The man is very hot but unfortunately Raimon's domain spell today was a Charm and not a Comprehend, so he has no idea what he's telling his party members. Or, uh, where the fuck he is or how he got here. You take some risks kipping on the side of the road but this is not standardly one of them.

It does not overwhelmingly look like the kind of thing he wants to interrupt, and he only has one Charm. So he's going to... skulk away?

There are shouts of alarm behind him, but none of them are looking at him. The man seems to be swarmed by insects, and magically setting himself on fire to deal with this.

...okay if Calistria's THAT invested in this situation he should figure out a little more about what's going on. He can... Create Water on the guy from... uh, closer than this. He skulks slightly closer than this to do that.

There are ten men here, frantically searching for whoever is attacking them. But the insects are targeting vulnerable spots and even the fear of disobeying Lung can't easily win against the fear of bees trying to sting you in the eyeball.

They'll spot him, but not before he gets in range to cast.

Okay, Calistria, you want that man fucked up? How about he be less on fire. "Create Water." Very softly.

There is momentarily less fire and rather more steam, which makes the rest of the men scatter in all directions. One of them happens to run towards Raimon. He's not very able to fight, but he does shout "there's someone here!"

The problem with insects is that they can take out his men, maybe even kill them, and Lung can't protect them. He has to find the insect-Master.

The problem with water is that it makes him look stupid.

"Shoot him!" They will be braver and more loyal if they see they're not useless in a fight. He will circle towards the outsider himself, but won't get between him and his men for now.

Calistria, he will get around to this LATER when he knows what's going on probably. "Charm Person!" he says in his most innocent voice, as though he were saying "it's all a misunderstanding", flinging up his hands empty with the gesture.

Charm Person has the same range as Create Water. Hopefully whatever pissed-off thing the hot hot guy just said will presently be walked back.

"Stop! Don't shoot, look for the bug controller!"

This man clearly isn't attacking him. He's not a cape, he has no mask and what Lung thought at first was a costume is just very shabby clothing. Killing a random beggar who happened to be in the wrong spot will only make his men doubt themselves when the bugs keep stinging.

He explodes in a little fireball to clear off the damned bugs and shoots jets of fire from his hands and keeps searching. The bug cape has to be here somewhere!

That is - very unusual for Lung? But they're not about to question him in the middle of a fight and also AAAAH these bloody bugs!

How about they look for the bug-controller much farther away, in lots of different directions? They're more likely to find them that way, right?

(They really don't want to find them. A man can outrun an insect, right?)

Okay. That was his only Charm for the day and it... did land, apparently, but the hot hot man is clearly preoccupied with what-all he's up to and does not want to hang out and help orient Raimon to the situation. Maybe he should mosey out of here now till he has a clear direction to travel in once he's gotten himself a horse.

The hot man is by now over seven feet tall and growing silvery scales all over his body. On the other hand, one of his eyes is swelling shut.

He's trying his best to focus, to hear or smell the enemy cape if he can't see them, but the buzzing of the insects is distracting.

Oh thank god, the other probably-cape got away. She doesn't know what happened, bug eyesight is very poor, but her bugs found an extra man when she was really sure she tagged all of them and then there was suddenly a lot of water, and Lung shouted to shoot and then to not shoot, and all his men scattered.

He's still growing, though, and his skin is getting tougher to sting. God, the man is a monster. She sets her most dangerous spiders on him, species she hadn't dared to make bite anyone else.

Lung explodes in flames again and roars, an inhuman sound louder than any human voice.

"Motherfucker," he growls. "Where. Are you?!"

He does Not want to be here. How about this spot, is this a good spot at which to cast Mount and book it Away?

Lung whirls at the sound of horse hooves, but it's just that weird homeless person again. With a horse? ...not important! 

He can't find his enemy and he keeps growing but too slowly and he has to do something. He climbs a nearby house and searches the roof frantically. It's empty, and he can't see anyone on any of the nearby roofs either.

What... is that...? Whatever it is, it definitely wasn't there a moment ago, and now the man is climbing it - definitely a cape. Who is very reasonably running away (quite quickly too) and not, e.g., staying to fight the ever-growing fire dragon! They're probably a much more experienced hero than she is and she's going to follow their example.

Bugs clearly don't work on Lung and anyway she can control them just as well from a block away. While she frantically looks for a pay phone to call the PRT hotline.

The horse will last for two hours and it's not like Raimon has a plan that involves stopping before that. He might pause if he finds anything really welcoming-looking.

There are stores and other buildings with signs that might be intended to look welcoming, but he can't read any of them. (These people really like bright lighting at night!)

If he keeps going straight in a random direction he will eventually arrive in an area with much bigger buildings (some of them hundreds of feet tall) and wider streets. There are metal carriages with people inside (but no horses) zipping around noisily. Some of them make a loud and unpleasant sound as they pass him.

There are also occasional people on the sidewalks, who often turn to stare at him or point some kind of little box at him as he passes.

Personally he prefers when it's pitch dark at night so he can see and nobody else can.

The first time somebody points a box at him he wheels at them and whips out his dagger.

Aaaah he will run away and then call the police! After uploading a photo of the rider threatening him with a dagger to social media!!

What was he expecting pointing a box at a guy who's just minding his own business! Dagger back in sheath. On he rides, a bit slower, keeping right to give the constructs room to go around him.

The people on this other street still don't know to expect this and will also point little boxes at him!

Also, here's a carriage with flashing red and blue lights on top and a horrible wailing noise like a demented trumpet trying to catch up with him.

He pulls up onto the sidewalk to get out of the loud construct's way and continues to menace people who point boxes at him! Who knows what those things do! He tosses off a Resistance in case it's something that helps with.

The carriage pulls up alongside. Two men in blue-maybe-uniforms get out and try to surround him, except that it's kind of hard to surround a horse that ignores you without actually attacking that horse. They yell something at him and point some other things - not like the other people's boxes, they're more elongated, like a hollow wand with a big handle on top. Some of the people with the hot adventurer had these too.

The other people back away but some people from across the street also start head his way, another (ordinary) carriage stops and someone gets out, and more and more people are pointing little boxes at him and doing... something with them.

What is with all these boxes. The long things are some kind of wand, right - "Entropic Shield!" And he kicks the horse into gear and it takes off at a dead run.

How do horses even work - shit, is he trying to trample them? 

One of the cops leaps out of the way. The other shouts but doesn't shoot, there are too many people in front.

