11

Chapter 11

Alea Iacta Est

Part Eleven: Critical Flail

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

[A/N 2: Queries were raised over how the Empire would react. This is in answer to that.]

"So Kaiser's dead." The words hung in the air as Krieg leaned back in his chair, looking at each of the attending members of the Empire Eighty-Eight in turn. "What's our next move?"

They weren't in their usual meeting room; that room was within the Medhall building, which had been locked down by the PRT in the early hours of the morning. Fortunately, this move had been signalled by one of the contacts the Empire still maintained within various law-enforcement agencies, which had given them sufficient time to prepare. In the main, said preparation had involved evacuating essential personnel – those left behind were going to be rather surprised to find out who they'd been working for all these years – and relocating computer servers. Those would have been problematical, had the PRT gotten their hands on them. He had no doubt that the combination of Armsmaster and Dragon would have cracked even the strongest encryption like a walnut under a sledgehammer.

"What's our next move?" Hookwolf, his metal mask on the table before him, repeated the question mockingly. "Well, we can bleat to the world that it's not fair, or we can get back up and show 'em that we're not to be fucked with. And I'm all out of bleats."

Victor, a little way down the table, tilted his head slightly. "So what do you have in mind? Storm the PRT building and proclaim ownership of Brockton Bay?" His tone was just short of derisive and if Krieg was any judge, the skill-thief was doing it on purpose. Othala put her hand on her husband's arm and murmured something, causing him to subside. "Right now, a grand gesture could go very wrong indeed." He tapped the side of his head, as if anyone needed reminding that he was more politically astute than ninety percent of the people at the table.

Not that everyone was there. Menja and Fenja were both absent, as were Cricket and Rune. He could imagine the twins being guilt-stricken over Kaiser's death; even if Kaiser had ordered them to stay away while he confronted Purity, they would still feel responsible for not being there. Rune had had to go to school to keep up appearances, but he wasn't sure why Cricket chose not to attend. Perhaps she was assuaging her grief by beating up members of some convenient ethnic minority. Of course, she and Kaiser had never been close … nor, for that matter, did she ever require an excuse to do anything like that.

Hookwolf rolled his eyes. "Fuck grand gestures. We take care of the bitch who betrayed Kaiser! We send a message that nobody does that shit and lives!" His fist, thankfully not clad in metal at the time, crashed on to the table.

"Take care of …" Krieg narrowed his eyes. "What are you talking about? Are you saying we should murder Purity? One of our own?" He had never believed that Purity had really split with the Empire. In fact, he was certain that in time, she would've seen the error of her ways and returned to the fold. Kaiser had always maintained this, and Krieg tended to trust his judgement. Well, had trusted his judgement.

"One of our own, like fuck." Meadows was distinctly uncouth, to say the least, but he could definitely put his point across. "She abandoned us. That was bad enough. But she kills Kaiser and you're saying we do nothing?"

"Wait." Alabaster didn't speak much, so that when he did, people looked around. "The report said he was struck by lightning. Was it wrong?"

"It wasn't wrong." Krieg made his voice firm. "Kellerman even confirmed that there had been a lightning strike."

"Well, obviously she didn't strike him with fuckin' lightning." Brad's tone was dismissive. "But it was raining hard as shit, and she got him up there. Deliberate, if you ask me. Bitch set him up."

"Hold on a minute." Victor was leaning back in his chair, elaborately casual. "You're saying that Purity deliberately set up Kaiser to be struck by lightning?" His entire attitude radiated disbelief. "Do you think she forced him to hold up a metal spike, too?"

The murmur that went around the table was not missed on Hookwolf, who shot Victor an ugly look. "It's fuckin' obvious what happened. She got him up there, and lit up, gettin' ready to zorch him. But she either choked, or he just beat her to the draw. One metal spike later, and he punched her ticket."

"And then he got struck by lightning," Victor reminded them all. "I mean, that's grade-school stuff. You don't stand around on buildings in a thunderstorm holding a metal spike over your head. I know that. You know that. Kaiser knew that. Except that, you know, he did it anyway."

