It was funny how different different kinds of waiting could be.
I'd been doing a lot of waiting, lately, searching the city for the various gangs. I had a few pages of my notebook on E88 and Merchant possibilities, and Lung himself had all but pointed me at Coil's organization. That had been a sort of… relaxed watchfulness. Sitting on a bench or in a bus, watching the world go by one way or the other, waiting to notice a group of thugs, or maybe some prostitutes, or anyone that might lead back to the rest of the gang.
Just yesterday I'd sat in this same park, watched a game of Little League baseball go by in fast-forward, relaxed and ready for something to happen. Or for nothing to happen.
Nothing is what usually happened on stakeouts. But there was a sort of peace to that, an easy patience.
There was a game on today too — involving one of the same teams, even. The Medhall Monsters apparently had a doubleheader.
Today, every pitch dragged.
I thought about trying to count the leaves of every tree in the park again, but the attempt really hadn't helped the first time.
My awareness was spread out through every bug in the area — and I'd dragged as many into the area as I could. It was… it was like an Imax 3d theater, kind of. I could see everything, from every angle — at least where I had insects. I could see inside buildings as well as outside, simultaneously.
It was dizzying.
And, at the moment, all it meant was that I could see everything in what amounted to agonizing slow motion, tracking every detail as it passed.
I was pretty sure that was my head messing with me, not enhanced reflexes.
Waiting, when you knew something big was about to start… was just painful.
I'd prepared swarms, provided them with lengths of silk. I'd looked for places I could ditch the sweats and backpack if I needed to intervene in my own body. I'd done everything I could to be ready. And checked it. And checked it again.
The wait seemed endless.
Not even the arrival of E88 had really changed anything — and they'd come in force.
The construction site was for a midrise office building complex — the foundation was excavated for most of the buildings, a rough driveway laid out, and the steel frame of the central building was already more than half up. An hour ago, there had even been a construction crew at work. A hundred foot tall tower crane stood to the south of the building, a stack of I-beams still suspended at height, along with two excavators and a half dozen dump trucks.
Someone from E88 — big, wearing black leather and a crude metal wolfshead mask, his blond hair kept long and greasy — had 'invited' them to leave their phones and be escorted to a local bar, with drinks on the house for the evening. Rather civilized, really.
They'd done just that.
He was currently on the second floor of that central building, north side, pacing back and forth with a long, loping stride. Near him, a tall, heavily-built man leaned against a support beam: chain-wrapped arms crossed across a muscled chest, black slacks and bare feet, one leg bearing his weight and the other loose. The group's third was a young woman with a dancer's build and close-cropped white-blond hair, head enclosed in some kind of barred helmet, who sat on the floor with her legs crossed, eyes closed, two small scythes by her right hand.
Another group had gathered near the south-east corner, above where the I-beams were stacked for lifting. This group looked to be made up of teenagers — a blonde girl in a cowled blue robe, an older girl in a red bodysuit and domino mask with a symbol on her chest, a young man in black domino mask and a black breastplate over a crimson shirt and black slacks, and what looked like a complete albino wearing a tailored white suit with a white tie.
About halfway between the east side of the building and its center was a third group: two young blonde women who might have been twins, wearing what looked like some movie's idea of fantasy medieval armor, one with a spear, the other with a sword and shield combo; slightly behind them a heavyset man with close-cropped blonde hair wearing what looked like a military uniform, with extra silver skull decorations and round gold-rimmed sunglasses masking his eyes.
At the very center, facing west, sat a man in metal armor, upon a throne rising out of the steel floor beneath him. The jagged throne looked to be formed of blades, fanning out to form the seat's back. His uneven crown continued the theme, and there was a ruff of hooks and blades about his neck. The rest of his armor looked like platemail, as forged by a demented engraver with a love of sharp objects, menacing with spikes everywhere I could imagine and some I wouldn't have thought at all comfortable.
Kaiser.
If Lung was the most powerful cape in Brockton Bay, Empire Eighty-Eight was the strongest organization. The Protectorate as a whole was stronger; the Brockton Bay Protectorate… wasn't. The local Protectorate could field seven capes — another six if they called out the Wards. Thirteen in all, and the Wards weren't intended to face heavy combat.
The Empire had brought eleven today, and they hadn't brought everyone. No sign of Crusader, Night, or Fog.
And no sign of Purity.
That came as a surprising relief.
