

Evelynn wasn't heat-proof. She could take some heat, but she'd seen Lung melting streets just by walking on them when he's fighting. The PRT had footage. If he ramped up enough, she might have to forcibly back up from the sheer heat and then have to fistfight him into descalating again.

Wasteful, noisy, sloppy, and honestly, a bit dangerous. She didn't outclass him by that much.

She also didn't know if the Nullification Orb would work on his internal heat. It wouldn't work on his physical growth because it nullified expressed abnormal phenomena, as well as magical ones, but it didn't touch internalised ones, and that was by Ryze's design.

So it would block his fire, but would it block his inner heat that made him a walking furnace?

She had no clue.

Oni Lee took out a gun, cocking it as they walked up to the entrance.

A pedestrian turned the corner, saw the scene, and froze, a moment before Glory Girl shoved her phone into a pocket under her skirt, hurriedly zipped it, and then dashed down.

Lung's ear seemed to catch the sound of something flying at him with the speed of a janky missile, and he whirled around, fire on his fists.

Lee did the same, leaving behind a clone as he teleported away, popping shots off at her with both of them.

Glory Girl actually took a strange corkscrew motion for some reason, then slammed into Lung feet first.

She heard the crunch of shattering ribs a moment after Lung seemingly teleported into the soil, an explosion of dust and pavement fragments shooting up as the entire street jumped from the impact, the office building swaying a little, visibly.

Alexandria Jr. didn't get to heroically pose on top of him, as Oni Lee made another two clones, and popped off a dozen shots at the center of the dust cloud, forcing her off.

…But why did that force her off? Surely bullets wouldn't do anything to her…?

Glory Girl dashed up, and flew in an odd, zig-zagging form, dodging bullets and dashing down to tear a stop sign off the street, using it as a weapon as she tried to catch up with the dozen forming and scattering clones, using the concrete end as a mace and ripping the stop sign off to throw like a frisbee at another clone, scattering him to ash.

She frowned.

Alexandria junior had decided to dodge bullets not once, nor twice, but thrice?

Maybe it was just a thing of principle, to dodge things even if she was pretty sure they wouldn't even scratch her, but as Lung rose from the crater, shouldering a heap of rubble off himself with a grunt, Glory Girl kept focusing on Oni Lee.

She was either trying to stop Lung from ramping up by ignoring him, or Oni Lee could hurt her.

Somehow.

She scowled.

If only the PRT had more info on the girl...

Just as she was about to call out to Lee's mind to start missing on purpose, just in case, Lung turned and swung a giant piece of broken street tile in Victoria's direction.

The girl didn't see it, and dodged straight into it, still trying her best to dodge Oni Lee's shots, and it shattered on her back harmlessly as another volley of gunfire mixed in with the sound of shattering tile.

A girlish scream sounded out as Victoria lost control of her flight and slammed into the street, shoulder first, and violently rolled in a move that would have likely messed up someone else.

All three of them paused, and then stayed still for a moment as Glory Girl laid on the street, silent.

Lung dug himself out, tilting his head.

She moved first, racing to the girl, and blinked down with incomprehension at the small but quickly growing bloodstain in the girl's uniform, just above her left hip, accompanied by a hard-to-spot bullet hole.

What?

She hesitated.

She could Heal her right now, but that would reveal her to Lung.

Oni Lee teleported, and a clone rushed forward, roughly kicking the girl onto her back, revealing skid burns along her shoulder, the dark, deep purple of underskin bleeding, likely from a torn muscle, along her collarbone, and closed, fluttering eyes, heavy with a dazed incomprehension.

Was she concussed?

Fucking how?

Did her power only have a ninety percent chance of blocking damage or something? Was it a barrier that could break if damaged enough? She had watched Oni Lee's bullets with the Precision Rune, there was no chance more than three or four of them even hit the girl, but she was laid out on the concrete by only one of them.

She briefly thought back to Lisa's musings on the new director and the incident at the bank, and scowled.

Again, stupid kids not realising that acting tougher than you really are will just make people kill you by complete fucking accident. Her reputation of invincibility seemed like it was ready to bite her in the ass.

"Leave her." Lung rumbled, surprisingly, and she turned to him, confused as Lee's clone turned to ash. "Come." He growled through the dust, and swung a hand full of fire to sweep most of it away, calmly walking to the office building.

Lee followed.

