"Ow, what the fuck!" she says. Wait, it shouldn't hurt, the anchor should be absorbing the damage - she scratches furiously at her skin - takes stock quickly of her surroundings to confirm that not very much time has passed, she was in fact eaten by this giant sewer monster after Evil Lucien For Some Reason lured her down here, this isn't a new body after another month -

- isn't a new -

- "What the fuck!"

She is not the only person yelling this!

"Neat, Lorica classic."

"And you, what the fuck crawled into your brain and died??"

"Same thing that crawled into yours, I imagine," replies Not Lucien, distracted by the opportunity to check out the naked Loricae.

Why are there five of them. "Why are there five of us??"

"Do I look like I know??"

"Anybody else noticing not having the anchor?"

"Distinctly!"

"Yeah, I have something else, again."

Hm....

He's been checking closely and he's pretty sure at this point that Lorica Classic is hotter. 

The girl on top of the monster has different priorities than Not Lucien.

"Hm... You seem.... different. Than the others." she says, all her faces sniffing the air.

"You smell different too."

"Why the fuck do you keep commenting how I smell?"

"Hm..." 

"What were Lorica's powers, exactly?" 

"Uh, telekinesis and brute, and something Butcher-lite."

"Oh and master and stanger immunity?"

"Idiot."

This is too many clones to handle if they go rogue, but she used up much of her mass on them. She won't be able to make more clones for some time, long enough that she might be found by the heroes. She was counting on these clones to provide troops for the coming conflict... She'll split the difference and kill half of them.

One of her legs lashes out to the nearest clone, coming down with enough force to pulverize the chest of many Brutes. 

WHATEVER HER NEW POWER IS IS GETTING TESTED OUT RIGHT NOW

She's slammed to the ground and for the briefest moment she can feel her ribs straining, about to break.

And then the feeling is gone, and there is a blue jay sitting on her chest.

"I can turn people into birds? The fuck kind of power is that?" she asks, grabbing hold of the bluejay before it flaps away.

"Uh."

What.

Turns People Into Birds Lorica takes two wobbly steps toward Lucien and straightarms him in the chest.

Not before he shoots his power at her!

... Which does very little, considering his manton limit. The ground beneath her feet cracks some, and then she is holding another bird. Looks like a robin this time.

"Okay," she says, a bird clutched in each hand. "I'm Lorica Plumata, I guess."

"Can you turn them back?" asks one of the ones with Nikki Carter's face.

"I think so, but how about not right here? Anybody else have an inkling about your new loot?"

"I think I might be a breaker?" says one.

"I had an inkling when she was... not a bluejay... but can't get a bead on it now," says the third Classic.

"I've got nothing."

"I - think I have the original Tinker power, that's nice."

"Is the anchor one... gone, or... just... split up into...?"

"Yeah, we really need to interrogate Ms. Bluejay over there."

Loricae go walking slowly through the sewer, looking for a ladder up and an aperture out.

The blue jay attempts to bite Lorica Plumata and make a break for it while she's climbing the ladder out.

Nope. The bird's being squeezed quite tightly and even getting used to being almost impossible to injure has not made Lorica easily deterred by a bluejay beak at a bad angle. Climbing the ladder is difficult but she manages by wrapping her elbows around the rungs and going very slowly. She doesn't know what happens if she lets go of one.

One of the rungs crumbles, as energy branches out from the robin's beak.

"Evil-Lucien-bird, I might need the bluejay alive, but as far as I know you have no value to me and you have hollow bones. Chirp once if you understand."

The robin chirps.

(He had to try, and probably will again once he gets a better chance - being captured like this is just as bad as being dead.)

She tries to avoid having him close to the rungs anyway. The others help her up.

Now there are five naked girls, three white and two brown, standing naked in the street in Brockton Bay! Where are they?

Not too far from where she started - it's only a twenty minute walk to where Beacon Tower collapsed. This particular neighborhood is dense and residential.

One of them walks up to the nearest door and knocks.

A woman in her early twenties answers the door of her townhouse.

"Ye-." Nope.

She unanswers the door, slamming it shut. She's been in Brockton Bay through enough disasters to know cape shit when she sees it.

"I just want some blankets or something! It's chilly!"

The door opens up a crack.

"Stay outside, I'll get you something. Don't come in." The door closes

A minute later the door opens again, wider this time, and the woman presents two blankets and a bundle of oversized shirts. 

