8 -||

OoOoO

Max Anders enjoyed the view from his CEO office in the Medhall building, looking down over Brockton Bay, spread out before him. It almost looked pretty from this angle.

Of course, not all parts of his job were pleasant, particularly not since the man really had what could be considered two full-time careers. One was his public face, as the CEO of a prosperous company. The other, as Kaiser, supervillain leader of the Empire Eighty Eight, inherited from his father, who had founded the organization. Both of them could use, and some would say even deserved his full attention, but neither commanded it.

They couldn't.

On normal days, it was a toss-up to say which job caused him the most problems. But on days like today, when Lung was only two days into nightly rampages that would typically last a week, at least, it was definitely the Empire. The supervillain controlled gang of Neo-Nazis.

Max personally did not share in the racism. But since many in the organization did, he went along since it had proven a useful tool in controlling those that were.

There were too many problems he had to fight already as things were.

The phone rang.

The 'special' phone rang.

Laying aside the reports that he really should be going over, Max answered. "This better be good."

"Max? We've got a problem."

He recognized the voice as that belonging to Victor.

Max rubbed at his eyebrows. "I would presume so if you were calling this line. Alright, let's have it."

"The kid with the casks? I got hold of him. Tammi found him wandering into the Alamo, and held him for me until I got there." Victor's voice informed him over the line.

This actually introduced a bright spot in Max' day, and he glanced over to the wet bar he maintained. There was only half a decanter left of the sample he had been given, but it had swiftly become a favorite. "Sounds like good news, to me. The quality of that product was excellent. I presume you struck up a deal. When are we expecting more of those excellent vintages?"

Victor's voice sounded tired. "Yes, I did make a deal, and they're already delivered. But Max? That's the problem. Kid had an uncanny sense for how much his alcohol was worth, and drove a hard bargain, but he was willing to cut a deal for guns..."

"So cut him the deal for guns. I fail to understand the problem." Max spun about in his chair, turning to face the window again.

Now his friend was sounding strained. "The problem is that I was too over-eager and that kid too good at bargaining. I forgot some classic steps. Yes, the vintages are that good, but in getting access to them I forgot to set upper limits."

"I am failing to see how too many casks of that excellent wine is a problem, Lex." Max stood and looked out over the city again.

He heard a deep sigh from the other end of that line. "Well, I sure hope you are feeling that way tomorrow, Max. Sure, we have a warehouse that he's already delivered some four thousand casks to, checked over by our people and thoroughly verified. But we sold an underaged kid over thirty thousand guns to get it."

Max Anders felt the blood chill in his veins. "Repeat that for me, Lex."

Victor's voice came seriously and soberly over the line, but his words were chilling. "Thirty thousand illegal gun sales, Max. Thirty-five, actually. And eighty percent of them are serious hardware. Kid walked into the shop and fell in love with those Terminator packages, offered to buy a couple hundred of the full sets. Turns out we've got quite a clan of hillbillies living up in those deserted hills outside of town, making liquor, and they're all Terminator fans. So when I offered guns for booze, that's what he went for. Next thing I know I'm getting a call from the warehouse whose address I gave him that they're full and close to overflowing with casks, asking where should they should send the next shipments to. So I call up the gun store and it turns out the kid has been there all day, being helpful, while his relatives drove the trucks in. So helpful not only have the orders already been placed, and paid for, but the product actually picked up on the factory end. We're in trouble, Max."

Max Anders kept cool only through a supreme act of will. He licked his suddenly dry lips. "I fear you rather understate the case. Over thirty thousand undocumented guns... Lex, that's more illegal weapon sales that we usually traffic in a decade. None of our usual methods will be sufficient."

"I know, Max. What do we do? As crippled as the Federal agencies are, their budgets sucked dry to feed the PRT, they're bound to notice something like this. Having to fake paperwork on that volume of firearms? Give it a week and we'll be to be up to our armpits in Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, looking to make their first major bust in years and hoping to look relevant again. We are standing to lose a lot of our legitimate businesses."

Victor was sounding worried.

Max felt rising anger. "Why don't you find that young man, and explain our displeasure to him. We can reconvene after I've had a chance to think over the matter more clearly."

"Sure thing, Max."

The CEO of Medhall hung up the phone and went to his liquor cabinet, pausing to scowl over the crystal decanter of truly excellent wine he had been savoring just a little while ago.

