In the background of this scene a rippling purple portal appears and then a woman with enormous pink wings mismatched red and blue eyes a yellow wizard hat and similarly mismatched shoes tumbles through. She snaps out her wings and comes to a hovering stop for a moment before landing gently on the ground.

She looks around taking in the scene. "Ooh, a plot hook!" She coughs, "I mean... Halt! Stop hurting that man."

"Shit, cape!" The men back off quickly and face her; they are clearly suddenly nervous and unsure of themselves, which is a polite way of panicking. The one in the rear is slowly backing away.

("Anyone heard of her?" "I don't think so -" "With those wings you either have or you haven't -" "Could be a tinker in costume -" "It's some kinda puppet, real capes have masks -")

One marginally-less-scared-looking guy seems to be the leader. "You're on Empire turf," he says. "We're, um, lawfully punishing a trespasser. Who are you?"

"Ooh!" she smiles broadly, "a real live evil empire what a classic. I haven't heard of any nice group that 'lawfully' beats people up for trespassing. Or feels the need to stand guard like that while doing it. I guess that means you're mooks. So are you going to run and get someone else or should I knock you around a bit? Don't worry, I won't kill you."

"...Jeff, phone it in. Everyone else, don't be the one to start anything."

("Does that mean I'm in now?" asks the one who was beating the man, and gets a slap upside the head. Another of them takes out a cellphone and starts a quiet, urgent-sounding conversation.)

They start backing away while keeping their eyes on her but they're not actually running, except for the one in the rear who is backing away even faster than that and is, as a result, opening up some distance between himself and the rest of the group.

The man on the ground scrambles up and tries to run away in the opposite direction, finds out his legs aren't working too well right now, and settles for limping to put the cape between himself and the others. "Thank you," he says fervently.

"You're welcome." She says cheerily, then she mutters to herself, "Hmm, what flavor of beat down should we go with? These mooks don't look very durable so hmm, nothing too sharp gotta be a staff, let's start out gentle."

She holds out a hand and a long staff tipped with a large amethyst materializes in her hand and fires bursts of purple forward the fire rate is relatively slow only once every couple seconds but they fly fast enough that they probably can't dodge them.

Each burst hits with the force of a roundhouse kick and pushes them back since she's targeting their upper chests most of them are probably knocked onto their backs.

That definitely gets them to run away! And they can't dodge attacks from behind while running, so all of the bursts hit and most of them make the target fall or at least stumble badly.

One of them climbs a house fence to hide behind; another crawls behind a parked car. The one who was giving commands takes out a gun and shoots at her; the shot goes wide.

The man who was in the back is really hoping she'll target the closest ones first and he can make it to the next junction.

Shutters start closing in the houses along the street, making it even darker.

She won't bother to chase them. If they're running away then she's won. She'll turn back to the man she rescued.

"So! Are you alright? Do you need anything? Are you in contact with the resistance?"

He isn't sure how many of his bones are broken! She should be calling the cops and medics, not doing stupid cape heroics patter!

"...I'm - very bruised and in a lot of pain, and can't walk well? I definitely need medical help, could you please call a taxi to take me to the hospital? Or the cops, even. Or if you could help me walk I know someone who lives two streets that way, he'd help me."

What is the Resistance? Is that a new Black gang in the city like they have down south? He hasn't heard of anything like that and even if he had he wouldn't admit to it.

"Oh right you're hurt." She disappears the staff and materializes a red lantern and puts it down. "That should help. Anyway, I just got here so I don't have a way to get in touch with..." she pauses, "Oh! I get it. Those weren't real law enforcement for an evil government they were just some sort of criminal group? That's a bit of a let down."

That... actually seems to be healing him? The pain starts receding, anyway, and that's really great, it makes the tiny voice in the back of his head yammering 'oh god am I going to die or just be crippled?' recede a bit.

"Thank you!! No, those were Empire toughs, not anyone from the government. ...the Empire is a superpowered gang. I didn't know they claimed this neighbourhood, I always pass here going home from work, they must be moving in..." He inches closer to the lantern like a freezing man next to a fire.

"...they broke my phone first thing," he adds, glancing over to where it lies shattered on the sidewalk, "I wouldn't trust the cops or cabbies here if I didn't have to but it's a much better bet than Kaiser's enforcers."

The lantern doesn't seem to be hot or work better by getting closer.

"Aha, so the government is a bit corrupt after all, makes sense. Is the Empire the only super powered gang I need to worry about? Oh, and do we need to leave before they send someone else? I can probably take them but I'm not that used to protecting people while I'm fighting so that could be bad for you."