"Which brings up another problem," Krieg added. "It's already hit the street. People already know that Kaiser got himself electrocuted by holding up a metal spike in a thunderstorm. It's not doing our credibility any good." Such an ignoble end, he knew, would haunt Kaiser's memory forever.

"So we get it back." Hookwolf hit the table again, and his mask juddered against the wood. "Purity was the reason Kaiser was on that roof. If we put her in the ground, it'll show our strength. Nobody'll want to fuck with us."

"Well, actually, no," Victor said. "When she was upright and healthy, Purity was a good target. Right now, she's in a goddamn hospital bed with a stab wound. If we take her out, we look like petty assholes. She's got a kid, for Chrissakes. Kaiser's kid. Two of 'em, if you count Theo."

"There's a third, actually," Krieg pointed out. "I've been over the police reports." There were exclamations of surprise around the table, but he didn't think it was over the fact that he had access to police reports. "And I've been looking at the paperwork Kaiser had with him when he died. He's got an heir who's neither Theo nor Aster. A girl, a few months older than Theo. She's actually why he was there in the first place."

"The fuck?" demanded Hookwolf. "When the fuck did this happen?" Metal shards slid out of his skin then retracted again.

"About seventeen years ago, while he was still in college, apparently," Krieg said. "The narrative, as far as I can determine, goes like this. Kaiser was seeing the girl's mother back then, and she fell pregnant to him. He also fell for her, hard. But Allfather disagreed, so he sent the woman away. Kaiser recently located her, and discovered she had a daughter. She works for Medhall, so he had her transferred back, along with her daughter. By some odd coincidence, the girl was at Purity's apartment with a group of friends when Kaiser showed up, seeking to take her away. The girl was unwilling, and hit him in the face with a plate of pasta before making a run for it."

He paused as chuckles made a round of the table. The mental image of the ever-immaculate Kaiser with pasta on his face was somewhat amusing.

"So she got up on to the roof," Victor said thoughtfully.

"Correct," Krieg agreed. "He followed. Purity had arrived home sometime around then – the details are sketchy on that point – and she confronted him. So he stabbed her. According to the witness statements, she didn't light up at all. Just stood there, between him and the girl. She went down and he was about to decapitate her when lightning struck the blade." He paused. "Oh, and there's also a police report about Kaiser showing up to the mother's apartment and assaulting the man she was with. Beating him quite badly, in fact."

Silence fell around the table, as each of the capes digested this. "Well, shit," Crusader remarked. "That kind of puts a different spin on things, doesn't it?"

"It does indeed," Krieg said. "It appears that Kaiser's judgement regarding this woman and her daughter was … flawed. In fact, I'm wondering if we shouldn't step back from this whole episode and distance ourselves from it."

"What?" Hookwolf stared from face to face around the table. "You're shitting me! This isn't how the Empire does business! We get fucked over, we go after whoever did the fucking, and we make a fucking example. We make sure nobody ever thinks to try that shit again!"

"There comes a point in business, as in everything else, when you have to step back and cut your losses," Krieg said, trying not to lose his patience with the shirtless man. "If we 'avenge' Kaiser, we then have to accept the rest of the narrative. The girl he was killed over has been named as his heir, his successor. Are you willing to have a sixteen year old girl as your boss? Because that's what the paperwork says."

Victor rubbed his chin. "What's the other option? We just … disavow Kaiser? Write him off?"

"It would've been far harder while he was alive," Krieg admitted. "And in fact, I wouldn't even be considering this course of action if he was. But look at the facts. He screwed up massively in more ways than one. He died because he forgot an elementary rule of safety. I have no doubt that the jokes are already circulating on the Internet."

"So what do we do?" Crusader asked the question for them all.

