Tag Archives: Brennus

B007 Hastur, Shrouded in Dread (Part 1)

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This is murder for my heart.

“He. Hehe. It’s just fun for everyone, Jay-jay,” the girl they called Hastur whispered, giggling.

“Wrraurk?” asked Nathaniel. He shook his head, still not quite able to talk again after seeing her face.

Love at first sight can do that to you.

“Nothin’ nothin’, Nathaniel. Now, since you’re all ready,” Her new friends had all gotten themselves ready. Only five of them had survived falling in love with her, but that was to be expected. They’d been bad men and women, anyway.

“And stupid. You were all stupid, too. What in Dio’s name possessed you to let me loose?” She looked around at the five of them, but only got moans and gurgling as a response. They were all still speechless.

Love at first sight can do that to you.

She looked down at herself, dressed only in some old rags left from the clothing she’d had on when she’d manifested (not much) and the shroud she’d been given (she’d pulled the hood down). “I need new clothes.” She sniffed under her armpit. “A shower, first. And a shave.”

A few blissful minutes later, she was clean again for the first time since they’d caught her. She threw her rags and her shroud away, stretching her body a little to limber up while Francine brought her a clean bed sheet she could use as a cowl until she found something better.

“Clothes, now.”

Focusing her awareness on New Lennston – she’d always wanted to visit this city, and now she’d finally get to do it – she looked for a place with nice clothes, and found a nice boutique.

Nathaniel teleported all five of them into it. He normally needed line of sight for his power, but she had line of sight to anywhere, and Francine could tap into other people’s senses and share them with others.

They popped into the middle of the small boutique – there were only three customers and two salesgirls inside. And they all started screaming in horror when they saw her new friends around her.

Before they could run or call someone, she pulled her cowl down, while Nathaniel jumped around the room, bringing them all into a line in front of her.

They looked at her face and their screaming changed. Now they screamed out of love, as it overwhelmed them.

Love at first sight can do that to you.

She threw the sheet away and went into the underwear section while the five women screamed their love into the world. Fortunately, the street outside was rather empty right now, and the window’s full of merchandise, so they were hidden.

“Those are cute,” she whispered with a giggle to the sound of one of the women – Marge – breaking her own neck. Shame, she always hated losing them. She pulled the pink panties with the dancing unicorns on. “No need for a bra, and ain’t that depressing? Getting powers is supposed to give you like, a D-cup at least. But noooo, I’ve still got apples instead of melons.”

She found a cute pair of socks that matched her panties just perfectly. The tight blue jeans she put on afterwards were nothing special, but they showed off her hips well. And she’d always liked the curve of her hips.

“A shirt now, don’t you think, Nathaniel?” He was her favourite, so far. Such a useful power, and he was the best-looking of the bunch.

“Srrrrrurrrhh,” he replied, slowly getting more control over his speech.

“Or maybe just a hoodie? Don’t want just everyone seeing my face all the time, that makes things… interesting, but not very practical, sometimes.” She nodded to herself and looked through the racks while two more of the women – the two salesgirls – fought each other in a brief struggle, until Mary dug out Jenny’s heart with her bare hands and ate it.

“Don’t you dare get blood over the stuff I might want to look through!” she told her and the other two who were still screaming.

Just then, someone kicked in the doors, and she heard two voices yell “Freeze!”.

Nathaniel and Greg took them down before they could do any more.

She stepped around the clothing rag she’d been standing behind, still topless, to see two police officers on the ground, held down by Greg’s power. They looked at her face and starting screaming, too, while they fought to break free of Greg’s power, useless though that was. Her new friends were rarely smart at the beginning.

Love at first sight can do that to you.

“Hey, Nathaniel,” she spoke up after a minute – Mary and Jenny had just killed their two remaining customers and were eating the tasty bits – while she just couldn’t decide which hoodie to choose. “What’s Hastur mean, anyway?” Maybe it would help knowing that.

“Hhhhhasssssturrrrr… loooooovecraffffft st’ries… King… in… Y-y-yellowwwwww,” he said.

“Bravo, Nathaniel!” she shouted, clapping her hands, then she gave him a kiss on his cheek. “You’re getting better!”

Then she turned back to the clothing selection. “King in Yellow, huh? Well, Queen in Yellow, now. So, a yellow hoodie, then…”

And she found one, it was a little thin, but it had a cute little heart for a zipper, so she put it on and zipped it closed. Then she clapped her hands again. “Shoes! I need shoes, too!”

Eight minutes (and one dead policeman later – poor stupid thing, he’d ripped out his own intestines only to eat them, but the others had gotten hungry too when they saw that), she’d found the cutest little black-and-pink sneakers.

Looking at herself in front of the mirror, she pulled the hood up and deep down over her face, so not even her chin could be seen.

“I look cute, don’t you all think so, too?” she asked her new friends. They’d all finished screaming and were quite fine now.

Love at first sight can do that to you.

There were various gurgles and moans of affirmation, as well as a “Of cccccourrrrrsssse.” from Nathaniel.

Great! Now, to see what the Juniors and Basil and friends are doing…

She looked into the headquarters of the heroes, but recoiled from the minds of Basil and Melody.

“Ouch. Damn, what is that?” She looked into the other’s heads, and learned all the wonders of heterodyning while Thomas explained it. “Ohhh, I wonder if I can do that, too, with someone. Something to keep in mind.”

Nathaniel teleported them all away, leaving only the bits and pieces of the poor things who hadn’t made it behind. They reappeared in the middle of a mob meeting, with her in the center of the round table they were sitting at. She pulled her hood down. “They’ll probably find out I’m free, soon. Let’s see who I’ll take now, and who I’ll play with until later.”

She let her awareness roam a little around the city – she didn’t want to reveal too much about her capabilities yet.

After a few minutes, she looked back into the workshop.

… but who’ll be the hunter and who the game?

“Oh, Irene, you don’t get it,” she giggled to the sound of her new friends professing their love in screams. “It’s a game of tag. We can alternate roles. Though, of course, if I win, the consequences will be… fun.”

She looked up to see herself in a large mirror on the wall, squatting on her heels in the middle of the room, in her new hoodie and those cutest of all shoes.

“Who ever said the end of the world can’t look cute, huh?”

* * *

…attach the power coupling here, then check for any hiccups along the power lines to ensure flawless transmission…

At the other end of the S.M.O.G., Polymnia connected it to the building’s power grid. Small, black pictogram manikin were pointing and miming what they had to do, moving to the rythm of a song he could not distinguish from the technology they were working on – like a dance.

I wonder how she normally works, he thought while following the instructions the little manakin, and the arrows and circles and crosses and numbers gave him. He felt like something had opened up – the ideas, the blazing light that guided him, it was all flowing, focused and steady, unlike anything he had ever felt before. If this is the usual result of heterodyning with another Gadgeteer, then I should see about recruiting Polymnia for my team. For the time being, though, he’d focus on the S.M.O.G. It had not nearly enough firepower yet to live up to its name.

* * *

Suddenly, the song that had kept them going cut off, and his power stuttered for a moment.

“What’s going on, mate!?” he asked in an angry tone, looking around the workshop. They’d just gotten started on the critical overload mechanism.

Gloom Glimmer was standing next to Polymnia, her hand on the girl’s shoulder. Apparently, Polymnia was just as angry as he was. “Enough fun and games, kids. The game is afoot, and we need to get ready for a fight. A big one, it seems.”

Brennus bit down a harsh reply – he was slowly, emphasis on slowly, coming down from… from whatever he was feeling. He felt like his brain was raw and open. “L-let’s go then.” He put the tools he’d been working with (she had actually come up with a Sonic Screwdriver, though unfortunately, it could only drive screws… yet. He would offer to help upgrade it) aside and went to slip back into his suit. The process wasn’t exactly fast, but it at least took less than a minute. If barely.

With a last, longing look at the S.M.O.G. – fifteen meters and forty-six centimeters of gorgeous, straightforward destruction (no fancy tricks there, just firepower. Lots and lots and lots of firepower) – he fell into step next to Polymnia (she took a few seconds longer to tear her eyes off their creation), following Gloom Glimmer out of the workshop.

“Where are we going?”

“War Room. Hastur somehow got out, and she’s started killing people, so we have to do something,” she replied, sounding quite wound up.

<Irene, what’s wrong? You don’t seem well… and besides, why are we supposed to do something about this? I thought we weren’t allowed to deploy against an S-Class!>

She remained silent for a few seconds as they made their way to the elevator. Brennus had all but given up on getting an answer.

Then, Polymnia put a hand onto her shoulder, gently squeezing it. For just a moment, he thought he saw Gloom Glimmer’s expression of calm crumble, before she caught herself.

“Desolation-in-Light appeared over Kansas. They’re fighting her right now. Only Amazon is left – even Patrid went to help.”

<Wait, Patrid? What can that creep do, apart from try and talk her to death?> asked Polymnia in sheer surprise.

“He has three doctorates, one of them in medicine, and he’s a crackerjack EMT on top of that. That can be worth more than any power, and that doesn’t even account for him having a God Tier Physique,” she replied, her voice barely above a whisper. “Not that it’s going to help anyone going up directly against her.”

Polymnia pulled her into a hug from behind, while Brennus just… stood there.

Am I supposed to hug her, too? Would that be too intimate?

If you ain’t sure how to to act, mate, go with the option that involves DOING SOMETHING.

He carefully put his arms around the two girls, hugging them as tightly as he dared with his armor on.

* * *

They’d sat down at the circular table again. Everyone left – the Junior Heroes, Amazon, Widard, Hecate, Tyche and himself.

Once more, the mood around the table was… bad. Guess you should not expect anything else from a War Room.

He almost slapped his head. His thoughts were frayed. Probably a side effect of the Heterodyning. Not a good time to be below one-hundred percent.

“The situation is getting worse by the minute, everyone,” began Amazon.

Not very smart, eh? To start off on a note like that, you’d think she was a beginner at this.

It is suboptimal.

She is only interim leader, because everyone else is at the Wall right now.

Still, it’s a bummer way to start.

“Define ‘worse’ in relation to an unknown S-Class getting loose in the USA’s third-most populous city at the same time at which most of our ability to respond is tied up due to the world’s only S+ deciding to pay Kansas a visit,” he asked.

Amazon and Widard exchanged looks.

“They may as well know, before we get to the situation at hand,” the older man said to his nominal leader.

“Know what?” asked Gloom Glimmer. “What could possibly make things wo- Did something happen to-“

Amazon raised a hand. “No, nothing like that. But… the Protectorate was attacked, and despite Lady Light’s intervention, one of them managed to break through the defenses and into the Protege’s range.”

Ember! Not Prote-bla, Ember!

Dude, whatever your problem, calm down. You are kind of screaming inside my head.

“How the fuck did they get past Lady Light?” asked Outstep, taking his eyes off Tyche’s rack for the first time since Brennus had entered the room (not that she didn’t enjoy the attention). “And anyway, so what? Whoever got through is probably bonkers now, but Lady Light was there to put’em down, right?”