"Oh! Oh no - yes you're right we should absolutely leave, the Empire won't back down to a cape attacking their guys." He is visibly conflicted between running away and leaving the lantern behind. 

"You're not from around here - so, there's the Empire, which is the biggest and has the most capes. And there's the ABB, the Asian gang, which only has two capes but one of them is Lung and nobody can fight Lung. And then a bunch of small-time villains and other capes who don't actually have territory, I guess some of them are in gangs but there aren't any big names that I've heard." And the Protectorate, who are not a gang by virtue of working for the actual government, which is otherwise bloody useless.

"I can walk with you or just let you drink a health potion, should heal you right up but it's a bit bracing if you're not used to it. The heart lantern is gentler."

"Thank you!" If he's really going to heal all the way then he can just... walk to his bus stop like he always does? It's on the far side of this residential neighbourhood. He might miss the bus but he can get a taxi there if he has to, being saved by a cape from gangsters (and from the hospital bill) makes him willing to pay as much as he has to to get home. (Shit, does he need to look for a new job now?)

She'll pick up the lantern and walk with him. "So there's too big gangs and the government isn't doing much to stop them. Anything else I should know about? Is there somewhere I can build a small house without bothering anyone?"

"Um. What kinds of things do you want to know about? And do you mean like buying a vacant lot, or building outside city limits? I don't know the laws for outside the city."

"Ah, so this is one of those places where everything's owned by someone. Is there a good way for people with superpowers to get money then? It's hard to know what the right questions to ask are. I guess, if you pretend I have amnesia, are there important things about this city or the world I need to know about that aren't obvious on the surface?"

He has no idea what to tell someone with pretend-amnesia and superpowers about the world! And he super extra has no idea what to tell her that won't make her unaccountably angry at him! (Capes aren't normal, right, it stands to reason you can't really expect normal reactions from them?)

Where does he even go from here. 'This is our world, it has obvious stuff like cats and evil Empire gangs and also nonobvious stuff like money and property rights'?

"I... I'm sorry, I really don't know what to say," he apologizes frantically while looking for something better to say. "What... kinds of things are not obvious? You can get money by - selling whatever you can do with your superpowers, I'm sure people would pay a lot for quick healing." That might not be in his self-interest to point out, but it's also bloody obvious. "And since you can fight, you can join a hero group like the Protectorate and I assume get paid. I don't know if they pay a lot, they always talk about heroism being its own reward."

"Makes sense, how can I find this Protectorate? Sounds like I should talk to them even if I don't end up joining them. Maybe they'll have a better idea of what someone new needs to know."

"They have a building in the town center, I can tell you how to get to it - or I guess if you can fly it's probably that direction? It's pretty tall, I think we'd see the tip from here if it wasn't dark. There's a shield saying PRT on the front. And then they also have a floating base out in the bay, lights up at night, go east until you reach the beach and you'll see it."

(He is not a cape geek, doesn't like to think about the world going to shit the dystopian nature of reality and is quite ignorant of the fine distinctions between Protectorate, PRT and the Wards.)

"Or I guess you could just phone them but I don't know the number. The police would know because there's an emergency line for reporting cape fights but that's, well, for emergencies," which are hopefully over for the night.

"I can fly so that works." With her immediate curiosity satisfied she'll switch to humming an upbeat tune until he's healed up and they've reached his destination. It should only take a couple minutes for him to heal up so that'll probably come first.

Walking to the bus station takes less than twenty minutes; once he's healed he starts walking as fast as he thinks she'll be fine with. 

There are people at the bus station, which is good because it means he hasn't missed the bus, and he'll be safer in a crowd.

It's possibly not entirely good, because some of them start talking about the costumed woman with the cool-looking wings and one of them pulls out a cellphone to take a photo and she's not masked, isn't that supposed to be really important? He looks at her kind of nervously.

This is one of the things she didn't know to ask so she won't react much beyond smiling at the attention. "Looks like we're here then, I hope the rest of your night is safe." She'll wave to the other people and disappear the lantern before flapping her wings and flying up into the air.

How obvious is the Protectorate building if she flies up above the city?

(Oh wow she's an actual cape, one they never heard of before, photo photo photo and then race to be the first to post it online!)

The PRT HQ building isn't particularly built to be obvious from the air, although it does have a helipad on the roof, but it's fairly close by and it's one of the taller buildings in the city. If she flies in the indicated direction and looks for a tall building with a sign saying 'PRT' she can find it in short order.

