Summus Proelium

Needless to say, none of the people on my team wanted to miss out on the chance to actually do something about the Scions. It didn't take long before we were all gathered near the entrance to the Ten Towers main lot. I was there with Qwerty perched on my helmet, as we stood right alongside Alloy, Style, Poise, Calvin, and Hobbes, with Trevithick waiting in the nearby van to see what she could do. I had made it clear that while she could come to see what was going on and how she might be able to contribute, she was not going into that apartment building if and when the time came. Fred had backed me up, and was in the van as well, with his own mask to hide his identity.

Rubi had gone over to talk to Caishen to tell her that she was accepting the offer to join them, while Amber was inside somewhere, having a very long and probably hard conversation with a bunch of adults about what she was going to do now. Though I felt quite certain that it wasn't going to be the last or the longest conversation about that. They were basically just going through preliminaries to determine whether she could help with this immediate situation right now. I could see the remaining members of the Minority, Raindrop, Wobble, Syndicate, Carousel, and Fragile standing on the other side of the lot, watching the building where Amber had gone. She’d had just enough time to have a short reunion with them (well, the ones besides Izzy) before having to go inside. Not nearly long enough to actually talk about everything they needed to.

Besides our two teams, the two conscious and ready members of the Spartans, Skin-Head and Versed, were apparently teaming up with the Ten Towers group of Skip, Ephemera, Stick, Bunglebotch, and Linesight. They didn't have much in the way of choices, since the rest of their team was out of commission.

Then there were the Seraphs, or at least the ones who were going in. Hallowed was here, standing out in his bright, glowing gold armor and clearly metallic wings with a massive sword strapped to his back, directly between the wings. Beside him stood Gloam, one of the Seraphs I hadn’t had any real interaction with so far. Her costume made her look sort of like an armored Grim Reaper. It was a black cloak with a hood that was open over dark-colored body armor with a slightly glowing skeleton image painted over the front, and a skull-shaped helmet. She carried a long scythe that could convert into a rifle of some sort. Gloam’s power allowed her to create areas of darkness and areas of light. Not only did that mean she could make it harder for people to see, but she could also take anyone who was in one of her darkness areas and make a duplicate of them in the light area. If she did that with Touched, she could actually give the duplicates their powers, but they were weaker than the original. And the more powers she copied that way, the weaker they were. But still, Gloam was pretty strong and could definitely turn the tide of a big fight.

Lucent was there too, of course. He was perched on the shoulder of another Seraph. This guy was on the smaller side, a few inches under six feet and with a thin build. He wore a white bodysuit with a dark red cape, a red mask with a white horizontal strip like a blindfold around where his eyes were (the eyes themselves were completely covered so the material must have been see-through), and red boots and gloves. His name was Turf, another member of the Seraphs I hadn’t interacted with before. From what I understood, his power was somewhat similar to Hallowed in that he affected the area around him. But whereas Hallowed empowered an area to make himself and his allies stronger and his enemies weaker the longer he stayed there (and empowered the objects he carried and wore), Turf could basically create various areas of any size or shape, as long as he could physically see them, and change any numbers of factors within each area. He could make them very warm or very cold, create wind, make any non-living material incredibly bouncy, slippery, sharp, hard, soft, anything like that and probably more. And he could do all that in multiple different areas at once. He could make a ten foot circle around someone he was fighting incredibly cold, with slippery ground and an oppressive wind blowing right into their eyes, while creating another area right next to it where the ground was very bouncy so that his allies could jump over a wall.

Oh, and of course Patchwork was there too. Though she definitely wasn't in healing mode. It was easy to forget that her power had combat applications as well. For healing, she might have copied the status of any body part she touched onto another matching part, but she was also capable of physically manifesting the parts of any person or animal onto her own body. That included creating larger versions of animal parts that would actually work for her. And she could mix and match as needed. In this case, the woman had obviously visited the zoo. Because she had the armored scales of a crocodile all over her body, along with massive gorilla arms, tiger-like paws with their attached claws, a thick shell on her back like a turtle, and what looked like the head and face of some sort of bird of prey. Probably so she could see a long distance.

Qwerty was spinning in circles on top of my head, taking all this in at the same time as me. He kept calling out greetings to everyone, introducing himself and waving cheerfully. The poor little guy had been so starved for any interaction that he was ecstatic to be around so many people now. I was pretty sure he was slapping labels on them with his power, which might end up causing potential issues with secret identities later, but that was a conversation I would have with him when we had a moment. At the very least, I was going to tell him not to actively use it to expose anyone, and that if he did identify any Star-Touched later, to keep it to himself unless it was an emergency. That probably wouldn’t solve every issue, but it was something.