“The how is not an issue now. The problem is that the woman who got through was a particularly powerful supervillainess. She brought a dead baby into the Protectorate, and somehow, don’t ask me how, managed to get within five feet of the Protege.”

EMBER!!! His fucking name is EMBER, you twat!

Keep it down! Is the Man in the Moon not supposed to be just an observer? Where exactly does commentator fit into that?

Bugger off, mate. I can’t stand this Prote-bleh business. He got a name, one he chose for himself!

I can not bugger off because you are in. My. Head. Shut up.

Gloom Glimmer was throwing him strange looks, which he absolutely did not like right now.

<Did Ember… did he?>

Good Girl. I’d like her for a mate.

She is female. A mate is usually a male sa-

Bugger off.

Amazon nodded, which immediately charged the mood in the room even worse.

“Sean O’Sheannan has become the newest member of the Returners – and while the Protege seems to have returned to dormancy, well…”

“No one is going to accept that. If he could wake up once, he can wake up again. If he’s even been asleep in the first place,” commented Brennus. He certainly did not seem asleep when he talked to us.

Well mate, Henry was always a little strange, but he’s definitely not the kind to just sit around and do nothing.

Wait, ‘Henry’? You know him personally?

Focus, mate. Focus.

“It’s not important,” Tartsche said. “We have far more immediate problems to deal with. One of them being this Hastur. What do we know?”

Everyone focused back on Amazon, then on Widard when she turned to look at him.

“Hastur… well, look at this.”

He called up a video file that the table projected into the air above it in six screens arrayed in a circle to let everyone see it.

They all watched the recording, apparently taken by a security camera within a clothes store. Two salesgirls, three customers. Then, suddenly, a figure cloaked in a… bed sheet… stood in the center of the room, flanked by… five blots of blackness, as if the camera had refused to record them.

The civilians screamed and tried to flee, but one of the blots vanished and reappeared all around the place, until it had collected them and lined them up in front of the shrouded figure.

She reached up with thin, slender hands and pulled the sheet down. Her position only showed silky, freshly washed dark brown hair that fell to her shoulders.

But whatever the five civilians saw, they started screaming in raw, unhinged horror. Hastur – she had to be – walked among the clothing racks, apparently looking for clothes, while her victims screamed and clawed at their eyes – one of the customers broke her own neck… and then, one of the salesgirls turned into another blot on the camera, fell over her colleague and, after a brief struggle, ripped her heart out.

The other girl convulsed, then almost fell before turning into another blot, along with one of the customers, just when two policemen stormed the shop. They were quickly subdued and exposed to Hastur’s face – it looked like her power worked through her face, or maybe just eye contact – just as the blots that were the salesgirls descended on the two remaining customers, one of whom had turned into another blot.

They kept watching, until Hastur, dressed now like a normal teenager, stepped over to the eight remaining blobs of blackness, and they all vanished.

Spellgun summed up what Brennus was thinking: “Well, shit.”

* * *

After twenty minutes, they had reached a few conclusions.

One, they had identified two of the blobs Hastur had entered the shop with. The teleporting blob had to be Panthera Avis, the new leader of the Black Panthers’ West Coast Division. Or rather, he used to be that. Now he was Hastur’s flying monkey, it seemed. The other one was most probably CrushUp, gravity manipulator and notorious terrorist.

Two, they had decided that Hastur had to have some manner of Control power, triggered by seeing either her face or making eye contact (which was mostly the same, all things considered), and some manner of power boosting, because Avis should not have been able to teleport them beyond his line of sight.

Three, they needed to find them. Fast. And take Hastur into custody or six feet under – most probably the latter.

So now, Brennus was sitting in the war room, coordinating his ravenbots while they searched the city. The others were preparing for battle. Amazon and Widard were informing the supervillains of the city and the police, respectively; both Spellgun and Hecate wanted to work on their respective equipment, Polymnia had to finish her newest armor, Tartsche was making sure his boyfriend did not forget what he was supposed to get ready for, Bakeneko and Osore were in the Juniors’ common room talking, Tyche and Outstep were stroking each other’s ego by way of making small talk and Gloom Glimmer was nowhere to be found.

Brennus knew all that because he had not been able to resist accessing the surveillance system of the place. It was not like his ravenbots needed much in the way of coordination, not with their programming and Eudocia keeping an eye on them.

“You like keeping tabs on people, too?” asked a silken smooth voice from behind him.

He turned around and looked at Gloom Glimmer standing right behind him.

“Call it paranoia,” he replied without any embarrassment. “You do, too?”

She shrugged. “Indirectly. My power takes paranoia to an artform, I guess.”

She is awfully open about her power around me, do you not think so?

No response. Strange.

“It is not paranoia if they really are out to get you.”

She actually giggled at that, even though he did not think it was all that funny.

“Papa always says that.”

“Well, I guess you would have to be paranoid to survive that long in this business… Is Mrs Whitaker like that, too?”

She shook her head. “No, not really. She is very… aware of her surroundings, but she’s far more relaxed about it than Papa or me. Or you, it seems.”

He shrugged. “Well, it might come in handy now – my ravenbots are spread all over the city, and I have ordered them to patrol. Coupled with the city’s surveillance system and the police cars and helicopters on patrol, we should find Hastur the moment she goes outside or near a window. Speaking of which, why are you not out there searching? With a power like yours, this should be rather trivial. Not that I do not enjoy talking to you.”

She blushed. What the hell? I was just being polite.

“My power is too unreliable. I might need to be here for defense, if she attacks us here – we don’t know to which extent Panthera Avis’ teleportation has been boosted – and I don’t want to leave it up to chance. Not even with Tyche’s power on our side.”

She knows? How? “You know? How?”

“I’m very good at figuring out people’s powers. Seems to be something that comes easy to my own power. Don’t worry, I’ll keep quiet about it, unless it becomes important.”

He nodded, then suddenly called up one of the video feeds from one of his ravens. “What is that?“

A blob of darkness had appeared in the Jaunt Memorial Park. It was at least twenty meters tall.

“My gut is telling me it’s nothing good,” Gloom Glimmer remarked.

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B007 Big Game Hunt (Part 8)

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With a final clicking sound, Brennus opened his armour up into standby-mode – open along the back, but not fully disconnected into the individual pieces. That way, he could get out with a step backwards, and just as easily step back in. The downside was that this armour was not quite as durable as the original version.

Finally, he put his cloak back on over his black bodysuit – it was a bit oversized, as he had tailored it for his armoured form – and stretched his neck to get a few kinks out.

Power armour was not really all that comfortable, no matter what you did to make it so.

With a flick of his fingers, he activated the secondary voice distortion device he had built into his face mask, then he turned around to face the girls.

Polymnia was not even looking at him, her eyes glued to his discarded armour, leaning to the side to look around him.

Gloom Glimmer had taken her cloak off and thrown it over a chair, and she was definitely paying attention to him… very closely.

“Stop that, please,” he said while adjusting his coat.

“Stop what?”

“You are analyzing me. Considering what I know about your power, that means you are most probably using some manner of clairvoyance or telepathy. Maybe both,” he replied, carefully picking his words. “Please stop it. I came here to help in good faith, not to have my secrets laid bare.”

She flinched and pulled a small canister out of… somewhere, swallowing four pills she took out of it.

Where does she put that?

“Sorry. Force of habit,” she almost-whispered, apparently ashamed.

“Do not mention it. Now, Pol-“

“What I am not sorry about is pointing out that you’re supposed to drop all of your equipment. But I count a computer, a hard drive, four knives and twelve explosive charges on your body.”

“Uh… this is awkward,” he grumbled, scratching the back of his head. “But I would kind of need to strip naked to get rid of all of those. Besides, I doubt I could harm you even if I had all of my equipment. And you are more than capable of protecting Polymnia, even if I blow myself up. Which I do not want to do. Ever. At all. Under any circumstances.”

She sighed, swallowing three more pills. “Alright. Keep the rest. But I won’t be responsible for what Tartsche does to you if he finds out. He takes stuff like this very seriously.” She took another pill.

She has got to have more canisters, if she goes through them this quickly.

“Thank you. Now, Po- Where?”

She had vanished from his sight while he had been focused on Gloom Glimmer. Turning around, he found her inspecting his armour, having bent over to examine it.

<So you have redundant controls for fingers, toes and your mouth? Talk about prepared,> she commented, the fingers of one hand flying over a small vocoder that produced a surprisingly human voice, as opposed to the usual monotone.

“Never know when I might be mostly paralyzed, or restrained in some other way, and thus unable to control the suit and its systems normally. I also use voice commands as another redundancy,” he replied while walking around the workshop.

He stopped in front of a larger table covered in what looked like gutted speakers and robotic limbs.

“You have… been trying to upgrade your limb system? With what goal in mind?”

She turned away from his armour and pretty much skipped over to stand next to him. <I thought about making the armour more mobile, since no matter how much I reinforce it, there’s no way I’ll be able to take more than a few hits from the kind of villain I’ll be running into, so I’m better off evading,> she explained in what would have been a single breath for someone talking with their own mouth.

Ohh, how I can relate to that problem. “That vocalizer of yours sounds great – it even gets the contractions right and all the inflections – I can barely tell it apart from a real voice.”

She smiled and pulled a second vocalizer out of a drawer, handing the small device to him. It was barely as big as a tablet, and had more keys than any piano he had seen.

He turned it over and opened the casing, his power immediately pointing out the screws he needed to remove (there were more than enough tools lying around). Once he got a look at the insides, his power immediately went from its normal low-level activity to near-full idea-making.

<This is the most recent version of my second invention. Both my sonic cage and sonic blast technology is derived from the work I put into the wave modulation of this little baby. I wanted to make sure that I could still sound mostly like a normal human, and now it’s become the basis for most of my work. The other was my first own violin, I’m sure I have an upgraded version lying around somewhere…>

“Sonics, wave modulation, harmonics… Ah, I see. You are using the principles of heterodyning to… can I see your sonic cage projector?” He put the vocalizer down.

She nodded and walked over to another workstation where said gadget – by far her largest work, and the main reason why she needed those extra limbs (apart from the keyboards).

While she explained it to Brennus, he looked into the gutted system – she had been trying to upgrade this one, as well – to work it out. He could not study her blueprints, and her verbal explanations were very basic, incomplete, as she could not put her symphonies into words, but put her words and what he saw together, and…

“Do you think we can apply this concept to light waves?” he asked suddenly.

<Probably. Light and sound are rather similar, in many ways. I think. My power is telling me so, at least. What did you have in mind?>

“High-powered lasers.”

This time, she made that strange squeeing sound he had heard from Hecate a while ago.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later…

Irene leaned back against the wall while watching the other two teenagers going at it.

She’d spent quite a lot of time looking in on other people – in fact, she was still doing it now and then – during precarious situations. In other words, she was used to being a voyeur. There was really no shame left in it for her.

Yet she felt inexplicably dirty watching those two go at it. They were geeking out like two kids who’d, for the first time, found a playmate in their chosen hobby.

