Duellist 33 (Patreon)

NO CASUALTIES

PROTECT THE FACILITIES

I swipe away the rules of the EVNT modifier, then step to the side as a screaming crowd surges past me, racing through the corridor and halfway trampling me in the process. I spot a girl stumble, momentarily swallowed by the crush - and I wonder if this challenge is going to be as tedious as the bank challenge had been, herding lemmings around to ensure that the 'no deaths' condition is fulfilled. The girl is pulled to her feet a moment later, and I breathe a small sigh of relief.

Good. I could only assume that this was Cornell University and that I was taking the place of the responding heroes, which meant I'd likely have my hands full defusing the actual bombs and hostage situation without worrying about random people dying without Bakuda lifting a finger.

Honestly, I'd expected this from the moment I saw the EVNT modifier and the 'Student' as the description of the challenge - it didn't take a genius to figure out the most likely scenario for my power to conjure up in relation to the infamous figure. It worked from multiple angles, chronologically, thematically - but also in a meta-sense, this was the earliest expression of her power where she had the least resources and the least experience with her abilities. Starting here meant that the increasing difficulty of future challenges could be simulated by more recent appearances.

No extra modifiers to concern myself with, just a few basic scenario rules that could be summed up as 'Don't let her blow things up'. This should be simple. And in theory, if I lost here - it was quite possible that simply getting access to my phone and researching the original attack in more detail would yield valuable information. I'd never been all that interested in the specifics of the event aside from some casual discussion on PHO and the awareness that naturally comes in with trying to be on top of Cape-related news - but it was more than likely that there was a map of the bomb locations for this attack out there somewhere, testimonies from how the bombs had been stopped last time, where the hostages had been held and plenty more besides. It was more than likely that most of that information would hold up, save for those parts where another hero that was no longer here would have changed something.

Alas. I don't have access to the internet right now. In fact, the lack of information was assuredly the most difficult part of this challenge. I didn't know if I was on a timer before Bakuda set something off, or if the scenario would just wait to 'react' to my eventual attack. I didn't know the mechanism that the bombs were triggered by. Proximity? Timer? Manual triggers? Should I expect a civilian to try to be a hero at some point, or was this all dependent on my own actions? Was Bakuda willing to use the hostages as a weapon? Would she blow them up when she saw me, or would she discard her previous efforts in favour of the usual 'Kill Greg' priority that drove most of my challenges?

And, the most crucial question of them all, did any of the above matter to me right now? To the current Greg, with all the powers and experience I've gained so far? Because I was fairly certain that Bakuda wasn't a Brute. And while Tinkers were certainly dangerous in their own way, I would wager that actually overpowering Bakuda was going to be trivial. If any crazy Tinkertech effects had been shown off at the Cornell bombing, I would have been way more interested in it - as far as I know, at this stage of her career, she was stuck on 'things that go boom'. And while that was dangerous, so was a guy with a grenade launcher. I had ways to survive explosions. I'd be fine.

It was the hostages that wouldn't be. So I was going to have to be smart about this.

I move through the hallways of the university, empty now except for the detritus of a sudden evacuation. Papers, bags, shoes and more left behind in the rush. I try and orient myself within the building, taking note of the signs and maps as I pass them - committing the unfamiliar markers to memory. It was an unfortunate fact that, with the entire challenge literally hanging on a hair-trigger - I was pretty likely to have to try this one twice. No reason to just assume my failure though. This was as much about stealth as anything else. Free every hostage, defuse every bomb - all before Bakuda realised that something was up and that she needed to press the explode button.

It would be easier without the 'no casualties' rule. Because it didn't say 'no hostage casualties' - that meant taking her in alive. I couldn't just win by decapitating her before she can turn around. Like Sophia, she needed to lose. To be beaten. To have no other recourse but to surrender. Or, perhaps, just to escape. Not that I'd trust her to do that without trying to blow something else up, but there was no rule saying I even had to beat her - just to end the scenario with no deaths and no significant damage to the structures.

Which does somewhat leave the door open for a win by honest conversation. And if the situation wasn't what it was, that would be my first choice. I would have liked to have a conversation with Bakuda, to try and understand her mind and her motivations both inside and outside of the challenge - but I was in the middle of a fight and a better understanding of Bakuda's powers or a slight reluctance on her part to actually kill me could be the difference between life and death.

Besides, even if I could stall the fight out long enough to challenge her repeatedly before Lung arrives, every minor delay was dangerous to me. Even timing this specific challenge had concerned me - with the minor delay it inflicted on my actions in the real world, the multi-second blindness that occurred at the end... I didn't want to present Bakuda a potential opportunity to accidentally kill me when I had momentarily crippled myself. That meant waiting until she was either mid-speech, or until she had already wasted her opening attack. Not too arduous, but knowing that I was in 'enemy territory' - it was something to think about, given how fast an explosion could hit me out of nowhere.

Not that I needed to worry about that right now, better to focus on what was right in front of me. And, come to think of it, I should make the most out of this pseudo-stampede while it was still around. Because while I doubted any of the NPCs would be able to help me in any real way, they were loud. Loud enough that my ash clone and I could run around rooftops, break window panes and kick open doors everywhere we went, without fear that Bakuda would identify it as something we were doing and decide to aggro. So that's exactly what I do, opening up pathways throughout the facility in the general direction the crowd was fleeing from - placing myself up on the roof for the final approach towards the gymnasium that appeared to be at the centre of the crisis.

I peek my shadowy head through the roof.

"-sy of my genius, and only now are you realising that actions have consequences-" Yep. Found her.

Now. Take it slow. The ash clone can scout out the surrounding area with the shadow state. I can kill it remotely by taking away the administrator powerset if it looks like it will get caught in a bad spot, so there wasn't much risk of it getting noticed. I doubted Bakuda had any real surveillance system in place, what little I knew about Cornell made it sound very much like a single Tinker building a bunch of bombs and immediately placing them around campus with no other real plan behind her. Hacking into the surveillance system was definitely a Tinker-y thing to do, but not something I expected from Bakuda specifically.

Not this Bakuda, anyway. She wasn't exactly performing at her full ability here. Whatever her issues were, it was all obviously quite personal and that was getting in the way of her judgement. Which was to my benefit - it kept her nice and distracted while I made a mental map of the room.

Three groups of hostages. One large batch of students, another of what I would guess are staff members - and then two particular people that had picked out from the group and were the core focus of Bakuda's ramblings.

And the bombs? I could only assume that the blocky devices with the ominous red lights on them were the explosives I needed to worry about - blocking every doorway with the mere threat of detonation.

This would be a lot easier if Bakuda wasn't aggro'd in real life. If I knew I had multiple free attempts and a full day of stalking her, I would just see what her immediate response is to confrontation. Go down there, tank one of the doorway bombs with my knight, ash clone or shadow state - and see if she just blows everything up or settles into a 'real' fight. The hole in the entrance would let the hostages slip out while I kept her distracted and all I would have to worry about would be damaging the buildings too much to trigger the fail conditions of the EVNT modifier.

But, at the same time, that could just fail me instantly. If her first response was to detonate her bombs, I'd instantly lose with little information gained. Multiple approaches, some of them guaranteed to failure - I just didn't know which ones.

I wait while my ash clone finishes circling the area. It locates two additional bombs. One outside, a second inside an empty lecture hall. Which probably meant that there were more. Makes sense. The bomb threat was supposed to be something that could take out the entire university, not a few small bombs that were barely more than grenades individually. There would be others around, stronger and better hidden. Even if I tried defusing them, I was likely to miss a few on the first pass - and I couldn't ignore the possibility of failing to defuse them at all, or Bakuda getting some kind of feedback that somebody was tampering with her devices.

Again, potential to instantly lose - and get no further to clearing the challenge.

Flip the script. What would get me further to clearing this? Rather than toying with every minor facet of the fail conditions, how did I get closer to winning? Naturally, I needed to fight Bakuda. Actually, considering it was a hostage situation - there might be a bit of leeway for 'not' fighting Bakuda and instead giving her absolutely everything she asks for - or otherwise neutralising enough of her arsenal that she just tries to flee instead. And if I wasn't as strong as I am right now, I might consider that as the best angle - doing my best to negotiate and defuse the situation directly or indirectly,

depending on if the sight of me turned her into a bloodthirsty maniac or not. But I'm pretty strong, and Bakuda is pretty weak. I think it's better to stick to my strengths in this case. Plus, the negotiations broke down in real life so it's not like I have a success story to build my approach off of, even if it ended bloodlessly in the end.

Dropping in from above has to be my best bet. She's not looking up, she pauses semi-frequently in her lectures to her audience, she isn't wearing any serious armour save for a welding mask. One good connection, and the fight would be over. The only real issue was that I wasn't allowed to kill her by the rules of the challenge, so no using Browbeat's power to turn my ambush into a lethal oneshot. Instead, I'd have to just neutralise her - get her away from the device in her hands that I could only assume was some kind of controller for her explosives - and the challenge would end once she conceded she had no way of escaping my grasp.

Clean. Simple. Easy to iterate on if anything went wrong. Not playing whack-a-mole with every bomb on campus, just attacking the source directly - knowing that the right attack would neatly sidestep the various issues of the scenario.

I phase through the roof, balancing myself on a supporting beam that lightly creaks under my weight. I hold myself steady, not panicking - I must be hard to see next to the glare of the lights next to me, and if she glanced up, I'd be even harder to see in my shadow state for a few seconds. No reaction.

"At the end of the day, you had a choice - to judge my work by its own merits, a fair, respectable grade worthy of my intellect, or to succumb to your biases. To reduce my score so that your classroom pets wouldn't be outshone. It seems so simple, when I phrase it like that - doesn't it? And yet, you chose wrong. Were you just jealous, perhaps? Or was there a deeper cause? A spot of racism? Something against the idea of a woman taking the top spot in your class? Perhaps you were offended at the idea that I understand the subject matter better than you, a supposed expert in the field-"

"Alice-" One of the hostages murmurs. "-we can fix this if you just-"

A beep emerges from the ground as she waves the gauntlet-like remote in her hand to cut them off. "You don't get to say my name anymore, professor. I'm tired of not getting the respect I'm owed in this place. And... fix? Look." She waves the remote behind her again, a chorus of beeping sounds emerging as the other hostages squirm in terror. "I've already fixed it. Finally, people have the right attitude. They beg for mercy. They plead for my attention and grace. They speak to me with the respect I'm due. I don't think I've had a single rude comment or slur aimed at me today - isn't that nice? All it took was a quick demonstration of how inferior they really were. And just think, if you'd kept control of your class better, enforced the rules fairly and equally - it wouldn't have needed to come to this. I'm not sure if I should be grateful or not."

Definitely loopy. Was this all about a bad grade? Honestly, I found it hard to even picture staying mad about something like that once I had superpowers. It's not like you'd need to apply for an office job anymore, traditional grades no longer had a meaning from the moment she triggered. Maybe there were some pre-existing grudges and ego issues at play, and downplaying somebody's trigger event was probably pretty poor of me when I just messaged Cauldron one day and woke up with powers a few days later, trauma-free. I should probably try to be more of an empath in that respect.

I miss the whispered undertones of what one teacher says. I don't miss the response. "I will blow you the fuck up!" She loses her cool again. "I press this button, and every single one of you will die - some painlessly, some will have the misfortune of living and be able to spend the last few seconds of their lives trying to locate their missing limbs and organs out from the slurry that used to be their friends."

...Ok. That might be enough of being an empath. I get the need to continually threaten the reality of the situation on the hostages, but... it was difficult to present this as a reasonable or justified response in any way. That was fine. I could handle crazy. In fact, with how my powers worked - I actually felt better about 'working' on crazy people. I was doing them, the world and myself a favour. Plus, with her obvious ego and need to prove her superiority - I get to repeat the Sophia experience again. Finding someone who thinks they're the top dog, and putting them in their rightful place on their knees.

That was a nice image. I think. I mean, her costume in the real world wasn't exactly the most form-fitting in the world and she's got a full-face mask on both in and out of the challenge, but I trust my power's track record with things like this. She'll definitely be hot, if she isn't already. And I get the feeling that she already is. The Crazy/Hot graph is a straight line nine times out of ten.

She circles below me again. I refrain from jumping as she paces side-to-side, launching into another rant interspersed with suspicious glances at the doors. Difficult to predict, my landing needed to be perfect - isolate that device of hers before she can even realise someone else is nearby. An attack faster than her reaction speed - it meant attacking that arm first, rather than trying to land in the shadow state and then wrestling it away from her. I wouldn't beat her thumb like that. If I could land on the arm as it was extended, or when her arm was relaxed at her side, so I could carry my momentum into ripping it away from her - even if only to get it out of her grip so that Clockblocker's power wouldn't consider it as being held-

I pause. Actually, come to think of it - I've literally just upgraded Clockblocker's power. I shouldn't just assume that all the restrictions are the same. I could safely guess that anything giving me a guaranteed lockdown of the target - and therefore a guaranteed victory - would still be restricted in some way, but I could easily imagine held items being included in some of the new leeway I should have around now. Assuming I wasn't buffed in some other way, I didn't feel any extra charges on that power but I couldn't rule it out.

I mentally mull the idea over, picturing myself using the power on the detonator-remote clasped in her hand as I crash down to earth. Clockblocker's power seems to shiver in response, itching to be used. That's a good sign.

I fall forward as Bakuda stands in front of the pair of teachers again. For a moment, I feel like her NPC speech is looped but actually it just seems like she just really can't get over this issue with her grades. Either way, she's halfway into a passionate rant about her 'towering intellect being maligned by incompetent fools' when I land on her - Vista's power momentarily used to adjust the direction of my fall for an optimal landing. One hand grasps hers a split-second before my face would hit the ground, and a quick swap from Clockblocker into the shadow state completes my opening move.

I stand, ready to lunge into an offensive grapple as Bakuda painfully wrenches her hand free of the timelocked device. A high-pitched whine emerges from multiple directions around us before I'm even out of the shadow state. Raised voices and shrill screams start to emerge from the hostages as they attempt to scramble away to other parts of the room, but neither Bakuda or I pay them any mind. Because, despite being attacked - Bakuda wasn't paying any attention to me right now. Instead, she was desperately attempting to interact with the remote I'd just frozen. "Undo this!" She snaps at me.

The whining noises subtly increases in pitch, a slow beeping pattern emerging and speeding up as every second passes.

I breathe in through my teeth. "I think I get the issue, bombs are set to explode if they don't get a signal from that thing every now and then?"

"Obviously! I mentioned that very clearly in my initial speech, as if I wouldn't have insurance against some idiotic Cape just trying to take a shot at me! If my tech loses connection, or if I stop resetting the timer - I blow this place sky high." She ineffectually stabs at a few more buttons. "So now that you get it, undo this before every single one of us dies here!"

"Most of us. I'll live, I think." Probably. I couldn't be sure, knowing the more Tinker-y bombs she was capable of - but this was probably just a large explosion. I could handle that, probably. Find a wall to hide behind, don't let the roof fall on my head without the shadow state up. Browbeat's power may or may not tank it, but I'd rather not test it against shrapnel or shockwaves like that - I needed the surface area to diffuse hits. Blunt force was the speciality there. Doesn't matter either way, I definitely wouldn't be passing the challenge whether I lived or died.

"What?" She shakes her head. "You don't understand, if I don't enter the code within the next... fifty seconds, this place is going to become a smoking crater marking one of the greatest disasters in American history and it will be entirely your fault."

I raise my hands in the air. "Alright, I'll admit I was a bit reckless on this one - just jumping in like this. But I think the distribution of blame is still, 90-10 towards you. You're the terrorist here, I'm the good Samaritan. There's precedent for this. I gave it an honest try, an unknown Tinkertech interaction caused things to go sideways-"

"Shut your stupid mouth and turn your power off before we all blow up!" She half-screams at me.

Rude. I wave a hand at nothing. "I can't." I shrug. "It's stuck like that for... anywhere between twenty-seven seconds and five-minutes twenty." She stares at me. I shuffle uncomfortably for a moment. "I mean, if I'm being honest - those are just the highest and lowest numbers I've recorded. Actually, it clusters together in the two-three minute range for most tests, something like eighty percent of my tests ended around then - probably pretty reasonable to assume that it's got another... ninety seconds at least before it comes unstuck."

"We're all going to die here." She talks to the air numbly. "Killed by a monkey? Me?"

I ignore that last comment.

"You could have thought about that before all of-" I make an encompassing gesture. "-this. Feels like a pretty natural progression on from leaving a bunch of overpowered bombs around."

"Oh really? I think it was all going fine until some incompetent moron fucked it up for everyone!" She jabs a finger at me. "And you have the gall to sit there and look offended? You did this. You killed me. You killed yourself. You killed these idiots-" A vague gesture behind her.

"I get it, I get it! I just wanted to fight, was that so wrong?" I shake my head to cut off her response. "Okay. Hear me out." The beeping increases in intensity. "Fine, I lied. I actually can manipulate the device when it's like that, how do I defuse it?"

"Twist the thumb clockwise until it detaches, hold down the button - then use the keypad. 03270717."

"And that defuses all the bombs? Or just turns off the part where they explode on their own?"

"The former part, no. There's no need to defuse all of them, just the ones that will kill me - the blood of everyone outside this building will still be on your hands, but I can't do anything about that. The latter, obviously not. Why would I leave such an obvious weakness in my master plan? As if I'd allow myself to be defeated by a single hacked radio signal and a lucky Thinker. It will just signal them to fall back onto alternative triggers that I programmed ahead of time, just to make sure the job was completed properly no matter what. A defuse option... absolutely not. Letting a single Master defeat me? No." She shakes her head. "Not that it matters, you can at least have faith that I will survive - and I'll allow you to live by staying near me. Hurry up and do it before we all-"

"I actually lied. Can't do it." I confess. "Sorry, just fishing for information."

A beat of silence stretches between us. It doesn't last long.

"You absolute fucking-" I mentally tune out the torrent of abuse and insults that spills from her mouth the moment it starts.

A bit annoying, but maybe just a sign that Clockblocker's power wasn't enough to instantly win here. The code didn't seem too complex, but-

"-if I have to die, I'll at least have the pleasure of watching the person who killed me go straight to hell first!" That drags my attention back to the situation at hand. She's made some healthy distance from me, and is fixed in a triumphant posture partially ruined by some very deliberate twitches of different parts of her body. If I hadn't heard her previous sentence and deduced that she intended to kill me with this, I'd have asked if she was having a stroke of some kind.

Twitch. Twitch. Shuffle. Twitch.

I open my mouth. "I-"

FAILURE

I blink. My newly incorporeal body remains exactly where I just was, an oversized scorch mark and some falling 'debris' are the only signs that my physical body was there in the first place.