It was with an ill temper that he poured himself another glass.

OoOoO

Jared and his friends, Skysaber's Sirens when in costume, had gathered once again and were all out enjoying playing mini-golf at the last remaining indoor range Brockton had for that, in one of the better neighborhoods in town.

They were all in disguise at the moment, due to the number of people looking for various members of their team. Jared was currently enjoying his Rick persona, as he had not yet developed an alternate that was not a caped ID. But he was planning to look into that, after this evening of playing games.

Although, it had to be said that only a few people were playing at the moment, as over the TVs hung in the ceiling corners of the dining area was Alexandria delivering a broadcast...

"...This transparent attack upon the respectability of this venerated institution shall not be tolerated! We will find and shut down this evildoer and show him he is a small time clown, and that no one can strike out against the leadership of the Parahuman Response Team and get away with it."

The cameras switched from Alexandria to the talking heads discussing her statement, at which point the crowds at the family fun center went back to ignoring them as normal, and the whirs, beeps, and pops of the various arcade games resumed at the normal full intensity.

"Wow, she sounds upset," Rick observed with a joke in his voice. "I wonder what happened?"

"PHO is going mad, speculating about it," Missy, in her disguise, observed from where she was typing on her brand new laptop. "So far I think Piggot being kidnapped and replaced with her good twin is the funniest, her throwing a tantrum over being denied a part in the next muppet movie is the most accurate. And Void Cowboy is out there on the fringes, as always, with his theory about her being trolled by inter-dimensional wizards."

Dinah stopped sipping soda through her straw and giggled, before gathering herself to comment, "Wow! Feel the burn. What does an honest, hard working PRT Director need to do to get some respect out here, anyway?"

Missy met her eyes in a serious stare. "We'll let you know once we find one."

Both girls broke down in giggles.

Rachel and Taylor were both seated in a booth, at either side of Rick, leaning into the currently blond youth and just positively glowing with contentment.

They had what they wanted.

"Has Armsmaster made any comment yet?" Missy asked. "He is the head of the local Protectorate branch, so you'd think..." she trailed off, as she saw Lisa, busily typing away, already shaking her head.

"No," Lisa replied shortly. "He hasn't left his lab all day."

Taylor stirred from her place tucked into Rick's right side. "Wait. I thought Armsmaster was at that meeting."

"Nope," Lisa shook her head again. "He was in his lab the whole time. He finds it more efficient to send a robot double in his place, then to listen and respond over a microphone and earpiece. It gives him an extra dozen Tinkering hours per week on average, some weeks more than twice that."

Taylor thought about it for a second, then decided it did not matter, snuggling back into her chosen's side, contentment awash within her. Before meeting this boy, she'd had nothing. Now she had friends, a boyfriend, a good day shopping, a terribly expensive high end computer, her cape career was advancing by leaps and bounds with all of the skills and training she was receiving, she had lots of support in general, and to top it all off a first folio was waiting in her room for her to return to reading it.

Life, in her experience, simply did not get any better than this.

Under the table, Rick's shoes were off and he was typing rapidly using his toes using a special court stenographer keyboard linked by a cable to a laptop facing him on the table. He was only typing about half as fast as an actual court stenographer, so only about ninety to a hundred words per minute, but it was with his toes, so some credit had to be given there.

His hands were busy with the important business of cuddling girls who needed support and reassurance they were valuable. So his toes were all that was available.

"My, PHO does appear to be losing their collective minds over this, aren't they?" he mused, noting that a certain thread by Doctor Whodunit had been locked within minutes of making it, had only five replies, was on page thirteen of its sub-forum and was fading fast.

He did not stop to read it.

But it did give him an idea.

Pausing to ensure he was using his enchanted hub, and randomizing his connection point a bit, he stopped surfing to make a new thread in the same sub-forum, titling it, "Doctor Whodunit's Amazing Thread of Extreme Awesomeness, Plot #2!"

"Ha Ha! The Protectorate are so concerned about transparency, are they? Well, I will saturate Alexandria's body with Inviso-Black beams! Yes! From now on any attempt by her to wear dark fabric will result in the material turning completely invisible!"

He posted.

A second later, Lisa stopped typing. She turned to glare at him. "Really?"

He smiled in reply. "Bestow Curse, any dark fabric she wears will turn invisible. I'll bet you she changes to a new costume before the day is out."

