Warning! Chapters 14-18 were all posted back to back, make sure you pick up the story in the right place ;-). 

Chapter 17: Reaction

Talia Wagner’s week hadn’t gone at all to expectations so far, so she probably shouldn’t be too surprised that her current situation was continuing the trend. She had, of course, immediately moved to check on Alyssa once she heard the news. What she hadn’t expected was to find the woman a…bit of a mess. Not hurt. So far as Talia could tell she hadn’t taken a single scratch. No, she’d simply been staring at the wall in their base, still in her blood-covered armor, with a thousand-yard stare that Talia had recognized.

It was in the moment that it sunk in for her that, no matter how insanely competent she was, ‘Star Knight’ was a newbie to Heroics.

She wasn’t a rebrand, a former blacks ops member of one of the quieter teams, or any of the dozens of theories that Talia had heard or read. No, she was an honest-to-God newbie. One who might have won the powers lottery and clearly had some serious training, but still a newbie. One that had just ‘lost’ for the first time. Not the overall engagement, which she’d handled insanely well, but in the sense that she’d failed to keep everyone safe. Two civilians had died to the ambush. One from a headshot on the street, another from bleeding out inside a nearby building when no one had realized in time that an assault rifle round had penetrated a wall and hit someone inside.

Alyssa had clearly never dealt with the mixture of anger and guilt that someone else had paid the price for her fight before.  

Talia had never felt so underqualified in her life as she had when she’d made a calming tea and did her best to talk Alyssa through the crash. She’d already realized Alyssa was a very logic-driven person, so she’d hit those points first. How she hadn’t been responsible for the bad guys ambushing her. How she’d done an incredibly good job at containing the fight. How she’d shown off another power by managing to stabilize someone with a gut shot wound until the woman could get proper treatment. Even how the three dozen well-armed men had likely killed dozens before were caught and now wouldn’t kill more.

Knowing that pure logic wouldn’t really be enough, Talia had dug deeper, sharing a few of her own painful memories. Not just ones where she’d been too slow or too overwhelmed, but ones where she’d made a bad call that had gotten people killed. She’d used examples from her own old team, too. Not to mention other, less personal ones from the talk she’d been given the first time this happened to her, as well. She knew her mother and father well enough to know they wouldn’t mind. Not to help someone in Alyssa’s position.

Thankfully, it had worked.

Probably not completely, and Talia was already trying to figure out how to convince Alyssa to see one of the therapists the X-men used. It wouldn’t be the first or last time that a non-X-man was recommended to them. Given his own focus, psychiatric care for Heroes was something Xavier was particularly adamant about making sure any allies got access to. After all, in the head X’s own words, ‘Sometimes the only difference between a hero and a villain is one bad day, left unresolved.’

Still, for now she’d gotten through to Alyssa. At least she was pretty sure she had. Though she’d also discovered an interesting surprise when she’d helped the ‘woman’ strip off her armor. She wasn’t at all sure what to do with the fact she now knew Alyssa was packing more in her panties than expected…but that was a thought for another time. Possibly a time that involved a little guilt, a bed, and her favorite vibrator.

No! Bad Talia! Even if Kitty had gotten her into Hentai, now was not the time!

Shaking her head, Nocturne forced her heroic persona to take over more fully. She’d gotten Alyssa through the initial crash. Now, she needed to get her through the rest. The anger that had followed the guilt had been expected, but Star Knight was far more dangerous than most, and Black Mask wasn’t someone to be taken lightly. Steering her new teammate into thinking things through properly, picking their targets carefully, and not murder-hoboing their way through Black Mask’s thugs? That might just prove a bigger challenge than the first bit had been.

She was very familiar with the danger of the cold rage that had taken Alyssa over after she’d gotten through her shock. The people whose rage burned that way were usually much more dangerous than berserkers. Hopefully, she could steer Alyssa’s revenge in the direction of ‘justified humiliation’ instead of ‘calculated mass murder.’ The latter wouldn’t exactly be good for their newly formed team, or for Alyssa herself in the long run…

… … …

Alyssa was aware that Nocturne was worried she was going to go off the deep end and murder a bunch of people. She wasn’t even offended, honestly. She appreciated that Talia had taken the time to help her deal with the shock after what had happened earlier in the day. In truth, part of the issue had been that Alyssa had leaned too hard on Major Kusanagi’s experiences in order to stay functional in the moment of crisis. Doing so had let her act, without freezing as someone else with as little experience as she had might have, but it had added an extra later of alienness to the aftermath.

