44

Chapter Text

The next time Lee shot her in the arm, it only went in about half of the bullet length before it bounced off and hit Lee in the vest.

That's roughly when she decided to call it quits, and set some things up for later.

A lot of texts to Coil, mostly, telling him what she wanted him to do with her people, what to shuffle around, and generally getting updated on the minutiae of Nexus.

The biggest surprise was that one of their tech agents that had asked for a small grant to make some kind of gambling website for Coil had in fact done exactly that, and was now trying to negotiate with Lisa about getting out of dodge.

She had completely forgotten any mention of such a thing, truth be told. She wasn't sure she'd even heard about it.

Lisa only wanted her input on whether or not they should just seize the website, or try to buy it from him, because he was trying really hard to leave them.

Which made sense. If the numbers were to be believed and continued growing at the same pace, he could retire without working another day in his life. Why stay in this risky environment when he was set for life?

She was… mildly conflicted on the decision.

On one hand, the website made absurd profits, and he made it using their money, programs, and resources. It was running on their servers, or at least one small rack in the corner, and it was perfectly set up to be completely untraceable, technically legal in the country that supposedly hosted it, a country that barely had any internet to begin with and thus had no laws on the service, and long-term, it would only grow further and further.

In just four days of running it had made three point two million dollars for the man, because it hit the ground running due to the excessive marketing budget.

Stretch that to a year, and it would make billions. An international gambling ring that couldn't be regulated, traced, blocked, or taken down, in plain sight.

It was an ingenious idea and she wondered how on earth so few of such websites existed when it was so clearly profitable.

Getting a technical explanation from Lisa on how it all worked and why it was so incredibly smart and sophisticated made her head spin.

It was just a tide of words and terms she didn't understand. Relays, IP mixers, virtual private networks, peer to peer connections, virtual simulation engines, smart encryption, valve connections, layered proxies and randomised IP exits, along with a dozen more terms that sounded like Chinese to her.

She didn't understand a thing, but she did understand that their technician was a damn genius and she wanted to keep him on board.

But she also wanted the money.

Each of her agents cost over three hundred fifty thousand dollars a year to pay. That was just for the foot soldiers.

She could afford to drop that salary or erase it entirely for those she'd Mastered, but she'd at most go as low as sixty thousand, for example. They still should have some good savings if they ever got to retiring age, as they should, because they were her men.

That was without evaluating the costs of munitions, Tinkertech, repairs, networking, intelligence operations, vehicles, bribes, et cetera, et cetera. And they would expand to Boston soon.

She'd rather have an overabundance of funding than to have to be stingy and careful with every dime.

So she proposed a simple deal for Lisa to give him.

He'd either stay working for them and try to develop more revenue streams and services for them on the side, and get twenty percent of all profits from those programs, websites, or applications for the next six years, more than enough for him to retire as a multimillionaire when he chose so, or he'd be kicked out immediately with a payout of ten million, and they'd seize everything he'd made so far with a complete block on creating competition for the website or contributing to such competitors.

On both options, speaking about them or anything he knew to anyone meant immediate execution, of course. They could find him anywhere. She had his blood, after all.

Mandatory blood tests made sure she had everyone's blood in a safe somewhere, even if she hadn't gotten to drinking any of it yet.

It wasn't exactly a fair deal that they were giving him, but considering the usual standards of organizations in the underground, her terms were downright generous.

She was still too paranoid to let an intelligence agent go without first making a blood contract, but it would have to wait until she had the power to spare.

Delays, delays.

She went to sleep uneasy, twitching at the slightest sound and shuffle that Lisa made as she got comfy in their crappy cot, reports and numbers flashing by her eyes.

She dreamt of a faceless head dangling from her fingers, and she couldn't tell if it was Heartbreaker's, or her own.

They didn't need much sleep with the bracelets they had. Two, three hours, and they were up again, ready to work as if they'd had a full eight or nine hours of rest.

The early morning was no less chaotic than mid-day.

The shift rotation covered all twenty four hours, so while the early birds worked, the night owls rested, and vice versa.

The news that had been put on hold by the intelligence team until they manually checked made any notion of relaxation fade, replaced by that tight anxiety in the back of her chest cavity, sour with guilt.

Battery went missing.

The voice files from The Rig made her lips try to curl into a snarl.

Assault sounded like he was on the verge of hyperventilating or crying at the end of every sentence, despite his best efforts.

He woke up, and she was just gone. Not in their home, not in their bed. Nothing was missing, not even her shoes, just her keys.

Either Battery was abducted, or she literally took the keys and walked off in her pyjamas.

There were enough druggies and crazies around Brockton for someone walking around barefoot in their pyjamas to not be an alarming enough sight to call the police, so there were no reports or sightings. She could be anywhere.

"Fuck." She growled, and Lisa rubbed at her temples, playing the conversation again.

"Any plans, chief?" Lisa murmured, quiet and put out.

"Tell Greg to contact them. They're already starting Master procedure lockdowns, most likely. When did this happen?"

A click, a drag.

"Recording's an hour old." Lisa said softly.

She dug her knuckles into the desk, bent at the waist to stare at the boards of information on the monitor.

"Greg's probably sleeping." Lisa said, chewing on her cheek, her message left unread.

"He's delaying too much. And this is urgent. I'm going to pay him a visit. Somer's rock, asap. We're going personally, bring the retainer squad too." She said, and straightened.

"Wait, who?" Lisa asked quickly, confused.

"Imp, Rune, Spitfire. They should all be free, all they've been doing these past few days is adjusting and getting trained by Brigston." She clarified.

"Who the h- oh, random merc." Lisa realized, then nodded, turning to the monitor. "I'll wake 'em up. Good luck."

She didn't respond, switching to the Rune of Domination, flying high, and trying to locate where precisely his address was.

Perhaps Lisa jinxed her with that wish, because when she got to his apartment block, it was to the sight of suspicious black cars surrounding the entire building in an eerie silence.

She paused, wide-eyed, and only a moment later, felt the urge to grab a pillow and scream into it when the realization struck her.

She recognized those cars.

Hell, she'd been ogling half of them a while ago, when she was taking a tour of the PRT headquarters.

Where were the agents? They were all empty.

She dashed towards the building, where the stairway should be, and sure enough, she felt souls inside, moving in an orderly, tense line up the stairs.

She flew up, and faced the same.

What floor was he on… fuck, fuck!

She moved up and followed the very faint sound of yelling instead, until she was level with it.

