Warlord

Chapter 11

The late morning breeze caried the scent of the ocean, as we sailed on through towards the massive building with a message painted in big bold letters across its face. My flight took Lisa na dI right up to the fucking CEO's office, right outside the window. Inside the nearby board room we found Kaiser, and his two nazi hang-ons talking in civvies with Purity.

"They're arguing about leaving." Tattled the girl in my arms, hidden with me in front of the window. "Kaiser's trying to convince Purity to move with him to Boston, leveraging their daughter."

"Is she still a racist fascist?"

"Oh without a doubt."

That's all I needed to hear. Pressed up against the glass I felt one of the twins and Kaiser come into my aura, and I had him shut up. Puppetting people took too much coordination, but making them still and silent? Easy.

Purity had the most dangerous power here, in that she could probably escape. Which meant the others got to sit tight, even as metal began to sprout from the ground. Metal that barely made it an inch of growth before it ceased to exist.

Before Purity could react to Kaiser using his power, the window vanished in a hole big enough for too, but the air stayed still despite the height. Less than heartbeat later I moved in and all four were within the aura and unable to leave. Their powers activated but I simply annihilated their brains and had four corpses fall to the ground a moment later.

Entering I sealed the window behind us. "Think you can use their phones to message the rest to come in?"

"Duh." and the villainess leapt out of my arms and walked over to pluck their phones up. "I'm also going to want to use his computer in the meantime. Any plans for the bodies?"

"I'm not creative enough, but people need to know they were nazis and that they're dead now. Ideas?"

"Still got that usb?"

I summoned a second copy of the file and pulled it out. "Yup!"

"I'll break into his computer toy with is info, call the rest of the capes to join us and then we can post all the proof along with pics of the bodies to PHO."

A big smile stretched on my face. "And that's why you're the brains."

"and don't you forget it, now come on, your aura has pathetic range." And she sauntered off into his private office. Her fingers typing away and in three guesses managed to unlock his computer and begin digging into emails and financial records, and all sorts of personal things. Funding vanished, emails saved and sent out to people who Kaiser really wouldn't want to know about.

Then pulling out one of the phones she unlocked it in one try and sent texts out to the remaining empire capes to come in for an emergency meeting. A few messaged back and she effortlessly convinced them over text to come in.

Then with a flourished spin of the office chair she looked out the other window. "You know, we really could rule this city, just the two of us. The empire held it for decades and we just took them out casually as if it were the easiest thing in the world. Coil will be tougher, he knows I'm coming, but—"

Tattletale turned back around and typed a few things away on the computer. "Luckily, Kaiser already began looking into who was stealing down town from him. And I did my own digging during the bank and well, lets just say he's not as clever as he thinks he is."

"Thinker powers OP."

"Says the cape with local omnipotence, and a thinker rating." Rolling her eyes she smiled. "Anyway you might want to clean up the boardroom, the rest of the nazis are going to freak when they see the bodies."

Right, and that's why she was the brains! I levitated them into the office, since I didn't want to add nazi corpses to my matter catalogue, seared into my brain for possibly ever. Then I threw up a stealth field as we waited.

And waited.

Lisa kept digging through files and doing stuff with the informational access of the formerly third richest man in the bay, and CEO of its largest company. Something about her power and informational access made her giddy.

Not long after, two people walked into the board room who could only be Victor and Othala. The looked around growing suspicious, while we walked up invisibly, and I murdered Victor and knocked out the child bride.

Not long after that Stormtiger entered.

Then Crusader.

"That's the last nazi cape in the bay. Congrats, time to out them and leave the bodies?" Not even waiting to ask she sent off the emails with incriminating evidence, and posted on PHO a link to all the files, and a big ole post about how Medhall exposed as Nazi front, Kaiser CEO. A second thread moments later, Empire toppled by Goddess of War, and Tattletale. Taking their smart phones she took pictures of the dead capes in civvies and uploaded them with new accounts.

I looked down at the sleeping woman with an eye patch. Being the generous and benevolent goddess I was I decided to heal her eye for her. I figured it'd help her feel less connected to her past. Fucking nazis. "Any idea on where to leave her?"

"New York?" Humming as she too stood over Othala She continued. "Let's leave her on Legend's doorstep. For funsies."

That did sound fun. So a moment later we departed, I flew south at insane speeds, a teen in my arms, and a newly freed woman levitating beside us. Then as I saw the skyscrapers of New York for the first time, my partner in crime helped me track down the Protectorate HQ of the city.

Invisibly bringing the woman in I decloaked for a moment. "Hey I'm a leave her here, take good care of her." and a moment alter we rushed out as people freaked out about capes appearing, and dumping a strange woman on the floor and then leaving. Alarms rang, but they couldn't stop us as we zipped back to Brockton Bay and into my apartment to watch everything unfold online.

It was delicious.

The thread started off shocked, confused and disbelieving, but by the end of the hour, Bragart confirmed everything including us dropping off Othala in New York. My few loyal defenders defended me as people talked about the six dead bodies posted online, and attacking capes in civvies being shocking.

Others celebrated with temp-bans that the Bay was finally going to be somewhat safe for minorities. Some folks speculating that I'd joined the Undersiders while others think I recruited Lisa after the bank. So many threads spawned. Things got locked. News stories started digging into all the details as people watched Kaiser in videos calling for the extermination of the undesirables.

Probably the most controversial thing posted was the list of supporters. Including over half of the wealthy white families in the bay, including the Stansfield family.