Thankfully, Talia had helped her get through it. Even if she was now clearly worried for other reasons.

The truth was, though, that she didn’t really need to worry. When Alyssa had still been him, she’d already spent over thirty years learning to reign in a temper. The current cold fury she was exuding wasn’t something that had come naturally, to her past self. Instead, it had been the culmination of a lifetime of careful self-control. A temper that had originally run very, very hot, but which had been carefully and methodically corralled into something much colder and more calculated.

Not to mention safer.

The particular flavor of cold anger that had been deliberately settled on in his past was, in truth, a safety mechanism. Never, ever, was anything acted on ‘in the heat of the moment.’ Instead, it was bundled up, considered carefully, and then responded to with coldly calculated dispatch. The careful consideration phase had, later in his life, mostly resulted in outright dismissing the cause of the anger without retaliation. In the light of reason and with distance from the cause, petty grievances tended to get filed away as ‘not actually worth my time and effort.’

Of course, if whatever had triggered the anger turned out to survive scrutiny, whoever had been the cause of that anger tended not to enjoy the end fallout. Fuck around and find out was more than a meme, and the consequences of your actions weren’t always immediate. Something which Black Mask was not going to enjoy discovering by the time she was done with him. No, she wouldn’t murder him or his people, but she absolutely would stop pussyfooting around the situation with the local gangs and rip his organization apart.

Something she’d already started on while Nocturne had gone off to grab Black Canary and food. Equally important tasks for the planning session to come. Now, as she felt the presence of two people popping back into the base, she disconnected from her net-diving rig and moved to greet them. Seeing the trio of large pizzas Talia was putting on the table, Alyssa grinned.

“Pizza! Perfect. It’s exactly the right food for both Dungeons and Dragons sessions and plotting to destroy evil organizations. Not many foods do such perfect double duty! Even if they could be said to be quite similar.”

Both women blinked at her, though it was Nocturne that blurted out a question.

“You play Dungeons and Dragons?!”

Alyssa hummed, nodding happily as she investigated the options. Thankfully, neither of her companions was a monster, so there was no pineapple present. That might have been grounds to kick them out of her potential team. Selecting a slice of meat-lovers and grabbing a paper plate to put it on, she grinned at Nocturne.

“Of course. What part of ‘I’m a software developer’ as a day job makes me sound like anything but a proper geek? Admittedly, I haven’t played in a few years, but I’ve both played and DMed games in the past. As social activities go, it’s surprisingly introvert friendly, really.”

Dinah snorted, but her lips were twitching, even as she grabbed herself a slice of Extra Cheese Deluxe.

“I’m beginning to have more and more questions about just how you’ve had time to do all the things you’ve done. If you hadn’t already admitted you barely need to sleep, and never do so for more than four hours, I’d wonder how you still managed to have hobbies despite all the skills you’ve obviously trained heavily in.”

Ah. Oops? Well, at least Dinah had created a perfectly valid, if incorrect, explanation with her observation. In truth, she shouldn’t have such a broad range of skills. The Major had already been in her 50s while first recruited to Section 9, even if her physical appearance had not reflected that fact due to her full-body prosthetic. Since Alyssa had a full download of Motoko’s time with Section 9, which had lasted decades, she’d gotten a far more absurd skillset than she’d originally expected. Add in that her past self had been in his thirties…time to do some damage control?

“Ah. Aside from the lack of sleep, there’s a bit more at play there. Accelerated thought process and photographic memory are both side effects of my power set.”

They both stared, then Nocturne shook her head and grabbed her own slice of pizza.

“Okay, given how broad and weirdly diverse my own powers are, this is saying a lot…but your Meta ability is bullshit. Right up there with someone like Zatanna or WW.”

Alyssa shrugged, waving that off.

“Not really. Not yet, at least. I have the potential to be as broken as either of them, but not without another decade of training, at minimum. Even with the advantages of a photographic memory and needing less sleep. As I’m sure you can attest yourself, having too many powers often means you end up splitting your time too much to properly train them all to mastery.”