Through a ventilation pipe, down into a hall, and around the corner. Into a dark apartment, out through under the doors, and she came out into a grungy, tight hallway, staring at the back of a half-dozen PRT agents aiming their foam guns into an open door.

She flew in over the agent's heads, and she only caught a glimpse of a hysterical woman repeating ' what is happening, get out, get out' like a wailing banshee as a PRT agent tried to cuff her on the couch, before the sight of cobalt blue drew her eye, from the right, and she turned to see…

Armsmaster. One arm on Greg's joined hands, the other tight on his shoulder, marching him out of what she assumed to be his room, two PRT agents behind them.

Greg looked too terrified to utter a peep, wide eyed and shaking like a leaf.

She briefly entertained her options.

Fighting?

Absolutely not.

They could get Greg out. It would be a pain in the ass, but a programming Tinker was incredibly valuable to an organization like hers. Letting them keep the teen would be a massive waste.

That left only one option.

Minimising the damage from Greg getting caught.

She reached out to his mind as they passed below her.

"Greg. It's Taylor." She said, trying to mimic her own voice as much as possible.

He yelped, jumping and stiffening, and Armsmaster pushed him down a little with a nondescript growl, pushing him forward with more force.

"Don't resist." Armsmaster said.

"Nobody else can hear me, obviously. Don't react, just listen."

Greg, being Greg, instead swallowed nervously, and nodded his head frantically, because he was a panicking dumbass.

"Confess to nothing. Do not speak to them, not a single word. Ignore any questions, even completely mundane ones. Just keep repeating that you want a lawyer. Say nothing. Don't panic, we'll get you out eventually. You'll be fine. Where do you keep sensitive information? Yours and ours. Disguise your words with rambling crap if you have to, just say it." She rushed out with force, and Greg spent a moment thinking frantically, his eyes darting around with shock at the black troopers outside his apartment door.

His mother continued freaking out and screaming like a banshee, which wasn't helping things.

"Uuh, I- uh, h-hard drives on my desk are p-pretty- pretty cool huh? M-my PC's expensive, please don't break it, It- uhm, it's not- emotional, it's got emotional value, and there's a red thumbdrive that's a Cosmos Warrior's collectors edition so-" Greg squeaked out, digging his heels in to delay the inevitable.

Armsmaster continued to push him like he weighed as much as a feather, ignoring him completely.

They crossed the front door, and Greg just made a wheezing, whimpering sound as the agents parted.

"Search everything. Be careful with electronics and contraptions." Armsmaster grunted, personally marching Greg down the stairs.

Seeing as Greg wasn't going to say anything further, and the agents outside had already rushed into the apartment, she was out of options.

Dashing down the hallway, she zipped into his room, materialized behind his door as Evelynn, and slammed the door shut, laying four feelers flat against it to brace.

A bed, video game and cartoon posters everywhere, nightstand, and a plain wooden desk.

The computer was off.

She extended her feelers as far they would go, rushing to the desk, and grabbed the four hard drives sitting on the desk in the open, pushing away Evelynn for a short second to shove them in her hoodie pockets, before bringing the demon forward again, bracing the door.

Just in time for the doorknob to rattle, an ineffectual pressure slamming once, twice, thrice into the door.

"Open up! Parahuman Response Team!" Someone hollered through the door.

She felt their soul back up to slam into the door as she took out the drawers of his nightstand, ripping the little furniture apart and throwing everything on the floor to find that red thumbdrive Greg mentioned.

Two more souls joined the first, one of them going back-to-back with the first while the other sat off to the side, likely covering them with a weapon if the door opened.

The door's wood cracked loudly with a dry sounding crunch, but with her feelers holding it in place, it still refused to budge an inch.

Cables upon cables, figurines, tissues, lube ew Greg really-

A flash of red, and she tapped the ball of her foot into the floor, a short, blunt spike erupting from the ground to launch the little USB stick up at her face.

She caught it, waited for the agents to back up.

Flickering to her real self, she shoved it in a pocket, and hurriedly flickered back, just barely in time to catch the door again.

She turned to the computer tower, and after grabbing it and roughly ripping it out from under the desk, the metal loudly crumpling in her grip, she paused.

She had no fucking clue where hard drives were on a computer's insides. Neither did she know if there was any way to gain information from other components, or imprints of them, or some kind of bizarre loophole that the PRT or Armsmaster could use to get information on her.

With a mental apology to Greg and an audial cacophony of ripping metal, she ripped the case in half, ignoring the fans and focusing on the components.

A giant circuit board, which she snapped into a dozen pieces, clawing it into shreds and scattering everything around the room. Two weird sticks of circuitry, which she snapped in half, a giant block with fans on it, which she did the same to, and… something boxy with fans on it, which she crumpled into fine, plastic powder in her hands.

Then a blocky piece of plastic that had come out of the giant circuit board, connected to some kind of input.

That was probably the hard drive.

She ripped it out of the slot, none too gently, and quickly pocketed it.

The door caved in before she could switch back, crumpling inwards and being held in place by nothing but woodchips and glue, half-broken.

She caught a glimpse of a helmet before she pushed outwards with the feelers and sent them sprawling back, the door more like cardboard than a solid barrier by now.

"Shit, parahuman! Parahuman!"

Damn it. Did he see her, or did he assume so because he got launched backwards?

Those were a lot of people approaching.

A quick glance about revealed nothing more of interest, except a small bottle of cleaning alcohol, which she hurriedly grabbed and poured all over the broken circuitry and components, just to be sure.

A few quick hand signs to form the half-dozen runes of a simple magic spell, and a relatively small but steady stream of fire spewed out of her palm.

She held it for a few seconds, being reminded of how utterly pitiful her personal mana was without the Summon core active through one of her 'Legends', and after making sure the small pile was well and truly on fire, she squished the bottle, allowing the flammable liquid to splurt everywhere in a radius of three feet, quickly catching as much of the carpet on fire as possible.

Pushing herself to go invisible, she waited for only a split second to burst into invisible smoke, dashing out of the open window.

As she silently seethed in frustration, she couldn't help but wonder what on Earth was so important about fucking Greg for Armsmaster to break his patrol schedule and general protocol during a general lockdown and drag two dozen PRT agents with him.

It didn't make sense.

Battery went missing a couple hours ago, but Armsmaster was across the Bay hunting down some relatively harmless programming Tinker? What the hell was his priority and why ?

Once more, she was left with the distinct feeling that she was missing something.

