47

Chapter Text

You wake up in the morning because the wards ping you to tell you Taylor has arrived. You're all still covered by a sheet, but you conjure pajamas on the girls and some shorts for yourself before smokejumping out from the bottom of the pile of distaff flesh and in to the main room. Taylor is there looking somewhat lost. "Problem?"

She jumps when you reform into a person and shakes her head. "Ah, I woke up early and couldn't get back to sleep. I decided to see if anyone was up, but…"

You walk her over to the partition and point out the slumbering ladies on the bed. "You can join them and nap, or alternately," you affect a bombastic but quiet tone, "submit yourself to me for experimentation."

Taylor stays quiet for a moment before adding, "Or go work in the greenhouse?"

"Yeah," you laugh.

The tall girl shrugs. "I submit myself to you. Master," she says in a dull monotone. She's good, there's no blush and she keeps a straight face but you can feel her offloading her embarrassment into her swarm. You raise your eyebrows and smile slightly as that embarrassment leaks a bit and her cheeks heat. She lasts perhaps a minute before she turns away and hides her face in her hands and you throw an arm over her shoulder and give the skinny girl a side-armed hug as you chuckle.

Apparating both of you to your apartment, you sit her down at the table and start on breakfast. Taylor's a little confused—and, looking over at the bed where Amy knelt and blew you yesterday and apparently told her all about it—a little turned on. After starting the bacon and making the pancake batter and setting it aside to rest you sit across from her and meet her eyes. "So I'm assuming you've connected to all the bugs around, right?"

"Yes."

Deepening your legilimency connection you reach out and quiet the flow of information her shard gives her, like turning a spigot off. You manage to stop it completely without much in the way of effort, but Taylor goes pale and reaches out to hold your hand.

"They're gone, I can't—can't feel anything," she says, her voice lowering down to a whisper.

You pat her hand and release the hold slowly and have the insect Master give you a running description of what she feels as you do. In Taylor's case her range is the only thing affected, as she's always able to feel and monitor all of the bugs within the range she has.

Breaking off to start cooking, you see if you can balance doing other things while blocking or restricting Taylor's powers. It turns out that you can, but your multitasking mind-magics are a bit rusty and the first couple of your pancakes aren't golden brown and delicious, but more dark brown and crispy.

Eventually you manage to get things running a bit more smoothly, although you can't see being able to shut down more than one cape at a time like this if you are also expecting to either talk or use magic.

You stick most of the pancakes under a stasis spell for the other two and continue your experimentation as you and Taylor chat and eat. Casting the anti-apparition or anti-portkey spells through the legilimency connection has a greater effect, with both spells cutting off her connections with bugs even when you summon a cricket and put it on Taylor's hand. As soon as you dispel the spell she can take it over.

Finally, you take a pen and sketch both of the runic versions of the spells on each hand. Both work to restrict her powers, but once she's in skin-contact she can control and sense bugs with the anti-apparition rune set. You'll need to test later, but given the reactions of the three capes you have to the spells you've been able to test, both seem to have some use.

By this time your girls have managed to wake and portkey over to the apartment. You and Amy are going to do a bit of mid-morning healing, so after wolfing down a couple of pancakes and some bacon she bestows kisses all around and heads back to the Pelham house to change. Crystal and Taylor are going to be meeting with Soon-Yi and Susan at the mall to walk around and chill.

Because she enjoyed it so much previously, you pull up to the Pelham house on your motorcycle about a half-hour later to pick the healer up. Neil comes out and you chat about the bike—thanks to Victor's stolen knowledge you actually know a thing or two—before Amy struts out and poses with her hands on her hips and tells you to give her a ride. You don't even manage to turn your head to quip before she boldly exclaims 'and yes, right in front of Uncle Neil!'. Unseen behind her Lady Photon is massaging her forehead with a wry smile on her face. "Warlock, we'd like you to come to the weekly meeting tomorrow evening if you can."

Amy doesn't quite manage to keep her bold exterior going when she whirls around to stare at her aunt and quickly scurries to the motorcycle. You transfigure her robes into pants more suitable for riding and take off, both figuratively and once you've reached the end of the cul-de-sac, literally. As you head towards the hospital, Vicky actually flies up from nearby and you conjure a helmet so she can talk to you and Amy as she hangs on the back. The Alexandria package asks if you have other options besides strength and defense for empowerment.

