Countless Joyful Dawns - Chapter ?? - 7: The Underside

Lisa Wilbourn, AKA Tattletale, had a raging migraine.

The bank heist was supposed to be a quick, simple job. Go in, rob the bank, download a few files, grab a couple of documents, and get out. Embarrass the Wards as they escaped, end up nearly a hundred thousand dollars richer after Coil tripled their haul.

With the new girl, Skitter, it should’ve been about as easy as villainy ever was in Brockton Bay.

How had the day gone so wrong, so fast?

First, Panacea had been at the bank. Taking her hostage along with everyone else significantly upped the Undersider’s threat profile, something nobody in The Undersiders wanted. Brian still blamed Lisa for that oversight. Talking and fighting their way out of that mess had left Lisa with a strong Thinker headache. Her plans for the rest of the day had involved a dark room, ice cream, and more ibuprofen than was good for her liver.

Then the bombs had started going off, and Lisa unleashed her power.

Large scale explosions. All over the city. All at the same time. Bomber. Exotic effects. Bomb Tinker. 

She’d kept straining at it, her head getting worse and worse, until more critical information had come in.

No follow up. Bombs detonated by accident.

Continuing to strain, possibly working off bad information, Lisa pushed her power a little further.

Bombs detonated by accident. Tinkers need lots of time in their lab. Bomb Tinker likely in their lab when the bombs detonated. Bomb Tinker likely dead.

That was a relief. A second relief was a number of aches and pains going away, and staying away.

What was not a relief was the speculation on PHO that The Undersiders had been responsible. The bombs going off mere hours after their heist had the mouth-breathing idiots online ‘brilliantly’ link the two. Since nobody else was claiming responsibility for the cock-up, the first idiot who’d made the ‘connection’ had the story run in that direction.

Lisa had spent the next half an hour trying to put out fires online and insulting the other readers, only for a phonecall from Coil to ruin everything.

For the third time that day.

“Tattletale.” The creepy man had said over the phone, giving away nothing. “I’m sending you some files. A new cape’s kidnapped Director Piggot and Armsmaster. I need everything you can give me on her.”

Protests on how she was completely tapped out fell on deaf ears. The cape knew where Lisa lived, and after recruiting her at gunpoint, they all knew how the relationship went.

Either Lisa performed, or she would be shuffled around. In other words, she’d end up in a locked cell inside of Coil’s base, chained to the wall and forced to use her powers to help his plans along.

Tattletale liked her freedom very much, thank you, and couldn’t scheme to break free from Coil while locked away. Which left her with a pounding head as she watched a ludicrous cape style on the head of the Protectorate.

She made it look easy. Teleport off their gear - Shaker 6, maybe 7 for that alone, and a threat to private identities everywhere - pick them up while making them look like they were children - Brute… 8? She was clearly holding back a lot - open a portal, and pitch them through.

She returned about an hour later, and Lisa spent most of her time finding individual frames and stitching them together. It helped when she realized they were all in the same quarter of a second. The way the woman moved was a Mover 10 rating at least, and had to be backed by a Thinker… 5?

Hard to put things together with so little information.

The healing claim? Seeing how PHO was screaming to high heaven about the ‘healing effect’?

Shaker 14. The cape could casually hit multiple continents at the same time if she wanted to. Even the Endbringers ‘only’ hit a city at a time, or in the worst days in history, ‘only’ an island. Kyushu and Newfoundland were put on a pedestal of dread, a shaky reminder as to the worst that could happen when Endbringers won. 

The scariest part to Lisa was she did the entire thing without a mask. It meant she didn’t care about the unwritten rules one bit. Her speech implied…

Elaine is a dimensional traveler. Her power concluded.

Elaine comes from a place where capes are far more powerful than here.

Combined with a few other bits of information, Lisa’s power generated a conclusion that felt right. Given the scale of her healing, versus her other displayed abilities?

Is a healer. Is focused on healing.

Fighters from Elaine’s world would be as deadly in combat as she’s good at healing.

Holy shit. A world filled with offensive Shaker 14’s? It had to be some horrible deathworld, just one of them losing the plot would be enough to wipe away half the planet before other people could respond. Lisa was suddenly quite glad that Earth Bet ‘only’ had to deal with Endbringers. Not something she thought she’d be happy about when she woke up this morning.

She envied past-Lisa. That girl’s biggest worry had been how to pull off the bank heist, and if she’d be able to get enough information to find out who Coil was.

Which of fucking course, because that’s how Lisa’s day was going, was when there were seven knocks on the door.

Brian, Alec, Taylor are all here. Rachel wouldn’t knock to come back.

We’ve been found.

“Masks!” Lisa yelled, sweeping half her desk into her go bag. “Throw on your masks!”

She darted out of her room, only for the cape to be in the room already. Lisa froze, studying the woman.

Perfectly composed face. Short. Highly trained. In complete control of her body. Is tracking where everyone is. Completely confident that she has total control of the situation. Can kill us all with a thought. Has the thought ready. Simply needs an excuse to unleash it.

Dangerous. Dangerous. DANGEROUS.

She was wearing a sticky note with the words ‘gud masc’ on it.