Ouch. But also, fine. Three lessons learned in addition to the facts I knew about her gauntlet-remote: First, she has a backup control somewhere under her costume - not a single device or something easily manipulated in her mask, but something that requires the movement of certain limbs to control. Doubtless a way for her to ensure that she isn't neutralised by a single lucky attack.

Secondly, that took a long time for her to arm and detonate. Or, perhaps just to highlight and select the bomb she wanted to explode? Nobody else had detonated yet when she blew me up, so there were extra bombs that weren't using the same system as the bombs intended to destroy the campus. This was personal, targeted and didn't seem to be fired at me - I had already been standing on it. At a guess, a miniature minefield laid out explicitly for a confrontation with the heroes.

Three, I couldn't react with the shadow state. Aside from her overly-dramatic speech, there hadn't been any cue that I was about to die - no sound or sensation that I could use to time my shadow state defensively. The only thing I could do in response was either to shadow state early and hope she mistimed things or stay so close to her that she couldn't hit me without hitting herself.

Which was doable. I just had to reconcile it all with the fact that she might just be able to blow the entire place up even without her primary remote. I need a way to stop her from doing that. Or, to stop her from wanting to do that? I'll admit, diplomacy seemed a little more on the cards than I'd initially thought from her ranting. I'd expected her to delight in the fact that hundreds were going to die, but she'd actually seemed rather irate about her hand being 'forced' - not just the part where she was one of those hundreds. Was she, perhaps, just a poser? Crying out for attention from the closest dashing hero?

I could see it. She wouldn't admit it, naturally - so making sure that her first response couldn't be 'kill everyone' and making it to the stage where I get to start a dialogue with her would have to be my priority for round two.

But before then... my priority had to be making it to round two. With a gesture, space pinches together - my ash clone surging forward to face the well-armed Tinker. This shouldn't be a difficult fight. It was all the extra details that I had to worry about. As much as I didn't have to worry about consequences aside from the mission rules in my challenges, if I pushed her hard enough that she blew up the entire building and killed Armsmaster and half the Wards - my reputation would never recover and I would find that all of the leniency with the law that I'd earned up to this point would vanish. Prison or probation in the Wards, no other options. No winning too hard, no making any mistakes against bomb Tinker, don't kill her because a dead-mans-switch is the most obvious, cliche thing for her speciality to suggest - it's easy to see why approaching this would be difficult for the heroes.

I was actually the best-suited in the entire Bay to handle this woman. All I had to do was keep her in the back foot, keep her in my sight... and before long, she'd be putty in my hands no matter how real her threats were originally.

A pair of drones screech towards me. I dip through the floor in my shadow state before they reach my just as Bakuda disintegrates my ash clone, the series of simultaneous explosions momentarily concealing us both from each other's line of sight. By the time it clears, I've settled on the floor below her - snatching up a set of napkins from a nearby table. They aren't quite large enough for my preferred missiles, but at least the shape is well-suited for turning into a ball. I resummon my ash clone, hand it Parian's power and the 'ammunition' and leave it to help manage any more drones that come in my direction.

I spare a glance down at the hall. No Wards in sight. Was that a good thing, or a bad one? Armsmaster was still frozen, so they hadn't done everything they'd hoped for right away - but I didn't even know for sure if that was possible to free him, and if it was, then I expected the Tinkertech involved to be complex enough to require some serious analysis. It doesn't really matter all that much, keeping Bakuda busy aligns with both my personal goals and the 'heroic' goals that my persona should have.

A drone falls from the sky, a glancing blow from my clone's Parian-infused missile taking out one wing and sending it into a spiral towards the ground floor. As for me? I was heading back up. I'd initially just intended to wait for every single shadow state to come back before trying to jump up to the next floor - but I didn't even need a long glide thanks to Vista's upgrade. Since my last boost, it didn't only have the expanded versatility, but it also seemed to 'snap back' faster when I no longer needed it. The pinched space I'd used to help my clone attack just a few moments ago was already undone. I attempt to warp the entire looking area above me down to my level, noting an unusual sense of resistance as I do so - clearly the Manton limit at play, something I'd never encountered with the original version I owned purely because that version literally only worked on air. The entire space had to be empty, so it was never really an issue.

I pull down only one side instead, settling for a convenient, if overly steep, ramp up to the floor above. One shadow state, or one punch-through the stretched-out floor with Browbeat's powerset - that's all I would need for a straight route to Bakuda.

And for Bakuda to have a straight shot at me. As much as part of me wanted to test my reflexes and defensive options, as much as I had so, so much confidence in myself against what seemed to be just a fancy grenade launcher and some defensive drones... I've died, so, so many times in so many painful ways because I didn't think I needed every advantage available. Because I overestimated myself, or underestimated my enemy. Because I thought that my own skills and power were enough for the task at hand, and didn't give myself enough room to recover when something went wrong.

Right now, Bakuda was probably feeling pretty good. She knows I'm wary of her real Tinkertech explosives, she's deterred me from melee - she's in a nice, defensive position with limited approaches, more of her own drones undoubtedly coming in and the presumed arrival of Lung and Oni Lee was likely just a few minutes away in the worst case scenario. For someone who liked talking about the relative difference in IQ between her and everyone else, and all the talk about being a genius... I could see the train of thought as if I was a literal mind reader. It's a familiar one.

Because I get it. I know that confidence she has in herself and her abilities. The self-assurance that comes from knowing that you've thought about how to win, how everything is going according to plan and how all of these other Capes are just brute-forcing everything while flailing in the webs of your plan. I really, really get it. More than anyone else. The feeling that you only lose because you're unlucky, or that it's rigged - and when you win, it's because you were better. Smarter. More deserving. That attitude is understandable, but a weakness all the same. A sign that she hasn't failed often enough. Hasn't felt the consequences of a lack of respect for her opponent. Hasn't had the raw combat experience she needs to claw for every advantage. Hasn't had her own weaknesses and tendencies highlighted and abused repeatedly.

That's why using Vista's power like that wasn't about me going up the ramp. It was about about her having to monitor two potential paths that I could approach from, it was about her eyes-in-the-sky being momentarily blinded by my clone until she could pull more of her drones in. It was about the fact that it's simple human nature to see the sudden creation of a new path and think that's the direction the attack is coming from. Like the police breaking down your front door, you'd never expect the first cop to crawl out from under your bed. Similarly, I don't give Bakuda the chance to consider my 'known' powers and the way I could use them. I don't give her time to think about why or how I'd survived her explosions so far and what that might mean.

Maybe she was too arrogant to care about anything other than the heavy hitters with the flashy powers, because as my elongated jump expires - two charges of the shadow state burned to sustain my upwards-momentum through the floor - my fist is already buried in the side of her torso. Brute-enhanced strength earns me an audible crack as something in her costume buckles under the blow, with the Tinker finding herself knocked away like a bowling pin - rolling across the ground a few times as she scrapes to a halt in an indignant heap.

I let her get up. If this was a challenge, I could have tried choking her out from that position. Thrown her backwards off of the balcony. Settled into a comfortable grappling position. Broken a limb. Done pretty much anything except knock her away.

But, again. Winning too quickly and easily had complications here. Dragging the fight out was relatively normal for Cape battles, better for the 'hostage situation', helped distract her from anything the Wards were doing elsewhere in the building and - most importantly of all - let me keep line-of-sight on her for my challenges. If I got her into a position where she didn't believe escape was possible - or that rescue wasn't coming - who was to say that she wouldn't act on her previous threat and blow us all up at once?

No, playing it slow. Dragging it out, enjoying myself - that was the best action I could take right now.

"Cheap shot-" She growls, voice heavily filtered by the mask. "-you won't get a chance like that again."

I grin, spreading my arms out wide. "Don't go making a mistake now. That was just a little warning shot from me, after you brushed me off earlier as some random small fry. I almost got a little angry, seeing some baby Tinker in their first real Cape fight - thinking that they deserved to skip past me like I was a level one mook."

She scoffs. "You think I'm wrong? Look down there at your precious Armsmaster, stuck as a spectator. You might not like it, but I am the new best Tinker in the Bay. The world, even. And I'm being modest with that."

I can't help the laugh that escapes me. "That's funny."

"Laugh all you want, it doesn't change reality." Another of her drones tumbles out of the sky behind me, not mobile enough to dodge my ash clone's Parian-based anti-air fire. Very effective, but at some point I'd need it to relocate to get access to more fabric. Tablecloths, curtains, napkins - anything would do, there was plenty around. But there were plenty of drones too, and she was trying to be sneakier with them now.

"The reality that you hit Armsmaster at his weakest with a sneak attack, cowered up here to fight the heroes remotely and arm a few gang members to do all the real fighting for you?" I taunt. "Nobody is going to respect that. The fact that you're proud of it is a little embarrassing, honestly." I skip to the side with Vista's power as a projectile is fired in my direction from her gauntlet. Easy to dodge, but when dealing with explosives it was better to make more distance. "The ABB might as well have ordered some fresh supplies from the latest rookie to join Toybox and been just as well off!"

"Small fry to deal with small fry, what of it? Is it my fault that handing out a few unwanted failures from my collection turns a few ABB grunts into powerhouses strong enough to terrify the Protectorate?" She sneers. "And it's perfectly natural to reserve my talents for someone actually worthy of facing them. I'd hoped that might be Armsmaster, but in the battle between Tinkers - he failed at the first hurdle. A disappointment - but not a surprising one."

The smile partially falls from my face at that. I'm trying to be fair, anyone would be proud of sneaking anything by Armsmaster like she had... but I'm not sure I appreciated the takeaways she was trying to make here. If Newter poked Lung in his sleep and knocked him out, we wouldn't start calling him the new strongest in the Bay - and certainly wouldn't run around trying to reinvent history concerning Lung's personal strength. Why did we have to do that here? Sure, I'm biased - I'll admit that much. But that doesn't mean that I'm wrong. Armsmaster packs this chick up ten times out of ten if you take out the booby-trapped venue.

Rather than use words, I highlight my displeasure another way.

A small section of the floor next to her seems to explode upwards, Bakuda stumbles backwards in a frantic retreat as a red cloth slowly floats through the air between us - the energy from the attack all-but-spent as my ash clone gets to work on the next missile.

I smile at her realisation that she doesn't actually have a way to handle an attack like that hurtling up from the floorboards beneath her feet. Anywhere she goes, my ash clone can mirror her from below. She settles into a steady retreat clockwise around the room, not quite running - but the sporadic lunges from side-to-side as she walks highlights her concern about needing to dodge something she couldn't see coming.

A bit of fear was good. I couldn't just let someone get away with slandering Armsmaster in front of me. And, if nothing else, this woman needed a reality check pretty urgently anyway.

I stroll after her. "The way I see it, the strength of Tinkers comes from their ability to change their loadout. To take the right tools to the right job." I pace to the side for a moment as my ash clone, one floor below us, scrambles to a new position ahead of us both. "Any Tinker can beat 90% of Capes if they know what fight is happening in advance - it's the fact that they don't know in advance that gets them. You beat Armsmaster, sure - but you beat an Armsmaster that came prepared for a speech and fine dining. He had his basic kit, sure - but that's not what let him fight the likes of Lung and Hookwolf in close combat last year and come out just fine. He comes out and does events like this, patrols the streets - knowing that any situation that comes up, he doesn't have those advantages that come with being a Tinker. He does it anyway, because he's just like that - and he does a pretty good job doing it."

"Oh, I get it. An Armsmaster fanboy. You're that mad I took out your idol?" She taunts.

"It's a little sad to see him get caught unawares like that, I'm going to be defending him on PHO all night." I admit. "But I'm used to it. It's not like he has a flawless winrate. Being a real fan means supporting through the tough losses, just as much as the wins. As I was just explaining, Tinkers lose sometimes. They're rarely at 100%. Can't be ready for every type of fight at once. Purity needs a different response than Circus, Kaiser is different to Lung, and maybe sometimes the generic loadout just isn't enough. That's just the risk of being on the front lines." I tilt my head. "A risk that you haven't really internalised yet, showing up like this. What was the plan if someone like me showed up? I haven't seen anything impressive from you yet, you should have tried hiding a block or two away if this is all you had."

"Big words. Talking like you've already won, after barely surviving the opening salvo?" She's recovered her stride now. "You're fortunate that you're such a nobody, otherwise I'd have blasted you away along with that entire side of the building. Wasting my real trump cards on you, on my debut? That's not going to happen. Tonight, the world sees what I'm truly capable of-"

"A big bomb, amazing." I drawl. A flex of Vista's power makes my next step worth twenty. Bakuda drops something at her feet in response to my closeness, and I take the exact same step backwards to maintain my distance - shifting into Glory Girl's forcefield and allowing the warped space to unravel as swiftly as it can. Two seconds later, red lightning fills the air where we had both been standing just a few moments prior. One more bomb down. How many of those does she have? Less than she did, certainly. I shift into a light jog to catch up on the distance she's made on me. "And the hostages, I suppose. But, here's the thing - that doesn't have anything to do with me."

She raises one gauntleted fist at me in warning. "Obviously it does. Unless you want the blood of hundreds of people on your hands, you have to do-"

"Your hands." I correct. "Nothing to do with me what your tech does. I'll just say it was a faulty fuse or something. Who's going to speak up for some idiot terrorist that blew themselves up with their own bomb?"

"I wouldn't let myself die like that." She hisses. "And I'm a villain, death and destruction is what I do - but you? You're a hero. They won't forgive you for ruining a situation they thought was under control."

"Sure they will. My power's too good for them to stay mad at me. I'll admit to being reckless and impulsive and then they'll just pressure me into the Wards for my probation. My slate will be wiped clean after a few years, and you'll either be dead or in the Birdcage." I shake my head. "The whole 'fulfil my demands or else' doesn't really work that well, does it? Just need one person not to care, and you've put all your resources into something that doesn't help you win or survive. Look at String Theory. Still in the Birdcage after all that drama. What a waste."

"I'm better than String Theory." She snips at me.

"You're not even better than Kid Win." I counter, pacing in a half-circle around her - shepherding her away from the area she'd started the fight in. Couldn't trust that there weren't more explosives lying in wait around there. "Really, what makes you a threat to me, right now? Kid Win, he's got mobility. Ranged attacks. Some nice power armour. That ridiculous cannon of his. He's got tools to escape. Hacking capabilities. Scanners in his visor. A little toolkit in that drone that follows him around - jamming, scanning and another ranged option. A little taser thing built into his suit, and a few regular old containment foam grenades. And you? You've got some pretty average armour, some kind of blasting feature on your gauntlets, a few dozen hobby drones that anyone could buy a store and, of course, those grenades that are mostly worse than the real thing - except with fancy colours. And the bluffs and bluster about a super-bomb, of course. It doesn't-"

Vista's power again. Step in. She attempts to blast me again. This time, instead of retreating, I dip into the shadow state and go low - if I was physical, it would look like a sliding dive between her legs, but in this state it was just a surge of smoke and shadow that she hadn't learned to interpret the movements of yet. "-help you here-" I continue, trapping her arm as she whirls around - then I hurl her towards the ground. "-in a real fight!"

She struggles into the ground for a moment, then snarls. "If you don't let me go, I swear I'll explode this-"

"Hey, no blustering. You wanted to take Armsmaster's spot, right? He wouldn't use idle threats in a situation like this, he'd just use it to his advantage." I let her squirm for a moment. "Here's the thing, I actually respect what you've done today. Armsmaster isn't dead, is he?" It's not really a question. "You'd want him to know that he was beaten. Want the world to know that he was present, but couldn't stop you. That's the feeling I get. If he was dead, he'd get all the headlines - right? And I still think that he's the better Tinker, but - I'll admit. You could have killed him if you'd wanted to. That's why I'm going easy on you, rather than just taking revenge. So. That's three Capes on stage that you've spared, so I'll give you three chances to get the best of me. To make it all even. How about that?"

"I don't need handouts or pity from you." She scoffs.

I raise an eyebrow. "Are you sure? Looks like you're stuck to me. If you've got a trick to get out of a bind like this, you'd better pull it out. Because if you wait too long, Gallant will probably think that the fight is over and come back here to arrest you. Nothing I can do then." I grin as she struggles some more. "Guess not. Here. If you say 'please let me go' - I'll let you get up, get some distance, and we can do this again."

"That would be the last mistake you'll ever make." She laughs. "I'll admit, getting me into this position was a stroke of luck - you're the envy of the world right now. But that was only because I've been saving my best-"

"Yeah, yeah. To be honest, saying that sounds a lot less intimidating coming from someone pressed flat into the ground." I twist her arm lightly, earning a hiss of discomfort. "I'm looking forward to seeing what you've got though."

"Fine. Let me up." She growls.

I don't move. "That wasn't quite the right phrase, try again."

"You cannot be serious. I could kill everyone with a twitch if I-" She glowers at me, the movement of her eyes just barely visible through the slits in her mask. I smile back at her. "...please."

"That was it, all together now!" I encourage cheerfully.

"..." If looks could kill, I'd be a scorch mark on the floor by now. "Please. Let. Me. Go." Every word is ground out forcefully, every syllable enunciated with every bit of contempt and hate that she can muster.

Hot.

"Good girl." I smile. "Just one moment." No sense wasting a 'safe' opportunity like this, with the low cooldowns being what they were.

She stiffens in fury. "You said-"

"Just plotting my escape route, it would be terribly embarrassing if I couldn't live up to all of my big talk. Then there would be two of us!" I push myself up. Three. Two. One. The timer hits zero. "Challenge." I whisper.

Now, let's see. The initial approach was pretty flawless last time, save for the bit where I put all the bombs on a timer and took away the only way to disable it. But I didn't need to do that, especially with my knowledge that this challenge actually had a full personality simulated and she wasn't just going to immediately explode everyone as the opening move. I had options, and my option of choice... was to call her bluff.

Seventy-two seconds after entering the simulation, I drop on Bakuda from above once again. No clockblocks this time, just a routine takedown.

"Get the fuck off me, hero, or I swear I'll kill every last person here-" She snarls, bucking against me furiously - a mirror of her current real-life self. Even down to the threats.

"You're not going to do that." I reply confidently. "But don't worry, if you do as I say-"

Click.

FAILURE

Okay.

Might have misjudged her a little. Not entirely a bluff then. Definitely makes me feel like I'm doing the right thing dragging this out as long as I can. Is anyone even going to be able to tell me if the Wards did something about the bomb? Vista, Clockblocker, Kid Win - they had a few options to deal with it once they found it, but that didn't guarantee that someone was going to actually tell me everything was good now. Not having direct communication with the squad was kind of a downer on that front.