"Like, a taser touch or a whachamacallit—Vulcan nerve pinch?—would be nice," she admits sheepishly. "I can't always find something to bend around people, punching them unconscious is hard without hurting them, and the gang members are like learning how to pick cuffs and break zip-ties. Knocking them out like you do would be perfect."

"They do make metal zip-ties," you offer.

"Riiight, I can imagine proposing that to mom. All that's gonna get is 'do you think we have metal zip-tie money, Victoria?'" she says in a pretty decent copy of Brandish's voice. Amy snickers and reaches back with one hand to pat her sister on the shoulder. You tell her you'll look into something and maybe discuss it at the meeting tomorrow.

You land in the parking lot of the hospital and the girls continue chatting for a minute or two while you conjure a platform and pose for the phones pointed in your direction.

Vicky heads off, apparently to hang out with her boyfriend, while you and Amy get stuck in to healing. Instead of the assembly-line you so frequently have at Brockton General, this time you travel from floor to floor and 'clean up' cases that the doctors are having issues with, including a few infections that hadn't been responding to conventional antibiotics. In that case both you and Amy talk with the physician afterwards and explain what wasn't working, as the doctor is writing a paper about the bacterial strain the patient had and trying to find non-powers-related ways to kill it if it crops up again.

Even with that digression you finish up a bit earlier than you expected, so the two of you ride the bike into the sky before portraying to the lair and brewing a potion that takes Flashbang's antidepressants and turns it into something that he can drink and will slowly feed him the prescribed amounts for six months. You'll pass it to Brandish at the New Wave meeting tomorrow.

Your 'what's up bb?' text to Templeton gets an emoji that looks completely done with your shit. She follows it up with a message that she has some gunshot sensors that Armsmaster has designed and would like you to deploy covertly this evening.

So you want me to slide them in places :Warlock

Like I'm sliding into your DMs? :Warlock

Temp: I'm swiping left but I can't unmatch you

Temp: but anyhow you have the ability to do it

Temp: better than anyone else here

Amy heads off to meet up with Savannah and the non-mall-shopping girls and you go to meet with your girlfriend. Taylor notices you approach of course, and nudges Crystal. Unfortunately Susan also happens to turn and see you walking up, so in the end the only person you surprise is Soon-Yi, who turns to see you posting 'seductively' behind her and almost jumps out of her skin with a loud squeak.

"Ladies! Find anything good?"

Chewing her lip and flicking her eyes over to your girlfriend, the petite Korean girl walks up and runs a trembling finger down your chest. "I-I just did."

You beam at her and kiss her hand which turns her into a blushing mess. Crystal offering her a golf clap doesn't seem to calm her down any. The girls talk about heading to another store and you offer Soon your arm which she takes after a another look over at Crystal.

The four of you wander off towards the other side of the mall when you feel a cape enter your detection radius coming out of one of the few pricy anchor stores that are left. You are unsurprised to see it's Lisa.

Lisa is very surprised to see you however, so surprised that she drops one of her bags and goes deathly pale. You release Soon's arm and tell the others to continue on, shooting Crystal a set of rolled eyes and a headshake. Picking up Lisa's bag you hand it to her and probe her thoughts.

It wasn't you that made you really—your false seeming was perfect. Instead, she read Crystal and Taylor, especially the latter, and extrapolated. Your patrol last night was fairly relaxed, but there were still postings about it on PHO that Warlock was out with three female capes. Lisa was able to read both capes and got the most from Taylor, who has new confidence in her stride and obviously trusted the two people she was walking between—you and Crystal. Unfortunately you can be as bland and normal as you want, but if a cape is walking like she trusts you with her safety there's something suspicious.

To be fair to Lisa she doesn't know you're Warlock. She doesn't even know for sure you're a cape. But she knows that two of the four girls with you were capes, one was Laserdream, and they both looked up to you. So you might not look like a Warlock, but you quack like one. Now she's afraid you're going to realize that she realizes that you realize…

"Thanks," she says softly, doing her best to look like an innocent, doe-eyed teenage girl and pulling it off fairly well.