Lisa sighed and began rubbing her temples. "No bet," she said dryly.

Jared took a moment to extricate himself from the cuddle pile. "Excuse me, I've got to go to the restroom. Back in a bit."

OoOoO

It took only a minute for Jared to get out of sight, teleport, use the Fantastic Device to cast the Bestow Curse using a small tuft of Alexandria's hair he'd included in that morning's ragged backpack (hair from a clogged drain had exactly zero value, and taken from before her body got frozen in a type of stasis-state still worked to curse her current identity. There were a couple dozen targets he maintained potential target tracking on this way) and somewhere out there he could feel the curse take hold.

Excellent.

He would have done it as a Transdimensional Spell if that was needed, but that ability was limited, so he was glad not to have to use it.

He then teleported back into the exact same washroom stall he'd closed himself into twelve seconds before, left it, washed and dried both hands thoroughly, used a fresh paper towel to grab the door handle and tossed it in the garbage while he exited the bathroom...

... only to find Lex, from the gun store, and two adult toughs who looked like cagefighters waiting for him. He could hear another couple of men standing at the entrance to this little side hall, keeping traffic out so they could have this little conflict in privacy.

So it looked like he was being subject to a gang hit.

Now it really was arguably the case that Rule One for combat when you are a wizard involved staying out of reach of the big, tough men and monsters that want to chew on you or beat your face in. Because spellcasting was always so much harder when nasty critters are making like a junkyard dog with you, tearing you to pieces and gobbling down your flesh.

And it may not seem obvious, but had proven true countless times in the past, that the worst monsters were not actual monsters, they were men.

Now, there was a reason Jared had not thrown all of his levels into barbarian, stripped down to a fur loincloth and mask, named himself something like Captain Muscles, and dispensed beatings with his Fists of Justice! The reason was anybody could do that. Brute force was the default. Anybody could understand it, and most importantly everybody knew about its weaknesses and the counters for it. Just staying outside of the pugilist's reach was a big one.

A wizard's entire shtick was built around *avoiding* the kind of strength vs strength, testosterone-driven conflicts that were so popular on TV. He did not get thrown into this hell-world to ask for the powers of WWE.

No, he fought an entirely different way, like the old Bugs Bunny cartoons, he preferred to outwit his foes, or better yet, to get them to defeat each other.

In his case, as with most wizards, as with a sniper, if you were fighting with your fists, that was only because everything else had failed. With wizards, as with snipers, your ideal case is for your enemies to never even know you were there, and in the next most favored scenario, you want them to die as far away from you as possible.

Only your worst case involved them actually being able to fight back against you.

Having no doubt that they could kill him, Jared prepped an ability he hoped not to have to use, then put on a brave face and did his best not to have to use it by trying a different tactic.

"Hey, if we got the order wrong, we'll fix it, free of charge."

The two big, burly men each pinned one of 'Rick's' shoulders to the wall without saying a single word. At their doing so, he almost popped his ability, but withheld it for the moment when his danger sense failed to flare.

He'd know it when they went to hurt him. This was merely an attempt to intimidate.

Ha! Little did they know that player characters are immune to the intimidation skill! That works only on NPCs.

The man he'd pegged as the cape Victor went on quietly cleaning his nails with a very sharp knife for a period of time carefully, yet expertly calculated to be excruciatingly miserable for the person under threat.

Underneath his Rick persona, Jared was using those seconds under threat to cast Mage Armor and Shield using Still Spell and Silent Spell metamagic so there was no outward sign he was spellcasting. Then layering on other combat buffs as the pause grew longer.

The sudden surge of violent action came as expected. It was beautifully done and expertly calculated, Victor in his civilian guise going from seemingly at rest and nonviolent to a sudden lunge across the short distance between them, to bury the knife in the wall next to Jared's ear.

Well, ok, from the single flick of Victor's eyes to check his knife, apparently it had been meant to cut into Rick's ear. Good luck with that when your target has several layers of invisible force field protecting his magical self - and who would have teleported out of there if his danger sense had twigged on to this having been a real attack, rather than just more intimidation.

The words, when they came, were as cold as expected. "This is not about the booze, Belmont. It's about the guns. You abused our trust, and our generosity, ordering far too much to be concealed without even giving us any indication you would be bringing the Feds down on us. This is about payback."

