A/N: Ok, so, I'm prolly gonna be putting this on a Hiatus for a while. In the unlikely event that I pump out a whole chapter by tomorrow, then maybe it'll be delayed. Either way, expect an update chap tomorrow that will most likely be a notice of Hiatus (:

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Downtown South

December 3rd, 21:15

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Coming to a stop on the roof of a small apartment building, only six floors tall, Mary and Assault both share a look as they wait for Battery, who has a hand up to her ear in communication with Console back at base.

For some reason, Director Piggot insisted that Battery be the main point of contact between the three of them and HQ.

It's Mary's first patrol back on duty since loosing her arm, and since she's going to be joining The Protectorate proper within the month, it was decided she'd tag along with Assault and Battery's patrol.

As for her arm, well, it's gone. Other than that though, she's feeling peachy, if a little disappointed. Not because of the loss itself, but because of what came after.

See, it would kind of give away her secret identity if she suddenly sprouted a missing arm 'coincidentally' just at the same time that the Hero Falcon lost her same arm. So Mary came up with a plan.

She would let herself be seen in her civilian guise without an arm, claiming some accident or other as the cause. Then, in her Falcon guise, she would get into some fight or other, with Hookwolf or something, while wearing a prosthetic. At that point, it would just be a case of 'unfortunately' losing the arm, as well as some ketchup packets, and the world would believe that the two events were separate, thus protecting her identity.

She wanted it to be dramatic, which is why she's annoyed that someone pointed out that it would be easier to just have her civilian identity be the one who loses the fake arm in a car crash or something.

So they ended up doing that instead, and now 'Mary' is 'recovering' from the 'accident' while Falcon is still going out heroing despite losing an arm.

She really isn't all that bothered by the loss. Granted, it is annoying, but it is also helpful. She fully plans on using the 'noble sacrifice' of her arm to boost her rep. It will damage the idea of her being able to handle anything, but that would be an unrealistic goal to aim for in the first place.

Still, it's rather perfect in Mary's eyes. After all, she can use her missing arm to subtly draw parallels between herself and Alexandria, who lost her eye to a Villain back in the year two thousand.

Combine that with how she will 'valiantly' continue fighting the good fight in spite of how much it's taken from her, and she expects her reputation to rise even faster. She just has to get some kind of crowning achievement under her belt to kick things off.

Such as bringing an end to all this TGT business. Once she does that, it'll just be a matter of spending a year or two making the denizens of Brockton Bay see her in an even greater light than Dauntless. Then she can think about taking Hannah's place as Protectorate Captain.

Still, it's not all sunshine and rainbows, as even a month later, Brockton is still feeling the loss of Challenger and Velocity, the former more than the latter. Challenger was one of the strongest capes in The Bay after all. Her loss has definitely effected their position. 

Before, The Protectorate and The Empire were about even in terms of parahuman strength, provided the Wards were included. Now however, The Empire is undoubtedly the strongest force in the city.

At least in terms of parahumans anyway. Obviously the PRT is still top dog when it comes to the unpowered, and the Red Hearts have plenty of backing out of state that they could call on if needed.

All that really matters now, is getting the chance to push further into the TGT case to put the public at ease. News of the new drug is already starting to leak out of the city after all, and it would ruin her chances at promotion if she has to rely on outsiders to actually make any progress.

Luckily for her, it seems as if the heavens have answered her prayers, as Battery soon brings her hand free from her ear and turns to the two of them, wearing a severe mask that only one of them can pretend to emulate.

"What is it, Puppy?" Assault asks with a grin, and Battery is so used to his lackadaisical attitude by now that she doesn't even bat an eye before answering.

"Follow me, I'll tell you on the way," she says, and with a sudden feeling static energy, electricity crackles around her for a second before she simply disappears, blurring south, her voice continuing through their earpieces. "Don't just stand there."

Assault chuckles and gives Mary a wink before leaping after his partner, only for Mary to shoot past him, sticking her tongue out as she does.