She hated that feeling.

"Yeah, you're right, that doesn't make sense. He's basically ignoring direct commands to go grab Greg. What the hell is so important about him?" Lisa asked, softly rubbing her temple. "Is his ego hurt or something? Or does he just really need a programming Tinker to finish some project?"

She hissed out a sigh.

"I don't know . I can find Greg whenever and get him out, that's not a tremendous problem at the moment. We gotta focus on the Master."

Lisa nodded, spinning idly in her chair.

"Sending anonymous tips to them for information exchange isn't gonna work. They're already heavily suspecting a Master, so I don't know if there's even a point to telling them. Too late now. Is there any information we need from them?"

She nodded.

"I have a cape that can teleport to someone from anywhere. Thing is, I have to know them, and be at peace with them, in a sense. They don't have to be my ally, but neutral is as far as I'd say it goes. I have to know their name or a pseudonym they respond to, their face, some parts of their personality, and what they're really like. Yes, it sounds stupid, but there's a specific reason for all of it, I can't get into it." She said, slowly pacing.

"Do you believe you could teleport to any one of the victims, then?" Coil asked from the side, hands steepled in front of him, elbows on his armrests, nose behind his hands, giving her a piercing stare that let her know he was focusing really hard on something.

She glanced at him.

"Maybe. The only person I have a chance of teleporting to is Victoria Dallon. But I'd have more options and more certainty if I could talk to the heroes and learn more about everyone kidnapped."

How the hell was she supposed to get that information though? Would they believe her?

Lisa stopped spinning.

"I think you were right, earlier." Lisa said, looking at her. "We need to fake a neutral meeting at Somer's rock. Make it clear none of us have done it, and call an official Truce. It's unlikely that the feds will shut down everything or block the streets, because they want people like Heartbreaker to run off and leave them alone, so it won't negatively affect Faultline's and the Traveller's deliveries either."

She slowed, thinking it over.

"Set it up. How does the PRT usually catch wind of this?" She asked, and Lisa's brows furrowed.

"I… don't know, actually. Coil?" Lisa asked, lips curling in distaste.

"The PRT has informants in the gangs. They're almost always found out easily, but rather than get killed or kicked out, they're usually isolated and kept in the gang as an informal line of communication to the PRT in extreme cases like this, one that's pretty easily deniable to the PRT if anything of it was to come to light." Coil explained, and she paused.

"Do we have any such people?"

Coil shook his head.

"The others you control definitely do though. They'll know who we're talking about. Shall I contact Lung and Kaiser?"

God, what terrible cape names. She really had to give them new ones.

"Yes. Are you coming to Somer's Rock?" She asked, and Coil stilled in surprise.

"...Haven't we semi-successfully convinced the PRT and the public that I'm dead?" He asked.

She shook her head.

"That was never the goal. It just kind of happened because of the self-destruct."

Coil made a small sound of realization, as if it hadn't occurred to him that she did something even once without there being a second and third objective behind it.

"I had assumed it was on purpose for something I hadn't quite grasped yet, or was allowed to know. If that's the case, then I believe I will. If I were to show subordination to you, it would also make the heroes believe that they know what my plans and purpose were in hindsight, when I arrived here, and give them very false assumptions." Coil said, and it took her a second to think about what he meant.

Her eyes widened, a little.

"They'll think you were sent by Nexus to pave the way for us. Preparing the scene for us to inject ourselves into the Bay without friction or danger. We're already using your men… It would make us seem more prepared and wide-reaching than we are, which could either be good or bad…"

"Better to look like a lion and bite like one, than look like a cat and bite like a lion." Lisa shrugged.

In a way, yes. In another, no.

Explaining that would derail the conversation, so she pushed it aside.

She nodded.

"Okay. Us three, and the retainer girls… anyone else you think we should bring?" She asked, glancing at both of them.

"I know an independent who sometimes worked for me, but they're very, very small-time. Circus." Coil said.

She nodded. "Bring them."

Glancing at Lisa for any suggestions, her friend shook her head.

Three of The Empire couldn't make it.

Purity had her kids to care for, and Othala was still healing the second twin, whom Taylor kept mixing up and had thus given up on trying to distinguish them.

Before any headcounting for the meeting however, she had to speak with Rune, and by extension, the girls.

She found them in the half-empty safehouse, scrounging up breakfast.

All… unmasked, surprisingly.

Huh.

She hadn't expected that.

Aisha, or Imp when masked, was on climbing duty, trying to get a pack of survival beef jerky off one of the top cupboards, huffing and grunting with effort to reach while Rune watched her with a deadpan sort of amusement, drinking…

…Was that whiskey?

Emily, or Spitfire, was eating cereal, ignoring both of them and half-laying on the small wooden table, a combat-rated laptop capturing her attention as she fiddled with its radio settings.

She materialized inside the safehouse, just out of sight, taking Renata's form, and walked.

The sudden footsteps seemed to startle them, as two steps in, she heard a varying commotion fill the building, and by the time she turned the corner, Rune had six knives and three of her stun cards floating around her in a tight circle, her chair discarded on the floor, and Emily was half-raised off her chair, leg on the table, ready to kick it over.

She slowed, and carefully raised an unamused brow.

"Who the fuck are you?" Someone asked, and she blinked at-

Aisha, holstering a knife.

Goddamn Stranger powers…

"Summoner sent me." She said, dryly.

Emily relaxed, slumping down in her chair. Then she jumped off.

"Shit, masks!" Emily yelped, turning around to rifle through an open ammo box, and she snorted with laughter.

"Pointless. I already know all of your identities. In the spirit of fairness, my name is Renata Glasc. You should have been briefed about me, no?" She calmly asked, and Emily paused in realization, sighed, sat back down, then buried her face in her hands.

"Not sure how to feel about you knowing our identities…" Tammi remarked, brow furrowed.

"Bleh, who cares, none of us have a civilian life." Aisha shrugged, sitting on the tiny countertop.

"Please tell me you have a job for us, and knock next time." Tammi grumbled, sitting back down, knives neatly slotting into the harness she likely stole and resized from one of her soldiers.

"Who knocks to enter their own house?" She replied, arrogantly, strutting forth, hand in her pocket.

Bit too douchey, perhaps, but Renata was like that.

"I have a job for you. Hm, well, sort of. It's safe and easy." She said.

Emily deflated with relief. "Thank god."

Tammi deflated with disappointment, her eyes losing most of their interest.

