A Darker Path Pt 20 (Patreon)

Part Twenty: Seven, Six, Five, Four …

[A/N 1: This chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]

[A/N 2: I have used some adapted poster comments from Spacebattles in the PHO segment.]

[A/N 3: TRIGGER WARNING: PSYCHOLOGICAL TORTURE.]

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Topic: Drugs are Bad, mmkay?

In: Boards ► Brockton Bay ► New Capes ► Atropos

Atropos (Original Poster) (Banned) (You Wish) (UnVerified Cape) (Can Actually Kill Anything) (Yes, Really) (Watch Me)

Posted On Jan 8th 2011:

Good evening, you lovely folks in Brockton Bay!

And yes, you're more lovely than ever, because I have had a Productive Day (tm).

Why, yes, I can actually go out and about in the daylight. Though I have to slather on the sunscreen. It burns, my precious (I kid, I kid).

No, really, I did go out today, to meet with my one-girl (so far) fan club. GreatAndTerribleAisha and I enjoyed a session of selfies in the park with her brother (nice guy, a little twitchy). We did have a kind of Glory Girl interrupt, but Imma let GTA tell that one herself.

Anyways, after that we went out and about in the interests of shoving a whole series of sticks in the spokes of the Brockton Bay drug trade. Along the way, I got to throw a drug dealer out a window so he landed on top of his own bodyguard (cushioned his fall, so there's that). I recommend the experience. We should start Throw A Drug Dealer Out The Window Day. Make it an annual event.

After that, we visited a drug stash house in the suburbs, and all these people decided to try to kill me at once with guns. Listen, I know all about the Second Amendment, but guns in suburbia are *bad*. Aim wrong when you squeeze that trigger and you've just shot your next door neighbour's kid. While he was in bed asleep. Maybe invest in bulletproof walls. Just saying.

Anyway, I killed them before they could kill me. There were all these drugs there, so I kind of un-wanted it all with fire. Gave the fire department something to do instead of polishing those big red trucks of theirs.

Then we found a warehouse full of the stuff. After getting all the guards out of the way, I blew it up. All of it. That explosion and mushroom cloud over the industrial area today? Yeah, that was me. It was *amazing*.

Then I went and had that chat with Uber and Leet I said I was going to have. Don't worry, they survived the experience. But they promised not to repeat that Grand Theft Auto bullshit, so there's that.

And finally? There was a drug shipment coming in to replace the one I blew up. It's currently on fire on I-95, just inside the city limits. When I said the drug trade in this city was coming to an end, I meant it.

So tomorrow I'm totes on track to turn the Slaughterhouse Nine into the Slaughterhouse who?

Stay tuned, and be warned: it's gonna get messy (for them, not me).

Toodles!

(Showing page 1 of 10)

►Bagrat (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)

Replied On Jan 8th 2011:

Okay, today wasn't too bad, I suppose?

Boy, when Atropos goes after the drug trade, she doesn't mess around. Of course, having seen her previous efforts, we were already aware of her 'not messing around' capabilities.

Literally tens, maybe hundreds, of millions of dollars worth of drugs have gone up in smoke, over the course of just a few hours. Locations that I could have driven past and never suspected were uncovered and destroyed. An entire warehouse turned into a fuel-air bomb.

And then there's the mess on I-95. Yes, there's a trailer off an eighteen-wheeler that was on fire. It's only very recently been put out. There are also two cars, both crashed, each with three heavily armed men, plus four more in the trailer itself. Still not as bad as the last few days, just saying.

What we don't know is the location of the prime mover and the driver. Knowing Atropos, they could be literally anywhere.

Anyway, it looks like the first shots have been fired in the war between Atropos and drugs. So far, Atropos is winning.

If you deal hard drugs in Brockton Bay, I would suggest a change in either career or location. Just saying.

►StarCat (Verified Cat)

Replied On Jan 8th 2011:

You know, not every drug user is an addict. Some drugs even have therapeutic effects. It's a mistake to tar all users with the same brush.

►WingsOnHigh (Verified Not the Simurgh)

Replied On Jan 8th 2011:

@StarCat - It's all good, you can keep your pot and shrooms and stuff. It looks like Atropos is only going after the hard stuff.