"Perfect, thank you." She brings these back to the rest of the gang. They cooperate to put one of the shirts on Plumata so she doesn't have to hold onto a blanket with her encumbered hands and distribute the rest amongst themselves. And head off to - sigh - the nearest PRT office.

The nearest PRT office turns out to be one of the recently set-up checkpoints. There's an Undersider graffiti tag to the left of the front door.

"Hi, we're all Lorica, we were recently - duplicated? We need a safe place to... uh... deposit the cape who did it and somebody who's either Lacuna or a copy of him. Whom that one has turned into birds."

.... 

"A moment please." says the lady at the front desk, typing out a message to her boss with a priority marking.

Various Loricas other than Plumata try to figure out by introspection what their powers are.

One of them has the feeling she can... poof.

Well that doesn't sound like something to test this minute but it's good to know if she encounters an emergency situation in which it would be useful to go poof.

Tattletale receives a text.

Huh, that would explain why Lorica wasn't answering her phone.

"Lorica clones at our ex-PRT office acting nice."

"For real?"

"Maybe?"

Helpful.

Skitter continues negotiating with Miss MIlita about a temporary alliance, regardless of what Tagg is saying, and simultaneously assembles a swarm clone in the ex-PRT outpost.

"What happened?" a sudden fuckton of bugs asks the Loricae.

"Uh, hi, Skitter," says one. "I'd say you could text me but I guess you couldn't."

"I turned Lacuna, or a Lacuna, he looked like him but was being evil for some reason, into a bird. And also the big case-what-the-fuck that copied me."

This can be repeated to Tattletale for confirmation.

"Yup, that's her."

"How stable is it?"

"Do I look like I know? I've had this power for fifteen minutes! I don't even know if I can let go of them without them turning back and wreaking havoc."

"Can you keep them that way as long as you're holding them?" asks the fuckton of bugs, as Taylor moves even more bugs towards the building.

To Miss Milita:

"We have Echidna pinned down and temporarily neutralized, if you want to help you can. If anyone tries to mess with us on this, on Tagg's orders or otherwise, I'll treat it as if they violated the Endbringer truce."

"I think so? Is this even a real PRT office or did you co-opt it."

"Both - they've defected." The outpost shares enough connections with the rest of the PRT that they manage to act as a regular PRT operation in many respects, even if they do answer to the Undersiders ultimately. She's not enthusiastic about the concept, leaving in place ties to such a flawed system, even if it was her idea. She can't build peace without the PRT in the long run. A changed PRT anyways.

It takes under two minutes for the Undersiders to arrive, minus Tattletale.

"Hi. Frankly I don't care who gives it to me, I just want a place I can let go of these where they won't immediately level a city and turn a dozen people into five dozen evil people or something. Do you have something like that?"

"First we have to get Grue, Lucien, and whoever else is still in her out."

"I'm... not sure how that will work while she is still a bird. You're saying they're salvageable? There's going to be six of us?"

"Emote, is there anyone in there?" asks Taylor

    "Hurts to look at something this small but yeah?" replies the slightly older cape, visiting town for the crisis.

"What, do you have a veterinary surgeon?"

"I'm pretty sure I can induce vomiting - birds don't chew their food before swallowing," she says, having felt many live bugs inside the digestive tracks of birds.

"Eww."

"And will they be - birds? Miniature?"

"No idea, do you know if your power is reversible?"

"No, because I don't want to try reversing it here in this office. I can try it on the Lacuna copy if you have a counter for him."

"The clone's power work on living things? Is it stronger than Lucien was normally?"

"I assume he still has a Manton limit or he'd be gouging me to bits right now. It seemed more, uh, rubble-themed than trench-themed?"

"We should be fine than."

Plumata lets go of the robin.

The robin doesn't change back and is instead promptly swarmed by bugs. 

"Want to try again?"

She pokes it and tries to unbird it.

Not Lucien goes for the hand holding the blue jay immediately

- and is simultaneously stung, tased, and hit with a wave overwhelming apathy, all at once. 

He stops going for the blue jay.

"It's good to know I can let go. Anyone want a turn holding this, she's making some serious inroads on my thumb."

"I'll take her."

Taylor force feeds Bird Echidna some bugs until she vomits out four eggs.

"... Huh."

"Huh what?"

Taylor holds out the bird eggs by way of explanation. 