The Protectorate HQ in the bay is several miles away but if her eyesight is good enough it's also easy to locate, since it's all lit up in the middle of an otherwise dark bay.

Well she can check the nearest tall building for the letters PRT and if it has them she'll land on the street and look for the entrance it's probably on the same side as the sign right?

It is! The main entrance is closed and barred at this time of night but there are two guards posted outside. They're wearing dark military-looking body armor and they have rifles.

They radio in an unfamiliar flying ?winged? parahuman approaching but this is not obvious from the outside, on account of the face-concealing helmets.

She'll walk towards them and call out a friendly, "Hello! Someone said I should come here to talk to the heroes."

"Please identify yourself. What do you want to talk about? And did you want to speak to a hero parahuman in particular, or any representative of the PRT?"

"I'm still not sure what people call themselves here. When I'm home I sometimes go by Akira but maybe people here use more descriptive names for superhero stuff. Like how I play the role of the Deviantt at home when I'm hosting. I'm trying to learn more about how people do things here and what this place is like, I guess it is nighttime so it makes sense if not many people are available."

"...where are you from?"

"Somewhere completely different! We usually call it Terraria." She continues in an undertone, "Hopefully that's not breaking the fourth wall too much," and then louder again. "I hopped through a portal and ended up here."

None of that sounds at all plausible and Console doesn't want the guards to question her about it until someone more senior gets on the line.

"If you tell us what you wanted to talk about we could tell you who you should speak with," he offers.

"That's the issue, I don't really know. I don't know very much about how this world operates beyond the small amount I found out from the person I saved from being beaten up by these people who called themselves part of the Empire and he was pretty shaken up from how much they had hurt him before I saved him. So he mostly suggested I come talk to you."

That's just what someone would say who was trying to get into the building under false pretenses! Unfortunately, PRT command is saddled with public relations and also community-building-ties-and-recruitment considerations, so regulations forbid them from arresting her on charges of being Very Suspicious In Public.

"Were Empire or other capes involved in this incident? Was anyone hurt other than the person you saved, and was it reported to the police?"

"I don't know how I would contact the police and the Empire mooks broke the man's phone. Maybe he had someone at the bus stop call them? None of the mooks had superpowers if that's what you mean by capes. They did yell Cape when they saw me."

"I see. It appears the issue is not urgent anymore? In that case, the PRT would appreciate the chance to interview you" because keeping tabs on parahumans is essential "and you would get the opportunity to ask questions of your own, but it sounds like it'd be better handled during ordinary hours" because the capes we want to have a look at you aren't on shift right now. "Please come back tomorrow; we can set an hour now or you can call in tomorrow to schedule one, the non-emergency line is open from 7am and I can give you its number."

"I don't have a phone either. I could just wait here for the next several hours but that sounds pretty boring. So unless there's a reason I shouldn't, I'll just fly around for the night and come back when you open at 7am. It might help me get a feeling for how this area is laid out."

Radio radio. "Very well, we'll schedule a meeting at 7am. What name would you like to give? It doesn't have to be your real name or your cape name of record going forward, just for the meeting."

"So people do use special names for being superheroes! You can call me Terrarian then."

Is she from overseas or something? Capes still wear masks in Asia, right?

"Parahumans use cape names while in their cape persona, and also wear masks and costumes. The original purpose of both is to maintain a secret civilian identity, so if your wings are permanent they wouldn't help with that, but you can still use them for public relation purposes and to signal when you are 'on the job'."

"...do you require assistance with keeping your identity secret? We can let you stay in the building during the night and not let anyone see your face who hasn't yet." (A marginally more helpful person is now on the radio.)

"Oh, so there's a double life thing. That's fun, I can hide my wings and if I need to I can change my face too. I do like the face I have though. What sorts of things does having a secret identity help with?"

"When people know you're a parahuman they often treat you differently than they used to. Not always worse, but many people don't want to risk it, or not right away."

"If you become famous in your cape persona, or if you have powers other people would find useful, you might not want them to bother you about it in your civilian persona. If you make enemies as a parahuman, you wouldn't want them to be able to find you at home or to target your family or property to get at you that way."

"Thanks for explaining. I think I'm okay for now. Like I said I can change my face so if I need to I can always start having a secret identity later."

He's confused. Is this face her civilian one or not? This doesn't matter though, because he's not really the one having this conversation.