She glanced up, and saw a half-dozen people looking through the windows. Two opened, at the same time, and a rifle barrel clumsily got shoved through from each, pointed down, the gangster's heads barely visible.

She glanced down at the girl, scowling.

She had zero clue how the girl's power worked. Leaving her here in the open to turn to swiss cheese wasn't an option.

Heroes… incompetent fucking idiots. Couldn't even do her job for her.

She reached for Lee's mind.

Plan C. Now.

Oni Lee calmly walked up to the entrance right behind his boss as he swung the door open, slowly putting his gun as close as he could to the base of Lung's spine.

She materialized, still invisible, and grabbed the girl by the collar of her white costume, before switching to the Rune of Resolve, locking the Guardian effect, and dropping low to the ground, lunging forward and to the side right as a hail of gunfire burst down to both Glory Girl and the two figures right outside the building's door.

Even through the gunshots, she heard Lung's enraged roar, and jerked her head to the right just in time to see him collapse, one single, spasming arm spewing fire and sweeping towards Lee's legs.

She saw him teleport, and the clone left behind grabbed the special 'sample' she'd given him from the small of his back, a syringe with a clear, shimmering liquid, darting forward.

Newter's body fluids better work, because she was out of plans.

Lee dodged to the side again, a spew of fire missing him and lighting the dry shrubs to their side on fire, and grabbed a limp arm, slamming the syringe into Lung's arm as it swelled in size, his former boss's limbs jerking like faulty equipment.

Lee teleported again, and another clone with a syringe full of Newter's body fluids grabbed Lung's leg. Another stuck the pistol back against Lung's spine, and began mercilessly dumping the entire mag into his spine, while another grabbed a small grenade of Bakuda's design, and another clone aimed up at the windows, firing back at the gangsters to get them to back off a little.

Lee could handle the heat for a little bit.

She turned her head around to not slam into something or someone, and her eye flit over an abandoned business to the right, foggy dirty glass covered in 'selling' signs with a completely stripped, empty interior.

It would do.

She wrapped an arm around Glory Girl's waist, turned, and only minutely flinched in surprise as the first bullet finally hit them, Guardian's pale transparent barrier of green bursting to life around them with a sound of something vaguely like a vine and metal snapping taut at the same time.

She kept forgetting how fucking loud the Runes were.

She leapt clean over a car, slammed her foot down through the sidewalk, and lunged through the glass front, shoulder first, digging her other heel and her feelers into the floor and walls to stop her momentum, leading to a tide of snapping boards and scattering drywall dust to fill the already dusty interior.

She set down Glory Girl none too gently, switched to the Rune of Inspiration, hurriedly double cast Heal on the girl, and dashed back out.

There was probably something comedic about Lung's enraged flailing as he tried to snarl things at Oni Lee through a deformed jaw, but she was mostly concerned with the fact he was moving, even if it was drunken stumbles and wild flailing to get Oni Lee's clones to get off him, each armed with another duplicated syringe.

She loved these obscure power interactions. They were so convenient.

The problem was that Lung was now seven and a half feet tall with less than a minute of fighting, Glory Girl combined, and he wasn't slowing down, his pants tightening and rolling up to his ankles as he beefed up, tiny spikes erupting from every inch of his skin and slowly flattening and growing out into scales.

Iron scales weren't penetrable by syringes, even the thick custom ones they got. Once he had that down, he'd slowly burn through Newter's drug, most likely, and Lee would be in trouble.

She pursed her lips, and grew annoyed with the gunfire coming from up top.

Lee kept dedicating one clone to peppering shots up at them to drive them to duck down and lose sight of him, but one lucky bullet on the back of his head where the mask didn't cover, the real him, and he was dead.

She dashed up as smoke, cut a tight turn and flit past the gangsters, materialising behind them.

A quick switch to the Rune of Precision for both guidance, and to stack her permanent Rune effects, and with a single long, spinning swipe of her feeler that whistled violently through the air for a fraction of a second, she cut all six of them in half through the waist, blood splattering all over the wall and window as ropes of guts and viscera burst out to the side in a gory display, bits of drywall bursting over the wounds from where she nicked the wall.

One of the gangsters shooting through the window had enough time to let out a choked scream and flail his arm to grab the window sill before the darkness took him, and he slid off the window's ledge to limply fall onto his lower half like a limp puppet.

The feeling of her runes' permanent effects stacking all at once was quite satisfying, but she still felt vaguely displeased that she had to do this.