►King_DuzKhul

Replied On Jan 8th 2011:

@StarCat - Pretty sure she's only going after dealers, not users. Also, only targeting the hard stuff like coke, H, meth and things of that class.

►Atropos (Original Poster) (Banned) (You Wish) (UnVerified Cape) (Can Actually Kill Anything) (Yes, Really) (Watch Me)

Replied On Jan 8th 2011:

@StarCat - Like the others are saying, I'm not targeting users, only dealers. I'll *take* your illegally obtained hard drugs away, but I won't hurt you if you aren't stupid about it. And I'll leave your weed and shrooms and anything that's on the soft end of that scale.

►StarCat (Verified Cat)

Replied On Jan 8th 2011:

Atropos - I don't use. I'm just pointing out that in principle, we should be allowed to put whatever we want into our bodies. And things like ecstasy can be used to treat depression. Other 'hard' drugs can also have useful effects.

►Atropos (Original Poster) (Banned) (You Wish) (UnVerified Cape) (Can Actually Kill Anything) (Yes, Really) (Watch Me)

Replied On Jan 8th 2011:

@StarCat - As far as I'm concerned, 'principle' is just a weasel word for 'this is my made-up right to do something I'm not supposed to'. If someone wants to use these drugs, they can buy and use them legally or they can get out of Brockton Bay. What you do elsewhere, I don't care. Just don't do it in my city.

►StarCat (Verified Cat)

Replied On Jan 8th 2011:

@Atropos - You're forgetting that drug use, and drug addiction are not synonymous.

Banning people from anything "for their own good" is paternalistic bullshit.

►Atropos (Original Poster) (Banned) (You Wish) (UnVerified Cape) (Can Actually Kill Anything) (Yes, Really) (Watch Me)

Replied On Jan 8th 2011:

@StarCat - See, that's where you make your mistake. I'm not doing this for "your own good". The illegal hard drug trade is bad for the city, so I'm bringing it to an end. Other than that, I don't give a flying fuck.

End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 8, 9, 10

(Showing page 2 of 10)

►GreatAndTerribleAisha

Replied On Jan 8th 2011:

She really, really doesn't. Holy shit, the day I have had. She beat up Glory Girl and stole her tiara for me, then she threw my mom's fucking drug dealer out the window, then she burned one drug stash and blew the absolute living *fuck* out of another. Then we went and played video games with Uber while she had a chat with Leet (Uber's pretty good, but his end game is a bit lacking).

I have photos. Signed selfies with Atropos.

Best. Fucking. Day. Ever.

►GstringGirl

Replied On Jan 8th 2011:

Oh, come on. Details. We want details.

►XxVoid_CowboyxX

Replied On Jan 8th 2011:

I'd call bullshit, but I saw the mushroom cloud. Atropos rocks.

►GreatAndTerribleAisha

Replied On Jan 8th 2011:

So, Glory Girl.

There we were in the park, taking selfies, and GG comes up and starts getting in Atropos's business. She's really not taking no for an answer. So Atropos takes her down with a *quarter*, no less, after she kind of breaks a picnic table. Took her tiara away for asshole tax, and gave it to me.

[signed selfie]

[pic with tiara]

As for the rest of it, she made me stay back out of the way, so I didn't see much. But holy crap, when she blew up the warehouse, it was *amazeballs*.

►TheRealGloryGirl (Verified Cape) (Cape Daughter) (New Wave Member)

Replied On Jan 8th 2011:

YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO TELL EVERYONE ABOUT IT!

►Atropos (Original Poster) (Banned) (You Wish) (UnVerified Cape) (Can Actually Kill Anything) (Yes, Really) (Watch Me)

Replied On Jan 8th 2011:

She really, really did.

►TheRealBrandish (Verified Cape) (Cape Wife) (New Wave Member)

Replied On Jan 8th 2011:

Victoria, get offline NOW.

►Brocktonite03 (Veteran Member)

Replied On Jan 8th 2011:

Whoo, buss-ted.

►Reave (Verified PRT Agent)

Replied On Jan 8th 2011:

Atropos - I'm probably just shouting into the wind right now, but the offer is still open for you to come in to the PRT and work out some kind of cooperation deal. You've got good ideas, and we've got the resources necessary to carry them out without quite so much bloodshed.