It was cute, it was dirty (for her, because her power was giving her ideas, and it was as usual very single-minded), it was frightening what they were discussing…

She needed some soda. And popcorn. Lots of popcorn.

* * *

At the same time…

“Should I feel concerned that Gloom Glimmer just got herself a bucket of popcorn almost as tall as she is?” asked Tyche, who was splayed over a couch in what was the Junior Heroes’ common room. And a way nicer one than ours. They even got a pool table.

“I am… growing concerned,” Tartsche admitted. He was the only one in the room who was still tense after the last fifteen minutes. “She was supposed to stand watch all the time. How come no one in this group listens to my orders?”

“Maybe because everyone knows you’re way too nice to actually, you know, punish insubordination?” Spellgun replied with a grin as he leaned against his boyfriend.

Who just groaned.

“Relax, Gloom Glimmer’s back inside, and Brennus wouldn’t hurt Polymnia anyway… if he knows what’s good for him,” Hecate whispered, glaring jealously in the direction of the workshop.

“And if he tried, our lil’ two-point-oh would squash him like a bug,” came a comment from Outstep, who’d sidled up to Tyche on the couch and was assuming a pointedly relaxed position on it. Not that he had much success in disguising the fact that he was checking out her body, which would have been barely covered by the armour even if it wasn’t mostly transparent (and she hadn’t taken her leather jacket off). Brennus had really done an outstanding job of making it skintight despite the scales.

“Two-point-oh?” the readhead asked with a very satisfied smile at finally having someone actually look. She was tired of having to hide at school and only have Brennus around when she could show off. That boy had a lot of appreciation for forms, but only in technical terms.

“You know, she’s… the white-haired freak’s sister, and they got basically the same power, so…” Outstep explained slowly, hoping that she wasn’t overly sensitive to this stuff.

“Oh. Oh.” She giggled into her hand, trying to stiffle it.

The others simultaneously slapped their foreheads.

Oh ye Gods and little fishes, don’t let her join us. I can’t take two of the sort, was the only thing Tartsche could think.

* * *

Forty-five minutes later still…

Reassign patrol routes, recall any adult heroes we can spare on the Iron Wall, somehow convince those three to join us… the list keeps going, and that doesn’t even include all the administration issues that I still haven’t been able to work through.

Jason walked through the hallways of the headquarters, flanked by no less than five secretaries – actually just one woman who could split into seven clones of herself – who were working through data on their pads with him. He always liked to walk around while doing his work, it helped him stay fit and avoid back problems.

And I should look in on the kids… who knows what they’re up to this time. It wouldn’t be the first time that a junior team acted against orders to help with an S-Class situation… or any situation that was way out of their league. And he was quite sick of losing his kids to that kind of stupidity.

He entered the juniors’ common room, and found them immersed in a discussion they cut off the moment they heard the door slide open.

Jason looked around the room with a raised eyebrow. Tartsche and Spellgun were sitting next to each other, as usual. The witch-girl, Hecate, was sitting at the very edge of the same couch, as far away from anyone else as she could without being obvious about it, though she appeared to have been taking part in the discussion. Bakeneko had sat down in a much too provocative form, probably trying to measure up to the two vigilante girls, but no one was paying the shy girl much attention it seemed. Osore had fallen asleep on a stool. That boy can sleep anywhere.

Outstep and the redhead, Tyche, were sitting way too close to each other for his sensibilities, especially considering how Outstep was pretty much openly undressing her with his eyes – and she didn’t seem to mind.

Ye Gods and little fishes, not this again, he thought.

As for Brennus, Polymnia and Gloom Glimmer…

“Where. Are. The. Others?!” he asked while running his fingers through his hair. He could already see the catastrophe looming.

Tartsche jumped up, which all but threw a yelping Spellgun off the couch. “Here! I mean, in the building! They’re still here, Sir, don’t worry!” He was making placating gestures, and it was actually working.

Tartsche has never lied before, he wouldn’t, not to cover them breaking the rules. He repeated that sentence a few hundred times in her head, until he was calm again.

I need to stop getting excited so easily. Not good for the heart.

“Alright. Alright. Where are they and what are they doing?”

The children relaxed, and Hecate spoke up, despite sounding a bit intimidated. “Uh, they’re in Polymnia’s workshop, Sir. Brennus wanted to work a bit wit-” She stopped when she saw the vein start pulsing on his forehead, right over the left eye.

This is murder for my heart.

* * *

Four almost-strokes later…

“Tartsche, you put two teenage Gadgeeters, one of whom is yet unrated into one workshop!? Are you out of your mind!?“

Tartsche was looking ashamed, even though his helmet was covering his entire face. The others were following a few steps back as Jason ran towards the workshop.

“Sir, calm down, Gloom Glimmer is there to stand watch, so she should be safe!” Spellgun threw in while easily keeping up with the steps of the only two people in the group without physical enhancements.

“It’s not them I’m afraid of, it’s US I’m scared FOR because they might actually HETERODYNE THEIR POWERS!” he shouted over his shoulder.

“Heterodyning? What’s that!?” asked Bakeneko, probably speaking up for the first time today.

Spellgun explained to her as they approached the entrance to the workshop. “It’s the process of aligning two or more powers of a similar type to enhance them beyond their normal bounds,” he explained. “Like when two laser-projectors line their powers up to produce a laser far more powerful than their individual lasers combined.”

“And Gadgeteers are NATURALS at doing that among each other, EVEN ACROSS TIERS!” shouted Jason. He reached the door. “Teenage gadgeteers are even worse and the last time we let two of them work together unsupervised – no, Gloom Glimmer doesn’t count, you need someone trained for that – they almost blew up the entire city block!”

He opened the door and they all stormed in.

* * *

Irene’s power had provided her with short-term precognition, so she’d be able to react in time if (or maybe, when) something blew up, so she saw the others coming before they even reached the door, much less opened it.

Popping five pills to fight the precognition down so she’d be able to focus on the present, she took another handful of popcorn out of the almost empty bucket and gulped them down. Next time, more butter.

This was way better than TV. She’d always thought the whole ‘staring at stuff open-mouthed’ thing was just hogwash, but they all looked like that now. And it was hilarious.

Jason was the first to regain his composure and speak: “Gloom Glimmer, what in God’s name are they doing?”

She almost broke out into giggles, but stiffled it quickly. “They started talking about harmonics and wavelength modulation, then about lasers, and then thought about working on some improvements on her spider-limbs,” she began explaining.

“And how did they end up building a giant gun?!” Hecate almost screamed.

Irene giggled again. “They got carried away when they came up with a ‘sonic detonator’.”

No one spoke as they watched the two gadgeteers – one of whom was giggling the whole time, and the other one looked like she would be giggling if she still could – climb all over a twenty-foot long gun as thick as either of their bodies.

“I’m getting a bad feeling from this,” whispered Outstep.

* * *

Five minutes later

“Why do I feel like I’m watching techno-geek-porn?” asked Outstep, which immediately set Irene off again.

She had to fight to get the giggles to vanish.

When she got herself back under control, everyone else had taken a few steps back from her, save for Jason.

Did I do something freaky again? she asked herself, but shook her head when her power tried to give her postcognition. Six pills took care of that. Not now, I need to keep up the precognition.

Brennus and Polymnia had not reacted at all to their audience, and the gun they were working on now looked like a cross between a spear and a gun-barrel, without a trigger and twenty-five feet long.

I wish I could concentrate on something for that long.

They kept watching in silence, until her power reacted and then the door slid open.

Jason turned around to the new arrival – and froze, even as the others all retreated from the door.

“Hello father,” she said, a bit restrained, as she turned to look at him. He was in his usual tall form, his six eyes glowing in the darkness of his wraith’s ‘flesh’.

Their argument still rang loudly in her ears.

“Greetings, everyone. I have bad news,” he said, rather matter-of-factly despite his claims.

Everyone tensed up and even Brennus and Polymnia stopped their work for a moment.

“What is it?” Jason asked, having regained his bearing.

“Desolation-in-Light was just sighted over Kansas City. We will deploy within minutes,” he explained.

She didn’t need telepathy or anything to feel everyone’s bottom drop off their stomachs.

Not now, oh stars above no.

“Sir, what will happen with Hastur?” asked Jason. “The situation is far from resolved!”

“Hastur will have to wait. Amazon will participate in the defence of Kansas City – we cannot afford the risk of Desolation-in-Light somehow compromising our country’s breadbasket. You are all to stand by and wait for us to resolve that situation before tackling the Hastur issue. That, by the way, is an order from Amazon,” he continued, looking directly at the teenagers in the room, one after the other, making them cower before him (except for Irene, who was his daughter after all, and the two Gadgeteers who were still riding the high of their powers’ going into overdrive).

“Understood, Sir,” replied Tartsche in a subdued voice.

The supervillain nodded, then stepped closer to Irene and enveloped them in a dome of darkness.

She slid up to him and hugged him, her body slipping easily past his darkwraith to hug the man underneath.

“Are you sure I shouldn’t come along? With my power, I-“

“We’ve had this talk before, baby girl. The risks are too great. All of them.”

She nodded. She didn’t like it, but she knew that she wouldn’t win this argument. Her mother would be backing him up, for one.

“You be safe, you hear me? And make sure mama’s safe, too,” she whispered.

“Of course, baby girl. You know us, we’re invincible.”

“Pride goes before the fall, papa,” she half-sobbed. She hated it that people were so… fragile. Even her parents. Especially her parents.

“I have yet to see that proverb be proven. Arrogance goes before the fall, my dear, not pride. There is a difference. Ask Brennus about it, I suspect the boy knows,” he replied and squeezed her, hard.

She squeezed right back, and then she let go, watching him sink into his own shadow, leaving her standing in a rapidly dissolving dome of darkness.

Drying her tears, she stepped out of it, dispersing it. The others were staring, except for Brennus and Polymnia, who were back at work.

I’ve got a bad feeling about this. The timing is just too bad.

Minutes later, Jason got a call. He listened, his face turning white.

She didn’t listen to him when he explained to the others. Her precognition had already told her the moment the cellphone rang.

Hastur has been set loose. And the hunt begins… but who’ll be the hunter and who the game?

B006 Big Game Hunt (Part 7)

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Brennus sat down at the circular war table, flanked by Hecate and Tyche. Somehow, without ever talking about it, they had elected him to be the leader, or at least the face of the group to the outside. Or maybe he had just fallen into the mold by necessity. Hecate was too pedantic, too slow to react in favour of thinking everything through twice and thrice over, while Tyche was just… Tyche.

Opposite of him sat Rising Tide, in between the delegations from the Triads and the mob. The Dark sat in between them, opposite of the heroes and completely alone.

Brennus was quite sure he did that intentionally, setting himself apart. A show of strength, of security even alone among so many metahumans. He had no illusions about what would happen if a fight broke out, even if everyone else present would team up against him.

Gloom Glimmer was the only one who could hope to match him, and she was the one most likely to side with him.