I'll just have to assume. And make sure that I keep her focused on me, angry enough to want to prove herself, with no real opportunities to get out of the blast radius of her supposed super-bomb. Assuming she doesn't just press it on a whim. Not that I had any idea how I'd stop her from doing that. She did it in the challenge, who's to say her mindset has changed much since then? What was even the right move here?

...how do people actually handle real hostage situations? My plan of just ignoring it only worked under the assumption that they really wouldn't kill people out of spite after they no longer had anything to gain from it. And, while that totally worked in real life where villains were scared of being killed or going to the Birdcage, clearly that didn't work in my challenges where death was the normal, acceptable outcome anyway.

Or, maybe the challenge was different in that this was something close to the reason she triggered. Maybe it was a bit too personal for her to back down on? I didn't get it, but without a trigger event of my own - I wasn't really in a position to throw stones. Maybe she's mellowed out?

...probably not.

I scowl at the back of the real-life version before bounding away. At least this is only the first challenge. I don't need much time in between attempts. I'd have time to return to make other approaches. Maybe outright crippling her at the start? Maybe that was too aggressive, would she even be willing to talk after an opening move like that? What if I just tried walking up in the open?

Getting lost in my thoughts here. I'd have to try another approach for her challenge, but I needed to focus right now. I had all the tools I needed to handle this Cape, but I couldn't afford to slip up - I had to acknowledge the fact that my shadow state, Browbeat's power and Glory Girl's forcefield weren't guaranteed to protect against her entire arsenal. The average effect might not be absurdly strong, but attacks that weren't traditional force were more likely to hurt me in ways that my active power didn't cover. Got to stay mobile.

I dance backwards from a wave of miniaturised grenades, Browbeat's power minimising the small amount of debris and shrapnel that reaches me.

It's fairly apparent that this woman isn't much of a threat to me anyway. It's not a matter of force, but her ability to connect with it. She's a force multiplier, but not much of a fighter on her own. It takes a few close-shaves for me to find another opening, but every one of her attacks disrupts her surroundings too much for her to keep track of me - every explosion hides me from view, every blast from her gauntlets drowns the area in heat, light and sound, and every single one of her dangerous attacks has the risk of hitting herself if she gets too close. That's a terrible combination against someone with my mobility and defensive options.

I frown as a humming noise from above interrupts me. Another drone, coming by for a bombing run - this time, clearly trying to avoid an angle where my ash clone could intercept it before it reached me. I didn't have many ranged options, I'd have to find a good moment to tag it with Clockblocker's power - perhaps Vista's? The thought process is interrupted by a red streak firing from ground-level that sends it off-balance and into the wall where it explodes - I glance over to note Gallant several floors down, already turning away to direct his attention elsewhere. Huh. Useful of him. And he found his suit, I guess that speed power lasted long enough to help him get changed too.

Doesn't mean he's going to be much of an asset in this fight. His power still sucks. Hell, I'm pretty sure that drone would have been just fine if it didn't crash into the wall.

Whatever. It worked out. He's trying his best, I suppose. Looks like he's focusing on evacuating people with Vista and taking potshots at ABB members that get too close to the building.

More importantly, I'm pretty sure that sneaking that drone over here was Bakuda's brilliant plan for taking me out this time. Looking at Bakuda again, her body language no longer has the same imperious, confident attitude. She's already inching towards the closest set of stairs, looking to run despite the continued stream of insults emerging from her mask.

Wouldn't have made a difference anyway, but I appreciate her actually trying. For a rookie - and I certainly wasn't counting Cornell considering it ended without a real fight - this was actually a respectable effort. It was just a terrible, terrible matchup. Her range and hyper-lethality would have actually done well against most of the Bay, but not so much against grab-bags or well-rounded fighters. A weird case where she'd comfortably handle Hookwolf with zero effort, only to lose handily to Circus. It felt like an incredibly lopsided matchup to me, but only because I was a mish-mash of different power ratings that only the strongest in the Bay would feel confident in facing.

And Bakuda wasn't one of those.

Fifty-six seconds after I let her go, my fist plants itself in her side. No Browbeat this time, I didn't trust her armour to hold up - and a normal person might just die if I hit them wrong like this. I followup with a second blow at the stomach, a third at her chin that warps into holding her mask as she weaves back away from me. After a moment of consideration, I use my grip to yank her towards me - pulling us both in a spinning fall towards the ground where she lands heavily beneath me, my hand pinning her face to the ground as I straddle her.

Not the best grappling position, I'd have to move against a serious fighter - but a close-quarters expert is something Bakuda certainly wasn't. And besides, having a Brute's hand wrapped around your face was enough of a threat to keep her still and compliant for the moment.

"That didn't go much better." I tell her conversationally.

"Fuck you." That's the plan. "This just isn't the right venue for me to demonstrate my power-" Her voice peters out in confusion as I remove her helmet. "-what, you can't- you can't do that." She almost sounds offended at being unmasked.

"You started this fight unmasked, and everyone knows who you are anyway." I shrug. "And I wanted to see your embarrassed face after failing to beat me once again, after claiming it would be trivial for you to do so anytime." That, on top of the fact that it was most likely how she was controlling the drones so precisely - while also clearly giving her some kind of feedback-slash-control mechanism for the rest of her tech. Without it, I think she'd be easier to handle. Not that I was going to tell her that.

Her eyes take on a manic edge. "You insufferable, arrogant wretch-" She starts. "-when I-"

I nod along. "This time for real, you won't hold back even a little. I'll be turned to dust in an instant. Something like that." I grin. "Getting a little tired of hearing it, actually. For someone who thinks they're so smart, I would have thought you'd be able to look past your own ego by now and realise some things just weren't meant to be."

"I have more chances." Bakuda insists. "From the stage. That's what you said, right? Two more. Not that I need two, one is more than enough."

"I am a man of my word." I agree easily. Were the Wards going to finish anytime soon? If they were still here when Lung arrived, things might get a little complicated. The current situation was fine for me, I was having some friendly fujn with Bakuda - even if she wouldn't agree - and getting extra challenges in while stopping her from escalating the situation elsewhere, but my perspective entirely revolved around my personal ability to get away and the fact that I didn't care if the ABB "won" today. If we started entering potential casualties in the mix, things could get messy. The Wards wouldn't stick around, would they? I'm absolutely sure that they have someone screaming in their ears to run right now - but I haven't seen them slipping out, in fact, I haven't seen them at all save for Vista and sometimes Gallant becoming visible on the ground floor guiding out some guests that had tried to hide.

Bakuda remains silent beneath me for a moment. "P-please let me up."

Ah. This was so much better with the mask off. The anger. The slight hint of humiliated tears and frustration. The naked bloodlust in her expression. A simmering cocktail of emotions that all had to contend with the rational, logical part of her mind that knew, most likely, this exact scenario was going to repeat itself again. A part of her mind she clearly intended to ignore.

I think I'm enjoying this. "Challenge."

This time. I wait. And I wait. And I wait. Twenty-four minutes into the challenge, one of the hostages sprints for the door while her back is turned.

Click. Boom. "And let that be a lesson to all of you-"

FAILURE

Fine. Good to know the hostages aren't just willing to sit tight, I'll need to keep them under control if I get a good run going - don't want them making a break for it the moment I get the upper hand. I clear my throat. "Third time lucky then?" I let her up and back away.

The only response I get is a scream of rage and a gesture that unfurls a small launcher from her gauntlet. I make some distance, only for the new missile to turn towards me. Fast.

Very fast.

I phase right through the floor, the explosion shaking even my shadow state as the floor collapses around me mid-fall - every blast and explosive she's used so far culminating in enough damage to send entire sections of the upper floor crashing down to the lower floors. As I stabilise in a pile of wooden debris three floors lower than I started, I realise that she wasn't immune to the damage on the floors either - too busy stumbling across the newly-unstable balcony to try and capitalise on my momentary loss of control over the situation.

It's easy to see the issue. She's running out of her preferred ammo. She can only store so much herself, even what she has now wouldn't have gotten through security - all she has is whatever she smuggled in before the event and whatever her drones delivered afterwards. All of her previous controlled, close-to-mid range options are getting close to depletion - and now she's left with options that are better at a distance or are too strong or uncontrolled to be used in the way she wants.

Not a problem now that I'm so separated though. I stretch the wall into the direct path of the next missile to be aimed my way, the new pointed protrusion sufficient to protect me from the brunt of the attack - save for the bricks and debris that fall my way afterwards. The building... isn't doing so hot. My 'shield' was just a wall, after all. A wall that certainly wasn't rated to handle an explosive-based Tinker unleashing her creations on it. Parts of the wall crumble away even before Vista's power starts to revert, the support my 'borrowed' section would have provided naturally not doing much of anything with such a massive hole blasted into it.

Glad I'm not paying for this.

Bakuda is already lining up her next shot, an exultant shout of something only barely audible as distant noise over the collapsing rubble around me. Probably something about her brilliant genius and how this was the only way it could have ended when I chose to oppose her. I could be wrong, but I feel like I've got a pretty good handle on her mannerisms and tendencies by now.

Including her complete lack of situational awareness. I might be all the way down here, but she's already forgotten about my one true partner. My ash clone finishes creeping up on her from behind and neatly sweeps her legs out from underneath her.

Time to move. I shift into the speed-state to close the distance as fast as I can. This is faster than waiting on the shadow state to jump up between the floors overlooking the stage. One flight of stairs. Two. Three. I wait in the final stairwell as my ash clone finally dies, one shockwave being just a little too close and too strong to stay intact. Rest in peace.

Need to be a little bit careful now. My ash clone had been alive for a fair few minutes giving me support. I couldn't resummon it until that same length of time has passed. If she starts trying to hit me with drones again, I'll have to be more cautious - unless Gallant can fill in the gaps.

...probably not. That guy was a fraud. Where even was he, anyway? Why did he even follow me up in the first place if he was just going to head right back down again? Did he just doubt my ability to actually fight Bakuda, or did he think I was up to something and wanted to escort me away? Whatever the case, I hope those doubts are put to rest now. This probably looks pretty epic to other people, with all the collateral damage and explosions going on up here. It's fun to me, but when you're a squishy loser with a sucky Blaster power and a stolen Tinker suit, this must look like Eidolon clashing with Behemoth.

Maybe a little bit of an exaggeration, but not that much. I know, strictly speaking, PRT ratings aren't everything and shouldn't really be used to powerscale... but the fact that if you tally everything up, I genuinely could have at least five-times the total number that he has? That really does mean something. Different leagues. There's levels to this.

It seems Bakuda has completely lost track of me, giving me a moment to breathe. Shadow state charges? Check. Glory Girl forcefield? Ready to go. Ash clone? Still no, but I can't wait that long. Vista? Ready. I lunge out onto the floor. She's not facing me, busy interacting with the damaged drone that Gallant had knocked out earlier.

Good time for another try then. "Challenge."

Peaceful approach. This time, I enter the hall on foot - phasing through the corner guarded by an explosive to avoid the detonation. "Hey there, I-"

"Fuck you!"

Click.

FAILURE

My eyebrow twitches. This had no right to be as difficult as it was being.

She frantically tries to retrieve something from the damaged casing before I reach her. I reach her right as her hand comes out, pulling her away from the wreckage and slapping the trailing item in her hand with Clockblocker's power before hauling her away. She doesn't hesitate to launch into a new excuse for her defeat. "Oh, congratulations. You managed to 'beat' me by getting here before I was ready. I hope you're proud of yourself."

I blink. I stare at her. "Really?"

"What?" She stares back, a terrible lack of shame in her eyes. I tilt my head towards the stage, where Armsmaster and the two Wards stand frozen. With nothing else to do, she follows my gaze. Then turns back to me with a confused look. I send an additional, meaningful nod to get the question across. "It's completely different." She dismisses.

"I don't think it is." I retort drily.

"He's a Tinker. He has had years and years to prepare for a moment like this, and he utterly failed anyway. I'm hardly to blame for that." She attempts to wave a hand, foiled by the fact that I'm not letting her move her limbs so freely.

"You're a Tinker." I counter.

"A better Tinker, but yes - what of it?" The worst part is, I think she's serious. No introspection at all, just complete, unabashed hypocrisy.

"So, doesn't that mean you had all the time in the world to prepare too?" I ask innocently.

"Clearly not." She attempts to look down her nose at me, and makes an impressive attempt at it for someone actively being pressed into the ground. "If I had even a fraction of his time and resources, not only you - but this entire city would be-"

"But you chose this, right? Opted into it?" I interrupt. "If you're not ready for a fight despite being the one to fire the starting gun, that's just a skill issue on your part."

"Maybe it's too difficult a concept for smaller minds to comprehend." She shakes her head as if somehow pitying me. "You see, some of us actually have to work for our powers, we can't all be like you and just get them gifted on a platter one day- Ow! What the-" She winces as her arm is raised at a harsh angle for just a brief moment.

"Just shifting my weight." I lie. "Anyway, I'm a Tinker too you know. Technically."

She pauses, eyes searching me up and down before settling on my chest. "Amateur work. Disgusting." Her nose wrinkles. "It looks half-finished, and I'm being generous with the half. Ugly. Poor materials. Shoddy craftsmanship. You truly do have no shame, it suits you."

"It's practical." I defend my finest creation. "And half-finished is the point. The full thing is heavy, can't go running around with it that easily. It just sits like this until I'm ready to use it, then-"

"I don't care. It sucks. At least that kid back there had some real respect for the Tinker work he was using, he makes it look good - but you're carrying that around like it's something to be proud of? Gross." She sniffs.

"Hang on, don't put him in the same category as me. That's offensive." I interject.

"You're not in the same category." She smirks. "You're below- Ow! Stop that!"

"Whoops." I don't bother making an excuse this time. "Fine. I won't kill some time talking about our shared interests then. Why don't you get back to whatever you were saying about how you getting attacked when you aren't ready is different to Armsmaster getting attacked when he wasn't ready?"

She turns her head away. "There's barely anything to continue. It's all plainly self-evident." She sounds put-out. "You won because you ambushed me before I could show off my full power. There's nothing more to say on the matter. It doesn't mean anything."

"Which is exactly what you did to Armsmaster." I argue.

"No, he got out-strategised and out-Tinkered." She tells me smugly. "Time to let me go again, isn't it? Hero? Please?"

I level a glare at her. She's too shameless. The way she so effortlessly discards facts and logic to cling to the narrative and agenda that suits her best... I recognise a peer when I see one. This is an elite-tier PHO troll that's yet to even touch the forums. In another life, I would have welcomed her as a sister-in-arms.

Unfortunately, she was slandering Armsmaster. My GOAT.

"All for keeps this time." I promise with a terse smile. "Kid gloves are coming off, so you can surrender early if you like." I mime a heavy punching motion in the air before allowing her up, swapping active powers as I do so.

Once done, I back away. Five, ten, fifteen paces.

"Same here." She smirks back at me. "Perhaps I'll-"

"Talking isn't a free action!" I activate Echo the moment she inadvertently walks into my set-up attack, a clean hit straight across the jaw that would have killed her if I'd set it up with Browbeat's power active. "Armsmaster would have done his research, he wouldn't have gotten hit by a power that PHO has been talking about for weeks!"

I stalk forward. A bug settles on my forehead, I grant it administrator and Clockblocker's power. It flies off before Bakuda has a chance to retaliate.

The gap shrinks between us in an instant, Bakuda - now fully-familiar with the effect of my version of Vista's power - is already aiming her gauntlets for a controlled blast of heat. Or, perhaps it's more of a directed blast? Grenades really did seem to be her thing, and both the launcher and the pseudo-flamethrower did seem to 'load' from the same storage unit in her arms.

Irrelevant. My forcefield eats the initial blast, long enough for me to force her arms up and away from me. "Armsmaster wouldn't use the same, failed tactics four times in a row and hope that it would work this time!" I plant a square kick into her torso, dead-centre in her armour right as I start ramping up Browbeat's power. She hurtles across the carpet, rolling a few times - gasping and wheezing as she tries and fails to push herself up. "Armsmaster wouldn't lose three, make it four times in a row in the first place!"

"Fuck-" Whatever she is going to say is cut off as I pull her up, thrusting my arm to the side to press her against, then through the balcony. "-wh- whoa! Wait!" She flails as she hangs over open air, perhaps appreciating her mortality if I decided to let go right now.

"Armsmaster wouldn't care in this situation." I continue. "He has a jetpack. He has mobility boots. He has grappling hooks in his gauntlets. Variants 9 through 13 of the ArmsCycle have anti-gravity functionality and can drive directly up walls for a short time if needed. Inertia dampeners. He always has a tool. Always has something. Kid Win, Leet, even Squealer could do something here. But you? There's nothing you can do. Nothing but begging."

I toss her behind me, immediately pacing after her again as she starts to scramble. The gauntlets come up again. Must have reloaded more than I'd thought off of that drone earlier, but it still doesn't matter.

"You don't have anything!" I accuse. "You said you weren't ready, and I actually agree! But it's nothing that you could have fixed today. You got away from Cornell without being caught because they were too scared of the bombs you left around to chase you, and suddenly you think you're a master of Cape fights? You think you can tangle with the best? You're an amateur!" I'm on her again. Left hook. Another. Elbow into the stomach as she tries to ineffectually grab me, then another heavy throw into the ground.

She lets out a scream of rage as I approach again. Her launcher unfolds from her gauntlet once more. From what I saw of that last time, that's likely to hit her just as much as it is me. I smile, not slowing my advance for a moment. She adopts a confused expression as nothing happens, pulling her gauntlet back only to find the mechanism snapping - the missile hanging in-place with a single, dead bug resting on top of it, mission accomplished.

"You're not even the best user of your own tech. Maybe if you gave that glorified grenade launcher to someone who could actually aim, and maybe upgrade it with some off-the-shelf grenades - this might be more of a challenge!" I call out.

"Off-the- how dare you!" The gasp from that is louder than the one that drove the air out of her lungs a few seconds ago. "My tech- my tech is-"

"Trash." I conclude, dancing away from a trio of explosions and lunging through the crystalline-remnants one blast leaves behind with the shadow state. "All the gangs around here have grenades that just kill you if you're within five, but really more like ten metres - and they'll fuck you well beyond that range anyway." Take it from experience. "What's the point of something that only kills people in a three-metre radius? Am I supposed to be impressed just because its a different colour?"

Except for the fact that it fucked over everything in that radius indiscriminately, protective armour, powers or whatever. But I was here to be a petty bitch, not to be objective.

