Who would win? Erich thought irritably as he stepped over the sparking remains of one of his Helots, children scattering out of his way as he marched toward the latest problem to prop up. A horde of hastily armed street children and dirt-cheap security drones or one angry woman?

Given that said woman was a particularly powerful bruiser, the answer was obvious.

As it should have been to just about anyone who’s ever seen a bruiser in action, Erich thought as he glared at the remains of a Helot that had somehow become lodged in the ceiling.

That’s going to be a pain to get down…

It had certainly been obvious to him. Not this particular scenario, but one like it.

Which was why he had taken precautions. Specifically, a protocol that would come into effect in the event that a sufficient number of Helots were ever taken offline within the confines of his little ‘domain’.

“Hey Erich,” Myra called from her position chained to a metal support beam, her skin a much more mottled shade of purple than usual. “You’ve been holding out on me.”

“I suppose I have,” Erich said as he glanced at the good dozen Spartoi MK Two’s standing sentinel over the woman, weapons ready and primed. He could smell the tangy scent of ozone and burnt skin that accompanied laser fire.

He left the drones where they were.

They were likely the only thing holding the Meta in place. He knew the chains certainly wouldn’t do it if the woman decided she wanted to leave.

And even if they did hold, that support beam certainly wouldn’t, he thought glibly.

“A secret army of drones,” Myra grinned, showing bloody teeth. “I’ve spent months trying to find whatever little scheme you and that blonde bitch have been cooking up. Skulking around. Digging through your drawers. Talking to your munchkins.” She sighed. “Should have known I wasn’t cut out for this spy shit. Should have just started smashing stuff from the beginning, because that brought them to light pretty quick.”

“Yes,” Erich drawled, gesturing at her current condition, “because that has clearly worked out so well for you.”

The woman shrugged, utterly unabashed. “Wasn’t exactly planned. One of your munchkins caught me in the act and refused to accept a bribe. Downright unnatural that. Then she started yelling, and it all went to shit from there.”

“Which one?”

The bruiser inclined her head to where Cassandra was standing, a small group of hastily armed street urchins stood around her.

Erich was surprised, though his mask served to hide it.

“She’s still alive.”

All of the kids that had taken part in the battle were. Many of them in great pain, nursing massive bruises or broken bones, but alive.

Which was more than most people who were dumb enough to get in the way of a rampaging bruiser could say.

It was certainly better than most of his Drones could say.

Not even the MK Twos had escaped the woman’s wrath unscathed. One of the units stood over her was missing an arm, and he could see the another one on the floor with its chest caved in. No doubt a few more were scattered about the place.

Or in several places, he thought as he noted a twitching robotic leg lying on the floor.

So yes, it seemed that Myra had gone out of her way to avoid killing any of his workers.

Myra scowled. “I’m a great many things, but I’m not a kid killer.”

Erich cocked his head.

That statement was blatantly untrue.

He barely took part in the fighting, and he knew he had more than his fair share of blood from individuals who had yet to reach their majority on his hands.

It was just the nature of Portland.

Child soldier wasn’t even really a word here. They were just soldiers.

Still, as he thought on it, he supposed a woman who was bulletproof might be able to be a bit more discriminating on the battlefield.

Yet another perk of being a Meta I suppose, he thought with a hint of bitterness he tried not to read too far into.

“Why did she send you?” He asked, changing the subject.

“I’m always here,” Myra scoffed.

“That you are,” Erich said, “but I always assumed you were just the visible part of the spectrum. You show up, be distracting. Zig-zag shows up looking like one of my employees and does the real snooping.”

Myra grinned, before shrugging.

“Who knows? Maybe that is the case? Maybe our mutual boss is here right now.”

This time it was Erich’s turn to scoff.

The King’s were done; rather anti-climactically if he was honest. While the leadership of the Kings had Manacle in more of a ‘first amongst equals’ position, his loss had still resulted in a domino effect. Last he’d hear squabbles had erupted between the other metas of the gang as some seceded while others tried to take control.

Which in turn had brought in other gangs, hoping to grab as much territory as possible while organization imploded.

Business as usual as far as Portland was concerned. Easy come easy go.

And with the King’s disappearance, his, Bronte’s and Zig-zag’s mutual goal of surviving the group’s expansion had come to an end.

Just as they had all always known it would.

Though I doubt anyone expected this little split to end up in a three-way – least of all me.

“Zig-zag’s not here,” Erich said dispassionately.

“Oh, and how would you know that?” The purple bruise murmured, more curious than afraid.

Erich shrugged.

“That’s for me to know and you to never find out.”

Though it would be easy enough to figure out if you stopped to think for a few seconds.

Zig-zag herself had clued him into it when they’d first met by telling him that their transformations were a result of conscious thought. From there, a method of defeating it was simple enough, albeit just as easy for Zig-zag to remove if they ever became aware of it.

Hence my desire not to blab about it.

Myra grinned again. “Fine, keep your secrets. God knows you’ve got enough of them.”

“Quite,” Erich said. “Though I note you’ve still not answered my question.”