Plumata reaches for them and -

Lucien, Grue, Uber and yet another Lorica de-egg, full sized and alive - if damp and unhappy looking.

"What the hell?" says Second Edition Lorica.

"She copies people. Makes, uh, evil duplicates? Except we can't be turned evil? Or something."

To Lucien: "Evil You is a real asshole."

"Oh... sorry?"

He blinks at the hard sunlight, trying to pull himself away from the visions he'd seen inside of Echidna.

"... That is a lot of you."

"And four of us have new powers to figure out. Again. Exciting."

"Four?"

"I lucked back into the tinker power. Feels the same, at least."

"Oh, that's perfect." exclaims Tattletale, returning with Faultline, Labyrinth, and Flechette. 

"Perfect for what?"

"I'm glad you asked!" says Tattletale.

"First off, Labyrinth, a large target please - as we discussed on the way here."

The architecture around them warps, the pavement turning to cobblestones, a stone sphere 8 feet in diameter rising out of the ground. 

"And now Flechette, will you shoot it?"

Flechette shoots an arrow into the sphere.

The sphere vanishes, a hollow void. 

"Labrynth, you should be able to see other worlds..."

The quiet cape nods.

"Somewhere uninhabited please, where we can drop our bird nemesi off."

The void changes, becoming a portal to a forest, towering oak trees visible in the distance contrasting against the city landscape around them.

"That's really cool but did not successfully make your point without further explanation."

"Oh we're almost there - any objections to leaving the birds there? We can go back for them later if need be."

"None, lets get them clear of us."

And two bird yeetings later:

"And a new destination please, somewhere empty again."

The portal changes yet again.

"So," says Tattletale, smiling at Lorica, "You said something about your price being your Tinker powers and a continent?" 

"I don't think you were responsible for the Tinker powers thing though I acknowledge I'm really impressed by your access to continents."

"... We're not giving her a continent just because you want to impress her Tattletale."

"Oh hush, you're ruining my fun. Also she'd be great at it."

"Just her or do we get to set up an oligarchy? Hypothetically."

"You all can split up Australia and Africa however you want, and I'll throw in Japan as a signing bonus."

"Are there, like, people?"

"Shouldn't be -" she glances at Labyrinth, who is staring off into space "-yeah there aren't. Not yet anyways."

"I'd need to come up with something to let us do portals on our own, unless one of the mystery bunch turns out to conveniently do it on her own, and it's not that solidly in my wheelhouse."

"We'll be leaving this portal here I think, no need for you to be able to make your own. Though hopefully Flechette and Labyrinth can be persuaded to make more."

Faultline sighs, "We can discuss future payments for the Labyrinth side later. You know how to contact us." she says, leaving with Labyrinth. 

"It's... kind of a dumb place for a portal."

"Nah, Undersiders already own most of these buildings."

"What do you want from - us -"

To take over the world, of course.

She looks to Taylor for an answer, since this is not actually her call.

"Depends on your new powers, but I'm guessing we'll be expanding given this portal, and we'll need new capes if we want to cover more territory."

"Though now really isn't the time for this - I still have a PRT Director to deal with."

"Do you still have our phone?"

"Yes, though whether it's working is an open question."

"Well, email us with a clearer deal, just in case we can't get texts till we get new phones."

"Will do."

If that's all they will go around the stupidly placed portal and head home to explain to their parents.

Lorica asked for a place to put Echidna! And Tattletale provided one! As quickly as possible! Sure she could move it but that would require Faultline's cooperation to make the new one and that would cost even more money. 

While Tattletale figures out further portal logistics Skitter heads off to finish relocating personnel to a new base, since Tagg broke the last one.

It's a lot for their parents to adjust to, even after the whole, dying, coming back in somebody else's body, thing.

There's not really room for all six of them in the house. They put on six different outfits - that's most of their clothes, Lorica has always been pretty on top of doing laundry once a week - and pack the rest of their stuff.

Tinker Lorica assigns herself the nickname "Sarcina" and liberates Rete and assigns it to bring all their tech to the house she has it rent with some of the remaining Jack Slash money. It also sends the PRT a courtesy email about this since they're So Concerned about Unmaintained Tinker Tech.

Anchor-power Lorica names herself Castra and, as the least squishy and least clumsy member of the group so far as they currently know, heads out - pity she left her motorcycle, she'll pick that up on the way back - to return the blankets and shirts to the lady who lent them.