"Those were rush-jobs for mass-production-" She sounds incensed. "-Lung wanted them right now, that barely even counts as Tinkertech. Certainly not a true example of my genius-"

"Good enough to use as your core loadout for your big debut." I sprint after her as she attempt to aim her gauntlets again - but starts to run away after just a moment, evidently realising she was out of ammo again. Maybe near-completely this time. I catch up fast, grabbing her shoulder and spinning her around. "You're a third-rate Tinker-" She tries to punch me, I knee her twice in the stomach, then slam my fist into her jaw. "-with fourth-rate tech!" One last time, I send her crashing into the ground. A Brute-enhanced hand clamps around her gauntlet, the other settles on her neck. I cycle through Tinker powers, doing my best to understand the half-busted open internals. Power. Backup. Targeting. Sensors. Selection. Ammo. I squeeze down on the sections purely limited to weaponry, causing yells of pain and the noise of buckling metal to briefly drown out the distant sounds of gunfire.

Drama queen. This isn't much worse than stubbing a toe. Or rather, it wouldn't be much worse after I healed her up a bit. Any parts of her arm or hand that I broke, I'd fix up in a moment - this was just a momentary bit of pain as I neutralised her weapon. I inspect the ruined gauntlet with approval. It would be nice if I could parse the technology with a little more confidence, isolate every part that wasn't tied to some equivalent of a deadman's switch - but this was the best I could do without Bakuda's own power feeding me the schematics directly. Every major control on the gauntlet seems non-functional - good enough to hand over to the cops without feeling like I was sending them someone with a loaded gun in their pocket. Her challenge-version had something under her clothes as a backup control, but looking at the state of her armour - I'm pretty sure whatever that system evolved into is also busted.

She stares up at me. Pain. Rage. Exhaustion. Humiliation. And, one that's been steadily growing for a while now - fear.

It's a good look on her.

"Out of chances." I tell her, one hand reaching out to grasp her face.

"No!" She squirms away from my reach. Futile, but what was she even imagining here? I was obviously a hero, had she forgotten that? "I- please- I'm sorry-"

My hand seals around her face. Panacea's power flows out from my hand, nudging the areas where I hit a bit too hard. No need to fix her up completely, in fact - the hint of blood and bruising from a few of my cleaner hits definitely takes away from the near-permanent aura of arrogance she exudes. An improvement, in my mind. Maybe I was a bit rough? In my defence, she never stopped fighting or trying to kill me - she just wasn't very good at it. I take a moment to brush over the rest of her body, not opting to completely fix her broken hand and a cracked rib - but at least putting it well onto the path of recovery. No need to permanently cripple her, just take her out of the fight even after I leave. When I'm done, I shift my weight - she flinches, a noise escaping her throat that I'm positive she'd deny making until the grave.

I adopt a pouting expression. Ah, come on. I'm not that bad. It's just a little baby fight. Neither of us died, or even got crippled permanently. I think the problem here is that she is well aware that most of her attacks could have killed me, and knows that me returning the favour would have gone very, very badly for her. And still could.

But I can't have my future lover thinking that badly of me, can I? Better remind her that I'm a hero. I smile merrily. "Looks like I win again." I tilt my head. Can't really pretend to let her go now, can I? "Guess you're under arrest. Kind of a shame, actually."

She swallows audibly, a cooler expression appearing on her face as she tries to take some semblance of control back. She takes a moment to gather her breath, wincing as I pull her up. "What does that even mean?" She fires back with impressive heat for someone who seemed to be begging for mercy just a few seconds ago. "And I'm not under arrest, I could still kill everyone here - remember? My bomb? Don't think I'll just go quietly - if you don't do exactly as I say-"

I shrug, then ignore everything after her initial question. "I mean, it's probably better for the city if you got away today. The Protectorate doesn't do much to keep the Empire in line, so having a real gang oppose them is actually a good thing in my books. So, I didn't even really want to take you in - I just... couldn't hold back enough for me to believably lose." I give her a mournful shake of the head. "Maybe I got carried away making a point at the end?"

She twitches, and I suppress a smirk. That must have hit home. "Shut the fuck up. Shut up. Just-" Predictably, she doesn't take that well. "You're just saying that because you're a ridiculous Armsmaster fanboy and you're mad that I easily defeated him and could have done exactly the same to you if not for blind luck and some resource issues." She sounds mad. "You really expect me to believe you didn't even want to win? The crowning achievement of a dismal, pathetic career as a wannabe vigilante, and now you're trying to be play at pretending you're above it. You really think I'll just sit here, and allow an insult like this? Allow my work to passed over like common trash by people who don't know what the hell they're talking about?"

"No, I'm serious. This is a bit unfortunate for everyone, if you ask me." I shake my head. "Here I was thinking that a resurgent ABB might push the Empire back into their side of the city, but at this rate - Lung really might just have to find a new home." I pause. She looks a little madder than I thought. Did I say something?

"I warned you." She echoes, voice shaking with rage. "I won't tolerate disrespect. You really thought I was bluffing? You want to play games with me? This is on your head, hero." I raise Glory Girl's forcefield. "I'll blow you straight to hell!" Her eyes squeeze shut and she seems to flinch at nothing in particular.

Nothing happens. I stare at her as her expression shifts, all of the fight seeming to drain out of her at once as she half-collapses back onto the floor breathing heavily.

Not sure how I should take that.

Drama queen, another bluff or a failed suicide attack? I'm not sure I can rule any of them out for sure. I clear my throat. Girls get the benefit of the doubt, I don't make the rules. "Guess you're really into this roleplaying thing, huh. It's okay, a lot of Capes get some weird tendencies along with their powers. I think you'll calm a lot of people down when they realise it's just words and you can't help yourself." And if she was serious... this would probably annoy her the most. She seems to have a bit of a complex about her status and image, her reputation as a serious threat - so I'd just have to settle for being obnoxious to make up for the fact that I wasn't clearing her challenges at the rate I'd hoped.

"I-" She looks confused. A little lost. "No. That's not true. I'm a serious villain. I'm a killer, with absolutely no remorse-" She rallies. "Your Ward bitch down there should be a smoking corpse right now."

"Lucky for you that isn't the case, right?" She blinks at me. "I mean, I like to be friendly - even with villains. But don't get me wrong - I'd definitely have just killed you if you'd done anything like that. It's not all about power and reputation. I'm a hero. I love heroes. They're better people than me, I think. Someone who goes too far against them - even if it sets me back a little, I think beating them to death with my bare hands is the least I could do to avenge them. Make it slow. Send the right kind of message to the next ambitious villain to show up." I smile serenely at her pale face. "Good thing you were just bluffing, right?"

"...right." She agrees slowly, attempting to pry her arm loose from my vicegrip. I don't allow her even an inch of leeway. "That is a good thing. That-that I've changed my ways since joining the ABB." It's funny, the unsubtle threat from me seems to affect her much more than the idea of being annihilated by her own bombs. A quirk of her power's psychology? An extension of narcissism, thinking that it's fine if she's the one taking herself out? I don't know. It's just enjoyable to watch her alternate between squirming in fear and attempting to be intimidating. I can see her being kind of fun once I finally get her challenges going, but this first one... it was tough.

"Ah, come off it. Nobody died at Cornell. None of the hostages died here. All of the responding heroes, including me, are just fine. I see the pattern. You're a softie at heart." I pat her on the shoulder with a warm smile. I wasn't entirely joking. It was proof that you couldn't rely on my challenges for everything. Yes, she blew people up at will there - but, everyone was a cold-blooded murderer in my challenges. Came with the territory. This was a clear case of actions over words, and the only thing she's really done is try to kill me. And, to be honest, that doesn't even register as a bad thing anymore. I don't know if I'm even capable of registering attempted murder against me as a negative mark of character these days.

Kind of turns me on, actually. I know that's weird. Probably some wires in my brain getting crossed at certain correlations. Pattern recognition. Logically, I know - a cute woman trying to murder me doesn't always mean that same woman is going to be sucking me off before long. But... I can't deny that there's a connection there. Can't control the lizard brain, or something like that.

Bakuda seems flummoxed at my logic, her mouth opening and closing wordlessly for a few seconds - trying to think of an argument and completely failing. She remains stunned as I direct her downwards, slowly making our way along the safest-looking path downwards - a mix of a damaged staircase into some kind of staff-only stairwell that had escaped the mass of exploding drones, grenades and rockets.

"You know-" I cut myself off as I guide her downstairs, a distant rumbling earning my attention. A roar that wasn't quite that far away at all.

Bakuda latches onto the sound like a lifeline, surety entering her expression like an addict finally getting her high. "That's right. Now you're fucked." She tells me smugly. "Tell you what. If you let me go now, prostrate yourself properly at my feet and beg for my forgiveness for your arrogance - I might ask Lung to let you live with just a few scars to show for it. Not a bad deal, if I say so myself."

This woman is kind of unstoppable. Nothing seems to keep her down, I'd feel like hiding under the covers and refusing to log into PHO for at least a week after taking as much of a beatdown to the ego as she has - but one single thing goes her way? She's right back on top, like she's never taken a loss in her entire life.

Somehow, the fact that I haven't taken down her challenge yet is only making the anticipation of breaking that attitude better. It's a little grating in some ways, but I think there could be a certain enjoyment to be found in building up all of my issues with this girl over days and weeks - and satisfying them all at once at the moment of 'my kind' of victory. That's no reason to hold back on my challenges... but it does keep me free and easygoing in my attitude towards her. Every statement of superiority, every insult, every trick, every threat, every minor inconvenience... I'm keeping count. I'll get even, I have no doubts about that.

Naturally, I can't say any of my true feelings to someone who I've yet to make any real progress on. I'll just stick with needling her ego. "Somehow, I just can't see Lung being the type of person to listen to you." I comment, hurrying her down the stairs.

"Well, he is. He knows his place. He's the brute, the figurehead of the operation - and, naturally, I'm the brains. The mastermind behind it all. The one that's really in charge." Bakuda nods to herself.

"Does he know that?" I probe.

She half-turns towards me before I nudge her to keep walking. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"If I ask Lung if he answers to you these days, would he agree?" I propose innocently.

"It's not an official arrangement. It's just- just the reality of things. Implicitly understood." She shifts uncomfortably, straining against my hold for a moment. "Realpolitik."

"That's not what that means."

She attempts to stamp on my foot, before stopping herself - likely by reminding herself how poorly the fight went for her before. "What I'm saying is that when there's an idiot in the room that needs punching, and an intellectual puzzle that needs handling - the brains and the brawn divide the tasks appropriately. If the brawn is stupid enough to try the puzzle, the brain is there to redirect them to something better suited to their level of intellect. Maybe the brawn doesn't recognise it as a hierarchy, and perhaps it isn't something that ever needs acknowledging - but the brawn obeys all the same."

I nod slowly. "To me, that kind of sounds like you're saying that you're in charge. I'll ask Lung, just to make sure I can update PHO with the new ABB dynamics later on."

"Why would you need to do that? I don't know why you would do that." She challenges. "In fact, don't do that. Talk about anything except that."

I fight a smile. "Any particular reason?"

"Just-just shut up. And get back to the original point. Let me go, and start begging, and I might just grant you leniency. And no more talking about hierarchies in the ABB. Or about anything to do with asking questions to Lung, for that matter." She snaps. "You don't need to ask or understand why - as I said earlier. When the brain - me - speaks, the stupid, suicidal brawn - you - should just listen and obey."

"Like me and Lung." I supply helpfully.

She half-turns to stare at me balefully. "If I die, you die. And everyone in a three-block radius dies with you."

"I'm getting the impression that you and Lung aren't actually on the best of terms." I purse my lips.

"Obviously. As if I'd choose to team up with my lessers of my own volition. He happened to find me during a- a period where I didn't have sufficient resources to adequately deter intruders, and convinced me to... temporarily relocate." She explains. "We're not friends."

"He bulldozed through whatever workshop you had and recruited you at gunpoint." I translate. "You know, if you're looking for a way out - I could find a place for you away from both him and the PRT." I could bankroll a Tinker in my basement by charging a few rich people for healing. Or, I could even just pass her off to the Merchants to join Squealer - elongating the 'interview' process under another guise would probably bring both the Merchant Capes fully under my sway anyway.

She looks offended at the suggestion. "What? No! I don't need help from you, or anyone. In fact, I could have handled it there and then if I really wanted to - if I brought even a fraction of my talent to bear against him-" She cuts herself off without even looking at me. "It was a perfect opportunity for me. I now have a gang of appropriately loyal sycophants showing the correct level of respect to me, and there's only one person in the way of me taking complete control. This was always part of the plan eventually."

"Right." I slowly agree, letting the doubt seep into my tone.

Bakuda reluctantly allows me to take her down the rest of the stairs. Gallant and Vista are waiting at the bottom, both nervously eyeing my prisoner.

"What's up?" I call out.

Vista straightens, as if trying to stand a little taller. "The building is evacuated. A few people who didn't want to take a chance on running were hiding, but we're pretty sure we got them all-"

"A few too many explosions in the area to convince them easily." Gallant adds, looking at me. Why? Bakuda is right there! This guy's got something against me, I swear. Never feeling bad about cucking him ever again. Every bad NTR trope I've ever read, I'm putting it into practice just for him once I get my hands on Victoria. Just to prove the point, for all of the... not very long that I have until I clear out Gallant's challenge list too and all of my vengeance plans go up in smoke because both of them want me and are happy to share. Actually, things wouldn't have to stop there. I could see the appeal of Victoria begging for my cock, and her loyal girlfriend watching with no small amount of jealousy that she simply lacked the equipment to truly satisfy her lover's needs.

...aaand Gallant is still staring at me. Fuck off, dude. Ruining my daydreams. I'll get around to you when I feel like it.

Vista shoots an annoyed glance at Gallant for interrupting. "-but more importantly, we're stuck here for the moment. We found the bomb and the device that was used to turn the stage into a trap-"

Bakuda interrupts. "-And then realised that the very first thing I would do is ensure that they can't be disarmed safely without me?" Bakuda pulls herself up to her full height. Which wasn't actually that high. "I suppose, given the circumstances, I could be persuaded to make some adjustments - starting with getting this brute off of me, and ending with you serving as my new hostages instead now that you've so rudely scared off the guests-"

Vista looks at me. "You couldn't punch her a little harder?" Gallant coughs, and Vista shakes her head. "I mean, right. Uh. So, obviously - Kid Win seemed to have a pretty good handle on it. Not a simple fix, as she said. We're not sure if the bomb had a timer or what could set it off, he was working on it at the start to understand the mechanism and how to disarm it - but then the lights started to change just a minute or two ago, and Kid Win was pretty sure it was about to explode-" I send a suspicious glance to Bakuda who was deliberately looking in the other direction. "-so Clockblocker froze it - but now he can't move because he has to keep it frozen full-time or it will explode on us. Kid Win moved on to the trapped heroes, he thinks it's like the effect is being projected onto that area - and reckons he can swap out the current effect on stage with a different one of the same type, so Velocity has been in and out giving him different samples to work with from the goons outside to find something safe." She concludes her report with aplomb, flashing me a grin. "That's all, fearless leader!"

"He's not our leader." Gallant mutters.

"Nobody asked you, Gallant." She glares at him. "You went up there as a pair, then you ditched him and let him fight alone. You barely did a thing. What if something happened?" She turns to me, feet shuffling slightly. "Next time, you and I should work together. We'd have handled Bakuda way faster as a team, we'd make a pretty good pair-"

"Moving on-" Gallant interrupts. "Bakuda. As you've heard, your scheme here has been foiled. Cooperate with disarming the bombs and traps you created, and I'm certain that any punishment would be reduced appropriately-"

Bakuda doesn't seem to be listening. In fact, she's been muttering ever since Vista's report on what Kid Win had been trying. "That's absurd-" Bakuda pauses. "Well. It is my tech at the end of the day, it does make a certain amount of sense that the only thing capable of handling my work, is my own work. I suppose even an inferior Tinker could work that out-"

"Do we really need the running commentary from her?" The pint-sized heroine asks, fishing out a pair of handcuffs and reaching out to remove the gauntlet to make room on her wrist.

"Leave it on." I tell her. "If you bust the gauntlet or take it off, her bombs start going off on their own." Bakuda shoots a sharp look of surprise at me. Maybe some appreciation mixed in there too? Not sure why, maybe she hadn't realised that I had some level of knowledge on what her tech did - even if at just the level of the rookiest of rookie Tinkers? "Same reason I didn't knock her out. Don't know how many she has, but she's playing along so far - no reason for us to take the decision out of her hands and escalate via some automatic countdown she only put in because she was scared of getting her head blasted off the moment she showed her face."

"Scared? Ridiculous." The woman in question sniffs dismissively. But doesn't elaborate. Probably unable to refute that information dump from me, or it hit a little too close to home? Or, going by her previous threats - now that Clockblocker was taking her last resort out of the equation and it was looking likely that Armsmaster would be free soon, maybe she wasn't feeling so talkative now that she couldn't bring up her previous threats and successes?

I look around. "More importantly, Lung isn't here?"

"He's outside. Right outside. Just across the street." Gallant murmurs quietly, standing close to the nearest window and glancing outwards. "He doesn't seem bothered about coming in here specifically, and the police and heroes are backing off to try and get him to shrink down to something more manageable. He's confident enough to just wait there, even knowing what the heroes are doing."

"All those bombs Bakuda placed at the entrances are helping us now. He doesn't have any reason to want to be here, it's not like he can see through the walls." I conclude. "If we assume his original appearance and the hostage situation here was purely for the sake of making a scene and drawing heroes away from their patrols - there's nothing to gain from actually entering the building, especially if he doesn't realise Bakuda here had gone walkabouts to watch things personally."

"We're still missing something here- Hang on." Gallant sprints up to the stage as the air seems to warp, the sphere of slightly-distorted air on stage appears to shrink leaving a trail of ice behind. The effect passes over Browbeat, and she slips to the newly-iced-over floor - a flail of panic and confusion leaving dents in the floor before Gallant speaks to her in a calming voice to explain the situation.

She was probably nice enough, but she didn't change anything here. I'd guess that her power wouldn't contribute much against Lung, purely judging my version's lack of resistance against non-physical effects. We'd need Armsmaster before I opted into any confrontation on that level.

The pair come back down to us, and I hand off Bakuda to them. "I'm going to take a look outside." My main interest here was powers, if Lung wasn't going to come in here to force a drawn-out exchange with Bakuda where I could challenge him over and over - then I wasn't interested in waiting around. I just needed a glimpse to potentially get one of the strongest powers in the Bay.

Vista half-jogs after me. "Hey, I was meaning to say - thanks for keeping Bakuda busy earlier. It took a while for us to get everyone else out. I mean, I could have done it faster, but people kept rushing the walls or trying to find their own way to escape and-"

"-and your power doesn't like it when people are around." I nod.

"Right! I guess you'd know, on account of, uh, having my power." She trails off awkwardly. "But, obviously, pretty much everyone is gone now so I've got some real flexibility again." The smile falls from her face as she gains a distant look, hand half-raised to her ear. "Wha- shut up! He does not! I did!"