►Atropos (Original Poster) (Banned) (You Wish) (UnVerified Cape) (Can Actually Kill Anything) (Yes, Really) (Watch Me)

Replied On Jan 8th 2011:

@Reave – I still appreciate the offer, but you know what my answer's going to be. Sometimes you need to perpetrate a little bloodshed (or a lot) to make the opposition sit up and pay attention. But thanks anyway.

End of Page. 1, 2, 3, 4 ... 8, 9, 10

<><>

Early Afternoon, January 9, 2011

Outskirts of Brockton Bay

Jack Slash engaged the indicator—no sense in drawing law-enforcement attention before time—and turned the RV off the main road. He didn't know the location he was looking for, but he knew he'd recognise it when he saw it. Every city had them; areas where the money had dried up, where the city services didn't happen anymore, and only the truly desperate called home.

In other words, an ideal place to stop and make his plans.

And plans did need to be made. For all the notoriety currently gathering around Atropos, especially following her boast that she was going to kill him and his whole team, he had next to no intel on her. He needed to know who she was, what she was, what made her tick and where her weak points were. That she had weak points was a given; everyone had them.

Except him, of course. Anyone who wished to appeal to his 'better nature' or his sense of fair play quickly learned that this was his best nature, and fair play was what he defined it to be. 'Whatever suits me at the time' was a reasonable description.

Passing through another intersection, he cast a discerning eye over the neighbourhood. Derelict traffic lights, shattered streetlights, only stripped-down cars at the side of the street ...this was looking promising. Buildings were boarded up, the road was more pothole than asphalt and even the trash looked old.

"This will do quite nicely," he decided, and pulled the RV up next to an extremely decrepit park. "We'll stop here for the next hour or so. Everyone, amuse yourself as you will. I'm going to be doing some planning."

One of the features about the RV that had attracted him was an awning that folded out from the side of the vehicle. He got this into place, fetched a folding chair from inside, and set himself up in comfort. As he got his phone out in preparation for scouring the internet for information on Atropos, he noted that Crawler had rolled onto his back in the middle of the park and gone to sleep, legs splayed out like the world's biggest and ugliest Labrador retriever, while his poppet was doing maintenance on one of her spider-bots.

"I'm going for a walk, to collect some glass," announced Shatterbird, indicating the broken windows all around. "If Atropos is all that, we're going to need as much as we can get."

"Take someone with you," Jack advised. "I'd prefer nobody go anywhere alone right now, until we get a feel for the city."

"I'll go," Burnscar offered immediately. "I need to stretch my legs anyway."

Shatterbird nodded. "Sure, okay."

The pair started off, and Jack commenced his research. Hatchet Face was sharpening his axe at the far end of the RV, Siberian was prowling around the perimeter of the park, and Mannequin was disassembling one of his hands to check on the articulation. All in all, quite a domestic scene if one did not look too closely.

Now, if only he could get a sense of how Atropos operated ...

<><>

Atropos

"Are you sure you don't need any assistance?" Dragon brought her suit down to a feather-light landing on the building I'd indicated. This was on the crappy side of Brockton Bay, where hardly anyone lived. "You're good, I know, but—"

"Wow." I chuckled, so she knew it was a joke. "If I didn't know better, I'd think you were concerned for my well-being." I unclipped the five-point belt, then hefted the backpack with its burden and climbed out. The Snitch-reprogrammed to follow my orders-hummed into the air and followed me out of the suit.

"Fortunately for the pair of us, we both know you don't mean that." It seemed Dragon was equally adept at snark. I approved. "But these are very dangerous individuals, and nobody's ever killed even one of them before without inviting serious backlash. If you don't kill enough of them in time, they might escape into the city proper and go on a rampage."

"Oh, they're going to die," I assured her. "All of 'em, even. I just need you to fire that missile on my call. Coordinates locked in?"

"Locked and loaded," she confirmed. "I'm not even going to ask where you got them from."

"If I told you a little Shatterbirdie gave them to me, would you believe me?" I was grinning now, pulling her non-existent leg, and I could tell she was fully aware of it.

"Not in the slightest. But you knew that."

"See, we can be friends. We understand each other so well." Slinging the pack over my back, I started down the fire escape.

Her voice followed me down. "You have a very odd definition of friendship."