Numbers weren't everything when it came to capes — the fact that Kaiser thought he needed that many for Lung alone was proof enough of that — but they weren't meaningless either. And the local Protectorate just didn't have anyone as tough as Lung on the roster. They didn't have anyone as tough as Hookwolf, even. Dauntless, given a few years… maybe.
And like the Protectorate, E88 seemingly had no difficulty replacing their losses.
They drew on a worldwide population of skinheads, and concentrated their capes into one city and a handful of other organizations, Gesellschaft foremost among them. The Protectorate had a much wider area to cover. The end result had been an uneasy stalemate for over two decades.
Most parahuman gangs didn't last a tenth of that time. Even the ones that did, like the Teeth, had known defeat, exile, and rebuilding. Not Empire Eighty Eight. If they had not yet achieved their victory, made the Bay into their shining white city on a hill, neither had they yet known true defeat.
That, as much as any ideology, was what drew people to them. As many capes as they gathered, they gathered more normals. Today, that meant that the four cardinal directions of the property were covered by small groups of men — one in the open to deter passersby, the others dug in with shotguns.
It had become accepted doctrine that it was functionally suicide for a normal to fight a cape. Special forces still did so, not without success, but often took horrifying losses for their trouble. Many of the best were now in the PRT, primarily working as backup to Protectorate capes. Coil's use of mercenaries was one of the reasons people assumed he was a Thinker, Tinker, or both… because a gang of normals hadn't been summarily driven out of the city by their parahuman opponents.
And yet, there they were: unpowered members of Empire Eighty Eight prepared to try and fight Lung with shotguns. They believed. They believed in their cause, they believed in their superiority, and they believed in the strength of the Empire that had yet to falter.
If I wanted to end their presence in my city, that tradition of victory was what I'd have to break. I'd have to shatter it so thoroughly that they no longer even hoped for a new Reich; teach them that down this road lay only sorrow and pain, and that they should just stop coming.
And I didn't know what it would take to do that. If it was even possible. Hell, World War II apparently wasn't enough to stamp this out, and I was pretty sure that dwarfed any degree of force I could possibly unleash.
But if there were a way, it began with Kaiser. He'd led the Empire for almost as long as I'd been alive. Maybe they had another leader with his level of skill waiting in the wings… but I doubted it. Alive and free, he'd always be the rallying point for a fresh round of recruitment.
In a perfect world, Lung and Kaiser would both fall in the fight, the Empire would fracture, and the Protectorate could clean up the mess almost unassisted.
I was pretty sure this wasn't that world.
But I wasn't even sure how the fight would go, and that made it hard to plan how to change the outcome. I was sure that I wanted the gangs to go more than I wanted the villains gone.
Lung without his gang was limited. Some of the things they'd done — taking half the Asian kids in my grade, and pushing them to 'join or die' — took numbers. And sure, most of those kids weren't even in the running to be blooded members — more likely lookouts or mules.
Or whores.
I had reasons I wanted to eliminate the gangs in my city.
Besides my father.
Lung alone was dangerous, very dangerous. He would kill me if he caught me, and he would kill others as it suited him. But, unless he started recruiting again, he simply couldn't have the broad impact on the city.
And that meant going for Kaiser if I saw a chance. I didn't know what I could do to him. Maybe there would be a chance to intervene in the fight, or maybe I'd just follow him afterward and find an opportunity to fight him on my terms instead. A public defeat would be preferable. One at the hands of a 'subhuman' like Lung better still.
Of course, if he managed to kill Lung today… I could live with that too.
Stormtiger reacted first, moving from his slump to a balanced stance, pointing to the west. He shouted, and a ripple passed through the E88 capes, all of them reorienting to face west. I turned my own attention to the west: there was a road which currently formed a T-junction, but would become a four-way stop once the development was complete, leading directly into the broad avenue that terminated in an oval turnaround before the half-built central building.
And walking right down the middle of that road came a barefoot man, with dark jeans and a black longcoat. The half-set sun cast his shadow out before him, down the gentle slope towards the construction site and Kaiser. As he came onward, he opened that coat, revealing a chest entirely covered in elaborate tattoos.
Well then.
I rose from my seat on a park bench and began walking south, weaving around the strollers crowding the park on a fine Tuesday evening.
To my southwest, people were beginning to react to seeing Lung on the street. He wasn't wearing his mask — probably still in a Protectorate evidence room — but it wasn't as if there were that many six-foot Asians covered in dragon tattoos in Brockton Bay. Those on the streets were clearing out, a rush of people going up the hill the other way, and another going before him. A mother, picking up her daughter and ducking right back into the grocery store she'd just left, bags abandoned on the street; a young couple, hand in hand, the man clearing a way uphill through the crowd; even a legless man in an electric wheelchair, desperately trying to reach the intersection so he could turn away before Lung got wherever he was going. At those speeds, it wasn't going to happen.