Contrary to Victor's expectations, Rick gave an easy grin. "Hey, if that's all, let me reach for my checkbook. It's right here under my *suicide vest*. You know, the one with the deadman switch, where I release either of the triggers and it goes off?"

As he was talking, with one hand Jared had flipped open his jacket, revealing under it a nightmare of TNT sticks, wires, and blinking lights that all came active as he lifted his other hand and pressed the plunger on the arming trigger before all three men's horrified eyes. Then he watched as the moment of horrified understanding came that he'd said triggers - using the plural, and they saw only the one.

Plans to lunge for control of the arming device he held casually in one hand died in that moment.

God bless Silent Image! His illusionary vest looked exactly like the real thing, too.

Now Jared was going to do what any responsible person in the Worm universe would do in a crisis situation - Blame Coil!

"Now I'm nobody," Rick spread both hands disarmingly, still holding the button down on his illusory arming trigger. "It would be easy for you to kill me, but I'm worthless, so all it would get you is a little satisfaction. But I do have power to negotiate. So let's negotiate. In the first place I'd like to offer you a freebie, just to make up for any hard feelings. It may not look like much at the start, but I think it won't be long before you see its true value, and really appreciate it. The thing is, you've got an enemy, Coil. This is a guy who likes to slide under the radar, all of which you know. What you do not yet know, and my free offering to you, is what this guy's power is: because he is one of the top ten Thinkers in the world, only you did not know it. He likes being underestimated, it lets him get away with more, really gives him space to operate his power, which is this: Coil can run two timelines at once. He experiences both, but actions he takes in one do not affect the other, and at any moment he can drop one to preserve the other, then split again from that point. What this means is he can set up operations and in one timeline give the 'go' order, and in the other hold or abort. If the mission succeeds, he keeps the timeline where it does. If it fails he goes to the other and either tries again with a change of tactics, or aborts. It also means that he can afford to kidnap just about anyone, torture them for information, and drop that timeline, keeping the one where it never happened. Only he remembers BOTH, so whatever information he learned, he keeps. It also means that he has moles in every organization in the Bay, including yours, because if anyone *can* be turned, Coil can try as many times as it takes until he *has* turned them, and you would never know about it because he erases all of his failures. He has been using this to gather information on the civilian identities on all other capes in the Bay."

Near the end of this little speech, Victor was glad he did not wet himself. If what this kid was saying was true, and he obviously believed it, then they had been dealing with the wrong foes, all the while letting a snake in the grass have free reign, allowing it to set up a strike to nut-shot their entire organization.

It was a scary thought.

And, paradoxically, it also explained the kid's suicide vest. Only the ability to blow yourself to kingdom come on demand would neutralize Coil's ability to take you and torture you as he pleased.

You'd need something like that to keep any secrets from that man's power at all, Victor realized.

Not that he ever intended to tell Kaiser that, as he had no intention of wearing one. Ever.

All three men had taken a couple large steps back from the kid, who now took out a slip of paper, put it on a nearby table, and began to write with the hand not holding onto the trigger mechanism, "Now I know this, because a former member of Coil's organization managed to leave, a mole he had in another organization - not yours, and traded what they had on him for safe transport elsewhere, which we were able to provide. As evidence of this claim, I am going to write down the civilian names of Kaiser, which you should already know and be able to immediately verify, and Lung, which you could discretely confirm if so inclined (although I must apologize in advance that I only have one name for him, and do not know if that is personal or family), and finally Coil. Since he is the one whose plan it is to publicly release all the secret IDs of his cape enemies, hoping to use the chaos and confusion to his advantage, I figure he can't complain if you return the favor should he try - which ought to lead to him dropping those timelines where he does."

The boy wrote only a few lines on the piece of paper before folding it over a couple of times, then handing it off to one of the burly men, who then shuffled over to just within reach and received it, then shuffled back to hand off to Victor, who opened it and read silently to himself, 'Max Anders, CEO of Medhall. Kenta, half-Chinese, half-Japanese leader of the ABB. Coil, also known as Thomas Calvert, Senior PRT consultant.'

A chill passed through Victor's spine when he read the first name. The kid, at least, knew Kaiser's civilian name and identity, nor did Victor think a bunch of hillbillies came across that information themselves, which made the kid's already plausible story even more likely - which was frightening, as that meant this information was already in the hands of at least one enemy who was planning to use it!