Well, that was fair. I was a very odd person to be friends with. I parkour'd down the fire escape, dropped onto a dumpster, then forward-flipped to land on my feet. My first and second targets were a quarter of a mile away, and I had five minutes to get into position. Fortunately for my shoulders and back, I'd be able to discard the pack after that.

The Snitch followed me into the slums.

<><>

Burnscar

"This place is an absolute shithole."

Fire crackled gently at the back of Mimi's mind as Shatterbird spoke. It dulled her emotions and echoed the flickers of flame that ran up and down the edges of her hands. She looked on, uncaring, as her teammate drifted upward to alight on a heap of rubble where one of the decrepit buildings had exceeded its own use-by date and partially collapsed.

"Jack said we're here to recruit Atropos," she said. "According to him, she's really good at killing."

Shatterbird's eyes rolled behind her glass-beaked mask. "We're all good at killing." The words were scornful, almost as cutting as the glass blades she used to kill her opponents with. "It's kind of a requirement for joining."

Feeling that she'd made herself look stupid, Burnscar turned away. "It's just what he said."

There was an odd metallic klong, then Shatterbird spoke again. "It was a mistake for you to come here. This city is broken glass. Touch it wrong, and you die."

That didn't sound right. Slowly, Mimi turned. "What do you mean?"

The first thing she registered was that Shatterbird wasn't wearing her mask; in fact, it was lying in pieces on the ground between them. Then her brain caught up with her eyes, and she realised that Atropos was right there, behind a very groggy-looking Shatterbird, holding her upright. Even worse, Atropos had Shatterbird's mouth open and was in the process of forcing a jagged-looking chunk of glass—part of the mask, but that wasn't important—down her throat.

"I mean, I already told you I was going to kill you," Atropos went on, dropping Shatterbird's voice. "Actually making it easy for me is … well, par for the course, to be honest."

Just as the silicokinetic's eyes cleared fully, the piece of glass seemed to slip into position, and she began to choke. Atropos released her and she fell to her knees, pawing at her mouth as her face darkened horribly. Mimi knew Shatterbird had to 'sing' to use her power, and right now she couldn't draw enough breath to string two notes together.

"It won't go down, and she can't cough it back up," Atropos confided. "Looks like she bit off more than she can chew, this time." Black-gloved hands spread ironically as Shatterbird fell over, her eyes rolling up into her head. "Whoops."

The flames surged along Mimi's hands, translating her sudden fury into violent action. An inferno roared out toward the importunate killer. Even if Jack wanted to recruit Atropos, Mimi honestly didn't care right now. She was going to die screaming.

But she wasn't there anymore. Even as Mimi tried to guide the flames onto the black-costumed bitch, she rolled out of the way, then jumped up and dived over the top as they angled down to scorch the rubble-strewn asphalt. On the way, she grabbed some kind of red cylinder which swung up toward Mimi's face—

klong

Everything was hazy. Nothing worked right. Mimi knew she was in trouble and tried to generate fire so she could teleport away and get the others, but it only came out in fits and starts. An arm settled around her neck, holding her in place.

"You know," murmured a voice into her ear, "this probably breaks all kinds of regulations, but honestly, I couldn't give a flying fuck. I mean, who even thinks about killing someone with safety equipment?"

Before she realised she should close her mouth, her jaws were forced open and a thick hose was fed between her teeth and down into her throat. The grip around her neck was loosened, a hand clamped her lips shut around the hose, and there was a dreadful hssssss. A terrible chill gusted down into her lungs as air was forced out of her nostrils.

"Oh, right," whispered the voice. "I do."

Her final thought was, cold.

<><>

Atropos

The last of the contents of the five-pound carbon dioxide extinguisher were exhausted before I let Burnscar drop, along with the extinguisher itself. Given that I'd just flushed more than twenty cubic feet of frigid carbon dioxide through her lungs and out via her sinuses, her brain was about as frozen solid as her alveoli were. It had served its purpose; as would she, I figured, once I collected her reward. Along with the one for Shatterbird, who was well and truly deceased by now as well.

Turning to glance at the Snitch as it bobbed out from its stealthy observation position—I hadn't wanted either Shatterbird or Burnscar to use it for target practice, for obvious reasons—I held up two fingers. Two down, six to go.