Lung crossed the intersection at the same steady pace, traffic dodging around him.
I'd found my alley, and was in the process of ditching the backpack and sweats when he encountered the normals at that entrance. A word from Krieg into his walkie-talkie, and they retreated as he approached, falling back at a controlled run toward a ditch to the southeast — most of them. One, braver or more foolish than the rest, stayed in the trench, waiting until Lung was almost crossing it before popping up and emptying his gun. The volley of shotgun blasts rotated Lung a half step backward, and left him looking he'd been sandblasted. He directed an offhand stream of fire into the drainage ditch as he resumed his march toward Kaiser.
The exception was still in the ditch, madly rolling about in an effort to extinguish the flames.
Bare seconds had passed since Lung had crossed the property line.
Kaiser's hand rose; Krieg shouted into a walkie-talkie; and the Empire's capes took the field.
Hookwolf's group paused a moment to trade glances among each other, Cricket rising to her feet… and then darting forward. Stormtiger was swiftest, trademark claws of compressed air shimmering upon his hands as he rode the wind forward. Cricket managed the twenty-foot fall to the ground with a gymnast's grace, dropping into a roll and coming up into a sprint, kamas at the ready. Hadn't even cut herself doing it either. Hookwolf himself loped behind them, slow only in comparison, and though he leaped from the second floor after Cricket, what landed was a shape of steel and blades, a nightmarish jigsaw puzzle of sharp pieces in a vaguely quadrupedal shape that passed.
The younger group was slower off the mark: Victor set up a bipod-mounted rifle, every movement precise and graceful. Behind him, the cowled girl had jumped down onto the pile of I-beams and before him the albino in the white suit high-fived the red-suited Othala… and then blurred, moving faster than anyone I'd ever seen. He closed the quarter-mile gap in moments, charging right at Lung with a knife in each hand.
He ran right into a rabbit-punch that lifted him off his feet before the followup combination left him lying on the ground, an arm hanging loose and one leg with an extra bend in it.
Also, on fire.
But while Lung was crushing Alabaster, Stormtiger was descending upon them both. His aerokinesis had taken him in a long leap all the way from the building to Lung, and he struck as he descended, claws slicing through duster and flesh alike. A frozen moment passed on the landing, before there was an explosive blast of air that blew them apart. Lung rolled end over end before catching himself in a three-point stance, his left arm hanging useless from his shoulder.
Stormtiger had flipped in the air and glided forward to a soft landing, arms up and legs straight as if he were playing to an audience. A thunder-crack sounded as he landed, and as Lung twitched and fell to the ground I noticed Victor working the bolt action on his rifle. Behind him, Rune rose back into view, riding an I-beam like a surfboard and with another dozen rising up beside her. Stormtiger pointed at Lung, and the claws on his right hand reformed. Beside him, Alabaster stood back up, knives in hand. I'd seen regeneration before, but there wasn't a fading bruise on him and it looked like his clothing wasn't even dirty anymore.
The Empire's command group remained unmoving in the center of the building, watching. The blonde twins had their knees slightly bent, holding themselves coiled and ready, while Krieg's head twitched back and forth as he followed the fight. Lung might be facedown in the dirt, but they didn't look confident in the Empire's victory yet. Kaiser alone seemed unconcerned, leaning to one side of his throne and resting his head on his hand.
Cricket certainly hadn't slowed a step in her headlong run — fast as she was, she was only now approaching the fight… and Lung was rising, bloodied and maimed but grinning. As Cricket passed them, Alabaster blurred forward once more while Stormtiger launched himself upward. Was he trying to distract for them? With the shorter distance separating them, the albino got into melee before Lung could react, knives flashing everywhere to little effect. A burst of flame blinded him for a moment, and then he ate a side kick that folded him up and launched him back at the oncoming Cricket. She was dodging almost before the kick landed, and didn't break stride as she came.
Lung was clearly stronger than Cricket, but she was fast, dodging every blow he threw, kamas spinning in her hands, scoring his forearm and legs repeatedly, and twice drawing thick red lines across his belly in a flashing five second series of passes, before she threw herself diagonally backward into a one-handed handspring as Stormtiger dove once more. Lung couldn't adjust his body in time, and the claws cut through cloth and flesh alike once more. A frozen moment passed, Stormtiger's hand buried in Lung's abdomen. Then a corona of fire erupted around Lung, and an explosion engulfed them both.