"Oh, hey, naked copy girl. Didn't expect to see you again."

"I just came to bring back your stuff, we got home and raided our own closet."

Must be a big closet.

"I hope whatever you were doing went well?"

"Well, so far I've still only died the same number of times as I had yesterday, so I think we'll be all right."

Is it impolite to ask someone how many times they've died.

Fuck it, she's curious.

"How many times is that?"

"Just once. Turned out to have a power that reincarnated me, it was weird."

"Same power that led to there being two of you last night?"

"Uh, not unrelated but not the same - how much of this story do you actually want."

"All of it, I think."

"Do you know who Lorica is?"

"Tinker, died fighting Leviathan, not sure if I know anything else about them off the top of my head."

"Yeah, well, I turned out to have a power that reincarnated me. I think it is related to why my copies are not evil, but it was a different cape that made the copies."

"So you're immortal and there are two of you now? Oh, copies plural - three of you?"

"You didn't actually see me with the rest, since I was the one copied from and was at the time still incapacitated."

"Oh, so we haven't met more."

"I  honestly have a bunch more questions if you'd like to come inside and chat for longer? I have some cookies in the oven if that tempts you."

"My copies will make fun of me, but sure, why not, as long as you aren't secretly a cape hater planning to poison me."

"I don't hate capes and have no plans to poison any, much less one who sounds guaranteed to come back for revenge."

Her house is cozy if old, smelling of wood and freshly baking cookies. A staircase near the entrance leads to an upstairs presumably with bedrooms, and past that there's a kitchen with a small wooden table pressed against the wall. There are a few potted plants decorating the place, and a tall bookcase crammed into the kitchen filled with textbooks and a mix of historical and parahuman non-fiction. 

"Nice place." She has a backpack - it's what she carried the blankets and shirts in - and there's a little Rete drone in the bottom of the bag, presumably taking care of notifying her copies about what she's up to.

"Thanks - I've had a lot of time to stay in and reorganize things recently with how violent the city has been."

"If I weren't a cape I'd probably go live in the middle of nowhere."

"Yeah.... I considered it. But I don't want to bury my head in the sand if that makes any sense?"

"You can get the news in the middle of nowhere."

"If the news was any good than I wouldn't be inviting a cape I just met into my house - no offense."

"Fair enough."

"Why does being a parahuman mean you have to live out here?"

"Oh, it doesn't mean I have to, it just means that I have more leverage to work with. I did die that one time but I did it saving people."

"What are using the leverage for?"

"Saving people, I just said! Though now that there are more of us we may resettle."

"How are you going about saving people?"

"During the Leviathan attack I was doing evac, my drones found people who were stuck in untenable locations or downed combatants and I hauled them out of the danger zone."

"Does the clones thing change what you'll be doing?" 

"If it didn't wouldn't that be weird?"

Tessa chuckles.

"Comfortable elaborating?"

"Well, we've all got different powers, and we can work together, and also none of us belong to the Wards right now like I did back when it was Leviathan so we can arrange our lives however we want."

"Mm. My parahuman psych class has a unit on instability of cape groups and they spend a bunch of time on all the different things the Wards and Protectorate do to discourage and defuse conflict between their members. They definitely try to give the impression that those groups are the only ones that manage to not fall apart due to infighting."

"Oh, yeah, capes are like that as a group but I'm not. I guess it might be my mind-alteration immunity?"

"What sort of differences have you noticed between you and other capes?"

"I mean, apart from that one it's mostly just the same things that make me - us - different from other people in general."

"Mm, do your powers into the other differences too or do you just mean mundane personality variation?"

"Mundane personality variation."

"What leads you to think there's something else going on with you doing better in groups?"

"I'm not especially good in groups of other people but I seem to have a really convenient instinct for dealing with groups of me! I didn't expect this to come up and don't know why I have it but there is a way it is natural to interact with five more of myself and it's awesome."

"That's neat! What did you mean earlier when you said mind-alteration immunity was helpful for something related to getting along with capes if it's not you getting along with yourselves?"

"Oh, I think possibly getting powers makes people more combative and possibly could not make me do anything."

"What makes you think that? I've heard the claim before but most of the articles I read on it seem to think that it's the fault of the process by which people gain powers rather than the powers themselves."

"Also possible. I don't have nearly the statistical data to suggest otherwise. It's just how I lean."

"Mm."