Aisha munched on her jerky loudly, then tilted her head. "Are we getting paid or just 'retainer' kinda work?"

"You're getting paid on top of retainer, but the job is too easy to give you anything too significant. Five grand if all goes smoothly. If anything happens and you help, we pentuple it." She replied easily, forming an invisible feeler on her back to grasp a chair in the corner and drag it behind her with a loud screech, smoothly putting one foot on the small footrest it had, and leaning back into it, one knee half-raised, the other extended forward.

She put her elbow on her knee.

The silence told her of their interest, though they were also likely wondering how she dragged the chair to herself, what her actual power was, judging by the flitting eyes.

"There will be a neutral meeting with all factions of the Bay at Somer's Rock, a quaint little bar a couple minutes out of the train yards. Excluding the Merchants. Independents, Empire, ABB, Coil, us as Nexus, and hopefully, heroes if they're not stuck too far up their own backside." She drawled, and extended an open hand to the side. "There's just one catch."

She leaned forward as if to tell a secret, giving small side-looks to her interested audience.

"The only ones there that won't be under Nexus's control, will be independents and heroes."

It took a moment for that mental connection to register, and Tammi seemed to startle, jumping up from her chair.

"Wait- you- what?" Tammi barked, in pure, unadulterated disbelief.

She leaned back, and shrugged.

"You heard me. Did Insight and her companion in that office not tell you that we were going to take over the Bay?" She asked, slowly, purple eyes leisurely blinking in a lazy stare.

"Wh- ba- I- th-" Tammi spluttered, then blinked and took a deep breath. "That's- that's bullshit. There's no way, it hasn't even been a week-"

"Do you want to speak to Kaiser?" She interrupted, voice carefully amused, and all three girls froze.

Tammi's eyes hardened as if in challenge, and she nodded.

She put her hand in her pocket, flickered, and took out her phone.

On speaker mode, one ring, two.

The call beeped once.

"Kaiser." She rumbled.

A shuffle.

"Is this this… 'Renata' I've been told about, or am I speaking to Summoner?" Kaiser asked carefully, and Tammi's eyes widened almost comically.

"Renata. Quick question for a small audience of mine here. To whom is your allegiance to?" She asked dryly.

"Nexus, America, and the white race." He replied easily, and she rolled her eyes as far as she could.

Right, she forgot to tell him she was planning on making him drop the whole 'white power' thing when she figured out what to do with him and his gang.

"Hm. See you at Somer's Rock."

"Of course." Kaiser easily replied, and she clicked it shut.

Tammi slowly breathed out a long, wheezy breath.

She stared at her.

"You can achieve many things when you can simply reach into one's mind and force loyalty." She said, and a wave of realization swept through the room.

"...Holy shit you guys Mastered Kaiser in less than a week?!" Aisha asked, grinning wide and wide-eyed with incredulous excitement.

"Wait- wait wait, does that mean that this Coil gang and the- ADB?" Emily asked, apparently unfamiliar with the cape scene in the Bay." Are they Mastered too?" Emily questioned, looking understandably uncomfortable with the idea.

Poor girl probably didn't realize what kind of human scum they were working with.

She let her gaze harden, bleed off emotion and warmth completely and utterly.

"Of course. We do not befriend and ally traffickers of all types, murderers, rapists, and all manner of scum whose only place should be ten feet underground as worm feed. We turn them into tools."

She let her proclamation hang in the air uncomfortably for a moment, Tammi's face looking more and more nervous and nauseous by the second. Emily looked conflicted, but reluctantly accepting of it.

She fixed Tammi with a piercing stare. Their eyes met.

"I'm afraid that means you might see some familiar faces. Can you deal with it?"

Surprisingly, Tammi nodded, after a short moment.

"Yeah, fuck em." Tammi rushed out, then swallowed. "All of them except- is Viktor and Othala…?" Tammi trailed off, looking pained.

Oh… wait, Othala was related to her, wasn't it? She vaguely remembered reading that in a report.

"Viktor's done far too many unredeemable things and is far too ideologically and morally compromised to extend any kind of deal to, like we did with you. He's ours. Othala was in the unique position of being almost completely uninvolved with the gang, and of its inner happenings, or anything of general importance. She mainly just supports them in fights, and helps Viktor. She doesn't know anything, doesn't seem to care about anything, she's just there as support. We were also told by Kaiser that she is quite a good person, racism aside, so we let her be. She doesn't know anything, and that will stay that way. Are we clear on that?" She commanded more than asked, and Tammi sagged with relief, letting out a sigh so huge she seemed to physically shrink with it.

"Yeah, that's- that's fine. Viktor was- I don't know. Just keep Othala out of it." Tammi said.

She tilted her head.

"We will, of course, but just to reiterate; do not tell us what to do. We're the employer at the moment, and you're a brand new hire. Bad look, to try and boss around the boss when you haven't done one job yet." She said, in a tone that was somewhere between formal and casual.

Tammi took a moment to digest that, and nodded, sufficiently humbled.

"Wait, you're the boss? Trickster said Insight's sister is top dog. I- I think that was the chick I talked to in the office? Weird tall chick wearing the same outfit as the Coil guy? Aren't you just another higher-up or something?" Aisha asked, genuinely confused.

Wait, what was the narrative with these three?

Fuck, keeping track of lies got tiring.

"As far as Trickster is concerned, she is the boss. As far as you're concerned, I am the boss. If the power structure was simple or easy to track, it would be a lot easier to behead the snake, so to speak. The only one you can truly trust controls everything is Summoner, and you'll hopefully never meet them for that exact reason."

Hopefully, because she had no idea what would happen if she overworked herself to the point of fainting without a Legend to cover her, who might see what.

Aisha threw another piece of jerky in her mouth.

"Real illuminati shit." Aisha sagely said through her food, echoing what she said the past couple times any of this was laid out to her.

"What's the job?" Emily piped up.

"Ah, we got sidetracked. It's quite simple." She began.

Somer's Rock was…

Frankly, a shithole.

She wasn't expecting the Taj Mahal or anything, but the place was a small, squat white building shoved between abandoned old clothing factories, with one singular entrance at the back, meaning they had to walk through a labyrinth of crumbling brick fossils growing reeds through the concrete floor to even find the place.

The inside was and looked utterly ancient to the point it almost felt like a museum or historical exhibit, had no signs to speak of and no windows, the chairs and tables were sturdy metal, and if the idle chatter of the Empire boys was to be believed, the only thing worth getting from the menu was a toast and water.

