Crystalized Munchkinry - Act IV - Chapter 48 (Patreon)

"...Several experts have raised the possibility of the Nine going on a revenge spree. With that possibility in mind, we contacted the Protectorate, and..."

Click.

Max turned to James and raised an eyebrow. "What do you think?"

"It's a good thing. If we're lucky, the Nine will be stupid enough to attack the Guild and Dragon."

Max hummed in response, still preoccupied with the news. "What about the Merchants? And Oni Lee?"

James nodded and answered immediately. "The Merchants are finished, no question. Lee was harder to pin down, but word on the street is that Dragon took him."

"The street, hmm?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. There is no need for that kind of trash in our city."

"As you say, sir."

He thought about it for a moment, then spoke. "Review our territory and reinforce everything. Lung won't let this go. He'll go after the free real estate."

"Shouldn't we take over the Merchants' territory?"

"No need, my friend. Let the PRT fight it out with the lesser gangs, and when they're finished, we'll swoop in..."

"I see. An excellent idea, sir. I'll make sure everyone knows what to do."

"Good. Make sure Brad is careful. This is a chance we won't ever have again."

James grimaced at that. "He won't like it."

"I don't care. If he knows what's good for him, he'll do as I say."

James made a noncommittal sound, jotted down a few notes, then spoke again. "What about Kayden?"

Max turned his chair toward the giant windows and looked outside. "What about her?"

"There have been whispers of her trying to..."

Max didn't let him finish. "She'll do nothing, as long as I hold the cards."

Sensing his boss's anger, James wisely dropped the subject. "Very well. What about Dragon?"

"Hmm... Continue what we were doing. Stay clear of her, and try not to get her interested in us."

"Yes, sir."

He watched the man in front of him with a bored expression as he gave his report about the situation. He waited until the man finished, then dismissed him, ignoring the stark relief that crossed his face.

He leaned back in his chair and idly gazed at the ceiling.

The situation had changed, and he was confused.

When Dragon arrived in the city, it had been easy to give the order for his people to stay back and observe. Then he had been proven right when the idiot Merchants were captured by her.

After that, nobody had even made a sound about them being cowards.

Fools…

He wasn't a coward; he was a warrior. And when the battlefield changed, a warrior made sure he understood what had changed.

And now, as he watched even more changes unfold, he didn't really know what to do.

No. That was false.

He knew what he could do.

He could go out and do what people expected him to do. Take over the Merchants' territory. Go to war with his enemies.

But he could see where the wind was blowing.

The moment they started, Dragon and her army of robots would descend upon them.

He would survive, of course, but his territory and his people wouldn't, and that would be even more shameful than losing a fight.

The times were changing, the situation was changing, and he needed to change with them.

She rocked Aster in her arms, trying to get her to sleep, though truthfully, she was holding her daughter close to calm herself down.

Kayden had seen the news, watched the videos, and knew what was coming.

War.

Max would never be satisfied until he held the entire city in his palms, and she was almost certain he would use this moment somehow to further strengthen his rule. And with that came the fear that he would drag her back and force her to participate.

She looked down at Aster's sleeping face and smiled slightly.

As if she would allow that to happen.

She wasn't a good person. She was very clear on that. But her daughter was innocent, and she would do whatever it took to protect her.

And Kayden knew that Max knew this as well. So here she was, caught between a rock and a hard place.

However, Max had forgotten something. She had other choices.

True, they would require bigger sacrifices, but she was willing to make them.

She walked away from the window and moved deeper into the apartment. She stopped in front of a closed door and knocked.

"Theo, still up?"

There was a sound of rustling before the door opened, revealing a bleary-eyed, blonde-haired kid.

"Yeah?"

"Set your alarm early. We are leaving tomorrow."

"Oh?" He looked surprised, but Kayden could see that he had somewhat expected it. "To where?"

"To meet someone." She gave him a fond smile and tousled his hair. "Now go get some sleep. Tomorrow will be a long day."

Brian looked around the loft.

It could barely be called clean, and he could see trash spilling out of Alec's room. The boy was sitting in front of the screen, playing one of his games and ignoring everybody.

Rachel was sitting on the sofa, Angelica in her lap, while the other dogs lazed at her feet. She was furiously petting the dog, who was clearly enjoying the attention, but Brian could see that the girl was obviously angry.

He could understand that. Getting a message from Lisa saying: Boss is dead. Meeting ASAP wasn't doing anything good for his blood pressure.

He was about to call the annoying blonde when the door opened, and Lisa strode in with a grim expression. She shucked off her jacket and shoes, then dropped bonelessly onto the sofa next to Alec. She leaned back, put a hand over her eyes, and let out an exhausted sigh.

He waited for a second for Lisa to start, but in the end, he couldn't restrain himself. "Well, Lisa, care to explain your message?"

Rachel just let out a small growl while Alec continued playing his game.

"Yeah… Basically, it's shit."

"That doesn't explain much."

"I'm okay with shit," came the irreverent interjection from Alec.

Lisa ignored him and looked at Brian. "Short story: our boss was Coil, and the stuff that happened over the weekend was planned by him. It failed, Dragon captured him, and everything he owned went with him."

The loft fell silent. Even Alec paused his game.

"So, no more money?"

"No. No money. No jobs. Nothing."

Brian stood up and began pacing. "Goddammit, Lisa. Will Dragon come after us?"

Rachel growled even deeper. "I will fight!"

Lisa gave the young woman a closed-mouth smile. "Rachel, honey, you are strong, but against Dragon... just no."

Rachel huffed in derision and returned to aggressively petting Angelica.

"So what's the plan, Tats?" Alec spoke up, his face missing his usual blasé smile.

