Once everyone had calmed down and Lung and Oni Lee were secured under a whole lot of containment foam, the Protectorate members that had come as reinforcements visibly relaxed. They clearly didn't like the idea of facing off with Lung, not that I could blame them. Assault couldn't help but slap my shoulder, a smile on his face.

"Congratulations, buddy, you managed to take down one of the most dangerous capes in Brockton Bay, if not the East Coast," Assault said. "Please, for the love of god, don't try and complete the collection."

"The only reason I fought Lung was because he attacked us," I explained. "By some miracle, I managed to beat him, but I would have preferred not to fight."

"Be that as it may, you did well," Dauntless stated, looking over at the PRT officers who were working to put Lung inside one of their large vans. "Unfortunately, no good deed goes unpunished."

I looked at him with a raised eyebrow before turning to Miss Militia, whose frown I could see even with her mouth covered.

"While it will be good to have Lung and Lee off the streets, it's going to lead to a lot of chaos. The E88 will try and push into his territory, and the ABB remnants will push back. It going to be an open gang war, and while the ABB is armed, they relied heavily on the threat of Lung and Oni Lee to back up their strength. It's going to be a slaughter, with the civilians suffering just as much."

"Then we will just have to keep that from happening," Crow said, stepping closer. "We can up the patrols in this area, maybe keep the violence in check. We beat the big bad ABB powerhouses, that should have earned us enough credit to keep violence from breaking out."

"Not to mention that you guys can start patrolling the area as well," I pointed out. "It might not be safe enough for the Wards, but without the threat of Lung coming to pick a fight, it's safe enough for you guys."

"It will still lead to conflict with the Empire, but… We might be able to contain the worst of the open gang violence," Miss Militia agreed tentatively. "I will bring up the change in patrol suggestion to Armsmaster and Director Piggot when we return. Before that, however, I don't believe we've met."

The soldier-themed cape focused on Crow, who stepped forward and put her hand on my shoulder.

"I'm still workshopping my name, but you can call me Crow for now," She explained. "I'm part of Arcanum's team. And no, I don't want to join the Protectorate or come in for power testing."

"Protectorate protocol is to not attempt team member poaching from friendly groups," Miss Militia assured us before focusing on me. "A team?"

"It's a work in progress," I assured her. "Just the two of us for now, but I'm hoping to make that number grow."

"That's good. Survival statistics rise consistently for every member of a team," She admitted. "While we would prefer people join us, having friendly hero teams is a solid second-best option."

I nodded, my mask hiding my surprise. The statement was a lot less PR, "join us or die alone" focused than I expected from the Protectorate or PRT. I opened my mouth to ask about that when I realized they were finally lifting the foam-covered Lung into a large transport vehicle. I quickly changed tracks to something more important.

"What's going to happen to them?" I asked, watching as the PRT officers worked.

"Both Oni Lee and Lung have Birdcage orders on them already," Miss Militia explained. "Both of them will be transported there by Dragon, since Lung has a high-priority status attached to his sentence."

"When?"

"I can't tell you that," Miss Militia said, shaking her head. "One, because I don't know yet, and two, because doing so is a major security breach. We may trust you to an extent, Arcanum, but that's a line we can't cross."

I chewed my lip, trying to think of a way I could help keep the two parahuman criminals from being busted out. The ABB might not have any capes left, but underestimating the tenacity of a normal person was beyond stupid.

"Could I at least make a suggestion?" I asked, continuing when Miss Militia nodded. "Tell Dragon not to tell you when she is coming."

"What?" Miss Militia asked in confusion. "Why?"

"There are a lot of accusations that the ENE PRT is a bit of a revolving door when it comes to parahuman villains," I answered. "You obviously have some security holes. And while Dragon's arrival is likely ASAP, staging a rescue mission will get a lot harder to time if you don't even know when she is showing up."

For a moment, Miss Militia mentally chewed on my suggestion, and I could see that both Assault and Dauntless were also considering it. Battery was more focused on keeping her eyes on the surroundings. She seemed to get over her initial distaste for me but clearly had no desire to interact with me any more than necessary.

"We will take that idea under advisement," She said eventually, nodding once to confirm. "Thank you for the suggestion."

We continued to discuss the transfer for a few more minutes before the Protectorate slowly pulled out to escort the prisoners back to their facilities. Proper processing of both of the parahuman menaces was their top priority, leaving the BBPD to sort through the gang members that had been knocked out. Crow and I watched as the large vehicle with Lung inside pulled away, with Assault bounding next to it and Dauntless flying above.

"What are the chances they actually go to that prison?" Oliva asked, still standing beside me.

"Have they ever been captured together?" I asked, looking over at her. "Or has it always been one or the other?"

"As far as I know, Lung's never been captured before," She responded with a shrug.

"Then I think there's a good chance this will stick, especially if the PRT takes it as seriously as I hope they are," I said with a frown. "With no parahuman members left, that means it's up to the rank and file, which would struggle to make it very far into the PRT headquarters, especially with capes around to stop them."

"What happens if they get out?" She asked with a frown. "I don't like the idea of going against them again."

"If they get out… I'll probably stop messing around," I answered with a shrug, turning to look at her as the last PRT vehicle drove out of sight. "I would kill both of them. No warning, no fair fight."

"Seriously?" She asked with surprise in her voice, along with hints of approval. "Why do that now? Why not before?"

