The Devil of Brockton Bay - Chapter 69 (Patreon)

Despite being part of situations that were objectively more dangerous than a mob of gang members, Sam still felt a rush of nerves as she, Alex, and Clover dropped down on a group of Empire thugs that had been in the middle of breaking into an electronics store.

Perhaps it was because fighting giant monster lizards and underground cults still seemed fantastical enough that she didn’t really grasp what she was doing until she was in the middle of it, or maybe it was years of social conditioning telling her to get away from obvious criminals fighting with her new abilities to kick serious butt.

Either way there was a small voice in the back of her head telling her this was nuts.

For better or worse that voice was also drowned out the moment Sam’s feet hit the ground and her fist hit a Nazi in the jaw.

The Empire goon folded like a cheap lawn chair and Sam rushed towards the next one even as she saw Alex and Clover doing the same. A handful of seconds later and the whole group was groaning on the ground and Sam could only revel in how easy it was.

“Heck yeah! We kicked butt!” Alex cheered. “What’s next?”

“On to the next group?” Clover suggested.

“One sec first.” Sam said, digging into the little utility belt Carl had given all of them before they headed out. Sure they could technically use the same storage space spell Rias used, but opening those took a lot more out of the group of Pawns then they did the other redhead.

Much easier to just carry the little things they expected to use in person and save the magic for emergencies.

“Just have to make sure these guys can’t run off and cause more trouble later.” Sam finished as she pulled out what looked like a mint dispenser and poured a few ‘mints’ into her hand before tossing them at the downed gang members’ hands and feet.

On contact, the little capsules burst into a quick-expanding sticky purple foam.

It wasn’t quite the same as the PRT’s containment foam – Carl had been very clear on that, with the foam not being breathable, hard setting, or nearly as strong as what the PRT used – but despite that Carl’s version was more than enough to make sure normal people couldn’t run away for a few hours until the foam dissolved or someone used the right solvent.

Much safer and more efficient than the zip ties Amy said New Wave tended to use. At least twenty percent cooler, too.

“Neat, that’s one group of jerks all wrapped up. Now on to the next one?” Clover repeated impatiently.

Sam just nodded, it wasn’t like making sure the gang members couldn’t just run off when they left took all that long and arguing about it would just take longer. “Yep, next group is two blocks that way.” She pointed in the right direction.

“Race you there!” Alex cried out as her wings snapped out.

Sam suppressed a laugh as Clover let out an outraged squawk and chased after her before following her two friends herself.

Yeah, she might still be nervous about running towards groups of rioting criminals – but there was no way she was going to leave her friends to do it without her.

-o-

Five groups taken down later, Sam finally got a call from one of the Undersiders.

Though maybe ‘finally’ wasn’t really the right word to use.

It was kinda unfair to expect them to move as fast as the Peerage considering they could all fly while the Undersiders had to rely on those monster dogs of theirs.

It also didn’t help that the Undersiders were supposed to look for specific targets instead of just pointing out groups like Carl and Paige had been doing.

Sam raised a hand to her ear as the communication spell activated. “Grue, what do you have for us?”

“Not much. We found a bunch of groups wandering all over the city but the Capes seem to be laying low.” He said. “Besides Hookwolf, the only one we’ve found for certain so far is Alabaster. He’s leading another group towards a firehouse. Tattletale says police and the PRT aren’t able to respond and the Protectorate is being held back or is going after the last known locations of the other Empire Capes.”

Sam supposed that made a certain amount of sense.

Alabaster’s power was ‘only’ the ability to reset himself after a few seconds and was otherwise a normal human. Even if any member of the Protectorate could drop him in a few minutes at most, it fit with how the local Director seemed to operate that the Protectorate or Wards were either deployed in overwhelming force or not at all if there was a risk of them being needed elsewhere.

There really didn’t seem to be a reason Dauntless, Paladin, or even Velocity couldn’t deal with him real quick and still be ready to respond if more Empire Capes decided to make a move somewhere else, but maybe there was something Sam wasn’t aware of.

Besides, it wouldn’t matter in the end when their trio dropped in on Alabaster anyway.

“Roger that, you meeting up with us to take him down or still scouting?” She asked.

“Skitter thinks she found something like an Empire armory they are using to gear up more of their members before they go out rioting.” Grue replied. “We’re going to take a look and see if we can shut it down or mark it for later.”

“Got it.” Sam said, shutting down the call and opening another to Carl. “You got that? Anything else we need to know?”

“Only that Rias just started facing off against Hookwolf. Things might start escalating soon.”

“No worries, we can handle it.”

-o-

“Alright you Nazi jerks! Time to go back in the history books where you belong!”

“You know, at some point you’re going to need to come up with another opener.” Alex commented to Clover as the three of them dropped in on the Empire gang members.

“With how fast we’re dealing with these losers, it’s got a limited shelf life! I’ll come up with something new for the next group.”

Sam sighed. “Girls, focus! They’ve got guns.”

Not that any of them weren’t actually being careful, but accidents happened and she’d prefer not sitting through Amy chewing them out for getting shot because they goofed off.

