Chapter 13

A Wizard In Alexandria's Court

Chapter Thirteen

by Skysaber

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Story Day Eleven, April 16th 2011, Saturday - Early Afternoon

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There are many good people in the military and law enforcement.

None of them worked for Piggot.

The exception was capes, of course.

You see, while Piggot hated and distrusted all capes, she felt something akin to fraternity with her PRT troopers. She was still very much a front line grunt by training and inclination, so she spent her time with them, grooming them and shaping their ideals and attitudes, what time she could spare from the paperwork anyway.

Director Piggot held some very strong opinions and attitudes. She also did not take disagreement well. So those troopers who were willing to suck up and go along, absorbing her attitudes and accepting her grooming did well, while those who did not suffered. If they were foolish and spoke out about those concerns or disagreements they had with her policies, they suffered a lot more: demotions, cut pay, punishment duties, the works.

So the bottom line of it was, if you worked for Piggot, you either agreed with her strongly on all major issues, or learned to do so. The alternative was to transfer to another city, or quit the program entirely.

This did not apply to capes who reported to her, obviously. Piggot's hatred of capes was completely irrational, and it made no difference if they sucked up and tried to emulate her, or stood out as malcontents like Assault and Clockblocker, either way there was no way they could ever gain her approval, so most just put in their time and did not even try.

However, this 'Process of Unnatural Selection' had a powerful effect on her department, and it was well known in other branches that if you worked for her you either let her groom you and stamp you in her image, or you would transfer out asap, or lose your job, if not your life.

So the Brockton Bay PRT had another name, a nickname applied to it by all the other departments, one that was well-earned, as "Piggot's Stormtroopers."

It did not tickle Piggot's long absent and presumed dead sense of humor at all that she used the exact same psychological tactics to train and condition the troops under her, that the Nazi's during WWII had once used to train and condition theirs. The Nazis did not invent the practice, nor was it exclusive to them, but they had made extensive use of it all the same.

OoOoO

Pandemonium reigned in Brockton Stadium, as several groups each vigorously pursued their different objectives.

Piggot's Stormtroopers and the Protectorate were fighting the Empire capes, trying to arrest them, and prevent them and the crowd of sports fans from escaping. Actually, while the PRT had been told to arrest the crowd as well, only a few of the less sensible among them were actually trying it. Most of them prioritized the Empire capes and ignored the crowd, since the gang capes outnumbered their own capes about three to one.

The crowds of people, who had gathered here to watch Glory Girl play the Empire in the first ever game of Cape-Ball, were mostly fleeing in every possible direction and with the maximum possible, though unintended, chaos. But some die-hards were staying in their seats to watch the new spectacle, as Empire battled Piggot's Stormtroopers and the Protectorate, in a rapidly-changing and dynamic series of personal duels and small group fights.

Glory Girl had been rounding the bases when Dauntless had caught the ball - Lung's head - and made off with it, so she had not seen where it had gone. She was frantically trying to find out, since it was very clear to her that if Lung had even a little respite in which to regenerate, it could be quite difficult to put him down again.

Armsmaster's unnaturally sharp and durable halberd had been great for beheading Lung despite him being super-tough, but that was broken now, and the replacement blades that Kaiser had been making for her were normal steel, and had mostly been breaking after a single use, so they might or might not be up to the task.

She was still aware of the truce she'd made with the Empire while battling Lung, and still intent on keeping it, since Lung was still in play and she really would need Kaiser's help to put the big lizard down again.

She was currently shaking a PRT Lieutenant, trying to make him understand that, no, locking Lung's head in a box of some sort was Not Adequate! And that he should tell her where that box was so she could go take care of the problem before it was too late!

The desperate girl was trying not to shake the Lt as hard as she'd shaken his captain, who lay unconscious at her feet, but it was very frustrating.

OoOoO

The Empire's first reaction to the arrival of the PRT and Protectorate had been to flee. That was their default reaction to the arrival of "the cops", since, among other things, there were always more cops on the way. Those who were tempted to stay and fight the cops usually found themselves fighting ever-worsening odds until they got arrested. A villain didn't stay free for long without learning that lesson, and all the Empire capes here knew it well.

But Kaiser and Victor, at least, remembered that they knew something else as well. They remembered that, in mere moments, unless something was done to stop it, Lung would regenerate and begin rampaging in a highly ramped-up state, with the Empire in his cross-hairs for some serious payback.

So both of them were doing their best to get the Empire back in the fight and direct some to beat down or otherwise neutralize the PRT and hero capes, so that others could retrieve Lung and neutralize him as fast as possible.

Victor had been in the sports-announcer's booth, and stayed there, using the loud speakers to give directions to his team.

So Hookwolf was directed to use his temporarily-granted super speed to counter Velocity.

Velocity was faster, but all Hookwolf had to do was play "goal keeper" and intercept Velocity whenever he approached. This meant Hookwolf had much shorter distances to cover than Velocity did, who kept running around to try to come in from the rear or the flanks.