"Alright. There will be someone waiting to meet you at seven tomorrow morning, please introduce yourself as Terrarian to a receptionist."

"Thank you, have a nice night."

And with that she'll turn around and take off again. She'll go a ways above the tallest building and fly a circle spiralling outward. How big is this city is there anything of note she can see from the air?

The city is about five by ten miles; it half-circles a shallow bay. There are hills on the side opposite the ocean. The tall buildings are clustered towards the southern end, where she is right now; north of her are residential areas and some kind of industrial zone on the far end. There is also something fairly large and well-lit in the bay itself.

That must be the other Protectorate place she heard about. They seemed big on formality so she won't go visit without an invitation. She'll do another pass a bit lower to see if she can see anywhere with a lot of people who look like they might be friendly.

Areas with a lot of people out late at night include:

- Homeless encampments

- Fancy rooftop restaurants

- Beach party

- This one street below her has a small noisy crowd and also there seems to be a man on fire? Who is just standing there and not, e.g., rolling on the ground or being wrapped in a blanket?

The beach party looks fun she'll circle back if she has time and it's still going but she'll prioritize investigating the fire guy. She'll ready a couple possible counters in case it comes to a fight. Is the guy already fighting someone or is he just standing around being on fire?

Normally 'being on fire' doesn't predict fighting someone (or, at most, predicts someone fighting you) but in this case she is absolutely right on the money!

His opponent appears to be... a lot of flying insects who keep converging on him out of the darkness and trying to sting him before they burn up? The fire mostly takes care of them but they just keep coming, like a crazy bug light zapper commercial.

The man shoots extra fire from his hands, whirling like a dervish, and when that's not enough he growls and explodes in a fireball, and the bugs die but still they keep coming.

Well first she needs to figure out which side to be on. She'll fly down and call out in a loud voice. "Hello there! Can I ask who's fighting and what you're fighting about?"

He's being attacked by a hidden cape with a power he's never heard of; a cape he's never heard of shows up; it doesn't take a genius to put two and two together. And he's not going to tolerate her just standing there when she can't prove she's not the bug controller.

Also, Lung is not going to play the 'help me, mysterious hero, I'm being attacked!' card in front of his men. 

Which is to say: "DIE, YOU BITCH!"

Is she any more fire resistant than her bugs? His flames can reach surprisingly far.

Well that answers that question! She can dodge pretty quickly how fast are the flames? If she does gets hit she won't visibly react though her clothes might catch fire without seeming to burn. She'll materialize a scepter and fire a stream of water down at him. The water is moving quite fast and the stream is focused enough that it's like a water cutter.

The flames are fast enough that she can't dodge all of them. They aren't being carried by a burning substance that expands at a certain speed, they just - grow.

The water cutter cuts a line across the man's chest. It's hard to see how deep it went because this also creates a rapidly growing steam-cloud, which makes it hard to keep targeting him and sends the rest of the men running.

With a visible enemy (who is not a MISERABLE BUG) willing to use lethal force, and with flying being tactically indicated, Lung and his power are feeling motivated.

He shouts from inside the steam-cloud, louder than a man should be able to. Then he throws two cars at her in quick succession, leaps to a nearby roof, and looks to see where she dodges so he can leap. He's strong enough to reach her current height, although he can't control his trajectory mid-flight and his speed obeys the laws of physics.

He is also eight feet tall and covered in gleaming silver scales.

She smiles widely though he probably can't see it. This is an exciting fight. She can dodge pretty quickly and cars are big enough to be pretty apparent in advance. Lung is a little harder to dodge but she's good enough to play keep away. Still the steam getting in the way of targeting is annoying. Hmm, she'll try her other idea instead it's a bit of an escalation but he seems like he can take it.

She switches to a different weapon this one lets her make transparent walls that float in the air and shoot balls of ice through them. The walls last about fifteen seconds and aren't particularly susceptible to fire. They do take a little time to make though. The balls of ice hit about as hard as the water stream but there's more volume they're blunter though so they don't penetrate in the same way.

The ice balls don't visibly affect him other than by transferring their momentum, which isn't much and doesn't throw him off-target since he's taking them head on.

The force wall does stops him and he slides off it, punching it as he goes down.

By the time he rolls to his feet he has grown sharp claws on his hands and feet. His next leap takes him high enough to grasp the top of the wall - and pull himself up.

He roars a triumphant blast of fire, and jumps directly for her.