Due to their differing methods of travel, Battery has to convey her information via comms. After all, Battery's power only lets her move the fastest but only in short busts, which would make it annoying to keep up a conversation.

Especially since Mary is so much faster than Assault for the first leg of the journey, only to be much slower in the latter half, once he's had enough time to build up plenty of kinetic energy.

But despite their differences in methods, Battery and Mary are about equal in speed, while Assault is either faster or slower, depending on the distance.

"Apparently, an anonymous call came in a few minutes ago." Battery's voice sounds out from their earpieces, "they claimed they saw someone matching Circus' description entering an abandoned apartment complex that we suspect is being settled by Paper, of Love Triangle."

Mary perks up at the information, remembering how annoyed she was when she heard that Scissors wasn't giving any information on her former comrades.

Apparently the higher ups decided that it was a good deal to let her join the side of the angels with a twenty year contract in exchange for not ratting out her friends. 

Personally, Mary doesn't see why they can't just force the brat to do both, but she supposes it doesn't really matter all that much, since Love Triangle are only small time, even with their involvement in TGT.

Or maybe someone is just pulling strings, Mary couldn't say. She assumes that's what's happening though, since she works for the government, and one thing everyone with half a brain should know for certain is that the government is corrupt.

She herself is a pretty textbook example.

"We're going to meet up with a squad of troopers and lead an assault on the complex. Falcon, you'll stick with the troopers for now. Assault and I should be able to handle Circus and Paper both if it comes down to it, but be ready to assist if needed."

She has to resist scowling at being side-lined again, but she doesn't try arguing. There's no need to be childish. It's an understandable decision after all. Even if she is an adult now, she's still technically a Ward. She'll get to be the vanguard in a couple of weeks, when she officially graduates.

And really, what should she do with her displeasure? Shout out about how 'she can do this!' Or something? She's not twelve, she doesn't have to be a part of every piece of action just to feel validated.

She doesn't know why she's thinking so deeply about this. She guesses that it's just that she gets annoyed when people cause a scene because they, for some reason, believe that they must do everything themselves, as if they suddenly lose their worth because they sit out one mission.

Retards, Mary thinks with a scoff, inadvertently picturing Emma as she does so.

"Roger roger," she belatedly responds like a droid, knowing that Battery gets annoyed by Assault's references.

Just because she's not going to make a scene doesn't mean she can't be petty.

She can hear the start of a sigh from Battery's end before she can cut off her comm and smiles with satisfaction.

It doesn't take them long after that, maybe just a dozen or so minutes of running across rooftops. Assault overtook her somewhere around the forth minute, even doing some loops around her in the form of 'advanced reconnaissance'. 

She's going to replace his favourite cereal with Zach's frogs.

Alighting from the final rooftop, Mary lands in the middle of a mostly empty street, with only Assault and a van of troopers present.

Their eyes all turn to her as she falls to their level, cane-whip in hand. Not because she was particularly loud, but because she was subtly using the fire aspect of her powers to make herself glow ever so slightly in the darkness of the night.

Not enough that anyone short of a Thinker should really be able to notice that something is off, but enough that the normals will hopefully see her in an even greater light.

Not three seconds after her landing, there is a buzz of electricity and with the scent of ozone following her, Battery appears by Mary's side. The older woman doesn't stop in her stride, making her way over to the captain of the trooper squad and exchanging a firm handshake.

But before they can depart, they are all simultaneously turn their eyes to the night sky, guided by some feeling they can't understand.

Approaching them from the skies, they see a pair of teenage girls.

One of them is wearing an outfit incredibly similar to Mary's, with long boots up to her knees, a one-piece dress ending at her mid-thigh, with shorts underneath, and an over the shoulder cape. The only thing separating the two's outfits is the colours and that Mary's cape connects to both shoulders.

While Mary is red and blue, this girl is white and gold, and while Mary has a blindfold hiding her identity. This girl also has a healthy pale complexion, in contrast to Mary's sandy tan.