Velocity dared not come into hand-to-hand combat with Hookwolf, so he veered off sharply every time Hookwolf approached him. This dance was keeping them both fully occupied.

Dauntless and Purity were fighting it out in the skies above the stadium, each swooping, attacking and dodging for all they were worth. Bursts of lightning from Dauntless' spear, and shining white helixes of energy from Purity traced across the skyline and occasionally caused explosions as they struck the ground.

Night and Fog were playing PRT defense much as they had played shortstop during the Cape Ball game. Fog had exploded from knee-high into a thick and intense bank that seemed almost everywhere, and PRT troopers who got caught in it kept getting taken out of the fight.

Cricket had joined them, not needing to see, and her echolocation power not bothering Night's use of her power to transform into a horror when unseen (as echolocation was 'heard' not 'seen' despite certain functional similarities), and between the three of them they were doing the most to counter the vast bulk of the PRT troopers. However, while Piggot hated and distrusted capes, she thought well of regular troopers, and so had sent *alot* of them. Wherever the trio of Night and Fog and Cricket were not, the nigh-overwhelming numbers of those troopers were making their presence felt.

Menja and Fenja were in the parking lot, smashing open and inspecting PRT vehicles and fighting any PRT troopers who tried to stop them. In most ways, they had the most difficult job of all, as only roughly half of the sizable contingent of troopers were being adequately taken care of by the Night and Fog and Cricket trio at any one time, at most, even as that team frantically exerted themselves doing so; leaving the other half clustered around their vehicles, having not yet even attempted to storm the stadium before the twin giantesses came rushing out in a desperate attempt to recover Lung's head before it became more of a danger.

Still looked an awful lot like an attack on them to the PRT, whose troopers were regularly issued real bullets for dealing with brutes, and so opened fire.

It looked something like one of those early giant monster movies as two thirty foot tall women dressed as valkyries came rushing out, only to be met by a hail of assault rifle fire, rockets and grenades.

To Menja and Fenja, a typical grenade going off on the ground nearby her was similar but less serious than a mere firecracker going off a few inches from a normal person's ankle. It may sting, but it is not serious. And since bouncing off before they exploded was normal behavior for grenades, landing close was about the most those could do.

The hails of bullets were like very fine cactus needles - they irritated, but could not seriously injure. So long as the twins got to see Othala after the battle for a bit of regeneration, shoving those bullets back out as well as healing the holes, they would be fine. Kaiser had long since sprung for plexiglass inserts to cover the vision slits of their helmets protecting their eyes, since several PRT troopers had taken to shooting their faces as much as possible - a habit that had spread among the troopers rapidly until the sisters had gotten the plexiglass, so now that tactic was useless.

But it was bad pool to, in a situation where everyone did their best to fight nonlethally, shoot at someone's eyes.

Not that Piggot cared.

Which was probably why some nitwit among Piggot's Stormtroopers had quietly issued anti-tank rockets to every PRT squad in Brockton Bay. Other troopers were busy trying to shoot Purity down with Stinger missiles, but her mobility in dodging was so extreme that effort amounted to little more than wishful thinking on their part.

Although the presence of Stingers had kept Rune from rejoining combat after her trip depositing Assault in an Empire safehouse.

Yes, it turned out the Empire was hiring, and they had an opening for former heroes named Assault.

So Menja and Fenja dodged RPG-7s streaking around their heads while desperately attempting to find which truck Lung had been tossed in, then left alone so his regeneration could heal him back in safety to a state so ramped-up it had never before been seen in Brockton Bay, that might not even have been witnessed since his fight against Leviathan.

In other words, they had to find him before that ticking time bomb went off and potentially destroyed the entire city.

But Piggot's Stormtroopers kept misinterpreting their actions and frantically resisting their efforts every step of the way.

Menja and Fenja met glances and jointly concluded that, since Piggot's Stormtroopers had already escalated by using the anti-tank rockets and anti-air guided missiles, they were fully justified in dealing with that by throwing cars at anyone who pulled one out. The first to fly was a sedan, landing right on a PRT officer who was just unlimbering a Stinger. The secondary explosion of the rocket motor going 'kaboom' would definitely have killed him even if the car had not. Next Fenja picked up a PRT van one-handed and crouched to begin striking out with it like a woman using her purse to smash Ken dolls.

PRT casualties began rapidly mounting up from that point - which is *why* most PRT districts did not whip out lethal weapons just because they saw a cape nearby.

But Piggot, whose lax enforcement of any and all 'non-escalation' PRT general policies was to blame for such bad behavior among her men, was also an artist at blaming her mistakes, faults, and poor decisions on those capes she had to fight.

It was all their fault.

She could go on at great length and detail about how, if only her enemies did not fight back, there would not be so much property damage, injuries, loss of equipment, and so on.