I noticed partway in that Lisa opted to focus on her search for Coil and also the Birdcage's location. Didn't stop me from enjoying the mess that was the fall of the Empire. Heck it hadn't been a full week since I toppled the ABB too. My reputation was spreading. Perfect. The cape who could topple gangs casually, could fly around the world, completely invincible, and hated nazis.

The best reputation.

Well some people hoped that meant I'd stop with the murders.

I wouldn't. Heartbreaker was next at the top, right with the endbringers.

In the midst of everything I shot Taylor a message. One that explained that Lisa was beating herself up over how the night went, and maybe hinted that she had a minor breakdown afterwords about it. Also that I would always be there for her if she needed it and if we needed privacy from Lisa while hanging out I was capable of making that happen.

Her reply was pretty barebones, just an 'okay'. Something that in Taylor speak meant that she probably dwelt on it a lot. She struck me as the kind of girl who thought way to long and hard on things.

"Alright! I think I've got Coil figured out, and a plan for the birdcage." With a vulpine smile she opened the document on her laptop and turned it to face me. "You're gonna love this. This here is one Mr. Calvert. CEO of Fortress Construction. And also Commander Calvert of the PRT."

On the screen was a photo ID of a very tall man, dark skin, wearing an frown that could make children cry. According to the document he was seven feet tall! Fuck, that was like over a foot and a half taller than Lisa and I. How in the fuck did a seven foot tall supervillain go unnoticed. Had no one fucking seen him in person? Then again Hookwolf and Lung were also extremely tall… maybe something in Brockton Bay was making men into units.

"See Kaiser was looking into people who could afford to hire mercenaries and unfortunately there are only so many rich men in the city. Not to mention a rich black man had him already digging into Calvert. However he didn't have Access to secure banking files stored at Brockton Central." Placing a large amount of emphasis on those last few words she waited. Why was she waitin—OH!

Her grin was a mile wide. "Exactly! Kaiser's personal dirt on him and the bank's info I dug into both pointed to one man able to afford the mercenaries in the bay, and house them without anyone suspecting a thing. Turns out there's a lot of Fortress construction sites that have falsified records, which I kindly liberated. Secret bases all around town to hide his mercs and move them unseen while using his company to launder money, and being a high ranking PRT agent means he sits in on all the important meetings.

"Combine that with a potent thinker power, and voila, a supervillain that managed to conquer downtown without anyone knowing a thing." and with that she spun the laptop back around to click off the file.

Fuck that… the PRT had another fucking criminal asshole abusing power and privilege rather than personal gain. How many child abusers did the PRT fucking have? Did Armsmaster molest the wards in his spare time? "How do we kill him?"

"I haven't a fucking clue how his power works, and he's got a lot of people working for him. I was thinking we could shadow him with your stealth, record him doing stuff, figure out how his power works and then when we get access to where he keeps all his records, I shoot him in the head and take over his villainous empire." A moment later she pulled up her other laptop and accessed the PRT remote site. "Everyone is all hands on deck for dealing with the fallout of the empire, so he's probably at work right now. Anyway want to know about how we can find the birdcage?"

"Yes!" Immediately I was bouncing in midair excitedly. I was going to break Lustrum and maybe Marquis out of the birdcage! Something supposedly impossible but nothing could stop my power… except my incompetence. And doors. Unless I wasn't being stealthy.

"Have you heard of Bad Canary's case?" She received a nod. "Well they rigged the court and she'll likely be sent to the birdcage, now if we follow her in, we can break her out along with Lustrum and whoever else your bleeding heart decides to save."

Again, at least one of us had good ideas. Only I paused as I thought about it. "When would that happen?"

"One to two weeks, I'll keep an eye on the court case."

"And Coil?"

"It'll be a while before we hit, so yes you have a few days to relax."

At her words I landed a moment later. My mind racing with what to do with my free time between killing and freeing gang leaders. Hmm, I promised to kill heartbreaker and that'd be easy. Still needed to help Taylor with her whole suing everyone thing. Also, apologizing to the Dallon sisters because I still felt bad about that, and Lisa needed to apologize too.

Peekign at my roommate I asked a very simple question. "Want to kill heartbreaker first, or apologize to Panacea and Glory Girl?"

"Heartbreaker."

"Okay, do you know where he's at? That'll be a quick trip, right?"

Clenching her fists, she bit her lip. "Are you sure your power can stop his?"

"After facing Glory Girl's aura? Yup, and we can be stealthy and murder him in his sleep just to be safe… oh and I can put you in stasis, and back up both our brains and then take you out and you can help me check for mental influence after the kill in case something slipped in." Yea the whole backing up my friends like save files to be resurrected whenever I wanted was a nice perk of being the strongest ever. I had a copy of Taylor from every single visit, though I still wanted to keep current Taylor alive. I could uh, avoid losing my only friend in the event of her untimely death.

Lisa too at this point.

Speaking of her long stare at me must've tipped my hand. "You can bring back the dead? No cloning?" A long sigh escaped her. "Sure lets murder Heartbreaker tonight, nothing better to do anyway."

"Well, if we're doing that tonight, then we have all day to apologize to the Dallons."

"Aster no."

"Aster yes!" I chirped before pointing at her with a finger that poked her arm. "You pointed a gun at Panacea and tried to shoot Glory Girl and then proceeded to verbally tear them apart, and you admitted that Panacea's abused so hurting a vulnerable girl is like the dickest of moves, so you're going to fucking apologize to them with me."

Swatting my hand away she groaned. "Fine."

And then I stood up and threw my costume and new red eye illusion up. "Okay then lets go!"

Lisa stood up and walked to the bedroom to change into her costume. "There, lets get this over with. I want to dig more into Coil while he's distracted."