They get back in the car and drive behind him; a galloping horse is very slow compared to a car. They'll shoot it if he gets close to other people but they'd rather wait for another car to block him off first, they don't want to risk killing him by gunshot or the horse throwing him, that is so much paperwork.

The horse won't throw him, it's a Mount, they're very well behaved. The Entropic Shield won't last long, so he's going to zigzag a bit to try to lose them.

A horse might be able to turn faster than a car (because it is being recklessly unsafe, wow, who trained that horse) but a car has three times the top speed and can always catch up. And they know the roads here, they're not in any danger of losing track of him.

The only concern is what he'll do trying to escape them, because he is not driving that horse in a remotely safe fashion and could easily hurt someone without even meaning to. "Stop or we shoot," they yell through the car's loudspeaker.

He's certainly not trying to run anybody over but he is willing to make this thing jump over bollards, he can't read "one way" signs, and he doesn't know what "stop or we shoot" means but even if he did it would not be reassuring.

They can't jump over bollards! This is a very unfair advantage of horses and they do not wish criminals to adopt this novel approach. To that end, they shoot the horse.

...they mostly miss, because they are moving (and braking before the bollards) and the horse is moving too, but one bullet hits it. 

They will go the long way around, then, and coordinate with the other police car over the radio to figure out where he is and try to corral him in.

The horse does not really like running with a bullet in it but Raimon doesn't want to change horses now, he doesn't have the knack of landing on a fresh one from midair after dismissing the previous one. It slows down and he takes a more circuitous route to compensate.

There are three cars circling around the area now and if he keeps riding one of them is very likely to spot him eventually; running horses aren't stealthy. 

Also, here's yet another person leaning out a second storey window and pointing a little box at him!

Will people STOP IT with the BOXES, what the HELL. He'll aim a Flare at them. It won't hurt them but it'll hopefully teach them better for next time they want to box someone.

Flare is a very effective deterrent against boxing! The person screams and falls back. It also makes it easy to spot Raimon from a distance for a moment.

A car with flashing lights on top blocks the the road two intersections ahead of him.

Then he'll just have to turn left at one of those intervening intersections!

They will do their best to catch up before he can turn again and lose them! The other two cars will race to get ahead of his new bearing and herd him from either side. They're not very good at coordinating this (there's a reason filmed car chases have a chopper and don't take place at night) but being much faster than he is gives them an advantage.

If he's not distracted, he might notice the smell of the sea.

Sure, the sea, might as well head that way.

Oh good! Boxing him up against the sea means he'll have one less direction to run in. 

When he reaches the seaside promenade-and-beach there's a police car waiting two or three streets away in either direction, and the third one has finally regained line of sight on him from behind.

Are there cars on the beach? No? The horse can go on to the beach.

...The men in the cars can go on the beach! With their weird wands and everything! He's not getting past them this time, they're telling the few bystanders to clear the fuck off and approaching him carefully and preparing to shoot the horse again. 

("You are under arrest! Get on the ground or we'll shoot again!", etc.)

Yes he is clear that they are in a shouty mood! "I don't fucking speak whatever that is! Leave me alone, bitches!" he snarls over his shoulder while he gallops down the sand. He'll go into the shallow water to have a way past the guys, they'll be able to hit the horse but they're on foot now and if he can get clear long enough he can summon a new one.

He's crazy and/or desperate. The water slows the horse down without getting him far enough from them. They could go into the water themselves if they had to, but in fact they can hit his horse from the edge of the sand as he tries to ride past them.

Pity about the horse, it was trained or something, but no horse can survive that many bullets at close range. Hopefully they won't hit his leg.

The horse goes poof. He goes flying. No time like the present to try casting Mount in midair and seeing if he can land it.

Nope. He hits the sand. The new horse is over there. He hauls himself onto it and kicks it into gear before channeling.

What the fuck.

They can still shoot the... new horse but it is Very Against Procedures to attack an unknown and desperate-seeming cape when noone is in immediate danger! Who knows what he can do besides create horses! 

They will trail him while they call it in. The cars can still drive along the beachfront, right, he can't actually get away by riding along the sand.

...the city stops following the bay in about two miles if he keeps going, but they think there's some rocks past that? Or something? They're really not used to thinking of maps in terms of passability for horses! Anyway it's not their concern now, if he leaves the city he will presumably not be able to menace random passersby anymore.

If they're not trying to rectangle him that suits him fine! Gallop gallop gallop.

After some minutes, a red blur flashes past him very quickly. Once it's a hundred feet behind him, it slows down and resolves into a man in tight red clothes. He's jogging after him, not even really running, but every movement is so unnaturally quick that he keeps up with the horse anyway.

Wow, hell of a Haste. "Do you by any chance speak Chelish, mister adventurer?"

He does not! And if he doesn't, then nobody at HQ does.

Other than maybe Miss Militia, who has an eidetic memory and never sleeps and has been known to read encyclopedic dictionaries when she's alone and really bored in the middle of the night. And Armsmaster, who is secretly (or not so secretly) a robot. But Velocity has the most affection for languages out of the real humans around here and he's never heard whatever that is.

But he knows quite a lot of languages he can try at the cape (temporary codename: Horseman), especially if you count the ones in which he only knows how to say he doesn't really know them!

This involves getting ahead of the horse, slowing down enough for his speech to be intelligible instead of quiet and squeaky like a mouse and then catching up again, over and over, but he's long since learned to be patient with the limitations of his power. He has nothing better to do anyway, he's officially tasked with 'keeping an eye on Horseman until backup arrives' and he can speed all the way up if Horseman does anything even slightly threatening and so the alternative is to be bored for the next subjective hour, because his stupid power won't let him carry a book or a phone or anything.

This guy is not rectangling Raimon or shooting at him. He can stay for now. With lots of suspicious looks.

He's dressed weirdly (it doesn't look like a costume, even accounting for the lack of a mask) but he doesn't look African or East Asian. It's unlikely he doesn't know any of those languages, he probably just doesn't want to talk. Despite saying a sentence in a language unlike anything Velocity ever heard.

Oh, well, nothing for it, he's been asked to keep tabs on Rider until a team gets here that can take him in and that's what he'll do --

His radio crackles and he bursts a few hundred feet ahead of Rider and slows then enough for it to work. Velocity here.

You're nearing the end of the road, Console says, the team won't get there in time. Stop his horse, try not to hurt him.

Ah, excitement!