So, really, it was all their fault.

That's what her paperwork read like, anyway, all carefully coached in bureaucratic language, and generally only seen by folks who belonged to the same organization, and were inclined to agree that, yes, capes were indeed the problem.

All capes, not just the Nazi ones. But particular hatred got focused on any and all capes they did not control. It was the same gripe given out by tyrants throughout history, that all of their problems were caused by those silly people who wanted to be free. How dare they? They ought to just give up and go along with the decrees of their proper overlords like everyone else. We have stated that we are in charge, and how could they be so unreasonable as to challenge that?

Off with their heads! The lot of them.

You see, the only way that society could work properly was if we crushed all dissent mercilessly, destroyed any and all opposition, so that everyone agreed fully with whatever idiots proclaimed they were in charge - no matter how many times those so-called leaders disagreed with each other or changed their minds.

For example Piggot, merely *implying* that she was not perfect ought to be a sentence of death! That's what all of the proper, right-minded people thought, anyway. You can't be cool unless you think Piggot is awesome. Everyone's doing it. Just once won't hurt. No one will know. I'll be your friend if you do. C'mon, live a little!

Anyway, peer pressures inherent in large organizations aside, sometimes you just can't recognize the insanity of groupthink unless you take a step back from it and spend some time outside of the echo chamber for a while.

Splattered with puffs of containment foam, a bright, burning star caught in the chainmail of one sleeve and searing her arm, one of the twin giantesses leapt twenty feet into the air, bringing her shield below her and curling her body up behind it to body slam down on the ground, all of her weight and strength thrown behind her shield which came down flat on top of a cluster of six of Piggot's Stormtroopers who had been firing their grenade launchers at her.

White phosphorous hurts no matter your size.

Fenja, also struck by a tiny spark of white phosphorous, did the standard 'stop, drop, and roll' routine everyone was taught to do, only she did it across and through the largest concentration of PRT men and vehicles she could find, scattering them like Barbie dolls before an angry teenager.

Piggot's Stormtroopers had succeeded in fighting them hard enough to draw their attention away from the vehicles.

The twin giantesses hadn't wanted to spend even an instant's attention on those men. But since Piggot's Stormtroopers had apparently decided to "get serious" their enemies weren't left with any choice but to escalate in turn. Both Fenja and Menja knew they had to get Lung's head before he fully regenerated. They were on a time crunch, and their very survival was at stake, as there was no doubt as to who Lung would come after if he returned to full power. They could not even hide, as he'd burn their entire section of town, if only to draw them out to fight him. They could not afford to waste time dealing with ants. Only Piggot's Stormtroopers hadn't left them any choice.

Mass casualties were the only possible result of that decision to play hard ball against people who were in a situation where they simply could not back down, then keep pressing when that inability became clear.

OoOoO

Inside of the stadium, Piggot's Stormtroopers had begun the fight by 'accidentally' focusing fire with anti-brute loads against Kaiser, no doubt hoping the ancient adage was true, "Cut off the snake's head, and the rest dies too."

So Kaiser, in legitimate danger of his life, as plate armor was almost no protection against bullets, and under that he was merely a normal man, had been forced to break off from his private duel against Battery for a moment to go scurrying away like a frightened rat among the stands, keeping his head down all the while and filling his opponents' heads with thoughts of victory.

Othala had taken shelter in a press-box, waiting for another friendly cape to come near and get buffed.

He'd visited her and come out with the power of temporary invulnerability.

The hail of bullets upon him resumed, Piggot's Stormtroopers knowing that the time on his invulnerability was limited, and wanting to land bullets on him the moment it ended. Kaiser had known that his period of invulnerability was limited too, and chosen to silence their combined rifle and grenade fire by first selecting one forty man PRT platoon, all bunched up on a ramp, then raising up two thirty foot tall metal walls on either side of it. At first this did nothing to discomfit them, as it blocked neither their line of fire, nor their retreat. But next he'd raised two other identical walls, in front and behind, completely boxing them in so there was no escape.

Then he had completely filled that box with sharp blades.

As they were taking shelter as best they could in the irregular features of the stadium, visibility between Piggot's squads was poor as each was doing their best not to be seen, taking cover as they fired. So it did not immediately occur to any other PRT groups what danger they were in when more walls formed to either side of them, having not seen for themselves what this resulted in before, and the ending being so short and brutal it gave no time to communicate any details over radio.

After three forty man PRT platoons, and half a dozen would-be snipers, had been boxed in; followed by him forming walls upslope of any remaining troopers on ramps, in the stands, or on the stairs, then adding extra weight on one side of the top, tilting those walls over so they fell onto the troopers, then slid down the ramps, stairs and stands over them, Kaiser had silenced their rifle fire.

Any troopers remaining in the stadium were keeping their heads down, or in full-on retreat, now freeing Night, Fog and Cricket to go outside of the stadium to help relieve the pressure on Fenja and Menja.