She's a little surprised but she can still narrowly dodge him. She'll keep making more walls but she also tries to think. This world doesn't seem to have health bars so it's hard to judge how much damage she's doing but it doesn't seem that promising. It's kinda exciting but also a little concerning.

Well, when in doubt apply debuffs. She'll fly up a little and switch her staff out for a book. The she'll use it to fire a stream of foul smelling yellow liquid that corrodes armor. It fires with the same speed and focus as the water jet from before but instead of just going through him it spreads and clings not doing active damage after the initial impact, just weakening the metal that's protecting him.

He is tough enough by now to shrug off the iceballs even without his scales, if that's all she throws at him. He also keeps growing, and the growth doesn't seem uniform; he is somewhat hunched over, with elongated limbs suited for leaping and clawing.

Can he catch her by leaping with even greater speed and agility? (The force-walls are very helpful as platforms, he can push off with his full strength without them crumbling.)

The walls are starting to go away now that she's switched weapons and she continues to be very good at dodging she doesn't really seem to obey physics with how she can just suddenly completely reverse direction horizontally at least. She can put on bursts of speed upward too but they aren't as fast and she doesn't have a similar ability to burst downwards.

She'll stick with this weapon a little longer but she starts thinking of changing it out again.

Lung's power follows a script but it is not completely unresponsive to the challenge he faces. He is tougher because he keeps being hit. He is stronger because he needs to leap into the air, but not as strong as he would be if he spent as much time punching his opponent.

And when leaping doesn't work he hunches over and his shoulderblades split open to sprout a pair of wings, and he takes to the air with a triumphant bellow. He is not fast and agile enough to catch her, yet, but it is only a matter of time now.

"ILL OO!!!"

Hmm does he mean that literally or is he just saying he's mad. Ah well time to try a new weapon. This time she'll pull out what looks like a large spiky hybrid between a fish and an assault rifle and shoot large green bubbles at him. If she misses they'll rise into the air for few seconds before popping.

He doesn't know why she didn't use her strongest Tinkertech guns from the start, but they don't hit that much harder than the ice balls. There's more of them, but he's tougher now. The first few don't take him out, which means they'll make him tougher, and he can't catch her if he keeps dodging. So he ignores them and focuses on FLYING FASTER and GROWING BIGGER and BREATHING FIRE until he can get his claws on her. Look, he's already much more maneuverable than he was when he started flying.

... This guy definitely does seem to keep getting stronger doesn't he.

She's not really sure what to do about that. She can keep switching weapons but maybe she should escalate more dramatically instead of just swapping between weapons on a similar level hoping one is this guy's weakness.

Her next weapon looks like an enormous red machine gun as big as she is. It spins up and starts firing green homing bullets and it shows no signs of stopping. Though if Lung is familiar with guns he'll be able to tell it's firing much slower than an actual machine gun. Still five rounds a second is a lot especially when the bullets home. They're also not really physical bullets they don't over penetrate at all, always grounding their full force in his body.

Lung has, in fact, survived being shot with a full-sized machine gun! This one doesn't really compare. The individual bullets are only as strong as a pistol's and the rate of fire is much lower. It might be a problem if they kept hitting the exact same spot but they're distributed all over his torso, and by now his scales can mostly stop them and regenerate after a few seconds.

Not being able to catch her is frustrating and the response to that (and to being shot) is to grow BIGGER and FASTER.

(If she looks down, she might notice three rhino-sized animals of an unclear species with human riders come to a halt on a rooftop not far from them.)

Well then. This very clearly isn't working and she doesn't have any clues as to how she's supposed to do this fight. It hurts her pride a little to escalate so dramatically but she doesn't want fight this guy all night long. Her next weapon is a floating crystal. If this doesn't work she'll need to escalate to boss attacks or champion tier weapons.

The crystal hovers in front of her. She pauses to get a good angle. She doesn't want to catch anyone she's not trying to hit with this one so she deliberately drops below him so her over-penetration will be directed into the sky. And then she fires.

For a couple seconds it shoots a wide spread of six beams of different colors but then it converges into a much tighter beam that's still about a meter in diameter. This hits much harder than anything she's used so far and it tracks fast enough that there's no way for him to dodge.

Meanwhile, on the rooftops below:

"He really does turn into a dragon!"

"We can't fight him if he's flying! We should leave before he finishes and remembers he was going after us."

She is escalating. Escalating slowly. Wants to win. Doesn't want to win right away. Sees fight as game. Enjoys game. 

