Warlord

Chapter 10

Getting up to answer the door I turned to Lisa. "Best Behavior." My voice a bit more growling then I intended but it got the point across. She fucks with Taylor, I would… I didn't know what, but no one would be happy about it. Also she should be thankful my place was small, fifteen feet only went so far.

All of the fancy locks on my front door had unlocked by the time I reached for the knob. "Hey Taylor!"

"Hey Aster." Walking inside she then accepted my invitation for a hug while she eyed Lisa. "So this is…"

"Lisa." Spoke the teen cooking. "Pleasure to meet you, I made extra." And judging by all the stuff she had out, she really did. Lots of food all over the counter. A big thing of pasta. The oven full of chicken.

"Yea, and also things don't say secret around her for long, so uh she probably already knows about stuff." Sure she probably knew that. PHO spread Lisa's claims of being a psychic, and I knew Taylor did her research just like I had before going out… on the same night. Oh and I told her right before she came over.

The tall athletic teen wandered over, bugs hidden in her hair. "I thought you were a blonde."

"Illusion!" I chirped interrupting Lisa making something up.

Our resident cook frowned. "Way to take the fun out of everything." Still she pulled out some plates and began to pile stuff on. "Anyway, yes I'm Tattletale (for now) and you're Taylor, the infamous bug girl the PRT suspects is friends with our resident goddess."

"What?" Taylor and I said before we made it to the food.

"Gang members attacked by a girl with bug powers but somehow if nazis were involved they all were missing organs like someone deleted them. No one died of bugs so they think you're capable of being reasoned with unlike little miss anarchist who'd sooner tear down the government building and toss the entire PRT into the bay." A knife sawed through a piece of her breaded chicken and plopped it into her mouth to punctuate.

Wincing from the fuck up on our shared patrols I gathered my own plate and sat at the kitchen islands little stool bar thing. The whole meal added to my library of matter which I'd probably need to trim down on at some point… if possible, I'd never tried forgetting something intentionally before. "Fuck this tastes good."

Taylor glared as she took a seat beside me. "How do you know what the PRT—"

"Back door access into their systems on account of my former boss, and some power based password guessing. PRT agents aren't as good with password security as you think they are." Her vulpine grin held for a moment before she dug into the spaghetti.

We fell into eating while Taylor poked the villainess for info. Or I fell into eating and not talking. Why talk when you have food that needs to get in face hole as fast as possible? Especially good food. It'd definitely end up in my regular meal circulation.

However the moment dinner ended for Lisa, she demanded her old laptop which I pulled out of my catalogue. Immediately she plugged in, connected and began… yup that was the PRT remote worker login. Fucking thinkers. A few more clicks and she brought up case logs. "Winslow, Winslow, Winslow… Aha! PRT took this case from the police and closed it a minute later. I'm guessing Sophia Hess is Shadow Stalker, and would you look at that, the case was taken and closed by her Probation officer. No one else in the department touched the record. Now lets see what Ms Davey has been up to." More data more accounts. She pulled out the other laptop and looked up a few things online with her banking apps.

At some point Taylor and I ended up behind her seat on the couch just watching her dig through webpages, bank logins, police records, PRT records, and a million other things she probably shouldn't have access too.

"Wait." Taylor spoke up. "Is that Principal Blackwell's bank account?"

"Yup, turns out she and Ms. Davey have been funneling funds through the school in the guise of financial support for having a ward, into their own pockets."

"They covered it up to hide embezzlement?!" Every bug in her hair buzzed and hissed. "This whole time—"

"Six months, Shadow Stalker got caught and put on Probationary status six months ago. From these records, Blackwell started siphoning the money the moment it showed up, Ms. Davey didn't start until a month later, where funds started going into her account. Probably got caught by the probation officer, but rather than turn her in she joined in. PRT desk jobs don't pay well and it wasn't like Sophia nor Blackwell could tattle, they'd be imprison with her for all the shit they'd been up to."

