Bombing

The next morning I was woken by a unholy screeching that didn't sound like anything I had ever heard before. Looking outside, I saw the entire private parking lot on the left of the building, the place were police and troopers alike kept their cars had turned into what I could only describe as a scrap yard. Every single car, bike and truck was unusable, either rusted through completely or torn into shreds, burned out or melted into a puddle. The person who had done this, I could only think of one Tinker willing and capable to do this, had now effectively crippled the entire police forces and PRTs ability to move through the city. Even if the police vehicles and PRT vans in their secured garages hadn't been attacked as well, the officers and troopers where now unable to get to those in a timely manner, let alone in time to react to the different situations I could see unfolding in the city. Down the street an entire front of houses had turned into glass and promptly shattered from the vibration of an explosion somewhere to the left of my window. Seeing the different plums of smoke and gas rising from different points of the city, I knew that today would be bad. I was tempted to go out and help, but the risk of exposure was to high and even though the devastation outside was bad, the bombs could have been aimed for the apartment building itself instead of the parking lot, which meant those strikes were a message, an thread of what could have been if that person was so inclined. I needed more information before I acted.

Sebastian, the choker AI, was already hard at work trying to find out what was happening, but even the emergency services where a complete mess right now and it would take time for him to make sense of all the conflicting information. Certain was only, that Bakuda had been the one to attack and that she had used unwilling conscripts, the picture of a crying man, eternally etched into the metal that had once been his flesh, meters away from a high end clinic, while equally metallic security people eternally escorted him of the premise was enough proof and nightmare fuel for the day. I didn't ask Sebastian for any more pictures, but was relieved when he told me that there hadn't been any sign of children being hurt so far. The majority of the attacks had centered on vital infrastructure and what I assumed to be Empire fronts and safehouses, but not even the Empire capes deserved to be stuck in time for eternity. The day had barely begun, and the city was already falling apart and the empire had lost a cape, I didn't know which, he wore a plain mask, was stuck in time in front of a bar and bore E88 tattoos. He must have been surprised in his civilian identity and tried to fight back after hastily securing his identity was protected.

I dressed myself and lead Amanda to wrap around my upper arm and hide under my sleeve, she made herself small and light enough that I barely noticed her. I didn't take long for Mr. Rodriguez to pick me up at my apartment. Having never been in this situation before, I hadn't realized that a PRT soldier in full combat gear was actually so frightening. This wasn't the nice guy I had meet in the cafeteria, this wasn't the family father that had introduced me to his daughters, this was the warrior ready to battle overwhelmingly unfair odds and lay down his life for the law. I felt like a tiny ant in front of a predator, like a child, even though I knew that I was the one who could squash him like a bug with a ton of crystal, I was the cultivator who could assassinate him before he even notices and I was the one to have my own army, literally up my sleeve, but that didn't matter. Here I stood in front of a man who had seen hell and was ready to go back in, I would listen, at least for today.

Mr. Rodriguez lead me down the stairs were we joined a squad of troopers evacuating the building into an underground tunnel. The path was wide and because most people here where either policemen or PRT troopers the evacuation very ordered and smooth. The tunnel was more than a kilometer long and had emergency exists at regular intervals. The lighting was dimm but powerful enough to see the way forward. Talking and moving out of line was discouraged be the men, a mix of troopers and policemen, guarding the front, rear and sides of the convoy. There were no new information given, but I got the feeling that even the kitchen staff and the cleaning crews were well prepared and regularly part of evacuation drills. After half an hour of marching in the well lit tunnel, a sudden loud noise reached my group, followed by a shock wave of dust and debris and I could barely follow the order to duck and cover before I was surrounded by a whirlwind of dust, dirt and small pieces of random construction materials. I took seconds for the air to clear enough for me to see anything and the first thing I noticed was the bright light shining through a giant hole in the roof further down the tunnel. Below the hole where heaps of rubble blocking the way forward. Mr. Rodriguez gear was now covered in dirt, but that didn't stop him from pulling me behind him, into the forming semicircle of armed troops. While the fordermost men backed up to our position, Mr. Rodriguez ordered me to stay with an older man, who wore the uniform of the cafeteria kitchen staff, while he organized his squad around our civilian group. Other PRT squads where already securing the emergency exits closest to our position, while multiply different police squats moved between the people who had been hit by pieces of debris. Luckily the front of the convoy had been troopers and policemen in combat gear, some of them were visibly hurt and unsteady on their feet, but everyone could be moved farther back into the tunnel without trouble.

