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

Chapter 18: Ripping off the Mask

Alyssa had, admittedly, not expected today to involve discovering an entirely new form of impatience. His past self had been extremely familiar with impatience, the result of spending most of his life as a faster thinker than most. Not necessarily smarter, mind you, but faster. To the point that it had often felt frustrating to his younger self when he’d constantly had to wait for slower thinkers to catch up. It was something he’d gotten used to as he got older, adjusting his expectations and trying really hard not to come across as an asshole by showing the impatience too openly.

She’d expected that she’d already known all the forms of impatience there were.

Apparently, she’d been wrong. Nor had Major Kusangi’s memories been helpful, given that the Major had possessed the same basic problem as her past self and turned it into an asset by constantly multitasking on the net. By the time Alyssa’s current issue had come up for the woman, she’d already been able to practically split her stream of consciousness and minimized the problem.

Put simply, Alyssa had never had to wait through the tension of counting on someone else to do their part of a combat operation. Memories from the Major showed some of that sort of thing, but mostly in an intellectual sense. The memories she had, in order to give her the skillsets, weren’t heavy on the emotional component. They were more like watching a movie in VR, lacking much of an emotional carrier wave unless it was actively needed for the skill. They also focused almost purely on her skills, blurring most of the ‘hurry up and wait’ moments of the woman’s life.

Which left Alyssa trying not to go crazy as someone else did the biggest portion of the prep-work for their current operation. Oh, she was acting in a support role for Nocturne as the other woman moved through their list of targets. Nocturne’s first stop with each target, if Alyssa hadn’t been able to break into their cyber security from the outside already, was to add a physical link so Alyssa could suborn the security systems. From there, she was able to use the False Facers’ own internal cameras and sensors to guide Talia, while erasing any sign of her teammate’s presence.

Not that there was much of a sign. There was a good reason Nocturne was doing this instead of Alyssa. As good as Alyssa had proven to be, once she’d upgraded Talia’s suit to include thermoptic camouflage like Alyssa’s armor, there was no longer any real contest about who was the stealthiest heroine between them. After all, Nocturne could teleport through walls, bypassing the need to physically move through any given facility. Add in superhuman agility, the ability to cling to walls, and low-level telepathy? Nocturne was the perfect infiltrator. Doubly so as, once into position, she could teleport back and forth to pick up as much additional gear as she needed.

Given how many targets they were intending to hit, having someone who could do the job much faster than Alyssa, with virtually zero chance of detection, made Nocturne doing the setup portion of this operation a no brainer. Something only made more true due to the fact that the False Facers weren’t as narrowly focused as the other organizations ‘Star Knight’ had hit so far. The Hammer were counterfeiters, with sidelines in drugs and gambling. The Neon Dragon Triad had been human-traffickers with, again, a sideline in drugs.

Black Mask’s people were a different story.

Up until Alyssa had erased the Hammer and Neon Dragons, the False Facers hadn’t been very much involved in drugs. They were currently moving into that sector of the underworld, taking advantage of the power vacuum, but only two of the places they were planning to hit were drug related. Instead of drugs, the False Facers normally covered a broad range of other criminal enterprises. Armed robbery, grand theft auto, a particularly violent form of corporate espionage, and a side of offering hit men and assassination contracts.

As a result, instead of drug facilities, they were dealing with chop shops, warehouses filled with ill-gotten gains, and a small private army. Thankfully, that last bit was what was going to allow them to bring in fed-level agencies this time. The DEA would come in on the drug operations, of course. But this time it was the ATF that were going to be the most interested overall. The False Facers had a lot of guns and explosives, the RPGs they’d used against Alyssa only the tip of the iceberg. More to the point, they were wanted at the federal level for both a number of bombings, and for being a known smuggler/supplier of heavy ordinance across state lines.

Alyssa had been impressed how fast multiple ATF teams had assembled quietly in Gotham, when she’d slipped a subtle alert to the group. Normally, they weren’t the first agency people thought of, and Alyssa had no idea if the version from her original world had been as quietly effective as the one here seemed to be. She supposed that, with the proliferation of much higher tech arms via aliens, metahumans, and more, it made sense that the organization had been beefed up to handle such things. They apparently even had some hero support via the Protectorate, though there was no sign of it being called in for this job.