A ding in the kitchen indicates that the cookies are ready to be removed from the oven, so Tessa does that.

"I hope I'm not being too intrusive with the questions," Tessa says as she puts the cookies out to cool.

"You're not being intrusive exactly but I confess they do not all make sense to me as things to ask."

"Hm?"

"I guess I was expecting something a little more structured if you've been hoping to get a cape to talk to for a while? I can like, leave you my email."

"That would be great!"

And cookies are served.

She takes a cookie and writes her email on a napkin. Gets up to go.

Tessa got to meet and question a parahuman and wasn't killed, maimed, or worse. So all in all a very productive day.

The Loricae buy a house. (They would just as soon not buy it from Tattletale, thanks, game night is not the same level of entanglement as major financial transactions and they haven't settled out the continent thing.) Sarcina colonizes the entire attic level as her workshop, claims all their tech from the PRT that she retained the rights to in the first place, and gets started on making a complete set of implants for everybody.

Assuming they can all use them. And suits. Which is not obvious. They do some powers testing. Can Plumata turn herself into a bird and back? If she does, do dummy test implants pop right out? Does it include her clothes?

She can transform herself, clothes and implants included. Bulkier things, like her old armor, won't transform with her.

And what does going poof do?

And what the heck

are the mystery powers??

Going poof explodes her into a cloud, apparently! She takes up the entire house, spills out onto the street, and seeps into some neighboring houses as well.

She can sense everything the cloud is touching, and move it albeit very slowly. 

If she wants to unpoof she can do so in any spot within her cloud-self, sucking it all back up into her normal form.

Well that's kind of dumb but maybe it will have hidden depths. Does it take implants and clothes?

Yup, powers are (sometimes) convenient like that. No bulky suits though.

Yes, yes, she's on it, slimfit suits for Plumata and Zephyr.

One of the two Loricae with more confusing powers can grant ... something? It's not clear what - none of the Loricae can tell that anything is happening except for the other mystery power Lorica, who can apparently sense that there's something being granted, and can also prevent it from being granted as well as changing the speed at which it stops working, whatever it is.

Do any of their buddies want to volunteer to be granted something, since it doesn't seem to work on other Loricae?

Tattletale doe- okay Tattletale has way too much to do right now. 

Lucien has the time.

"So what are we doing here exactly?"

"If I knew it wouldn't need to be done. It doesn't seem to work on us, so it's probably mind-affecting, but the other one without her own nickname yet thinks it's not otherwise harmful."

"K, hit me I guess?"

Boop?

"Huh, I feel... normal? Maybe a bit tired."

"Huh, not physically tired though! More like 'I should sleep' tired. Which is weird since normally my powers prevent that?"

"- that's weird, why would I have a power to put you to sleep that doesn't actually... put you to sleep..."

"I'm not sure. If all else fails you can wait till Tattletale has time and see if she can figure it out?"

"She doesn't work on me, does she? Would she work on this anyway somehow?"

"Her inferencing works on you fine? She doesn't read minds or anything."

"Huh, I thought she was at least a little impaired. Yeah, let's ask her if nothing becomes obvious by the time she's got a minute."

"If she's impaired she hasn't mentioned it to me."

"I wish I knew what my thing did. I poke it sometimes, I think it's some kind of Trump thing because I can do it 'at' Plumata and this'un and also Castra for some reason even though her power doesn't affect people at all, but it doesn't do anything in reaction to Sarcina or Zephyr."

"You're welcome to try it for my power."

"It works fine on your power at doing whatever the fuck it is doing with powers. Did you notice anything, the other mes don't but that could be because we're us."

"Nope."

"Well, hopefully Tattletale can diagnose us mystery Loricae."

Later that evening Lorica Tribune receives an email:

Was galea sure your power was harmless? I've been getting more and more tired since you used it on me.

Oh shoot. I can come get you and undo it? I think I can undo it, it just barely seemed to do anything so I didn't think of it.

Maybe? I'm worried that I'll fall asleep, which given my powers means reliving traumatic memories in detail rather than normal sleep and I'd really prefer not that.

Is it obvious while you're asleep if you're having nightmares or not? I could come over and like, wake you up if you start yelling. Or just undo it outright if you don't want to risk it.

It's not noticeable but I can have my parents wake me up shortly after I fall asleep if you think it's worth testing? And call you over if in fact it's the normal nightmares my power gives me.