I sighed my rage not even being able to build up because at this fucking point this just sounded par for the course. "Taylor can I kill your principle?"

"No."

"Please? She's evil, and an adult."

Turning and batting her eyelashes the villainess gave Taylor a puppy dog look. "Taylor, can I ruin their lives, by leaking this information, and then using my power to break them until they're sobbing wrecks on the floor? Please?"

Groaning, Taylor threw up her hands and decided to walk away. The few bugs in my range going wild despite her still emotioning normally.

"Won't they be able to trace your log in to my place if you leak stuff?"

"It's called a joke, Aster. Point is, the PRT seems to have a lot of skeletons in their closet. Maybe you're whole anarchism thing is right. We should start a gang, with the empire about to die, and the ABB gone there's a nice little—Oh come on, what'd I say?"

Mid gang talk I walked over and hid in my pile of blankets and plushies. I'd been trying so fucking hard not to let Bakuda get to me and now my own roommate was saying I should take over the city. "I'm not Lung." The words muttered under my breath.

Rolling her eyes Lisa closed downt he PRT connection and powered the laptop off before wandering over and plopping into the blanket pile with me. "Alright, I owe you a million times over, so I'm gonna play therapist. What's up?"

Taylor noticed the commotion and seemed to take Lisa's que to also walk over and sit next to me in the pile of soft. "Is this about the other night?"

"I'm supposed to be the adult here!" My whining changing nothing as I found myself pulled into a hug. Then a second hug. "And yea… it's… Bakuda said things."

"Let me guess she compared you to Lung? Said you should rule over the city, then you said no because you're an anarchist, but more importantly because you don't have a leadership bone in your body."

"… Lisa your power is bullshit." My frown unable to withstand her shit eating smirk which I could see no matter where my eyes looked. "And yea… but then she said I was a hypocrite for calling myself goddess, and when I still said no she… called me a Hookwolf, that I was just being a plausibly deniable attack dog for the PRT doing what they legally couldn't while they denied the bad stuff and took credit for the good."

Rubbing circles on my back my friend spoke up, "You're nothing like Hookwolf. He's a nazi who kills minorities, you kill to protect people. I don't… like it but I do think the city is better off without the nazis and no one else was going to get rid of them."

"Oh they weren't. Everyone in the cape business knows that the Empire managed to slip Marquis's location to New Wave and then convinced the then director to take Lustrum who was vehemently anti-nazi and throw her in the birdcage after her lieutenant murdered allfather. There have been a lot of gangs that have come and gone but guess which one the PRT has never birdcaged a single member of?" My roommate spoke a disturbingly believable tale. The cops were fascists, and the PRT were cops and the Empire had never lost a member to the PRT despite being around longer than any other gang, despite having more members deserving of being birdcaged.

"Well they uhm, the file has all their info yea?"

Lisa grinned, "Yup, Coil used me to get the civvie identity of every non-hero cape in the city (before you two joined the scene) but I held onto those files. All their civvie identities, plus I threw in a list of their stash houses and fronts."

"So tomorrow the Empire falls," I'd make sure of it. "But like… Bakuda and you are right, there'll be a power vacuum and then the Elite, or the Butcher, or Accord, or someone new is gonna fill it…"

"And you want to have your own gang but it's against your morals and even if it wasn't you don't know how to run a gang." Finished the thinker.

"Yea… so do I make one or do I uhm, just find one I like and let them run the city?"

Taylor chimed in, "I used to think we could just clean up all the gangs and the Protectorate would hold the city."

"But the Protectorate are just another gang and they aren't even a good one." Lisa with all the answers. "Well Goddess, My vote is I start a gang, and you're my enforcer, I'll clean up the city and run things, and you just beat up all the people who get in the way. We can even make it an anti-fascist anarchist thing, like the teeth but with less mutilation and murder. You'd be our butcher."

"The Teeth are anarchists?" My head tilted as I peeked at the brunette.

