I spoke quickly, “Grue, shut him up.”

Grue raised his hand.  But he didn’t blanket Armsmaster in his darkness.

Yeeah, Grue already noticed that something was up, and now you want him to stop someone from telling you what? Not gonna happen.

“She’s a wannabe hero.  Has been from the start, since the night Lung was first brought into custody.”

Grue’s hand dropped to his side.

I’m also curious about Miss Militia’s reaction. Has Army told her about Skitter?

“I met her that night.  She said she was a hero, that you Undersiders mistook her for a villain.  I didn’t think twice about it until she arranged a meeting with me, the night before the bank robbery.  Told me she had joined your group as an undercover agent, getting the dirt on you so she could hand that group over to us.  Talked to me again the night you raided the fundraiser, out there on the balcony.  Told me if I let her go, she’d get the details on your boss to me.  Guess she hasn’t gotten around to figuring that little detail out, yet.”

Man, if you’d just stopped before that last sentence, you would’ve left Taylor in a lot more trouble than you just did, I think.

The Undersiders know for a fact that Taylor has figured out that detail, about a week ago (or a little more? the timeline is getting a little less solid for me as time goes on, but I do believe they mentioned to Coil that the events of Buzz happened the day after those of Tangle, and the meeting was a week after Purity’s rampage), but now Army implied that she hasn’t gotten back to the Protectorate about it yet.

“The way the Endbringer’s physiology works?  You could detonate a small atom bomb in his face, he’d probably survive.  Take him two or three years to recover, but he’d survive.”

Sheesh.

“Shut up!” Armsmaster raised his head to shout at her.  He stopped, eyes flickering to me.  When he spoke again, his voice was almost calm.  “You don’t know everything.”

That’s true, but the irony is still great.

You don’t know everything either, Army, and one of those things happens to be what Tattletale is all about.

Knowledge is power and her power is knowledge.

No.

“Her,” he pointed a hand at me, “She’s not who you think she is.”

Weeeell shit.

Here we go.

Man, this would be a great time for my occasional hypothesis that Tattle knew all along to turn out true. Not sure the rest of the Undersiders would take it quite as well, though.

“So, I’m guessing you don’t want this getting out,” Tattletale spoke, looking at the heroine, “Let us walk away, I keep my lips sealed.”

“I know you were tired, that you hadn’t slept all last night,” Miss Militia told Armsmaster, ignoring Tattletale, “Frustrated, your dream taken from you.  But to go this far?”

Yeah, damn. I’ve known you were a reputationaholic dickbag for a while but this is quite the leap.

“It was for the greater good,” Armsmaster replied, without a trace of shame or humility, “If it had worked, Leviathan would be dead, the man holding Empire Eighty-Eight together dead.

Aaand it’s a confession.

And are you seriously saying that you going one-on-one with Leviathan would give you better chances of killing him, something even Scion doesn’t seem capable of? Geez, man, you were admittedly awesome in that fight, but get over yourself.

All of us survivors would have been legends, and this city could have risen from the ashes, become something truly great.”

“It didn’t work,” Tattletale spoke, “Couldn’t.”

Hah! I just realized the dramatic irony of me thinking Armmaster would die with a heroic sacrifice to redeem himself. I hope you guys got a good laugh out of that! 😛

“Shut up.  You’ve said enough,” Armsmaster spat the words, looked away from her, breathing hard.

This is what happens when you don’t let her talk.

Legend frowned.

Armsmaster lunged forward, swatting Grue aside with his armored hand.  He shoved Regent aside, reached for Tattletale.

*shakes head sadly*

Army, Army, Army… are you trying to break the truce even further? Right now you’re just up against accusations of breaking the truce. If you attack Tattle, it’s a certainty.

A laser to the right shoulder spun him around, sent him sprawling to the ground.  His armor smoked where the laser had made contact.

Something Legend is well aware of.

“Who!?  Why!?”  Armsmaster flopped over, saw Legend with one open hand aimed at him.  “Legend?”

Miss Militia pointed her handgun at his lower face.

You’ve lost, Army.

Armsmaster scowled at her.

“This is a serious set of accusations,” Legend spoke.

“Sure.”

Absolutely. If any of this is true and provable, Armsmaster’s fucked.

“But it’s speculation.”

Tattletale shrugged, “Take Skitter’s armband.  It’ll have damage from the EMP hit.”