I need to study this guy. He is just sitting there, not even remotely the focus of the meeting, and he still gets all the attention. There is something to learn there.

Once everyone was seated, Amazon looked around. She threw Rising Tide a suspicious glance – the Foresters were never reliable when dealing with S-Class threats – he was not particularly bothered by. The Dark got some spillover from what she probably felt for Mindstar – he had recruited Amazon’s tormentor in response to said torments – and Brennus actually got half a smile.

For some reason, that bothered him. Not some reason, really. He was profiting from that recruitment, and his sister’s crimes, even if he was trying to put some distance between her and his cape.

Also, he’d got her real identity and what might be her greatest weakness out of it. And she probably did not realize that.

“Thank you all for coming here,” she began. “I’ve called this council into session due to-“

She was interrupted by a call. With a hastily murmured excuse, she took it, then said: “It appears that another party is going to join us, surprisingly enough.” There was a hint of distaste in her voice.

Within seconds, it became clear why as the doors to the elevator opened and six persons entered, all dressed in rather diverse clothing with a few commonalities – they all (except for one) wore black leather longcoats, they all had their chests bared underneath – even the women – and they all had a leering demon’s face tattooed over their hearts.

At least the women had their coats arranged so they just barely preserved their modesty. At least one of them had to be using double-sided tape or something, he was sure, because there was no way the coat stayed in place like that despite the excessive movement of certain parts of her anatomy.

One of the women, sporting fire-red long locks of hair and a pair of ram-like horns sprouting out of her head, sat at the table while the other five – three men and two women – took up position behind her in a row.

The other five were all superhumanly beautiful, and showing it off, especially the men. The only one who was dressed with any amount of decency was a girl who could not be legal yet, judging by her height and what little could be seen of her slender frame, her face half-hidden underneath a dirty, ragged red cowl. The rest of her body was hidden by robes of the same colour, only even dirtier.

Tyche leaned over to Brennus. <Who’re those?> she asked over their subvocal coms.

<Morning’s Children. Satanists who believe our powers come from hell and are meant as a prelude to the arrival of the Devil here on Earth. Their leader – the guy whose face they all have on their chests – paints himself as the Devil’s Herald. They’re villains, though they mostly just stay within their territory and celebrate orgy after orgy. Big on the drug trade, but otherwise tame. The girl with the red right hand is new, the others are paragon or exemplar tier metahumans. The woman with the horns is the current Succubus, a legacy villain. Can induce lust and influence anyone she’s had intimate contact with. Can morph into a more demonic form, too, for enhanced strength, toughness and flight. Don’t know the girl in the robe and cowl, though.>

While he had been explaining this, the new arrivals had settled down – Succubus was sitting between Elrik France and the Dark – and Amazon had greeted them.

“As I was saying, I called this council into session because of-“

“A little boy’s supposed information on a S-Class no one heard about before,” France cut in with distaste in his rich, slightly accented voice. He cut an impressive figure, despite his mundane clothing. He had no Physique power, but was powerfully built and very tall.

“Brennus provided some valid ev-” began Amazon, but she was cut off by the DDT men, who spoke in perfect synchronization.

“We are inclined to agree with Mister France – we came here simply due to the severity of the claim made, but we are disinclined to believe him simply because he has a few e-mails he may as well have faked.”

This looks suspiciously like they only came here to cause a stink, he thought.

“Brennus has yet to give us reason to doubt him. Considering the severity of his claims, I am inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. We should proceed under the assumption that his information is valid until dis-“

“He has not given us any reason to doubt him because he is a complete greenhorn with little to no experience,” France continued.

“We are inclined to agree. Do you have any concrete proof regarding this supposed S-Class threat?” the DDT delegates chorused.

“We ran it by our precogs, and came up with a sixty-five percent chance of it being valid,” Amazon replied.

The DDT snorted (which sounded quite strange in a chorus) and France looked like he was going to say something more, but instead Rising Tide opened his mouth.

“A sixty-five perchent chance ot his information being valid is not quite enough for us to act on, considering the general unre-” Succubus spoke up in a rich, sultry voice.

Gloom Glimmer, who had been quietly sitting on her chair right next to Amazon – the most powerful person in the room, and the one most likely to get the Dark to cooperate – cut her off.

“I double-checked the numbers and came up with a positive result by myself. Considering the devastation any S-Class metahuman can cause, that’s more than enough reason for a serious meeting and decisive action,” she explained.

Succubus opened her mouth to retort, as did France and Rising Tide, but the Dark shifted on his seat, raising one hand to rest his chin on it.

Everyone went quiet and looked at him.

“I am ‘inclined’ to agree with both Amazon and my daughter”, he said in his usual inhuman voice, putting gentle emphasis on the word ‘daughter’. “Since I was notified in advance through an independent channel, I did what I could to verify the information – and my inquiries support young Brennus’ claim.”

The present villains all calmed down, after a fashion. Better to say, they did not dare contradict him.

I really need to get some lessons from that guy. Ah well, you can not have everything.

“Are you willing to share what information you found?” Amazon asked.

He looked directly at her, his glowing eyes somehow conveying amusement. “Would I be here if I were not?”

She just looked him straight in the eyes, showing no sign of intimidation.

<That woman’s got balls of steel,> Tyche said.

<Agreed. Not the wording, but the sentiment,> Hecate agreed.

<Ditto.>

“Somehow, I still don’t know how, the Black Panthers managed to scrounge up two hundred and ninety-five million dollars and bought a verified S-Class metahuman from a South European slaver who somehow managed to restrain her and transport her across the Atlantic. Before he did so, however, she wiped out an entire Italian village within minutes. No survivors.”

He paused to let that sink in.

“She is supposed to be used as a deterrent against the other groups in the city, and they apparently believe her power – whatever it might be – to be capable of intimidating even the United Heroes… and even me.”

“How the fuck do you restrain an S-Class threat like that?” Outstep asked, only to get shushed by Tartsche.

“Not all S-Class threats are moving engines of physical destruction,” Brennus said. He was so tired of having to stay silent. “I have been thinking about this for a while, and it actually tells us something about her – if she can be restrained in a manner safe enough to transport her across half the world, then it means that her power probably is not physical, or perhaps requires some manner of fuel to work.”

“Agreed. Her power may be limited to affecting people within a certain range, or requires organic fuel, or… actually, it doesn’t tell us all that much, seeing how… interesting powers can get. However, the codename they gave her does tell us something. She is called ‘Hastur’.”

“Hastur? That name means nothing to us,” chorused the DDT.

“Hastur, also known as the King in Yellow, though sometimes the latter is merely an avatar of the former. Either a Great Old One or an Outer God, or the Avatar of an Outer God. Part of the collection of works known as the Cthulhu Mythos,” Brennus threw in.

The Dark nodded, seeming somehow pleased, while Gloom Glimmer just groaned.

“What are you talking about, boy?” asked France.

“A classic work of horror literature. Most of it is not important right now, but the overall themes revolve around insanity and apathy in the face of the utter insignificance of humanity. Hastur in particular is attributed with three specific abilities – it can create a yellow sign that drives people looking upon it insane, it drives people who look directly beneath its cowl insane and it has written, or somehow generated a play in written form that does the same to anyone who reads it,” Brennus continued.

The robed girl leaned forward to whisper something into Succubus’ ear, and then the older villainess said: “He, or it, is also connected to Decadence, it seems.”

“Finally, people who appreciate the classics!” the Dark exclaimed. He threw a glance at Gloom Glimmer. “You should take a leaf out of their books, dear.”

She just ignored him and instead looked at Amazon. “I believe it is safe to assume that she has some manner of mind control or involuntary transformation of others. Or both.”

Before Amazon could say anything, however, Rising Tide said: “I believe this meeting has gone off track. If the poor girl’s restrained in a way that would allow transatlantic travel, then we should concern ourselves more with the Black Panthers, since they presumably have the key.”

Sensible advice from the wannabe-genocidal treehugger. The world gets weirder every day, was all Brennus could think in response.

“Agreed.”

The others all nodded.

“So, what do we do? Introducing an S-Class into the city with the express purpose of using her as a weapon for what sounds like a takeover of the local underworld breaks the rules, I think,” Succubus commented, shifting around on her seat. She seemed… uncomfortable, for some reason.

“I agree. This goes above and beyond anything any of us can tolerate. The risk of her breaking loose and repeating whatever she did in that village is too great,” Widard said, speaking for the first time in this meeting. “We need to track this Hastur down and take her into protective custody. She may be but a victim of her power, and-“

“You want to restrain her, turn her into one of your safe little drones,” Rising Tide said. “We should see about setting that girl free in a safe environment, teach her to control her powers and let her-“

“We all know your party line, Rising Tide. And we are not interested. It would be preferably to lock her away, or neutralize her in a more permanent-“

Brennus slammed his open hand onto the table, restraining himself just enough not to damage it. “Could we please focus on the matter at hand, that being the fact that the Black Panthers appear to be completely out of control? Even discounting the recent loss of their local leader – which only makes the situation worse – they have apparently been working on this for a long time, somehow conjured up a ridiculous amount of money and bought what is more like a bomb than a subordinate, as I doubt they will be able to restrain her once she is let loose. They have never been the most restrained villain group, but this is just completely out of character for the organization as a whole!”

The others all looked at him with surprise, except for Gloom Glimmer (who just looked amused), the robed girl (whose face and body were concealed) and the Dark (who had no body language or facial expression to begin with).

“Could we please focus on dealing with them?” he continued.

“He’s right. We need to organize a fast and decisive response, track down their current leadership, take them into custody and secure Hastur,” Widard agreed. “Are all agreed?”

Everyone but Rising Tide nodded, and the others all looked at him.

“I agree that the Black Panthers have gone too far, and that they need to be put down. But I disagree on what you probably mean with ‘securing’ her. But we will cooperate.”

Only to stab us in the back and get your hands on her. But they needed the manpower the Foresters could provide.

“We will deploy everyone we have,” Patrid chimed in, leaning forward from his relaxed position to rest his elbows on the table and staple his fingers in front of his face.

<That guy so gives me the supervillain-creeps,> Tyche commented.

Gloom Glimmer raised a hand and pointed at the Dark. “Don’t say it,” she told him.

He looked at her, then at Amazon. “Deploying these children in an unforeseen emergency like the Spiteborn attack is one thing. Deploying them into a war against an established villain group, especially with the threat of an unkown S-Class threat, is unacceptable.” He was almost growling at the end, and almost everyone edged away from him.

Only Amazon, Gloom Glimmer and Brennus remained calm, and the former both stared the villain down.

“We do not respond well to threats. Either way, we were not going to deploy the Junior Heroes. Nor are we going to allow you to deploy,” replied Amazon, looking at Brennus and his friends.

“What the fuck?” shouted Tyche, rising from her seat. Tartsche reacted the same way (though without swearing), and started protesting.

“This is non-negotiable. The children stay-“

“You don’t get a say in this, Sir! May I remind you that you’re a villain and that, even if you had a say in this, you have employed teenagers before, which calls your motives into question!?” Tartsche all but shouted at him.