The faster he is, the less force he can apply (and the less force he feels). He can't counter the horse's momentum, but maybe he can spook it? The tools he carries are limited to the very thin and very very light and most of that budget is used up by his skintight suit, but he's got two tinkers on his team.

He speeds all the way up until the horse is almost frozen in place, unfolds a very thin but importantly opaque square of fabric and drapes it over the horse's eyes. He can't squeeze it under the bridle when he's so sped up but it's just barely large enough to tie its corners behind the horse's ears so it'll hopefully stay in place for a few seconds before the wind blows it away.

Move away, slow back down. How does the horse deal with Sudden Temporary Blindness Handkerchief Trick? He thinks horses are supposed to be able to run blind, or something, but maybe it'll twist its leg on the sand while it can't see? Velocity is admittedly not the world's greatest expert on horses, let alone power-projected ones.

"What the fuck is your problem?" Raimon demands, reaching forward to pull the scarf off.

Mounts will run blind. Raimon actually uses this trait of theirs a lot when it's dark, and he can see and the horse can't.

Oh well, it was worth trying. What now.

Next up in his his super-small-and-light not-quite-tinkertech toolkit: ten meters of kevlar thread! If he ties the horse's front leg to its rear one - no, it will probably just tear the thread, it's got to be much stronger than a man.

He spends a few slowed-down minutes studying the horse's gait. Tying up a leg to itself while it's halfway folded... doesn't work, the way it straightens the leg will make the loop slide off... But the two front legs don't move in tandem, like he thought galloping worked, they bend and straighten out of sync with each other. So if he ties the two front legs together when they're at the closest, it might not be strong enough to tear the thread because it'd be forced to pull a bit sideways. Or the horse might stumble because it wouldn't be prepared and trying to exert enough strength even if it theoretically could.

This might not work but what the hell, it doesn't cost him anything to try. He loops the thread as many times around as he can and ties it off. He'll watch this one in slow motion so he can capitalize on any weakness.

The horse trips. Raimon pitches forward over its neck, lands hard, and gets up. He gets up and draws his dagger and advances on Velocity with his other hand held empty but like it'll be doing something in a moment. "What is your problem?" he snarls at Velocity. "What did I ever do to you? You want to fucking go? Fine! Let's fucking go! Come at me and I'll see what the weather's like in the Maelstrom but I'm not coming quietly when I never did fucking anything to you!"

That definitely sounds like a real language unlike any he's heard before!

He's going to keep his distance and speed up if Rider seems to be using any powers and, uh, repeat his litany of different languages because he has no better idea? And stop him from re-mounting the horse if he tries to, obviously.

Technically he's supposed to stay sped up to be safe until the PRT team arrives, but that would take so long.

"I don't speak any of that shit! If you wanted to talk you wouldn't've tripped my godsdamned horse when you can apparently just jog up to it, that's not what wanting to talk looks like!" He's going to try to cut the horse's legs free. It's not dead so he can channel away its fucked up ankle.

Kevlar is pretty hard to cut with a steel knife! But also he's going to speed up and take the thread back before Rider can get it. And then he'll gesture at him not to remount, and if he does anyway then he'll tie the horse again when Rider can't reach its legs.

The attempt at gesturing at him not to remount is a complete communicative failure in and of itself. Raimon does already know this asshole doesn't want him to be on the horse, but he is not inclined to cooperate. When the adventurer approaches the horse-and-rider situation again he's going to get lunged at with the dagger.

Pfft, no-one can get anywhere near him when he's sped-up. He's long gone by the time the dagger has moved a few inches, and the horse is re-tied.

...admittedly this would not be wise if Rider was a Mover or had a Shaker power or something, approaching unknown hostile capes is never safe, but he's been near him already and it wouldn't make sense for him to have the power to make horses if he could move as quickly himself.

Okay, the asshole only has one of those threads, right?

Raimon hops off this horse, strolls far enough away that they can't just be tied together, and makes a new one.

...he can untie the thread from the old horse and retie it to the new one? He knows proper knot technique and everything!

This guy is real fucking annoying.

"You wanna talk? You have something to say to me? Get someone who can cast Tongues, bitch," he snaps.

And then he's going to dismiss the horses - he does have the knack of landing on his feet from a dismissed mount - and start walking.

He can tie his legs together too! This is really annoying, he has to speed up repeatedly to get the thread off when he tries to cut it and back on every time he's walked a few steps, but he is not going to get very far.

Raimon will continue to try to stab Velocity whenever he gets a glimpse of him in reach. He's got a Liberating Command prepared but that won't destroy this fucking thread, so he's just going to be the biggest possible asspain to this asspain.

It's not exactly a fun 'what did daddy do at work today' moment but he's getting paid for this. And this man does need to be off the streets even if he hasn't managed to stab anyone, so. You're not going anywhere.

The fact that he hasn't stabbed anyone is no longer for lack of trying.

After a few minutes, a big black carriage rushes up. Four men in full-body armor and black face-concealing helmets get out, and a woman in a tight green-black dress and a scarf tied around her mouth. There's a green-black glow flickering around her hands. They all jog over to where Raimon is failing to run away.

"He speaks some language I never heard and won't admit to understanding any of mine, and" speed up, retie the thread for the hundredth time "he won't stop trying to run away, can you please foam him."

One of the men removes a kind of hose connected to his backpack. It sprays Raimon with a grayish goo that rapidly covers his body, leaving only his head free. It's hard to move against and over the next twenty seconds it rapidly settles to become as strong as rock.

"Finally. The last two hours were so bloody boring." 

Okay now he's going to try "Liberating Command!"

But this probably winds up sounding like just an impotent swear word because the resulting Escape Artist check is not high enough to make any appreciable motion towards not being foamed any more.

"Any observed powers?"

"Only the horse creation, he made a second one." The first one is crying about its broken ankle and it is a horrible sound. "And the horse didn't react until I broke its leg, he might control them? But the second horse hasn't tried to kick me yet and I think this guy would do it if he could."

Sigh. "We'll need to take in the horses for testing in case they're real. There are procedures for dealing with powers that create biological matter. We'll foam them until they can't walk, leave two troopers to guard them and send a bigger vehicle to pick them up. The rest of us will ride back to base with the detainee."

"What if he makes more horses inside the van," wonders one of the men.

Hmm. Foaming his head might stop him from being able to aim or to use his power. On the other hand, being unable to see might lead him to make a horse and squish them all because of not realizing he's in a confined space.

"Leave him alone in the back of the van to minimize the risk," she decides. "I'll ride up front and Velocity will accompany us outside, the rest of you stay here."