Piggot's Stormtroopers had pushed when Kaiser simply could not back down, and they had resorted to lethal force first. As far as Kaiser was concerned he considered the matter settled. Those men had gotten what they'd deserved.

He then turned his attention back to Battery.

Hookwolf had taken her on while he'd been busy, occupied with silencing the PRT rifles. The brutal changer had switched tactics from what he'd used against Velocity, actively hunting down Battery during her rest periods so she never got a moment's peace, or a safe place to charge up.

Battery's strategy before had always relied upon her kinetic-manipulating husband being right behind her at all moments, standing ready to shield her at any time she'd needed a rest to charge up. That simply was not possible with him no longer present, or even a hero anymore.

Battery had been involved, even key in the capture of the villain Madcap. She'd been a Ward at the time, and obsessed with taking the joke-cracking villain down. Eventually, after much effort, she had even succeeded, with her team and plenty of help. She knew about the deal that kept him out of the birdcage, along with the terms of his parole. She knew he'd been promised 'no forgiveness' if he ever went villain again, and at the time she had approved whole-heartedly.

What she had not expected was to see him in a position where keeping those rules meant death. Nor had she ever anticipated working so well together with him that she realized she was now severely hampered in his absence.

Battery's style as an adult cape was "all offense, all of the time". Every moment her power was active she was pressing the attack. However, that strategy relied heavily upon Assault constantly backing her up, providing the human shield she'd needed to recharge behind. Now, without him, she was feeling like half of a cape. Worse, her moves were all wrong, leaving her constantly open to counterattack when her power was not running. So instead of attacking, she was spending all of her time running while Velocity tried his best to run interference and distract Hookwolf, who had taken on a similar "all offense, all of the time" strategy against Battery - one which she had no effective counter to!

When her power was charged, Hookwolf under Othala's super-speed was still faster than her, and retreated before her, staying just out of reach. But he was just waiting her out, until her charge ran out again, whereupon he attacked with all of the ferocity needed to make her wet herself.

He cut her up good, too, just scratches really, as he was playing with her, not feeling any need to get serious. The previous fighting having fully scratched his itch for truly bloodthirsty combat and putting him in as good a mood as the brutal changer ever got in.

Hookwolf only needed to drop back to visit Othala once every several minutes to replenish his super-speed, while Battery needed to recharge every couple of seconds to recover hers. So she found herself running from him and hiding from him, doing everything she could to evade being a chew toy to the metal wolf made of slashing blades, instead of attacking anything.

She had been driven completely outside of the stadium by the time Victor called out for Hookwolf to fall back to take on Velocity again, as that Protectorate cape had realized that he was effectively useless at stopping or distracting the metal wolf directly, and broken off to go hunt down Othala.

Velocity found her in seconds, then dropped out of his super-speed, whereupon he regained all of his normal strength as an adult bodybuilder, active hero, and former soldier. Whereas Othala was substantially weaker, and her only power was to give powers to others. Others, but never herself. So in a contest without powers in use on either side, she was rather easily subdued.

So Victor called Hookwolf back to prevent her capture. Velocity resumed his super speed to escape, but that put Hookwolf back onto defense, protecting Othala instead of hunting down the now distressed and scraped-up Battery.

Cuts along both arms and legs, back and belly, all bleeding shallowly, it was with new resolve that Battery returned to the field to resume her battle, only to get stopped by a fence of metal blades rising out of the ground before her.

Kaiser had returned.

OoOoO

Up in the skies Purity had been taking it easy on Dauntless, as their match-up could in no way be considered equal. Purity was rated as number two, *not* in the top two percent, but second place only to Legend as the most powerful flying Blaster to ever live, beating out thousands of other contenders worldwide for that honor.

Dauntless was second too, but in a different way. He was, currently, a second-rate cape. Oh, he was second rate in a lot of different areas. He was a second rate flier, he was a second rate Blaster... however, he was also a second rate Brute, and a second rate Shaker, and rumored to be second rate in a few other things. Add it all together, and he was a decent grab-bag cape.

The problem was that Dauntless was not actually any kind of grab bag cape. He was more like a Tinker, in that he had only one power, but using it gave him other powers. Dauntless got a certain number of charges per day, and with those could enhance objects, granting them powers that he could use by wielding them.

So Dauntless had boots that made him fly, a spear from which he flung lightning, a shield from which he could raise a force field, and armor that gave him a small Brute rating. None of that was terribly impressive yet, although the boots and shield were getting close. The problem was his steady accumulation of power over time, as Dauntless could keep infusing more and more charges into the same objects, very gradually increasing their power. The process was slow, but so far had revealed no upper limits.

So while Dauntless was well-regarded, and very popular, that esteem all came from his potential. Hopes were high that he would one day reach Triumvirate tier abilities.