“Young man, I admire your conviction, but I would advise you to guard y-“

A flash of light, followed by a pulsing airwave shook the room. Gloom Glimmer had slammed her hands both onto the table, her eyes aglow. “You don’t get to threaten my teammates!” she shouted at her father.

He did not shout back. Instead, his body – well, his darkwraith – erupted in an expanding cloud of darkness that reached over the table and enveloped him and his daughter.

“What the fuck!? He’s attacking his own daughter?”, Tyche shouted as she, along with most everyone, fled from the darkness.

“Calm down,” Brennus replied, who had remained seated (when you wear full power armour with a limited power source, you do not move unless necessary). “I would say he wants a private eye-to-eye chat.”

The darkness vanished after about a minute. The Dark was still in his seat, and Gloom Glimmer was sitting to his right, now noticably subdued (if still looking like she wanted to rip a few heads off).

And the robed girl was still standing unmoved, apparently unconcerned.

Amazon is not the only girl with balls around here, it seems. That, or she is simply powerful enough to feel secure.

Brennus honestly did not know which possibility was scarier.

“I apologize for the disturbance,” the Dark said to everyone.

Amazon looked at him suspiciously, then at Gloom Glimmer, who nodded at her.

“We were not going to deploy the Juniors, nor allow for Brennus, Hecate and Tyche to participate in the action,” she said.

Figures, Brennus thought. He did not say anything, as Hecate and Tyche both voiced their protests.

He waited for a few moments until everyone had calmed down, then he said: “I agree.”

Everyone – even the Dark – looked at him with surprise. He looked at his teammates, then at the others as a whole. “We are not ready for this. The three of us would have died fighting Panthera Rex, were it not for the intervention of an unknown third party. I will agree to stay out of this, and my teammates will, as well.”

<Brennus, what are you saying?> asked Hecate over the comms.

He ignored the question and looked at Amazon.

“I would agree that we remain here, in the headquarters, along with the junior heroes, for the duration of the crisis,” he continued.

“That is very reasonable of you,” the Dark said with a hint of admiration.

“I agree to your terms,” Amazon said.

“Then, may I suggest that we and the juniors be allowed to leave?” he continued. “There is no point to us taking part in this meeting. I have already provided all the information I have.”

Amazon nodded, then looked at the Morning’s Children. “That girl.” She looked at the robed girl. “She is clearly a minor. I demand that-“

Succubus cut her off. “Phasma does not concern you. Her power makes her all but untouchable, and she is completely immune to all mental powers while using it. We will not agree to any restraints on her deployment.”

They stared at each other, while Brennus rose from his seat. “Hecate, Tyche.” They fell in step behind him as he walked towards the junior heroes. Gloom Glimmer rose from her seat and followed them, too.

The entire group left the war room.

* * *

They walked down a pristine hallway.

<What’s with the new cloak?> Polymnia had fallen in step next to him, clad in an unflattering overall covered in hooks. She was looking at his new white cloak and cowl.

“Black-on-black does not work on everyone. I thought the contrast would look good.”

<And that symbol on your back?>

He turned to look at her while he walked. “The ravens? Do you like them? Flash of inspiration of mine, and I liked it so much I thought I’d make it my emblem.”

“Is that an… uroboros? Made of ravens?” asked Spellgun with a curious tone.

“H and M, the divine ravens of memory and thought that perched upon Odin’s shoulder and provided him with advice,” Gloom Glimmer chimed in, sounding quite sullen.

“Correct,” Brennus replied. “Now, on to other topics. Since I believe that this situation will go down the slammer, so to speak, I would appreciate a chance to coordinate our groups.”

“You planned this,” Gloom Glimmer said.

They all stopped walking and looked at her.

“You knew they were not going to allow you to take part in the battle and you came here anyway – for what?” she continued.

“Coordination. Preparation. I have a very bad feeling about this situation,” Brennus replied calmly. “And I would also very much like to compare notes with another Gadgeteer – this was the easiest way of facilitating that without outright joining the group,” he continued while looking at Polymnia.

<Sweet.>

He looked at Tartsche. “You are the leader of this team. Do you agree?”

The older boy just stared at him.

Tyche snorted. “So you just wanted to geek out with her. You could have said something.”

“There are other concerns. We do need to prepare,” he insisted.

“True. But, I insist on one thing,” Tartsche said.

“What would that be?”

“Gloom Glimmer will stand guard, and you will take off your power armor. I’m sorry, but I don’t trust you enough to leave you with her, in her laboratory, while fully armed and unsupervised.”

Brennus nodded. “I take no offense, and I agree to your conditions. Though I, of course, will keep my mask on.”

Tartsche nodded, and Polymnia just clapped her hands together in glee.

Things are going to get interesting, he thought. And maybe I’ll even find out why you insisted on this.

All will be made clear in time, replied the man in the moon.

* * *

…in time, mate, replied the man in the moon.

She flinched, then drew her legs up underneath the shroud that was covering her body. With a painful act of will, she gathered her senses, pulling them back from the outside so she could focus on her immediate surroundings again.

The container was dark, but that did not concern her. She could see in the darkness, without trouble.

Crawling on all fours, she bit into her fingertip, then put it to one of the few free spaces left, drawing a pair of ravens, biting each other’s tail.

The picture did look good, just as the boy in the armor had said. Only his version was black on white, not blood on rust.

She sat back down and let her senses spread, splitting in two, looking into this ‘war room’, observing the meeting, while also following the younger heroes and vigilantes. It was difficult, her senses were so big now, so all-encompassing, and she had to fight to focus them on one or two places in one time, in one possibility.

But she had to watch, to listen.

Maybe these people would be the ones to set her free?

B006 Big Game Hunt (Part 6)

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He left the bedroom (after checking that he was still clothed – Amy liked her pranks way too much) and all but burst into the control room, ready to ream Amy a new one…

Only to find her and his friends sitting in a loose circle, talking amicably. And fully clothed.

Amy looked up and winked at him with a split-second wicked grin – she probably knew what he was thinking – and then her face turned to worry. “Should you be up already?”

The others turned around and looked at him with varying degrees of worry on their faces, and Prisca greeted him happily, though with concern in her voice.

Eudocia said they were being influenced… but there’s no way she could affect Prisca from all the way over here, so it couldn’t have been anything too bad or obvious without cutting her connection.

“I’m fine, really. Had the weirdest dream, though… can we talk? Privately, I mean?”

She nodded and stood up. “We’ll continue later on,” she said to the others, then followed him down to his workshop.

* * *

He shut the door behind them, then made sure to lock the workshop down – he didn’t want anyone to listen in, not even Eudocia.

Amy had walked over to near the center of the room, where his current project lay, and was now looking at the parts.

“They thought you were building a new suit… but this looks more like an android,” she said after a few seconds.

He stood behind her, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “I figured it might help to have another body in the field, especially one that is expendable. But it’s not really workable, at least not yet.”

She looked around, noticing the irritation in his voice. “That… that’s the reason you were pushing yourself like this, isn’t it? You couldn’t get it to work, and you couldn’t accept that,” she said with a mixture of exasperation and mirth in her voice.

He blushed a bit, but frowned back at her. “No. Yes. Not really. I’ve been pushing myself for days. The loss, and the wall I hit working on this only made it worse,” he explained reluctantly. Looking back at it, he really should have paced himself, but… “Nice one… changing the subject by talking about my work. What were you doing up there!?“

She shrugged. “What I do whenever I can. Helping you,” she explained, as if it was all just obvious.

“What. Did. You. Do to them?”

Raising her hands in a placating gesture, she replied: “Calm down, baby brother. Nothing bad, I swear. I was just… helping them focus, and think over what happened. Especially the girls. They need to improve, you need to improve, or you’ll die or worse. If it weren’t for those lovely twins, you’d be dead or slaves!”

A deep breath, then two. Not… not good. But not nearly as bad as I feared. “You didn’t do anything else?”

Her whole stance changed into a more serious one, straighter. “Nothing, baby bro. I wouldn’t mess with your friends, I promise! Though Dalia is awfully cute…”

He snorted and walked past her to look at the beginnings of what was supposed to be a combat android. I’ll have to deconstruct it. Use the parts for something that actually works. And still, he was sure he could make it work, if only he had the time.

“… and either way, Prisca is all the way over in the hospital, and I’d need to fly over fast enough to delete her short-term memory before it became a long-term memory…”

He gave her a deadpan look. “You’ve really thought a lot about messing with my friends’ heads, haven’t you?” She just gave him an unconvincing innocent smile and he turned away to look at his work again.

“Basil?” She wrapped her arms around him, resting her chin on his shoulder. “Why did you push yourself so hard? Honestly, now.”

“It’s always there. Always blazing,” he whispered. Suddenly, he didn’t sound half as self-confident as before.

“What is?”

“My power. It’s like there’s a lamp, a sun right behind my eyes, shining out of them with a blazing light. I can’t shut it off. I can’t even ignore it.” He shivered.

“Oh Basil, why didn’t you tell me?” she asked with a pained voice – she could feel his distress.

“What for? It’s my power, there’s nothing you can do about it,” he replied. “It’s… it’s…” just like in Macian’s memories. He couldn’t stop, either “it’s just a part of me, I guess. I’m sure I can learn to deal with it.”

“I could have helped. I can help you. Help you keep tabs on it, help you sleep when your power won’t let you,” she replied, sounding slightly irritated… and really, really worried.

“That… might help. Maybe you could look into my head, try to talk with that damn sprite?” he asked, hopeful. Maybe, if he could somehow force the ‘Blazing Sun’ to talk things through…

She nodded, her chin rubbing against his shoulder. “We could… organize a session. Take some time off, both of us. Sit down, and I’ll get into your head. Look for a solution. We should have thought of this sooner.”

“Yes. We do that. But first, I need to finish up here. There’s another reason why I got so out of control after the battle.”

“What is it?”

“I’ll tell you along with the others. Let’s go back up. And no using your power on them anymore, alright?”

“All right… for now, baby brother. I won’t stand for them dragging you down through incompetence or stupidity,” she replied.

He knew he was not going to get her to agree to more.

* * *

They returned to the main control room, where the others were in the process of discussing something, but stopped once they came back up.

The girls, as well as Tim, all turned to look at them, but no one really said anything. Tim looked as calm as ever, Vasiliki looked thoughtful, Dalia was… blushing?

He walked until he stood next to them, then said: “First, I’m sorry about earlier. You wanted to help me, and I just went mental on you guys.” He gave a slight bow.

“Nonono, you were right, really,” replied Vasiliki. “I mean, you didn’t have to be a jerk about it, but we did survive solely due to blind luck – if the twins hadn’t shown up, we’d have been screwed.” She stopped, thinking it over, then looked at Dalia. “Which kind of makes your power real creepy – just how far does it reach?”

“Uh, I, well, no idea,” stammered Dalia, tearing her eyes off Amy.