They have to arrest many strange parahumans and they can't keep them unconscious all the time. If he's going to make horses offensively, it's probably better to learn that now rather than later when he's inside the building.

They carry him into the back of the carriage (the hardened foam can be handled safely), restrain him to the wall and close the doors. A few minutes later the carriage starts making noises and accelerates.

He dismisses the horses during this process.

They weren't fully foamed, so this gets noticed!

"So they weren't real after all. Must be a range limit." This is good news because it means they don't have to run the biological safety tests. ...or at least they can't run them until Horseman makes some more horses.

"Or he has a cap on how many he can make and is preparing to make some more," says Velocity as he jogs alongside the van.

"He didn't have eyes on them when they disappeared. I hope he can't make them without line of sight, or he might be hard to contain." Spamming horses into a secure holding area isn't a serious security threat now that they know to expect it, but it could become extremely annoying.

After driving for at least half an hour, the carriage stops in an enclosed space filled with other carriages. The troopers blindfold Raimon and carry him to a little prisoner-transport-cart, which they will roll through a maze of passages and into a little empty room that they spend a minute in and then back out and through more passages and into a prison cell. 

Well, he's going to do his best to bite anyone approaching his head, but he can't really do that very well right now.

It is possible to blindfold bitey people! (Ask them how they know.)

Once he's in the cell they'll spray a little foam dissolver carefully so they can get his dagger away from him without him being able to stab anyone in the process. And then they'll remove his blindfold, lock him in, and spray a lot of foam dissolver from the ceiling sprinkler, and then a lot more warm water. The cells has grates for it to run down, like a big shower stall.

At the end of this process Raimon is free, clean, and soaking wet. Any paper and such that he may have had on him is probably ruined.

His bag of mail didn't come with him on this misadventure, so no big deal.

Detect Poison.

He is not poisoned. Some of the things in the cell would be poisonous if he ate them, including the remnants of the foamy water.

After half a minute, a guard comes by to slide through the mailbox-y slot in the door:

- A towel

- A folded set of dry clothes in approximately his size

- A rectangular plate made from some strange material, containing two objects wrapped in what might be paper and smelling of bread and some other, less familiar things (they are Not Poison)

- An empty cup

- A toothbrush of likewise unfamiliar material, and a red-and-white tube from which a white paste can be extruded (Not Poison unless he eats the whole tube)

- A blanket

He'll have to actively take some of these things from the shelf in front of the door so the guard can pass the rest through.

Other than the door with a window in it, the room contains:

- A flush toilet and a sink with a water faucet (the handles that operate these may not be obvious)

- A curtain which can be drawn to ostensibly cut line-of-sight between the door and the toilet

- A bed (waterproof and almost dry)

- A little desk and chair for e.g. eating

- A couple of empty shelves

- A number of gadgets in the ceiling and walls whose purpose is not obvious

This is a swanky prison, which miiiiight or might not bode well. He'll take the stuff. He's not going to change into the clothes right away. He's been wet before. Detect Poison doesn't really care about dose dependency and he attempts to push the toothpaste back. Everything else he'll take even when it's confusing.

He is allowed to refuse toothpaste. If he pushes it back through they'll take it away.

After they confirm he can't or won't speak English, Spanish and a few other common languages they'll leave him alone for the rest of the night. (The room is brightly lit; it was not a design consideration that someone might be unable to find the light switch.)

They won't come for him right away next morning because Armsmaster is busy, and then he is busy with a different thing that the in-building hospital is also busy with, and then...

By the time somebody does come it's over two hours past dawn, and dawn is relatively late in the day this time of year.

Raimon can in fact sleep in bright light. It doesn't make any difference to whether he can see his surroundings.

He sleeps. (He changes into the dry pants eventually, but he keeps his shirt. He can cast off the embroidery on the sleeve cuffs even though it's homemade and hard to recognize if you're not looking for it - Calistria's an assassin's goddess as much as anything else, and She gets the picture. They haven't taken his holy symbol yet but they could get it into their heads any moment.)

When dawn hits he prays. All these assholes have it coming, Calistria.

Right then.

If they're going to keep holding him they would like to do a routine medical examination. (They will not in fact like this, but they are legally liable if he came in with treatable injuries or diseases and they miss them, and that shirt looks iffy.) However, given the lack of communication and the biteyness, it can be postponed for now.

Two men in full plate come up to his door. One raps on the door to get his attention. "Can you understand me?" he demands. "¿Hablas inglés, puedes entenderme?" He'll go through a few more languages briskly.

The other one would like to know how Rider feels about this!

He feels like these are the biggest fucking idiots in the world. Like, wait for him to cast his Comprehend Languages first. He didn't speak it yesterday so if they think he might speak it today that's the only way it's going to happen! He only has one of it so they'd better be about to make it good.

"Comprehend Languages." Sarcastic inviting gesture.

Armsmaster continues repeating "Can you understand me" in a bunch of languages.

"He's exasperated. Sarcastic. Feels superior, maybe."

Raimon makes a rude gesture at Gallant. To Armsmaster he says, "I just cast Comprehend Languages. Do you have anything else to say."

Whatever he's saying, he doesn't think he's lying. (This goes over comms to Gallant's helmet, because his truth-detector is still secret and also experimental.)

He will continue trying languages! After that he'll try repeating them, interleaved with plausible-sounding but nonsense strings of sounds, and see if he or Gallant can pick up on any differences in reaction.

"Gods, what a fucking waste of time," Raimon says, rolling his eyes when he starts speaking nonsense. "It lasts ten minutes. Whatever is so important you'd better hurry up with it."

Was that a different reaction to the gibberish, can he elicit it again? 

Armsmaster also doesn't want to spend more than ten minutes here!

"Bitch do you have anything to say to me or are you just trying to figure out if you can make me discover that I miraculously speak fucking Arcadian?"

"Impatience, annoyance."

Armsmaster will finish his preplanned sequence of questions, ending with exotic languages he doesn't actually speak but can play back. He occasionally repeats a previously tried language in case that makes a difference.

Raimon throws up his hands in exasperation and turns away from the window.

"Sincere exasperation," Gallant reports dutifully.

"That matches my impressions. We shall have to do this the long way. Dragon, if you would be so kind?"

A rectangular section of wall inside the cell lights up, showing a woman's face on a blurred background.

"You were very thorough, I don't think I shall get anywhere trying even less well-known languages," she remarks. "But I have a program that can teach him words and record his answers."