But 'one day' was not 'today', and Purity had felt honestly like she was play fighting against a child, more than in actual combat against him. That was, right up until one of Piggot's Stormtroopers below had fired a Stinger missile at her.

There is nothing nonlethal about firing a heat-seeking, anti-aircraft, guided missile at someone. Especially not one whose warhead was designed to explode on getting close to the target, filling the air with a cloud of high velocity shrapnel designed to shred metal aircraft despite their attempts to dodge out of the way.

Purity was not Lady Photon. She had no personal force field protecting her. The only thing sparing Purity's life in the air was that she was hard to hit, a combination of being both very maneuverable and hard to look at, due to her shining like a star when her powers were active. She had no other protection whatsoever. Firing a fragmentation warhead at her was fully capable of doing as much damage as firing it at the average soccer mom. All she had was some degree of glare, and being very good at dodging, protecting her bare skin.

Her costume was not even armored. She'd never needed it before, as she'd never had people firing frag warheads on guided missiles at her before! A missile designed to hit dodging targets, and a heat-seeker that cared nothing about her visual glare!

Purity was so stunned at the audacity that she almost let the first one hit her, simply frozen with shock that anyone would dare to escalate in such a fashion.

Fortunately for her, Purity's speed and maneuverability were nearly off the scale for such things, so she was able to get out of the way despite that early delay.

But suddenly it was time for the single mother to take that fight *much* more seriously!

Dauntless crashed down on top of a PRT van some minutes later, crumpling the roof around him, which absorbed some of the impact of the fall. The hardest part for Purity by far had been attempting a nonlethal takedown, rather than simply incinerate him outright via one of her blasts. In the end, she'd had to settle for searing both of his lower legs off, destroying his boots with them. No boots, no flying, and he had to come crashing down.

Luckily for him, his armor gave Dauntless enough of a Brute rating he had no trouble surviving the fall.

OoOoO

"Smurf this smurfing situation!" Vicky growled as she finally got leverage on the ball of containment foam surrounding her.

One advantage she had over other capes in this situation was that she was not just super-strong, she could fly. Either one of those abilities alone was generally not enough to escape from the foam, which was a spongy mass that did a good enough job flexing and stretching to even keep most super-strong Brutes contained, and flying when you can't see for all of the fluff in your eyes was generally a bad idea, as well as the complication of where were you going to go? Only the PRT had the solvent to remove the stuff.

That generally made 'making nice with the PRT' the easiest solution for removing the foam, especially for an independant hero who generally had to maintain good relations with them anyway.

However, Vicky had read a few 'this cape vs that cape' threads, generally just called the 'VS' threads, all tucked away in their own little corner of PHO, and from them had gotten the idea of imagining herself in all sorts of situations where you did not want to be, so you could then brainstorm your way out of them.

One of those was "What if a Master took over control of some PRT troops, and had them spray you with containment foam?"

Well, that one had taken quite some figuring out, bouncing the idea around between family and friends. It had stumped them for the longest time, then about a week or so ago, someone going by the handle Skysaber on PHO had solved it.

So when Piggot's Stormtroopers had foamed her up during an emergency situation where she *had* to get out there and *had* to help, Vicky put that idea to use.

Vicky had taken off flying, leaving a clump of the spongy foam ball around her still clinging tightly to the floor when she tore free, and then immediately found a road. Really, any asphalt surface would do. Lucky for her she'd remembered where the parking lots were relative to her position (you have to remember certain things when you are a flier, you know), and by chance did not pick the one Piggot's Stormtroopers had pulled up in.

Flying blind was hard. Luckily, finding the ground was easy, you just let yourself drop. Parking lots were big, they were hard to miss. Once she was lying on the asphalt of a parking lot, Glory Girl used her flying speed to pull a Six Million Dollar Man style crash, where someone goes really fast along a tough, abrasive surface.

Doing that, you could rip apart anything, even steel, in short order.

It had taken her several times across the lot. Luckily the sounds of scraping were very different, going over dirt or grass as opposed to asphalt, so every time she'd left the lot she'd just turned around and gone over it again, using the rough surface like a giant cheese grater.

You try a cheese grater on a sponge sometime. Spoiler: the sponge doesn't win.

Piggot's Stormtroopers had used a lot of foam on her. Luckily, Vicky's force field protected her, so none of the material actually stuck to her skin, uniform, or (worst day *ever!*) hair. She just had to wear away at the ball until she'd removed enough material to create a hole for herself to get out through.

A pair of while gloved hands finally punched through the weak spot she'd created on the ball, then began widening it further.

OoOoO

Back in the stadium Kaiser and Battery were more or less facing off, with Battery swooping in as often as she got charged up, and dealing as much damage to the Empire side as she could before hurrying off to hide somewhere just before her charge ran out. As often as she recharged, she was back again doing similar attacks.