-=-=-

You put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Calm down, Lisa. It's fine."

Lisa—being Lisa—does the exact opposite of that, going rigid in your loose grasp. "How the fu—"

Shepherding her to a bench nearby you sit and face her, making sure to give her some space. Her eyes are flicking all around your body and there's a lot running through her head. A major thread is her extrapolating how you're going to murder her and get away with it using your mysterious powers. "Seriously, relax. You're causing more problems by worrying and making a scene, I would have just ignored you otherwise."

She takes a deep breath but continues to study you. "This is why he was so worried, you're completely unremarkable. I can't get anything from you, he must not have been able to either."

"Yeah, and it freaked him the hell out, just like it seems to be doing for you, which lead to him focusing on me and ended up getting the whole ball rolling downhill in the past week or so." You run a hand through your hair, the Thinker's eyes following you the entire time. "Lemme be frank, I'm totally down with a less gang-filled Bay but I don't have any master plans on how to accomplish that. I'm not coming up with schemes to take over anything from anyone—I mean, I didn't take over his shit, I've shut it all down. I like being a wizard, having a tower, personal power, and everyone knows not to fuck with me. I don't want bureaucracy and minions, that's bullshit. I also don't want to kill people, so stop looking like I'm jamming a gun up your nostrils and demanding your wallet."

Lisa's a bit more composed. "Okay. Okay." A non-shard thought flickers through her head. "I know I shouldn't ask and it's fine if you don't want to answer, but can you make other people unreadable like you?"

You raise an eyebrow. "And why are you asking?"

"Because I can look at you and not get hung up on your actions." Part of Lisa just wants to vent and the mysterious Warlock who could very well destroy her but just didn't seem to care actually feels more right to talk to than Brian, who would worry over it, or Alec or Rachel, neither of whom would care. "Even your clothes look clean and there's nothing objectionable, but I look at people and see how often they pick their nose and scratch their ass and it just…" She leans forward and presses the heels of her hands against her eyes and you can see tension in her shoulders and back that look to have been there for a while.

"I'm… sorry?" you offer and push past the flood of shard-related information in her head that's starting to give her a headache. Everything from the past week—being hit by a rocket attack, Grue being shot by Shadow Stalker, Coil and now people wanting to kill her—has been adding up and reading the closeness and affection for you from Crystal just hit her with an emotional punch she wasn't ready for. It's something she can't have. She doesn't even have masturbation as an option and you have a girlfriend who is crazy in love with you?

You reach out and hush Lisa's shard a bit with legilimency. Not completely—it'd be obvious and you don't trust her that much—but you dial the volume from a maxed-out 11 down to a more reasonable 5. "We can talk about that at some other point, because even if I can figure out a way to extend this, what're you expecting me to do, hand off anti-Thinker powers to every date you have?"

With a cut off mournful noise, Lisa does her best to look everywhere but at you and calms her breathing. It occurs to you that this isn't the Tattletale who had robbed Lung's casino, or the one who had taken over part of Brockton Bay. The Undersiders might have been together for almost nine months but they had never faced real opposition or problems until the last couple of weeks. This Lisa is a strange mixture of not hardened enough as a cape and hardened against her time being homeless.

Keeping you only in the corner of her eye she nods vaguely at you before standing. "Good talk, let's never do this again."

"Lisa," you murmur, also standing and cutting her off from just walking away. Peeling your sleeve back a bit to show the wand, you reach a hand out and make the needed gestures as you touch her shoulder. You can't completely get rid of her headache as some of it is directly shard-based and you're leery of touching it and hurting her, but you can certainly ease some of the pain. "There. Next time we talk let's do it in business casual, yeah?"

She flicks her eyes to you once again and gives you something more like a real smile. "I'd prefer that." She sets her shoulders and heads off in the opposite direction the girls had headed in. "Ta-ta, darling."

You let her get the last word in and dial her shard back up slowly so it doesn't overwhelm her. Casting your eyes around to make sure no one else was watching you go to catch up with your Lady and her ladies.