Frankly, if true that was a disaster worse than the gun store mess. But at least this time they had warning.

The boy waited patiently, giving time for the note to pass, then a moment to process this little revelation, before speaking further, "Now as to the injury we dealt you, we wish to make amends by undoing as much of the damage as possible. In fact, do you have an email address I could send things to?"

At this point, Victor had little doubt sending him one would prove significant, so he did so, one of his burner accounts.

Moments later he got a ping as a file arrived.

"There," Rick smiled. "As our little mole was escaping, they took some ABB files with them on the way out. What you just got is a membership list of most of the ABB. Lung's pimps, his toughs, his recruiters, and officers, but also a good portion of his gang's support network, his back-alley doctors, people who launder money for him, his accountants and so on. Anyone closely affiliated enough to be getting a payout from the gang's coffers. So all of his core people."

Rick gestured with his detonator. "Now it appears to me, that an enterprising individual such as yourself could arrange enough help to fill out all new paperwork regarding those guns, featuring those names, personal information, and addresses. Probably get it all done today, if you put a rush job on it. Now, if you were to do that, I'm certain that you could even spin up a story about how the store owner took however many of his staff you find believable out to celebrate something the other night at some Asian restaurant, and all came down sick with food poisoning. But luckily they were able to hire temporary replacement help to run the store today. And shocker of shockers, in retrospect it was obvious those substitutes were ABB members, who ordered all of those guns, doubtless for the members of their gang.

"Now, should you set it up right, your store owner was feeling better and came in to check up at the end of work today, and found all the evidence that this terrible event had happened. So naturally, he being the upstanding citizen he is, called this in to whatever law enforcement officer you want to get credit for cottoning on to a major bust, and who, being the stalwart upholder of the law they are, put a hold on the delivery of these weapons until the case could be properly looked into. The store owner will then responsibly report they are already under lockup at the warehouse of your choice."

"Now Lung," Rick again gestured with his detonator, "When he discovers his plot to get so many weapons for his gang has hit a snag, will doubtless rage, and go attempt to collect them himself. Naturally this will lead to a fire in that warehouse that will destroy everything he tried to gain."

Rick favored Victor with a level look. "I can't take credit for the plan. It is an adaptation of one of Coil's, who likes to set you two against each other. Although I do recommend that whatever warehouse you select for this, it be one you've kept your fire insurance current on. We still have all of the original shipping crates, boxes, and packing materials those guns arrived in. We could send those to the warehouse of your choice. Now Kaiser makes metal structures intricate enough to serve as armor. That's complex, with fine tolerances. My hat is off to him for fine tuning his ability to that extent. But if he could do that, he should have no trouble making quite a few sets of scrap metal that look like gun parts. I think it doubtful he has tolerances down to the ten-thousandths of an inch you'd need to use them as actual weapons, but as weapons destroyed by a warehouse fire set by Lung? Fires that naturally get hot enough to twist and warp metal anyway?"

Rick stood, arms crossed, leaning against the table. "All this plan requires of you is a bunch of guys doing paperwork, a handful of phone calls, an afternoon's work at most from Kaiser, and then leading Lung to the right warehouse when he makes his attacks on your territory tonight. Then the Feds find all of the guns they want, already destroyed, and get to claim credit for a major bust. All eyes look to the ABB in disapproval for trying a major escalation. They get official attention, and you come off smelling like roses."

He uncrossed his arms and took a few steps to stand before Victor. "You get your booze, we keep our guns, and the ABB gets the blame. Both of us are happy, and your enemy gets shafted. The worst is you are put out the cost of a machine capable of stamping a bunch of serial numbers into gun parts and a rush delivery on it. Finally, if the Feds hold a sack of anvils ready to drop, it lands on the ABB for being such nasty characters as to even try this dastardly scheme of theirs. So, restitution made. Friends?"

Rick extended the hand that did not hold the detonator, out and prepared to shake.

There came a smirk onto Victor's face as he realized that this enabled him to call Max right away and report a solution. While not as simple as the kid made it sound, it was certainly doable. He extended his hand and they shook.

"Friends."

Victor then had to leave. There was a lot to organize, and not too much time to do it in.

On seeing them depart, Jared smiled. Sun Tzu once said "to shatter and destroy it is not so good" and "the best thing of all is to take the enemy's country whole and intact". "Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting."

This, while not exactly that, was close.