😀 And there’s out potential proof.

“You bitch,” Armsmaster snarled, “This is a lie.”

Wrong Undersider.

“Check the armband,” Tattletale repeated, “And you’ll see the truth.”

“Convenient that this would take days or weeks to check,” Armsmaster spoke.

“True, so how about I just do another announcement?  Tell everyone that’s still wearing an armband an abbreviated version of the same story I just told you?  How do you think they’d react?  If you’re really innocent, I’m sure your name would be cleared eventually, after the test results came back from the armband.

Reminds me of the process Armsy was so pissed about having been through after Taylor rotted Lung’s dick off.

If it’s wrong, we get get in everyone‘s bad books for fucking around with an Endbringer situation.

Sounds solid enough, though either way, Armmaster’s reputation is going to take a hit. Question is whether it would be temporary or permanent.

It just occurred to me that this absolutely falls under “taking advantage of an Endbringer situation”. If Armmaster is found guilty, he’s almost certainly going to the Birdcage.

Hell, I’ll even submit to being detained while you get things checked out.  You can take me from there to jail if I’m wrong.  Either way, you get some jerk in custody.”

Heh.

Armsmaster raised his voice, “This is exactly the sort of manipulation-”

“Elaborate,” the one spoken word from Legend was sufficient to cut Armsmaster off.

She’s got his interest.

Army, if this is true and/or Tattle manages to convince Legend of that, you’re fucked.

“Armsmaster has a fancy computer system in his suit, set it up to predict Leviathan’s movements and actions.  Clockblocker tagged the Endbringer, put him on pause long enough for Armsmaster to set up the playing field the way he wanted it, with that predictive program.  Leviathan’s going after the people who can make forcefields, and Armsmaster uses this, dangles Kaiser like bait, puts more villains – Fenja and Menja- in the way to Kaiser.

Ahh, so that’s the point of showing both before and after the pause. Before had a natural distribution, whereas afterwards there were only villains after – *looks back at the list* Wait, no. Never mind all that. Where does Kid Win fit into this? Did he just get in the way without Army planning it?

Sure enough, Leviathan marks Kaiser as a target, charges through the conveniently arranged villains, and goes straight to the spot where Skitter is.”

“Oh no,” I heard Miss Militia mutter under her breath.

You’ve got her too.

“This is nonsense,” Armsmaster spoke, stabbing his index finger towards her, “Heroes died too.”

Tattletale didn’t hesitate a second in replying, “To your credit, if any credit is due, that was an accident.

Also, the two heroes who died did so before Leviathan’s villain-killing streak. The one hero in the streak was only “down”, unless he died after Taylor’s armband broke.

Your program can’t account for that many variables, probably, in the chaos of a bunch of capes trying to keep Leviathan pinned down.  Either way, Leviathan did as you wanted, followed the path you plotted.  You used a directed EMP blast to nuke Skitter’s armband, ensuring that she couldn’t report Leviathan’s position and call in reinforcements, buying you time to take on Leviathan one on one.

The EMP blast that we were just reminded of the existence of as Army tried to get his Halberd out to use it on Tattle. Good writing, that.

Who cares if she dies, after all?  She’s a villain, and you’re positive you’ll win, that it’ll be worth the body count you just allowed Leviathan to rack up.  Except you lost.”

And was saved from bleeding out by Skitter of all people. The irony is thick.

“Skitter’s right here, she’s not dead.”

“My armband broke,” I replied.

“Did it?  Or did someone break it?”  Tattletale’s gaze went to Armsmaster, her voice dropping in volume to ensure that our ‘audience’ didn’t hear.

I considered that possibility back when someone asked me what I thought had happened to the armband, but I don’t know why someone would intentionally do that.

…

Maybe so they could have Skitter join the Wards under a different name and costume, with the Undersiders not knowing a thing?

“What are you implying?”  Armsmaster growled.

“I’m implying that you set things up to guarantee yourself a one-on-one fight with Leviathan.  Who cares, after all, if some villains get murdered in the process, if it means stopping an Endbringer?”

…holy shit.

The breaking of the armband did happen when Leviathan crossed into Skitter’s area. Armsmaster knew enough about Leviathan to possibly predict that he would go there, allowing him to send Skitter there in the first place, having rigged her armband in particular. Then he could go there himself, potentially kill Skitter if she was there, and then claim Skitter was dead before he got there, just check the logs.