I raise an eyebrow at her irate expression and her balled fists as she turns back from whatever discussion she was having. "Shadow Stalker?"

"Bitch." She stiffens. "Uh, I mean-"

"No, that sounds accurate to me." I nod wisely.

For a moment, Vista looks like she wants to weakly defend her teammate, then relaxes into a giggle. "She really is!" A half-hearted hand to her ear again, but nothing she responds to this time. She bites her lip, squirming from one side to the other as if pondering if she even wants to say anything else. "You know, if you've got a plan for what we should do next, I can be useful - not just as a, you know, bystander like earlier."

I send her a confused look. "You weren't a bystander last time. Someone had to get the hostages out, you were the only one that could do it. And you did it perfectly. Just as well too, Bakuda made a real mess of the building." I'm not taking any blame for that. I flick my eyes back to the half-caved-in shell of the roof, a trio of gaping holes in the wall near where we were fighting, the collapsed balconies and the debris of wood, carved stone and glass scattered across the floor. "People were standing there just a few minutes ago, you did well. And, besides, I was using your power to embarrass Bakuda anyway - she couldn't really handle it at all, and I can't do all the things with it that you can. So you were kind of there in spirit."

"Really? You think it's useful?" She preens a little.

"The best power in the Wards." I nod.

Vista practically glows at that response. "You think so?" From the beaming, smug grin on her face - I just know Shadow Stalker is making her objections known right now. "I suppose you're the expert, right? If anyone would know, it would have to be you. We have to take your word for it."

"That's true. I am the only credible source." A shame Shadow Stalker wasn't here, but it was probably for the best. I doubted she was a good enough actor to really act like we've never met before when getting ribbed like this - and I wasn't the type to restrain myself for her sake.

"So, what do you think is going to happen next?" Vista prompts as I do my best to peer out the window, a small opening visible despite the reddish-white crystals that Bakuda's bombs had left behind to block the potential exit. As I look, the hole widens until it matches the length of the original window.

"Thanks." I murmur to the Ward. "And, that depends on what happened with Oni Lee. If the Empire was the one that hit the site he was at, he's dead and Lung is going to go ballistic. If it was ABB then he should be free, and I feel like we would know by now. The thing is, Bakuda mentioned some kind of exchange happening here, so if a third-party freed him and intends to drop him off here then we should be seeing them soon - which would explain why Lung is content just hanging around outside playing with Triumph and anyone else trying to keep him busy." At least, I'm pretty sure that was what was happening from the noises and shockwaves I was hearing earlier.

"Exchange what? If Lung had an Empire Cape as a hostage..." She scrunches her face up in thought.

I zero in on a burst of flames entering my vision - silently cursing at the challenge box not quite appearing. "The Empire would happily trade three of their Capes if it meant Oni Lee died, so I can't imagine they're involved. I'd guess it's Faultline's Crew. It's right up their alley - but if they've been hired, why not deliver straight into the heart of ABB territory? They didn't need to draw and maintain this kind of attention from the heroes in a contested area like this."

Was it just a misjudgement? Underestimating the heroes response? Lung wasn't exactly a Thinker, Bakuda seemed to have an overinflated opinion of herself too - I couldn't entirely put it past them. The dynamics of the ABB's plan completely shifted with the capture of their Tinker. If she was still hidden in an unknown location, directing her bombing runs - things would be completely different right now. The ABB would be on track to lose nothing but a few gangbangers that would swiftly be freed by their Capes. Most likely, with the hostage crisis over - the heroes would have pulled back entirely to focus on the Empire's breakout right now.

A satisfactory arrangement for everyone. Embarrassing for the PRT, but considering how this situation started with an Empire jailbreak and Armsmaster getting removed from play on turn one - that was already a given.

"Maybe they just didn't trust the ABB? He doesn't have the best reputation." The blonde hums. "If you drop them off in the middle of his home, with no heroes around - who's to say you ever leave, or anyone even finds out what happened to you? But if he pulls something here, everyone will see it - and maybe not even Lung wants to make more enemies than he already has."

"Mm." I could see the argument. It was just... messy.

There he is. Lung flames into view across the street, a stream of fire cutting off one angle of approach as he circles an ABB convoy. Just as Gallant said, content to stick around. There's no sign of New Wave or Dauntless, nor of Triumph and Velocity. They'd clearly backed off after their earlier defeats, knowing that Lung would shrink down to something less manageable over time - and that was clearly true. I'd seen the near-firestorm in the distance earlier, when Dauntless and New Wave were supposed to be clashing with him. Now? He was still an imposing figure, still wreathed in flames and still making a mockery of the frantically retreating police forces that were still in the area - but the destructive potential on display was closer to the standard output of a dangerous Cape rather than a threat that would deal catastrophic damage to the city as the merest, unintentional collateral for fighting within it.

And also absolutely unscathed after fighting a significant portion of the City's heroes for the best part of at least an hour. That was Lung for you. If you couldn't beat him outright, he'd outlast you and make it look like he hadn't even needed to try by the end of it.

I watch as ABB figures gather close to him, shouting something unintelligible at him. He seems to settle in some more. A little smaller than before, but... clearly not shrinking to his base-self. How long could he maintain that size without someone seriously attacking him? His transformation wasn't fully triggered by combat, because he could at least do some level of it himself. Was this the lower limit of that, or was it just the knowledge that the fight wasn't truly done yet letting him stay in the zone?

My eyes flick away from him, to the people around him. It looked an awful lot like he was guarding the ABB, rather than the other way around. Keeping Bakuda's earlier words in mind - an exchange - what, or perhaps who, was in that van at the centre of the formation? If Lung wanted to keep up either his personal strength, or simply make more of a scene to draw heroes back - he could just start rampaging through the streets until the heroes were forced to fight again, even if only to draw him away from civilians. Yet, he was content to just stay here?

A part of me, a big part of me, thinks that I have enough powers that I could get myself inside that van to see for myself. I'm confident. Powers to distract, to get through walls, to shrink space, glide unnaturally, run as fast as a man could aim... but for all I knew, I'd get into that van and find that it was Circus's unpowered cousin or something and that was the leverage the ABB had with their mysterious third party playing jailbreak.

"This feels weird, seeing him right there. I've never actually been this close to him before. The PRT usually won't let us get anywhere near places he might show up." Vista rocks on her heels. "I mean, usually they don't want to let us near where anyone would show up - even something like this is rare enough."

"Doubt they would even have let you try this if they knew Bakuda was in the building." I nod. "One of the reasons I didn't really want to join up with you all officially, I get to do my own thing - without an entire department dedicated to keeping me miles from danger."

"Must be nice, having your own mini-team. Taking down whatever villains you like. I saw the report on what you did to the Merchants, sent them scurrying back underground like it was nothing - it's a shame the Capes slipped away, but even making them run with their tails between their legs is impressive." Or the lack of one. Or... no, there was a better joke there somewhere. Not that it mattered, I doubted that anyone of the Merchants was going to be forthcoming with the truth of what happened to them that night. "Probably not happening here though." She concludes. "Unless you can turn into a dragon as well?" A curious, somewhat-hopeful question.

"Not yet." I respond drily.

But I'm working on it. I size up his challenge box.

Lung

1/6

(CAGE)

Fuck. The worst modifier for Lung. Anything that didn't let me ambush him with my strongest attacks was probably doomed.

Still. It made it simple. With no room to strategise or escape, and my odds of victory only growing slimmer with time - I'd just have to close the gap immediately and pray that I could beat him to death before it was too late. "Challenge."

I don't even wait for the world to finish materialising. There's no time. The outline of the man is the only target I need as he matches my approach with confident strides of his own, steam already rising from his skin and standing just a little bit taller already. My ash clone stirs to life between one step and the next, taking Parian's power and pulling a thread from my clothes. Something to clockblock and impale or bisect him on, but I'd have to do it at a distance or he'd just burn-

A wall of heat hits me. Like that. My clothes already feel hot against my skin. Didn't even get the chance to show up in clothes that wouldn't catch fire immediately, but it seems he doesn't get quite that level of control over fire right away. It shouldn't take long. Fifteen seconds, max - and I didn't have a single answer to being engulfed in fire other than, perhaps, having already won the fight.

But... it's fine. I've been burned to death before. The method of my death doesn't change a thing, Lung's Brute powers would kill me just as certainly if I failed to kill him in the opening moments - it would just take longer to exhaust my defensive options.

Browbeat's power reaches it's zenith as we meet in the centre of the room. I drive a fist into Lung's torso while he swipes at my head, hand already distorted with sharpened claws. Something breaks under my fist, but Lung doesn't flinch - his arm coming down to seize mine and- I pull it back in the shadow state before he can trap it. Didn't like that. Quick and decisive on his part, he knows his way around combat - not quite to the extent of me... but I'm desperate, and he isn't. I have to take risks, have to end the fight now.

I lunge after him. Shots to the head would be best, but he was already taller than me from the start - and every inch makes the dream of a lucky knockout blow just a little bit more distant. He wards me off, driving his own fist into my side - pausing as it bounces off my forcefield harmlessly. Smoke reaches my nostrils as my superheated outfit starts to give way, some parts melting into skin - others simply lighting ablaze in an instant.

It's fine. It's just pain. He's hurt too. Browbeat's power is a match for him right now. Just need to keep pushing harder, take a limb out - bring him down to a level where I can land a killing blow before he regenerates the damage, something that's already starting to become a problem.

I freeze momentarily as my ash clone dies. My other win condition, using some kind of guillotine-string if I could get him to run full-pelt into it, had just died with it. Not even to an attack. Not even to a shockwave. Just heat. I could understand it, everything hurts for me too. It's hard to even look at Lung because of how much my eyeballs hurt to keep open, not that closing them would help either. I've just never tested the ash clone for how well it handles heat, or 'passive' attacks like that in general.

Scales crack as I finally land another clean hit on his torso, then another - hoping to open up a hole and just rip his heart out to see if he could regenerate that. I already know it's hopeless. I landed a clean hit before these scales even appeared, and couldn't break through his skin then. I can't even see the damage from that attack now.

I'm grabbed, and this time - I don't bother trying to get out through the shadow state. I make an attempt to bend his arm backwards, my brute-enhanced strength fully-invested in getting any, small win. I get a creak for my efforts, the screeching whine of metal - but not the satisfying break I'd hoped for. He lifts me up one-handed, raising me to his glowing eyes and his face - no longer clearly recognisable as human by the metal scales covering him.

"Get it over with." I hiss. "I'll be back. I don't need much more to reach you."

I disappear into a storm of fire and fury that leaves nothing behind.

FAILURE

"What do we do if he does come this way?" Vista frets, unaware of my struggles.

"Leave. Fast." I shake my head. "But he's got no reason to come in here. The ABB doesn't have a Thinker, or even a good strategist. It's all just Lung and what Lung wants to do - that helps us right now. Bakuda went off-script, showed up here without an escort and - admit it - she doesn't seem like the kind of person to ever think that she'd need an SOS beacon, right? She can't guide, control or speak through the drones without her tech. Sure, he probably knows we're in here - someone in the ABB would have said something about what happened with the hostages, but nobody in the ABB actually came inside. They saw the explosions from a distance, but it could have all been her drones."

"Because they all think this place is a deathtrap anyway, if they know Bakuda has her big bomb here. There's supposed to be heroes wasting their time in here trying to defuse something, and Lung can probably live through whatever Bakuda cooked up anyway even if it gets triggered - deliberately or not - so anyone actually trying to chase him away is going to have to contend with the fact that they're in the blast zone that could be blown up at any second. They think it's the perfect situation for them." She seems amused at something. "This feels sneaky, just keeping quiet and getting one over on the villains for once. Sure, it looks like they'll get Oni Lee back - but we're still up one at the end of the day, getting out with the Tinker right under their noses."

I turn towards her and try to smile at that, but it ends up as more of a grimace. Bakuda entering police custody would probably be the last I saw of her, depending on how much they pinned on her relative to Lung. The Birdcage wasn't out of the question, rebranding halfway across the country under constant supervision was the light option. Either way, a Tinker power that I'd be missing out on. I suppose it was better than the possibility of someone who didn't deserve it dying in an unnecessary fight between the ABB and the Wards, which wasn't exactly impossible to imagine - but I was still mildly annoyed that the ABB's fumbling was going to cost me in the long term. "Easy to say that, but we're not out yet. Clockblocker and Kid Win can't exactly move, and I'm pretty sure the police are just monitoring the situation at a distance now that the hostages are gone and Lung is here."

"True, but-" Vista looks past me and pauses. "-uh, huh?"

It takes me a few seconds to notice the source of her confusion. Not the sight of anything in particular, but rather - the opposite. The flames, the street lights and the slight illumination from the moon had been enough to catch a glimpse of Lung before. But now, the light had faded from almost the entire street in one direction.

My eyes widen. No, rather - the light had been covered by darkness instead. "Close the window!" I hiss. The viewing hole shrinks back to its original size.

"Was that... Fog? From the Empire?" Vista sounds perplexed. "I thought they went to Boston, they were in my brief when first joined the Wards - but they skipped town right afterwards. Why show up now?"

"That isn't Fog. He can't cover that much space, let alone block out light so perfectly. It's Grue." I let my voice carry to the others.

"Grue?" Vista echoes. "Who?"

"The Undersiders." Gallant supplies, pacing over - I note Aegis has joined us, newly freed from his position on stage. That's terrible news, not because Aegis isn't moderately useful as a meatshield - but because I'd really prefer Armsmaster to be free right now instead of him. "They were in our last brief. New thief group that made their first showing not too long ago - but not much was known about them and their crime of choice wasn't overly serious so we mostly skipped over them. I'm surprised to see them working with Lung so soon after they hit a casino under his protection. Would have thought they'd stay as far away as they could."

"Maybe they tried." I mutter darkly. "And failed. What do you say the odds are that they got caught, Lung took one for good behaviour - and said that they can have them back if they do one quick job?"

A beat of silence. A short, brief curse from Aegis.

"We can probably assume that they're the ones who broke Oni Lee out, but whoever they were working with doesn't really matter. If anything, this is better. We know that they'll run away the first chance they get. The Palanquin would be more professional about the job outcome." Gallant drums his fingers against his armour. "Lung will leave, the ABB will retreat - we hand off Bakuda to the cops and we get all the time in the world to handle the bomb. This is a good thing."

I stare at him. Idiot. Or, maybe he just doesn't know about the powers - I suppose I have an advantage there. "The Undersiders have a Thinker. A decently strong one. She's going to take one look at this place and realise exactly what happened here. How much do you think the information on the whereabouts of his pet Tinker could be sold to Lung for?"

"They're not friends. Lung isn't the type to forgive, and any Thinker worth their salt is going to realise that. She has no reason to help him." Aegis crosses his arms. "The opposite, in fact. They could laugh Lung missing us right under his nose all the way home."

"Is that what you think?" Bakuda interrupts for the first time in a while, looking on the verge of laughter. "All this time, you really thought you had it all under control? That is precious. But, now you know - I'm always one step ahead. Because those little thieves? Oh, Lung caught them all right. And yes, he did take the little fire-breathing bitch as a good-behaviour token. And he really thought that some petty criminals wouldn't just abandon their teammate - all that talk about honour and camaraderie. But, I'm not so gullible. I gave them all the motivation that they needed to do the job properly."

"Away from the window!" Gallant calls out. "They're coming this way!"

A thundering boom echoes outside. Triumph's power. The sound of crackling electricity and lasers reach us a moment later. Lung was fighting the heroes again. Or, rather, the heroes had a reason to fight Lung again.

A reason like, stopping him from running in here? The Wards slowly back away from the walls as one unit as darkness seeps through the doorway, some of Bakuda's blocking bombs seeming to sputter and die as energy fields and flames are seemingly devoured. One figure steps through first, emerging from the cloud and looking around with a steady gaze.

Tattletale. One of my most-wanted in all of the Bay. Not because of what I could use her power for, but what her power could do against me. Given the time and motivation, she was the only one in the Bay capable of exposing me. Her power wasn't perfect, I knew that from the bank challenge - she got things wrong, she made wrong conclusions and fed those back into her power to make even more wrong conclusions. But, eventually, she'd get me.

Unless her head got separated from her shoulders by the bulky bomb collar that was beeping and flashing around her neck.

Good news, she isn't interested in me today - I'm not the only one here, the focus of her power is going to be on keeping herself alive and - unlike the challenge - I'm not exactly going to be blatant about my intentions. But still, I've been waiting for a chance to find and challenge her - it's possibly one of my most important challenges, boosting her to a certain level of friendship where she doesn't care about my power or what it does to people - or her.

Tattletale

Undersiders 1/6

(EVNT) (REAL)

"Challenge." Get it out of the way before the situation escalates. If it was tough, hopefully I'd get multiple chances.

REMAIN NEAR TARGET WITHOUT BEING IDENTIFIED

TARGET MUST NOT ENTER COMBAT

YOU HAVE THREE LIVES

Huh. Never seen that before. That was very different. But, then again - I'd never faced a real Thinker before. I shouldn't be surprised that this wasn't going to be a raw combat challenge, there weren't many great ways to make 'person with gun' difficult for me at this stage. I spawn in a rooftop overlooking the Boardwalk, a clear line of sight to Tattletale walking past - not in full costume, actually she seemed a little ragged. Not that she was drawing any attention for it. Not terribly unusual, most NPC's didn't seem to think much of the challenge targets until they made a violent move.

I back away from the rooftop edge before a lucky glance in my direction ends the challenge. So. Stealth mission. Don't get spotted. Get into a certain range. And... what, win? The 'remain' seemed a critical word here, implying that I couldn't just get close in a single burst but that I needed to stay there without her realising for a period. What was the exact requirement, to outlast a timer? Fill up a progress bar? The strategy could change if I could just hang around near areas she was walking, get a certain way through the objective until she moved out of range - then do the same for the next safe spot. But if I needed to stay around her for minutes on end in a single period until winning? That would require something special if she was moving around. A disguise, certainly.

But, her power was going to jump on a strange disguise immediately. I grit my teeth. I didn't need this to be difficult. Two softball challenges, at least to get her to a level where she tolerates me and thinks she could use me - that's what I needed from my power. She could be harder than Eidolon after that, I don't care - but this position was dangerous for me, and I was already getting the feeling that I was in for a painful slog despite the lack of combat.

...I really, really wanted our first encounter to come from me spying on them from a nearby rooftop. Something like that. This was... suboptimal.

Fine. Let's nail down the specifics of the challenge first. The fact that my power had, with zero prompting, decided to give me three lives per challenge? To me, that practically screamed that this was going to be hard. But it would help me to experiment. I could be grateful for that much, at least.