Kaiser was growing blades in suspected hiding places and along Battery's approach path when she charged in, counting on his armor and temporary invulnerability to even the odds and battle her to a standstill while she was present. Occasionally he'd visit Othala to get his invulnerability renewed.

More PRT and Protectorate were surely on the way, in fact he could hear the first of the new trucks arrive, but they only had to keep it up until Lung's head had been found, enclosed in the two steel hemispheres Kaiser had already made for that "hammer-throw" thing Menja and Fenja were ready to try, and then get disposed of in the bay.

Nobody knew how the rage dragon kept recovering from that, rather than just drowning. But they did know it ended the current rampage.

Lacking a better option, that would do.

And that's where the situation stood until Victor's voice, coming from the announcer's loudspeakers, suddenly changed style and tone. It had been tense and terse. Now it went back to being playful and cheerful, as it had been during the ballgame.

"Wait! A new development has appeared out in the parking lot. One of the armored trucks owned by the PRT has developed suspicious bulges. All of its walls and roof are now bulging outwards, as if under great pressure from inside. Fenja goes to investigate, has to dodge an anti-tank round fired at distance by Armsmaster, now visible down the road, soon arriving with PRT reinforcements. But Menja stabs it with her spear, and... yes! The truck splits apart under the internal pressures now released by the steel parting like a ruptured balloon, revealing the containment foam around Lung has stretched until it looks like an egg eight feet across. What a sight!

"And there's the kick that will welcome you sports fans to another exciting inning of Cape Ball!

"Menja has given the ball - that's Lung's head for those of you listening at home - a beautiful high arc back into the stadium from her kick that tossed the remnants of a PRT armored truck aside like tinfoil. It looks like the ball will land at roughly the 20 yard line and the PRT is positioning themselves to receive.

"Oooh! That had to hurt. One of Piggot's Stormtroopers caught the ball, but it's not just Lung's head anymore. It's a lot heavier now with much of Lung regenerated, so the trooper got smashed to the ground.

"Another trooper has stepped up and refoamed Lung, attempting to strengthen the ball, and there the PRT go, pushing the ball and rolling it in front of them, hurrying downfield towards their goal - a truck and then the PRT compound - with the block of foam containing Lung.

"But wait, there's the tackle! They've just been brought down by Cricket in Fog's fog. The ball rolls free of PRT possession and now Cricket is working it back towards the Empire's goal - the steel hemispheres that Kaiser set up.

"She moves 10, 20, 30 yards and she'd down due to a PRT concussion grenade blowing away her fog and stunning her besides. PRT regains possession and rushes back downfield with the ball, which looks like it is getting too heavy to move quickly, even for a full squad of troopers pushing.

"Kaiser moves to intercept. He's apparently switched out his invulnerability, been granted super strength by Othala, and seems to be re-enacting a scene from Lord of the Rings, swinging a big heavy mace and sending several of Piggot's Stormtroopers flying with each blow. He gets the ball, and moves rapidly back towards his goal.

"Super strength for the win, folks!

"He's moving well, brushing aside any opposition! 40 yards, now 50 and Ooh! there's another tackle by Battery. She leaped down from above and planted both her feet at the base of Kaiser's neck. He goes down hard. That had to hurt.

"She takes the ball, which is now very large, hoists it overhead - isn't super strength wonderful? - and looks for a teammate to pass it to. Her charge must be about to expire. But her relief players are still organizing themselves in the parking lot. No one is nearby who can carry the load, so she sprints towards the goal...

"... and Battery has been clothes-lined by Cricket!

"The ball flies free!

"Fumble! It's a Fumble and both sides scramble to recover it.

"Kaiser is closing in as a crowd of PRT troopers gather round the ball...

"But the ball swells and breaks open! Shattered chunks of containment foam fly everywhere, knocking over many PRT troopers.

"And out of the remains of the ball, steps Lung.

"He is enormous. He must have been in the fetal position in there. Four wings and a neck as long as I am tall, he towers over the opposition.

"He's on fire and mad as can be.

"He swings and knocks half a dozen of Piggot's Stormtroopers flying.

"But what's this? Why is Kaiser throwing a huge battle-axe skyward?

"Ah, it makes sense now! Glory Girl is back in play, She catches the axe in mid flight, and continues her power-dive down to...

"Yes!

"She has beheaded Lung again with one massive stroke, cleaving right through the arm he had raised to protect himself. That swing left the huge axe a crumpled ruin. But it did its job.

"Lung is headless again!

"And the crowd are loving it!"

OoOoO

Glory Girl picked up Lung's severed head and turned to take it to the waiting steel hemispheres, while the crowd cheered.

Vicky posed triumphantly in flight, waving to the cheering crowds with one hand while holding Lung's head in the other as she flew rapidly towards her goal, when out of nowhere Carol Dallon came up shouting, "Victoria Awesome Dallon! Put That Down, Young Lady! You don't know where it's been!"