Knows masks are normal. Doesn’t see the point in them. Comes from a place where they’re not used. Humoring us. Making fun of us. Has no fear of her secret identity being revealed.

Is strong enough that she doesn’t care if her secret identity is revealed.

Can survive an attack in her sleep.

Has survived assassination attempts while she slept.

The conclusions were going wildly off-track, and Lisa’s migraine was close to literally blinding her.  She’d never used her power so much.

“Hi!” The deadliest person Lisa had ever met said. “I’m Elaine! You must be the Undersiders, right?” She said.

“No.” Alec sarcastically answered. “We’re the chess club.”

“Shut up!” Lisa hissed, working hard to stay upright and with a cocky grin on her face. She could hear some of Skitter’s bugs moving into position.

One of Elaine’s fingers twitched, and Lisa almost peed herself in fear.

Alec just tried to make Elaine fall over.

Elaine is unused to Masters.

Her world has no Masters.

Has decided on a ‘kill them before they can kill me’ policy when it comes to Masters.

Only trying to be diplomatic and not kill a kid kept Alec alive.

“Alec!” She shouted. “Just, fucking STOP! She’s going to literally kill you if you keep that up!”

Alec frowned and started to open his mouth.

“Or destroy all your possessions.” Elaine casually threatened. She looked almost as surprised as Lisa when that threat seemed to work, and Alec flopped back down on the couch.

“Meh. Tell me how it goes.” He said, picking his video game controller back up.

“Skitter!” Lisa hissed. “Please don’t do anything stupid!”

Brian has been standing up with his arms crossed, and it was almost funny how much taller he was than the diminutive woman. Elaine tilted her head and looked at Lisa.

“How did you know that?” She asked.

Lisa flashed her best smile. It didn’t work too well, not with her blinding migraine.

“I’m a mind reader!” She proclaimed.

Elaine went still for a moment, then snorted.

“No you’re not.” She said.

Lisa briefly debated doubling down on her lie, but a spike of pain like a pickaxe through her brain put rest to that.

“No, I’m not.” She confessed, out of fight.

“What do you want?” Brian asked, smoke starting to billow out from his sleeves.

“Oooh, what is that?” Elaine asked, skipping over to take a closer look. “It’s actually blocking some of my senses! Wow, that’s incredible stuff! What’s it made out of? How does it work? Do you control it? Can you see through it? Can-”

Has ADHD Lisa’s power ‘helpfully’ supplied.

No shit. She thought. Maybe a bell on a cat would distract the ludicrously lethal cape from killing them all. She tried to clamp down on her power, but wasn’t quite able to succeed.

Has a bad case of ADHD. Has it under control when needed. Wouldn’t survive this long otherwise.

That was almost useful information. The wildly dangerous cape could not be distracted when she didn’t want to be.

Brian coughed.

“Do you usually tell people all about your abilities?” He asked. That seemed to hit home.

“Well… at your age, no.” Elaine confessed. “Now? Oh, happily. I can evaporate a block of tungsten from several miles away at the speed of light, I’m an unkillable regenerator, no bindings can hold me, and I don’t know of any force powerful enough to prevent me from healing. I’m also carrying a large village’s worth of supplies with me, along with several thousand years of collected valuables.”

She paused, and looked at Brian expectantly.

“The carrot and the stick.” Skitter eventually said. Elaine beamed, clapped her hands, and half-jumped for joy.

“Yes! Excellent!” She said. “The carrot and the stick, exactly! Like, three of my cards on the table. I want to go home. I need to go home from Brockton Bay. I want peace and quiet in the city while I’m working on going home. I’ll pay you lot outrageously to stay out of trouble while I’m working on it.”

Damnit. It was like Coil’s deal, but better. Alec was lazy, and would take ‘getting paid to do nothing’ far better than ‘getting paid to stay on retainer and do the occasional job’. Skitter told herself that she wanted to help the city and the people inside of it. Two down on her offer.

Brian wouldn’t take it, he needed the paper trail Coil was providing. Lisa knew that accepting the offer would result in two bullets to each Undersider’s head - if they were lucky. Rachel… oh shit, Rachel.

Rachel was walking her dogs and due back soon. If she came in, the first thing she was going to do was sic her dogs on Elaine.

Elaine was barely controlling herself from killing everyone in the room. Dogs? Dogs probably wouldn’t register for her. They’d get a first-hand look at how dangerous Elaine was.

“We’ll have to talk it over.” Brian said.

“YES!” Lisa shouted, not quite in time to interrupt. “We’ll do it!”

“Tattletale.” Brain was clearly frowning at her.

“Later.” She hissed, not bothering trying to hide from a sensory Thinker 5.

The cape smiled, and it was like it lit up the place.

Has had acting lessons. Has worked as an actor.

Body language is perfect.

Has guessed cold-reading.

Can spoof cold-readers.

Has spoofed a cold-reader before.

Has often spoofed a cold reader.

Lisa sank to the ground with a groan, not quite believing the pile of money and jewelry that suddenly appeared in front of her. She wasn’t capable of dealing with anyone anymore, and the last thing she saw before she blacked out was Elaine’s knee right in front of her face.

“Are you okay?” She heard, before darkness took her.