He may not have destroyed any of his enemies with this move, but he had certainly set them against each other. The might of the Empire was going to get turned against Coil, who was not prepared for that kind of heat on top of his woes with the police force and PRT, while the ABB was going to take a major hit or two tonight, getting in trouble with the Feds while at the same time having Rune defeat Lung in combat.

And, with this, the Empire was one more step closer to their own fall, though they did not know it.

While not a perfect victory, he would take it.

Closing his jacket and pocketing his 'detonator', Jared dismissed his illusion and went to rejoin his girls, only to find them out in the parking lot, having already begun changing into costumes in the back of the van that was their current team transport, and arming themselves from the weapons he'd stashed there. They had been planning a rescue mission for him right up until Victor had turned around and walked out, and were now at something of a loss what to do.

He found them adorable.

OoOoO

Alexandria, wearing a white towel wrapped around her middle, rushed through a portal into Cauldron Headquarters, with her regular costume more transparent than plastic wrap upon her body, and the normally dark pants and coat of the business suit she wore as Rebecca Costa-Brown, Chief PRT Director no better as she wore the one and held the other.

In truth, the only thing it appeared she was wearing at all was the towel.

"What is going ON?!" she demanded, full voiced in her desperation. "Everything I try to wear disappears on me!"

"Apparently, your body has been saturated with Inviso-Black beams," Numberman answered her dryly. "Any dark colors you try to wear will turn completely invisible."

"What?" Alexandria stopped her desperate lunge for information and demanded coldly. Her one hand released her suit jacket, which resumed its normal coloration as it fell from her hand to the floor. She then glanced down at the towel she was wearing over her normal heroine outfit.

That towel had been the only thing she could find that would not turn as transparent as air when she put it on. It was white.

"What," this time she demanded menacingly, "the [bleep] is an inviso-black beam, and how do we get rid of it? Who did this? How do we fix it?"

"We don't know." Doctor Mother told her.

"There is no path to 'Find The Source of Inviso-Black Beams'," Contessa added.

"Using all of the computing power available to us, we have found exactly one reference in all of the worlds we traffic on, to the phenomena affecting you," Numberman dryly informed her. "On Earth Bet, in a thread entitled 'Doctor Whodunit's Amazing Thread of Extreme Awesomeness, Plot #2. Wherein the OP states he will saturate your body with Inviso-Black Beams - with the results you have discovered, the complete inability to wear any dark color without instant transparency. That post was made less than one minute before you encountering your difficulty, which proves Inviso-Black Beams travel extremely rapidly, and saturate bodies very quickly."

"That's ridiculous," Alexandria objected, as much by reflex as anything else.

"You're right. There is no such thing. You're imagining the effect. Go ahead and drop the towel," Eidolon sneered at her.

She glared at him in return.

"It is not required for Tinkers to make any sense, only for their inventions to work," Doctor Mother returned. "What I am more concerned about is our inability to track this Doctor Whodunit. This strongly implies he is near the power level of other blind spots in Contessa's Path to Victory."

Other blind spots? That statement set a chill down Alexandria's spine, considering her other blind spots were Eidolon, the Endbringers, as well as Scion himself.

That was a very small group, with some incredible entrance requirements, all of which strongly implied Bad Things.

"We must find him," she breathed.

"Agreed. But first, you need a new outfit."

Alexandria never really forgot anything. But, that said, she could not be simultaneously considering everything she ever knew. So it was with a small jump as she realized that it had been years since she had worn anything other than dark grays or black in either of her identities. Even her underwear was all black!

She could not go clothes shopping wearing just a towel.

In fact, the only thing she knew of that might do was a holdover from Glenn Chambers' one attempt to re-image Alexandria as a child-friendly cape for a program to help encourage kindergartners reading...

"Emergency on the West Coast." Numberman declared dispassionately. "They're calling for Alexandria."

Hmm, go as a nudist, or as a kindergarten cape? Tough question...

After Alexandria had disappeared through another portal, Legend remarked. "What concerns me is the accuracy. If this Doctor Whodunit is based out of Brockton Bay, that's four thousand miles away from where Alexandria was in Los Angeles at the time he hit her. I'm not sure I've got the range to strike at a target that far away, never mind the aiming. To hit her, and no one else, speaks of pinpoint accuracy on a scale simply unheard of."