She and her posse arrived second, of course. First was the Empire, with most of them taking up the left corner and Kaiser taking up a single seat in the middle table, which she guessed was reserved for group leaders.

Third was someone that literally nobody recognized, wearing a hoodie and sweatpants with a black scarf for a facemask, and after a brief snarled question from Hookwolf, they raised a hand and simply tapped their forefinger and thumb together, forming a loud, very bright electrical arc that sparked out immediately as Hookwolf blinked the spots out of his eyes.

Considering they were only maybe five foot six, they would definitely need those to fight anyone in close combat.

"Arc. Independent." They simply said, voice bleeding nervousness, soft and trying too hard to firm up. They sounded… male-ish?

Hook snorted, leaning back further in his chair, on the verge of tipping over backwards. 

"How the fuck did a muppet like you hear about this?"

'Arc' didn't say anything, awkwardly digging his hands into his pockets and shrugging.

After a moment of scrutiny, he conceded.

"A hero told me." 

Hook didn't say another word to him, dismissing him and letting him go on his way to pick a seat along the edges of the room.

Something about him was just… fishy. She couldn't put her finger on it.

He moved like he was ready, alert, and experienced, but everything else about him exuded discomfort, down to the emotions she could taste in the air.

And he was definitely avoiding her eyes. She could tell he knew she was staring, but he seemed oddly determined to act like he didn't.

She and her own picked their seats next to the Empire.

Imp sat on a table with her team behind her, face covered with her dollar store mask, poking and annoying Rune to the best of her ability as the latter tried to keep her pristine new costume away from Aisha's dirty boots, flicking sunflower seeds at her forehead or tipping the table all over the place in revenge.

Children, she fondly thought.

Rune's costume consisted of a new bodysuit like her old one, except it was in green and white, as per her request, the mask being some kind of plastic, vaguely tribal-themed stone mimic with engraved runes all over it. Her military green harness was over her bodysuit, strapped to the brim with knives, stun grenades, and pouches, her shoulders and upper back covered with a brown shawl that lacked a hood.

They didn't have Spitfire's costume ready due to having to make it extremely fireproof which took more time to manufacture according to Accord, so Emily was just wearing one of her female mercenaries' downsized outfit, a domino mask paired with a jointed respirator that could open in half to cover her identity.

She looked tough enough, glaring venomously at Kaiser, who completely ignored her.

Thankfully, Emily didn't ask her for a free punch on the bastard, which would have been awkward and suspicious to the unaffiliated.

Lisa wore nothing but the bodysuit Taylor had made her, the bracelets, a small chest harness for the giant revolver she seemed to have grown so attached to, and black military-style cargo pants over the suit. Just like before, she wore only a domino mask to conceal her features, because there was hardly a concern for any of that since Taylor could change her entire facial structure in a few seconds if needed.

Coil wore his usual suit, as did Circus by his side.

Her people didn't talk too much, just sitting silently behind her.

The ABB arrived third.

Oni Lee wasn't with them, to keep confusion about what happened with that fight he had with Lung, but Bakuda was.

It was hard not to notice her when she literally kicked aside the door, put her hands on her hips, and sauntered forward, screaming "HEY, HEY, HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEY MOTHERFUCKERS!" through the grating voice box she had put in her helmet.

Lung paused, walking in front of her, and took a deep breath, before grabbing her by the arm and hauling her forward, practically throwing her into a chair as he took out his own, falling down on it with a tired, disinterested air.

A huff through his nose, and he crossed his arms while Bakuda leaned back and started rocking her chair back and forth.

Creak, creak, creak-

After five repeats, Lung extended a hand to Bakuda's chair, and dragged it away from the table or anything Bakuda could put her foot on.

"Sit." Lung growled, warning.

Bakuda let out a long sigh, as if bored, and complied.

Then they waited.

And they waited some more.

Finally, someone walked in.

To her pleasant surprise, it was Assault, and… a woman she didn't recognize, but could guess was Challenger, judging by the weapons. A giant axe and a clip rifle, a long black trenchcoat, with her upper face using bandages in the vein of a facemask, gold accents at her cuffs and leggings.

She could guess how the woman looked without the mask, it was so tight. Sharp cheekbones, sharp chin, a few grey hairs along her ponytail…

The whispering discussions paused for a moment as Assault strode in, oddly fearless, emotions… very, very suppressed.

Challenger warily followed behind him.

She caught Assault's eye, and nodded her head to her right, using an invisible feeler to slide the chair out.

It was expected that they would send Assault specifically, due to his past as a villain, but it was still debatable if they would choose not to because of the personal involvement at hand. She was glad everything was going according to plan.

The hero looked puzzled, staring around at the various new faces and costumes he hadn't seen before, but accepted the seat, Challenger dragging a chair behind and next to him, perching herself on it rather than just sitting, tense and ready for a fight.

She wasn't the only one who noticed.

"It's rather rude to stroll in and carry yourself like you're here to fight, Challenger. Sit, maybe? Order something?" Viktor asked, faux-politely, and Assault met his gaze.

"Perhaps it is, but we're quite outnumbered as you can see. We'd be fools not to be wary. We're just here to represent the PRT, since apparently, this is an all inclusive truce meeting." He said, evenly.

He was… somewhere between furious and depressed, but he suppressed it with the kind of grace she'd expect from a Yuain monk in Ionia. 

"Fuck're we waiting for? Let's start." Hookwolf growled, because he never just said anything, scowling at the central table.

She nodded, steepling her hands on the table, one a purple amalgamation of chemtech and biochemistry, the other covered in a studded black glove.

"As the ones to call this meeting, we'll begin. Ye-"

She sensed three souls approach, just beyond the door, and paused, turning her head in tune with Cricket, Stormtiger, and Lung, who seemed to hear what she sensed.

For a moment, she didn't recognize the duo that showed up on the doorframe, nor the person behind them.

That was until she saw the giant M necklace around the reedy, dirty hobo's neck, and felt her eye twitch.

He gave a shit-eating grin to the silent room, with the world's most fucked up, ugly teeth, spreading his arms.

"Awh, am I fuckin' late?" Skidmark asked loudly, almost yelling, looking around him as Squealer ducked under his arm.

Just looking at them made her lips curl into a sneer.

Squealer was covered from top to bottom in what would only charitably be called underwear and covered less than such, revealing nothing but bony stretches of sickly skin, bruised in one way or another, smeared and caked with oil, wearing knee high work boots to go with it.