Continuing the same motion, I drew the bodice shears from their sheath and kept turning as I threw them, hard. Bonesaw's cute little spider-bot scuttled around the corner right on schedule, and the shears nailed it right through the braincase from thirty feet away. Even I would've been impressed if I hadn't been fully aware of just how bullshit my power could be with things like that. It wasn't like the shears were balanced for throwing, after all.

Retrieving the shears and wiping the brain bits off with the oily cloth I'd brought along for the purpose, I looked around for my next ambush spot. It needed both good acoustics, and good cover. There.

Jack had decided it was time to keep moving into the city, and he'd told Bonesaw to send the spider-bot to fetch Burnscar and Shatterbird back from their glass-gathering stroll. The little bio-organic robot hadn't seen me, so she'd be at a loss as to why it had stopped responding. Jack was no fool, though; instead of sending Bonesaw (his sole source of medical care) or the Siberian (his unbreakable protection) to see what had happened to it, he would next delegate the task to Mannequin.

On the face of it, it wasn't a bad choice. Built into a ceramic shell of his own devising, Mannequin was fast, strong and very hard to damage. Stealthier than Crawler and more versatile than Hatchet Face (and smarter than both of them), he also possessed built-in weaponry, limited solely by his own imagination and Tinkering capability. And right now, my power told me, he was very pleased with himself; having dissected the information on how I'd killed the gang bosses, he had coated himself with Teflon, just in case I'd saved a vial of the acid that I'd killed Lung with.

His mistake lay in the assumption that I only made use of physical weapons. It wasn't even a defensible error; Mannequin himself loved to employ psychological tactics against his chosen victims. So his real blunder was assuming that I had no such leverage that I could bring to bear against him.

Normally, I wouldn't have. And even if I'd somehow had access to the requisite knowledge, there would've been no way to use it against him.

But with my power, I could cheat like a motherfucker.

<><>

Mannequin

The first moment that he knew something was truly wrong was when he heard the voice.

"Alan?"

He froze, then stared around wildly. He knew that voice.

Catherine.

It was impossible for her to be here. Impossible for her to be alive. But there was nobody nearby whose voice he could've mistaken for hers.

He even knew where he'd heard it before. But I destroyed that recording! he insisted in his own mind.

He had destroyed the recording.

Hadn't he?

"Alan?" His wife spoke again, the strain evident in her voice. "Where are you? I'm scared."

It was a repeat of the increasingly disturbing series of phone calls that were the last communication he'd ever gotten from his wife. He'd been on the moon and she'd tried to get through to him during the Simurgh attack that killed her and the girls, but someone along the line had decided that letting her talk directly to him was too dangerous. He'd only gotten the recording afterward; in fact, they'd tried (and failed) to withhold the latter part of it from him. It was one of the things that had pushed him over the edge from being Sphere into being Mannequin.

"Mommy?" It was Kira, seven years old and smart as a whip. But right now, the terror in her voice tore at his heart like a rusty razor. "Where's Daddy? Is Daddy coming to save us?"

"Daddy will be here," Catherine assured their daughters. "I promise." Her voice changed, becoming quieter as she put her mouth closer to the phone earpiece. He could hear her quick breathing, could tell that she was fighting back tears, just from her tone. "Alan, please. She's already swooped over the house once, and I can hear her in my head. Where are you? Are you coming to get us? Please talk to me."

"Mommy!" Francine, their five year old, shrieked in panic. "The scary bird lady is coming back!"

He wanted to gather them up and comfort them, to tell them that he would save them from the Simurgh, but they were years dead and buried. Somehow he found himself on his hands and knees, head bowed, as the sounds from his buried past continued to hammer at him.

One subtle difference from before made it even worse. When this had actually happened, the recording of the calls had had all the subtle distortions and interference of a long-distance connection. What he was hearing possessed none of that. It was clear and fresh and visceral, and cut all the way to the core of his being.

Catherine spoke again, and this time he heard the tiny giggle in her voice, which made it even more horrific. "Alan? You know I never complained about not having you in my life when you were up there on the moon or out on the continental shelf, building your habitats, but …" She paused to giggle again. The sound was broken, and made him flinch within his unbreakable ceramic shell. "I really, really think you should've been here for us this time. Francine, stop stabbing your sister, I mean it."

"Daddy?" It was Kira. There was a gurgle in her voice that sounded like blood in her throat. "Francine's hurt me, and it's all your fault, Daddy. Mommy said you would come and save us. Why didn't you come and save us, Daddy? Why?"