She flew back out the window, glancing quickly at the other windows flanking it, extending her soul senses as far as she could.

The rest of the Empire gangsters seemed to be far more focused on running away from the back door, or trying to smuggle their "precious" cargo away while the cape fight happening outside played out.

She glanced down, and cast Exhaust on Lung.

Eddying lines of yellow-brown energy coiled around his limbs like a cover, sapping him of strength and speed and energy as he burned through clone after clone, stumbling like a drunkard, shouldering cars aside to stumble out into the street.

A half dozen clones continued to pepper him with high caliber rounds, unloading entire magazines of ammo into his face and legs, barely missing the other three or four clones jumping close to jam more syringes into the man's soft bits and flesh as he tried to cover himself with a boxing stance.

She reached for Oni Lee's mind, easily finding the real version of him by his soul despite the flickering mess of a fight.

Keep going until he's ramping down and spent. Play it safe. Do not die.

He naturally didn't respond, instead finally digging around his back with his free hand for a secret pouch to take out Bakuda's surprise gift.

She couldn't help but be silently impressed with Oni Lee's performance. It was making her reevaluate his worth.

Oni Lee's reputation was that of a dangerous lackey, but in a gang with Lung, he just didn't compare in the scale, for most people. Even to her.

Yet, with some preparation and a bit of Newter's spit, he was matching Lung, one for one, peppering shots and teleporting around with almost mechanical precision, slowing Lung's ramp-up by jabbing him with what had to be a small bucket's worth of hyper-psychedelic drugs.

He might even win, because Lung's movements were not getting better by his body slowly shifting. The proportions of his changing limbs were throwing Lung off before the drugs went into play and turned his world into an acid trip, and it was only making Lee's job easier.

Another series of teleports, and Lung let out a low sound like a groaning mumble which was likely supposed to be a roar, swinging a fist wide, spewing fire in a spinning vortex out of his knuckles, popping three clones, then stumbled backwards, sending a blast of fire in the complete opposite direction at seemingly nothing.

Lee saw an opening, and teleported in, then out, the clone left behind pressing Bakuda's device against the middle of Lung's back before slamming the handle of its gun into the big red button.

Another fun fact… the more muscle someone had, the more effective a taser was on them. More things to electrify and force into contraction.

The first sound Lung made could best be described as a screaming gargle as he locked up and dropped on his face, Bakuda's bomb drilling into his back and hooking in, cooling fluid screaming as it wafted through the mechanisms and instantaneously evaporated, an ear-grating electrical buzz drowning out even the sound of gunshots as it kept unloading its charge.

She could even see a couple tiny arcs of lightning come out of the ejection coils buried in Lung's back, if she looked at it with the Rune of Precision.

She couldn't help but feel a little… disappointed, almost. It was a reminder that he was mortal and more than beatable.

Still, he was her best shot at stopping an Endbringer in their tracks, so she was hardly going to lower his priority level.

Lee was going to win, quite handily. Not without a bunch of tricks, but he would.

She'd hoped not to have to resort to plan C, because this would reveal something very odd and fishy going on in the ABB to any outsider who saw this, but she didn't have other options. Not ones that wouldn't slow her down.

She'd need a lot of force multipliers to match Cauldron. Slowing down… she could do it, but at what cost in the long run?

She floated up and to the side, and spared a quick glance at the skies and streets, making sure nobody was about to interrupt Lee, and saw nothing aside from one civilian in the corner of the street, recording with their phone, crouched and looking ready to bolt the moment a cape glanced in their direction.

She debated going down to them to destroy the phone, but chewed the thought over as she watched Oni Lee and his clones focus fire on random spots of Lung's silver-scaled body to open holes before each jamming a syringe into the wounds, with increasing speed and efficiency, Lungs locked body slowly starting to spasm and warp the small machine on his back from sheer heat and his growth.

Oni Lee's betrayal would reach the PRT regardless of what she did. She had no such delusions to the contrary. Too many people involved, too many Thinkers, and too much physical evidence of the fight. Which was why she hadn't wanted Lee to do this.

But the cat was out of the bag, and a twist like this could draw more eyes and attention to the Bay.

This place already had a slight cult following on PHO for how batshit it was compared to the vast, vast majority of America, so it wouldn't be too bad of a way to grow that audience, to get more people to pay attention to the city.

A full fight with a gang leader getting his ass kicked would draw in a lot of attention, even if it would hurt his reputation to the average person who didn't know what he was capable of.