"Not to mention, in targeting her, specifically, he had to know exactly who and where Alexandria is, as she got struck in her Costa-Brown identity." Eidolon muttered.

OoOoO

Story Day Six, April 11th 2011, Monday - Late Evening

OoOoO

It was at the head of a triumphal parade that Kaiser returned to the empty warehouse the Empire had gathered to before deploying for combat that night, the rest of his capes uninjured around him, everyone in a celebratory mood over the easy victory they had achieved that evening.

The victory party was massive. The music was loud, there were women and wild dancing, there were great platters of food, they even broached a dozen of those new casks of booze, distributing it free to those who had showed up to fight that day.

It was cheap for the enthusiasm and loyalty it bought, plus it served as a great advertisement for the Empire's new selection of drinks for their various bars.

Some genius had even commissioned Lung-shaped pinatas and hung them from the rafters, so gang members riding each other's shoulders could strike drunkenly at them with bats. Then, when they burst, cash flew out, mostly five and tens, but also some ones and twenties.

Again, it was cheap for the enthusiasm and loyalty it bought.

They had not had a real victory like this to celebrate in a long time. Lung had been effortlessly managed, and Oni Lee was dead, so casualties had been practically nothing.

The Empire capes began to excuse themselves after a mere hour, but the party would be going on long into the wee hours of the morning. People would be waking up from where they'd fallen and leaving that warehouse well into the following day.

Rune, the lady of the hour, defeater of Lung, and the toast and star of the party, was actually among the first to go, as she had school in the morning, and it was important not to leave clues like a trail of suspiciously timed absences.

Different cars, with different appearances, began to leave at different times, to different destinations. Mostly, these were the catering vans that had brought the food, wine and decorations. The capes would then change cars at those Empire-affiliated businesses, often driving themselves from there.

Traffic cameras had been shot out at strategic locations to ensure this travel was safely anonymous.

Normally Victor would leave with Othala, his wife. But it was not unusual for Kaiser to ask one or more of his lieutenants to join him for an after battle debriefing, and today that was Victor.

The ride was conducted quickly, but quietly. The men changed cars at one of the usual places, then went on direct to Medhall. It took only a few minutes before they were pulling into a private, underground garage, both men still high on the rush of victory.

They were soon in an underground locker room, changing out of their costumes.

Max deemed this an appropriate time and place to bring up another problem, but his mood was good so he adopted a teasing tone as he scolded Victor, "So, Lex, why don't you tell me about this little gambling problem you seem to have picked up. Lost two, ten-million dollar bets on the same day, did you?"

But Victor was not to be upbraided so easily. He returned, "Pfft. Those were payouts and you know it, Max. They would have been cheap at twice the price. The boy gave us the plan that got us out of the gun mess, but he seems to have forgotten in advising us to pick an insured warehouse to guide Lung to, the contents of that warehouse would be fully insured as well. We'd told everyone we had over thirty thousand guns in there, and thanks to his advice we had all of the evidence to prove it, too. So we'll get insurance money to cover them. His ten million was less than one quarter of that payout. We came out ahead."

"Ah, I see. And Rune? Why should little Tammi get her own ten million dollar payout?" Max removed his gauntlets and placed them in the metal container meant for them. They would be removed, and melted into scrap, before dawn.

Victor did not have nearly as much costume to remove. So after a quick change of shirt and pants, then carefully placing his mask in its place in the locker, he went and helped Max, carefully unhooking his pauldrons. "Like I said, cheap at twice the price. You would have paid anything to get a way to reliably shut down Lung, and now we have it. Besides, ten million? The Empire loses as much or more during a week of Lung's rampages. She's saved us as much already by putting a stop to this one. Admit it, Max. The ability to shut him down is priceless, and now we have it. The fact that Rune was happy to do it, and is even looking forward to her next opportunity? We came out the big winners on both of those bets, and you know it."

"Besides," Victor continued. "On top of those victories, which are both huge, kid gave us the idea to run bets on which cape is going to take down Lung next. It's already seeing some serious action, all across the nation. At this rate, we'll make back both bets in a couple of weeks, AND make the ABB look like idiots as we do so." He smiled. "And publicly humiliate Lung, of course."

Stripped to the waist of his armor, and unable to drink before due to his helmet, Max poured some of that excellent wine and swirled it around in a glass, now with a considerably happier expression as he did so, and smiled. "You're right, of course. Lung was our only major competition in this city. With him reduced as a threat, we can accomplish so much more..."