Even as I was thinking about that, another group approached to join the assembled teams. Two of the newcomers I recognized immediately. They were Kriegspiel (a tall guy around six foot five with long gray-black hair, who wore a brown duster over tan body armor, with a black mask over the bottom half of his face and an Indiana Jones-like sable fedora) and RePete (black turtleneck, green camo pants, army boots, green ski mask). As usual, both of them had guns, though RePete won on sheer quantity. Whereas Kriegspiel wore two simple-looking (but definitely Touched-Tech) revolvers on either hip, RePete had the same, along with a shotgun over his back, another pistol on either ankle, and two more pistols halfway up either arm. And that was just what we could see. The guy liked guns. Probably because his power allowed him to rewind a few seconds and try a couple more times if he missed the first shot.

Like Skin-Head and Versed for the Spartans, those two were the only active members of the Conservators. But rather than join one of the other teams, they seemed to have come with their own reinforcements. The first one I recognized was Echo, the former Minority member turned mercenary years ago, in her dark blue trench coat, black cargo pants, and white helmet with blue visor. She was the one who had turned in Jennica, and apparently she had stuck around.

Alongside those three was a guy I recognized only through the news. It was Big Top, a Conservator Touched from Chicago. Despite the name, he was only about five foot eleven inches tall, wearing a costume that wasn’t too unlike Grandstand’s, with the whole ringmaster motif. His consisted of black pants, a red and black long-tailed coat, golden shirt with a red bowtie, and a black top hat with gold around the band. If I remembered right, his own power had something to do with being able to manifest all the abilities of people from the circus, though with exaggerated effect. Like his ‘strong man’ could actually lift several tons, and his lion tamer could literally control non-TONI animals.

Finally, bringing up the rear while staying several feet away from everyone else was another vaguely familiar figure. She had dark burgundy pants that had very intricate-looking gold patterns running across them. They almost looked like script or lettering of some sort, though I couldn’t actually decipher anything legible out of them. Her long-sleeved shirt was the opposite, gold with burgundy lines running along the arms, while her gloves and boots were black. She also wore a burgundy helmet with a gold visor so we couldn’t make out anything about her face.

It took me a second to remember her name. Lexeme. She was another Chicago member of the Conservators. Normally I wouldn’t have known anything about the powers of someone who operated so far away (I only knew Big Top’s because there was a time when I’d thought he and Grandstand had some sort of connection so I looked it up), but in this case, hers stood out a lot. Basically she could say any word and that word would appear in physical form, like she was in a comic book and it was a word bubble or something. Though without the bubble. Anyway, the words she manifested had their own powers related to what she wanted and what the word was. I’d seen video footage of her saying the word ‘SHARP’ and making each letter of the word fly off to cut through a bunch of chains. It was neat.

“Uh,” Peyton, moving up beside me, spoke softly. “Did we suddenly teleport to Chicago and nobody told me? I thought we were locked down.”

She was talking quietly, but evidently not quietly enough. Big Top turned to look our way, giving a light chuckle before waving. “Hey there! Sorry to intrude on the party, but our superiors thought it might be good to send in some reinforcements for our counterparts here.” He gestured toward RePete and Kriegspiel. “From what we’ve heard, you’ve all been doing a lot to pick up the slack. It’s some damn good work. Now with a little extra help from Echo here, maybe we can all team up to put this Scions problem to bed once and for all so the city can start putting itself back together.”

Echo, for her part, grunted. “I told you all before, I’m only here to make sure there’s still a Detroit left when Flea wakes up. Don’t start clearing out any offices for me or plan for me at the team Fourth of July party. This is strictly a temporary situation. Very temporary.”

Oh right, yeah, Echo and Flea had been friends back when they were on the Minority. I vaguely remembered reading something about that. It was before I was old enough to really pay attention too much, but Echo had decided to become a mercenary and took off before ever graduating from the Minority, whereas Flea had stuck around and joined the Conservators. I had no idea how much bad blood there was between them for that, but apparently it wasn’t enough to stop Echo from wanting to do something to help Flea during all this. That made me wonder if she’d want to step in and help when it came time to actually deal with Pittman. Since she wasn’t officially part of the Conservators and had turned Sell-Touched a long time ago, there was a good chance she wouldn’t tell anyone what we were doing. And she also probably didn’t have any connection to the Ministry, since as far as I knew she had made it a point not to operate anywhere near Michigan until now.

It was something to think about, at least.

Style, stepping up on my other side, spoke casually. “Anyone who wants to help stop this place from getting flushed completely down the toilet is welcome in my book.”

“Yeah,” Hobbes agreed from somewhere behind me, “we prefer our city only be half-flushed. Clogged toilet Detroit for the win!”

Snorting despite myself, I shook my head. “Ignore her, we all want to make Detroit as good as it can be.” Hearing Murphy start to speak up again, I pointedly added, “Better than a clogged toilet.”

“Goals to shoot for,” Echo dryly muttered. Then she looked toward the nearby building. “So are we actually gonna find out what this grand plan is, or are we just supposed to guess?”