"Oooh." Francine's piping tones made it even worse. "Scary bird lady is so pretty, and she sings so nice." Her giggle was entirely deranged. "She's telling me to cut and cut and cut, until everything is as pretty as she is. Daddy, you should be here to see how pretty I'm making everything."

There was a pause, punctuated by incoherent screaming, then he heard his wife's voice again.

"Alan?" Now Catherine just sounded tired. Even her giggle took effort. "I've put the girls to sleep. They look so peaceful, lying there. Waiting for you to come home and give them a good night kiss. I think I'll lie down and take a nap now. I love you, Alan. Come home soon.

"Come home …

"Save us …

"Please."

Then there was nothing but a fading gurgle.

Mannequin became aware that his blades were extended and he was stabbing the ground with them, over and over. Slowly, he retracted them. He was going to have to seek out Bonesaw and determine the cause of this auditory hallucination—

"Alan?"

He wanted to run, to get away from the memories that bombarded him with every reminder of his wife's voice, but his legs would not move. It was even worse this time: he could hear every tremble of her voice, the inevitable progression of her madness, and the underlying despair of the woman he'd loved, seeing herself descending into the pit and being unable to stop it.

When the ghostly voices ended once more, he found himself on his knees, sawing away at his wrist with his blade, as though that could possibly harm him. He wished he had not removed his eyes, and the tear ducts with them, so he could weep for those he had lost—

"Alan?"

Now, all he could hear was the accusation in her voice. You left us to die. It's all your fault.

And he knew it was true.

<><>

Atropos

I paused to silently clear my throat—doing different voices in rapid succession, though entirely possible, was a strain on my larynx—but Mannequin wasn't listening anymore. Still kneeling, he angled back and clutched his head with his hands, for all the world as though he were screaming his anguish to the skies. But when he'd dissected himself to fit into his own personal sardine can, he'd left out important aspects like speech, so no sound emerged.

When that apparently failed to assuage his denial and guilt and rage, he took hold of his head—not physically attached, it was apparently held on by a cunningly-placed array of magnets—and tore it free from its 'neck'. It wasn't a vital part of him, used mainly to invite attacks and carry incidental items, so when he smashed it on the ground before him and cast the pieces aside, there wasn't much harm done. In fact, I was pretty sure he had spares.

Next, though, he split his torso in half, down the middle. From the angle I was standing, I could see between the pieces. The interior surfaces were transparent, and I could see an unidentified organ gently pulsing as a machine pumped fluids through it. If I'd had a high-powered rifle, I could've punctured the glass wall with a single shot, and killed him that way.

But I didn't need to.

Slumping forward, his hands on the ground, the headless torso gave the vivid impression of a man in the utmost extremity of grief. He was already broken—his track record over the past few years had proven that beyond the shadow of a doubt—but my little shadow-play had pushed him past his new threshold and broken him all over again. This time, for good.

Air hissed as seals were broken. The glass walls separated from their mountings, and fell away. Several organs followed them out, slumping to the ground. The various recycling and regulatory machines whirred and clicked and hummed to a stop. Slowly, the two halves of the white carapace fell over, to the left and right, as the chains holding them together unreeled.

Mannequin was dead.

The clock was ticking.

With the Snitch trailing behind, I hurried off. I had a little bit of work to do before my next ambush, and I needed the outcome to be a surprise to certain parties.

<><>

Jacob

Jack Slash stood up from his folding chair and looked around, frowning. "There's something wrong," he said, folding the notepad and sliding it into his pocket, then putting the pen next to it. "Mannequin should've fetched them both back by now, and retrieved the spider-bot."

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he wondered if they'd simply decided to cut and run. It would fit the feeling he had that they were never coming back. But he knew them, better than their own families did by now. They wouldn't have betrayed him like this. He would've seen it coming.

"Told you we shoulda left 'em behind," Crawler rumbled, now awakened from his nap. "They snooze, they lose."

"Still think they're fuckin'." That was Hatchet Face's contribution.

Riley wrinkled her nose. "That's rude and crude, and uncalled for," she said in a scolding tone.

"Sorry. I meant they're foolin' around." Hatchet Face glared at Crawler, who'd just laughed raucously at his screwup.