She disliked how her thoughts started to sound like a marketing executive's, but such were the issues with trying to grow one's power base. Thoughts tended to start sounding endlessly cynical.

Lung's struggles, finally, were starting to simplify, just as his shoulder blades began to jut out into bony spikes and his pants were struggling to contain a spazzing, stubby tail.

No enraged, inaudible snarls, no spews of fire, just a stiff body spasming every other second with huffing gurgles.

Oni Lee continued to physically dash in and teleport out, leaving a clone behind each time to jam another syringe into Lung, not relenting, not slowing, and not getting overconfident, an efficient machine.

She was starting to really appreciate him.

She switched to the Rune of Inspiration again, and reached for another cast of Exhaust, further tiring Lung out.

Another fifteen seconds of that pattern passed, Lung's body melting into the boiling tarmac and Oni Lee's form starting to waft steam and smoke along the edges of his clothes as he slowly cooked from the outside in, taking more cautious teleports and keeping a slight bit more distance than necessary.

Then, finally, Lung's half-formed wings seemed to shudder, and begin retracting into his back, with the same kind of speed they came out with.

She involuntarily leaned forward, her field of view widening with both surprise and delight as she conformed her smoke into a tight ball.

Holy shit.

Holy shit.

She'd thought of the possibility, but deep down, she hadn't expected Lee to actually win. It had seemed like a faint hope at best.

Despite his stoic nature, she could see a slight stumble in his steps, his shoulders rising and falling deeply with every gasping breath, his grip on his pistol loose.

He was exhausted, and likely having trouble breathing in the midst of fumes and eye-cooking heat.

He teleported another couple times, mostly to the side, sending his clones forward to stab more drugs into Lung's system.

According to Newter, the most he'd dared give someone was a teaspoon, and that kept the person out of commission for an entire day.

Lung had to have a litre, assuming he hadn't boiled or burnt most of it inside his bloodstream from the sheer heat.

Bakuda's battery suddenly went silent, the metal cable spewing sparks like a sparkler, and both she and Lee tensed, readying themselves.

Lung didn't move an inch, limp entirely, half-buried face-first into the melted asphalt.

Send a clone to turn him over on his back.

Lee teleported three times in quick succession, and sent them forth, palming his pistol grip, stiff and unmoving like a statue in the back.

He reminded her of Azir for a moment, sending his constructs forward as he stood and watched imperiously…

She shook her head, and flew closer.

The clones all had to work together on Lung's right arm, digging their feet in and pushing him onto his back, and by the end of the movement, only one was left, which promptly scattered into ash again.

Lung's eyes were closed, but he was clearly under the effect of Newter's drug. His eyes were moving erratically under his eyelids, and he was mouthing something she could almost make out, something in… chinese?

It didn't matter.

Secure the area for fifteen minutes by whatever means you can come up with. Call a few men if you need them, she spoke into Lee's mind, and he nodded, promptly teleporting away, the clone left behind tapping one of his grenades as it continued roughly panting.

Distracting people by causing indiscriminate disaster wasn't her motto, but she didn't have a better idea than distraction at the moment.

He had to run straight at Lung dozens of times before teleporting out to leave a clone behind, so combined with the air quality in the half-ruined street, the wrecked cars leaking oil, and the dust, it was obvious he'd need a bit of rest. Fighting anyone that approached would be inneficient.

She turned to find him before he teleported away again, and reached for his mind.

Do not get captured or killed. You're a high priority. Great job.

With that, she dashed into the doorway of the office building.

There, in a dusty, dilapidated hallway safe from prying eyes, she switched into Syndra, the Dark Sovereign, and grabbed Lung by the arms with purple-black magic, effortlessly dragging him into the building with a twist of her fingers, squeezing his shrinking shoulders through the thin doorway.

Another flick of her fingers to break open the side door that led to the basement, and she flew down into the darkness, dragging Lung behind her like an oversized, human-shaped lava lamp.

She tossed him against a clear corner, switched to Evelynn, and finally, grabbed him by what little hair remained on him to pull his head up, using her thumbs to pull his eyelids up, revealing glazed, reptilian pupils, flitting about like crazy.

Her eyes flashed gold into molten, fiery orange.

She still felt dizzy, so she took some amount of care in how she flew up from the depression of broken floorboards and drywall dust that had settled over her.

Then she twisted to grab her costume, because usually being injured and not feeling it was not a good thing and her white costume was fucking covered in blood which she could guess was her own.