"We close ranks. Move on. Spread the word that Kaiser had become dangerously erratic, and paid the ultimate price for it. We might even spread the rumour that we dealt with him ourselves, so as to contain the damage for the good of the Empire. It's not even too far from how I suspect he took over from Allfather, back in the day." Krieg straightened his cuffs. "If we distance ourselves from him fast enough, all this stops being an Empire thing and starts being a Kaiser thing. Yes, we take a hit, but not as big as if we publicly accept Kaiser's stupidity as our own. We present strong leadership and we move on. We did it when Allfather died, and we can do it now."

"And the heir?" Victor asked the question, his eyes intent.

Krieg smiled coldly. "If we disavow him, we disavow her. It's doubtful that she'll try anything publicly. If she does try anything, we can ignore her or disappear her, whichever is more convenient. I'm certainly not going to be handing over the reins of this organisation to some teenager who hasn't the first idea of what the Empire is all about."

"And what about fuckin' Purity?" demanded Hookwolf. "She killed Kaiser!"

"Well, actually, she didn't," Victor pointed out. "He waved his blade around in a thunderstorm. After he chased a teenage girl on to the roof."

"She was there!" raged Hookwolf. "She was standing against him when he died! If she'd just stepped aside, he'd still be alive!"

Krieg frowned. "I find your logic tenuous at best. If she'd been actively opposing him, she could have blasted him into his component atoms before he ever laid a blade on her. She obviously didn't. And in fact, she didn't even light up."

"Bitch was married to him." Hookwolf's tone was as surly as his expression. "She knew not to fuck with him."

"That doesn't make his actions look any better." Victor shook his head. "In fact, it looks like him turning on her, rather than the other way around. Stabbing the mother of his child. That's not the image we want to embrace."

"Well, you can 'embrace' all the 'image' you want, but I still say she needs to die," Hookwolf stated stubbornly. "And since I figured you weren't gonna do shit, I already took care of it myself."

Krieg half-stood, foreboding spreading through his mind at the cage-fighter's triumphant expression. "What have you done?" He glanced around the table again. "Where's Cricket?"

Hookwolf leaned back in his chair and showed his teeth in a lazy grin. "Doing what you shoulda already done. Takin' care of business."

At the Same Time

Cricket eased her way over the ceiling tiles, careful not to rest too much of her weight in any one area. Dust drifted down around her, but she refused to let herself sneeze. It hadn't been the easiest thing in the world to infiltrate the hospital, but she had managed it. She'd even pulled it off without killing more than one or two people, too. Not because she was concerned about killing people, but because dead bodies lying around could raise the alarm just as readily as live ones could.

She was fully aware of Hookwolf's ideas about the 'warrior code' and all that shit; she just didn't think that way herself. There was no guilt in her mind over the fat security guard who'd nearly gotten his hand on his radio before she silenced him, and if the nurse she'd choked out failed to recover, that wasn't her problem either. They were standing between her and a certain bitch who needed to die, so they suffered the consequences.

Carefully, she hooked the tip of her kama under the edge of one panel and levered it upward. Once she could get a grip with her fingertips, she lifted it farther and peered through the gap thus opened. The information she'd wrung out of the nurse was correct; if that wasn't Purity in the bed down below, she'd eat both her sickles without salt. Tucking the sickle away in her belt, she soundlessly lifted the panel out of its seating and slid it aside. She wouldn't be coming back this way, but there was no sense in alerting the target before time.

Purity was still lying in bed, eyes closed, by the time Cricket was ready to make her move. Some might consider that killing an injured enemy was somehow wrong. Hookwolf would've come in loud, depending on his durability to survive long enough to land a hit. Cricket didn't share his 'warrior culture' ideas, either. Her view was that the best time to kill someone was when they didn't expect it, especially if that someone was able to blast you into a fine mist. Pulling herself forward, she let her upper body fall forward through the gap, catching the edge of the hole at the last moment to bring her legs around. An instant later, she released her grip on the ceiling frame and dropped lightly on to her feet, five feet from the bed. The moment her feet hit the floor, she drew the right-hand sickle.