Okay. I really hope it doesn't do you any harm, it doesn't feel like it should but I don't know for certain that it would.

It takes Lucien a while to get to sleep, but his mom being by his side and promising to wake him up shortly afterwards helps. Being really really tired helps too.

I slept! Normal sleep! For the first time since getting my powers!

Is that good? It sounds good!

It's good! I want to try doing it for the next several hours - I hear that's popular these days.

Sweet dreams!

The next morning there is another email from Lucien:

Oh wow sleep is really good it turns out! I have energy! Uh, I normally have energy but in a 'I can keep doing things' sort of way and not a 'I feel ready to face the world' sort of way. It's great!

Oh I'm so glad. If you need a re-up drop by whenever.

He doesn't need a top-up later that day, but the day after he does, though it's fine if she isn't available - sleeping two out of three nights is more than enough for him.

"I don't know what else my power is good for besides letting you sleep! I don't have anything else important on."

"Hopefully Tattletale will be free soon to advise about that - right now we're busy trying to force the PRT to negotiate."

"Well, let me know if it would somehow help at all for one of us to come mediate or something."

"Not much to mediate at the moment - right now it's mostly Tagg taking pot shots at us and us doing our best to stop this without blowing anything up in process."

"I appreciate that you're trying to minimize the explosions."

"I'm not a fan of them. The rest of the Undersiders aren't either... Imp might be ambivalent I guess, I can't tell."

"I should talk to Imp. Or like, some group of us should talk to Imp. Do you have her email?"

He has to check but apparently he does.

"What do you want to talk to her for?"

"Oh, she invited me to go kill Heartbreaker with her and maybe there are now enough of me that this makes nonsuicidal sense as a plan."

"Well, good luck. Try not to get Canada blown up."

"I will attempt to confine the collateral damage to his extremely immediate vicinity."

"Coming from most people I wouldn't actually find that reassuring but I guess you might be an exception to that. Well, six exceptions to that."

"In all seriousness his rate of kidnapping people is sufficient that I'd probably think it worthwhile to trade a few of his hostages for a definite killshot, but I will hold out for the best possible plan and would be surprised if it couldn't be pretty clean when we're probably all immune to him and nearly all his kids."

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure that collateral is why there isn't a kill order - to big of a risk of a lot of innocents dying, plausibly without him even being captured."

"Which is kind of silly, it's not like the Slaughterhouse Nine are above taking hostages."

"Slaughterhouse Nine has a much higher kill count, and their hostages don't tend to come out of it okay either."

"Yeah. Anyway I find Heartbreaker very personally upsetting and would find it very satisfying to squash him."

"Hope you succeed!"

When we know what all our powers are and Sarcina gets us all suits made are you still up for assassinating Heartbreaker?

.

I don't know what that means.

lol

and a minute later

yeah
im in

Great. Do you want to try out my power, we don't know what it does yet besides let Lacuna sleep.

I'm glad you got so much out of that field trip to Egypt you must have taken but I don't communicate in pictograms.

A good thirty minutes pass before before Lorica Tribune gets another email:

wait shit you dont live at that theater
ill take the power test

were you at

What theater?

one of the crappy play and your mom

After another twenty minutes Aisha is at her place, looking for a person to follow through the front door.

"Hi, Aisha," says a Lorica, on her way home from the hardware store.

Aisha startles.

"What? It's me! We're all me!"

And she noticed Aisha! The bit where it was a Loricae who noticed Aisha wasn't actually relevant.

She glares at Castra and then rolls her eyes - the two universally applicable responses.

"What brings you here?"

"Road trip to Canada to kill Regent's dad."

"And power testing."

"Ooh, fun." Castra lets her in.

"Hi, Aisha." Plumata is on the couch reading a book.

JESUS CHRIST will they stop that doing that

"Do you prefer Imp?"

She hesitates and then shrugs, calming herself down from the scare.

Also she starts suppressing her power, since if people are going to notice her anyways it might as well be when she's actually supposed to be noticable.

They don't notice.

A robot floats into the room. "You've been corresponding with one of the unnamed Loricae," it says. "She's upstairs."

So much less surprising this way. 

Is the unnamed Lorica in this room?

The robot leads her to her! "Hi! Now I have you right where I want you, namely, impaired in trying to talk to me with animated images."

She flips Lorica off - even wiggles her finger to animate it.