Nocturne nodded, while Dinah frowned.

“I’m beginning to feel like the odd one out, here. I mean, my Canary Cry is decently powerful, but beyond that I just punch things.”

Both Alyssa and Talia immediately shook their heads, but Alyssa waved a hand for Talia to take this one, taking the chance to grab a second slice of pizza after polishing off her first.

“Yeah, don’t knock the punching thing. You’ve got serious skills and the Bat supposedly gets by with just that and tech, no Meta ability at all. He’s hardly the only one either. There’s some Heroes that operate at pretty damn high levels with nothing but training. Honestly, once you get used to my abilities, you’ll probably have a very good chance of taking me apart. I’m a solid skirmisher but you’ve got far better direct combat skills than I do.”

Alyssa nodded, adding her own two bits between bites.

“What she said. Not to mention that I’ve actually done more damage to the gangs with my skills than I have with my powers. All those drug facilities that I knocked everyone out with gas? Pure stealth work, hacking, and preparation. I could have pulled it off without any of my meta abilities. My meta ability just gives me an edge when I do need to throw down. The stealth-mode parts of each operation actually caught more people than I caught by punching, too.”

Dinah had looked a bit dubious at Talia’s assertions, but Alyssa’s addition had her looking more thoughtful. After they all chewed a few more bites and hunger started to ebb a bit, she nodded.

“Alright, I get it. Now…what are we going to do about the jokers that attacked you in broad daylight? Nocturne said they were Black Mask’s men?”

Alyssa was more than happy to allow the conversational pivot, quickly finishing her second slice of pizza and gesturing at the wall. The gesture wasn’t actually functional, the screen that made up that entire wall responding to a command issued via the neural-chip in her visor instead. The ‘visor’ part wasn’t projected right now, but she was still wearing the support device for it specifically because it made this sort of thing easier.

The gesture did serve something of a point though, drawing her companions attention to the wall-screen, which had immediately divided itself. By far the largest section was taken up by a largescale map of Gotham, with numerous zones and buildings around the city highlighted in various colors. The secondary screens showed a key for the map, and a solid dozen points that had lines drawn from the map to detailed breakdowns of what was known about the target. All of those secondary target screens were surrounded by the grey-and-black border that the map key showed as representing Black Mask’s operations.

“Fair warning, this map is not complete. What you see here is mostly what I’ve gathered via net-diving over a number of weeks. Meaning that particularly secure operations, places that have air-gapped servers or no electronics at all, the map is blind about. Likewise, a few things have been edited out since I know a little bit too much about some of the Heroes around, which I’m not going to spill without good reason.”

Dinah had stood, carrying a plate with her own third slice of Cheesy Doom, and was looking with considerable interest over the various areas. Clearly, she wasn’t focusing entirely on Black Mask just yet.

“Huh. This is pretty accurate for territories held, at least so far as I understand them. I know neither of you are native to Gotham, so I’m not sure you’re aware, but there’s a sort of unofficial map that gets updated. No one is completely sure who ‘Oracle’ is, but whoever they are, they maintain an insanely good ‘stay the fuck away from this’ map. It doesn’t have specific operations like this, but it colors the zones of control, and your map matches pretty close to the last version I saw.”

Alyssa twitched. Oracle? As in the other Heroine name Barbara Gordan had gone by when she was wheelchair bound? There was zero indication that she’d ever suffered that disability in this amalgam reality. Did that mean that ‘Oracle’ was someone else? Or was she using it as a handle specific to net running? That latter would make a certain degree of sense, and Alyssa made a note to look into it.

“I wasn’t aware of that, no. I take it this is something spread purely by word of mouth?”

Dinah nodded, even as she switched to looking over the various operations descriptions, starting with one that was relatively near her own ‘turf.’

“Yeah. Whoever Oracle is, they are pretty good at filtering it down through local businesses and neutral parties. The access address jumps around, and you need to be tapped into local Gotham gossip channels, as it were, to have regular access. I imagine the gangs get some level of access via their younger members, since the schools all quietly provide copies. It’s not that useful to them though, since it doesn’t come with details and they mostly already know where their rivals hold territory. It’s much more useful for regular folks.”