She turns towards Raimon. "I know you can't understand me yet, but in the spirit of cooperation I would like to say that I want to help you, and for that we need to understand each other. So please have patience and try to be a quick student."

"I can understand you, you lying ignorant slime, but only for a couple more minutes, so whatever you want me to know fucking tell me!"

"He's growing angry," Gallant reports perhaps unnecessarily. "And still very frustrated and impatient."

"I leave it in your capable hands." And the two armored men leave.

She can either learn his language or try to teach him English; it depends mainly on how much he'll cooperate with either approach. She just needs to get across the basic concept of naming things aloud, and then she can leave the rest to a dumb program.

She points to herself. "Dragon." Points to him, invitingly.

"You're not a fucking dragon!" Ugh. Point to himself. "Raimon."

Great! Point to him. "Raimon," she pronounces carefully. Here are images of Armsmaster and Gallant; she names them. Here is she again; she points to herself invitingly.

"You are still not a fucking dragon and that's a stupid name."

Sigh. Sad face. She isn't sure if he didn't understand her request or if there's some other problem, and she can't even say this because that would just confuse him.

"Dragon," she repeats patiently. 

"This is an idiotic use of my spell and you're all certifiable morons."

If she records and analyzes several hours of his speech, a language-learning program might be able to get somewhere. But it would be so much easier if the speech was obviously referring to the pictures she showed him!

Is he willing to talk about images of everyday objects, people, actions, places, et cetera? She'll leave a program running that will show him pictures, name or describe the thing, and then let him speak as long as he wants about it and record it. She'll be back in fifteen minutes, unless the program flags something very abnormal.

(It is not obvious from the screen that she isn't paying attention.)

When his spell wears off he loses interest in this process and creates himself some water in the cup they gave him.

That definitely raises a few flags! Dragon carefully inspects the recording of the last few seconds, and notifies Armsmaster.

Rider just used a new power, creating transparent liquid in or just above a cup. He drank some of it. Visually indistinguishable from water, air sensors aren't picking up anything.

Hmm. Do you think it's linked to horses somehow? The unspoken subtext is obvious to both of them: two is not a natural number, and a power of Create Horse is much, much less dangerous than a power of simply Create.

Perhaps the fluid is part of a horse's body? she hazards. There really isn't enough data to speculate.

I want to take the cup away for analysis, but that requires restraining him again.

She sights. I'm not getting anywhere with the language lessons, he's stopped cooperating. He stopped paying any attention, really. I can try some other approaches but he's likely to ignore them too. I suspect there's an explanation we're not seeing, charades are a human universal and if he simply didn't want to communicate for some reason he wouldn't be so upset.

It's not worth your time if you're not making progress. I'll order retrieval of the cup. Dragon's monitoring program will let them know if anything else unusual happens.

The language program keeps running without her personal attention. How does he feel about literal charades? Drawings of people with speech bubbles? Indications that people with speech bubbles walk out of unlocked cells and people without them stay locked in?

"You are ooooooobviously lyyyyyyinnnnnng," he sings to himself when he sees that. (Speech bubbles have, just barely, been invented on his planet, and he's seen lots of different local publications.)

The language program does not understand him and it has infinite patience. Will he repeat the names of types of fruit and cute mammals?

After a few minutes the door slot closes and an invisible gas floods the room. It won't quite put him to sleep but it should make him weak and dizzy.

...detect... poison...

...Resistance!

He feels weak and dizzy. And of course they're not relying on the gas, they're not stupid, this a noncooperative parahuman with unknown powers.

Four guards (with airtight helmets) enter the room. Two pin him to the wall with riot shields; they will apply only gentle force if he doesn't resist.

Another places the cup in a closed box.

"You wanted my - my fucking cup - why did you even give me the -" He's pretty sure he can't get a Mount off like this and it's a bit late for his Stunning Barrier.

Their task complete, they retreat and lock the door again. The gas slowly clears.

Ten minutes later the slot in the door reopens, and a guard slides in a fresh cup.

He shoves the cup back out again! He'll create water directly above his mouth if they're going to be dicks about cups! What the hell!

...regulations specify it is not abuse to allow a detainee to refuse to have a cup in their room because they can drink directly from the faucet.

Eventually the program tries repeating things he said back to him. Maybe he'll respond or correct it or something. The program doesn't have any real intelligence or initiative but it isn't programmed to give up after a reasonable amount of trying.

"Cup? Fucking cup? Why did you even. I can understand you."

...sporfle. "Can you now? Can you understand me? Did you find yourself a Comprehend Languages wand in a drawer somewhere at long last?"

"Comprehend Languages wand in a drawer. Fucking cup at long last? You're not a fucking dragon."

"No shit I'm not a dragon. I haven't seen any dragons since I showed up here but I haven't seen any at home either, they're not exactly on every street corner. If you try this again tomorrow I can do another ten minutes of Comprehend Languages, if you really do have something to say to me."

He is finally engaging again! The program pings Dragon.

Reviewing, reviewing... hmm. How can she best entice him to cooperate, if he only responds to (presumably nonsensical) strings of words in his own language? If only she knew the meaning of just one or two words they might make some progress!

The sequence "Comprehend Languages" was the first thing he said to Armsmaster and Gallant, without any accompaniment. Then he said something (responding to Gallant?) which also involved "Comprehend Languages". And when the program first tried speaking in his language, he mentioned it again.

There are other sequences that appeared at both times and not in between. (She doesn't know yet how to divide this language into words.) "To me", "say", "to say", but "comprehend languages" is much longer.

What would be the first thing you said to someone you didn't share a language with? There are really too many options. A greeting, an introduction, the name of his language or place of origin, some other concept related to communication...

Dragon doesn't have any good guesses.

Is he willing to state "Comprehend Languages" about a picture of himself? Of Dragon or Armsmaster? Of himself with or without a speech bubble? 

"I don't know why you care so much about whether I remember all your stupid names. If I were you I'd hope the avenger in custody couldn't keep me straight with any thirty other morons."

Alas. 

The program will keep trying, but Dragon doesn't hold out much hope. She lets Armsmaster know.

Eventually we'll have to either release him or press charges. He won't get a long sentence and keeping him is a waste of resources if we'll just release him later. But it's not my decision to make.

The analysis results come in. As far as the lab can tell, the remaining the liquid in the cup is ordinary water.

Did you compare the proportions of dissolved minerals to those of the tap water? He did not fill the cup from the tap before creating the liquid in it.

