Weld didn’t move an inch, and my gut told me Regent/Shadow Stalker was off the mark.  My heart sank.

Clockblocker and Kid Win stopped walking and looked our way curiously.

Yeeah, this mission just officially went off the rails.

“Heads up!  Trap!” Weld shouted.

Wards Neo vs the Undersiders, here we go.

So the Undersiders have a mishmash of advantages and disadvantages…

• Advantage: Regent is controlling one of the Wards, giving an advantage in numbers 7-5 as far as bodies go.
• Advantage: Element of surprise.
• Advantage: Coil made this canon. Doesn’t actually help them win, but indicates they probably do.
• Advantage?: Wards don’t know the powers of Imp. We’re likely to find out what those are in the next chapter.
• Disadvantage: Shadow Stalker’s ammunition has been drained of tranquilizer, unless they brought bolts they didn’t drain.
• Disadvantage: Ward home turf.
• Disadvantage: Six out of seven bodies on their side are currently restrained.
• Disadvantage: Rachel doesn’t have her dogs and is therefore practically a mundane in this situation.
• Disadvantage: The 7-5 numerical advantage doesn’t count the mundane PRT soldiers that I think are still around.

Overall, the Undersiders seem to be at a disadvantage here, but who knows what Imp brings to the table. This could get very interesting.

Weld nodded.  I blinked a few times in surprise.  Tattletale hadn’t gone into this, hadn’t anticipated it. Weld had just tried to trip up Regent/Shadow Stalker, and Regent had anticipated it.  A bullet dodged.

Oh, okay. But in that case he’s stuck if Weld asks “Then who was it?”

I saw we were passing by a front desk.  I’d never been in the building, but I had passed by it a few times.  It was surprisingly empty.  There weren’t many PRT uniforms around, either.

Huh. Got business out of the building, perhaps?

“Who was it, then?” Weld asked.  It took me a second to parse what he meant.

Hah! I got the placement of the “then” wrong, but other than that I totally called it.

Shadow Stalker groaned, “Fuck off!  It’s me.”

“Hey,” he turned, putting one hand on her shoulder to stop her mid-stride.  “Who was it?”

He’s smart, and he’s thorough, and he’s probably read Regent’s file and knows what he can do. And the PRT knows that Tattletale has a way with knowing some things she shouldn’t, such as passwords.

She glanced at the group.  Clockblocker, Kid Win, Vista, and the girl from the Endbringer fight who called herself Flechette.

Think fast. Who would Shadow Stalker attack?

Or, let me rephrase that. Out of three mid-late teens and one early teen, who would a humongous asshole target?

“Clockblocker,” she guessed.

Fuck.

“Whatever,” Shadow Stalker replied.

Heh, at least he got a character with an easy out from having to make value-loaded replies.

“No.  This is serious.  You assaulted a team member.  I’m not about to let that slide.”

Regent, internally: “Seriously?”

Skitter, internally: “Of course she did…”

On one level, I wasn’t surprised to hear that.  I knew, cognitively, that she had that kind of personality.   But emotionally?  I hadn’t really believed it.  It caught me off guard to hear she was that big a problem in the Wards, as well.

On a third level, that’s one of the reasons you didn’t join.

I think the issue here might be not that you didn’t expect her to be trouble in the Wards too so much as that you didn’t expect her to be this much trouble to people other than you.

A few seconds passed before she finally asked, “What are you going to do?”

“After these guys are securely in custody, we’re going to have words with the Director.  She wants you on this team, for whatever reason, so I don’t expect your probation will be broken, but there’s going to be consequences.”

Seriously, what does it take to break that probation?

“Fuck,” Shadow Stalker said.

“And you’re going to apologize to Kid Win.  I don’t ever want you assaulting him again.”

To… Kid Win?

Wait, is he not talking about her interrupted attack on Vista? Or is he deliberately getting details wrong to check if “Shadow Stalker” calls him out on it?

Shadow Stalker paused.  “Stop fucking testing me.  I’m too tired for this.  It wasn’t Kid Win.”

Yeah. I guess Tattle filled him in on that too, unless Sophia did so during the torture session.

But Sophia’s smart enough that I’m pretty sure she’d give him wrong but believable information, at least at first.

There was a pause.

“Comanche Six-six-two,” Shadow Stalker spoke.

Didn’t hear anything from Tattle. I guess either he has access to Sophia’s brain, or they had prepared for this.

Another pause.

“Alright,” Weld confirmed, “Pick ’em up and haul them into the holding cells.”

It was all I could do to stay still and not show my relief.  Tattletale had anticipated this much, had drilled Regent on it, but she had been wrong in the past.

Phew. Alright, preparation it is, then. 🙂

Imp was lifted from on top of me, and Tattletale was picked up next, from right beside me.

I was among the last to get lifted off the floor of the truck.  Shadow Stalker held me until a pair of PRT uniforms could haul me to my feet and lift me by my armpits, my feet dragging on the ground, my head hanging.  I chanced a partial opening of my eyes, knowing my lenses would hide them, to sneak a sidelong peek at this ‘Weld’.  Metal skin, metal hair, and a strange melted-junkyard texture to his shoulders.  I’d crossed paths with him before the Endbringer event.

Yup! That’s the guy.

Pretty nice one too, maybe you should get to know him.

He spoke, his voice quiet enough that it was probably intended for just him and Sophia, “Where are the dogs?”

Another question they were prepared for.

“Tranquilized them, they didn’t go down.  Ran when Hellhound dropped.”

Weld nodded, “This is good work, but it doesn’t excuse or make up for what happened earlier.”

Looks like Vista tattled. Fair enough.

The vagueness of that statement isn’t exactly helpful to Regent, though. Did Tattle know anything about this?