"But Moooom!" Vicky was honestly more surprised and confused by the rebuke than to suddenly see her mother flying unassisted. She had been doing *good* things! Honest! What was her mom even upset about?

But Carol quickly proved that Hurricane Vicky got it from her mother, as Carol swooped down and took her daughter by her ear and began to fly away with her. "Don't you 'but mom' me! You're grounded, young lady! You know better than to play ball with villains!"

"We were on different teams, mom!" Vicky complained, her head now twisted at an angle, trying to minimize the pain on her ear.

"Don't you back-talk me! The family is in crisis and I find you out here cavorting with these... people", she gave the Empire capes a dirty look, "when you should be at home doing homework. That's extra chores for a month for irresponsibility!"

"But..." Vicky tried weakly.

"I don't want to hear it!" Carol shut her down. "Why can't you be more like your sister? Instead I find you out at all hours, spending all of your free time with villains. Do you know what you're doing to New Wave's image?" Carol then gave a significant glance to Kaiser, scowling as though she'd eaten something sour as she still spoke to her captive daughter. "We thought we'd raised you better than this."

"Now drop that! At once!" Carol barked, shaking her daughter.

"...but mooom..."

"Do I have to repeat myself?"

Vicky dropped the ball.

Carol continued her diatribe as both started flying away, under the watchful gaze of the capes, heroes and villains alike. Those in the crowd could barely hear, as the pair faded into the distance, "Do you have any idea what your antics today are going to do to our image? I've coached you again and again on that and I feel like I'm talking to a brick wall. Rule number one is we do not associate with villains..."

"But mom, there was a truce! We were all fighting against Lung..."

"Do I look like I'm interested in hearing any of your excuses, young lady? When we get home, I'll..."

They rounded a skyscraper and were gone.

While this had been going on, and almost everybody present had been watching, Armsmaster had very efficiently arranged for the incurious PRT soldiers to hook a thirty foot flatbed trailer onto the back of one of the PRT's armored vehicles, drive it onto the field while everyone was looking into the air, and pull it up alongside Lung's body.

A full platoon had then successfully rolled the nearly thirty foot body onto the trailer.

It overflowed on all sides, tail going over on one end, neck on the other, while the tangle of wings was like a Gordian Knot. But they worked quickly at securing their prize, and under Armsmaster's terse yet efficient instruction soon had the body sorted out so that it lay neatly packaged, trussed up as a tidy bundle inside of a thorough web of ropes forming a complete net around it, just like the bag used to haul around a frozen turkey.

While this was going on Armsmaster had taken great personal satisfaction in injecting his anti-Brute tranquilizer into Lung's neck stump - as the only place he could find that was not completely covered in nigh-impenetrable scales.

The team of PRT troopers who had just been assigned the task of driving Lung's body back to headquarters had just started to drive when Lung's head dropped from Glory Girl's subdued hands.

Armsmaster took it from the trooper that caught it, and placed it, neatly and efficiently, right in the most orderly and scientific place for it, on the flatbed, right next to and aligned with his severed neck.

Armsmaster then turned about, getting ready to face the Empire, while unnoticed by anyone, Lung's head came into contact with his neck stump, and his regeneration started reconnecting the two - the dose of tranquilizer apparently inadequate at this size.

But other people had begun to notice this activity. So Armsmaster's ambitions of a great and triumphal battle against the Empire were dashed when Rune, who had taken Jared's advice to heart enough that she was now expanding upon it, and had gone among the fallen troopers and tagged seven of the flamethrower-style backpacks used by the PRT to spray containment foam, smashed four of them together right over the spot where Armsmaster had begun posing, ready for his challenge to the Empire capes.

Armsmaster carried containment foam solvent with him.

But not enough for four backpacks worth.

So Armsmaster, Miss Militia, Triumph, and a very bedraggled Battery, who had been standing together in a show of force got taken out in one strike, and by their own equipment.

They'd tried to dodge, of course, but there was almost no warning beyond the crash of metal, and by the time it took to even glance upwards the rapidly expanding glob of foam had dropped almost upon them already.

The PRT troopers looked ready to start the battle without cape support, when the truck towing Lung had almost reached the stadium exit and Lung exploded into action, reigniting his flames as he did so and incinerating his plastic net, he leapt up off the trailer and smashed aside entire platoons of Piggot's Stormtroopers, then looked around for more opponents - anyone he could take out his frustrations upon.

Seeing the Empire capes in a cluster, the rage dragon raced towards them eagerly.

All of the people he wanted to kill in one place.

Purity and Rune shot skyward. Purity raining down her strongest blasts in her heaviest barrage in ages, and succeeded in blowing off all four of Lung's wings while he concentrated on sending great streams of fire, intersecting and waving about, trying to burn Rune right out of the sky.

Soon Rune disappeared right over the stadium wall, and Lung turned his attention to more immediate targets.