She looked like a crack whore with a cracked respirator on her face, to put it bluntly.

Skidmark looked like a hobo that stole a trenchcoat off the dump where it had been rotting for twenty years, his hair less dreads and more matted clumps.

"You're late, and not invited. It'd be best if you left." Coil spoke up from her side, his voice on the edge of condescension.

Lisa tilted her head, gaze moving from the Heroes to Skidmark, starting to get oddly tense.

"Suck my cock and balls, how about that eh? Fuckin' corpse." Skidmark spit out to Coil, stomping forward to the main table, dragging a stumbling Squealer with him.

The entire room tensed, and even Skidmark's rotted brain seemed to realize the implicit threat of their glares and stances.

She observed the woman, eyes narrowing at her state, while Skidmark began arguing with Kaiser in snarled words, acting like an indignant toddler demanding he be let in the party.

"You will not sit at the central table. Cockroaches sit in the dark corners, where they belong." Kaiser drawler, ignoring Skidmark's snarled indignance.

Squealer was high as a cloud, and just kind of swayed and made agreeable noises. 

This could be a nice opportunity to snatch them up, once the meeting was done and the heroes and independents skulked off.

"Sit in the corner." She cut in, voice cold, and the tension swerved to her, both Kaiser and Skidmark turning to her.

"And who the fuck're you to tell me what to do, eh bitch?! You know who the fuck I am you two-bit suited shit!? Never seen your pissy ass here before, fuck makes you think your cunt should sit on that chair instead of me?!" Skidmark spit out, taking a step forward, nothing but bark and no bite.

This was honestly just pathetic, and she knew most of the room thought so, despite its silence.

Unfortunately, her flaws in Mastering seemed to leak out for a moment, as Bakuda snarled, extending her hand to her back to grab her launcher's grip, shoulders set in quivering rage.

If the room was tense before, now it was ready to erupt into a fight, whether to kick Skidmark out or kill Bakuda before she blew up the entire bar, people half-rising from their seats, hands hovering near weapons.

She thankfully didn't have to step in and reveal anything, as Lung gave a withering glare to Bakuda, nostrils exhaling smoke, and Bakuda turned a bit to see it, shook for a moment more, and relaxed fractionally, settling back into her chair behind him, fists clenched on her lap as she silently glared at the duo, unseen through the massive white helmet and its visor.

Skidmark seemed to find his courage at that, and turn to spit at her in particular, before turning around and conceding defeat, skulking off to sit in one of the side chairs, followed by the third person he brought, some girl in baggy, casual clothes and very long hair draped over her face like a curtain in lieu of a mask.

She stared down at the glob of spit, next to her shoe, and took a deep breath.

"Hate to agree with Skidmark, but yeah, who are you?" Challenger asked, from her right, seated next to a stiff Assault, her voice oddly smoky and raspy, hand always on her wooden rifle's grip.

A smoker. Twenty, twenty five years?

Lisa was probably halfway to figuring out the woman's civilian identity, with how many distinctive things the woman wore and carried.

"Renata. Representative of Nexus and its leader, Summoner." She answered, purple, luminous eyes examining the woman for a moment, before turning to the rest of the room.

"Any other interruptions before we begin?" She asked.

"Does Coil work for you now?" Assault asked, eyeing Coil who stood beside and behind her, next to Insight.

She turned to him.

"Are you here to fish for information, or to find out what problem the Bay's facing at the moment?" She asked, and his face blanked, emotions muting further even as they flared out into the air.

He said nothing.

She turned forward.

"So, to begin. I called this meeting in the hopes of establishing a truce, and if our collective egos don't clash too terribly, cooperation. The reason is that we believe Heartbreaker is in the Bay, or someone strong and ambitious enough to be a similar threat."

The good thing about talking into a room of people who were used to danger, was that nobody exploded, there was no giant rush of panicked questions.

Just sighs, growls, and skeptical looks. A couple muffled curses.

Assault's emotions to her right flared bright and high, fury and gut-wrenching dread flooding her senses.

"We have yet to assume any losses ourselves, but since we believe his reason for coming here is to hunt one of his wayward children in the form of the missing Regent, of the former Undersiders, we can assume he is a threat to all of us, not just the heroes taken. It's…" She trailed off, staring at Cricket, who was staring out of the door with furrowed brows.

"Well?" Kaiser asked, and she leaned back, directing her expectant gaze to the door.

Two figures walked in five seconds later, one large and muscular, one thin, both nervous and a little scared.

They were wearing… some kind of spandex suits with what she assumed were their initials on their chests, one indigo, one red.

At least they were also wearing pants over them.

After a second, she recognized them.

"Uber, Leet. Take a seat in the back, you're interrupting." She called out, and Leet glanced at her, nodded, and briskly walked to one of the few empty seats remaining, Uber's larger form following behind him, staring in befuddlement at the two heroes sitting at the main table.

"As I was saying, it's only a matter of time until Heartbreaker or whatever possible copycat this might be, begins to dig into everyone he can find for more clues and contacts, or maybe just to take people. The Undersiders have interacted with almost all of us, to varying degrees. Not only have they interacted multiple times with the Empire in skirmishes or robberies, the ABB's actions against the group might invite special retaliation or focus. As for us… we have a lot of what Heartbreaker is interested in, and one of Regent's old teammates." She dryly said, not having to specify too much considering she was flanked by four girls and only one male on her end of the large, circular table.

A long silence seemed to stretch, broken only by Skidmark's snickering in the corner.

What he was laughing about, nobody cared.

"You claim Regent was a child of his? Do you have any proof of such?" Kaiser asked.

Insight raised her hand.

"Insight, formerly Tattletale, at your service." Lisa snarked with only a smidge of bitterness, then reached down to her bodysuit's collar to tug it down, revealing a stretch of healed burn scar, and a faint scraping scar around her neck, like a collar.

Entirely cosmetic now, of course, since she'd healed both of those. Her and Lulu's work.

Lisa jerked her chin to Lung and Bakuda, voice bitter as she let the silk snap back to place, folding her arms across her chest again. "They did us in, they can vouch for me. I can almost read minds, figuring out that Regent was Heartbreaker's spawn didn't take that much time."

Lung slowly side-eyed Lisa, then gave a curt nod.

Bakuda barked out a laugh, leaning back in her chair.

"Glad you enjoyed my little collar. Wanna make it a regular thing?" Bakuda cooed in what might have been a seductive tone if not for the voice changer making her sound like a creepy, rattling radio.