Nocturne looked just as interested in what Black Canary was saying, indicating she probably hadn’t known about the map either. Still, it was side tracking their current discussion.

“Well, while I’d like to see this ‘Oracle’s’ map just to compare and see if I can guess at a few of my own blind spots by comparing them, the point in the map for the moment is to highlight what I’ve been able to put together about Black Mask’s operations. I’ve kept to foreign threats until now to avoid destabilizing things in the underworld too much, but if his False Face Society is intent on picking such a blatant fight with me? Then it seems the time for that caution is over.”

Both Black Canary and Nocturne looked at her with clear concern, but Alyssa powered on.

“Right now, Black Mask and his gang are on the upswing. They have the single largest slice of the Gotham underworld under their control…but they are also part of Batman’s Rogues Gallery. He’s taken Black Mask’s organization down at least twice, which means no one is going to be too shocked if he gets toppled again. In this case, the fact Mask is known to have his fortunes swing wildly will help limit the fallout. Honestly, he’s the only major crime group local to Gotham we actually can take down without causing too much havoc.”

Canary immediately nodded, even as Nocturne frowned. It was Nocturne that spoke up, pointing out the big issue.

“That means the Bat is likely to look into the attack. Weren’t you intent on mostly letting him handle his own Rogues?”

Alyssa sighed, running one had through her hair in frustration.

“I would have preferred that, yes. At the same time, Overwatch is going to have to take on the more ‘costumed looney’ sorts sooner or later to be credible. In fact, doing so makes for a great opening appearance for the two of you to be seen actively working with me as a team. More to the point…I’m not preposing that we go after Black Mask himself.”

That statement got confused looks from both of them, causing Alyssa to laugh dryly.

“I see you two have fallen into the same Villian Fallacy that most Heroes do. You think ‘cut off the head of the snake and the body will collapse.’ Technically, you’re even right. Thing is though, when you do it that way, you get Black Mask and the False Facers constantly reforming, or dozens of groups just like him. The manpower doesn’t vanish, and it’s just sitting right there to be picked up by either the same dude coming back for more, or else a new player. The skills to run a criminal operation don’t just vanish. Which means the minions just flow on to work for the next underworld warlord.”

Nocturne scowled, clearly seeing the problem instantly.

“Which means killing the organization doesn’t actually affect the crime rates. It just changes the tags the criminals spray on the buildings.”

Canary frowned, considering the problem, and nodded slowly.

“That…makes an unfortunate amount of sense. It puts another puzzle piece into place about how the Bat keeps failing to clean up Gotham. By focusing on the big players running the show, all he’s really doing is causing the people with the right skills to shift from one boss to another. Thugs are gonna thug no matter who they are thugging for.”

Alyssa nodded, happy they were getting the picture.

“Right, which is why we aren’t going to focus on Black Mask himself. Instead, we’re going to pull the same sort of mass operation against his holdings that I’ve already made a signature of my appearances thus far. All while, hopefully, uncovering the chief idiot and letting the Bat have fun capturing him while we wipe out his operations and get as many of them as possible caught up in the federal system, outside Gotham.”

Canary smirked, abruptly looking approving as she put it all together.

“Removing them from the pool of talent, plus hitting all their gear too, instead of just shuffling them into the lower ranks of next big thing.”

Mentally shifting the screen to shrink the map, making space for the various Black Mask operations she’d already selected to expand into. Alyssa grinned, with absolutely no humor in it.

“Exactly. Better, with Nocturne to help plant some more knock out bombs and both of you to coordinate a second set of major assault operations, we can break the back of his current operations in a single night. Look here, he’s taken over a Vietnamese drug operation, trying to use the sudden spike in demand after the Hammer and Neon Dragons went down to take over more of the drug trade. That means we can get the DEA to move again here, here and here…”

The three of them began planning in earnest, even as Alyssa also outlined why some of it would work by telling them about the new gear she’d created for them.

... ... ... ... ... ... ...

A/N 1: Much like basically everything else in this Amalgam, we're dealing with an alternate version of Black Mask and the False Facers here. I took cues from several iterations of him and them to create a derivative that fits this particular Gotham.