By the end of the night I wouldn’t call our groups close friends or anything like that, but I felt like we had at least set a foundation we could begin building some trust on.
Another win for building unity based on sharing discs of dough covered in grease and cheese!
On a more serious note, the Undersiders had agreed to follow our orders once the downfall of the Empire kicked off. We managed to set up a few basic outlines to follow based on what we expected to happen and ways to contact each other in case of an emergency while brainstorming battle plans around each of the Empire capes we expected to run into.
Most of those had the Undersiders either acting as support for my Peerage members or trying to run away if they were on their own, but we did want a few contingency plans just in case that wasn’t an option.
And funnily enough, that was the activity that had Skitter the most engaged of the night.
I wasn’t sure if she had taken offense to Tattletale and Grue essentially giving up the moment they were presented the opportunity to run away or just really liked versus debates – but she and Clover formed a temporary partnership to argue how any mix of Peerage and Undersiders could beat a presented lineup of Empire capes.
Granted, Clover’s arguments were based more on passion than facts most of the time but the two of them could be scarily imaginative when they had the opportunity.
Sam and Alex didn’t participate directly very much but seemed to enjoy throwing little twists into every scenario, even if it ruined one team’s current argument. The fact they spread out their twists evenly between groups meant it kept the discussion fun rather than frustrating. Something Regent attempted to ruin at times by asking ridiculously over the top questions and arguing down any attempts to deal with them with the same unfailable logic of an internet troll.
By the end of the night I think everyone was fed up with him asking what we would do if Eidolon showed up to support the Empire with his ‘everything-proof forcefield’.
Pretty much everything had worked out… which made the knowledge that things were going to go to hell again in the next couple days a bit bittersweet.
I’d much rather host pizza parties while trying to make new friends than deal with murderers in the streets. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to make that call.
‘Dragons always attract challengers.’ Ddraig commented. ‘It’s just something you’ll have to get used to, Partner.’
‘That’s not even the part that bothers me.’ I mentally complained. ‘It’s the fact that I would have been fine doing my own thing if I was just left alone, but people keep pulling me and my friends into this bullshit game of capes and deciding the rules don’t apply to them. I already know the PRT is going to decide I’m somehow escalating the situation even if I just do what the Empire has already done. It’s annoying.’
‘Hm, there’s an easy solution for that.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Just prove to everyone you’re strong enough that it’s in their best interest to do what you want. Follow any rules you put down.’ The dragon explained, ‘And when you set the rules, only the exceptionally stupid ones are going to ignore them. And at that point the smarter ones will step in before it becomes your problem.’
I snorted at the very dragon-like answer, but at the same time I felt like a small bit of the weight had dropped from my shoulders.
Ddraig was right. I was never going to be ignored now.
Whining wasn’t going to help. The only thing to do was lean into it until other people realised the best thing to do was keep the idiots away from me and my friends.
And once I looked at the problem that way, I started to feel better about the upcoming mess.
This wasn’t me cleaning up a mess I didn’t really want to deal with, it was a public demonstration on why messing with me was a good way to get crushed into the ground. There would still be people that’d want to poke at me just to prove they could, but like Ddraig mentioned, if it was in everyone else’s best interest to keep people like that away from me I wouldn’t even need to worry about it that much.
Yeah, put that way I was even getting a little excited about it!
My Peerage was going to show the whole world why you don’t want to mess with us!
-o-
Coil’s plan to unmask the Empire didn’t unfold all at once.
It started out small. One person at a news station getting an email here, an automated message going out on the internet there, and people in certain positions all over the city reacting to those things and spreading it farther far faster than someone only just discovering the information should have been able to.
As more information became public, people began talking more about it. Sharing what they heard or investigating more if they didn’t know about it.
Very quickly, the potential leak of every identity in the Empire 88 became the only bit of news people were talking about. And just when people were beginning to clamor about if what they were seeing was the real deal, a local news station dropped a very professional report on all the information being shared.