"Ew." Insight replied, settling her chair a little closer to Taylor.

"I see. In that case, which of our kind were taken, according to your information?" Kaiser asked her.

"Panacea, Glory Girl, and Battery, to our knowledge. In just the past couple hours." She said, and turned her head a smidge, to the heroes. "My sincere condolences for your colleague." She said, not having to force any of the genuine sympathy in her voice.

Assault gave a tight nod, his neck and jaw flexing in quiet fury and dread. Challenger took a deep, angry breath.

Kaiser scoffed.

"If this is truly Heartbreaker responsible, which you have yet to claim with certainty, or bring any evidence of, it looks like our resident Master is mostly targeting heroes so far. We'd all benefit from more heroes leaving the scene, Protectorate aside. Do you truly expect me to agree to a truce that will only be to the Empire's detriment? We're not going to give Lung's corner any more time to expand back out in the distant off-chance that whoever is pulling strings from the shadows is Heartbreaker, especially considering how unlikely his involvement is. If he masters Lung and takes him off, that's also one more nuisance out of the way." Kaiser stated.

Lung snorted derisively.

She tapped her clawed, marble-tipped fingertips on the table, liquid purple muscles shifting on her left side, right hand tracing her own jawline.

"Really? No regard for the many women in your employ? Statistically of us all, you're by far the most likely to come into his sights and lose something or someone important. Nexus is not holding territory, so we're invisible. The ABB has a mere two parahumans, which will most likely draw his ire due to past interactions, but again, merely two. The Merchants…" She trailed off, and scoffed with condescension, ignoring Skidmark's growl from somewhere behind her.

"You're the biggest, the most visible, and the most tempting. Othala, the twins, Purity, Night… So I believe that risk, that mostly applies to you alone, would equalise the small bit of stability the ABB might scrape together in the interim." She said.

She hadn't given any of them a script beyond "act like nothing changed", so the discussion was bound to be a whole lot of debating over something that didn't matter, which, frankly, was just tiring.

This truce meeting, after all, was just an excuse to let any independents and the heroes know who might be out there, and with some luck, get some information in return from the heroes for it. Or at least get close enough to one of them to convince them to tell her more about those taken so she had more options.

Kaiser dipped his head, conceding the point, his gauntlets softly scraping together on the table.

On the surface, things could be justified without suspicion.

Kaiser's gang was licking its wounds and trying not to escalate too much by pushing right after jailbreaking Hookwolf out and almost losing one of the twins from blood loss. The Merchants were reeling from her strike and had lost a good one tenth of their estimated numbers. The ABB was reeling from losing Oni Lee, and Lung had fought a lot lately, so it made sense he'd rather duck down than invite further attention to the Bay.

It was a good time to call a fake truce and make it make sense.

"Not a bad point." Kaiser mused, calmly leaning back in his chair, seemingly thoughtful.

"Wait, hold on, I'm- we're kinda lost here. Heartbreaker's in town looking for people?" Leet piped up, standing tall and glancing around for confirmation.

"Yeah." Arc responded next to them, head ducking down as he frowned.

"Shit." Leet hissed, and sat back down.

"We can locate the victims, we believe." She said, and the heroes' attention swerved to her like the point of a needle, shifting quickly.

"How?" Assault almost spit out.

"We have someone who can teleport to someone they know at least on a basic level, and do not consider an enemy, from anywhere on the planet. Considering our interactions with those taken are absolutely minimal however, we need more information on them. Not their names, but we need their faces at the minimum, maybe some more personal information. General aspects of their personality and their nature more than specifics. Do you believe the PRT would be willing to give us such information? If so, we can locate them before the day is over by sending our agent to them with a powerful GPS transmitter."

Assault's emotions… became a whirlwind she couldn't quite figure out.

"I'm-"No." "-willing." Assault began, Challenger cutting halfway through.

Assault glanced to Challenger's stern stare, and glanced back at her, a long, conflicted look full of dread, obviously thinking very hard about something.

Something was off… a niggling feeling at the back of her neck.

"The PRT- the Director, would not be willing." Challenger elaborated, sternly, talking to Assault more than to her.

Assault took a deep breath, then got up, moved his chair until it was sitting right next to her, and sat down, fists clenched so tight she could hear the leather creaking as he sat down.

"I'm willing. How much do you need?" Assault said, and she slowly looked from him to the oddly nauseous-feeling Challenger, the wide gap between their seats and the lack of one between hers and the man next to her, elbows almost touching.

"Are you certain? This looks a lot like something that would get you in a lot of trouble." She asked, mostly for show, already knowing the answer.

"Are you lying just to unmask Battery?" He asked.

"No. I need to know her general personality, and everything else you're willing to give. Her face is most important, but a name might help too. "

A long silence, mostly split by shuffling and muttering.

"I'm certain, then. In which case, for this to proceed, you need to get out of here." Assault slowly announced, each word scraping out of his throat with something like apology and reluctance, Challenger wounding up so tight she looked an inch away from bolting.

Something was really off.

"...Elaborate." She cautiously said.

Insight's eyes were jerking back and forth from hero to hero, by her side. Then she gasped, sharp and small.

She turned her head to stare, an open question in her gaze.

Lisa, or Insight, put her hand on the revolver, angling herself and her hips like she was ready to jump up at any moment, eyes full of alarm.

"Despite my immense dislike for most of you, I suggest you all leave immediately. This is a trap. The local PRT Director decided that the Truce doesn't apply for minor threats-" Assault growled, "-and that neutrality can go fuck itself if he can bag all of you in exchange. This place is surrounded and there's a supporting team from Boston. They're going to gas this place any minute then pick off whoever doesn't fall unconscious. So," Assault continued, turning to look at her, "the only way I can cooperate with you is If I come with, and you don't get put in prison. Get moving."

She glanced at Lisa as the room erupted into angry swears and a rush of movement, everyone getting ready for a fight but also unsure of what to do, because there was only one entrance, and they were surrounded, apparently.

Lisa nodded, confirming her suspicions.

"Oh, and Arc is a plant. He's an underground Boston hero." Assault said, apathetic, and Arc stiffened in shock.

It earned the man no more than a few glances.

"Fuck do we do with the independents and the hero chick?" Hookwolf growled, razor spines swimming in and out of his clothes, and Lung grunted in agreement, still lounging in his chair, side-eyeing a very stiff, very worried Challenger.