Though numerous, the False Facers had very few Metas. Though they did have quite a few cyber-augmented thugs, admittedly. Thankfully, none of them were on the level of KGBeast, at least. Presumably, the lack of true metas or extremely highly chromed opponents were why there was no Protectorate hero support with the ATF teams.

Regardless, Alyssa had still been pleasantly surprised by how promptly the ATF had responded. She’d been even more impressed at how they had done so. Of the various agencies she’d clued in so far, they were the first who had immediately deployed net runners into Gotham’s cyberspace. Extremely competent ones. Enough so that she’d only noticed them because of the specific things they’d started poking at were already under her own observation. Shortly after the runners, a pair of Special Response Teams had filtered into the city as well. One was positioned near the GCPD and seemed to have made clandestine contact with the DEA people that were still looking over the locals’ shoulders.

The other was located near the False Facers territory and included some explosives specialists. A wise precaution, given that Nocturne and Alyssa had found multiple failsafes and self-destructs. They had, of course, disabled them. The ATF wouldn’t have any way to know that though, which made the inclusion of a rapid-response explosives expert team an entirely sensible precaution.

“Done. That’s the last building, too. Are you and Canary ready?”

Nocturne’s voice coming over the comm snapped Alyssa back into focus. Doing an instinctive check of her ends of things, she confirmed her own readiness, with Black Canary following a moment later. Nocturne proceeded to hand off operational control to her, having taken point until now due to the stealth nature of the steps so far. With one last check, just to be sure everything and everyone was in position, Alyssa started their broadcast streams and began issuing commands.

“Networks are isolated and internal security shut down. Gas deployed at targets one and two. Your primary target is in the third office, second floor. Go!”

Black Mask’s group had one additional annoying factor going for them. Many of the higher-ranking members of the False Facers had filters built into their masks, meaning there would be no clean way to gas an entire facility like she’d done before. At least some of the overseers wouldn’t be knocked out as a result, meaning that they had to hit hard and fast. Black Canary and Nocturne would be doing that at a Chop Shop that was one of the gang’s more active operations. Meanwhile, Alyssa had her own target to hit.

As much as she’d been tempted to go with another ‘dynamic entry,’ she managed to hold back this time. Her target was the single largest weapons cache the group had, including a lot of explosives, and accidently setting them off might kill even her. Instead, Alyssa had started out already inside, having been hovering near the ceiling of a large armory room with her tactical cloak activated. The moment the Facers started to drop from the gas, gas her helmet was sealed against, she sprung into action and disabled the guard she’d snuck past earlier.

She could already hear frantic movement, entirely too many of those in this particular location having the filtered masks, but that was fine. She was already in their central armory, which meant they’d be coming to her. Tossing the unconscious guard into the armory, she took a moment before the first additional gang members arrived to fuse it shut with an application of her powers. It wouldn’t hold against a serious effort, but it would slow anyone down if she got pulled away.

Moments later, as the first False Facer arrived, screeching to a surprised halt as he spotted her, she sprung into action and laid him out with a calculated blow. A shout came from behind her, and she felt an attack coming, flipping in midair to let the gunfire flow under her. She winced as it clipped the man she’d just knocked out, but it was only a graze…and she wasn’t all that bothered if he bled out anyway. These weren’t exactly nice people.

Rushing the shooter, she disabled him easily, but the next two to arrive were higher-tier enforcers. One of them blurred into an attack with mantis blades and speedware, even as his companion raised a LMG he clearly had the cyberarm and skeletal enhancements to treat like a normal assault rifle. The speedware user was decent, but not on the level KGBeast had been, and she tossed him back into his companion before that LMG could open fire.