Dragon is right! The calcium:magnesium ratio is all wrong and there is no trace of any chlorine compounds.

We already knew he created it. There was no reason to expect it would be the same as local tap water.

A day later, the traces of water disappearing from the lab samples go unnoticed.

Several days pass in routine boredom. Raimon is regularly fed and invited to shower daily (by undressing and standing in the shower-y part of the cell). The program keeps nattering at him. Another program is displayed showing a stick figure exercising to cheerful music. Some other people look in a few times but nobody can communicate with him and they leave quickly, having satisfied some byzantine rule or requirement of keeping prisoners.

The system slowly grinds on. There is enough to occupy the Protectorate and the PRT and no pressing reason do anything about the cape in their holding cells before the 30-day window for filing charges expires.

Five days after his arrest, an alarm resounds through the building. The guards talk urgently and leave. There are the sounds of distant explosions.

Some minutes later, a man looks into his cell. He is wearing a red-and-black mask that looks like a child drew a leering devil but (importantly) that child wasn't Chelish and the requisite terror didn't quite come through.

A round later he disappears - instantaneously, like a teleport. A round after that, there is a small explosion right outside his cell and the door swings open.

What a tasteless outfit.

Well, he doesn't know what the exploding guy was about but that doesn't mean he wants to stay here. He walks right through the open door and starts trying to navigate his way out of the building.

There's only one way out of this corridor of cells; outside it he can find a recently dead guard with a cut throat and an open door leading to a stairwell. There are shouts from both above and below him, and then a very-quickly-repeating sound (possibly of explosions); it's loud and echoes in the enclosed space, but it's probably coming from below.

Then he won't go below unless it seems like there's some really compelling reason to do that! Tasteless Outfit Man did him a good turn but does not seem to have been here for him. He'll try going up.

One floor up the door is locked. Another floor up the door was blown off its hinges but the entrance is now blocked by troopers who are preparing to take on whatever comes up from below.

Ugh, he just wants an exit. Are there windows such that he can even see if he's going the right way to hit ground level?

There are no windows in the stairwell. If he's very perceptive he may notice that the lighting past the troopers suggest sunlight and not artificial lights, but that would require him to get rather close to where they are.

The loud sounds from below have stopped and now there are running footsteps coming his way.

He doesn't actually think horses can do stairs.

He'll press to the wall out of the way and wait for whoever's coming up to get through the troopers for him.

Hot Hot Man is here to do just that!

...should he kill that guy - no, that is Definitely Not Bug Controller guy. He'll run past him to kill the guards instead.

Yay. Once they are dead Raimon continues to Just Walk Out.

Don't give us up for dead yet! What if we fill the stairwell with foam and also with bullets?

YOUR PUNY BULLETS ONLY MAKE THE RAGING DRAGON GROW - 

What if grenades started exploding behind your line?

The troopers can't stop both of them with no cape support and the doors sabotaged open. They fall back, leaving two dead and carrying several injured. Luckily for them, Lung and Oni Lee are too much in a hurry to escape to pursue them deeper into the building.

Raimon can now leave. Past the remains of burned foam and the dead bodies is a short corridor which leads straight to a large empty lobby whose glass doors were shattered, and then - freedom.

Mood. Raimon will himself be taking a watchful waiting approach for ways to fuck these jerks up.

Outside the building the city looks like a warzone. A building across the street has collapsed; people in bright orange vests are rescuing and treating survivors. Smoke, mostly black but sometimes in bright exotic colors, is rising from several places at varying distances,. The air smells of fire and concrete dust and there are sounds of rapid explosions in the far distance. People are rushing everywhere, civilians and troops in different color uniforms and carriages of all kinds. 

Nobody pays him any attention.

Wow, what a mess.

How about this time he picks a non-sea direction.

"Mount." Up and on and now he gets to try to weave between rubble and flames and active conflict and get away from this fucking city.

This fucking city looks like it's in the middle of being invaded, or possibly putting down a particularly vicious riot.

There are collapsed buildings. There are huge explosions (luckily none near him) threatening to collapse more buildings and leaving huge holes in the streets. There are plumes of smoke in weird colors, a large perfectly reflective bubble, pools of unidentifiable liquid. Some of them are on fire. The clouds over towards the ocean are tinted green.

There is a terrific amount of noise, a constant stream of chaotic explosions and rumbles and crashes of all sizes and at various distances, the distant (or sometimes near) wailing of carriages, everybody shouting to make themselves heard over the noise.

There are constructs flying over the city, with little stubby wings that don't flap and a long tail and a flat disk of shadow suspended over their tops, and they make yet more noise and sometimes flash with light. 

There are people and carriages full of people and other carriages with opaque windows so it's impossible to tell what is inside, all rushing about.

Nobody pays Raimon the slightest amount of attention. A surprise horse is very firmly Not Important today.

As he picks his way he will encounter a group of four people, all various degrees of wounded. A black man in what might be leather armor is carrying a unconscious, battered-looking slight girl in a fireman's carry and clearly struggling with it; he is favoring one leg. A young woman in a body-hugging dress that might have been bright purple at some point looks like her face and arms were burned; a slight man is cradling his left arm like it's broken. 

All four are struggling along the mildly-blown-up street, the woman holding one of those boxes to her ear. When she notices Raimon, she says something urgently to the armored man.

Yes, it has clearly been a rough day for everybody. He doesn't recognize any of these people and therefore doesn't have anything in particular against them; he'll trot up a bit closer so he can get them in a channel if they don't do something inexplicably hostile in response to that.

Up closer he will notice that various insects are flying to the unconscious girl and landing on her. They don't seem to be stinging her or doing much of anything, really, just sitting there or crawling around her body. It's like she was sprayed with bug attractant that also somehow made all these different spiders and wasps and the one praying mantis not eat or kill any of the flies and moths. The man who's carrying her doesn't seem to have his own collection and they're all ignoring the bugs, even this alarmingly large carpenter bee that just walked across her face from ear to ear.

Cape. Many powers. Healer. Can heal group. Instantaneous healing. Full health. Sometimes to full health.

"Grue, that man's a healer cape!" Tattletale whispers urgently. They really, really need to get him to help them, for money or whatever favors it takes, Taylor might end up with brain damage if doctor bloody "Q" isn't good enough and Tattletale does not want to do power-assisted surgery.

"Shit, how do we talk to him - it has to be you, figure something out -"

They're unmasked but the much bigger problem is that the healer is too. If they approach him he's likely to feel in danger or to think they're threatening him, he could lash out or deny it and run away.