In the flying girl's arms is another. This one has long brown hair and a face full of freckles that make her seem younger. She's wearing casual clothes, just jeans and a shirt with a brown jacket over top.

The lack of a mask is a giveaway to their identities, as there is only one team of capes who don't hide their identity in the Bay. 

The brown haired girl is called Amy Dallon, and is greatly overshadowed by her sister, Victoria Dallon, also known as Glory Girl, who's golden hair shines lusciously even in the dead of night, whose figure radiates a celestial beauty.

Glory Girl is beautiful in ways words can't describe, her every action a stroke of a masterful painter, like she is the equal to Adonis, designed by the gods themselves to be the picture of perfection.

Yes, Glory Girl is perfect. Everything about her is perfect. She is beauty and majesty. Those present, fortunate enough to bear witness to her advent can only fall to their knees in adulation-

The crisp sound of a slap echoes across the silent street as Mary slaps her cheeks with her one hand, bringing everyone's eyes to her.

Mary twitches her hand and spins her cane once, tapping it's end on the floor as she regards the Dallons with a cordial smile. "Are you intentionally Mastering us, Glory Girl?"

The words, softly spoken as they were, have an immediate effect as every trooper and Assault immediately straightens. Battery seems to have noticed the effect at around the same time Mary did.

"Ah shit, sorry," Glory Girl quickly answers, an abashed smile on her face as the feeling of awe towards her that was permeating the street fades to a dull, hardly noticeable if not for the fact they were actively looking out for it feeling of positivity.

"Damnit Vicky," Amy sighs as the two of them reach street level, allowing her to be deposited from Victoria's arms, "Carol told you to get a handle on your aura."

The others are quick to shake off their stupor, and other than being somewhat annoyed, none of them think about bothering to pursue the matter. They've all read her file after all, and understand the power in question.

Beyond being another Alexandria Package, a catch-all term for Brutes with flight, also less politely called Flying Bricks, Glory Girl has a minor Master power. It functions as an aura that causes everyone around her to feel either an intense awe or fear towards her. It doesn't really have an off switch, and takes conscious effort to keep at a low enough level to not effect people.

"Glory Girl," Battery's stern voice calls out, "what are you doing here?"

Sheepishly rubbing the back of her head, Victoria is quick to answer. "I was just flying around with Ames, then we saw you guys gathering and I guess I forgot to keep my aura down 'cuz I was curious what you were all doing, sorry again about that, but whatever you're doing looks important, d'you mind if I tag along?"

Battery doesn't answer. On one hand, the extra help would ensure things go smoothly in the face of any unexpected occurrences, but on the other hand Glory Girl is only sixteen.

Luckily for her, Mary speaks up in her stead. "Have your parents allowed you to engage in raids against parahuman defended locations?"

Victoria scowls lightly for a moment at the thought of having to get parental permission, before she remembers that she does have it and cheers up again. "Yep! Mom said it's cool so long as there's someone from The Protectorate around too."

Battery thinks she's paraphrasing, but also doubts that she's lying so ultimately decides to accept the help.

"Alright, you can come but your sister is going to have to wait a safe distance away."

"Ah crap," Victoria gets a deer in headlights look to her face before turning to Amy with an abashed smile, "sorry, I totally feel like I'm ditching you right now."

"You kind of are..." Is Amy's dry answer but she doesn't actually seem to mind.

With that decided, the Dallon sisters join the others as they move towards the complex in question, with Amy being left at the end of the street.

The complex is shaped like a rectangle with a fairly large open area in the centre. It's only three floors high.

They decide to go for a two-pronged attack. With Assault and Victoria starting from the roof and working down, while the rest charge the front door.

Things go about as well as expected in the beginning. Battery kicks down the front door and charges in, incapacitating a pair of men as she does so and is followed by Mary and the squad of troopers.

Following that the troopers fan out in pairs, with Battery and Mary sticking together.

