Battle-Nun 3.5

Chapter 3.5

Revelations 3 psalm 5

(Fleur aka Jessica Wilson)

1 hour after Meeting Battle-Nun…
Warehouse thirteen
Brockton Bay Brigade HQ

The Brockton Bay Brigade's base was a refurbished warehouse bought and maintained by Lightstar, it was officially used to store goods from the shop Jess' boyfriend owned. The warehouse was separated into two areas, one for Mike's business and another for the BBB’s independent hero base. There was a discreet entrance to it that led to a bank of containers that were turned into a creative architectural home with an infirmary, a kitchen and a meeting room; there were even a locker room and showers.

Jess took off her mask, and sat on the chair in the meeting room. The others did the same, but Carol was the one who preferred to stand and glare at everyone; she had never understood why Carol was the way she was, now she knew that the woman’s trigger event had shaped her into a hyper aggressive person who didn’t trust anyone, not even her own family.

Staring into the woman’s eyes, Jess saw that she was still about to argue about what the incredibly powerful parahuman had told them. *God, that woman was scary. Even with us all before her she didn’t even consider us a threat.*

It was shocking how they were defeated last night by this Battle-Nun woman; but after watching her move with predatory grace and use some kind of super speed to blur in the middle of the road when they were hidden by those copse of trees, Jess had been questioning everyone’s sanity for going to look for her. Her heart had been stuck in her throat when she announced that she knew they were all there.

And Carol wanted to pick a fight with her, though, it had been entertaining to see her being shut down by Battle Nun. The woman had used Jess' age too many times to win arguments. Was this petty of her? Absolutely, but it felt so good. Carol's dumb plan, this New Wave of heroes that she wanted to produce would have killed her and everyone in this room. Why did everyone want to go with it when she proposed it before going to capture Marquis? It was obvious to Jess that this unmasking idea would have gotten them in deep water, either the PRT would try to pin anything on them to force them to join the Protectorate or the Nazis would kill them as easily to be rid of them and run roughshod all over the city.

"Mike, put on the recorder." Sarah commanded.

"'Kay, sis." The man immediately went to work.

Jess leaned forward in her seat, then looked as her boyfriend put on the tinker tech recorder on the table and slotted it to the laptop before lighting on the projector on the white wall it pointed to. The entire meeting has been recorded by the device, this time they had proof that they had met the terrifying cape.

Even the high-speed tinkertech camera could barely follow the woman movements, Jess looked at Battle Nun's costume, the half-opened armored bodysuit letting anyone look at creamy white skin and some neckline, the tasteful black cloak that looked like some kind of exotic lizard's skin as from a glance it looked like scales that devoured the light. The only weapon Battle Nun had on her this time was the tinkertech pistol in her thigh holster; from last night’s fight, Sarah had told us that it was able to stun others with some kind of electric round.

Sarah also suspected that Battle Nun had healing technology, and Jess agreed, they’d sported some serious wounds while fighting Marquis and when they woke up, it was as if nothing had happened to them. Even Jess’ scars that she had accumulated in her childhood have completely disappeared along with her back pain because of a bad fall from last year were all gone as well. Whatever Battle-Nun was the tinker of, it was a potent specialization.

On the video, Battle Nun then answered the questions everyone had decided to ask her. She asked for $300 dollars when she could have taken the bag of money…… This spoke of compassion and she must have known about the individual members of the BBB financial situation. The woman wasn’t a villain, more like a rogue, Marquis must have somehow hired Battle Nun’s service to protect himself and his daughter. Jess thought that there was some kind of hidden panic signal she had homed in… it also explained why Marquis stalled instead of attacking lethally.

When the video finished, Sarah asked, “Thoughts, everyone?”

Jess raised her hand first and started to explain what she thought happened last night and Battle Nun was a rogue. But Sarah didn’t agree, as she shook her head and asked, “It matches what I thought at first, but there’s things that don’t click… Jess; Anyone else other than Jess have other thoughts?”

This time, it was Carol who raised her hand; she had a frustrated expression on her face. “She’s obviously a fake…”

Everyone looked at Carol as if she was crazy; things is, people really started to think the woman was disturbed mentally since the revelations from Battle Nun. Neil, Sarah’s husband, called out his sister in law on it by saying, “Carol, just because she protected Marquis and ruined your optimistic plan doesn’t mean that she isn’t the real deal.”

*If looks could kill, Carol’s baby blue eyes would be a mass murder weapon.* Jess thought as she watched as the woman glared at Neil from her seat.