Now Victor looked nervous. "About that. Let me tell you what the Belmont kid passed on to me, about what a fleeing mole told him about Coil..."

OoOoO

Lung woke up to a slap on his face, to find himself soaking wet on his cot next to a dripping anchor.

At first he did not recognize the cape sitting across from him. She was wearing a pink and white outfit unfamiliar to him, with exaggerated boots and gloves that reached nearly to the knees and elbows respectively. The tunic came down to end in a skirt, reaching mid-thigh, while the helmet was a strange, winged design. Over the back she wore a half-cape, also of pink, and taking up most of the chest, centered over her heart, was a large white circle backing the symbol of an open pink book, with a caption spelling out below it, "Reading is fun."

It was obvious she was not wearing a bra, as the fabric came to two points poking through the image of the oversize book.

As the figure shifted, he could tell she had on stripes running down the outside of both legs, the slogan, "Open a book today."

She looked like a power ranger on a book selling ad, and he opened his mouth to tell her so, but she cut him off.

"Nice anchor," Alexandria mused, obviously checking out the heavily clawed 'SS Lung' inscription. "Did you have it made custom? Oh, by the way, you owe nine favors at this point. Lucky for you, I have an opportunity for you to pay one off."

OoOoO

Author's Notes:

Have you ever done that trick where you take a shovelful of one anthill and put it on another hive's nest, then done the same in reverse with a shovelful of the other hive? Both ant hives perceive the transplanted bit of dirt as their hive, and will defend it to the death, even as it sits on the 'defend this to the death' turf of another hive.

The end result being, both hives get wiped out, exhausted almost down to the last ant in their turf war with the other hive. The ants are vicious, too, striking at the queens and eggs of the other hive as priority targets. So each gets thoroughly eliminated.

It works when you use three anthills, too.

Here, one of those anthills is named "Coil's organization', another is the ABB, and third and last is the Empire 88.

Now, I am going by the understanding that powers cheat. The shards running them all gossip among each other constantly, so all of the Thinker powers are getting constant updates on the world situation through other shards in order to maintain their accuracy.

Doctor Whodunit did not appear even as an idea until all of the shards in Jared's little group were already destroyed, so none of them ever had an opportunity to tattle to the other shards as they were doing the alien equivalent of chatting around the water cooler. So the powers usual shortcut of "ask the other powers what's going on" is useless.

At this moment, any attempt to find 'Inviso-black beams', or Doctor Whodunit, or anything at all related to that is running into the problem that no one with powers knows what is actually behind any of that, so does not possess the necessary information to pass on to the other powers.

Thus, none of them know what a farce it is and are forced to take it seriously. At least for now.

And the Empire takes another major step forward on the path to their complete destruction as an organization. Only they do not know it.

Oh, and Victor found Rick at the family fun center because there were Empire-affiliated kids among the crowds who'd heard the word that he was wanted by the Empire, picked him out by his photograph (easily sent), and ratted him out.

As for why 'Rick' can be photographed when Jared cannot? Easy. The SI character set it up that way. Not appearing on cameras is evidence of a superpower, so to be avoided where possible. So while Jared, the SI, has machine invisibility up protecting him, Rick's appearance is the product of another spell, an illusion called Disguise Self - and the illusion is detectable by machines because that's part of its job.

It's not much of a help to have an illusion providing a false appearance that cannot be seen.

Lastly, according to D&D 3.x magic item crafting rules you can build any magic item you want. They even offer nifty stacking rules, just in case you want, say, for example, your flaming sword to also function as a Rod of Enemy Detection (this magic item exists in the adventure Into The Wilds, if I recall correctly - away from books at the moment). Now, a Dedicated Wright homunculus normally requires that you spend one hour initiating the magic item creation process before it takes over for you and finishes it out. However, a Quill of Scribing, another item capable of creating magic items for you (in this case scrolls), is activated by a mere command word. So, since constructs are magic items (as well as creatures), you can simply build your Dedicated Wright homunculus and a Quill of Scribing together as one object under the stacking rules, so the homunculus only needs a command word to start working - and no rule exists that you cannot set multiple objects to the same command word. So set all of your Dedicated Wrights to the same command word, and say it in their presence, activating 'magic item creation mode' in all of them simultaneously in a single action.

Beta work by Dogbertcarroll