-=-=-

You meet back up with the ladies and find a moment to let Crystal know what happened. The long-time cape sighs but shrugs it off once you tell her that she left and won't be a bother. Instead she smirks and makes a little swirl with her finger and you turn around to see Taylor and Susan in identical plaid miniskirts and belly shirts. You give them a smile that gets one blush, but Crystal's soft wolf whistle actually gets both of them.

"So what blackmail does Crys have on you two to get you to dress up like that?"

Even through her light blush Susan manages a smirk. "Who says she needed to do anything?" Taylor just pouts and looks away and Susan takes the opportunity to open her mouth and stick her tongue out for you.

Soon-Yi joins the group in a tight pencil skirt and blouse combo that screams 'naughty librarian'. Glancing over at your girlfriend, you push into her mind and go back to admiring the beautiful ladies in front of you.

Crystal is getting a kick out of making the older girls show themselves to you by making little suggestions and comments and letting their attraction do most of the work. With Taylor she's not pushing the idea of you as much, but instead has convinced herself that she is making the recently-bullied girl more confident.

…sometimes your girlfriend is delusional. Awesome, but delusional.

Not too long after that you all head back to campus. Taylor gets introduced to the Klub in their dorm rooms and soon enough the girls are mostly ignoring you and talking about their high school experiences. You're amused when Sarah throws an arm over Taylor's shoulder. "I had a girl like Emma in school—mine was called Rachael—she was a bitch like that, preacher's daughter, all holier-than-thou when parents were around but catty as fuck when they weren't. Turns out she cheated on her boyfriend so he posted her secret social media accounts that had her talking racist shit about people and doing drugs. Guess who got sent home from college?"

Savannah also pulls out her guitar, but it gets taken away by Sierra after the third time she tries to sing 'Jolene', because she apparently only knows three songs and so just tries to make up extra stanzas to make up for it.

You smirk at the black girl as she hands you the guitar. "Anyway, here's Wonderwall."

She shakes her head at you sending her dreads flying, "Man, I will hit you."

"I bet you will in just a moment," you say. The grimace when she hears your southern accent is nothing compared to the look at the phrase 'badonkadonk'. It's a little hard to keep singing while being chased but you do your best while Savannah collapses to the floor in laughter.

After a rousing march around the room Sierra pounces on you, but you pass the instrument off and wrestle her around to your front and pin her against the wall. "You wanna go?"

Her blush is barely detectable but it's there. "You couldn't handle me, white boy," she taunts.

"I can totally handle you," you snark back. A bit of grind against her and she bites her lip and pushes you away while muttering something soft about how you're 'fucking packing'. The look she shoots you over her shoulder after you let her down and she walks back to the group isn't aimed at your face in the slightest.

You, and the cape girls make it back to your apartment in the mid-afternoon and pop over to the lair for a bit more mind magic work. Taylor starts out needing magical assistance to clear her mind, but by the end of the session can manage it with a bit of preparation and a very quiet area.

Crystal and Amy are splitting their time between going over memories and using their enhanced recall to derive more detail from them and entering a magically-enhanced state of mindfulness and walking over to the windows and trying to maintain that state as they take in the increased informational load. Both are doing better, but can't quite manage to keep it going while also carrying on a conversation or using their powers.

While working with Taylor you find she's a natural at splitting her attention—yes, the shard is part of it, but she grasps the basics quickly and manages to split her non-bug-senses in order to hold a conversation with you and navigate an obstacle course you transfigured at the same time. Allowing her to use her sensed bugs only increases her facility with it, of course, getting to the point where she can create a screen of no-see-ums that you throw beanbags through and she dodges while blindfolded and talking to Crystal and Amy.

The four of you have dinner—Danny is still working overtime and coming home late, so you make enough for Taylor to take home as leftovers for him—and the girls get together to do something as they shoo you out and tell you to go help Templeton.

Your text to her gets you a response to meet her at the North Ferry Station, so you smoke up there and get let in, sending Miss Militia a wave as you go. Templeton is actually finishing up a meeting, so you have to wait for a couple of minutes before the male Wards file out. They're all walking funny so you brush into their heads and find that to a man they are all harboring dirty thoughts of the new Director. Even Gallant, who is picturing Janice instructing Vicky on how to give a proper blowjob and using a riding crop on the blonde.