Squint. "Guys, I think she's sandbagging. She's... drawing him out? Letting him grow stronger - no, she doesn't know that's what she's doing... I think she could just kill him if she wanted. But she enjoys fighting."

"We need to be out of here before either of them wins! Bitch, let's go!"

run run gasp for air run some more why can't her bugs recognize a payphone on sight

Lung is flying and engaged with an unknown parahuman. He can't tranquilize him when he's up in the air and also heavily armored, and he can't fight him in the air effectively enough to ground him with his halberd's current loadout. He has to call for reinforcements and this is very frustrating. 

It is frustrating because they have no reinforcements that can reliably take out a flying Lung, short of the attack helicopters which are never approved for use in the city because of the chance of collateral damage the PRT won't be able to blame on the villains. It is also very frustrating because his armor cannot (yet) substitute for an attack helicopter, because of lack of appropriate budgeting and prioritization and safety concerns despite his own programs clearly showing the proposed upgrades to be well within safe parameters.

His report of tonight's incident will point out that he could have reached the scene before Lung was airborne if he'd been allowed to accelerate to approximately 236 mph within the city limits, which is perfectly safe especially with his motorcycle on autopilot.

The beam doesn't quite punch a meter-wide hole all the way through Lung, but it crumples his ribcage and sends him spinning out of control and down to the ground. If she keeps at it, she can kill him before he grows strong enough to ignore it. 

Finally she's doing some real damage. This weapon isn't really meant for sustained damage but she can fudge the numbers a little and keep going. Still she'll fly down a little and try to gauge things so she does a critical injury without killing him.

If that doesn't seem possible... well he did threaten to kill her. That seems like enough of a reason to accept his death if it comes to that.

How exactly is she going to judge what is a critical but nonlethal injury for a transforming on-fire dragon with rapid regeneration?

The answer in a word is poorly. She's not really used to needing to judge people's health without health bars or other indicators so as long as he seems to be actively regenerating and trying to escape she'll keep firing. If he stops struggling she'll let up.

The nature of Lung's power, and the nature of Lung himself, is that he will never stop struggling.

Not to mention she's an unknown cape who attacked him without warning or any reason he knows of and is as far as he can tell still actively trying to kill him. As opposed to, you know, calling for him to surrender or something.

No, he will struggle and heal and grow stronger and OVERCOME.

...if she keeps firing, there will be a very brief window between Lung falling unconscious and Lung dying in which she could, in theory, stop firing.

Interfering in a fight with an unknown cape who is strong enough to defeat a highly evolved Lung by main force would be - unwise. If he interrupts or otherwise distracts her it could allow Lung to recover and get away, and he might be blamed even though it would be the result of her own incompetence.

He can't tranquilize Lung when he looks like that, because he doesn't know the right dosage. Too low would have no effect, and too high might kill him (and make Armsmaster responsible). The tranquilizer is meant to work when Lung is caught off-guard; if she can knock him out, he should transform back to human shape, and then Armsmaster will be able to capture him.

Protocol requires him to intervene to prevent the possible death of a person at the hands of a cape. Protocol doesn't quite admit that he need not intervene to prevent the possible death of Lung, but it does say he should not risk himself to intervene in a fight between a villain and a highly dangerous cape of unknown affiliation. 

Besides, he's already called for reinforcements, so he can ask Console for instructions and by the time they figure out how to respond this will probably be over.

Well, she should at least ask him to give up in the time she has. She'll pause firing briefly. "I'm not sure how to stop you without killing you and if I keep escalating it gets a lot more likely I hurt someone else by accident. Can you please give up?"

LUNG does not GIVE UP -

He's tracking Lung's regeneration and she could in fact knock out or kill him without escalating, but it's reasonable for other Tinkers to be cautious with the weapons they build. Lung is now weak enough and grounded enough that Armsmaster can finish the job by himself, which is all for the best.

"I can take it from here. Armsmaster, with the Protectorate," he adds in case she didn't take the basic step of studying the city's important capes before coming here.

A strike of his halberd cuts halfway through Lung's left wrist; that will keep his regeneration occupied for a few seconds. Next, a jolt of electricity to his head; it's different from the other Tinker's gun's effects and if Lung's power is partly adaptive as he suspects, it won't be ready to counter it.

grrrrr -

According to preset parameters, host now gives up. Or, more accurately, gives out.

—✳

And now he can be very efficiently tranquilized, restrained, and foamed for pickup. 