From the ongoing conversations and the shouts passing information through the tunnel, I knew that the hole had been caused by an explosion above and that there was no way to pass through that area anymore, the edges of the roof were too unstable and the rubble was still shifting around. I couldn't do anything but watch, while the PRT and Police organised themselves and swarmed out to secure territory outside the emergency exists. I was impressed by their organization and how smooth they changed gears from escort to infiltration of potential hostile territory. Thankfully someone finally mentioned where we had been going all along, apparently an Endbringer shelter, which served as an emergency hideout wasn't far inland from the PRT Headquarters. But now we would have to brave the outside world to get there. And the outside was hostile, I didn't know from where it came, but suddenly I could hear the telltale pop of gunshots by the nearest emergency exist and something smoking white came through the hole in the ceiling. I didn't hit anyone, but exploded in a cloud of white, blocking the sight of the hole and coming our way, fast. Activating my emergency bracelet, I was wrapped in transparent shields seconds before the cloud hit. The white smoke, I now recognised as tear gas couldn't get through my shields, but all civilians and most policemen as well as the PRT troopers without air filters were brought to their knees. I wanted to teleport out instinctively but the teleport location set in the bracelet was currently stashed inside Amanda, so the teleport didn't activate. Choosing to hide my defenses I ducked low and pretended to shield my face, when a second wave of gas passed over me. This one had a slightly different colour, more light green, a sickly colour, that invaded the airways of the people around me. Even those hardy men and woman, who had been able to stand on alert while their eyes and noses burned where going down now. The closest moving body to me stilled and for a moment I was afraid that this was a deadly poison.

Crawling forward I found the face of the person who had gone down next to me and checked for signs of life. I wasn't a medic, but I could sense aura and his aura was as strong, but a lot less active than a normal human, more subdued like that of an animal. Further checks revealed that he was unconscious and while I could say for certain my instincts told me that the the substance in the green gaß would force him into a deep sleep for hours. Stumbling through the smoke came a troop of PRT troopers with air tight helmets, who tried their best to avoid stepping on the people on the floor. Thanks to my cultivation my eyes could penetrate the fog much better than their and it was easy to follow them to the nearest wall and then to the emergency exit. Whatever they had in their helmet, didn't help the troopers for long, they were swaying already and by the time they reached the exit their steps looked like they were drunk. The emergency exit was still open from the team that had slipped out earlier, but when I followed them through I couldn't see the aforementioned team anywhere. The stairs where empty, except for a few policemen who had fallen asleep on the lowest steps.

Climbing further up, constantly slowing down the PRT troops managed to reach the first landing about 6 meters above. I waited with baited breath below as they stumbled through the doors until the last had gone inside before I started climbing the stairs. When I reached the landing the door had been closed and bolted from the inside, so I continued climbing. Another 6 meter above was the next door, this one I forced open with my cultivation strength and found myself in a supply closet. Sebastian informed me that I was at a hotel, and according to the floor plan at the first underground level. The Hotel had multiple underground level, the lowest where the PRT troop had escaped to was probably the heating room, which meant I was two floors above them. I could have simply stayed there, but Sebastian informed me that groups of armed men had appeared on the hotel security feed. They were scanning the building and would soon reach me, which meant I couldn't hide here.