"No, I don't think so." Jack chewed on his thumbnail for a moment. "Nor do I think they've found someone to torture and kill. Something tells me it's more serious than that."

Crawler, who'd come up with the last theory, stopped laughing at Jack's words. "Reckon someone got 'em?"

"If they had, and if they'd 'got' Mannequin as well, I imagine we would've heard something," Jack decided, frowning hard. "I defy anyone to take on all three and still keep it quiet. No explosions, no gunshots." And yet, there they weren't. It was a conundrum, and he hated those.

"What if it's a cape?" asked Hatchet Face eagerly. "Capes don't always make noise."

Jack shook his head. "Not a cape." He knew it in his gut.

"So, what do we do?" asked Crawler. "Want me to go look?"

"You and Hatchet Face both," decided Jack. "Stick together. As soon as you've found out what's happened, report back."

"And what if whoever did it's still there?" asked Hatchet Face.

"Kill them and then report back, of course." Jack shook his head. "Do I have to tell you how to do everything around here?"

<><>

Crawler

Ned was already bored.

Travelling was kinda fun, because he got to see new places. Fighting capes was lots of fun, because he got new powers used on him. Sometimes they tickled, and sometimes they did a lot more than just tickle.

But looking for three missing teammates? That was boring. They were probably lost, that was all. Him and Hatchet Face would find them, they'd be perfectly okay, and Jack would yell at them for a bit—

"Holy fuck!" Hatchet Face stopped suddenly, causing Ned to backpedal quickly so he didn't get caught in the power null field. The heavy axe Hatchet Face carried these days—and sharpened at every opportunity—swung out to point at something. "Look at that!"

"What?" asked Ned, edging sideways to see where Hatchet Face was indicating. Then he spotted it; Mannequin's carapace, lying empty and gutted, with the actual innards lying in an untidy heap between the two halves. "Shit, is that what I think it is?"

"If you think it means someone fucked up Mannequin big time, then it's definitely what you think it is." The voice was that of a teenage girl, and came from where a black-masked figure in a long-coat was leaning casually against the wall of a building, a small ball hovering back out of the way. The only thing in her hand was an elaborate pair of shears, which she tossed up and caught again without looking, the blades glinting in the sunlight. "Hi, guys. The name's Atropos, and I'm here to collect on your generous offer. Brockton Bay thanks you for your donations."

"Donations?" Hatchet Face asked the question first, but only by a second or so. "What fuckin' donations?"

"Your kill order bounties, duh," Atropos explained mockingly. Toss, catch. "I can tell you're not the brains of the Nine. Or are you ugly, stupid and deaf instead of just ugly and stupid?" Toss, catch.

Ned wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, but even he knew that was exactly the wrong thing to say to Hatchet Face at any time, ever. Insulting his looks was one thing; he didn't like it, but he was actually kinda ugly and knew it. But calling him stupid set him off every damn time.

"I'll show you who's stupid!" roared Hatchet Face, and charged to the attack.

<><>

Atropos

I didn't even need to lean into my power to goad Hatchet Face into chasing me. All I had to do was think of all the things I'd ever wanted to say to Sophia or Emma after the fact. I had no need to save those zingers now, of course. Sophia was forever out of my hair due to a severe case of mortality, and I'd permanently killed Emma's desire to mess with me ever again.

With Tall, Bald and Ugly hot on my heels and Crawler trying to be smart by running the other way around the building, it might have looked as though I'd bitten off more than I could chew. It was supposed to look that way.

I skidded around the corner of the building; a precisely timed duck let Hatchet Face's axe bury itself in the wall just above my head. "Missed me, missed me, you don't get to kiss me!"

"Kiss you?" he bellowed, wrenching the weapon out of the divot it had made in the crumbling brickwork. "I'm gonna rip your head off and fuck the neck-hole 'til your eyes pop out!"

"Eww!" I stopped in front of the boarded-up main doors into the building, the shears still in my hand. "I bet you don't talk like that in front of Bonesaw!"

"I talk how I want!" He thundered toward me, his heavy footsteps raising dust with every running footfall. My power coolly measured the angles and prompted me into the correct posture; I set myself, poised for the right instant.

When he got too close, I could feel his nullification power trying to overcome mine, clawing at my capabilities in an attempt to strip them away from me. Because he's a cheaty cheating cheater.

I could also feel my power doing the equivalent of giving his power the finger.