Purity was just starting to blink her way awake when Cricket lunged forward, kama raised. The weapon slashed down with all the force in her arm, razor-edged blade on target toward Purity's heart. Purity being awake was an extremely dangerous proposition for her. While the ex-Empire cape's blinding glow wouldn't work against Cricket's sonar, one blast would quite literally take her apart at the seams.

At what had to be the last possible instant, Purity rolled away from the strike. Already fully committed, Cricket felt the blade bury itself in the mattress. Before she could pull it out, Purity rolled back into place with a pepper-spray canister in her hand, her back pinning the kama into the mattress. Despite the unexpected development, Cricket reacted fast; even as the canister hissed and dispensed its load, she let go the kama and dropped to the floor, rolling under the bed.

Cricket didn't waste time castigating herself. Purity was awake and aware of the danger, which made the situation one of extreme peril. She wasn't sure exactly how badly the stab-wound inflicted by Kaiser was affecting Purity, but she knew just how powerful the petite woman's blasts could be. Basically, she had two options; kill Purity fast, or get the hell out. While 'get the hell out' was actually her preferred choice right at that second, she didn't rate her chances as being very high, so 'kill Purity fast' was going to have to be it.

With that in mind, she kept rolling, heading for the other side of the bed. Hiding wasn't going to cut it. When it came to Purity's blasts, buildings only counted as visual cover. So she had to get within arms' reach, preferably without a mattress between them. Fleetingly, she considered kicking the bed over, but she didn't quite think she could pull it off fast enough to disable Purity. Her second kama was already in her hand as she came up on the other side. Strike first, strike fast, keep hitting her till you know she's dead.

With that thought in mind, she came up on to her knees – right into a cloud of that damn spray. It felt like her eyeballs had caught fire; just in time, she remembered to let go her kama before clawing at her eyes through the metal cage. The hasty roll had depleted her air and she involuntarily sucked in a breath, searing her nasal passages and lungs with yet more of that shit. Some part of her demanded that she retrieve her weapons and finish the mission, but she didn't have the eyesight or the breath to do so.

Vaguely, she felt her wrists being cuffed behind her. She tried to fight, but the agony permeating every square inch of her mucous membranes was too great. As she was half-carried, half-dragged away, she was aware of two things. One, everything from the neck up was in flaming agony. Two, she had failed.

She wasn't sure which hurt more.

Kayden

As the PRT goons finished bagging Cricket's weapons – the villain herself had already been dragged out – Kayden looked up at Miss Militia. "Yes?"

The hero sighed. "Now will you take the threat seriously? Cricket could've easily killed you if you weren't paying attention at the right time. The PRT can protect you." Either she was a good actor, or she actually cared about Kayden's well-being.

However, Kayden still wasn't buying it. "You did a great job this time. Oh, wait. You didn't. A supervillain waltzed straight past you and made a serious attempt on my life. I had to stop her with consumer-grade pepper spray." Which was the story she'd be telling everyone. After all, the only people who needed to know the truth were the ones who already knew it.

"The next time, you might not be so lucky." Miss Militia took a deep breath. "Please, accept PRT protection so that we can take you someplace more secure."

"I'm going nowhere with you," Kayden stated flatly. "Not while you're still accusing me of being a supervillain myself. Who knows, someone might get the idea to lock me up on suspicion. And if I can't get access to a lawyer, I can't prove my innocence." It's probably what I'd do, in her place.

From the way the hero's mouth twisted under the scarf, the implication had not gone unnoticed. "My other reason for wanting to move you is that Cricket killed a man getting in here, and hurt a nurse while questioning her about your whereabouts. While I can't force you to come with us, I'm reasonably certain the hospital administration will be along very shortly to ask you to vacate the premises, for the good of all. Where else will you go?"

Kayden shrugged; not an easy trick while lying down, but an effective one. "Anywhere but to the PRT."

"Fine. Just be aware, the PRT can't maintain a guard on the hospital for too long, and we can't maintain a guard on you anywhere else at all. We have other duties."