She got up, straightening her glove.

"Challenger, Arc. You have five seconds to leave before we kill you both for being complicit in trampling the truce and disregarding neutral ground. Go." She growled, and neither of them had to be told twice, getting up and hurriedly rushing out under the barely restrained hostility of two dozen villains.

Challenger gave one last venomous glare to Assault as she passed through the threshold, who stoically stared ahead at the opposite wall, fists clenched.

Kaiser got up, adjusting his gauntlets, and with a deep breath of preparation, began to bark orders.

"Hookwolf, break through the wall when I say so. Krieg, up front, make a path-"

"We need to work together." She grit out. "We don't have time to panic or plan details. Bakuda, explode everything around us, we'll open a hole through the ceiling for you. Standard bombs, we need concussive force, not tinker stuff. We're surrounded by warehouses made of brick and concrete. The dust cloud should let most of us escape."

"Oh, I have molecule splitter bombs! They'll make the dust so thin it'll slip through the folds of your skin!" Bakuda cheered behind her voice changer, adjusting her grenade launcher.

She ignored her, glancing around the room.

"Either break through the encirclement with brute force or go for the sewer lines. Good luck, everyone. Prioritise. Lung, don't get captured." She rushed out, and turned to micromanage her own, hearing Kaiser begin to do the same behind her.

They didn't have much time, probably. Maybe ten, maybe forty seconds. How long would it take for the PRT to move in after Challenger walked out?

"Skidmark-" She turned, only to see the trio literally just run through the door outside without delay.

If the morons somehow didn't get caught, she'd eat her tongue. With a sigh, she turned back.

Lisa was frantically checking her stock of revolver cylinder clips and magical cards, and Rune was busy stomping around their side of the room, tapping everything she could see. Imp was fiddling with her knives, not trusting herself with a gun yet, apparently, looking at her for direction. Spitfire was kind of pacing, worried.

"Spitfire."

Emily's head jerked to her.

"Fine dust particles can be ignited, and explode. It's mostly sound and fire, not concussive force, but it'll do damage. Do not use your power unless we absolutely have to, and be aware it will probably hurt everyone in the dust cloud to varying degrees. Imp, I want you on sabotage. Steal foam guns, foam up alleys after us, disrupt the field, slash tires, break communications. Take some red cards from Insight, throw them at engine blocks and foam containers. Meet up at base after." She continued, as Imp rushed to Insight, shoving her hands into her pockets to fish out the red cards, putting most of them back as Insight ignored her, checking her tinkertech knife, a thing she took from Coil's men.

She grabbed Imp by the arm, dragging her close, bending down to her ear.

"Get Skidmark and Squealer's blood for me. Fifty grand." She whispered, shifting her voice to a lower, softer baritone that wouldn't carry, and Imp nodded.

She let her go, and-

... Wait, what had she been doing just now?

She shook her head.

"Rune." She called, and Rune turned to her.

"What?"

Assault's gaze finally broke and turned to Rune, just realising who she was, confused, glancing suspiciously between her and the Empire on the other side of the room.

"I want you to try and distract. Throw things through the dust, make it look like there's movement and fighting where there isn't anything. Worst case scenario, take red cards from Insight and glass the entire area. Better us than them. Insight, Coil, stick to me. I'll swap with someone more suited for this."

"Circus, focus on protecting Insight and Coil."

The- woman or man, whatever they were, nodded, taking out a giant sledgehammer out of their back pocket, somehow.

She turned to Assault, who was still in his chair.

Before she could ask exactly who they were facing, she heard a pwthoom sort of noise, followed by a click as a can-sized blur shot into the room through the door.

An invisible feeler slapped it out by sheer reflex, and half a second later, she saw it explode into a faintly blue-ish cloud of gas.

They were out of time.

"Bakuda!" She called, and Bakuda rushed to her.

"Rune, lift her up!" She called, and Rune nodded, sliding one of the tables to Bakuda, who jumped on it and stumbled as it rose with her on it.

Taylor quickly used an invisible tentacle to punch through the ceiling with a sharp diamond tip and undulated roughly like a drill, scattering dust, rock and grout all over Bakuda to widen the hole.

She pulled back, and the table rose, Bakuda squirming her upper half through the hole, grenade launcher first.

"Fire at will." She called, switching to the Rune of Resolve, locking in Guardian as her main keystone.

The only reply she got was a streak of maniacal, mechanical, unhinged cackling eerily similar to Jinx's, followed by a click, then the blink of an eye later, an eardrum-piercing explosion off in the distance, the faint sunlight coming in from outside the door being snuffed out by a cloud of dust and tumbling brickwork. The next was a strange sound like a pop, followed by a rush of scraping dust, like hearing sand fall.

One fucking day where nothing goes to shit, she inwardly pleaded, and switched Runes as Hookwolf swelled, and charged through one of the walls, the Empire rushing out after him, flanked by two walls of metal swords for protection, courtesy of Kaiser. They were followed by what few independents had come while Lung casually strolled out behind them, fists steaming as dust covered the entire complex like a shroud, seemingly unbothered.

In the distance, she heard a raging, crackling buzz of electricity only a split second before Hookwolf screamed, the sound echoing.

Her eye twitched, options flashing through her eyes, wondering how much to reveal, how to solve this.

Coil was on the laptop, and Lisa was on her phone, both likely contacting their men, not that she could hear them separate from the cacophony.

No solution she could come up with was good, only passable.

"They brought people specifically to counter the villains. You're the only group nobody knows anything about, really, so you have the best bet of getting out of here! Tell her to finish up and let's go!" Assault called out, barely audible through the explosions, shrieks of rending metal, and the sound of an entire complex of factories crumbling to pieces around them for cover, amped up, running in a tight circle. 

A distinct click sounded out.

"I'm out of these nades! Can I flashboil these cocksuckers now?!" Bakuda called from up through the hole.

"Lower her."

The table lowered, and she grabbed Bakuda by the scruff of her neck, hauling her off the table and straightening her as she giggled, wiping her goggles of dust.

"Go with Lung. Lee should be here soon to extract you."

Bakuda nodded, and sprinted out of the hole in the wall, into an almost literal wall of roiling dust.

"Extract?" She asked.

"East, towards Captain's Hill." Coil called out, and she briefly oriented herself, and nodded.

She stepped out, breaking out into a hurried jog, and her crew plus Assault followed, trailed by a small mountain of hovering furniture parting the dust.

How intimidating, she snarked in her mind.