The Empire capes prepared as well as they could, and landed several blows on Lung as he arrived, but he still bowled into them and knocked them around like a bowling ball hitting the tenpins. Several were hurt and would need regeneration from Othala later, if they survived.

Lung had gashes all over him from blades Kaiser had grown in his path, plus gouges from Hookwolf and Cricket, and huge bruises with a dislocated shoulder and a broken neck from Menja and Fenja, along with other injuries, but it just took a moment to shake that all off via his regeneration.

But that moment was enough for the Empire to take action.

Victor, over the announcer speakers called out, "remember that French solution the Wine-Boy suggested earlier today."

Kaiser nodded, pointed to Fog, and said, "keep him blind as long as you can."

Fog erupted around Lung immediately. The parts of the fog cloud closest to Lung burned away immediately, but a shell around that remained, making Lung unable to find a target.

His rage making it very hard for him to think, Lung spent precious moments looking around for targets.

During this time Kaiser's troops were busy.

Lung heard a taunt and charged in that direction, burning off more fog as he advanced. He roared and charged all the faster when he saw Kaiser before him with an axe. So focused was he that Lung did not notice the others until it was too late.

Lung tripped over Hookwolf crouched like a tripwire at his feet and face-planted hard on the 30 yard line.

Menja and Fenja were each on him in an instant, holding his arms down and keeping him still.

Rune had reappeared and moved pieces of a huge steel structure produced by Kaiser, assembling it rapidly into place around Lung, then flew skyward lifting an enormous blade, while Kaiser formed the final joints and bracing of an enormous guillotine rapidly in their places, built already around the ABB leader's huge neck.

Lung threw Menja off him and sent her flying, an eyeblink before Rune fired her blade downwards with all of her telekinetic strength assisting gravity in moving the multi-ton blade earthwards, into two funnel-shaped channels on the tops of the upright rails, which guided it perfectly down to where the enormous guillotine blade took his head off.

That blade then cut completely through the base plate of the platform and embedded itself so deep in the dirt it disappeared.

Wasting no time Fenja scooped up the head, put it into the steel hemisphere waiting nearby, screwed the two halves shut, and threw the ball over the stadium wall shotput style.

The throw wasn't as far as it could have been - she was bruised and burned and nearly exhausted. But it "got the ball rolling."

Menja chanced to have been thrown in the right direction by Lung. So she had a headstart as she gamely ignored her own bruises and burns and ran after the ball. She got to it as quickly as she could, picked it up, and, with a running start, threw it bowling-style towards the bay, knocking aside an approaching PRT van in the process.

Fenja had already left the stadium to run past her as she threw, and so caught up to the ball soon after it came to rest.

She too, threw it bowling style towards the bay, knocking over several PRT troopers who had dismounted from a second van.

They kept this up, leapfrogging each other to keep the ball moving as fast as possible towards the bay, and simultaneously using it to knock aside any opponents getting in the way - "Bowling for Troopers" as it came to be called - until they got to the bay.

Purity had flown Kaiser ahead, so he was there waiting, and as they arrived he attached the chain to the ball so it could be used for "the hammer throw" as planned.

The ball was starting to rattle from Lung battering at it from inside, when Menja took the handle out of Fenja's hands, saying, "remember what Victor said" and then wound up and hurled the ball a few hundred yards out into the sea.

It sank, and Lung did not reappear.

The Empire capes had all stayed as close to the ball as they could, just in case, but now they scattered in one of their standard "PRT Evasion" plans. Many would need some regeneration from Othala that night.

After the Empire capes disappeared, the news crews and television vans who had been following this, broadcasting live, switched to their various talking heads for commentary.

OoOoO

Back in the now empty stadium, unheeded and alone, a certain tattered, battered and bent halberd extended tiny legs and, working itself out from under some debris, began crawling home.

OoOoO

Author's Notes:

You know the situation is bad when the Nazi's are the reasonable ones.

They may actually have improved the bay by getting rid of so many stormtroopers.

Talk about irony.

And yes, Victor did tell the twins that, if at all possible, they were NOT to have Fenja do the hammer throw into the bay today, nor Menja do it tomorrow, as he is rather anxious not to lose those two ten million dollar bets if he can avoid it.

So poor Rune, who worked so hard, is out today's bet of ten thousand.

Ah, well. She can afford it.

Jared did have plans of his own to make the bet more sure, but the day got busy and events got away from him, as we'll see in the next chapter.

And yes, Carol was a bit nuts. Second Trigger, you know how it goes. Lots of trauma, and all of that. Not thinking clearly, etc.

Some of you may have noticed that Velocity, on the Protectorate side, never got taken out. Well, he was the one fast enough to get out from under the containment foam when Rune dropped the cloud of it on their formation, and he spent the rest of that battle running back and forth, reducing the lump containing those other Protectorate members one spray bottle of solvent at a time.

Beta work by Dogbertcarroll.