"Because before… I couldn't justify it the same way," I responded with a shrug. "Now I've been involved with the whole ordeal, from start to finish. I know they were here to kill civilians, I know they tried to kill multiple people. It's… it's not exactly intuitive, or the cleanest justification, but I can't just go around murdering all the bad guys, or who people think are bad, or that the justice system thinks are bad, or the government thinks are bad. I need to be involved before I'm prepared to kill someone. I need to at least try to put them away when I can. If the system keeps failing or can't handle them, then it's time to consider something more permanent."

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I looked up at the sky, the few stars visible at night shining around a sliver of moon.

"I'm not crazy enough to think no one deserves it, I'm not some Batman wannabe. Sometimes, criminals, especially criminals with superpowers, need to be put down permanently. But I can't just arbitrarily decide that, and I definitely can't let someone else decide it for me," I explained. "There are exceptions, obviously. I'm not gonna argue that somehow Jack Slash might be misunderstood or anything crazy like that."

"I get it. And, if anything else, it will probably keep the public off our back a bit more," She pointed out. "People will see it as a lot more reasonable if we don't just default to killing dangerous villains."

"We, huh?" I asked, looking at her. "You really serious about the whole team thing?"

"Absolutely," She said, responding immediately. "For the first time in a long time, I feel like I've done something actually useful! I mean, I took down Oni Lee! And you took down fucking Lung! Hard to argue with results like that."

"I suppose so," I said. "Well, I'm glad to have you. Now we just need a few more people."

The police slowly took the ABB gangers away, stuffing them into a few separate prisoner vans. They took statements from Crow and myself, as well as a few of the guys who had fought with us, before eventually leaving the community space behind. I was concerned that they would insist that the community would need to move, but none of them seemed interested in stepping on any toes. It seemed like beating Lung had some benefits.

Let's hope the E88 were as hesitant to cross me as the police now were.

By the time they left, people were already starting to trickle back in, mostly the people who had put some distance between them and the camp when the ABB had actually shown up. By then, though, I was too tired to care. The last day had quickly caught up with me, and I barely made it to my space before I passed out on my foam mattress.

The next morning, I woke up to quite a few more people moving in. There was an excitement in the air, and even though people were obviously trying to be quiet around my space, it was had to miss the murmur of people talking. When I pushed through the sheets used to cordon off my space, people immediately went silent. It took a moment for someone, an older woman missing a significant portion of her left arm, to step forward to shake my hand. The dam broke after that, with everyone wanting to congratulate me for fighting and taking down Lung.

When I eventually made it out of the building and into the open area, it didn't take long for John to notice me being mobbed. He quickly made his way to me, hollering that everyone had more important things to do than pester me, and I definitely had more important things to do than deal with them. People spread out after that, leaving me in peace. Though they did watch me as I walked around.

"Thanks," I said, John patting my shoulder. "Should have seen that coming."

"Probably. People love their capes," He said with a shrug. "What are you doing today?"

"I need to head home. I have some things to work on," I explained. "After that, I need to get to work on patrols. Might reach out to New Wave and see if they want to join in, though I'm not holding my breath there."

"Right," He responded before starting again after looking over his shoulder. "Listen, that Crow woman, she-"

"Is an ally I met sometime in the last few weeks," I said, giving him a stern look. He hesitated for a moment before nodding and swallowing his question.

"Right, sure. Guess there's no reason to look deeper then," the older man said with a knowing look. "Well, good luck with your projects. Actually, speaking of which, what do you want us to do with the wands?"

"Gather them up and hold onto them," I said. "If you can't get them all, tell me, I can unravel the process and make them inert."

"Sure, can do."

The two of us chatted for a few minutes, talking about the fight and about people returning to the community. John explained that he and Charles both expected a population increase after I proved that the town was defended by people who could take down Lung. That kind of reputation would go pretty far in making people feel safe. Eventually, I said goodbye before heading over to where we had left the golems the previous night.

One of the four living wood golems had been destroyed by one of Oni Lee's grenades, blown into chunks and burned. The remaining three were primarily intact, with only some minor fire damage scaring two of them. A quick druidcraft spell for each was enough to fix them up and get them into tip-top shape. While the living wood golems, the ones that survived at least, were basically back to the perfect condition they were in when I made them, the three stone golems were a different story.

All three of them had spent a lot of time under some considerably potent heat, and all of them showed signs of being at least partially molten at one point. Rough-edged were smoothed over, with their frames sagging slightly. Still, they were functioning perfectly fine, even if they were a lot more squat than before. Oh, and one of them was missing an arm, which did limit them but didn't exactly make them useless.

Making a note to make even more golems for the community, I made a short stop at the orchard to refresh the trees before finally making my way to Troy. There, waiting for me, was Olivia, sitting on a crate by my golem mount.

"So, what's the plan?" She asked, standing up from her seat. "Just going home?"

"Eventually. Need to stop by the hospital and PRT, then do some more shopping," I explained. "After that, I need to head home. I've got some projects to work on."

"Gonna rebuild your staff?"

"Not yet, I want to design something better first," I explained with a frown. "That was one of the first things I made, so it was pretty simple as far as what I can actually make. I need to see what kind of improvements I can make to it first."

"Okay, well, I'll hang around here, keep an eye on things," She volunteered. "Let me know when you plan on going patrol, you really shouldn't do it alone anymore."

"I will, but it won't be today," I let her know. "The Empire will need to confirm the news on their own first before they start pushing. We have some time."

"Right. Well, keep in touch," She said as she walked past me, vanishing into a shadow. "You know how to reach me."

I shook my head, a smile on my face as I whistled for Troy to stand, quickly jumping onto his back and riding out of the community area through an alleyway. My day was just starting, but I had some things to do before I could really get to work.