Lorica sticks out her tongue. "Ready for me to bop you with my mystery power?"

"Sure."

Boop!

Aisha looks pensive for a few seconds and than she starts shaking as her head jerks so she's looking straight up at the ceiling.

"That's not what a seizure looks like."

Aisha starts giggling anyways.

"I hope you can be more serious during the actual operation."

Aisha shrugs.

"Sure."

"Oh good. You should see Sarcina and get measured for Tinker doodads so we can coordinate when we're there, though I still want to know what I and the other Nicknameless Lorica actually do and I don't at all."

"Ruin jokes?"

"No, that's just part of the standard issue mental opacity power we all have."

Eye roll. 

On to fitting for doodads. 

"Yo. Does your power extend to stuff you're wearing, carrying...?"

"Sure."

"So I could make you a whole suit but that's a substantial materials outlay and killing Jack Slash got me only a million dollars and I spent most of it on the house. Probably we're looking at earpieces and maybe lenses, do you think you can do contacts or do you want spectacles?"

"Not sure if it'd work if I'm fully covered - doesn't work with cars but does with bicycles."

"Contacts work - glasses over my dead body."

"It's not like anyone but me would see you!"

Glare.

"Contacts and earpiece. I can maybe do some kind of reactive armor that moves around on you but is never covering all of you at once. Possibly you should have something that can incapacitate you if you get hit by somebody's area-of-effect Mastery even if they can't notice you coming, you're not very dangerous to me but you could grab a gun or something."

"What sort of thing?"

"Tranqs used to be my go-to but I'm not sure I can still reasonably source the juice. So maybe I can work it into the reactive armor that it can go for your wrists and ankles and not cooperate if you try to shoot me or something."

"I can get some tranqs."

"Can you non-stealingly get some tranqs."

"Why."

"Is there an answer that would satisfy you and lead you to mend your ways after bowing to my superior ethical philosophy?"

Aisha stares for a second and then starts laughing.

"Didn't think so! So why are you bothering to ask?"

She shrugs. She'll get some tranqs later. Probably from the Undersider mercenary stash tbh.

"So I'll design it to work without tranqs, unless - Rete -"

"It is not legal for you to buy useful quantities of tranquilizer."

"That's what I thought."

Whatever.

"Did Regent's power work on you? Could he use it to notice you when you were unnoticeable?"

"Nope."

She's probably feeling an emotion at this, though fuck if she knows which emotion.

"Didn't work at all, or just didn't work to notice you when you were unnoticeable?"

"He lost control if I relaxed my power."

"Control?"

"Regent's power was that he could control people if he jerked them around enough."

"Oh, I didn't know that. Well, that's not going to be a guarantee for any of the others but it's suggestive."

"Mhm. I'm not planning on giving any of them the chance to realize I'm there."

"Sounds good. I'll get underway on mission gear but we're almost certainly not going to move till we know what the two mysteries do."

"How long will that be?"

"How should I know?"

Whatever.

Aisha stops being noticable and leaves.

Nobell notices her unnoticeability. One says bye on her way out.

FUCK

Okay yeah that's a thing. Aisha... says bye back. She's pretty sure that's how it goes.

Seems to be a satisfactory way for her to respond.

A few days later the power in the Loricae's fancy new house goes out for several minutes - judging by the darkness outside it's the same for the rest of the city.

"UGH, WORKING ON IT," Sarcina calls before anyone asks her, and she rigs the house wiring to the thing that charges the robots before it comes back on.

A few hours later rumors start circulating that Tagg has been arrested.

By... the cops??

Apparently! No one is really sure why, or if this actually happened.

Are the cops sure. She knows somebody who's a cop as his day job, see.

He's being detained while prosecutors work out exactly what to charge him for - but evidently yes, he is under arrest. Apparently he tried to trigger the Endbringer sirens to clear the city for some sort of ploy against the Undersiders.

Wow, fucking with the Endbringer sirens is real bad, fuck that guy. Who's his replacement?

Good question - no one's entirely sure.

Well that's probably bad. But she's not a Ward anymore. It does not have to be her problem unless it's causing issues for her dad.

It takes a few days to sort it out, but eventually someone is promoted internally - Transit hears rumors from other heroes suggesting that the new director was one of the PRT members who broke off and joined the Undersiders during the fighting.

Slightly concerning but he's not going to quit over it till it affects operations.