Allowing a bit of your real amusement to creep into your otherwise cool and collected false seeming you incline your head to the group. "Gentlemen."

Clockblocker—being the only one of the Wards present you've met—apparently gets to be the spokesman. "Warlock. Are you joining up?"

You do your best to put a hint of innuendo in your voice. "No, Janice called me for help. She said I was the only one with the ability to 'do it right'."

A wry voice comes from the open door. "Warlock, get that leather-clad ass in here right now."

Tipping your hat you move through the group, patting shoulders. "Ta, lads. I'll take her from here." You close the door behind you and feel the capes just stand in the hallway for a moment before slowly leaving.

Templeton gives you a flat stare as you sit and pins her hair back up. "Must you rile up the boys?"

You put your feet up on the conference table. "I think you did an excellent job of that yourself. Did you see how they all walked out of here?"

Janice is too earthy to blush from that, but you pick up a fair amount of self-satisfaction in the fact that she was able to tighten the pants of the boys. You also see that she pulled a 'drop the hair and unbutton a few buttons' thing on them during the talk, but her buttons were redone before you walked in.

Continuing, you push in a little harder, "So were they getting the book thrown at them for something?"

"It's mostly an internal Wards matter, but let's just say that they were having problems treating a cape as a fellow cape because of preconceived notions."

Pointing a finger, you project a smile through your voice. "Looking down on Vista for being young, a girl, or both?"

"A girl."

You chuckle, "Want me to send in the girl power squad to beat them up? Or at least cover them in bees and thorns?"

Sitting back down she takes a deep drink from her 'World's Okayest PRT Director' mug. "You know, I called you here to be helpful, not to torment my kids."

You whistle a couple of bars of 'Hot for Teacher' as she pulls up a map on the projector with one hand and flicks you off with the other. Armsmaster comes in and you cut your teasing off and attempt to look professional.

The Tinker sets a small device down that looks like nothing more than a somewhat-flat microphone and gets a nod to start from the director. "Warlock, thank you for coming. Are you familiar with gunshot detection systems?"

"Not really, although I understand the general idea of how they work to triangulate gunfire"

Janice steps in. "That's all that is required for working knowledge in this case. We've noticed an uptick in guns actually used in the gang violence going on, whether because the capes are unwilling to expose themselves and they're relying on them or other factors. Armsmaster has created small microphone sensors to give us shot-spotting capability."

"As part of our normal patrols we will be setting up the majority of these sensors ourselves, but I would like a few placed in higher areas for better fidelity," Armsmaster continues. "In the future as we deal with expanding the coverage we may need your assistance again but I'm unwilling to ask our current flyers to do this as they're Wards."

You look over the map and see the dozen or so they want you to place. "So you're not going super deep into gang territory at the moment?"

The armored cape gives a minimal shake of the head. "No, we have calculated the locations to give insight into the worst of the hotspots taking into account the last two years of arrest data. With the sensors in place I can begin to expand outward as needed."

"And is this some kind of creeping surveillance-state panopticon recording bullshit that I'll come to regret assisting with?"

"No. While the detectors are very sensitive, the software only picks up gunshot and gunshot-like sounds. They are not sensitive enough to record all sound and contain no video sensors. They do contain anti-tamper measures, however." There's a faint hint of embarrassment and you poke into the older cape's mind curiously.

You find that Armsy's original idea was to pack a bewildering array of sensors into the package in an attempt to create a (supposedly benign) surveillance state. Dragon, ironically enough, was the one to put the kibosh on it as she used her access to Colin's lab and armor to point out everything he did that was illegal, from flouting OSHA regulations to abusing the stimulants he had created—drugs are drugs, right? Less than twenty-four hours of Big Momma watching him and he dropped all but the stated functions. It kinda makes you want to give the AI a hug.

Continuing on, you run a couple of tests to ensure that your movement options don't break the electronics, but since they're turned off everything works out okay. When all of that checks out the Tinker tells you he'll have all of the devices ready downstairs when you leave and departs, leaving you and Templeton alone again.