Kayden waved in the general direction of the door. "Take them away, already. I'll be fine." She held up the expended pepper-spray capsule. "You've got a prisoner. Go talk to her."

Miss Militia turned on her heel and stalked to the door. On the point of opening it, she turned back toward Kayden for a moment. "One more thing. Where did you get the pepper spray from?"

That was actually a very good question, but Kayden had no intention of answering it. "Oh, somewhere around about. A woman has to be aware of her own safety, you know."

"I see." Miss Militia's tone was sour. She stepped out of the room and closed the door behind her.

A long moment passed, then the door to the tiny bathroom opened. Janet emerged and crossed the room to Kayden's bed, walking quietly. She sat down in the chair that Miss Militia had vacated. "You all right?" she asked.

"No new stab wounds," Kayden assured her, trying to make a joke of it. "That's a very impressive power you have. How did you make the pepper spray move around like that?" It had been downright uncanny; moments from dispersing, the cloud of pepper spray had condensed back together and streamed back over Kayden without quite touching her, just in time to take Cricket in the face.

"It's carried in a mist of water droplets," Janet said tonelessly. "And that's my power, right there." She took a deep breath. "I could've locked her limbs and clonked her over the head with something, or even frozen her diaphragm and made her suffocate. But Taylor warned me that being too cute with my powers could lead to me being revealed too soon." Her right hand rubbed over the stump of her left wrist, a habit Kayden had noticed earlier. "So I decided to do it this way."

Kayden frowned. "Locked her limbs? The same way you moved me?" She paused. "Thanks for that, by the way. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have been able to move fast enough."

"Got it in one," Janet agreed, acknowledging the thanks with a wan smile. "My range for that level of control isn't great, but you were both inside it. The human body's about sixty percent water, which gives me plenty of leverage." The way her expression changed, however, told another story.

"You didn't want to," Kayden guessed. "Is there a reason why? Did something bad happen when you got your powers?" This was more than a cliché; if the news was to be believed, it happened more often than not.

Janet shook her head. "I got my powers when something bad happened, not the other way around. But … I don't like using them. I never will enjoy it. And using it on someone's body … ugh." She shuddered feelingly. "Pass."

"But you did it with me … wait." Kayden frowned. "Sixty percent? Really? I thought it was more like seventy-five or eighty or something."

"That was to save your life. Anything short of that, not if I can help it." Janet shook her head. "And nope, it's only sixty. Blame the same people who keep spreading the ten-percent myth about the human brain."

"Right. Well, thank you for saving my life. Again." Kayden gave Janet a smile. "And I'm sorry you had to use your power if you dislike it so much, but on the other hand I'm grateful that you saved me with it."

Janet's return smile was tentative. "Well, if I'm going to be joining the team, I might as well make myself useful, right?" It was almost a joke.

Kayden decided to take her words at face value. "Well, that makes sense. And it's somewhat of a relief."

"A relief?" Janet tilted her head questioningly. "How so?"

Kayden rolled her eyes. "I was dreading being the only responsible adult in a team composed of teenagers. Wouldn't you be?"

"Oh." For a moment, Janet looked startled. "I hadn't thought of that." From the look on her face, she was now imagining it. She didn't seem to be enjoying the prospect. "Do me a favour? Get well soon?"

Kayden chuckled, then regretted it as a spasm of pain reminded her of the injury. "I'll do my best."

Krieg

"You had no right!" bellowed Krieg, his face red with anger. He stood at his place, his chair forgotten behind him. Alongside him stood Victor and Othala. "That kind of unilateral action was rash and unnecessary!"

"I had every fuckin' right!" Hookwolf retorted, also on his feet. Steel plated most of his torso, and sharp points decorated the rest. Metal claws were already defacing the varnished wood before him. "Kaiser's death was her fault! She had to pay!"

"Oh, come on," Victor snapped. "Kaiser stabbed her, then waved his sword around in a thunderstorm! You can't honestly say she planned that through!"