What the hell did you do to Dalia? he asked angrily in his head. He knew Amy would pick it up.

Nothing, really. Want me to take a look and see what’s going on?

No! Stay out of her head! All of their heads!

Jeez, you don’t need to flip out like that! I’ll be nice, scout’s promise!

Didn’t you almost blow up the local scouts’ headquarters last month?

Never said I was one of the good scouts.

The whole exchange took less than a second (speed of thought was handy that way), so Basil could respond without a noticeable pause: “Still, I shouldn’t have gone on like that. But I’m afraid we have bigger problems than me being unable to handle defeat.”

“And what would those be?” asked Tim.

He sat down at the console, turning the chair around to look at all of them. “I broke the code on the Black Panther’s files. Remember, from the video, how he threatened to sell us into slavery?”

They all nodded, and he heard Amy chuckle inside his head.

What would you have done, had he tried to sell me to you?

You mean before or after I made him eat his own genitals?

Ah. Nevermind.

“Well, they bought someone. A girl. A metahuman.”

“What?!” shouted an outraged Vasiliki. “That’s disgusting!” Dalia nodded in agreement.

Prisca continued: “And why is it always girls, anyway?”

“Well, nearly seventy percent of all metahumans are women. Theories abound, but the most commonly cited one is that the still present discrimination against women leads to…”

Prisca cut into his starting rant: “What he’s trying to say is that the Man is putting us sisters down, so we get powers more often.”

“Finally, someone who talks English!” shouted Dalia in relief. Basil just grumbled something unintelligible.

Fortunately, Amy moved them back on track. “So, about this girl? What’s so special about her?”

“Well… according to the messages I intercepted, she’s estimated to be a new S-Class threat… and they think they can use her to wipe out their competition, as well as threaten the UH into staying away from the fighting.”

You could have heard a pin drop in the silence that followed.

“Uhh, how is that our problem?” Prisca asked with a desperate note in her weak voice. When everyone turned to look at the camera, she continued: “I mean, apart from the fact that you guys almost died – or got sold into slavery – just yesterday, an S-Class threat is way, way out of your league. This is Cabal business!”

“The Shining Guardians are quite preoccupied right now. The local heroes won’t call them in unless they have definite proof of the threat,” replied Amy.

“True. But either way, we need to warn the United Heroes. At the very least, we could use their help in tracking down the girl and getting her into protective custody. They can secure her, we can’t,” continued Basil.

They nodded. “So, we contact the heroes. How, do we just call their hotline?” asked Dalia.

“I got all their phone numbers. Best to call Amazon, instead of going around her, I think,” explained Basil. “After all, she’s the leader now.”

“And she’s got experience. Few metahumans in her class have taken part in as many S-Class events as she has. She won’t dismiss you out of hand, if only because she knows how bad things can get with S-Class metahumans,” Amy added.

I guess you’re sure?

Of course. And shut it, I could have known this simply through research. Her resume is available to the public.

“Then do it, Basil!” Vasiliki said, all but shouting.

He nodded and turned around to the console.

* * *

First, calibrate the microphone, so it will only catch what I say. Then, initiate the voice changer. Now, set up anti-tracing measures – all of them.

Basil worked through his mental checklist, to make absolutely sure they could neither be overheard from his side, nor he himself traced back by them.

It took him almost three minutes before he felt completely safe to initiate the call to her UH phone. And he put on a pair of headphones, too. If only because it annoyed Amy.

Amazon picked up on the third ring.

<Who is this?> she asked with sleep in her voice.

She just woke up – it’s nearly afternoon!

“This is Brennus. Good… afternoon, Amazon,” he replied.

<How did you get this number!?> Now she was awake.

“Not important right now. I have bad news. The really bad kind.”

Someone spoke on the other side. A man… and he recognized the voice, even if he couldn’t understand what was said. Amazon shushed him with a few affectionate words.

Way to go, Jake.

<Alright. Tell me everything.> He thought he heard her stand up.

“Me and my team got into an altercation with the Black Panthers last night. During it, Panthera Rex attacked us, but was killed when an unknown third party intervened.”

<Did you identify the third party? Do you have proof of their involvement – proof that it wasn’t you?> She remained calm.

“I have a video recording of the battle. If you want, I can send it to you.”

<Please do. Dammit, this is gonna be chaos pure.>

“Panthera Rex’s death is not the bad news. Or rather, it’s just one thing that makes it worse.”

<Oh, what could that be now? If you tell me there’s some S-Class involved somewhere there, I’ll call bogus on you. It’s already bad enough as it is.>

“You might want to take that statement back.”

<No. No way.>

“Yes. I was able to hack into their computers and access their communication records. They purchased a newly manifested, female S-Class metahuman from a metahuman trafficker. They were hoping to use her as a deterrent against the competition and the local heroes. But, according to some other mail, Panthera Rex was pretty much the last individual holding the more extreme members back from using her offensively.”

<And he’s dead now.>

“Quite so.”

<…>

“How do you wish to proceed? I think I speak for my entire team-” He looked at Tyche and Hecate, mouthing his question – they both nodded. “- when I say that we’re willing to fully cooperate with you, provided our identities remain secret.”

<Shit, shit, shit, shit. And I can’t call in the Shining Guardians without definite proof. Send me the video and e-mails.>

He did so. It took her a few minutes to read through everything and speed through the video.

<Alright. I’ll con- Wait a minute, I’m getting another call. Hold the line.>

“Yes ma’am.”

He turned around, pulling the headphones off. “She’s getting another call, but it seems she’s taking this very seriously.”

Dalia grinned and said: “I knew she looked smart.” Vasiliki and Timothy nodded.

Prisca spoke up again. “Are you going to fight… that girl?” She sounded terrified.

“Not if we can help it. Our goal should be to save her. And take down the assholes who buy others to use as weapons.”

They all nodded at that (except Amy, who just looked thoughtful), and Prisca sighed audibly.

Then Amazon came back on the line and this time he put her on the speaker. <We just got a threat from the newly minted leader of the local Black Panthers, Panthera Avis. He wants the murderers of his former boss delivered to him alive or dead, otherwise he’ll unleash an S-Class threat on the city.>

“Even if I were willing to barter their lives away, I wouldn’t know how to contact or where to find those two to begin with,” he replied with a tone that allowed for no discussion.

Amazon seemed offended. <The United Heroes do not negotiate with terrorists, nor do they sacrifice anyone at the demand of a madman. We need a war council, and we need it now. Are you in?>

“Where and when?”

<Our headquarters. Guaranteed privacy and right to leave at any time. An hour from now.>

“We’ll be there.”

* * *

They arrived at the United Heroes’ headquarters fifteen minutes early. And they weren’t the only ones.

A man who identified himself as Jason Widard, Chief Mission Control, led them up to a war room.

There was a trio of chinese men, all in red robes, with heads shaved save for a single long braid each. Representatives of the local Dancing Dragon Triad, probably, though Brennus did not know them. He did take pictures of their faces, for later research.

Also present was a dark-skinned man in a three-piece suit. Elrik France, a known mob associate.

And finally, to his surprise, a brown-haired man in a white suit, with a blue shirt, white tie and silvery greaves and bracers engraved with flowers and trees. Rising Tide, the leader of the Foresters – a group dedicated to Weisswald’s ideals.

Amazon, Jason Widard, Mr Patrid, Gloom Glimmer (sitting side-by-side with Polymnia, whom Hecate greeted with an ecstatic wave) and the other junior heroes made up the United Heroes contingent.

Opposite of them sat the Dark, alone. He looked at Brennus, Hecate and Tyche and gave them a brief nod of acknowledgement.

Ah crap. This is getting out of hand.

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B006 Big Game Hunt (Part 4)

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By the time Brennus entered the room, Tyche had already had her right arm broken and four long gashes on her left hip dripped blood as she collapsed on the ground from a punch to the gut.

He can cut through my ceramic, thought Brennus, partly with fear but mostly with a mix of annoyance and humiliation. Hopefully, his own armor would prove more sturdy.

He would also need to clean up the blood before they left, so there would be no DNA evidence left behind – not to mention all the messed up stuff metahumans could do to people through their blood.

Better survive this first, though.

Panthera Rex reacted to his entrance with blinding speed, somersaulting towards Brennus, aiming a flying double kick at his chest. Brennus reacted by dropping to his knees, allowing for his momentum to carry him forward over the floor.

As the supervillain flew over him, Brennus shot him with the stun gun, hitting him squarely in the chest.

He seized up, his whole body shaking as the electricity coursed through him, and slammed into the wall to the left of the door.

Keep the pressure up, keep the pressure up, keep the pressure up…

Bending backwards, his gun muzzle tracking the villain even as he slid towards the prone Tyche, he fired another shot once the shot buffer had reloaded, dropping the villain even as he tried to get back up.

Now, to keep up the attack, or grab Tyche and make a run for it? But he still needed to clean up the blood, as well.

Just then, Hecate charged into the room, her staff in one hand, the thrown stun baton in the other.

“Hecate, left!” shouted Tyche.

Wrong, right from her point of view!

But before Brennus could correct her, Hecate turned to her left, leaving her back wide open to attack.

Panthera Rex obviously did not believe in honorable combat, because he took the opening, stabbing his right hand claw into her back.

For a moment, Brennus could see a flicker around his claws, as if the air was moving irregularly around them, then the plunged through her cloak and her enchanted suit, biting deep into her flesh.

She didn’t even scream as she went down, instead emitting a soft sigh.

“No!” screamed Tyche before throwing up on the spot and passing out. He had hit her bad.

At least her power does not depend on her being conscious, thought Brennus as he shot the villain the moment his claws slid out of Hecate’s back, but to no avail. Panthera Rex had seen it coming and evaded by simply jumping up to the ceiling, then kicking off to slam his shoulder right into Brennus.

The armor took the brunt of the attack, but he was still rattled as the impact audibly cracked the floor. The upside being that, while rattled, he was not stunned and could immediately react by putting the muzzle of his gun to the enemy’s chest and shoot him with a contact shot.

Panthera Rex made a growling groan as his body seized up again, allowing Brennus to pull his legs up and kick him off of himself and up into the air.

Which was not all that smart, all things considered, seeing how he seemed to have thing for bouncing off of walls and ceilings to attack from different angles.

Or it would have been if Hecate did not take the chance to shoot at him while he was unable to evade, her green blast throwing him in the opposite direction, moments before she collapsed for good.

Green blast means it is a lethal shot, thought Brennus. We agreed to stick to non-lethal means!

Then again, the guy had just impaled her on his claws. He was clearly going for the lethal solution.

Brennus rose to his feet, switching his gun over to his left hand to draw his humming blade with the right one.

Panthera Rex had fallen down behind the desk, his fur withered where it had been hit, but already recovering.

Protection four, Regeneration.

Anything short of massive trauma to the head or chest would probably prove not fatal.

And he can regenerate lost limbs, too. Just takes a lot of time.

He should have attacked with the humming blade from the start.

And the ravenbots, too, now that he thought about it. How had he forgotten those?