The older woman scratches at a cheek when you turn your mask back over to her. "So the Image department will likely be ready for you to… fiddle with the capes on Wednesday or so. I've already been briefed on the agreement your lawyer drafted, but I would like to mention to you directly that after the women have their 'cosmetic alterations'," she makes the air quotes as sarcastically as one can gesture, "that they will also be given new names and identities, so if you see someone resembling them out in the wild please do your best not to show that you recognize them."

"Understood, that's the way I would have done it anyway."

"Great. Now apparently you teamed up with three new capes yesterday, two of which are a plant and insect controller?" At your nod she continues. "And another one of you, just female. Are you infectious?"

You clear your throat, "Not like that, but I'm given to believe that powers pass down to the next generation. Perhaps you'd like to carry on a demonstration?"

Templeton smiles but ignores your comment. "If I can be honest, Squealer wouldn't fit in with the current Tinkers we have and Othala apparently has some kind of vaguely-requited love affair going on with someone that we're trying to work around. So neither of them are going to be part of the Protectorate proper, they'll effectively be independent capes with PRT contracts—Squealer is going to be doing vehicle modification and Othala will be assisting some of our fire teams and doing healing. They will be provided with a location for a base, but may ask to team up with you or something similar. Are you open to the idea if it comes up? If not I'd want to temper their expectations beforehand."

You place your hand of the mouthpiece of your mask and then roll your wrist out. "Yes, but."

"'Yes but' what?"

"It's not just my choice. Our team—and no, before you ask we don't have an actual team name yet—works well together because we're all friendly and we trust each other. It is completely possible that we could work them in but I don't make the decisions unilaterally, we make them collectively." You pause for a second. "Outside of actual combat, obviously."

Janice grins at you. "Oh come on, you don't sit down and have a pow-wow during a firefight?" Becoming a bit more serious she nods at you. "I didn't expect you to just give me a flat yes, so that's fine." Then she becomes very serious, sitting up and leaning towards you. "On a final note with Purity. You can change her looks however she wants, but you are not to change either child in any way at this time. There are paternity and custody issues galore. Purity knows this and claims she wasn't going to ask, but just in case you tell her no and if she complains even a little refer her to me."

You raise your eyebrows behind your mask. "Oof, Nazi daddy issues… Fair enough."

Standing and shaking your hand, Templeton gestures you towards the door. "You do know that you could bill us for the assistance with the shot detectors right? I mean, you're getting paid for the plastic surgery already…"

"Cosmetic alteration, Janice," you chide as you walk out. "And I live here so I'm willing to work with you on some things. If you decide to pull a Piggot on me I'll go into 'fuck-you-pay-me' mode or just stop cooperating."

Her laugh follows you out of the room. "If I turn into her, put me out of my misery!"

You find Armsmaster in what is probably a temporary Tinker lab. Both the older Tinker and Kid Win look to be assembling more detectors, but there's a sizable case with a dozen for you to emplace. The capes are zoning out and a skim of them tells you that they may have figured out Kid Win's Tinker speciality after Armsmaster mentioned that the Ward had really helped improve the data flow through a couple of the modules. Kid Win is actually about to fugue as his hands start swapping parts of their own accord and Armsmaster is barely holding himself from doing the same.

Yoinking the case, you fire a text off to Templeton so she doesn't find the entire place rendered for scrap and make your way to the various locations that Armsmaster had mapped out.

Amusingly, one of them is near the Undersider's base. You save that one for last and are putting it up on an old satellite tower when you spy an unassuming white van park a block away and a couple of gun-toting figures get out and slowly head towards the Redmond Welding building.

You call Aelfie to you and ask where Tattletale is. "She in there. Came back after she met you in the shop, acted worried and ate ice cream. Said she had headache and went to bed. Pretty boy is there too, dog-girl and serious-boy out."

"Is she actually asleep, Aelfie?"

The house-elf gives you a look. "Master Warlock, girl be hiding under the sheets with her phone doing lots of typing. She be pouting."

-=-=-

You have three guys with guns incoming :Warlock

Half a block away :W

You're about to call-bomb her to hopefully get her attention when she finally responds.