“Basking in how fucking awesome I am?” Shadow Stalker gloated.

The other thing Weld is, besides shiny boi, is smarter than he looks. He’s probably trying to puzzle together how Shadow Stalker managed to take out the entire Undersider team, who managed to beat and escape the full old Wards team, plus Glory Girl and Panacea, that one time according to the files.

“Maybe later.  For now…” the accented male voice spoke, “Just satisfy my curiosity.  You know the passwords we memorize each week, and you know why we memorize them, right?”

Yeeah, he’s definitely suspecting that something’s up with Sophia. Tattletale, your turn. Unless Regent does have access to Sophia’s memories, that is.

“Yeah,” Shadow Stalker replied.

One of the other boys spoke, “For any interaction with any flagged shifter or,” the boy paused, “master.  Oh.”

And the Undersiders have two masters and an unknown (Weld can’t trust “Sophia”’s classification of Imp as a Mover 3 right now, nor am I sure that he’s seen that yet) among them, something Weld himself pointed out (minus the unknown) back in 9.1.

“So,” Weld said, “Keeping in mind that Regent is the highest rated Master in the city, I’d like for you to give us this week’s password.”

Oh wow. That really says a lot.

I mean, the fact that we’re even in this situation is already saying a lot, but still.

“Weld and the Wards are coming out to meet Shadow Stalker.  Heads up.”

Was that Tattle?

Let’s see how good Regent is at roleplaying.

The back door of the van opened.  I could feel cooler air enter the enclosed space.  There was an audible click of a gun, as if they were anticipating an attack the moment the doors opened.

I mean it’s probably not unprecedented.

“Wow,” one of the boys commented.  I was guessing it was Kid Win or Clockblocker.  “How’d you pull that off?”

Sounds more like Kid than Clocky.

I think. You know I’m not good at identifying characters by speech patterns, with some exceptions.

“They were distracted, I picked them off.  That little freak that saw me with my mask off was wearing armor, so I had to resort to CQC,” Shadow Stalker made it sound matter-of-fact.

CQC?

…

Close quarters combat. Took me a while, but I got it in the end. I think.

“Riiiight,” one of the other boys said, sarcastic.

What, you don’t believe that that’s the only reason she did that? o:)

“You’re quiet, Weld,” a girl’s voice.  Vista?

Who was Weld?

The shiny boy who smiled at you at the Endbringer meeting entrance, remember him? 🙂

“You hit me way too hard,” I murmured.

“Muscle memory,” Regent replied.  “Blame her, not me.”

Ah, interesting, so he has some access to that kind of thing. I wonder if he has access to her mind in any capacity? I mean, it’s made of nerves too. This seems like puppeteering of her body rather than controlling the mind, but he might have read access?

Wait, no, we’ve had a whole thing about mind reading, which is what that would technically amount to. The only known potential mind reader is the Simurgh.

“You alright, Imp?” Grue asked.

“Duh,” she replied.

Heh.

It was a good few minutes before the truck bucked into motion.  Out of unspoken agreement, we stayed quiet, just to be absolutely sure that the driver wouldn’t hear us.  It was maybe ten or fifteen minutes before we arrived.

Yeah, staying silent seems reasonable. Can’t take too many risks, and you’re supposed to be out cold right now.

“We’re at their headquarters,” Regent spoke, his voice hushed.

“Then we’re in good shape,” Grue answered.

Nice.

“No ears on us,” Tattletale murmured, “We’re good so long as we keep our voices down.”

“PRT is having words with the remaining ‘witnesses’ who stuck around to grab loot after the dogs ran off,” Regent informed us with a whisper.

I guess he has full access to Shadow Stalker’s senses, then. I suppose that’s to be expected. It’s hard to do a puppet job if you have to rely on your own senses.

“They’re backing up the story we wanted to sell.”

Perfect. I guess that’s why they bothered to act it out in the first place.

We’d passed one hurdle, at least.  The act could have gone either way – if we didn’t sell it well enough, we could have wound up with the PRT arresting us for real.

Including Shadow Stalker, I suppose. Man, imagine her waking up from whatever her consciousness is going through while this is happening, locked in a cell?

Maybe she sees everything, hears herself talk… She has a mouth and she must scream but the mouth is currently in use by someone else…

If we timed it wrong or if one of the looters decided to attack us while we were pretending to be tranquilized, something ugly might have happened.

Oof, yeah. The scene would’ve been much less orderly when the PRT arrived.

There was no reply to that, but a moment later, someone picked me up and started carrying me.  I maintained deep breaths, kept my body limp.  A few bugs congregated on me and the uniforms moving us, and I didn’t do anything to dismiss them.  Maybe they would distract the uniform from the fact that any of us were still conscious.

Nice.

I was placed on the cool metal floor of the containment vehicle, my hands cuffed behind my back.  A few seconds later, someone was thrown over top of my upper body.  Too light to be Grue or Bitch.  It would be Imp or Regent.

Hiya!

The metal doors slammed shut and locked with an audible shift of internal machinery.

So many ways this could go wrong.

Oh, absolutely, and I’m saying that while only having an idea about approximately one more step of your plan – “Shadow Stalker” letting you out within the place you’re going to. I’m not even 100% sure about that one and it’s still obvious that there are lots of ways this could backfire.

We had safeguards, of course, including but not being limited to Coil’s assistance.  Still, there was something profoundly unsettling about allowing myself to be cuffed and imprisoned.

I suppose Coil’s assistance in this case amounts to not having done it at all if they fail, unless this is a super critical mission. So in that case they’ve essentially got plot armor in that this being canon means Coil will decide it was canon. Also, they already have the unspoken plan guarantee, which counts for a lot even in a seat-of-your-pants narrative.

That doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll be a total success, of course.