Detailed summaries of pages and pages of documents, side-by-side comparisons of each named Cape just like what the Empire had done earlier with each member of the Peerage, and even the occasional quote from people that interacted with the Empire capes in their civilian identities.
A very professional and detailed report that was somehow ready to go only a few hours after the first leak began yet created pretty much damning proof that the leaks were legitimate.
The only major change I’d managed to make to the whole plan was that Coil had ‘decided’ to take credit for the unmasking himself instead of pinning blame on my Peerage like he originally planned.
Predictably, the Empire went ballistic.
-o-
“I got ‘em.” Carl announces while the images on his computer screens finally stop jumping around every two seconds. “Alabaster, Crusader, and Stormtiger are leading a bunch of foot soldiers through Downtown. Cricket is with Stormtiger. And Hookwolf is rampaging through the Trainyard on his own.”
“That’s it?” Sam asks.
“So far.” Our resident tech expert shrugs. “Of course that doesn’t mean the others aren’t out in the city somewhere, just that no one reported it yet.”
“It’s enough for a start.” I said. “Do we know what the PRT are doing about it? The Police? New Wave?”
“The police are out in force trying to contain the Empire foot soldiers where they aren’t backed up by a cape, but they seem to be more focused on slowing them down than trying to stop or arrest them.” Carl informed us. “The PRT Troopers are starting to back them up, but the Protectorate hasn’t been seen yet. No idea what that means for us.”
I shrugged at that. It wasn’t exactly surprising the Protectorate was being held back after I passed on Coil’s plan regarding the Empire. They were either waiting for reinforcements, more of the Empire capes to show themselves, or some other plan I didn’t have any info on. Or some combination of all three.
Of course they could just be waiting to take advantage of us and the Empire fighting. But we had plans for that.
“As for New Wave, Laserdream and Shielder called a little bit ago to tell me they were heading over to the Boardwalk to help keep that area clear. Glory Girl is planning on meeting up with the Wards. And the adult members are going to patrol some other parts of the city to make sure some of the independents don’t try taking advantage of the chaos.”
I nodded. As expected, New Wave was taking a more defensive approach.
Individually, they were all pretty good against most of the Empire capes. But that wouldn’t help them if a dozen gang members decided to shoot at them all at once. And unlike the Protectorate, New Wave couldn’t count on trooper support to make sure that didn’t happen.
From a tactical standpoint, it might have been better if they all stayed together and gone around attacking each group of gang members, since almost no Empire cape was going to be able to beat a group of seven capes dropping on them even with support.
None of us had exactly felt comfortable digging into Crystal’s ongoing family issues though, so it was hard to say if the separation was because it was the plan New Wave had agreed to, or the one they had to use because tensions were still high.
“Okay, then just like we planned. Alex and Clover will start dealing with their weaker powered capes while Sam coordinates with the Undersiders to start taking down their unpowered members.” I said, looking at each of them in turn. “Gloria and Amy are on standby in case any of you needs backup. And Carl and Paige will stay here and coordinate comms and any new info that comes in.”
Paige hadn’t actually joined my Peerage just yet, but it felt awkward to leave her out of things completely. So instead of pressuring her to join or asking her to hide in her room for the rest of the day, I just offered her a chance to watch how we worked and help out if she felt like it.
She turned out to be… I wouldn’t say pacifist, but fairly nonviolent. So in the end she volunteered to be an extra set of eyes for Carl while he did his thing.
…and also being an extra set of hands to keep Lily off of his keyboards.
“Got it!” Alex bounced, while doing a fist pump. “Who are you going after then?”
“Unless one of our three priority targets decide to make an appearance, I’ll be taking down Hookwolf.” I replied and looked around the room. “Everyone ready?”
I got nods from everyone in the room.
“Then let’s go take down another gang.”
On cue, a bright red teleportation circle bloomed under our feet and in a flash of light we were transported above the city.
Six pairs of bat-like wings snapped open, and with one last nod to my Peerage, we scattered in different directions.
It was time to remove the neo-nazis from my city.