The one thing against it, besides him not having been particularly murdery in the past, is that he genuinely sounded surprised to see her alive. Was he acting?

“Except that you could be bluffing,” Legend frowned.  “You’re a master manipulator, according to Armsmaster.”

“True enough.  You know, Alexandria was giving me a recap on what I missed, in exchange for my intel on the Endbringer.  Let’s see… Armband, find me the largest break in casualties from the earlier Leviathan encounter.”

Oh yeah, the intel! Since she’s alive, the Protectorate can know about those!

Found.

“Mark this time period.”

Marked.

“The notifications in the minute before the mark?”

Sundancer down, ED-6.  Eschutcheon deceased, CD-6.  Herald deceased, CD-6.

If I remember correctly, this was when Taylor’s arm got broken. Herald was the guy Trickster exchanged for Clockblocker.

Ah, right, the largest break would be those minutes while Leviathan was frozen, of course. Is Tattle going to bring up Taylor’s importance in saving Clocky?

“What is the point of this?” Legend asked.

“Please replay us the notifications following the mark, until I tell you to stop.”

Fairly sure this would include Taylor’s request for a teleporter for Clocky.

Manpower deceased, CD-6.  Aegis deceased, CD-6.  Fenja down, CC-6.  Fenja deceased, CC-6.  Kid Win down, CC-6.  Skitter deceased, CC-6. Kaiser deceased, CC-6.

Or, wait, I misunderstood. Taylor’s request would be during the mark, since the mark covers the entire break, not the beginning of it.

And there we have it: The moment Skitter’s armband broke and she was reported as deceased.

I could see Tattle going for “Are you going to persecute a ghost?”, but that doesn’t work for long.

“Stop.”

“What is the point of this?”  Legend folded his arms.

Yeah, I don’t know either. Especially the first bit – if the point was only to bring up Skitter deceased, CC-6, then what’s the relevance of the bit before the break?

Also, Tattle’s kept bringing up the Protectorate having something to hide. Maybe it has to do with the apparent breaking of Taylor’s armband?

The only option the Protectorate has other than releasing Skitter is to take option 2 and bet on Tattle bluffing with her intentions to shatter the truce.

That’s not a risk they can take.

“Free speech is a wonderful thing, isn’t it?” I saw Tattletale’s lips moving as she broadcast the message.  She wasn’t holding any buttons down on her armband, but it was going through with no difficulty.  Miss Militia held a handgun pointed at Grue’s heart.

Killing a semi-hostage isn’t gonna break the truce any less than killing Tattle.

Other capes were in the vicinity, some of the Travelers, New Wave, out of towners.  Not quite in earshot, maybe, but close enough to see everything unfold.

Excellent.

The heroine looked at Armsmaster as we arrived, “She said something about deep access, offered your name, then the armband asked her for your password.  She knew your password.”

Ahaha nice.

“Armband, pause announcement,” Tattletale spoke.

Acknowledged.  Her armband replied.

With his one arm, Armsmaster reached for his shoulder, but his Halberd wasn’t there.  Photon Mom had apparently decided not to bring it when she’d carried him here.  No EMP burst possible.

*sticks tongue out in Armmaster’s direction*

“Let’s negotiate,” Tattletale spoke, taking a step to one side, ducking a little to ensure that someone else was always in between herself and Miss Militia.  Bitch scowled as the gun moved to point toward her head, with Tattletale roughly on the other side.

Ah, right, she wasn’t trying to aim at Grue, he was just in the way.

“Negotiate?” Legend asked.

“Sure.  Let’s turn things around.  You gave Skitter your three options.  Here’s my three.  Number one: Shoot us now, and confirm to everyone in this room, civilian and cape alike, hero and villain, that you’ve got something to hide.  It doesn’t even have to be lethal, people will still have their concerns if you knock us out rather than let us talk.”

Yeah, no, that one’s out.

Legend nodded, “Okay.”

“Two: I do my little announcement, and the truce ends.  I really don’t want to do that.

Yikes.

I recognize how necessary it is.  But if you decide that one cape’s identity maybe getting publically revealed is worth the truce, well, that’s on you, not me.”

Yeeeeah, nope.

“And the third option is that we release the girl,” Legend guessed.

“You got it,” Tattletale spoke.

Tattle has really put them on the spot here, and I love it so much.