First of all, I grant a nearby bug administrator status and settle it onto her clothes. Just to track her while I didn't have eyes on her. Then, I jump off the building in the opposite direction from her. Finding a suitable NPC to rob wasn't difficult. Hat. New clothes. Sunglasses. Simple. Not exactly reinventing myself, but I was only really looking to prevent her spotting me at a distance.

I take my time circling around to her position. She seems to be acting out the part of a tourist, or someone new to the city. Sightseeing and shopping, but not with the free and easy attitude of a regular civilian. She's too skittish, sometimes looking around with suspicious, wary glances - and at one point breaking out into a light jog to leave the area at the arrival of a patrolling security guard.

About fifteen paces away from her, I notice a flicker of movement in the objectives for the challenge. A progress bar. Barely even a sliver. As she swaps sides of the street, incidentally making more distance from me - I note the sliver vanishes, dropping me back to 0% again. I aim past her, and don't break my stride, looking to simply walk straight past her as if making a beeline for the nearby coffee shop. 1%. 3%. 9%. 19%. Her eyes flick over to me, then away - then slam back to me in alarm. The world flashes white, and I find myself on the rooftop again.

0%.

Informative. I think I have a pretty clear idea of how this works now. That was definitely increasing much, much faster when I was closest to her - and barely increasing at all at the far edges of the apparent 'scoring area' around her. When she got too far away, progress started to decrease instead. When spotted, instantaneous failure and a reset to 0. Need to reach 100% to win. So, either getting right on top of her for a few seconds without being noticed - or hanging around her general vicinity for a few minutes without drawing her attention.

That isn't easy. But that's why I get multiple attempts, I suppose. Lesson one... I think getting too close is a doomed effort, with the erratic way that she's moving, pretending to be a regular pedestrian that just happens to be sticking to her like glue won't work out. I should assume that any concentrated Thinker efforts directed at me were going to get through my disguise. I needed to be a regular guy, that stood up to the same cursory glance that she's giving hundreds of other people throughout the day.

New hat. Gloves. I try applying makeup for the best part of thirty minutes before I'm happy that I look a different shade to usual, a little less pasty. New outfit. Book as a prop.

I'm spotted before I even hit 5%.

Reset. I drum my fingers against the roof. No chance. The biggest issue is that I'm not sure what about me is getting flagged to her power. Is it the disguise itself? My body language? My movements? Something about my expression, or some particulars about my outfit? Presumably she already knew what 'Greg' looked like, was she pre-filtering for people with a certain height and build or did I just stand out that much to her power?

Another experiment then. Last try. Clearly, my effort to conceal my features last time didn't go so well. I was spotted at a distance, didn't even get the chance to get closer. The 'loudest' part of my presence was clearly nothing to do with my face or my hair, but my general silhouette and actions. Fine. I go on another robbery spree. Tall, platform shoes, made taller with a bit of DIY - just to gain a little bit of extra height in case it made a difference. Trenchcoat. Facemask. Sunglasses again. Newspaper.

A textbook detective from an old movie. Reading the newspaper on a bench near where she walked on her first route. Her position, attitude and general route seem to get reset with my failures too - so I don't need to be worried about this being a pseudo-CONT modifier as well, keeping her appraised on my recent tricks.

3%. I don't turn around as the progress bar begins to move, or even react - I just keep reading the front page of a paper that's several months old. Another challenge based in the past. 8%. 17% She walks right past me. 38%. 47%. 51%.

FAILURE

I don't swear. That was good information. Because my disguise? It was pretty stupid. But what it did do, was limit the surface area her power had to work on. No facial movements to analyse, I wasn't even looking at her. No movement patterns to judge, I wasn't moving. No body language to react to, I was just reading. The tiny micromovements that could somehow be analysed to give away my true intentions? Masked and muffled by heavy, bulky clothing that barely gave anything to work with. Yes, it wasn't a good 'real' disguise - enough that I earned a second look from her eventually. And, yes, I would have to be able to move with her for a successful run to reach 100% - which would take away one of my listed 'advantages'. But the proof of concept was there.

Her power wasn't all-knowing.

And, conveniently enough, my costume was exactly that kind of bulky outfit that I'd just trialled. Heavy armour, lots of padding. Even the half-mask completely concealed my eyes, and if I slipped the full mask into place I would be even more safeguarded. I'd just have to avoid being too obvious with my body language.

Or rather, leave her the obvious conclusion to make - that I was ready for a fight. Feeling violent at the appearance of her gang. I didn't need to hide that. She was expecting it. She'd understand that, and hopefully, move on.

I didn't need to be afraid of her just because I hadn't won enough to give me another safety net. Even if she found out about me, it wouldn't be game-over then either. A war of public opinion between a villain and a hero, one in good standing with the PRT, one who could influence both her and any heroes or Thinkers or public personalities likely to have an opinion on the matter? I could handle that. And if I couldn't, I'd make a pretty cool villain anyway until it was time for the 'misunderstanding' to be cleared up.

Right. I had the cards here. Nothing to worry about, so I just need to act like the hero I'm trying to be. I step up next to the Wards as they adopt a fighting posture. The bank challenge, except they don't have Taylor - and I don't have Clockblocker or Kid Win because they're busy downstairs. I mentally replay Bakuda's earlier words. Fire-breathing bitch? Not a familiar one. Possibly a replacement Cape, but I could discount them for the sake of the argument.

The trade sucked. Yes, Taylor was oppressive in a fight, especially against a group like the Wards with little in the way of AOE attacks - but losing Clockblocker was terrible. Only Regent was capable of handling him out of this group, otherwise he countered everyone else in the Undersiders - including the dogs.

I run the maths. Two empowered dogs hidden in the darkness. Maybe a third, if we included the one usually held back from combat. Bitch. Grue. Regent. Tattletale - plus a possible mystery teammate, and the threat of Lung in the distance if the Protectorate had to back off again. Against Vista, Gallant, Aegis, Browbeat and me.

Could we handle one and a half Capes combatants each? Some of us, maybe. Vista could if she started with enough distance before too many people were nearby, messing up her powers with their Manton Limit. Aegis just gets used as a chewtoy for one dog, I've seen that fight a dozen times before - he doesn't die, but he's not enough of a Brute to overpower it either. Browbeat fares a little better, but I'd still say that she is most likely to just match one dog, equalising and removing them both from the equation. Gallant is worth maybe a third of a combatant on our side. Gallant, Vista and I against Tattletale, Regent, Grue, Bitch, Mystery fire-breather. And one dog.

...winnable. Though, if the third dog got involved as anything other than transport - it would be tough. My biggest advantage was the fact that Grue was useless if he didn't want to cripple his teammates - the fact that they, and the dogs, seemed so happy to remain inside his power was puzzling enough. They'd have to move if they intended to fight. But overall, these were low-tier Capes from a combat perspective. I would win comfortably if it came down to it.

But only by my metrics. By a life-or-death battle, with no other outcome allowed. I don't think they could kill me, but I could definitely kill them - it would take time, I'd need to retreat extensively against the combo of Grue's darkness and Regent - but I would win.

That wasn't going to happen here. They wanted Bakuda, and I didn't really have a way to stop them.

...nor did I particularly want to. As much as Tattletale exploding would make my life a bit easier, rookie, fairly-harmless wannabe villains in the Bay that are around my age weren't exactly at the top of my 'I'd be okay if you died' list. And their powers could be useful too, especially Grue and Tattletale. They just got over their heads a little with the ABB. I don't blame them for today, I'm sure they'd rather be anywhere else too. Tattletale looks tense, stressed in a familiar way to me - far from the overconfident Thinker I'd clashed with at the bank challenge.

I glance to the side. The Wards hadn't done the same maths as I yet. Probably because the dogs, and the rest of the Undersiders, had yet to emerge from Grue's darkness. The group was too much of an unknown for them to understand the matchup they were facing. The powers were too unknown, too many rumours and not enough hard stats and facts. I was, undoubtedly, the foremost expert in the Bay about the group - they just didn't have the well-documented appearances and fights for people to construct an accurate threat profile off of, or even a decent wiki page.

Bakuda continues, smiling viciously at the stone-faced Tattletale. "You see, they've got to make sure Lung is happy to get their friend - but they've got to come and keep me happy to keep their heads. Naturally, I gave them a tracker to reach me - and I won't be thinking about taking those collars off until I am free of these idiots and their restraints." She locks eyes with me. "Checkmate, I win."

Tattletale visibly bites down on her retort, instead, she turns towards Aegis. "Drop her, we don't want to fight. We'll leave as soon as we're done here."

The Wards at my side shift uncomfortably, reluctant to just hand over the prisoner - and not fully understanding the relative strength of the team that they were facing. Aegis raises his hands as if to calm everyone down. "Listen, we have experts who can disarm those - we don't need to-"

"Fucking save it." Tattletale snarls, jabbing a finger at her neck. "This isn't a negotiation. We walk away, she blows us up. Just step away, we'll be gone and you can fight the ABB yourselves. Be sensible."

Do I want to draw attention to myself? It probably wasn't smart. I raise a hand anyway. "Actually, I busted up her controller pretty badly - we have time-"

"You missed it, idiot."/"You missed it, moron." Both Tattletale and Bakuda speak at the same time, one with a voice dripping in scorn and one with glee. Tattletale continues. "She's been selecting our collars constantly for the last few minutes, if Grue's power didn't block external signals - we would have died before even making it halfway here." A pause as Tattletale glares at Bakuda. "Right. You didn't even mean to, you just lost track of what you were selecting and started selecting and firing everything because you were losing a fight. You don't even know what you're targeting without a visual aid and you were just looking to kill yourself and everyone around you rather than lose with grace-" Her collar hums with blue light, and she stops talking abruptly.

"Good girl." Bakuda tells her with feigned warmth. "Now, I'll stop sending encouragements to speed up - if the rest of you fools hurry up and dispose of these pests. Especially the stupid-looking one."

"Hey, what did Gallant do?" I object, feeling a moment of solidarity for my fellow man. Only I got to look down on him like that!

The two criminals look at me, along with Gallant and Aegis. Vista hesitates for a moment, before resolutely joining me in looking at Gallant.

"For the record." Tattletale continues, looking at me with no small amount of annoyance. "There's a backup control in her boots. She controls it with her feet. But, sure, might have been a good idea if you'd bothered to be thorough about disarming her. Too late for that though."

Well, that was unnecessarily harsh. Good information though, I'll bet that's reflected in a challenge at some point.

"This is a waste of time." The dark cloud behind Tattletale shimmers and parts as a muffled, distorted voice calls out. Something huge steps through into the room, the smog peeling back to reveal a snarling, canine visage. Then another, and another. That would be Bitch and her dogs, and the first real impression that the Wards have likely ever had about the raw size of her empowered canines. "Brutus! Judas! Hurt!"

Not much of a conversationalist. That tracks with what I know.

The two larger dogs surge forward, Aegis immediately responding to match the one on the left - Browbeat hesitating for a moment before squaring up to the one on the right, only for it to seem to sink into the floor - a shallow dip in the room magnified to a near-cliff face by Vista. Nice effort, but the dogs can climb walls - it won't take long to clamber its way out. I turn away, back to Tattletale, noting the slight outline of the remaining dog and the dark cloud in the background.

I still can't see Bitch, but that's because the source of the darkness is now far more clear - pulsing and flowing out from atop the back of the smallest dog, the one that hadn't been committed into melee range. At a guess, the rest of the 'team' was riding on top of that one or waiting just behind it.

Tattletale's gaze looks across the room, passing over me after just a momentary glance - before sharpening on Gallant. "Don't even think about it."

"Think about what?" Gallant challenges.

"Don't get cute against my powers, I'm psychic." Oh, she tried that line in a few variants of the bank challenge too. It didn't work then, and I don't think Gallant believes her now either. "Dropping that containment foam grenade on Bakuda? You're right, we couldn't do anything to remove it - but we outnumber and outman you even without the ABB. We'd just end up taking all of you hostages and drag this out into a bigger crisis than it has to be. We want to leave. You want us to leave. For that to happen, we need Bakuda."

"It doesn't have to be like that, if you work with us-" Gallant tries, only to be interrupted again.

"It does. There's nothing you can do here. And even if we could do that, Bakuda isn't the type to just watch us flip sides - she was willing to try and detonate every single bomb connected to her remote, including the one that Ki- Clockblocker is handling downstairs, just because she lost a fight to him. Who, by the way-" I tense as her smile turn feral as she jabs the pistol towards me, looking as if she wanted to say something else before her words seem to die on her tongue - stumbling into an oddly hasty transition as she turns back to Gallant. "W- we can't hide under Grue's cover indefinitely, we need to come out and reconnect every few minutes. We're running under a literal timer. Stop thinking about a perfect victory, and realise nobody needs your brand of heroism right now. The choice is, throw that grenade, watch us all die in front of you as Bakuda acts like a sore loser, then Lung kills you all to get to Bakuda anyway - or, option two, we get what we want, we leave. Lung also leaves because he has what he wants, and you all get to go home in the knowledge that you didn't fuck everything up by escalating in a way that nobody wanted."

Gallant hesitates, casting a glance at his allies as Aegis is mauled by one dog and Browbeat wrestles with the snapping jaws of the next. Finally, he removes one hand from his belt. "Don't expect-"

"That won't help either, you're just doing it for your own ego at that point." She interrupts again, then taps her head again. "Psychic, remember? Just sit down, out of the way - and we'll be gone before you can even-"

"I think not." Bakuda cuts in. "I was quite clear about the terms of your employment, was I not? I expect full effort out of you, otherwise..." The collar on Tattletale's neck pulses blue in warning. "...boom. And don't think hiding under cover will save you know that I know what you're doing, blocking a single signal is one thing - but my devices know what to do when losing contact for too long, you'll have to reconnect at some point - and I'll have that signal firing full-time if I'm dissatisfied with your choices."

"Just give it up, Tats." I immediately identify the one dropping down from the dog as Regent. I click my tongue in annoyance at the fact that I could clearly see him peeking out of the cloud, but the challenge box still didn't display. Did he need to be fully separated from Grue's power to become targetable? That's annoying, I'd love to get a Master power added to my collection. "Nobody likes a know-it-all telling them what's best for them. Let's just slug it out for a bit, and everyone can pretend that they gave worse than they got at the end of the day rather than just stood aside and let the villains take everything. You go and negotiate our freedom. For all her words, she needs us right now - it's a good time to find a compromise."

Tattletale doesn't retort. Huh. Guess she really is tired. "Just, don't risk-" She cuts herself off deliberately, the meaning obvious between the two of them.

"We know." He waves her off with a lazy hand gesture. "Spitfire, Grue - are you with me?" The response to his question is too muffled by Grue's power to be heard by me, but two more figures slip down from Angelica regardless. My eyes sharpen on the unfamiliar Cape. Not part of the bank challenge, presumably the 'fire-breathing-bitch' mentioned previously? That sounded like a fun power. "I know the others, any advice for dark, edgy and mysterious over there?"

Tattletale glances at me for a moment, looking oddly hesitant. Just what was her power saying about me, I wonder? "Void Cowboy. Power copier. You won't beat him, but he doesn't want to beat you either - he's motivated to let us get out of here alive so he can copy us later." I shrug at the not-accusation. She smirks tightly as she clambers back onto Angelica to settle next to Bitch, who is now also fully visible now that Grue wasn't next to her to conceal the riders. "He'll only get serious if it looks like someone's about to die and he's going to lose another person to leech off of, which means he has no choice but to cover our backs and fight Lung the moment he beats the heroes outside. Ignore him if you want. Bitch, let's go - straight through."

Nobody is willing to stand in the way of the charging dog, especially not with the three dropped-off Capes coming to intercept us. Bakuda is stolen away in a single driveby, but they don't go far - just splitting away from the ongoing battles to avoid collateral damage. As we scatter to either side, I let out a small sigh of relief. Got through one encounter with Tattletale. As I suspected, she's got bigger things to focus her power on right now than my deepest darkest secrets. She doesn't need to dig deep for an advantage over me, if she knows I'm not even interested in stopping her. Hopefully, by the time she's got the focus to spare - I'll have won a few challenges and she won't care anymore.

Should I have challenged Bitch? No, probably not. Browbeat was overpowering Judas in raw strength, but was far less agile and couldn't convert her advantage into anything meaningful - I'd have to do the same, with a weaker power, likely against three times the dogs. Unless I could ambush her directly without facing the dogs in a fair fight, I didn't see victory as likely. A little too much Brute for me to power through, and, to be blunt - I didn't care about her power either. If my briefing from Tattletale at the bank challenge was to be believed - her power didn't control dogs, it provided understanding and enhanced them. My power wasn't going to give me a free puppy in my challenges, and I wasn't really looking to recruit one to the 'team' right now either. The training I'd need to do... no. Not happening. It's just not a power I need right now.

On the other hand, everyone else on the Undersiders? Now that was a different story. I wanted them all. Especially with how one-dimensional most of their powers were, I don't see a world where I get scammed like I was for Miss Militia's power - I was certain to get a real, usable variant for some very useful-looking powersets.

I take stock of the situation. Aegis off to the side... that fight is going exactly as I knew it would. I've seen the matchup too many times, Aegis doesn't respect the mobility of the dogs - they catch him out of the air and he isn't enough of a Brute to get free from the jaws. Except, he is way more than enough of a Brute to handle being used as a full-time chewtoy - keeping Brutus distracted for everyone else. I expected it, it's fine. Browbeat was doing acceptably too, although she sounds rather agitated by the state Aegis is in if I'm hearing her right from over here - probably not used to seeing just how much of a beating he can really take. It's not a pretty sight, but you get used to it after the first few times.

Closer to me, both Regent and Grue are hiding in the latter's darkness, while 'Spitfire' splits off and immediately showcases why they called themselves that by spraying the ground closest to us in liquid that immediately ignites across the floor, racing dangerously close to us before Vista steps around me - folding part of the floor over the affected areas to completely bury the flames in place. Spitfire repeats the move more aggressively this time, only for the attack to seem to curve in the air and splash harmlessly to the side.

Harmlessly? I take a moment to consider the scorching heat even at this distance. Maybe not. If that doesn't go out soon... well. At least nobody will be able to blame me for the majority of the damage to the building anymore, on account of the entire building burning down around us. The floor was cracking already, and I could see a fire spreading pretty quickly if it came to it.

Well, it's not my building. Not much I could do about it anyway.

"For what it's worth-" I call out to the approaching darkness and any Wards that were listening. "-this is why I didn't want my power to be public knowledge at first. Everyone starts thinking that all of my motivations are about powers! That isn't true at all. What, I'm not allowed to try and be generically heroic anymore? The basic stance of not wanting relatively harmless people to die, is now a nefarious goal of wanting to steal their powers down the line. It's outrageous, there's far more to my character sheet than that! If I was a flying brick, I'd still be here - I'm doing this for the love of the game."