Sarah looked at her sister and said with conviction, “It’s true, she knew about the New Wave agenda, she also knows the name of your kid and everyone’s…”

Carol averted her eyes from her sister’s, she stayed silent for a moment, until she closed her hands that were visible on the table into fist; she lifted her head to look at everyone. “Maybe she was, but we should have at least attempted to arrest her and all those fleeing criminals following her.”

Neil and Mark stayed silent, knowing they would get on Carol’s bad side if they said anything further, but the woman hadn’t won any argument as her own brother and Jess’ boyfriend bluntly told her, “And die on the altar of your ego? Get over yourself, Carol.”

Standing up abruptly, Carol shouted, “Of course not! Battle Nun had taken us the last time by surprise. But now… we could have taken her!”

The woman looked furious and that didn’t bode well if she was starting to get into one of her rants. Slapping her hand on the table, Jess attracted Carol’s attention by saying, “Isn’t that what you said each time we’ve fought Marquis? We lost each time, I will remind you.”

“Are you saying that everything we’ve done since our inception was useless?!” Carol screamed.

Jess couldn’t take it anymore, the woman needed to get a reality check. “Don’t put words in my mouth, Carol. Why don’t you be realistic? Battle Nun is so fast that I could barely see her move and she’s a precog… maybe you hadn’t noticed it, but she could sense our intentions. And somehow she kept singling you out about how crazy and illogical you were… don’t you see? She didn’t react violently to us because she knew that we were going to restrain you or knew how to handle you.”

The blonde flinched when she was reminded of last night; Carol was the first to be taken out by Battle Nun. The takedown had been sudden and brutal, it was like seeing Alexandria stomp on villains but way faster. Tinkers were scary when they had the time to build, add the fact that Battle Nun proved that she was a precog, and a powerful one at that; it made any interaction with her dangerous.

Jess flipped her hair and glared back at Carol; Sarah coughed, breaking the tension in the room and sent a pointed look at her sister. “Carol, why don’t you take a seat?”

“But-” The woman wanted to continue to argue.

Sarah insisted. “Sit. Carol, please.”

The woman sat while grumbling and everyone went back to discussing the previous subject, the answers they had obtained from Battle Nun.

Sarah began with, "Battle Nun has answered our three questions."

Mark, Carol’s husband continued, "She said that the one who will instigate our murders is Kaiser, and that his real identity is Max Anders."

“I’ve met the man before, he is Richard Anders’ son; he often comes to the mayor’s shindigs and rub elbows with the city’s elites.” Carol added.

“And we all know that Kaiser is a member of the E88 who just debuted.” Mike leaned into his seat and looked for photos of Max Anders on the internet.

Quickly finding one, it appeared on the projector, an handsome finely clothed man in a business suit with blonde hair and blue eyes appeared. “From knowing that Max Anders is Kaiser and All-Father’s son, we can extrapolate the identity of the rest of the family.”

Mike continued to speak and asked a pertinent question. “Why would he try to kill or control us?”

Jess thought that the guy wanted to elevate his reputation by either having them under control or killing them. However this time, Carol told them something more plausible when she spoke next. "I have an idea why… isn't Iron Rain supposed to be the next leader of the E88? A savage like Kaiser would want to be on top and not listen to a woman."

Carol might be right, realized Jess; From the Empire 88 rally that she had the dubious honor to spy on from afar, Iron Rain was always at her father’s side and didn’t that mean that she was the next leader of the gang? Carol looked up at everyone and said, "I feel that we can assume that Iron Rain will be sidelined by her brother and that our murders are supposed to help in Kaiser’s ascension, if she dies or disappear… we might have on our hand someone even more ruthless in power."

"So we won't be going with the New Wave agenda." Carol made a complex expression that Jess couldn’t guess at.

Sarah honestly answered, “No we won't, Carol. This is too dangerous, I know that you wanted to do it, but I’m not betting my kids' life on this.”

“That's… fair.” Carol said with a nod.

Sarah continued after nodding back to her sister. “And to avoid our fate, just abandoning the plan isn’t enough; I am going to use the information we obtained to divide the E88.”

"How?" Carol asked with a frown upon her face.

Jess wanted to know about that as well, if there was something that sounded like a bad idea, it was this one. Sarah pressed on. "We're going to tell Iron Rain that Kaiser plans to remove her and take the leadership by hook or by crook."

Carol snorted in disgust. "Treating with a villain, huh? Look at what we've been reduced to."