I'd ducked under the last blow, so he swung low this time. The instant he committed himself, I leaped into the air and let it pass under me. As the axe blade passed under my feet and shattered the boards, I lunged with the shears. He was tough, tougher by far than any normal human, but even a needle will penetrate a human eyeball. The razor-sharp blades drove into his right eye with all my weight and strength behind them, and popped it like a particularly gross grape. His eye-socket stopped them from going any farther, which I had fully accounted for.

He roared in agony and reached for his ruined eye; as he pulled the axe from the newly opened doorway, my feet landed on his arm and I kicked off, diving into the building through the gap thus created. Rolling to my feet, I bolted for the stairway up to the second floor. A wordless scream of pure incandescent rage echoed behind me as he finished the job on the doorway and came pounding into the building after me.

Even what little caution Hatchet Face would normally have been exercising was now dead and gone. Exactly as planned.

Sheathing the shears as I started up the stairs, I reached into my pocket for the remote and clicked it twice. Bip-bip.

<><>

Dragon

The remote signal came sooner than she'd expected. Bip-bip.

There was just one missile prepped and ready on the launch rails; its target coordinates had been locked in since before the suit arrived on location. She'd honoured Atropos' stipulation to refrain from sending any remote sensor drones into the target zone, mainly because Mannequin absolutely had tech that would detect such signals and raise the alarm; even the Snitch was recording as opposing to re-broadcasting. But she suspected that once this missile went off, the alarm would be raised by default, so the missile included a nosecone camera.

She really, really wanted to see what a killer of Atropos' caliber considered worth expending a high-explosive missile on.

Caliber. Hah. I kill me.

The missile's guidance systems were already spun up and ready to go. She sent the firing signal. With a thunder of expended propellant—it was times like this that she welcomed the fact that her suits had no sense of smell—it scorched off the rails, already vectoring in on the logged coordinates.

Calculated flight time: three seconds.

<><>

Taylor

Three …

I swung around the landing and powered my way up the second flight of stairs, taking them two and three at a time. Once I reached the top, I pelted toward one particular window. The grimy glass was already broken, and someone had made a half-assed attempt at nailing a board over it, but I didn't give a shit.

Hatchet Face bellowed something behind me, promising to perform an act that was both gross and probably impossible without Bonesaw's assistance, but I wasn't listening. I'd gained half a second by taking his eye out and another half-second on the stairs, and that was all I needed. Crossing my arms over my face, I launched myself at the window.

Two …

Glass and wood, both shattering on impact, sprayed out alongside me. I paid them no mind, tucking for a forward somersault to land on Crawler's back, just ten feet below. Multiple eyes swivelled toward me and I heard the beginnings of a grunt of confusion as I made contact and rebounded off him. Landed in the street, I kept moving at a dead sprint.

Back in the building, I knew, Hatchet Face had reached the top of the stairs and was charging toward the same window I'd gone out.

One …

There was a derelict car thirty feet away from Crawler, and I was halfway there. Every footstep I made was ideally placed for maximum traction and running speed. It was literally my life's goal to be on the other side of that car in … point eight of a second.

The remains of the window and part of the wall burst outward as Hatchet Face bellowed his rage—and hurled his axe—at my retreating back. As he plummeted toward his teammate, I dived over the hood of the car, already opening my mouth wide and jamming my thumbs into my ear canals.

Zero.

<><>

Dragon

As the (strangely muffled) sound of the explosion reached her audio sensors, Dragon studied the last image the missile had captured before it entered its final burn stage. It was a tableau unlike any other, but the more she looked at it, the more she appreciated the sheer artistry that had gone into it.

First, she picked out Atropos, dropping for cover behind a car as a large axe flashed over her head. Second was Crawler himself, turning his monstrous head toward where Atropos had gone, and opening his primary mouth, probably in an instinctive attempt to snap at her. The open mouth, incidentally, was now directly in the missile's path.

Third, in the midst of a cloud of tumbling rubble, was Hatchet Face, falling toward Crawler. More importantly, he was close enough that his power-nullification field would be entirely enveloping the insanely durable cape at the moment the missile struck.

Oh, I see. Combat Thinker, indeed.

With a casual signal, she cast the image back to the PRT building and started printing it in full colour. This one, she was going to frame.

Part 20