Chapter Text
Clear Cut was expecting the ambush.
She was, like the name she’d chosen implied, a simple, straightforward person. She liked simple, straightforward solutions. Her target wasn’t so different. Bastard Son was a man with a hammer that only saw nails everywhere he looked. She knew he would have someone keeping an eye on the local PRT offices, someone to inform him of every newcomer trying to make a few bucks by collecting the bounty on his head. For that and many other reasons, the vast majority of her kind didn’t bother checking in with the heroes before going after whichever son of a bitch that managed to get a kill order. She also knew that he would send a few of his dogs to take care of her the moment she was spotted.
“Only five of you against one of me,” Clear Cut called out, letting her duffel bag slip from her shoulder and land on the ground next to her feet. The contents rattled against each other, metal and glass clinking. “Where’s your boss?”
A slender man brandishing a pair of scissors reached into his pocket with his other hand and came out with a cell phone. He held it out for her to see before tossing it toward her.
It started ringing the second she caught it.
“You again. You’ve been following me,” Bastard Son said. “Most people can’t get far enough away from me, heh.”
“I go where the money is,” Clear Cut said, although that wasn’t quite true. He was probably watching this from the safety of his hideout. Bastard Son was a simple guy but he wasn’t a simpleton. He likely had a good idea of her powers and wouldn’t be anywhere nearby in case she saw him with her clairvoyance. “A lot of people want you dead. Even more after Oakland.”
While they talked, his minions were getting in position. The parking lot gave them plenty of room to maneuver. Scissors was upfront side-by-side with a woman twirling the kind of cane blind people used to get around. The ones behind had ranged weapons. A man with ripped jeans and a bag of marbles. One woman with a deck of cards, another with a slingshot. Every single one had that wild look in their eyes Clear Cut had come to associate with Bastard Son’s thralls.
“I get paid for every one of your guys I take out so it doesn’t matter to me,” Clear Cut said, unsheathing a knife from her belt, “but you sure you don’t want to come settle this once and for all? I know you don’t recruit the valedictorians but eventually, these guys are going to realize it’s not worth it to work for you.”
“Heh. If we’re giving advice, there are better ways to make money than traveling from city to city for jobs. Maybe we’ll talk after. If you can still talk.”
If they thought she’d be too distracted by the call to not notice Marbles rolling a tiny glass ball between his thumb and middle finger, eyes flicking down to his target.
She tilted her head to avoid a marble ricocheting off the ground to hit where her eye was a moment ago. The cane woman charged toward her, Scissors trailing a step behind. Clear Cut could guess their strategy. Cane had the advantage of a close range weapon with longer reach. Cane would take the lead, Scissors would act as her backup, help keep Clear Cut off-balance and occupied while the ranged fighters took potshots. Clear Cut wasn’t a brute. One good hit from one of them and it was game over.
Cane jabbed the tip of her weapon at Clear Cut’s knee with inhuman speed. It was still too slow. Clear Cut let her power surge out from her fingertips, through the gloves and into the knife. With a flick of her wrist, the knife sliced through the cane. With her now empty hand, Clear Cut snatched the top half of the cane out of the air and threw it like a javelin at Marbles.
He knocked it out of his way with an almost casual toss of one of his marbles.
With her weapon in pieces, Cane backed off, recalculating. So were her friends. They had an idea of Clear Cut’s capabilities now.
Clear Cut dropped the phone and grabbed another pair of knives. Her belt had nothing but knives, her preferred weapon. Bastard Son created combat thinkers skilled in a single, often unusual, weapon. Clear Cut’s current clients believed in fighting fire with a bigger fire.
She didn’t need to turn her head to see Scissors moving to attack from the back or that Cards, Slingshot, and Marbles were taking aim. She had no blind spots. Her clairvoyance saw everything with more detail and precision than her eyes ever could. “I should probably give you one last chance to leave,” Clear Cut said. “Just so I can tell the PRT guys I tried.”
No takers.
She hadn’t expected any.
They went on the attack. Playing cards cut through the air and scratched Clear Cut’s leather jacket as she twisted to avoid them. Knives held in reverse grip, she cut through the other ammunition sent her way.
The sliced bits forced the other two to deflect instead of pressing on.
They had the advantage of numbers and, if she was being honest, skill. They knew exactly where and when to strike and executed every action with incredible efficiency, no wasted movement, no hesitation. She was only able to keep up thanks to a combination of her enhanced awareness and speed.
Putting more juice into her speed, Clear Cut spun on her heel to swing at Scissors. Her knife went through his weapon and throat. Blood sprayed on to her glove and sleeve, a few drops hitting her mask. Another spin, two steps, and Cane went down with a knife embedded in her forehead. She used Cane’s body as a makeshift shield, letting it absorb a handful of marbles, while she charged ahead. A queen of hearts curved and nicked Clear Cut’s cheek.
Her own fault for not wearing something sturdier than a cotton face mask.
She didn’t let it slow her down. They couldn’t outrun her and they had nothing that could block her knives. They fell one after the other.
Clear Cut went back to pick up the phone, stepping over the marbles rolling across the lot. Bastard Son had hung up but there was a chance someone could use this to figure out his location. A quick search of his now dead minions yielded little. Some IDs, more cell phones, Scissors had twenty bucks on him.
Taking out her own cell phone, she called the PRT. They had given her a special number dedicated to Bastard Son and everyone in town trying to get the bounty.
Not a lot of capes that went after kill orders liked to play by the rules.
She collected her knives and cleaned up best she could while she chatting with the woman on the other end of the line.
There was just one other person she needed to get in touch with.
Her employers were on the paranoid side. They could only be contacted through their intermediary and that intermediary would only communicate with Clear Cut through a tinker made cell phone that didn’t work if she wasn’t making the call from within the four walls of her hotel room. They were paying extra for the inconvenience so she wasn’t too bothered.
“Clear Cut,” the intermediary said once the call connected. He hadn’t given her a name. “I heard about the incident this afternoon. Five dead. I’ve already transferred money into your account.”
“Got a cell phone from one of them before the fight, talked to BS for a bit. He remembers me, no surprise there.” She sat down on the bed, her hair still dripping wet from her shower. Droplets dotted the comforter until she adjusted the towel around her shoulders. “I’m going to talk to some people tomorrow, see if anyone can use the phone. If no one can, everyone will at least know how to get in touch with me if they find him some other way.”
“Understood. We might be able to help if you reach a dead end. The clients have made it clear to me that they don’t want Bastard Son to make it out of the city alive.”
“Roger that. I’ll keep you updated.”
He terminated the call.
She stared down at the phone, slim and thin with rounded corners wrapped up in heavy duty rubber case. No one would look twice if they saw her walking down the street with this. That was how her employers preferred to operate. Layers and layers to hide their machinations then showing their faces when it was too late for their enemies to do much about it.
She walked up to the window and gazed out at the city below. She had seen pictures of the skyline while doing research on the city before she arrived. It used to be quite a sight. Hundreds of little lights and past that, the famous bay in the background with the Protectorate’s headquarters standing vigilant. After an Endbringer, a visit from the Slaughterhouse Nine, other minor disasters, and one group of supervillains taking over, the view was ruined by construction. Even up here she could hear the sounds of workers hammering away, repairing the damage day and night. The Protectorate’s base was gone, unlikely to be replaced.
Well. At least Brockton Bay’s waterfront looked nice still.