Even as the enemy was rising to his feet, Brennus charged forward, calling all his nearby ravens – the three in the room, twelve more around the building – to attack.

Unfortunately, again, Panthera Rex not only had enhanced senses, but also more than a decade of experience in fighting all kinds of enemies. The only reason they had survived this long against him was because he had merely been playing with them.

Judging by the bestial snarl on his half-human face, playtime was over.

He stopped Brennus’ charge by kicking the desk so it slid over and hit him in the gut, the cheap wood shattering against his armor, then punched the wall, which led to a demonstration of what even mid-level super-strength could do by propelling him backwards and through the converging cloud of ravens to kick Brennus in the face, throwing him back.

Good thing I built the neckpiece to automatically stiffen when I am hit like this, or I would have to deal with a broken neck.

Again, the impact absorbtion of his suit prevented him from being stunned too badly, and he attempted to capitalize on it by bringing his blade down on his enemy’s left arm – his claws were the only parts of him that could truly threaten him, the only weapon in his enemy’s disposal that could penetrate his armor.

But again, Panthera Rex foiled him. He gripped Brennus’ armored waist by crossing his arms, then flipped himself over by a spin and dug the claws of his feet into the floor for traction, followed by bending backwards, lifting the armored youth up and slamming him head-first into the floor behind him, cracking it even further.

Ow. I actually felt that.

This time, he truly was stunned as his body fell down with a loud slam.

Stop fighting normally, there is no way I will beat him like that, he knows all those moves.

So he fired his two grappling hooks from his waist-mounted launchers, to pull himself up to the ceiling… only for Panthera Rex to sweep his claws around and cut through the lines before they even connected with the ceiling.

The swipe was followed by a stomp that drove Brennus’ head into the floor, ringing his bells as a crack appeared across his visor, followed by the villain somersaulting backwards to evade the counterattack with the humming blade that would have taken his leg off.

Though that attack missed, it did buy Brennus the time he needed to flip over and push himself back up.

He tried to level his gun at his quarry, but Panthera Rex put his enhanced jumping ability to good use, moving too close to be shot as he struck the gun with one claw, cutting it in pieces.

Oh, come on. Can that thing not make it through one engagement?

Brennus struck him with his humming blade, angling his hand so he could stab him despite being so close.

Again, it proved futile, as Panthera Rex exploded into movement, his claws lashing out so fast Brennus could not follow.

Before he knew it, his sword, right-hand gauntlet, left-hand bracer and chest piece were either completely destroyed or raked so badly they might as well be, though thankfully the armor proved sturdy enough – and the hits shallow enough – to prevent any actual damage to his body.

Throwing himself backwards, he had his ravens descend on the veteran villain, only for him to tear them apart with another burst of speed, his claws tearing through their already fragile bodies with the same ease with which a scalding hot knife cut through warm butter, leaving only two ravens behind that Brennus had not ordered to attack in favour of positioning them on the bodies of his fallen comrades.

Taking heavy breaths, Brennus just stood there, his arms hanging limply as he was slightly bent forward, so as not to expose the damaged chest plate as an easy target.

Panthera Rex seemed to be at least slightly winded, though not nearly enough to make Brennus feel better about the ease with which his assets had been destroyed. The only weapons he had left were one stun baton and a simple knife he had added to his arsenal.

Why did I leave my stun grenades behind? They would be just the weapon to use against someone with enhanced senses.

Do you not remember? We took them apart to work on an upgrade for the ravenbots, since we are short on materials right now.

Blazing Sun? Where have you been, I had thought I had imagined you after all.

I am always with you. But you rarely listen.

No matter, when exactly did I- Ah, as if I did not already know there was something wrong with my memories. Any idea how to survive this?

Not my sphere of competence.

Thanks a lot for the help.

You are welcome.

“I wonder what you’re thinking, boy,” drawled Panthera Rex with a voice that was as distorted as one would expect a voice coming from a mouth that was halfway between a snout and a human mouth to be. “You don’t believe you can actually win this fight, do you? I’m just getting started.”

“It is not over until it is over,” replied Brennus, drawing his baton with his left hand – the right one was useless with the destroyed gauntlet.

The panther-man broke out into laughter, though he did not take his eyes off his opponent. “Oh, that’s a classic one. Have ya been studying up on some Rocky movies?” He made a motion with his hand, as if he was waving the thought away. “No matter. You’re done, and your two friends here need some medical attention, especially the witch. Surrender, and I’ll get them some medical attention.”

“That is oddly generous, considering that you wanted to kill us just moments ago.” His mind was racing, trying to find a way out.

“Not really. That one over there-” He pointed at Tyche. “- only has an Adonis power – or Physique, if you insist on that new rating – so she’ll sell at top dollar on the slave market. You won’t believe the prices metahuman sex slaves bring, if you know the right market.”

He did, actually, having studied up on it.

“And the other one will bring even more money if we sell her to the Califate. They always pay top-dollar for Contrivers. And let’s not even get started as to what a Gadgeteer like you is worth. We wouldn’t even need to look at the international market, or even out of the city.”

If he was not wearing a closed mask, Brennus would probably have spat at him. “Quite ironic, that the member of a group that started as an African-American pro-civil rights group – even a violent one – would engage in slavery.”

“Ha! Why does everyone freak out over that? It’s better than just killing you, right?”

“What makes you think I would make a good servant? Tyche could just be restrained if enslaved, the Califate would brainwash Hecate, but there is no way to ensure that I will not just blow my new ‘owner’ up.”

“We’d just sell you to the Five or somethin’. You wouldn’t be the first guy Mindstar got under her thumb.”

Now he had to bite back a laugh. It would almost be worth surrendering, just to see you try and sell me to her.

But he had to think of the girls. They really needed help, especially the badly bleeding Hecate.

“Let us end this,” he said, readying himself for an attack.

His enemy snorted and got into position himself, his claws stretched in anticipation.

A yellow-booted foot slammed into his jaw from the side, sending him spinning and right into the kick of a blue-clad girl, who kicked him back to the owner of the yellow-booted foot, a yellow-clad girl that proceeded to punch him in the throat and then, with an incredibly fluid movement, grabbed his arm, turned around and threw him over her shoulder and out of the window he had originally entered through.

What?

* * *

The two girls were equally tall, almost as tall as he was, and their skintight suits, identical except for their monochrome colouring, showed off body shapes that rivaled Hecate’s. Something told him that they were twins, maybe their absolutely equal measurements his computer provided, or the way they stood.

He was just about to ask them who they were and what they wanted when Panthera Rex leaped back into the room, snarling in anger.

Brennus grabbed Tyche by the back of her neck (sending the raven over to sit on the windowsill) and ran towards Hecate. The yellow-clad girl stepped forward as if she was taking a stroll, one hand reaching out to draw his knife from his belt and engage the enemy even as he knelt down next to Hecate.

“Do you need anything?” asked the blue-clad girl with a faint German accent. “A first-aid kit, a helping hand…”

“The kit sounds good,” he replied, only for her to vanish. No flickering, no fading, no flash of light, one moment she was there and the next she was not.

A mere three seconds later, she reappeared, first-aid kit in hand. She opened it while crouching down, unconcerned about the battle behind them, and held it out for him.

For a moment, he was worried about her attitude, and he said so.

“Glik has got that one covered. No problem there,” said the blue-clad girl.

The ten-year veteran villain, who had survived in New Lennston despite a comparatively tame power-set engaged the slim girl with the knife. He lost.

Glik walked back after cleaning the knife on his fur and knelt down next to him, putting the knife back into its sheath, and took care of Tyche. She was not even out of breath.

Together they took care of the girls, even as the panther king behind expelled his last breath, dying quietly and alone.

Oddly detached from the sight, Brennus noted with surprise that he was not a Chimaera type, as everyone had believed. The panther-man turned into a dark-skinned, well-built man, naked and hairless.

Morphing two to three, at least.

“Are you up to getting away from here?” asked the blue-clad girl. “Oh, I’m Bluebell, by the way.”

He rose, carefully putting one of his teammates over each shoulder as he assigned one raven to watch Glik – if she tried to attack him, well, he would need every advantage he could get. “I am not as bad off as I may look. My name is Brennus, by the way. And thank you, for your help.”

“We know who you are. But we can talk once we’re safe. There should be reinforcements on the way here.”

Meanwhile, Glik took some capsules from a pouch that was attached to the back of her waist and threw them at the bloodstains left behind by Hecate and Tyche, short flashes of fire burning into the floor to destroy them. Then, she picked up the stun baton Hecate had dropped and put it into his belt.

Some kind of precognition, or enhanced awareness? She is too competent, too fluid.

He turned to Bluebell. “Can you teleport us out of here?”

She shook her head. “We need to get out the normal way. Let’s go.”

* * *

They stopped when they reached a dark alley that was hidden from view.

He turned to thank them, but Bluebell spoke up: “No gratitude required. Just answer us one question honestly.”

“Of course…” he said, wary. Hopefully, they would not ask for his true identity. Considering what he owed them, he could not really deny them an honest answer.

Both of them looked at him, conveying an intense attention, despite their featureless masks.

“Are you the man in the moon?”

“What?”

Glik touched her sister and they both vanished instantly.

What?

B006 Big Game Hunt (Part 3.2)

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They snuck up to the manager’s office, evading detection mostly due to the fact that there weren’t that many people around in the first place, and Brennus knew where anyone was at anytime, provided they did not enter one of the rooms without surveillance (but there were still cameras watching over the entrances of those rooms). Also, luckily, no staff member had the time to leave the business area, and the manager was tied up as well with helping out in the kitchen.

The office itself had not been locked, but Brennus still made sure to check the door over for any security that was not wired into the general security system the building used. But he found nothing, and thus they entered the room.

It was really plain, especially compared to the building it was in, white paint, red carpet, a simple desk with two computers underneath and two monitors on top, as well as two bookshelves along the left and right side of the room.

After scanning for surveillance equipment beyond what he had already disabled, Brennus walked over to the desk and turned one computer on, one of his ravens (he currently had three on his shoulders) hopping down onto the desk. <This is the one. Give me a minute.>

The girls took position to the left and right of the door, just in case someone barged in, while he went to work. Though he did not make the mistake of sitting down in his power armor again. He had ruined three chairs already with that move, and they were supposed to get in and out without leaving any traces.

A minute later, he was done.

<Damn. They are trying to buy something big. As in, they have been saving up their profits and gathering all resources they could. Two hundred million dollars already, and it seems that is still not enough!>

The girls just looked at him with their mouths open. Hecate was the first to respond: <What could they want to buy that costs that much!?>

Brennus shook his head. <Not important now. I have copied the contents of the computer. We can analyze – INCOMING!>

He jumped over the desk and towards the girls the moment the blur appeared in his ravens’ field of vision, smashing through the door – the two ravens from his shoulders cawed like real animals and flew down to the desk – and allowing the two of them to exit the room, just as the window into the office exploded inwards and a black shade landed on the floor, then leapt towards them with an animalistic shout.