Sebastian lead me to another door, which opened to a hotel personnel only elevator he had hacked in advance. Using the lift to skip the lobby and first floor, I found myself on the second floor of a very expensive looking hotel that appeared untouched by the violence outside, but Sebastian informed me that the everyone except me, the armed people downstairs and the PRT squad at the lowest floor where unconscious. My shield bracelet protected my from anything harmful in the air, but everywhere I looked had a slight green tinge to it, it was highly likely that the air conditioning system that spanned the entire building had been used to spread the same sedative that had been used in the tunnel. I wasn't in any danger and not ready to expose myself, but that didn't mean I could only watch. Sebastian was already blasting emergency messages on the PRT and Police frequencies, while directly warning the PRT squad downstairs through the hotel's intercom system of the incoming threat. Unluckily he couldn't avoid the armed man overhearing the same message, so they hastened their approach. The problem was that the enemy forces had already reached the supply closet I had used to enter the hotel.

Not knowing what else I could possible do, I used the most brute force method I could think of. I knew where the pocket of the tunnel that I had used to enter was, so I locked for the closest window and summoned a sharp crystal in form of a spear, heavy enough to smash the street and right through the ceiling of the emergency exit. No one would be able to use it anytime soon, the metal stairways had collapsed under the weight and lay buried under a giant spear of quartz. This action was enough to dissuade the enemy from taking the easy route, but they still tried to reach the lower exit, that was defended by the PRT squad. I and the squad knew they wouldn't be able to get through there either, but they didn't, so I watched while the PRT used their containment foam grenades and superior armor to defend against five times their own number. Even after 10 minutes, the PRT held the position without any losses. One trouper had been hurt badly enough to need medical care, but because the layout in the basement had very narrow corridors with very thick and sturdy walls the PRT squad of six managed to hold long enough with only four people for the fifth to patch up the wounded soldier.

I was tempted to appear as Dusa and resolve the entire situation, but I didn't need sebastian to tell me that this had a large probability of outing myself. Instead I used a teleport scroll to teleport back into the tunnel and checked out the wounded there. Most weren't in much trouble but a few had nasty cuts and could potentially bleed out if help didn't arrive soon. Knowing that the other conscious squads had already left trough other emergency exits I took some time to use a regeneration staff on the few people in danger of dying or permanent injury. I was careful to not heal them completely and leave enough evidence to suggest the wounds hadn't been that bad in the first place. I hated having to cut open some sections again, because regeneration caused the wounds to look way older, but I found solace in the thought that they would have been much worse without me.

Sebastian kept me up to date of the fight in the Hotel and informed me of the situation of the other squads that were still active. Apparently the squad in the Hotel was an elite squad, had followed emergency protocol perfectly and was now the only seemingly full squad still awake. The other squads were at least missing a single person, assuming PRT squads came in groups of 6, but didn't meet any opposition, they just couldn't enter the tunnel as long as the air was full of the sedative which lingered for an unusual long time. Sebastian theorized that it was a tinker made substance from a Toybox affiliated tinker who was famous for producing gases with a green tinge. There were too many questions to answer right now, Bakuda could probably built her own sedative bombs, the men fighting the PRT squad didn't wear any gang colors or symbols and the PRT squad that had been the first to leave through that exit was filmed simply leaving the premise. They either hadn't been PRT at all or they had been spies from the same group that was attacking right now. Sebastian couldn't find anything because neither of us knew their names, rank or appearance and because I didn't allow him to hack to PRT server, yet. I didn't know his limits and wasn't ready to risk him because of something so trivial. I simply didn't matter to me if they were traitors, whatever the goal of the operation had been, the grunts wouldn't be able to enter the tunnel, I wasn't above collapsing every exit on top of them if it was necessary.

It took almost 30 minutes before Dauntless from the Protectorate arrived at the sight of the tunnel collapse, 30 minutes I had spent looking through the files Captain had given me. I now knew that Dauntless was a Brockton Bay native who was rising very fast in the ranks, which was rumoured to cause friction with more established heroes like armsmaster. I would have enjoyed meeting him, but being the only person awake would have been a sure sign of me being a parahuman, so I put myself in a cultivation transe to fake sleep and entrusted myself to the tender mercy of a Hero of Brockton Bay. This whole secret identity thing could be very fun if you were the only one who got the joke.