I guess that's what happens when compressed air and an open flame meet.
When the smoke cleared away, it revealed that Lung had rolled backward perhaps six feet, dropping into the drainage ditch by the now motionless E88 soldier he'd burned alive, the fragments of his coat flaking into ash about him. Stormtiger's trajectory was high and arcing once more… but this time uncontrolled. He landed hard, and didn't rise immediately.
Alabaster was on his feet again, just as unruffled as before, but moving now with merely human speed. He started to run back towards the central building as Cricket pressed her attack once more. She charged Lung as he was climbing out of the ditch, and wove through his defenses with the same startling grace as before, but now her kamas met scales when they struck… and glanced off. Again, she aborted her attack, rolling clear just as Hookwolf pounced, landing an immense paw-swipe — it drew countless bloody lines across Lung's torso and launched him fifteen feet in the air, and four times that in distance at least, toward the crane south of where Kaiser waited.
I had my mask on, and was moving closer to the site, though on the opposite side of it from where the fight was happening. I didn't really want to lay eyes on them — the first rule of how not to be seen is leave no line of sight — but I did want to be close enough, if I needed to do something with my body instead of my bugs.
One building between my fragile body and the fight seemed about right.
Kaiser rose from his throne, hand dropping, and Krieg shouted into his walkie-talkie for the second time in less than a minute.
Lung rose to his feet, taller now, snapping his still useless left arm into place with his right — an ear-numbing crack, and Lung stumbled, hand to head, while Victor reloaded once more. An I-beam flew toward Lung a second later, but he slapped it aside, sparing a glare for the others floating about Rune.
Kaiser began walking south toward Lung at a measured pace — the twins behind him glanced at each other, and then broke into a jog toward the increasingly inhuman Lung. As they leapt down, they simply grew until their heads were above the second floor they'd just departed.
Forgotten in the distance, Cricket had helped Stormtiger to his feet, and they were making a limping withdrawal together. His right arm wasn't there below the elbow anymore, and fragments of the chains that had been wrapped around it were embedded in his side and legs, but she'd made a tourniquet of strips of her shirt.
Lung glanced around at the oncoming giantesses, and the beast of whirling metal coming up behind him, then reached out and hefted the fifteen foot long I-beam beside him like a whiffle bat, his fingers forming a contoured grip in the metal. A feint toward the twins, and he turned and swung at the leaping Hookwolf as if he were playing baseball, albeit with only one working arm.
He might have been good at it once.
He certainly launched Hookwolf back in a line drive that would have done credit to a pro. Fenja and Menja checked stride at the sight, and Lung seamlessly turned his rotation into a half skip and step before launching the I-beam between the two giantesses like a javelin.
Krieg's hands came up, and the arrow-straight flight of the beam at Kaiser turned into an uncontrolled tumble that bounced off the edge of the second floor.
Kaiser hadn't even broken stride.
Nor, as he came to the edge of the floor, would he have to: the I-beam thrown at him was warping itself, shifting into a stair for his footsteps as he walked onward, hands still clasped behind his back.
Lung was nearly nine feet tall now — the smallest of the four fighting in melee, but still growing. Fenja struck him with a sword longer than Lung was tall and he took it on his forearm, leaving a wound that showed bone… briefly. The injury didn't stop him from dodging two of Rune's hurled I-beams and headbutting a third, and by the time he used that same arm to slap Menja's spear aside and charge her, there was no sign he'd ever been wounded. Menja took his claws and flames without a scratch on her thighs, and kneed him fifteen skidding feet backward. Hookwolf leapt at his back, and Lung twisted to meet the charge with remarkable quickness… only to lose his footing as Krieg gestured. The twins stepped in, Fenja going for a decapitation and Menja trying to pin him through his torso like an insect, but Lung threw Hookwolf at Fenja, tangling her feet and sending her stumbling into one of the I-beams angling up out of the ground, and rolled to the side just as the other valkyrie's spear came down. Another crack from Victor's rifle made Lung pause and shake his head… but nothing more.
It was now one minute since Lung had crossed the street, and no one had since landed a hit as telling as Stormtiger's two.
Which had now healed.
The conclusion was inescapable: this was Lung's style of fight. Any conflict where he wasn't losing… he would win.
Eventually.
Kaiser had to know that, too. Why…?