Enhanced strength to make those kinds of leaps possible, most probably enhanced durability to deal with the impacts.

Having landed in a crouch outside the room, Brennus braced himself against the floor and kicked backwards with both feet, his armor enhancing the strength of his kick, speeding it up – but the charging blur evaded, hitting the door frame to redirect its movement, angling itself so it flew towards Tyche – who was in the middle of falling face-first to the floor, having stumbled on the door sill just in time to fall so it only clipped her right arm instead of possibly breaking her back or her neck.

Enhanced senses, enhanced speed.

Hecate reacted faster than he would have expected – or maybe it was just a reflex – and blasted the attacker out of the air with one of her red-and-blue spherical blasts.

Being still tapped into the surveillance system, as well as having his ravens still in the room, Brennus got a snapshot of his enemy – a strange panther-man with flowing fur. Literally flowing fur, as if there were a river of black hair-water flowing down his body.

Panthera Rex. Well, so much for our luck.

Panthera Rex rolled with the blast, using his hands to push himself up so hard he turned into a blur again, his feet slamming into the ceiling from which he catapulted himself towards Tyche, his claw-tipped hands thrown forward towards the prone Tyche.

Enhanced striking effect on the hands, capable of ripping or punching through steel, as well as circumventing most Exemplar and Paragon Tier defensive powers.

He had read about the Black Panthers, and done an in-depth analysis after last week’s crime spree. This guy had stood out.

<Don’t let him hit you.>

His hands still on the ground, he arrested his kick’s momentum, which would have carried him back into the manager’s office, by pushing his fingers into the floor, then pivoted around, kicking Panthera Rex’s arms aside.

The villain missed wide, spinning away from the three of them – and since Hecate had barely moved in the split-seconds this had all happened, right back into her crosshairs. Capitalizing on it, she blasted him down the hallway even as he was thrown around like a rag doll… only to land on his feet in a comfortable crouch, as if he were just playing around, looking at them with yellow cat-eyes.

The three of them stood up, watching him warily. He was seven meters away, which was not much considering the speed he had moved at before.

<That’s him, right? Panther T-Rex?> asked Tyche, her speech over the subvocal system distorted due to her labored breathing.

Hecate answered, this time without sounding annoyed. <Panthera Rex, current leader of the Black Panther’s Eastcoast Division. B-to-A-Class supervillain, way above our pay grade.>

“Tststs, you’re just children,” the villain said. “Don’t you know you’re not supposed to break into other peoples’ homes?”

<Brennus, Tyche, I need to charge my staff up, so keep him talking,> ordered Hecate.

“How did you know we were here? I cut off all lines of communication,” Brennus said as he slowly, carefully drew his stun batons.

Panthera chuckles. “One of the books in there is actually a contrivance. Enchanted, so it doesn’t show up on sweeps for technological surveillance.

<Hecate, please tell me you can make some doo-hickey that scans for those?> asked Tyche.

<I’ll get right to it, provided we survive tonight.>

“Well, regardless of that, I should probably take you down already,” continued Panthera Rex, moving into a more aggressive crouching position.

<What were his powers again, Mr Exposition?>

<Power spread. Damage 6, Manipulation 3, Movement 4, Perception 2, Physique 6 and Protection 4.>

Tyche chuckled under her breath. <Wow, that was short… wait, I remember most of those from the briefing, but what’s the Manipulation 3 stand for?>

Their opponent didn’t give Brennus or Hecate time to answer as he charged forward, low to the ground like a flowing, bodyless shadow.

“Evade!” shouted Brennus as he jumped up, his right hand sticking to the ceiling, his right foot to the wall, holding him up. Tyche made a cartwheel back into the office, and Hecate…

Hecate just stood there, as if rooted to the spot.

No.

Panthera Rex was less than a meter away from her, his hands stretched forward, his claws ready to tear into her chest as he angled his charge upward.

No!

Brennus threw his baton. He did not have the time to make a proper throw, but his power armor compensated, and the baton flew as if thrown by an Olympic thrower.

It struck Panthera in the neck, the electricity discharging itself immediately as it made contact. That, coupled with the force of the throw, and the fact that it hit at just the right angle, slammed the supervillain into the ground, arresting his charge, and also dislodging a black throwing knife that had impaled Hecate’s shadow.

Manipulation 3, capable of binding living beings to a spot by impaling their shadows.

Hecate cartwheeled backwards, despite having a clear shot, to bring some distance between them at the same time as Panthera pushed himself back with his hands, then threw himself forward and after her, his clawed feet digging into the carpet for traction – but he was stopped once more when Brennus dropped down in front of him, swinging his second baton in as wide an arc as he could in the hallway, forcing the villain to abort his attack to avoid electrocution, throwing his upper body back and to the side.

Panthera Rex used his backspin to kick Brennus in the gut, with enough force to throw him back and force Hecate to retreat further backwards instead of aiming her attack; then, as he pulled his leg back in, he kicked himself off the wall and into the office, going after Tyche.

She can not take him alone, thought Brennus, catching his fall with a roll and charging forward as he pulled his stun gun out and readied his new grappling hook system. It might make all the difference.

This guy is just playing with us, and he is still kicking us around.

B006 Big Game Hunt (Part 3.1)

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He would have to think about a teamname another time, because now they had to act. And carefully so.

The restaurant, which was innocuously called ‘Hong Kong Kitchen’, looked like it had jumped right out of the catalogue for clichéd Chinese restaurants. Lots of paper lanterns and cheap red dragons.

Tyche snorted at the sight. “Seriously? That’s where they meet? They’re the Black Panthers, not the Black Dragons.”

Brennus nodded, even if she could not see it from her position. “True. No respect for tradition,” he compained.

“Children, focus,” Hecate reprimanded with a long-suffering sigh. “Brennus, you said your ravens can’t get in?”

He had to take a few seconds until he finally remembered. “That restaurant only looks simple. Reinforced front to back, so no blasting through the walls. The windows are reinforced, too. Soundproofing as well. And they have protected their electronics, it is all locked down. No outside access without tipping them off. And they can probably call reinforcements the moment they realize that something is wrong.”

She nodded, thinking it over. “We should still try to sneak in. Can you pick the lock for the back door, Brennus? Without them noticing?”

He would have rolled his eyes if she could have seen it. “Of course. I should even be able to take down any surveillance they have, once we get inside. We just need to be silent. By the way, we should switch over to the communication system I worked up for us.” You always forget that.

<Alright, how do we proceed?>, asked Tyche. She was vibrating, anxious to finally get into some action again.

Like we haven’t had too much action lately, thought Hecate, but instead went over the plan again – as far as they had a plan. Sneak in, have Brennus hack any computers, try to spy on the meeting that was supposed to take place.

Then they jumped down from the building they stood on, landing two storeys lower – Tyche caught her fall with a fancy roll, while Brennus simply let Hecate levitate the two of them down, then cast her veil around them – it was fragile, useless if you moved too quickly or attacked others, but very useful for sneaking up to a back door undiscovered and letting Brennus pick the lock.

Once the lock had been dealt with, Brennus cracked the door open just enough for one of his ravens to look inside. Through it, he saw a simple, red-carpeted hallway with a cheap, ornate occasional table beneath an even more ornate mirror, and three doors. Also, three security cameras. Luckily none of them were currently looking directly at them. Brennus sent his raven out to the closest camera, the bird extending a prehensile cable from its beak to allow him to hack into the surveillance system – it was mostly proof against outside interference – mostly by just making sure that there was no outside point one could access it through – but once one got inside…

As a rule of thumb, no mundane system could hold up to a Gadgeteer. Even an Exemplar-tier Gadgeteering power could easily work through even the most advanced security systems, provided they were not designed by any Contriver (though they could certainly destroy them simply enough) or a more capable (not necessarily higher-ranked) Gadgeteer.

The Black Panthers had neither, and thus their system fell within mere moments, giving Brennus full control of every appliance linked to it. Which wasn’t much, as it turned out. Cameras, telephones and the building’s internet connection, all his now. He put the cameras into loops – with Eudocia to monitor and adjust the loops if needed – and also put Eudocia to monitor any and all incoming and outgoing calls, as well as internet accesses.

They slipped into the building, closing the door and huddling together under Hecate’s invisibility charm, while Brennus took stock of the situation inside. Frustratingly, the blueprints showed three rooms which were not covered by the cameras he could access. Not good, those were the rooms most likely to hold sensitive meetings or items.

<I can not see the interesting bits. Kitchen, dining area, staff room… nothing interesting. At least the staff is bogged down by the customers – Friday night business and all,> he explained, half smug and half frustrated.

<How many rooms are hidden, and what could they contain?>, asked Hecate.

<Three rooms are hidden, only two of which – the customer and the employee bathroom – are included in the official blueprints. There is another room in an off-the-record subbasement which, according to what I can get from here, is completely locked down. Either a secret meeting room, or a storage vault for illegal merchandise.>

Tyche snorted. <So what? Let’s just go take a look, it’s not like they can stop us! No metahumans here, that’s the whole point why we chose this for the OP!>

Hecate sighed, having gone through this time and time again. <I told you, we only think that it’s unlikely that there are metahumans stationed here. And we’re not here for their merchandise, anyway. All we want is information, which we should get from their computer system. Speaking of which, did you find anything, Brennus?>

<Nothing on their wired systems. But the room in the subbasement is eating a lot of their electricity. And there is a separate computer in the manager’s office up on the second storey.>

Hecate and Tyche spoke at the same time:

<The manager’s office.>

<The subbasement!>

Brennus shook his head. How predictable. <I vote for the manager’s office as well. That is two against one, Tyche.>

<Alright, alright, jeez…>

B003 Forbidden Garden (Part 10)

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Gloom Glimmer had teleported the two of them back to HQ after gathering her ruined equipment. She’d left Polymnia in her workshop to try and salvage as much of it as possible, but the most important parts, her sonic system, were also the most vulnerable.

Two suits trashed in less than two days. This doesn’t really say anything good about my future as a superhero.

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B003 Forbidden Garden (Part 8)

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“You’ll never catch me, squirt!”, shouted her brother as he ran across the beach, away from her.

She just screamed in frustration, unable to get to him – he was five years older than her and had much longer and stronger legs.

“Tom, stop picking on your sister!”, said their father from where he lay on his beach lounger, bathing in the sun. “Sweetie, stop chasing him.”

She ran over to her father and replied: “He ripped my bathing suit!”, she shouted, showing him how one shoulder of her brilliant green suit had a small, barely visible tear.

He looked at her like a man who had been through this a thousand times before – which was quite accurate, actually. “Sweetheart, please. We can buy you a new one. We can buy you a hundred, and a hundred red ones as well. So stop fretting about.”

She pouted at him, but… “Can I have some that are green and red?”, she asked hopefully.

“Sure thing sweetheart. Now, go and play some more, will you? And tell your brother to come to me for a second”, her father replied, dismissing her.

Watching him chastise her older brother made her almost as happy as the promise of new bathing suits…

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