"Surprisingly, I actually believe you on that much." Gallant responds.

"Maybe you're not so bad, Gallant." I concede. I watch as the hero in question fires off beams into the darkness. "I was too harsh. You're still not very useful, but that heart of yours is in the right place."

"You could help, instead of criticising." He points out.

I'm not getting in that cloud. I know what Regent's power is, and I'm not interested in letting him get a touch in. I can't trust that he won't keep hold of me if I give him that chance. "This one's all you, you've got your power armour on - neither of them are Brutes, only one of them can see in there. You've got this. Oh, but your lasers won't work - Grue's power just shuts down things like that. Fisticuffs only. I hate to prove Tattletale right, but I actually agree that this fight is pretty pointless for us and the best outcome is everyone getting out unscathed - so I'm just going to make sure Aegis and Browbeat don't get eaten while Bitch is looking the other way, things like that. Have fun!"

"Bitch?" He looks at me strangely. "What's Tattletale got to do with it?"

"Uh, Hellhound." I wave him off. "You know what, it's too much trouble to explain. Just- just go in swinging until you hit something." I shove him forward despite his protests. "As for me-" I surge to the side, the air twisting in front of me as Vista realises my intent - curving my path directly around the back of Spitfire. My approach is foiled by the girl abruptly blasting a semi-circle of flames around her to avoid being flanked. "-this one is mine!" I finish, conceding the defeat of my opening surprise attack.

I just wanted to get a real understanding of her power before I started challenging her, rather than finding out some unpleasant secondary ability too late. I was on a clock here, had to remember that.

I weave away from the spreading flames, moments later - I realise she's doing the same. "Not immune to heat?" I throw out the guess blindly. They don't respond, glaring directly at me instead. Or, probably glaring. I don't like this gas mask trend I've been seeing today, they just aren't very expressive at all. They just leave me guessing all the time.

And speaking of leaving me guessing... "Got a question for you. It's going to decide how hard I hit you, so I want an answer." I crack my knuckles together. "Are you a boy, or a girl?" Both Vista and Spitfire stare at me blankly. I raise my hands into the air. "I mean, I looked in the obvious places and I couldn't really tell-" Spitfire flinches, and their arms move as if to cover themselves. Vista glowers at me. "In my defence, all I heard you described as is 'fire-breathing-bitch'. In my view, 'bitch' is a bit like 'guys' - a valid gender-neutral term. Maybe more likely to be one side than the other, but you can definitely call a guy a bitch if you want-"

"I'm a girl." The heavily-masked voice replies. "Please go easy on me."

"Of course! I'm a gentleman!" I agree cheerily.

"She's still a villain, and one that's burning a priceless building down around us at that!" Vista protests.

"Girls can't have hobbies now?" I counter.

"I don't really want to!" She insists. "But, if I don't-"

"I get it. I empathise, I really do." I nod wisely. "You need to put on a show, or maybe Bakuda sees you being useless and blows you up to prove that she's serious - I don't blame you for that. And, you clearly aren't aiming at us with any of your, uh, spit? You seem like a nice person, in a tough situation."

Spitfire nods. "That's right! This wasn't what I wanted, I signed up for- well-"

"Robbing people, and never seeing any of the consequences?" Vista edges a word in.

"No! I mean, Tattletale said we could turn down jobs - so, harmless ones would be fine, maybe-" She cuts off her own sentence before she can incriminate herself more.

"Better spit some more flames." I encourage. "Make it look good." She hastens to obey. I clear my throat as I make a show out of chasing her, Vista shaking her head at the scene and redirecting her attention to Browbeat - trying to pin the opposing canine in place by shifting the ground around them. "It's fine. I'm a hero, but I can at least appreciate that you signed up with petty criminals instead of the Empire or the ABB." I pause. How far could I trust the 'future' vision of that bank challenge? She wasn't part of the team then, so did that mean that she had left already? I could see an experience like this scaring off someone who didn't seem all that committed to the casual criminal lifestyle, and that presented a potential opportunity. "If you feel like you aren't cut out for this life, you could always swap sides. My team is recruiting right now. I can pay the bills for you, we'll meet up every now and then - but I won't even force you to patrol if you don't want to."

"You can't partner up with random villains!" Vista objects. "You- you need a heroic partner. Y-your team is new! And small! What you need is someone with a power that you really respect, with years of experience as a hero and- shut up, Shadow Stalker!"

Sorry Vista, there's no way I'll get away with poaching a Ward for real - but I'll be back for you and the rest of your team eventually, don't you worry!

"Think about it." I don't let Vista's protest sway me. Jealousy won't get you anywhere, you'll all just have to share me. "You can find me on PHO."

"I'll... keep it in mind." The doubt in her tone tells me that it's not the obvious choice for her, but hopefully a boost or two will be enough to bring her on side. Making my team bigger can't be a bad thing. I'll take a non-refusal for now.

"Now, as my future teammate-" Two girls simultaneously make a squawking noise of objection to that. "-we need to act as heroically as we can, despite the situation. Minimising the damage we do, not hurting each other seriously - just so that no mistakes happen, do you mind telling me about your power? Any other abilities, weaknesses, strengths, alternate uses?"

"Um, I can spew geysers of this liquid from my mouth - it starts to ignite when exposed to air. It lasts a pretty long time, it's super hot, it would definitely kill someone if I hit them so I really try not to." She clears her throat, sending a glance over in the direction of Bakuda before sending out some more half-hearted strings of liquid in our direction. "Um. I'm not heatproof. Not in a general sense, but not specifically to my power either - if I don't fire it right, the liquid can dribble onto me, which is why I have this suit, and the nozzle on my mask to both protect me and also direct my power in different forms. That's all, really." She pokes her hands against each other with a single finger each. "And, I definitely didn't say that I was going to join-"

"Can I see that nozzle in action?" I interrupt with a probe of my own.

"The other settings can be pretty destructive-" She wrings her hands for a moment.

"It's fine, the building's not going to make it anyway. Everyone knows that it's entirely Bakuda's fault." I nod. "And besides, gotta look impressive to help your friends over there negotiate better - right?"

"I suppose so..." She twists something in her mask, then turns her head at a slight angle to us and-

PHWOOSH

A wall of fire fills one side of my vision, raw power and heat focused into an inferno of motion and force sufficient to turn the closest wall into nothing but charcoal and slag. I'm reminded of Bakuda's blasting gauntlets, except those were more force and less fire. There's not much liquid left behind to burn - in fact, it's almost entirely burnt out already, although that hasn't stopped the beginnings of a creeping flame edging out from the hole.

Still not my building. I don't care. Send me the bill when I'm banging the president over her desk, I'll sign it then.

Mentally replaying what I'd just seen, I think I understand now. That attack started out as a spray, rather than a concentrated hose. That spray meant that nearly all of the liquid at once was exposed to the air, explosively increasing the force of the resulting ignition - at the cost of the longevity and control over the attack. Which, logically, implied that condensing the liquid would be easier to direct, the flames would last longer and likely burn with less intensity than the near-explosive I just witnessed.

But I should assume that the actual volume of liquid is the same, the only thing that's changed is how it comes out of her mask. Which means that the lengthy jets she made earlier to block off certain avenues of approach - streams that took her six, seven seconds to make - could just as well have been used to maintain that level of attack for the duration instead.

Longer than three seconds, I wouldn't be able to survive it with the shadow state. Browbeat wouldn't help either. Glory Girl's shield wouldn't last.

Despite the heat, a trickle of ice inches down my spine. Death. Unless I had a floor below or above me that I could phase to, I didn't have an answer to this. That thought echoes in my head for a moment. I was alive right now, because of mercy. Because the girl in front of me is too nice for the power she has, unwilling to break her own moral code despite the collar around her neck.

I clench my fists as that undeniable fact sinks in. Idiot. Idiot, idiot, idiot. I got too confident handling Bakuda without forewarning about her capabilities, and this is a reality check. I wasn't in control of the situation at all, I just didn't know better. I'm alive right now because she didn't want to kill me. Yes, it's the same in reverse too - but that wouldn't do anything to make me feel better when I'm dead. I can't afford to make mistakes like this. I still have weaknesses, areas where my powers don't match up to the strengths of another Cape. I can't afford to walk up to unfamiliar powers in real life like this. I got greedy thinking that a short clash and talk in real life would give better challenge results, but a basic challenge might have saved my life if she'd been more aggressive at the start. All to save a few minutes between challenges? Idiot!

Two steps forward, two steps back. How strong did I need to be for this to not happen anymore? This feels terrible. All that sweat, blood and tears - could have come to an end to a literal D-Lister who doesn't even have a wiki page on PHO. One misjudgement, game over.

I want to punch myself, but that isn't an option right now.

I settle for the next best thing.

Spitfire

Villain 1/6

(ALRT) (ZONE)

"Challenge." If the usual reward pattern holds up, I could safely clear up to the third challenge without too much drama. Two power rewards, one boost. Any more than that... seemed like a bad idea against someone in the same team as Tattletale.

Keep it simple. Keep it controlled. I'm stronger overall. The more complete package of a Cape, I just had to stay out of the literal line-of-fire and victory was assured. Not getting ambushed was the most important factor. And with the ALRT modifier, that meant leaving my starting area immediately.

Somewhat unfortunately, the starting area is a building - seemingly encapsulated by the ZONE walls. I phase through a doorway before listening, trying to detect any approaching footsteps. Nothing. A pretty standard office building, by all appearances. This looked like some high-powered executive office, but that didn't matter in the face of the fact that my opponent wasn't here.

Why not? On the face of it, knowing exactly where I started was one of her biggest advantages - catching me before I could vanish, then using her overwhelmingly-powerful attack to blast me and any cover I attempted to use was certainly her best shot at winning here. Why would she give that up?

Had she given it up? I send my ash clone out of the room ahead of me, checking the stairs, down a floor - then racing up as well. No reaction. I dismiss it again. Was she hiding? Surely not, that was rarely the default behaviour of the NPCs when given the ALRT modifier. The entire point was that they raced to start a fight with me.

Logical conclusion, the fight has already started - it just isn't the one I expected. Perhaps I'd focused too much on the destructive display I'd just seen, and not enough on what her default fighting style was. I've seen that one already, spewing flames around to limit mobility and approach angles - staying in control at a distance, because any close-quarters fight ran the risk of her burning herself with every attack. Spreading flames around to limit mobility, and control the fight.

So, in this case - the ALRT isn't to tell her where I am. It's just to aggro her right away. And that helps her because... I'm trapped by the ZONE.

I flow downwards in the shadow state. One floor. Two floors. Thr- I bounce heavily off an electricity cable, convulsing in pain with a silent scream. I allow myself five seconds before forcing myself up, my ash clone recreated for just a split second to pull me upright. Needed to get my hands on some electro-sensing power one of these days.

The building shakes for a moment. Something crackles below me, and I become intimately aware of the fact that this room is notably warmer than the ones I just came from. Not chancing the shadow state again, I flex Browbeat's power, and hammer a hole into the floor below - it takes a few hits, but the material making up the floor and ceiling isn't exactly the toughest. I squirm my way through the opening, then drop down and do it again. And again. I smell smoke. I repeat the task. Fast. Faster. The shadow state takes me through the next one, and my fears are confirmed by the licks of flames stretching through the doorway of my new room.

That explains it. Spitfire was below me, burning this entire building down around me. That wouldn't be a problem if I didn't start so high up, but I had a lot of floors to traverse - and the wasted time at the start had let this conflagration build up and up unnoticed. She is burning the building out from underneath. Starting at the bottom – the basement, car park, whatever fire-proof pocket the ZONE has allowed her – and she's letting the inferno do the work. The next room I drop into proves the point - metal supports are already softening, glowing red and buckling. Something tumbles past the outer window as more ominous noises groan from elsewhere in the tower.

I glower at the flames nearby, then concede. I have to give up on racing to the bottom. It's obvious the flames are too intense already, and I'm only seeing the results of the secondary flames that spread from her original ones - this is just natural fire, a pale shadow of the supernatural napalm she's spewing out personally.

But I'm not losing. Her strength is her weakness too - her flames are too strong. A normal fire might leave a burned-out shell behind, but this one? The building was already shaking and swaying a minute ago, by the time the flames truly reached the top floors - there wouldn't be any top floors anymore. The entire thing would collapse in on itself.

That might even kill her, depending on where she is.

So I just need to survive the heat and the smoke for long enough and her entire attack plan falls apart. First of all, I need to climb back up - reverse all the progress I just made. Annoying, but alternating between the shadow state and speed state is good enough to retrace my 'steps'.

Fortunately, I started on a high floor in the first place. Reaching the top floor doesn't even take that much time, and I even momentarily outpace the chasing flames for a moment. The building shakes dangerously again as I note the ZONE wall preventing me from reaching the roof. Fine. Here will do. I take a moment to layout what I need. The curtains from a nearby wall to start with. Suspend it in the air with my ash clone, holding two corners each. Clockblock. Now, time for Skidmark's power. I've rarely used it up to this point, but that's only because of the set-up it usually requires to perform well against other powers that were easier and quicker to use - there's no shortage of places where it could be useful. Because as much as I'd like to be able to apply these effects to thin-air and have them stay there, I could appreciate the value of painting them onto objects too.

X markers and arrow signs bleed off of my fingers as I draw outwards along the bottom of the suspended sheet. Repulsion and direction. As scattered as I was making the effect, it wouldn't be that strong - but how strong did it need to be to repel smoke and create a relatively safe pocket for me to survive in? Not very. It wouldn't be particularly dignified, but I was essentially building a hammock with full-time air conditioning blasting outwards in all directions - the heat would still be a problem... but Clockblocked objects didn't care about that - and I was pretty confident that any air that made it down through the narrow gap at the top of the 'funnel' above me would at least be moderately breathable until the building was already gone. Heat rises, smoke rises - and in the worst case, I could just hold my breath for a minute or two.

Flames in the corner of my vision and the persistent smoke edging at the ceiling is proof enough that I don't have much time. The building rumbles again, a distant, agonised shriek of metal giving way. Time to go. I give up on drawing anymore symbols, hand off the power to my ash clone to stop it from decaying for as long as possible - then settle into my 'bunker'. Browbeat's power comes up as the room shakes then slants, the only minor flaw in the plan was that the roof was still above me - and as it collapses towards me, I find that the weight is just too much to push against with Browbeat's power.

I'm not dead though. Just stuck. That isn't a problem - physics will help me out, the collapse here is being mirrored across the entire building. And everywhere else doesn't have a Clockblocked object holding it up. My ash clone perishes despite it's efforts to hide under the sheet, but I do get a clear view of the floor below it collapsing too - along with the rest of the roof crumbling and splitting as the laws of gravity make themselves known. The weight pressing me down slackens as parts of the load break off or roll away, until I'm left with something I can lift enough to roll away.

Flicking debris out of my seating area, I glance around. Hard to see with the mass of smoke and dust rising around me, but the sound from the collapsing building carries just fine. Poking my head out over the top is rewarded by my eyeballs getting seared by heat to the point that I shift my head into the shadow state and retreat once more. Lesson learned, don't do that again.

...this is working. It feels silly. It looks silly - floating up in the skyline as floor after floor collapses inwards far below me. But already, the wind seems to be catching the smoke - even though my repulsion field is losing its power with every passing second, I've bought enough time.

And now, Spitfire's advantage is gone. She can't even use the burning remains to ward me away for long enough for the anti-stalling measures to kick in, because her flames are just too strong - any flammable material is already well on the way to being completely exhausted, at this point, it's just her - and whatever hole she's hiding in.

I wait for a few minutes, refreshing Clockblocker's power as it expires - then waiting for it to expire once more. Then, I propel myself to the corner of the ruins that looks to have the least amount of smoking debris. Shadow state as I hit the bottom, whip my shirt off to create a non-burning platform to stand on with Clockblocker's power. I settle down, feeling mildly scorched just by proximity - but I could survive a few burns. My ash clone takes a seating position next to me, Mush's power already accessed. The tentacle trails from its ashy hand down into the remains below us.

The knight forms swiftly. Usually it takes a while to retrieve the right kind of materials, sufficiently broken-up debris and loose items were best - it took time to move around, to 'glue' them onto the tentacle that then twists itself into the shape of the knight. But here, it didn't even need to try. Suitable materials everywhere, soot and ash were every bit as serviceable as shattered concrete, wood and glass.

For a moment, I consider the sheer might that could be generated if Mush's power could encompass all of this debris at once. My knight could get massive, but flexibility and mobility came from doubling in on itself to create limbs - but the tendril could only get so long, meaning there was always a tradeoff between speed and power. If that wasn't an issue, if the tentacle could grab everything present here, and still gain the flexibility of my most-preferred size of knight?

I could fight an Endbringer like that. Not win, surely. If only because of the lack of penetrative firepower. But... that could go blow for blow on the frontlines. I shake my head. Getting ahead of myself. Focus on what is right in front of me. The fact that the challenge isn't over means she's alive, presumably hiding underground. A basement level? Some kind of tunnel below us? I could see the idea now, the challenge starts - she sits somewhere surrounded by stone and concrete, blasts the flammable parts of the building around her on repeat and then scurries to close the trapdoor behind her to wait out the chaos.

If I'd realised from the start, I'd have toured the floor I started on to find an elevator and just gone through it in the shadow state. I only found the stairs, but a building this size would obviously have one. I'd be on the bottom floor in less than a minute, the flames would be intense, but their source would still have been clear if only by the obvious direction that they were spreading from. Find the Cape, enter through the walls. One-two punch. Dead. Even if I'd failed at first, it was pretty easy to see how simple the second round could have been.

I kick my feet in the air as my knight moves, waves of heat emanating off of it as it clears vast areas of rubble with every movement of its limbs - digging and digging, looking for any sign of an area untouched by the flames. I could be happy about this, at least. I made the wrong decision at first, but I'm happy with how I responded once I realised the strategy I was up against. I just had the right options for someone trying to bring the building down around me like that.

I should be happy.

My fists itch. I'm not. I'm still furious with myself. I wanted someone to take it out on, and this wasn't it. A puzzle, rather than a brawl.

It takes seven minutes for the knight to find and break into Spitfire's hidey-hole. I don't bother to stand up as she tries to fight, opting to watch it at a distance instead. Streams of napalm firing continuously into my knight. I would have said it was useless, but that wasn't entirely true. The actual power was immune to damage unless my ash clone died, but some of the materials used in the knight were melting - and molten slag just didn't work as well with Mush's power. Even if it cooled, one larger piece was far, far worse than the same part split into ten, fifteen different pieces.