Rias would also probably take it as an excuse to run them through a bullet hell style training exercise again and Sam wanted nothing to do with that if she could help it.

“We’ve got more than just that, you traffic light colored bitches!” An angry voice yelled out over the other sounds of fighting. “Choke on this!”

Sam looked over in time to see that Alabaster had stepped out into the open holding a grenade launcher and already pulling the trigger before they could react to it.

After the whole crisis of dealing with Bakuda’s creations, Sam’s heart briefly made its way into her throat until the projectiles hit the ground around them and only started spewing smoke instead of exploding.

Then the smoke started burning her eyes and she realised what Alabaster had done.

“Tear gas! Get away from the smoke!” Sam warned even as her sight went watery from the tears welling in her eyes.

“Too late, I can’t see anything!” Alex called back.

“Hold on, I got this!” Clover yelled, and Sam saw a flash of red that she guessed was a spell circle forming before a large wind kicked up - blowing the tear gas back towards the gang members.

It wouldn’t do anything to stop the burning in their eyes, but it should level the playing field.

Or at least that was probably the idea, but one of the blurry shapes moved and Sam’s instincts screamed to get out of the way. So she dove behind where she remembered a car being just in time for a few gunshots to ring out and the bullets to whizz by where she’d been standing.

“One of them can still see, the gas didn’t work on him!” She called out because there wasn’t much other explanation about how someone could aim that accurately after getting a surprise amount of tear gas blown back in their face.

The most likely candidate was Alabaster.

Either his powers made him reset so the gas temporarily didn’t affect him and he could quickly aim before tearing up again, or he was just immune from the beginning.

Both scenarios made the Empire cape more dangerous the longer they stayed in the gas-filled area.

“Girls, we have to take him down quickly!”

“I got it this time!” Alex yelled. “Promotion: Rook!”

Sam barely had time to recognize what her friend was about to do before Alex ran out from behind her own cover and straight at Alabaster.

Several more gunshots filled the streets but Alex started weaving back and forth fast enough that they either missed or did nothing to her. Hopefully anyway.

Their group had done some testing to see how much extra durability the Rook promotion gave them, but no one was insane enough to start shooting actual guns at each other.

Sam blinked away the tears in her eyes just when Alex got close enough to throw a punch at Alabaster.

Alex had probably been looking to knock him over or something like that like they had the other gang members but Alabaster apparently had other ideas. Because there was no way Alex had intentionally aimed at the upraised point of his elbow, let alone gone for a hit hard enough to fold the joint the totally wrong way.

“Oh, ew, ew, ew, that is so freaking gross!”

“Alex, watch out!” While Alex was understandably freaking out over what happened to Alabaster’s arm, the Empire cape had pulled out a knife with his other hand like he didn’t even feel it. Thankfully Clover managed to run over and drag her away before they had to test if the Rook promotion was enough to stop someone from getting cut.

Then a few seconds later Alabaster seemed to blur a bit and his arm was perfectly fine.

“You're going to have to do better than that, you bat winged bitches!” Alabaster called after them, firing a few shots from the gun in his restored arm’s hand. “It’ll take more than strength to stop the Empire from getting what it’s owed!”

“I dunno about that, we’ve done a pretty good job taking your guys out before.” Sam called out, partially as a taunt, partially as a distraction to get his attention off the other two.

Something that worked pretty well as more bullets hit the car she was using as cover.

“Temporary setbacks! You might catch a handful of our soldiers off on their own, but even that won’t last forever. Either the police will give them back when we ask or we’ll burn down their buildings until they do.” Alabaster fired off a few more shots. “The Empire has the most Capes in the city, a handful of Brute/Movers with a few tricks can’t beat our powers!”

“Well if strength won’t beat your powers - we’ll use smarts instead!”

Alex jumped out and hurled what looked like a yo-yo at Alabaster.

It was one of the gadgets Carl had given them, but one that even he had admitted he didn’t know how useful it would be.

Unlike the foam mints, lipstick laser, and exploding gum there wasn’t really an obvious use for a yo-yo with a super long, super tough extendable string. That didn’t stop Alex from taking it with her and apparently deciding to use it as a cocoon to wrap Alabaster up from his neck to his feet and left him wriggling on the ground.

“Heck yeah, you got him!”

Alabaster was a lot louder about his sudden captivity. “I might be contained for now, but the Empire cannot be stopped! This isn’t over!”

At this point all the other Empire goons were down and the tear gas had dispersed enough that all that was left was cleanup.

“That is like, so optimistic of you,” Clover said as they all walked out into the open. “but it’s really obvious we won this round.”

“Yeah it is,” Sam agreed. “Let’s get these guys wrapped up and get moving towards the next group.”

“That mean you three are done with Alabaster then?” Carl’s voice asked up as the comm spell activated on its own. “Good timing, it looks like the PRT and Empire are finally going at it and I can’t get in contact with the rest of the Undersiders. You girls up to checking up on them?”

Sam shared a look with Alex and Clover and the answer was so obvious she didn’t even need to ask.

“We’re ready to go, just point us where you need us!”