The building is quickly filled with the sounds of gunshots as the criminals fight back with live arms against the trooper's rubber bullets. But Battery doesn't get to think more on that, as just minutes after their entry, as she and Mary are moving down a corridor, a wall explodes outwards right next to them.

None of them have time to do anything but watch as Circus bursts through the dust with a wide smile on their face. The clownly looking parahuman poises their hands as if they are holding an invisible pole and swing right at Mary like she's playing baseball.

Right at the last moment, a comically large hammer with a smiley face where the eyes are both crosses appears in her hands, it's sudden weight not impeding the velocity of her swing at all.

Mary is hit, barely able to bring her arm up in time to guard, and is sent flying through the large windows that fill one side of the corridor.

Battery immediately uses up her charge and the world slows down to her eyes. With speed that should be too fast to track she dashes forward, but is forced to abandon the assault when Circus jumps away, slowly to her eyes, and forms a ball of fire between them both.

The fireball zooms past Battery and explodes against the corridor wall, blowing a large hole through the stonework and shattering every window in the hall.

She doesn't wait for the dust to settle before she charges again, burning through what little charge she built in that brief respite. But once again Circus proves nimble as Battery's fist sails past their face, so close that Circus feels the electricity arcing off of Battery's form char her mask slightly.

Hopping backwards, Circus regards the glaring Battery. 

"Scary~," she mocks, placing her hands over her face as if to hide.

But while those two are duking it out, the others are not standing idly. The troopers are all busy fighting with the various mercenaries, all while doing their best to avoid becoming collateral in the increasingly chaotic cape fights taking place around them.

As for the Heroes, they have a foe even more tricky than Circus.

After being knocked through a wall, Mary fell into the open centre of the complex and was immediately met by a Villain.

Like Scissors before him, he is wearing a simple dark grey outfit that conceals his body and does a good job hiding him in the dark. They did use to be small time thieves after all. However his mask is more suited to his name, Paper, being a simple white cloth that covers his entire face.

Obviously, it is likely to be a material that is see through one-way, much like Mary's own blindfold if the opposite colour.

The two of them entered a stare down once Mary landed on her feet that was only broken when the wall above her was exploded by Circus' fireball.

Mary whipped her arm forward, sending the weighted end of her chain flying straight for his chest only to miss as Paper folds in on himself and collapses to the ground.

Now two dimensional, Paper rushes towards Mary and slips through her legs to rise up behind her.

Only to be greeted by a wall of fire.

"ARGH!" He cries out in pain and stumbles back, staring at his scorched hands in shock.

Mary doesn't give the inexperienced fighter any time to gather his bearings and spins around impossibly fast, dropping low and extending a leg that effortlessly kicks out Paper's own feet from under him.

Falling to the ground with another pained grimace Paper manages enough focus to utilise his power. Once more, he falls into the ground and slides away right as another burst of fire washes over where he was.

Rising from the earth, Paper regards Mary more carefully. He thought he'd be able to take her down with a quick surprise attack but evidently that is not doable. He can't really be blamed for his mistake.

After all, standing there so serenely like a statue with one arm and a blindfold over her eyes, it's understandable that one could make the mistake of assuming she is ill-prepared for a fight.

Mary's weapon clinks back into place and Paper gives his hands another glance, grimacing at the peeling skin.

Her fire is hot, he notes.

However before the fight can resume they both feel a surge of preternatural fear wash over them and almost instinctually turn to stare as Glory Girl comes crashing down into the courtyard, cracking the ground where she lands.

"Hey Falcon, you good?"

Mary doesn't get to answer as Assault soon follows Victoria and cuts her off. "Does it look like she's having any trouble, Glory Girl?"

"Guess not," she shrugs, smirking impishly at Paper who only scowls further in response.

"Please surrender," Mary's voice rings out, "this is not a fight you can win."

"Oh yeah?" Paper glowers at them, "we'll fucking see about that."