“Why, you going to torture it out of me if I don’t?”

“Yes.”

The word came easily, and Erich didn’t know whether it was to his credit or not that he hesitated for just a second before answering.

“Fucking stone cold,” Myra said, apparently not at all phased by the prospect of torture.

Perhaps she doesn’t think I’m serious?

One of his metallic tentacles had just started to reach for a power drill when Myra spoke again.

“Alright, alright.” Myra said, “no need to get your robotic garters in a twist. I sure as shit don’t love that gender bent wierdo enough to take a drill to the eye.”

The eye?

Why did she think he was going to shove it through her eye?

Much too wasteful. In all honesty, ghastly as the situation was, a part of him had been slightly curious to know just how much punishment Prowler’s skin could take.

If he was going to do something that awful, it only made sense to get the most benefit out of it he could.

“Why are you the one spying on me rather than Zig-zag?” He reiterated.

Myra sagged in her chains slightly, “does anyone else have free access to your office?”

Erich pondered the question for a second.

“No, only you.” Then his eyes narrowed in realization. “And only because you kept breaking in and trashing the drone on guard in the process. In the end I figured it was easier to make an exception for you rather than replace it each time.”

Though he had put in some fairly stringent criteria on what the woman could do while she was in there before the drone would act to stop her.

“I assume that was on purpose,” he continued. “Annoying me into making that exception?”

Myra’s shit eating grin was all the answer he needed, and despite himself, he was impressed. He hadn’t thought Myra was capable of that kind of long term planning or manipulation.

Which now that I think about it, might just be an indicator of how good she is at it.

Idly Erich found himself wondering how much of the woman’s audacious and blunt personality was real and how much was a façade.

Then his mind twigged onto an earlier comment. “You said one of my ‘munchkins’ caught you. Why not the drone?”

“She put a sheet over it!”

Erich’s mask whipped round towards the voice that had spoken.

Cassandra stood, slightly apart from her peers, drill in hand, and armed with a venomous glare he hadn’t known the quiet young woman was capable of. Fortunately, it was aimed at their captive Bruiser rather than himself.

“A sheet?”

“Yeah,” the girl nodded. “She draped it over the Spartoi’s eyes so that it couldn’t see what she was doing.

Erich’s mind shuddered to a jarring stop.

…Surely that wouldn’t… Surely the drone would… It couldn’t be that…

Erich slumped in his suit as he racked his brain for any part of the machine’s programming that would cover such an act and came up empty.

…Yes. She definitely could do that.

Stupid as it was.

This was why even someone as asocial as him needed to include people in his organization, rather than filling it with just machines.

Machines just weren’t… adaptable.

And as more than one would be supervillain had discovered over the years, they often had pretty major blindspots.

Erich put that entire debacle from his mind as he returned to figuring out why Myra was present when she worked for a shapeshifter.

“Zig-zag can’t change their mass.” He murmured as realization hit him. “Which means that certain body types are beyond them. They couldn’t pretend to be you, you’re too big - so you had to come yourself.”

“Did you just call me fat!?”

“I called you a seven foot mass of muscle!” He shouted back, not deigning to look at the woman who had apparently gotten around his advanced technology via the delicate application of a sheet of thin fabric. “Which your dainty leader most certainly is not.”

Tendency to turn into a writhing mass of horrific tentacles notwithstanding.

Given that they could do that though, he couldn’t imagine they would have any difficulty packing on some extra weight and height to allow for a wider range of transformations?

So why wouldn’t they?

It took him a few seconds to reach a conclusion. And most of that time occurred because he dismissed it the first time for being stupid.

The answer was as obvious as it was idiotic.

Vanity.

Well, now he had his answers.

Why then do I feel angrier and more exhausted than when I walked in here to find my workshop trashed?

“You stay there!” He shouted, aiming a finger at Prowler; realizing just how stupid that was given the circumstances as her face lit up with poorly concealed mirth at his comment.

Ignoring that, he turned to the crowd of gathered workers, picking his ‘lieutenants out of the waiting crowd.

“Cassandra, Darius and Ethan with me.” He said, marching up to his office – which, while missing a wall, still had a desk and a chair, both of which ne needed.

Slumping into said chair, he turned to pin his trio of underlings with a glare.

“First of all, where’s Natasha?”

He hadn’t really thought of her as a leader at first, but given how hard she’d argued for it, he’d given in. Hence his irritation that she wasn’t present now.

Darius stepped forward, “She, uh, broke her arm during the fighting. She also might have a concussion.”

Erich cocked an eyebrow under his mask. “How?”

Ethan answered that. “Little idiot tried to stab our unexpected guest downstairs with a spanner. Got a backhand across the room for her efforts.”

Erich sighed, unsure whether to be impressed or exacerbated. “Right, I guess we’ll begin without her.”

Turning towards Ethan now that the man had handily brought himself forward, Erich asked the question that had been bothering from the moment he had returned to the compound.

“Where the fuck are all my Saints? The ones that are supposed by guarding this place?”