"Thank you for your assistance. You have helped apprehend a dangerous wanted criminal and helped the city and our fellow citizens," he recites. "He is now under arrest and will be safely held by the PRT and tried by the courts," which are certain to convict him but he is not supposed to say that.

"What is your cape name?"

She vanishes her weapon when it's clear they're not about to fight. "Oh, you're one of the hero people with the place out on the water! I made an appointment to talk to people at the building you have in the city tomorrow morning. I'm new here. And thanks! I wasn't sure if this was a 'to-the-death' kind of place or not and I didn't want to start off on the wrong foot."

Unobtrusively typing questions to Console while talking to someone is second nature by now.

"Lung does not have a Kill Order," he confirms. "Nobody currently in the city does. Of course, lethal force is permissible when defending yourself. You made an appointment using the name... Terrarian?"

"Yep! It's a fun name and a great yo-yo."

(The reinforcements materialize in the form of Velocity flickering briefly through the street.)

"How did this fight start?"

"Well, I was flying around and I noticed that this guy was on fire. He seemed to be fighting with a swarm of insects and when I asked him who he was fighting and what the fight was about he attacked me so I decided to fight back. Things escalated a bit from there when I couldn't use water to put out his fire."

"You didn't know who he was?" He shouldn't lecture her on being unprepared, she took down Lung with apparent ease and only stopped because she feared she'd kill him.

"I don't know of a local cape who creates or turns into a swarm of insects. Did you see another cape during the fight? Did the insects leave in an organized fashion?"

"After he started attacking me I wasn't paying as much attention to the insects. They did stop at some point but I'm not quite sure when. The only other people I saw besides you and the people who ran away when I got here were riding these big animals. They showed up part-way through but then they left before the end."

"Those were probably a local villain group called the Undersiders. Their member Hellhound can turn dogs into giant deformed beasts that they ride. They may have recruited a new member who can control bugs. The Undersiders have been reported operating in territory claimed by the ABB, and if they were not working for Lung then a conflict with him was likely." That's a simpler and therefore likelier explanation than four different sets of capes taking part in the same fight. The Undersiders attacked Lung, the fight attracted Terrarian, and she finished the job. Someone who saw the fight tipped off the PRT; Armsmaster was already on patrol and was dispatched. A clean report, with no loose ends.

"I have no more questions for you at this time. Lung's capture will be announced tomorrow and you will be credited. I may join the meeting you scheduled tomorrow morning, depending on who else is assigned to it. Do you have any more questions?"

(Two large black armored vans enter the street and disgorge a stream of people in opaque-faced black armor. They head straight for Lung and cover him in a grayish foaming substance dispensed from tanks on their backs.)

"I think that's just about everything. Oh, is it rude to ask someone what their powers are here?"

"Asking is fine" (or Armsmaster would be in a lot of trouble) "but most people won't answer, unless the powers are already a matter of public record. Having a secret power is very useful tactically, and knowing the details of someone's power could also let you deduce their vulnerabilities."

"Is your power publicly known? Also what was that guy's power? I couldn't really tell he had the fireballs and he seemed to keep growing as the fight went on."

"I'm a Tinker. I've built many different devices for different situations, so knowing that my power is building things doesn't tell you much. For example, I made a special tranquilizer that I used on Lung because ordinary ones wouldn't be powerful enough to shut down his regeneration."

"Lung is a pyrokinetic and a Changer - the longer he fights, the bigger and stronger he grows, eventually turning into a flying monster, like you've seen. He gains strength, durability, even faster regeneration, and he can both generate fire and is immune to it, but he doesn't gain any other new abilities. The recommended way to fight him is to take him out before he has time to ramp up, since most capes' power doesn't grow over time to match his."

"Oh good, that means I probably won't need to use The Last Prism very often. It's always more fun when I have lots of options instead of just always picking the strongest one. I guess it also means I need to be careful though. If he was supposed to be especially durable even to start with a lot of my weapons would seriously hurt people. Ah well, I guess I'll figure it out as I go."

Why do so many capes have this attitude of 'I will figure out which of my abilities are lethal as I go, by trying them on people I do not intend to kill'? This is not a new observation but it is a very frustrating pattern. Armsmaster doesn't want to be so much better than everyone, even though he obviously is, he wants everyone else to be minimally competent!

An engineer doesn't build a bridge to figure out if it will fall down. The PRT should send all heroes through engineering school.

"It is very important to know the damage your weapons will do to a target before using them. You would be liable for any harm you cause, whether intended or not. The PRT can provide power- and weapon-testing facilities and help to affiliated hero capes, I suggest you raise it at the meeting tomorrow."