“They’re coming,” Kriegspiel informed us while tapping the side of his head as though indicating his communicator. “Just had to sort out a few things.” His gaze flicked over toward the Minority, who seemed even more anxious to find out what was going on with their teammate. I was kind of surprised they were remaining as calm as they were, to be honest. Maybe it had to do with feeling pretty subdued after everything that happened. Or maybe they were just more disciplined than I would’ve been.

Either way, Kriegspiel wasn’t wrong. The doors of the building opened, and several figures emerged. That-A-Way was first, walking briskly ahead of the two following her. That was Caishen and a stuffy-looking man in a suit with sunglasses and a very generic-looking blond haircut who looked like he should’ve been guarding the president or something. He was saying something to Amber that I couldn’t pick out. But whatever it was, it made a very slight smile cross her face. Unfortunately, I couldn’t tell if that was a good smile or a dangerous one. There didn’t seem to be much humor to it. But then, that could just be because of the whole situation. It was hard to read from here.

On the plus side, at least she was walking out on her own and they hadn’t tried to do anything stupid like arrest her or whatever. I really didn’t think they would, to be fair, but dumber things had happened.

As the trio approached, Amber split off to go join her team. They surrounded her and were clearly whispering every question they could think of about what was going on and if she was okay. Meanwhile, Caishen and the guy in the suit kept approaching while the rest of us all gathered together. The man himself (seriously, he looked so generic I was almost convinced it was a superpower) was the first to speak. “Welcome, thanks to all of you for coming! For those who don’t know me, my name is Four. I’m ahh--well, here to help.”

Ohhh it was one of those guys. The larger, international part of Ten Towers employed several Touched people with various mental-based powers, whose entire thing was about problem solving. Whether it was by building the right gadgets, saying the right thing to the right person, or recognizing when some outside force was affecting their profits, the group known as ‘The Tallymen’ kept the Ten Towers leadership happy. I wasn’t sure what Four’s specific powers were, but if he was here it was both because the Ten Towers board of directors wanted this lockdown resolved, and believed he could actually contribute. Given he was the one talking right now, I assumed he had an actual plan.

Sure enough, once everyone was paying attention, the man explained. “We’ve thoroughly analyzed the forcefield being used to surround the apartment building where Pencil and his people are holed up, and we’ve discovered a slight weakness. While entirely impenetrable by most means, the shield reacts curiously when subjected to the energy generated by the transportation watch my colleagues and I wear.” He held up his arm, showing us an expensive and elegant-looking silver timepiece on his wrist. “These watches are what we use to transport ourselves to one another or to any of our headquarters. From our examination and subsequent testing, rather than entirely repelling the energy used in that transport, the shield around the building seems to magnify and scatter the effect. Though only for a relatively short and unpredictable radius surrounding the targeted area.”

As everyone just stared at him after that, Caishen translated. “When they hit the shield with the energy they use to teleport, it sends that energy into anyone within the shield and transports them somewhere else. By short, unpredictable radius, he means they can’t determine where the people inside will be transported, but it will be somewhere within the city limits.”

“Hold on,” Versed put in, “are you saying we can hit that building with some big teleportation beam and send everyone inside it somewhere else in the city? But we don’t know where they’ll go?”

“We can narrow the general areas to several possibilities,” Four explained. “But we can’t predict which people will end up where. That’s where your teams come in. We’ll give each of you an area to cover. When we hit the building with our upgraded transportation beam, your jobs, if you choose to accept the mission, will be to safely extract any former hostages and handle any aggressors who end up in the area.”

“If you see any Fells, especially Pencil, call it in immediately,” Caishen added. “I’m sure you’ve all been given the briefing about his potential weakness.” She glanced over her shoulder, where I could see Rubi with her simple borrowed ski mask and gloves, before turning back. “Anything you hit him with, just keep hitting him with the same thing over and over again.”

“If they’re just being transported randomly,” Bunglebotch put in, “how are we supposed to find them even if we have a general area? What if they teleport into a house or anywhere else out of sight?”

Four plucked a small cell phone-like device out of his pocket. “Thanks to these. You’ll each be given one. They scan for the specific energy given off by those affected by our teleportation watches, which should last for upwards of forty-five minutes after the transport. Anyone within your designated area who was teleported that way should light this thing up like a Christmas tree and lead you right to them. And, as a bonus, we believe this scattered transport will temporarily inhibit other instantaneous transportation methods.” He waited a moment before clarifying, “Pencil won’t be able to use his other teleportation effects to escape for at least a little while.”

“It’s not the very best plan in the world,” Caishen noted, “but it’s the best chance we have to deal with this right now, before that sick bastard does anything else to hurt the people in that building. We’ll all have to work together to cover every possible area where this teleportation scattershot could send the people in that building, and you’ll need to be quick. Find every hostage and get them into cover, and contain any of the Scions, Fell or Prev. Emergency services are already locking down all the streets so we don’t have people teleporting into the middle of oncoming traffic.

“So, who’s ready to do this?”