Sarah voiced bluntly what everyone was thinking at Carol’s comment. "Grow up, Carol. This isn't a comic book, life isn't at all like your black and white view of the world, we have to deal with the real world here, we have to deal with human morality and its shades of gray."

Jess clearly didn’t like Carol, if she wasn’t Mike’s sister, the young woman wouldn’t give Carol the time of day. It pleased Jess to see the woman shut down, all her prattle about what a hero should be was from watching movies and reading old fantasy books; Carol had been trying to hold the team to an Arthurian level of noblesse oblige that normal people couldn’t be able to reach. *And it almost killed us.*

Sarah spoke out. "Back to what we should be doing. We tell Iron Rain, then what?"

Mark Dallon replied, "Then we continue working as heroes, but I understand that some of us want to retire. Right Sarah, Neil?"

Mark looked at their leaders with a meaningful glance, telling them to finally announce their decision that they had discussed with some of us last night when Carol was still down for the count. Sarah put a hand on her husband’s; the two looked at each other, then in sync looked at each of the members around the table.

It was Neil who started to explain, "We will still be available if you need us for patrol or as back up, but we decided to focus on raising our kids."

"Mike, I will pass the leadership onto you." Sarah said.

Carol looked shocked, this was news to her, and she wasn’t even told about a leadership change; her head turned to her husband, and Mark tried really hard to not look her way. Then she finally asked, "What about me?"

To stall any explosion from her sister, Sarah took control of the conversation with, "Before I reply to that, Carol, I wanted to tell you that we're going to have mandatory psychological evaluations each month."

Carol looked into her sister’s eyes, she saw resolution there. "You chose to believe that woman, that I’m compromised..."

"Yes, I'm sorry but that's how it is. If you don't get on-board with this, we're going to bench you." Sarah warned.

Jess understood that if Carol didn’t play ball right now, she would be out of the team for good; she thought that it would be a good thing. Teaming up with her has been a chore and often made her want to just quit, if Mike hadn’t been in the brigade, she would have done so long ago.

SLAM!

Carol stood up and glared at everyone after slamming her fist on the table. “Why are you doing this to me? I started this team, don’t you know what I’ve had to sacrifice!”

Sarah had a sad look on her face as she said, “I’m doing this, because I failed you in our youth, Carol. I should have given you the help you needed… after the event.”

Carol’s shoulder slumped, her anger deflated; to Jess she looked like a defeated woman. But there was a strange light in the woman’s eyes, and Jess didn’t like it at all.

~~~~ Battle Nun ~~~~

(Carol Dallon)

January 8th, 2002
Downtown Brockton Bay
Lord Street
PRT Building
01:55 PM

Domino mask check, back up costume check. Yes, she was ready… Carol looked up at the tall building, a shield logo bearing the letters ‘P.R.T.' was attached to the front. The exterior was all windows, and the entrance of the building was transparent bulletproof glass, she doubted that it would stop anyone dangerous from entering through. But as she looked harder, there was an iron curtain, or some kind of sealing armor.

Carol knew that what she was doing was petty and dangerous, Battle Nun had expressly asked to not let anyone know about her. But she was angry and wanted some degree of revenge for the situation she found herself in. Sarah made her take off her costume and told her that till she isn’t getting herself checked mentally by the psychologist the team hired, that she won’t go on the field or that she would have to quit the team.

The blonde wanted to get back at that infuriating woman who was the cause of all her problems… that’s why she asked for a meeting with Director Richardson in secret; even her husband didn’t know that she was here. The doors opened and Carol walked into the lobby; the heroine was stopped by one of the faceless PRT goons in uniform and full helmet and was directed to the welcome desk.

At the desk was an attractive brunette with black eyes, wearing a tasteful blue and white pantsuit, a PRT pin was attached to her right lapel and around her neck was a badge that gave her name, Allison Zimmer. The woman put on a business smile and asked, “Good afternoon, what can I do for you, Ma’am.”

“I’m Brandish from The Brockton Bay Brigade and I have an appointment for 2 P.M.” Carol said.

The welcome agent looked at her computer screen for one minute, smiled and said, “Yes, the director is waiting for you, Ma’am.”

This was it, it was the moment Battle Nun would regret ever messing with her, she would tell everything to the PRT; about how dangerous she is and how she belonged behind bars. She even brought the tinker tech recorder with her after stealing it from the BBB base.

“Thank you.” Carol grinned back at the woman.

An agent waited for Carol and said, “Please come this way, Brandish.”