"She confronted him on that roof," Stormtiger said, adding his voice to Hookwolf's. "The guilt is at least partly hers." He jerked his chin up. "And in any case, if you were really serious about saving her life, you would've already called the PRT."

"The cost would be too great." Krieg felt no shame in admitting this. "If it got out that the Empire had knowingly colluded with the enemy, our name would be reviled throughout Brockton Bay and beyond. The Empire would lose far too much face. Better we wait to see how it goes down, then act accordingly."

"Which might just involve a news story about Cricket being blasted through a skyscraper." Crusader's voice was thoughtful. "Are we ready for something like that?"

Krieg made his mind up. "If Cricket is captured or killed in an attempt to assassinate Purity, we will disavow her. Purity walked away from us once already; on balance, I suspect that she'll be willing to leave us alone if we do the same."

"The fuck?" Hookwolf gouged fresh holes in the table. "We're not gonna just drop Cricket like a hot potato! If she goes down, we go after whoever did it! If she gets captured, we break her out!"

"Well, let's hope it doesn't …" Krieg paused as his phone rang. With some small relief he pulled it out. This argument had been circling around the same points for the last ten minutes, and he despaired of ever convincing Hookwolf. "Hello?"

"Sir, this is Brooks on Intake. I just got word that they're bringing in Cricket."

He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. "Please say that again."

"They're bringing Cricket in. She tried to kill someone at the Brockton Bay General Hospital, and got taken down hard."

So he hadn't misheard. "Thank you. Keep me posted."

"Yes, sir. Uh, gotta go."

Krieg ended the call and placed the phone on the table. "Well, the time for what-ifs is over. It's time for the hard decisions."

"The fuck's that supposed to mean?" Hookwolf glared at him suspiciously. More metal slid out and covered his upper shoulders.

"Cricket just tried to kill Purity." Krieg took another deep breath. "She's now in PRT custody." Hookwolf began to speak, but Krieg raised his voice to speak over him. "I don't know if she succeeded, but I don't think so. Our big question here is this: do we own this, or do we step back and leave her to the consequences of her actions?" He already knew which way he was going.

"The fuck?" Hookwolf was already leaning forward over the table. "You're even asking that? We get her out! She's Empire!"

"But if we break her loose, we tell everyone we're okay with her trying to murder Purity," Victor pointed out. "Do we want that?"

Hookwolf stared at him, as if he were unable to understand what the skill-thief was saying. "I told her to fuckin' do it! Of course I'm okay with that!"

Krieg loosed a pulse of kinetic energy that jolted the room and made everyone turn toward him. "The last thing we need right now is divisiveness in the ranks. The Empire has to show a unified face to Brockton Bay. I will permit no more unilateral action until we've worked out where we're going with this. Is that clear?"

"No, it isn't fuckin' clear." Hookwolf jabbed his thumb at his chest. "I was Kaiser's second in command, just like you. You don't 'permit' shit around me." Turning away from the table, he knocked his chair over on his way to the door.

"Where are you going?" Krieg's voice cracked across the room like a whip.

"To do what needs to be done." Hookwolf didn't look around. "Bust Cricket out and fix up your fuckin' mess."

"If you walk out that door, don't bother coming back." Krieg knew the threat wasn't likely to work, but he had to try.

This time, Hookwolf did turn around. "Fuck you." He surveyed the rest of the Empire, still at the table. "Who's with me?"

Stormtiger reacted immediately, followed by Alabaster. Krieg had expected the first, but not the second. As they moved to join Hookwolf, he tried one more time. "Walk out that door and you're out of the Empire. This isn't something you can come back from."

Hookwolf was already out the door. As Stormtiger exited, Alabaster turned to look back at Krieg. "What the hell. It sounds like fun." Then he was gone, too.

There was a long moment of silence as their footsteps died away, then Crusader spoke. "Well, shit. That happened."

Looking at the remnants of the Empire Eighty-Eight, Krieg could only wonder what was going to happen next. Whatever it was, he wasn't looking forward to it.

End of Part Eleven