"Yup! Not communists like you but very much anarchists. They're anti-fascists, and are against rape and sexism too."

That broke my brain… the teeth? The murder hobos lead by a reincarnating leader?! The ones who wear the bones and skin of their enemies as trophies are anti-fascist anarchists? That… that was uhm… I'd not been looking forwards to fighting the Butcher, but with the PRT being evil, and thus never trusting them to take away a villain again, the only way I could stop the butcher would be… killing her. Something that'd make me the butcher and as great as my power was, I really doubted it'd stop the reincarnation thingy.

Taylor had frozen up at the surprising takes on the Teeth too. "Aster, no teeth."

"But they're literally nicer than the PRT and every gang left in the city!"

"They wear people's bones!"

I huffed. "They'd be the first gang in the city against rape. And the only way I could get rid of the butcher would be to murder her and that's like the worst idea."

Lisa fell over giggling into my lap. "Aster, you're adorable, I wasn't expecting you to actually like the teeth, but maybe you should try being number fifteen."

"No people in my brain except me, thank you very much. And they'd make every day a bad mental health day… I have enough of those." I sighed. "Maybe I should bust Lustrum out of the birdcage."

The giggling ceased. "Fuck you could actually do that… and it's not a terrible idea, maybe grab Marquis too. He'd be a perfect gentleman about the whole city if he hasn't changed." Her now brown eyes stared at me. "You want me to find the birdcage don't you?"

"… well its them, or the Teeth. And the Empire falls tomorrow, and so we could do a birdcage break out the next day, or that night. Or fly to Boston to talk to the Teeth." I looked up at my friend. "Thoughts?"

With a dispassioned sigh, Taylor spoke. "I just… No Teeth. But Lustrum sounds… she and mom…" Oh right, Taylor's mom and Lustrum—

"You're mom dated Lustrum?!" Yup, Tattletales power figured it out. "Okay, so I guess I have to track down one of the most classified facilities on the planet. Sure, no biggie. Did you know Panacea's dad is Marquis? Wonder if she'll hate us less if we break him out."

Oh right, Panacea hates me… fuck. I still needed to learn biokinetic healing from her! My body fell back into the blankets accidently taking Taylor down with me. Luckily the soft pile was soft. Also we were both indestructible. But mostly the soft. "How do I make Panacea like me?"

"That girl hates everyone but her incest crush." Uhm… what the fuck did Lisa just say?

"What?!"

Sitting up finally she grinned like the devil. "Oh that? Panpan has a lesbian crush on her sister. Turns out being a poor little abused meow meow made her cling to the hot blonde who cares about her and accidently makes her feel good with her powers sometimes in her soul crushing existence as everyone's heal slut."

"Lisa if she's being abused why were you verbally tearing her apart with your power… yesterday?" My face paled. That happened yesterday?! I hated this city, people needed to chill and let me relax.

"She threatened to give me cancer for robbing a bank! The hostages were for show. None of them would have gotten hurt but she tried to be a hero and attacked with a fire extinguisher."

Taylor sat up from the pile of soft, and glared. "You robbed a bank, and took her hostage. Of course she'd fight back!"

"And then I'd be thrown in jail by the flawless PRT, and held there until they got me onto their little child soldier program or my child kidnapping boss broke me out to be his drugged up little thinker pet." Lisa glared at her. "But yes, defend the people who covered up your trigger event."

Sitting up immediately, I tossed a plushie at Lisa's head. "That last bit was too far."

Taking the plushie she threw it right back at my face. "Fine, I'm sorry, trigger trauma isn't something to use against someone. I'm a bitch. Happy?"

"Yes." I replied, plucking the plush out of midair where it had stopped before hitting my face, at the same time Taylor said, "No."

"Well Max Anders CEO of Medhall is Kaiser, and the entire company is a front." The self-titled bitch said wandering back to the couch. "Aster, maybe look at those notes I gave you?"