Tattle: I'll take care of them

Tattle: If they have a car, disable it

Disillusioning yourself, you smoke down to the van and check the diver's side. There is someone in there and they're listening to radio check-ins from the three doing the invasion. These obviously aren't just random mooks, they sound pretty professional. With a supersensory charm you can listen in and hear that they're about to breach the main doors so you wait until the driver's responded with an okay before stunning them and taking the radio. You give it a few seconds as you cast a Sonorus on the microphone portion. You're not sure this will work but it's worth a try. Chatter makes it sound like they're getting close to the living quarters when you hit the transmit button and just scream into the mic.

Making sure the driver is also bound you smoke over to the Undersiders' lair and poke your head in. Tattletale and Regent's voices are audible and not raised in anger so you knock and call out in your best falsetto, "Housekeeping!"

Regent's laugh almost drowns out the sigh from Tattletale as you make your way deeper in. Rounding an industrial-sized lathe you see the three gunmen on the ground with zipted hands and the two Undersiders standing over them wearing their masks with regular clothes. You hit the intruders with incarcerous spells and lean against a milling machine. "I was in the area helping out the PRT when I saw them heading in your direction. Left the driver tied up and unconscious about a block away."

Tattletale's eyes flick to you as she squats down and looks over one of the bodies, pulling off the balaclava. There's actually some blood from the ear with the earpiece. "This was one of Coil's…"

You step closer and create a light overhead. "Ah, Jason Pries. One of the Tattle-squad." Vanishing the ropes around his middle you dig through one of the pouches and pull out a couple of flashbangs and a tinker-tech smoke grenade, holding the latter up to what little light there is. "Fast-acting soporific, goes through spandex." A little more rooting finds specialized cuffs with bags that harden into immovable mittens. Just the thing to keep a Thinker with itchy fingers from fiddling with things.

Tattletale has slapped one of them awake and is doing an interesting interrogation by asking questions and answering them herself by reading their reaction. "So you weren't caught and turned over to the police. Why me, though?" She pauses and her eyes flick over the other two, then up to you. "They contacted Accord. He sponsored this." The guy goes to talk and she kicks him right in the jaw and knocks him out. You give a golf clap and get an exasperated eye-roll.

"I know you took money from that account, but didn't selling me out to him wipe your debt? Or most of it?"

"Wow, dick move Tats," Regent snarks, before turning to you. "And you 'just happened to be in the area', huh?"

You wave a hand. "Yes, I was installing some gunshot detectors for the PRT and saw the van. If I hadn't waited to install this one last I wouldn't have been here. Oh, by the way, don't use guns. Or get silencers. Or switch to paintball guns with capsaicin loads. Or…"

"I don't have enough to go on from them. Take me to the van," Tattletale cuts in. She looks at Regent. "Stay and watch them."

Once you're at the vehicle she rifles through both it and the driver's stuff. You take the time to peel back an eyelid and poke the driver's mind while you have the chance. Unfortunately while Lisa was right and some of Coil's leftovers went running to Accord, the Bostonian Thinker is really good at security compartmentalization, so they don't have any useful juicy details on his organization.

When she's satisfied—not happy, but satisfied—you float the whole van along to sit it down outside the building.

Tattletale had called in Grue at some point and he's standing guard over the prisoners when you return. "Tats—"

"This lair isn't safe anymore, some of Coil's leftovers went running to Accord. My apartment likely also isn't safe. I don't think anyone else will try tonight, but the location has been sold off."

"Fuck. Did you try getting ahold of Bitch? I'll—"

"I'll rent a suite for the night and we'll find another place tomorrow." Grue nods and heads into the living section.

You hold a hand up. "What do you want done with the minions? I assume you don't need me here as part of your discussions."

The purple-clad villainess rubs a temple. "Drop them off with the PRT, or in the Bay, your choice. We're leaving." She looks at you and gives a grudging nod. "Thank you for the warning." She makes it sound like it's akin to pulling teeth, but there's actual positive emotion there, just buried underneath worry and irritation.

"I'm meeting with Accord on Tuesday, fill me in on anything else you come up with before then, okay?"

"I hope your mere existence gives him a goddamn migrane like you do to me."

You chuckle about that the entire time you're turning the gunmen over to the PRT all tied up with a bow.

-=-=-