She hooked a finger into the bullet hole with a slightly shaking finger, and with a grimace on her face, prepared for pain, she pulled the hole wider.

She felt nothing but a bit of tenderness.

She glanced down, twisting forward, and blinked.

Then she rubbed her thumb over where the exit wound of the bullet should have been, a bit over her hipbone, wiping blood away as best as she could.

There… was no wound?

"Shit." She hissed, then looked around and outside whatever random hole in the wall place she'd been tossed into, racking her brain for what the hell happened.

Something broke her barrier, she got shot by Oni Lee. She fell down and messed up her head. Concussion or worse, she didn't know.

Then, gunshots, a faint green color, and somebody grabbing her. Then a strange feeling like her body was getting yanked back together, forcing that haze out of her mind and leaving behind exhaustion.

That's all she remembered.

How the hell did she get healed? Was Amy here?

Wait, shit!

She dashed outside like a rocket, glancing around, seeing nothing but overturned and shredded cars, a steaming stretch of asphalt, the crater she made in front of the building Lung was going to torch.

It was quiet beyond that.

"Amy?" She called out, cautiously, and heard nothing but the distant thrums of cars and a few small bursts of gunfire in the distance. And a large piece of shrubbery crackling with flame in front of the building, mixing in with the faint roar of flaming cars and burning oil.

There was no way Amy healed her. Not here.

Othala?

No, stupid. No chance.

She frowned, examining the evidence of a fight left behind.

A small trail of charred tar seemed to go towards the building for a couple feet, right from the gigantic depression left in the smoking street. She hesitated for only a moment, remembering the burst of agony from her injury, then squared her shoulders and flew towards the entrance.

A gunshot rang out behind her, and she whirled around, flying to the side and curling her legs in, eyes jerking to the single figure in her life of sight.

Oni Lee stood in the middle of the street behind her, a mere twenty feet away, his pistol pointed to the sky. He didn't lower it as she looked at him, steaming in the open air and seemingly completely calm.

Before she could question what the fuck was going on, a loud bang sounded out from the building behind her, and she whirled around, only for another gunshot to sound out and a bullet to tap against her barrier.

This time, she didn't hesitate, flying to the side then charging at Oni Lee with all her strength and speed, twisting to face him in the middle of her arc.

Her fist flew through his head as she shouted, shoving her knee through his chest, scattering…

Ash.

He burst into fine, ashy powder, and she recoiled, blowing air out of her mouth to clear it and sneezing, flying back a couple feet then flying up, turning to glare around to find him.

She couldn't find anything. Not a single soul, besides a few people with no survival instincts looking at her from their windows in the opposite apartment buildings, practically gawking.

Fucking Brocktonites.

"Come out, Oni Lee!" She called, gritting her teeth and glaring at every inch even vaguely coloured black and red.

Nothing replied to her but the faint crackle of flame and the wails of chaos on the other side of the Bay.

She scowled, and flew low, looking through one of the building's windows.

Something fell over in the building, she heard it before Lee shot her again. So there had to be people in there.

Boxes, boxes…

She caught a peek of blood red along a window frame that sat on a wall peppered with bullet holes that had chipped away at the concrete, and she flew down through the window with as much speed as she dared, to see if she could save someone and at least pretend she achieved something here.

As she flew through, she caught sight of something round next to her foot along the blood painting the window frames,, and whirled around.

Her eyes widened, her joints locking up like a frozen doll as she stared at the pile of bisected men piled beneath the windows, their entrails spread out on the floor like worms coming out of cleanly cut torsos.

She almost moved forward before realising that they were dead. Very, very indisputably dead. Nobody survived that.

The smell burned itself into her nose. Decay, discard, and death.

Her eyes glued themselves to the pool of blood, the chips of broken spine and rib bones mixing with the drywall dust coagulating atop entrails.

Her flight stuttered, and she hurriedly righted herself just in time to turn around and drop to the floor to vomit on her hands and knees, the sight still swimming around her eyes like a virus she couldn't get rid of.

Some part of her idly noted that she knew how mental trauma felt, and this was quite similar.

Instead of doing something that made sense, like calling the PRT, she simply coughed out her stomach's contents and scrambled for her phone to call Dean, feeling her eyes swell inside their sockets and burn as her breaths shortened.

She had to try six times to actually call him, the image of the people behind her covering the screen and infecting her eyes like an overlay, but eventually, on the verge of tears, she managed it.