"Kaiser runs Medhall?!" Wow I really needed to actually look at those, and thus summoned the folder up and opened it. Yup, Kaiser's real name, address, and, "Purity is ex-wife Kayden Anders? They have kids… well foster care is better than nazis. Oh and he's dating his two secretaries which are frenja and menja… wow."

A hand thumped me on the back of the head a moment later. "She just deflected from the whole torturing panacea and outing her secrets, and using my trigger against me."

"Well, she apologized to you, and I'll have her apologize to Panpan later." Then I waved the file in her face.

"But what part of Kaiser runs the biggest business in town that is like a large chunk of the cities entire remaining economy, isn't shocking to you? I'm going to be murdering the CEO of Medhall tomorrow!"

"Oh right, I should liquidate those medhall stocks tonight." Our thinker said from the couch typing away at her keyboard.

Taylor stood up and dusted herself off. "I think I'm going home. Thanks for dinner."

Before she made it to the door, I hopped up and hugged her. "Let me fly you home! You're not in costume, don't have a gun, and this is former ABB territory, no late night travel alone."

"…Fine."

And with that I princess scooped her up, and Lisa set her laptop down. Right, she needed to stay with me too. Well I wasn't gonna pick her up princess style, so I simply levitated her, exited the window and flew off with the stealth field around us all.

Upon dropping Taylor back off at her place I took Lisa in my arms and went for a joy flight around town. Something to look at and do while we had a talk. "Lisa,—"

"I messed up." The girl in my arms actually pouted. "She's… I messed up. She's clearly in a very dark place and I'm fucking things up because you're basically her whole support network and I'm making her feel unsafe around you. And she's definitely borderline suicidal but doesn't realize it because she's never put it into words. I fucked up, it took me too long to realize, I promise I'll try to fix shit."

The worst part was she, for the first time, looked actually upset, and with herself. My aura showing she was barely above eye watering with tears. "I… I get it, I'm a massive fuck up with social stuff too—"

"Yes, you are. But I'm supposed to be good at people, and I missed it until I'd already dug my hole." She watched the city lights rather than look up to me. "Look, I just… don't do well with-with suicidal people. I caught that bit of her too late because she was too busy liking you, and hating me. Fuck."

Coming to a stop, hidden above the roof of Medhall, I decided to land and let her talk about this, not in my arms. She stood up while I took a deep breath. "Look… I knew about that with Taylor. I kinda figured stuff was going there but she didn't seem like she's shutting me out yet."

"Well no shit, you've got this weird co-dependence thing going on," A moment later she tossed out a hand as she turned to face me. "but that's the problem! I damaged that, and without it she'd probably just kill herself, or do stupid things until she dies. That's a fucking problem."

"Then she'd still be better off than when I found her. I found her in the middle of fighting Lung. She hadn't started letting her dad in to help with her issues. Now I have her looking at therapists, her dad is looking for lawyers, and she now at least knows why the world was fucking her over. Infinitely better place. Don't beat yourself up, but maybe, please try harder to be nice?"

Lisa rolled her eyes. "I can and will. I just didn't know I was dealing with-with that." The last word left her staring off into the distance.

"Wanna talk about it?"

"Not while sober." Wandering to the edge of Medhall's roof, unphased by the winds, the teen looked down at the massive drop. Illusionary brown eyes then flickered back to me. "I'm not gonna jump if you're worried. If someone's going to die, then it's not going to be me. Coil? Kaiser? Sure, but not me." Her fists clenched at the end and she took a step back towards me. "Want to raid Kaisers office for goodies, or you waiting till tomorrow?"

Putting on my thinking face, my mind churned with what to do. We stood atop a building built and maintained by nazis. The lynch pin of their empire. I needed to do something to it, but there were people inside who might not know about the empire relations, bringing down a skyscraper was also super dangerous.

But it was big, and visible and everyone in town could see.

"Tomorrow, but I think I leave a message." And with that I took off with Lisa, and left a message.

No Pasarán