Power, if I approach him and ask for healing how will he react?

Would think it normal. Would not be upset at people knowing he has powers.

...really? Then, then she can just offer to pay him -

Does not speak English. Does not speak any language <host> knows.

Oh come on, of all the stupid problems! They're obviously in need of healing, and everyone knows what money looks like... If only she had a lot of money on her, which she doesn't, she only has like two hundred bucks... How does she convince him they're good for it...

He actually does not know what money looks like (though he'd figure it out if presented with some). He just thinks they look like they could use it. He gets close enough and touches his triple-dagger symbol and bam.

!!!

Her power did say instantaneous but she didn't really think - not even Panacea works like that, and he did it at range to four people -

There's not a publicly known healer in the world who's this good, not unless Eidolon got into the business. And he did it unmasked, for random people on the street? 

Brian is setting Taylor down and talking to her urgently and Regent is asking what the hell just happened and Lisa is, very unusually and very temporarily, shocked silent.

What the hell kind of price are they about to pay for this?!

Power had no effect besides healing. Power had no cost to user. Power limited, very few uses per day. 

And he spent one of his few daily charges on strangers? Why?

Not expecting payment. Did not use power to gain something.

...does he not want anything? Besides money? Why is this cape going around (riding around!) unmasked in the middle of practically a warzone and spending his few healing charges on random strangers? 

Wants many things. Wants to leave city. Wants to go home. Wants to escape. Escape PRT. Wants to -

OK, OK, that's maybe something she can use! What's with him and the PRT?

Escaping PRT. Was prisoner. Broken out. Broken out incidentally, another prisoner being broken out. Lung was broken out.

...it is obvious in retrospect that Bakuda bombed like half the city and drew this much heat for a reason and that reason was a distraction to spring Lung. Lisa was in her defense kind of preoccupied with Bakuda trying to personally murder her, but: Lung being free is very bad news for everyone in the city but especially for the Undersiders!

Wait he's turning to leave like he's done here - nonono, a healer is super useful, she wants to pay him if they can keep him around!

Lisa frantically digs out her $200 and offers it to him. "Thank you! Don't go, we can pay you more, we can help you -" she needs to get him talking so her power has something to work with -

Is that... oh the money is green here, Chelish bills are red.

She has a lot to say. There is probably some chance she will keep saying it if he blows his Comp Lang. He takes the money and casts it.

Power what did he just say to her -

Said Comprehend Languages. Now comprehends languages. Can understand English, cannot speak. Limited duration, limited uses.

What is with this guy and his ridiculous time-limited use-limited time powers -

"Guys he can understand us!"

They give her an unimpressed look. 

(Brian still has a capsule up his nose that will turn him into a deformed monster once Bakuda replaces her toe-rings and remembers he exists! He is very grateful for the heal but he still needs to get to an actual doctor!!!)

"...he couldn't a minute ago, he doesn't speak English, he has a power that lets him understand but not speak it and it won't last much longer. So we have to be fast."

To Raimon: "my power lets me figure things out. I can figure out your native language later but it's limited, you'll need to talk in your language to give me words."

"What the hell? You're unmasking u- uh, you're unmasking to this random guy?"

"He probably just saved our lives!"

To Raimon again: "I can tell you're running from the PRT - the guys who had you locked up, they work for the government - you don't know the language here, you don't know anyone. We can help you. Give you money, a place to stay, make introductions, tell you stuff. It'd be worth it just for the healing you already did! You can sell healing for money but not if you know nothing about the language - shit, about the country? You're not from - anywhere I've heard of. But you're stuck here for now. We can help you find your feet."

How is he taking it? After the past hour she's very - stressed, let's go with that, and the sudden healing just gave her more energy to express it with.

"I'm from Cheliax. You haven't heard of Cheliax? Awful lot of humans around for this to be a different planet. I guess maybe it hasn't gotten to fucking, Arcadia or whatever. Yeah those guys were assholes and way worse at figuring out what to do with a Comprehend Languages than you. I was planning to get the fuck out of town and try Detecting Poison on random berries and trapping rabbits for supper but I'm not amazing at that, if you're offering."

"They didn't - ha, they didn't know you could understand them! Idiots."

He was going to - leave the city, and what was that?

Planned to use power on plants, animals. Power checks if edible or harmful. 

Huh. That... probably tracks with healing? Not super useful in normal life.

"He was going to leave the city and look for - plants and hunt animals to eat? - but he's willing to stay with us," she reports to the others.

"We'll definitely feed you! Gods, I thought I was -" she shudders. "I'll feed you as much as you want, you probably did save my life just now." 

Why was he being held by the PRT? The heroes aren't perfect but they wouldn't arrest someone without a good reason. The other guy who escaped them today is Lung! (Which, wow, she did not need that on top of all her other problems.)

"I still need the doctor - uh, you healed my leg but the villain we were fighting stuck something up my nose and it's still there, I need someone to pull it out ASAP. Can you come with us? If you're in a hurry Lisa can go with you - uh, I'm Brian. Thank you, really. What's your name?" 

"Wow, yeah, I don't have a great way to get something out of your nose unless you want me to dig around in there with a sharp object 'n Cure you after. I can go with you guys. I'm Raimon."

"He says he'll come with us," Lisa reports.

"Why are you riding a horse? Lisa, please tell me the horse isn't also a cape."

Sporfle. "No, it's a Mount, I'm a sorcerer too."

Why in fact a horse? If he just escaped the PRT - power, what did he just say -

Power created horse. Different power from others.

Oh, a projection, that makes a kind of sense but who even has so many unrelated powers?

Real horse, not projection. Power created real horse. Limited duration horse. Limited use power.

... is his power's theme actually 'Anything, but limited duration and uses', and also healing which unlike the horse sticks around?

Limited powers. Chooses powers daily. Limited choice.

This guy's an actual mini-Eidolon! Lisa barely manages to keep this revelation to herself until she has time to think, she is suddenly physically fine but is not mentally fit enough risk running her mouth. 

"...It's a normal horse but he made it with his power and it will... stop existing sometime soon?" Case in point: Lisa, stop exposing the guy's power to everyone, he hasn't had time to process yet that you can do that!

Brian has known Lisa for a long time and is coming to the same conclusion. If you already know someone's a cape you can just ask what their power does! You know, like a normal non-psychic person!

"So what does your power do?" he asks, leading the way. "Healing, languages, horses, I'm not seeing the connection..."