Smirking, always privately enthusiastic when she could hit a motherfucker with another motherfucker, Alyssa waded into the fight fully. She needed to clean this place out quickly so they could move onto the next set of sites. They hoped to get at least six, possibly eight, before the Facers’ realized something was wrong…

… … …

Alyssa grinned as she watched her companions collapse back like puddles in the ultra-comfy furniture of the Lair Lounge, after having just barely roused themselves to grab the food she’d brought. She wasn’t really all that tired. A bit mentally worn, yes. But, honestly, even that part was mostly from dealing with the ATF and GCPD in the aftermath. The ATF teams had been enthusiastic and happy with the results, more than willing to compliment her team and even ask where they could issue bounty money for all the turned over heavy weaponry too.

The GCPD had been a bit more standoffish, obviously not exactly enjoying the way she’d made them look like corrupt, incompetent fools for the last month and a half. Even there, though, there had been some bright spots. A few cops who’d clearly been trying to make a difference and were extremely pleased that recent events had started weeding some of the corruption out of their ranks.

Several such individuals had casually pinged her with net addresses or other contact information, obviously intent on letting her know they could be worked with. One, a shiny new Captain who’d apparently been promoted to replace one now under arrest, had even quietly let her know about those arrests. Arrests which largely weren’t being made public for political and public faith reasons. All in all, it hadn’t been a bad bit of rubbing elbows. It had just been an exhausting one for an introvert having to play at being a bit more approachable than Alyssa would ever be naturally.

Poor Talia and Dinah didn’t have her absurd stamina, though. They’d managed to tough it out through the initial meet-and-greet with the authorities, including a simple-but-precalculated drop of the information that they were now a team going tentatively by the name ‘Overwatch.’ Alyssa had been able to feel the exhaustion radiating from them through her knock-off Force abilities, though. The team had, in combination, managed to hit nine of their twelve targets, after all. With Nocturne and Black Canary actually managing to handle five together, while ‘Star Knight’ had handled four solo. Practically swaying on their feet and only not showing it by sheer force of will, Alyssa had made excuses for the pair quickly, so that Talia could teleport them back to base.

Which sadly had left her as ‘Star Knight’ to handle the majority of the aftermath. Including a few requests by the ATF for help securing some of the sabotage devices that were more I.E.D. than proper demolition explosives. She’d been another hour and a half getting free and had returned to find the two snoozing on the lounge’s furniture. At least, that was, until they’d smelled the variety of burgers and other greasy foods Alyssa had picked up from a few different 24-hour fast food chains. The smells had stirred them just enough to dig into the food, which they were now both slowly eating their way through in their near-puddle like states.

Clearing her throat, she waited until their attention had found her, and grinned.

“We’ll need to do an after action run through of our bodycam footage to see how things went sometime in the next few days. For now, though, I just want to say good job. Given how wiped out you both look, I’d suggest you use the guest rooms to crash here tonight. I’ve got some digital cleanup to do and some big hints to drop for the Bats about where Black Mask went to ground. We’ll talk more in…the afternoon, probably. Given that it’s already morning.”

She got faint acknowledgements from both of her teammates, before snagging a second burger for herself and heading back to her Net Diving rig. If the Bat was even vaguely competent, he would hopefully snap up Black Mask in the wake of these raids. With the information she’d lifted about his various bolt-holes from air-gapped servers at the third site she’d hit, doing so shouldn’t be hard. If the Great Furry succeeded, there was a good chance the gang would collapse, with how much manpower the three of them had taken out of the picture tonight. More importantly, though, was the fact that they’d made a clear statement to the rest of the underworld.

Fuck around and find out if you dared, but only if you were prepared for the retaliation…

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

A/N 1: Oddly, the ATF is one of those agencies I sort of forget exists most of the time. But when I thought over who would be the most likely to want to know about a ton of heavy weapons in criminal hands on a Federal level, they are who makes sense...

A/N 2: It's been a while! But this story finally managed to win the poll that determines my third story each month :-)! That also means there's another 15,000+ words of this story currently in early-access on my Page. If you're interested in supporting me, it's only $1 for all Early Access chapters for my various stories! Don't worry, though, none of my fanfiction is ever permanently locked behind a paywall. All fanfiction content I make ends up here (or on Fanfiction.net and Questionable Questing) eventually, as new content for each story is released! While the support helps me free up time for writing, I really just want everyone to enjoy the stories!