With no hesitation, Paper pulls a needle out of his pocket and jams it into his arm, injecting it's contents before the Heroes can even try to stop him.

"What was that?" Victoria asks after noticing the cramped look on Assault's face.

"That was bad news, is what it was. Do you know about TGT?"

"Oh," Victoria's face falls, recalling how her uncle got hurt recently fighting some druggies who used it.

They watch in a moment that felt like minutes as blood explodes out from Paper's back, thickening and hardening as it crawls down his arms to form a pair of long and sharp blades. His face remains hidden behind his mask, but they could swear they saw the faintest hints of glowing red where his eyes should be.

There is a tense moment of silence where Paper turns his palms over, gazing at his own limbs in wonder. The blades of hardened blood are thicker than his hands and stick out from just above his knuckles, making punching impossible but not taking away his ability to grab things.

The moment is ruined by Victoria flying right at him with a fist cocked back to deliver a devastating blow that never lands.

She hits only air as Paper compresses himself to the floor, re-emerging once she has passed. Dashing to his side as Assault and Mary burst forward, Paper reaches a hand out to the side of the only undamaged bench left in the courtyard, and in the blink of an eye, the bench compresses down longways into his palm.

Spinning around, his other bladed arm strikes out at Assault, and the man's eyes widen in shock as the blade actually manages to score a light cut on his raised forearm. At the same time, Paper points his palm at Mary and like a compressed spring being released, the entire length of the bench extends from his hand and right into her chest.

The bench shatters on impact, wood turning to splinters and metal pieces falling to the ground while Mary's body is violently flung away, kicking up dirt as she rolls across the ground.

"Shit," Assault curses as he charges back in, going for a gut punch that hits nothing but air.

Rising from the ground behind Assault, Paper swings both blades down in a cross, only for a sudden impact in his side to send him flying into the courtyard's walls almost hard enough to punch through them.

He feels the air leave his lungs as at least half of his ribs crack.

"Holy shit are you okay?" Victoria asks Mary as the three Heroes regroup.

Mary, with her one arm dangling limply and very clearly dislocated, simply gives Victoria a comforting smile.

"I'm fine, don't worry," is all she says before falling to one knee and bracing her palm against the floor. Her fellow Heroes barely have an instant to recognise what is about to happen before Mary jerks her shoulder forward.

A crisp crack! echoes around them and Victoria can't hide her cringing as she realises what just happened.

Rolling her shoulder, Mary tilts her neck far enough that it pops and gives her fellow Heroes a wink. Only to realise they can't see that with her blindfold on.

The sounds of shifting debris bring their attention back to Paper, who has just finished regenerating from the otherwise deadly blow Victoria hit him with.

The tense standoff between them is broken by Mary this time, who speaks up in an almost casual voice. "He holds his breath," she says, causing them all to look at her, the Heroes in confusion and Paper in anger. "When he compresses himself, he holds his breath. All we have to do to win is keep up the pressure until he can no longer avoid us. We can all hit hard enough to put down a regenerator after that."

Assault would have expected Paper to cut his losses and flee then and there, since it's unlikely they'd be able to stop him. But either because of the drug in his veins or some other reason Assault could never know, Paper chooses to advance.

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A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!

Fuck you fuck me and fuck this chapter. I feel like I say those thinks a lot...

Seriously tho, this chap was kicking my ass. I rlly didn't feel like writing any of it, but narratively speaking I didn't have much choice. I do want to actually progress the plot lmao, but I didn't want to write fights rn.

Lucky for me, I hit 4k words just then and realised I can blue ball the fight :) git rekt.

Unless I suddenly find myself motivated to write a cool fight, next chap will probably start at the end of this fight, and I have an idea in mind for a chap that should be pretty fun to write (probably maybe)

Also, halfway through writing this I read through a bit of a chap of Jester and realised something... I use commas way too fucking much wtf? I spent the latter half of this chapter feeling self conscious of every comma I put in. Please let me know how you feel about my use of commas and how you'd prefer I use them if you know.