He's not pissed off about her explaining the horse to everyone because while he's starting to get the picture that there is evidence to the contrary, he emotionally expects most everything he can do to be, while not commonplace, common knowledge as a thing that exists and plenty of other people also have. (Which is why it was so aggravating that the PRT didn't know a Comprehend Languages when they heard one.)

"Yeah, the horses are separate, that's a sorcerer spell, the healing's 'cause I'm a priest, comp lang can be either one but in this case it's the priest kind."

Two kinds of powers, Lisa's power translates, horse one, healing and languages another. First kind is being a person with powers. Born potential, powers awakened later. Second kind is being given powers. Someone chose him, gave him powers.

Mind reeling, Lisa dutifully translates this.

He what?

Taylor thought - obviously there are always rumours and conspiracy theories, there would be whether or not it was true, there are websites where everyone knows someone who knows someone who bought powers, but, but -

But a fundamental - convention of the genre, is how she'd been thinking about it - is that people who supposedly bought (or received) powers never admit it!

"When you say someone gave you powers. What exactly do you mean." Alec's voice is very flat.

"I mean I'm a Calistrian cleric, so if you've got beef with my goddess the Unquenchable Fire patron of lust and revenge, we can simply fuck off our separate ways."

"He got his powers from someone called Calistria and - apparently there's people who don't like her and he wants to be sure we're not among them? I've never heard of her. He called her a 'goddess of lust and revenge.'" 

Alec snickers.

(Nobody but Lisa can tell what he's really thinking, he's very affectless when he's being serious.)

It's actually more believable that he got his powers from a power-granting cape and not from a fantastical vial, especially if he already had his own powers before that. She thinks she read something about a cape like that who was Birdcaged, and the Chinese seem to do something like it.

Does that means his healing (and language, but she doesn't care about that) will get weaker or stop working? Permanently granting powers would be a really big deal, like real-Eidolon big!

Powers granted, ongoing. Granted every day. Could be withdrawn. Will be withdrawn if he acts against her will.

A-ha. So he's being controlled by someone, whether consensually or otherwise. "What does Calistria want you to do?"

"Hot boys. - none of your crew, you're too young for me. And fucking over assholes."

"She wants him to fuck men. ...he also wants this, to be clear. And - hurting bad people is all I got from that? Up to you if you want to go into detail or not, but if it could affect us we should know." Or she can just find out with her power but that is impolite, thank you Brian.

"She's the goddess of revenge. She's into that. If you just kinda don't like her, whatever, I'll leave, but if you fuck with me or you hurt a little kid or something I'll get you."

"She likes revenge," Lisa reports, "he'll go after us if we turn on him and he'll go after anyone who hurts children."

"Oh boy. Can I interest you in an asshole who totally hurts lots of children and richly deserves lusty vengeance?"

Shit, does she tell him to stop and make it clear she knows or does she not stop him and risk it maybe ending in a much bigger disaster? 

...Alec's not going to say it with an audience, she'll get to him first, it's just one more impending disaster for her to juggle.

"When you say children, how young do you mean? Most of us are legally children."

Brian isn't sure he likes this avenue of conversation! And not even because he doesn't really want to call down a power-granting 'goddess of lust' on his mother!

"Here's our car, we need to get to the doctor quickly, can you follow on the horse? We won't drive too fast."

"You're not kids to me but you're close. I can follow along but the Comp Lang's gonna run out soon."

"I'll still understand you and should be able to get simple stuff across but my power will run out eventually so don't abuse it. Remember to give me vocab, my power's better given something to work with."

"The plan is we go to the doctor, Brian gets treated, then we need to find our missing team member - didn't have time to tell you about her, we'll probably end up fighting some people, but I don't have a lead yet. We'll take you to an apartment first, get you food and stuff. We'll need to be careful, the city's a warzone and Bakuda's goons will be looking for us. Better you stay behind and heal her when we bring her back, unless you're great in a fight."

Can't understand English anymore.

"No great shakes." He follows them on his horse.

They really ought to talk this over in the privacy of the car but all of Brian's attention is taken up by driving while dodging bomb craters and debris and feeling like every building they pass could explode and fall on top of them and so could his nose.

"Are we taking him to the hideout, or?"

Taylor is conflicted about adding someone to the team! She is already conflicted about planning to betray them to the authorities and now she's additionally conflicted about betraying someone else! A wanted man who just escaped from prison and then saved her life on a whim! But she can put that aside until they rescue Rachel so she can betray her. She really really doesn't want to dwell on what Bakuda might be doing to Rachel right now.

The alternative is asking Coil for an apartment and she doesn't want to tell Coil about the new cape until she has to, although realistically it won't be long before he finds out anyway.

"We can't do it by halves, he won't want to work with us if we don't trust him in our base. And he'll need help, at least at first, he can't even order food on his own. We're unmasked to him anyway."

"So dish. What all can he do besides healing and horses?"

"And languages," Lisa reminds him. "I can't tell you, though, he's a team member now. And I need my power to find Bitch, I'm this close to a headache already."

"What about this Calistria, anyone heard of her?"

None of them have, and the internet apparently hasn't either.

Hmm. Maybe she'd better ask Coil to look into 'Calistria', if there's any danger from that angle it's worth letting him know a bit earlier.

They arrive uneventfully at the address Lisa said the boss said the private doctor was at. 

The doctor insists on going by "Q," on the basis of "why should only capes get to have a secret identity" and also "this is a great excuse not to have my diploma framed on the wall." (Lisa can confirm that he is, in fact, an M.D. and doesn't waste time digging into why he's not, well, a public doctor. Coil wouldn't pay an incompetent, he wants the Undersiders healed.)

At any rate, he successfully extracts the capsule from Brian's head with only a little nosebleed to show for it. Said capsule will probably go to Coil; Lisa hopes it activates at the worst possible moment.

"Lisa, how quickly can you find Rachel?"

"I appreciate the show of faith but I'm not sure," she admits. "I've messaged the boss, he has his own sources. I don't have much to go on and if we play 'hot or cold' trying to find the right ABB hideout we'll be spotted. ...also, she might be held near Bakuda."

"She's injured and we're healed. If we're going to risk a fight better do it now while she's not expecting us to come back." 

"You said Lung escaped. He is probably looking for Bakuda or with her already. He'll want to establish he's still in control of the ABB, she'll want him to publicly accept what she did to her 'recruits'."

"So we need to find Bitch but only if she's not near Bakuda, got it."