She sat back and let out another sigh. "I don't know, guys. Dragon has some kind of anti-Thinker effect going on, so I can't really read her correctly. But we have the usual options..."

"And those are?" Brian asked, desperately looking for a solution.

"Fight, run, or give ourselves up before they try to capture us."

"I'm not running!" Rachel exclaimed, standing up and sending the poor dog from her lap scurrying away in panic.

They spent the next half hour calming the girl down. After that, they ordered pizza (as usual, from the next building over) and started talking about what to do about the situation.

All of them were sitting around the coffee table, their ideas exhausted, watching the phone for the pizza delivery guy to call. Lisa was about to check the tracking information when their doorbell rang.

Her power helpfully pointed out the obvious.

No doorbell

Noise is fake

High quality

They looked at each other. Rachel was even angrier, Brian was scared, and Alec wore a surprised expression.

"Pizza delivery! Here in an hour or free!" came from the other side of the door in a cheerful female voice.

Brian was immediately engulfed in inky-black darkness. The dogs around Rachel began to growl, and Lisa reached for her gun, even though she knew without a doubt that whoever was on the other side of the door would not be inconvenienced by any bullets.

Banana

Banana

The other banana

Do nothing and banana won't hurt you

Guns don't work on bananas

While she was wondering what the hell her power was smoking, Alec stood up and casually walked to the door before opening it. "I hope you got my mushroom and jalapeño pizza."

On the other side of the door stood a beautiful woman with a confident smile, long dark hair, and several boxes in her hands.

"Oh, yes. I made sure everything was alright, Alec," she said in an impish voice.

"Cool," he answered, taking the boxes from her before striding toward the kitchen in search of plates.

The woman looked around, taking in the black gas swirling around Brian, the growling dogs next to Rachel, and Lisa's pale face.

"Hello, Undersiders. My name is Dragon, and I came to talk to you!"

Alec walked back from the kitchen, holding a plate and already munching on a slice"This is good. Want one?"

He sat in his office and contemplated his life choices. Spending the last several days with only emergency lights had done wonders for his ability to philosophize.

He had tried everything to get out, even though his power was more than useless in this situation. His mercenaries had tried everything as well, but the bombs that would have allowed them to blast their way out were locked behind doors that required bombs to get through, for obvious reasons.

Communication was completely down, and the only things still functioning were the food storage and bathroom facilities.

After a few hours of trying to escape once the base was locked down, he had even attempted to call Cauldron on a specially prepared Tinker phone they had given him. The only thing he received was a message informing him that they were calling in his favor.

Then the phone self-destructed.

When that happened, he deeply missed his power-granted ability to vent his frustrations on people.

For now, he kept himself and his mercenaries busy by destroying as much evidence as they could and preparing for the inevitable.

Vicky watched as Amy walked out of the examination room, grumpily muttering to herself.

While she didn't like it when her mother brought up the M/S examination, she stopped herself from saying anything when Amy agreed with her.

After some explanation, she had to admit that their reasons made sense. There wasn't much known about second triggers, and the entire situation was so strange that an M/S screening was genuinely warranted.

For now, it was only Amy who needed one because her changes were more noticeable, but if the PRT found anything concerning, they would ask Vicky to undergo one as well. Thankfully, everything was fine, and their weird (and wonderful) talking powers were not the result of some Master's ability.

After Amy received her official paperwork, she scooped her sister up and flew them back homeTheir parents were still a little shaken by what happened, so they had forbidden them from going out without an escort, no matter how much Vicky pouted.

It was annoying, but at the same time, it made Vicky happy.

This event, while horrible, had brought the entire family closer together. Her mom was even nicer to Amy!

She could still see the same disguised distrust in Carol's eyes, but it seemed the event had awakened something in her. Or maybe she just didn't want to appear as if she didn't care about Amy in front of the others.

Sometimes it was really hard to tell…

When they got home, they gave the paperwork to Carol for her to look over, then retreated to Vicky's room to practice their new powers. At least, that was what she told her mother.

Her reply was rather predictable. "If you break something, Vicky, it's coming out of your allowance!"

"I know, Mom! Don't worry, we'll be careful!"

Carol just snorted in derision and returned to the documents.

Safely in her room, they sat across from each other on her bed.

Amy was playing with her snake plant, making it look even healthier, and Vicky could swear that the plant was starting to move like a slithering snake, just extremely slowly because it was still a plant.

As always, she was the one who started the conversation. "So, Ames, what should we do?"

"About what?" Amy replied absentmindedly, still fixated on the plant.

"Taylor, of course!" she answered cheerfully, then joined her sister in staring at the plant. "What are you doing to poor Bruce?"

Amy looked at her in surprise. "Bruce?"

"Yeah, he looks like a Bruce!"

"I'm trying to perfect it without modifying it enough that it stops being the same plant."

"Why?"

"Why not?"

"Oh, okay. But what about Taylor?"

"What about her?"

"Well, she is obviously a parahuman, so we need to talk to her before she turns to villainy or gets hurt!"

Amy just snorted. "We don't know for sure that she is a cape."

"Well, I'm sure!" Vicky replied confidently.

"So what? Just go over there and ask her if she is a parahuman?" Amy asked sarcastically.

Vicky, with long practice, ignored the obvious sarcasm. "Well, yeah. She saved your life, so we need to thank her somehow. I've been trying to sneak some cape know-how into our conversations to make sure she doesn't make some mistake, but..."

Amy put down the plant before answering. "Right, that makes sense." She looked back at her sister and smiled slightly. "We can talk to her, but if it turns out she isn't a parahuman, you owe me one."

She didn't really resist when, a second later, she was engulfed in a bombastic blonde hug.