But that just cuts down on mobility in the affected areas. It's not a real knight, just a power twisting itself to look like one. The knight discards the less-effective materials, reshapes itself from others - and then simply incorporates the napalm into itself. The liquid flame does little of note to the already-burnt-out coverings on the knight, and the tentacle itself can't be harmed - so her efforts only ensure that her opponent is now an unstoppable goliath that also happens to be on fire. Different blasts of fire stream out, different levels of force and consistency. Nothing. Blasting away at the closest limb reaching out to her only momentarily drives it back, and soon, more material flows in to replace what was knocked away.

I tune out the distant scream as the knight clutches the fire-breathing Cape to their inferno of a chest - a funeral pyre, more than any real attempt at an attack.

SUCCESS

Reward: Incendiary Fluid (1)

Nice. Next.

Spitfire

Villain 2/6

(CAGE)

A grin appears on my face. That's more like it. "Challenge." I immediately call up my ash clone and bring Vista's power into the active slot. I'd like to treat this like Bakuda, but I can't. Firstly, Bakuda was more about the single-impact shockwave, explosive shrapnel and the flames were a byproduct of everything else. The shadow state went through that fine. Here, I was pretty sure that the continued stream of fire and force would simply blow me away like harsh winds and fans do if I was inside in the shadow state - and I'd still probably get fried when my timer ran out. But the important part was that I wouldn't be able to close in.

No, Vista's power was best used for one thing. Making this flat ground into... non-flat ground. Blocking line-of-sight. Because all I really needed was her to not be able to one-shot me, and this fight was over. My ash clone goes right out of the mini-trench I've created. I go left. Then down at the same instant that my ash clone dies, into the floor at a diving angle - one second of shadow state, two seconds of shadow state, three seconds - and find myself forcibly shunted out of the ground at the closest point possible.

Directly next to my target. Browbeat's power comes online, I've already got a grip on her mask as it starts to spin up my strength to a real Brute rating - something that she can't really do anything about. Different to Bakuda, but somehow - still exactly the same. All that light, heat and sound firing directly in front of her - she can barely see what she's looking at, she doesn't know if her target is alive or dead until she stops, and she doesn't have the opportunity to put her head on a swivel like a typical blaster either.

She struggles against me pointlessly as I drive her into the ground, then - in a last-ditch effort - attempts to pull herself away and blast my hand. She was probably hoping I'd panic and pull away, instead - I keep my hand right where it is, pressing it harder into her mask as the flames erupt around it. Agonising. Sure. But the moment the first crack in the mask forms, it's all over - burning liquid seeps down the remains of my arm directly onto and into her mask. I swap hands, the other one already annihilated by the flames - just to rip her mask away more and end it quicker.

SUCCESS

Reward: Spitfire+

Nice, nice. The third, and probably the final of the challenges I tried on her today - coming right up.

Spitfire

Villain 3/6

(GANG) (DNGR) (PREP)

...nevermind.

Why is the DNGR rating there? Her power doesn't have anything to do with masters, she can't stall me indefinitely or leave me in a near-permanent state of living - unable to win or lose. I scan her modifiers again. Was it the GANG modifier? Another ally capable of doing something along those lines?

I hate this. But I'm not really willing to challenge anything with that modifier right now. Not in a situation like this. Fine, I'll leave it at that for today.

"Oh!" Spitfire suddenly stops, looking down at herself as the collar around her neck pulses green - before abruptly disengaging and falling to the floor. After a moment of realisation, she bounds away from it - looking incredibly relieved. "I- um." All three of us look over to Tattletale, Bitch and-

-and Bakuda, who is held not-so-gently inside Angelica's jaws.

I surreptitiously pinch space between us and them so I can hear the conversation better. "-isn't a Master like you'd know it, she actually just empowers them. And when she isn't around, like when she gets knocked out or you try your luck? The dogs stay empowered until it would have expired. And in the meantime? They do whatever they like. Whatever seems natural to them. Now, I've seen that dog in action - and she is vicious at heart-"

"No she isn't." Bitch interjects. The conversation stalls for a moment as both Tattletale and Bakuda turn to her. "She's a good girl." Bitch doesn't seem to care about the stares she gets from either of them.

"...Thank you, Bitch. I'll take the talking from here." Tattletale continues. "As I was saying, the dogs do whatever they want - and in this case, she's just itching to bite down on this wriggling thing in her mouth. The only reason she isn't, is because of Bitch here. If she wasn't here? Or if she gave the order? You never get your vengeance. You never get your name written down in the history books. You never get the respect you think you deserve. Why? Because all you'll be is the Cape that PHO makes dog-food jokes about when they remember that one Tinker who killed herself right on her debut. So. Next collar, if you would." She taps at her own. "How about-"

"Brutus and Judas next." Bitch adds in. "Take them off first."

Tattletale looks aggrieved, but reluctantly nods - then elaborates at Bakuda's confused expression. "The two dogs that were with us."

"As if I care about those disgusting mutts anyway." Bakuda hisses. "I-" Angelica growls in warning, and Bakuda falls silent again. "There, that should be it. Even if I can't see the little terrors right now."

A cracking noise at the entrance draws the attention of the entire room. A set of flaming claws peels away a section of the wall like wet paper, widening a new entrance more and more with every motion. Lung. Another shockwave momentarily knocks him away, Triumph's power in action - but he was just a distraction, and Lung knew it. If Dauntless really had been taken out, then the heroes reportedly delaying him outside were nothing but mosquitoes.

I slide my eyes to the stage. Kid Win, we could really use Armsmaster right now. If you could hurry up with that, that would be great.

Fuck it. Let's sneak the challenges in against those two, then think about the action plan here. This wasn't the low-stakes night out I'd been hoping for, the Undersiders alone I could be confident that things wouldn't go too badly wrong with my power not conspiring to turn every lost fight into a lethal defeat. The ABB? I couldn't say the same.

"Challenge." I whisper at Bakuda.

What haven't I tried yet here? "Attention Bakuda!" I call out at a distance. "I've been sent to negotiate, but I'm too afraid of your incredible Tinkertech to come inside uninvited! Can we talk?"

"This isn't a negotiation!" Bakuda returns. "This, is a demonstration. A statement. A declaration. Today, is the day of judgement. But, if you'd like to talk - you may come inside. But if you try anything at all, then the entire facility will look like this!"

My eyes widen. "Wait-"

Click.

Boom.

FAILURE

I'm going to strangle this bitch. I glance at Tattletale. Both of them. Where do they get off having challenges that don't respond well to direct combat ability? That's the entire point of the power! That's what I do! "Challenge."

What did I even want to try against Tattletale? I gained some knowledge last time, but I wouldn't say I was particularly close to a win either. The issue was that standing up to any amount of scrutiny was a tough ask, and I didn't know exactly what inconsistency her power was initially picking up on to pick me out for a more advanced check.

How did I fix that? Keep trying disguises until I find the perfect one by blind luck? No. Hell no. I've got to push at the limits of the challenge. No combat? Don't get spotted? Fine. But what did that really mean?

My ash clone lands on the ground, in plain view of Tattletale. A few surrounding NPCs react curiously, and the girl herself is no different - a wary look appearing on her face- Reset.

She looked right at me. Awkward. Should find a better hiding spot. Or look through my ash clones eyes next time. Point proven though, I'm not forbidden to use powers at all. I didn't fail the moment she saw my clone, even though she started looking for me afterwards - that meant that I could do things. Affect the scenario in certain ways.

Let's experiment again, with me hidden properly this time. My ash clone walks in front of her, the girl sending it a wary look and crossing the street to avoid it. The clone follows. Tattletale reaches into her pocket and- Reset.

Another lesson learned. I think that was the 'combat' failure condition. I need to remember, it's not necessarily me starting a fight - but it could also be her realising that my clone is targeting her specifically, and realising she's in a fight. I should probably assume the same response will happen if I just 'coincidentally' walk the clone near her too many times. I could use it as a minor distraction, but it obviously stands out - she makes a concerted effort to avoid it and seems to be scanning the area around her with far more than her usual intensity. Looking for the Master, probably.

Third and final attempt... what can I do with this? An indirect attack? No, she'd realise she was being targeted and I'd fail that way. A distraction? Maybe. But it would need to be a hell of a distraction. Something that lasted a while, to give me the time I needed to fill the progress bar - otherwise, she'd note the distraction, identify it for what it was, and then leave the area and go somewhere safer where she could verify everyone around in-depth.

What if she couldn't do that? What if there wasn't anywhere safer? What if she simply couldn't verify that everyone around her was who they appeared to be? The aim wasn't to beat her power at it's best, but to overwhelm it. Give it too much to look at. Overstimulation. I could use the crowds. I could even attack them. Cut off certain streets, create some obstacles. Herding. Create some panic, condense people into a smaller space - and she wouldn't be able to check everyone. Hell, if I made enough of a crush - she wouldn't even be able to move to see everyone.

Perfect.

I send my ash clone off to form the knight. A larger one than usual. Step one would be destroying a few cars and creating a blockade at the main street. I'd need to trap everyone in, then slowly box them together.

It takes time, but the knight does good work. I have to make a few examples of the citizens that attempt to just scramble over the blockade of cars and debris, but everyone gets the point eventually. "Villain attack, everybody panic! Run that way!" I think the voice cues help. But maybe the knight crashing into another store half its size is the real reason people listen to my directions.

Now then. Second problem. I only had one administrator. That meant, one knight, or the ability to track one bug - and with it, Tattletale - no matter where it was.

Which was to say, I didn't know where Tattletale was right now. Oh, I had a vague idea of the area - but, being totally honest, she could have moved anywhere by now. I could have started the attack closer to her, but considering the entire operation revolving around her challenge-self not realising that she was the target - I didn't want to test how suspicious she would feel about a Cape attack happening almost right on top of her, to say nothing of the fact that I would instantly lose if she pulled a gun or knife on raw instinct.

For now, I just walk in the crowd - pushing past bodies, ignoring the screaming. 0%. 0%. 0%. Should be around here somewhere, if she kept to her original route...

1%. There. I was in range. Barely. 2%. 6%. 10%. The crowd keeps moving. Which direction? 19%. I maintain the same path, only to note the bar shrinking again. 11%. 4%. Back to 0%. That meant that she was somewhere behind me, perhaps off to either side. I turn and fight my way through the crowd surging past me- Reset.

FAILURE

I glower at the screen. Then soften my expression. No, can't be mad. It was a good strategy. I proved that a lot of things worked there. At the end, she must have been looking at me somehow - I made myself stand out, the only guy trying to head towards the attack. Perhaps she had a good vantage point, or just heard the complaints of the crowd in my way and looked over - but either way, it did imply that at some point, I'd walked past her and she hadn't noticed. Good strategy. A winning strategy. All I was missing was the knowledge of her exact position. I've proven that, just like in real life right now, she can have too many things to look into to give them all the time they need.

Next time, with three more chances? I'll win. Easily.

And then, I'm pretty sure, I'm going to get hit with the same challenge but with some loopholes closed. I know what my power is like. I'm ready for it.

Anyway. Where was I? Right. Collars. I guess they're doing fine, I suppose I'll leave them to it? It really did grate that Tattletale had my motives pinned down that easily, but it was all just common sense at the end of the day. In fact, I'd argue that the best thing for the heroes to do here was allow the 'negotiation' to happen - then swoop in to take possession of both Bakuda and the Undersiders all at once. Armsmaster would be free in literally seconds if Kid Win could hurry up and finish doing his thing - and then it's just Lung, and presumably Oni Lee.

Oni Lee, who hasn't come in here ahead of Lung, to save Bakuda? Oni Lee, who hadn't just decided to finish off the Undersiders at the end of their 'employment'? Oni Lee, I had yet to actually see at all during all of this?

No, that didn't sound like him at all.

My eyes slide to Grue's cloud. Grue and Regent, hiding together. Neither of them had revealed themselves at the same time. Why? Regent didn't like fighting in the darkness in the bank challenge, why start now?

Because he had to. Because, if that darkness wasn't there - people would see the truth of what was going on. Looking at their team, both Regent and Grue could 'restrain' Oni Lee. But Grue's power was the only one that people knew could do that, Regent was still lowballing himself in public. So they were carrying around Oni Lee within the cloud rather than splitting up. Tattletale had implied that I'd have to defend them from Lung when he comes in, why? Because they completed the 'trade' for their teammate, then Regent had simply walked Oni Lee back into range of the cloud as a bargaining chip when the collars hadn't been removed right away.

This is a clusterfuck. I think I'd actually prefer it if the Undersiders were just straight-up on the ABB's side, but instead there's this nasty little web of threats, insurance policies and different motives. Think. Lung will come in here for both Bakuda and Oni Lee - the Undersiders are keeping Oni Lee as a threat or a trade to any party that might stop them from leaving. They don't even have to try and fight, if Lung reaches them, they hand over both Oni Lee and Bakuda without resistance and leave the heroes to handle the mess of a full-power ABB. Oni Lee and Lung, in open conflict with the Wards? I didn't like that idea. That sounded messy. Oni Lee had tried to slit my throat on sight the first time I met him, and Taylor had narrowly avoided eating a grenade that night too. I wouldn't bet on him being any nicer with the Wards, there were precious few combat videos between the Wards and the ABB and I'm pretty sure that was a deliberate choice by the PRT to keep them away.

And the only way I had to stop it was to either kill Oni Lee outright, or obediently stop Lung from reaching the Undersiders at all.

Which proved Tattletale right. Oh, there were some other alternatives as well, I could take down all of the Undersiders and keep Oni Lee down too - but that didn't help if Lung was going to rampage around in here anyway and potentially kill anyone who couldn't pull themselves out of harms way. Best case scenario, Lung limps away - Oni Lee back in prison with Bakuda, Undersiders captured. But that was the heroes best case. Mine? No. That sucked for me. Oni Lee would be in the Birdcage as an absolute guarantee after this mess, it was already a surprise they hadn't fast-tracked him. The Undersiders would get sent across the country and I wouldn't get any more of their powers, not to mention the enmity of Tattletale for going against her 'brilliant' plan.

No, Tattletale most certainly understood my motives here. Which meant that she'd spent a little time researching me already.

On the plus side, she at least seemed to think I'd be a significant speedbump against Lung if I factored into her plans here at all.

On the down side, she was a poor enough judge of such things that she'd gotten her entire group captured after presumably picking a fight with Lung deliberately rather than skipping town.

Well. Fuck. But, I'm not entirely unprepared for this. I've been expecting a Lung to jump through the nearest wall on every patrol I've been on for the last week, even with Taylor around - I've been on edge. I step forward as Lung fully enters the room and looks around. Brutus and Judas immediately abandon their fights and race towards Bitch. Bad experience there, I'd guess?

Browbeat hesitates for a moment as her opponent leaves, then races to grab the red clump of flesh that was once identifiable as her teammate. "Oh my god, Aegis - are you okay? No, what am I saying, of course you aren't okay. I-I know some first aid-"

"I'm fine." Something that is distinctly not a mouth voices his response. "Get away from Lung, he's not someone you can handle - I'll hold him off until more heroes arrive."

"Maybe say that when you've got four working limbs again." I call out drily, my eyes fixed on Lung. "Browbeat, go make sure Gallant hasn't been beaten to a pulp yet. Aegis, just back off for the moment and heal up until you can contribute. Vista, support me, but don't get too close."

"You can't fight Lung!" Aegis objects. Still with that gross pseudo-mouth of his. Creepy dude, stop. "We need to pull back-"

"It's fine. We've only got to hold out until Armsmaster is free, right? And, I'm pretty sure that Grue over there is hiding Oni Lee - so if we let Lung go past us, we're just going to be dealing with both of them instead of just one. And you can't exactly run and leave Clockblocker and Kid Win behind, can you?" To be honest, the reasoning doesn't matter at this point. Honestly, I wanted to fight. Without my power favouring the enemy, just how well did we match up? I wanted to try my luck. I wanted the fight. Spitfire caught me off guard, but I'd been annoyed at myself for taking a fight against someone with completely unknown capabilities without checking their challenge first. I'd assumed she was at roughly the same level as the relatively-weak Undersiders. But I wasn't mad about going for the fight.

This is what being a Cape is about. This is what being a hero is about.

I press a button on my costume. The sole item of Tinkertech in my costume pulses, then glows steadily. A moment later, my costume gets a bulky addition to it - my teleporter, folded down with the weight properly distributed compared to the last version. The targeting remote settles around my wrist with a click. I trigger it, number one - the selection right at the top, ready to be teleported in at a moment's notice. The Wards step away as a crate appears next to me. Materials. The perfect amount for one specific design.

Paste. I burn a single shadow state charge to get inside the exoframe faster, then stand - bringing my right hand up, the Mecha-sword rising with it. It was tough to manipulate before, it was designed to be wielded by a robot and an appropriate power source after all. But with Browbeat's power fully active and the exoframe assisting... it felt almost light in my hands.

I aim a tight grin at Lung as he leisurely paces forward, the ground shaking with every step as the dragon-man makes his presence known - a wall of unpleasant heat already threatening to scorch me through my costume. Game on.

Last steps. I apply Othala's power to Vista to mulligan reflexes for something more useful, then summon my ash clone - finally back from it's long cooldown. I assign it Mush's power, and have it start gathering the knight immediately. Shouldn't take long, with the building in this state already - it was a shame I couldn't start it earlier, Lung will reach me long before-

I blink as Lung's draconic visage doesn't seem to be approaching that quickly at all, despite motions that look somewhat hurried to me. He's covering too little ground with every step. I look at Vista, who's staring intently in that direction and biting her lip. "Thanks." I mutter. Her lips quirk upwards, but she doesn't look away.

Anything else that might help? I'd like to apply Skidmark's power to the sword to give myself extra thrust, but it fades away when it isn't my active power and I'd like to stick to cycling between Browbeat, Glory Girl, Echo and Vista in this fight. "Hey, Spitfire." She straightens at my callout. "Can you blast my knight over there with your power? Make it last as long as you can, if that's alright." I'm not testing my version in real life, and her one was undoubtedly more powerful anyway.

Spitfire hesitates, glancing over to her companions before nodding. "Sure?"

The burning figure settles into place a small distance away from me. Just what we needed, more heat. But I'd bet that it won't be pleasant to Lung either. I point the Mecha-blade at him as he draws closer. In return, he emits a repeating, rough barking sound that I eventually realise is something close to his laughter.

"Careful." I take another step forward, and my burning knight mirrors my action. "If you underestimate me too much-"

The Mecha-blade hums through the exoframe. With this iteration. Leet's quirk activation chance had increased. 4.8% chance of activating the reverse swing every time I make an assisted attack. 95.2% chance of normal function. The normal attacks alone would be a threat to Lung. The superpowered spin attack... well. I'd have to stick to angles that wouldn't direct something lethal to every other occupant of the room. As for Lung...

I finish my warning to the strongest Cape in the Bay.

"-you might just die."