Miss Militia and the Undersiders agree to an (unwritten) truce where the Protectorate won't proactively go after the Undersiders and will coordinate with them for major threats. Arresting an Undersider who is flagrantly committing a crime - and not in the middle of dealing with someone else who is doing the same - is still fair game.

Left unsaid is how this is more a description of what the Protectorate can actually manage to do in Brockton than it is an agreement they chose to make.

Seems a little more - legitimizing - than he likes, but the Undersiders aren't exactly Nazis.

What, legitimizing? They would never.

From: tattletale@brockton.gov
To: loricae@pho.org

---

Hey does your dad want a medal for refusing illegal orders?

From: loricae@pho.org
To: tattletale@brockton.gov

How in the hell did you get a gov address?

I'm not sure he'd appreciate it coming from a villain.

The medal would be from the mayor!

You like the address? I could swing another one if you want to put it on your wish list  - Skitter refuses to use hers anyways.

No thanks, I used to have one but feel I have outgrown it. My dad might like a medal from the mayor but since you're asking I somehow doubt it would be from the mayor. I guess he might like it for the symbolism to give others a good example to look up to either way.

Up to you!

And apparently there will be a board game night once again, now that the city is stable.

How many of us are there room for?

Oh yeah. Should be fine to have everyone? My building has a nice indoor common space on the roof I can sign out for the evening.

Sarcina'll sit out and tinker but the rest of us will be there.

When they arrive Tattletale, Aisha, Dinah, Vista, Parian, Flechette and Lucien are already there, several of them leafing through thick stacks of paper and laughing.

In pile Loricae, two brown ones and three white ones. They're all wearing Tinker swag these days.

" - and four counts of violating the third amendment," reads Dinah in-between giggles.

"The third? Who's violating the third amendment lately?"

"Tagg, apparently. Lisa got the arrest records."

"Law enforcement reports - they're not going to charge him with most of this. Though I do hope they charge him for the -" she shuffles papers, "- 358 counts of operating heavy machinery on the Lord's day."

"That's still on the books? - did he actually quarter agents in people's houses -"

"By the look of it he put PRT officers in Taylor's house and the house of a few Wards who he thought needed protection?"

"Huh. I think it only counts as quartering if they like, reside there, instead of having shifts or something, but that's pretty fucky."

"Well, there's a couple of pages of legal argument attached if you want to read it."

"I don't but I hope whoever wrote it had fun."

"I'm pretty sure it was Dragon? She files reports like these all the time - though never in quite this large a quantity as far as I know."

"Huh. Rete, remind Sarcina to get in touch with Dragon."

"Oh, I've been meaning to mention that I'm pretty sure she's mastered into obeying the law or some nonsense like that. She followed Tagg's orders and than dropped this on him at the first opportunity."

"Wow, incredibly fuck that, any candidates for who'd've pulled that?"

"Nope, and figuring it out sounds hard and I'm on vacation. Ask me in a month."

"Does that mean you won't figure out our mystery powers?"

"Nah, that'll be easy," she says, with her usual smug grin.

"Oh good. Come for the house rules Risk, stay for the pro bono Thinking. O Tattletale, wise and beneficent Tattletale, what the fuck is my power. And hers."

"Flattery will get you everywhere."

"Uh, hit me with it?" she asks the first Lorica.

"Boop."

"I hope that's not essential, mine doesn't do that."

"I'll stare at you next," she says to the other Lorica, focusing on the booper for the moment.

"Huh, subtle."

Her power streams in with inferences, most of them about what the effect isn't, before flagging something weird about her how her brain is responding to her power usage.

"Oh, damn. It's blocking the downside of my power - it's barely doing anything now but if I ran at full tilt for a few hours I wouldn't feel the migraine. I think I'd still run out of juice though. I think this is your master immunity power?"

"Are you saying this whole time we've been immune to thinker headaches and it just didn't come up because we're not thinkers?"

"Yes."

"Also I love this power. Probably some time limit and it might be variable but still, best power."

"Well, now I know what to offer you next time I want something."

"Please do."

"Next Lorica! What do you know so far?"

"Almost nothing. It twigs to something if I'm near Plumata or Dad, negligibly if at all to most other people."

"Hmm.. anything sensory going on with the twigging?"

"Uh... synaesthetically sort of like the concept of hiding?"

"Huh! Anything on say, Dinah? Or Aisha?"

"Nothing on Aisha. Not much on Dinah."