"I'll do that then. It makes sense, I'm just not used to being able to kill things or people I'm not supposed to. And it seems like different types of attacks might be interchangable than I'm used to."

"Are you a recent trigger?" Either that or she spent a long time building her weapons before getting into a fight, which would have been reasonable if she had then spent some of that time testing them on acceptable targets. Like pigs.

"What does that mean? I did tell the people at your building that I'm from a long way away and I just got here."

"...did you acquire your powers recently," he clarifies.

"No, I've been like this for about fifteen years now."

She said she's not used to being able to kill people she shouldn't. That implies she was either limited to strictly nonlethal attacks until recently, or else that she hadn't fought any people she wasn't 'supposed' to kill for the past fifteen years until she came to Brockton Bay.

That is a very troubling implication but she probably misspoke, other people are rarely precise with language and the odd construction 'kill things or people' indicates she may not be a native speaker of English. In any case, if she showed restraint against Lung she can presumably refrain from murdering anyone until morning when they can question her properly. And she is a veteran cape (hero?) who wants to cooperate with the PRT and who just helped take down a major villain, so he shouldn't risk antagonizing her.

"I see. I need to escort Lung; I will be at the meeting tomorrow morning if you have any more questions for me."

"Okay. I'll see you then."

Well if this is done she'll go check on that beach party again. Is that still going?

It is, it's been less than an hour since she last saw it! There are around twenty young people sitting on beach chairs and towels. They have coolers with beer and snacks and a boom-box playing Chainsmokers, and one of the cars has top-mounted lights sending two bright beams out over the water.

Then she'll fly down wave to everyone and say a friendly "Hello!"

They scatter in alarm, especially the ones who had their back to her.

...wait, this isn't the other cape who sometimes flies down at people and cheerily says "hello" before possibly punching them.

"Hello?" some of them venture. They are clearly nervous and eyeing each other for clues and shuffling for better positioning in case of a fight.

"Oh, sorry for scaring you. Is this a private party? I was just flying around and looking for ways to pass the time."

...she doesn't seem to be saying that in a mocking or aggressive tone? Admittedly it's hard to tell given how she looks.

"It's not exactly open to strangers," one of the guys confirms eventually. "Who're you?"

"I'm going by Terrarian since having special names for heroes is the local style. I've been enjoying my time here so far. Had a fun fight even if it was a little tedious. I can go find something else to do if you like. I don't want to impose."

She's definitely mocking him but if she's going to attack she'll probably do it whatever he says, she's not giving him any cues to agree with her or obey her or whatever.

"Then I wish you a good rest of your night," he says as calmly as he can.

She'll take off and leave then. She's not interested in forcing her way through some complicated adversarial social game. Hmm, she could investigate the fancy rooftop gatherings but those seem even more likely to be private. Given the lack of clear options she'll fly a bit more to pass the time and look for somewhere that looks like she could stick a bed to pass some more time.

Regardless of whether she finds somewhere she'll kill time until morning and her appointment unless someone actively tries to talk to her.

(The people she just left make some frantic phone calls. "Yes, that's what I said - no I don't know if she knew who we were, how would I know, I didn't bloody well ask - well I can tell you she can fly, with wings, doesn't really look human but sounds like one, how would I know what else she can do - well I assume she can't hear me from a mile away because she's not coming the fuck back -")

Akira will arrive a couple minutes early for her appointment at the PRT building just in case.

The building is quite busy during opening hours! The doors are open and people can enter the lobby freely (there are still armed guards, of course). 

Akira draws a lot of stares, but no-one stops her; they've been briefed, and an obvious cape is in many ways less worrying than the fact anyone in the room could be a cape in secret.

The receptionist asks her to follow a trooper who'll show her to a meeting room; this process will take a couple of minutes.

She arrived precisely on time; he gives her an approving nod as he does the same.

"Hello. I am Deputy Directory Renick of the PRT East-North-East and I'll be interviewing you today, along with Armsmaster. I've read his report from last night and we have some questions for you, but as you're the one who originally requested this meeting is there something you'd like to discuss in particular?" He of course knows what she told the guards last night but would like to hear it in her own words.

"Yes, I haven't really found any sort of introductory or tutorial sorts of content since getting to this world. I kinda doubt fighting... that guy's name was Lung right? was the normal level of how things happen here. Armsmaster said this was a world where you need to know how to pull your punches so to speak so getting help with learning to do that would be good too."