Battery surveyed the crowd again.  “What’s your agenda?”

Y’know, I really like this sort of upfront conversation between hero and villain-with-good-intentions.

“Do I have to have one?”

“Yes.  Your kind always has an agenda.”

That’s a bit alignmentist, but not unjustified.

“Maybe I’m unique.”

“No, knowing what you tried to pull with pretending to be a villain?  Or pretending to be a hero that’s pretending to be a villain?

Heh, yeah, figures there’d be a bit of uncertainty around that. She either tricked the Undersiders into thinking she was a villain or she tricked Armsmaster into thinking she was trying to be a hero. Either way, she had a facade and a plan.

You’re more likely to have some scheme at play than anyone else.”

That might be a bit of an exaggeration, but I see what you mean.

As if noting what I was looking at, she glanced at the crowd encircling around us.  “I don’t agree with this.”

That’s a very interesting way of putting it. She seems to be implying that she doesn’t think she has any right or duty to stop it, even if she doesn’t think it’s right, even if it’s being done by a known villain (with a heroic side if Armmaster is to be believed, admittedly) using quite possibly stolen supplies.

“But you’re not going to stop me, and you’re not going to try and arrest me, despite what happened the other night,” I answered her, “Because I’m the lesser of a whole lot of evils that are in the city right now.”

Sure seems that way.

“Mm.  For now.”

Yeah, that’s fair.

“For now.  Until then, I’ve got supplies from an outside agent, I’m not stealing them from the same sources you guys use, and I’m getting them out to these people at my own expense.

Hm, yeah, it’s a good idea to be upfront about this. Essentially going “I’m not stealing this from you” probably helps tip the PRT perception of this further away from “problem”.

I’m policing this area until the police can get back to doing it themselves, and I’m dealing with people who need to be dealt with.  You’re not about to get in my way, are you?”

The big question is to what extent Battery is speaking for the entire Protectorate here. She did talk with console before doing anything, but how much of this is just her?

She spent the accumulated charge of her power and caught the knife out of the air by the handle. “How does this tie into the stunt you helped pull at the HQ?”

That’s a pretty good question, considering what the PRT knows about Skitter and the Undersiders. Namely not that they’ve got Coil.

“The Wards’ building?  The intel we got from there was valuable, and that kind of money buys a lot of things.”

Right, that’s a pretty decent – and mostly true – answer. Dragon will be interested and horrified to know this.

I looked at the remaining pile of supplies.  The majority of the crowd had stopped collecting their boxes to watch the fight with the Merchant and my exchange with Battery.

I wonder what they all think of the way Battery doesn’t seem to be doing anything to stop Skitter, other than stop her from going too far against the Merchant.

The volume of his screams increased.  As I lifted my foot, he moved his hand, rolling onto his back to clutch at it, dropping the knife in the process.

This guy is turning out to be pretty good for setting an example.

I bent down to pick up the blade, and when I stood up again, Battery was ten feet in front of me, one pace closer to me than any of the rest of the crowd that ringed me and the Merchant.

Oh, right. ‘Course, the heroes don’t like that.

Then again, she might want to take this guy in too. He did threaten the crowd with a weapon and attempt (provokedly) to seriously maim or murder Skitter.

“I can’t let you use that,” she gestured towards the knife.  There was a faint glow from her costume.  I gathered she was charging up her power.

Ah, is she worried about Skitter turning the guy’s knife on him?

“Wasn’t planning on it,” I lied, swarm buzzing in sync with my words.

I was expecting her to say this honestly, but fair enough.

I’d considered stabbing the guy in the hand or somewhere where it wouldn’t be terminal, but hadn’t been certain on the route I would go.  I reversed the knife and gently lobbed it towards her.

Fair. I don’t think it’s necessary at this point – in fact, using a weapon other than your bugs might undermine what you’re doing here, example-wise – but fair.

I extended my arm and let the bugs flow from beneath my costume in one swift movement, like water poured from a cup, covering him.  The crowd backed away as the man began screaming incoherently.

“My turn.”

He threw himself backward into the inch-deep water and rolled around like he was trying to put out a fire.  Maybe he was – the bugs I’d set on him were laced with capsaicin.

Heh, nice.

As his thrashing continued, I waited patiently, watching.  As he used one hand to prop himself up in a crawl, I stepped forward onto his knife hand.

Yeah, might as well disable that for the time being.

My heel settled on his knuckles, and after I’d readjusted my footing, I ground it down, letting most of my body weight rest on that heel.

Ow.

I was interrupted from my thoughts.  A man shouted, and I saw the crowd backing away.

Ah, shit. Heroes, Merchants, desperate person who didn’t get a box?

Either way, this sounds like trouble.

It was one of the men who’d had a weapon.  He’d drawn and swung a crude knife to ward people off and grinned maniacally at the reaction he was getting.

Of course one of these guys ended up causing trouble. No real surprise there.

The scruff of beard on his chin was white, but it seemed rather premature given his apparent age.  He was shirtless, with a long sleeve shirt tied around his waist, and scratches crisscrossing his upper body.  His buddies stood back, smirking and grinning.

Huh, interesting design.

At least it’s not Jack Slash, unless he’s got a pretty good disguise.

It was a bad judgement call to pull this right in front of me, but I supposed people were at a point where they weren’t at their most rational.  That, or he was high on something.  I could see him as a member of the Merchants, either way.

Yeeah. To all of that.