125 123 "To know your Enemy"

With us flying overhead and Crawler running through the scenery below, I make sure to get March to arrange a pickup for Crawler at the edge of the city limits, so as to avoid causing a scene.

The idea basically being that we'll get a van to stuff him into, I'll ask him if he wants to become a Clown later, and if he doesn't then I'll just let him loose and see what he does.

Should be fun either way.

At the same time, I sent of a few texts of my own, setting things up and giving instructions.

This is going to be our first showing of solidarity as Clowns after all, I want to make a good impression, so everything has to go right.

Naturally, that means I can't just do everything myself, even if I probably could, but the point is to show the world what it's like when we Clowns combine our efforts.

After about an hour of flying, mostly in silence, my phone finally rings with the call I've been waiting for, attracting the attention of the others present, except for Bonesaw, who's still out of it.

Burnscar is at least present enough to be curious about the phone call, but I ignore them all in favour of giving Lucy a smug grin.

"You wanted to know what March's thing was, didn't you?~" Before she can respond, I keep talking, "well, just watch, and you'll understand.~"

Saying so, I answer the phone on speaker and hold it between March and I.

"Hey there Harlequin!~ You're on speaker by the way, so you can just go ahead and give everything you got to March!~"

I get a quiet snort as response from the other end, shortly followed by the woman's amused voice.

"You sound like a kid on christmas; excited?~" Her non sequitur has me pouting, because 𝘰𝘣𝘷𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘭𝘺 I'm excited.

"Yes, yes I am, so if you wouldn't mind?~" I say, wanting her to get to the point so that March can show off to the new girl.

Plus, I haven't seen her make proper use out of this aspect of her power yet, so I'm looking forward to it.

"Ok, ok, I'll get straight to the point then. I've already gotten String Theory's transport route and called ahead, so you'll be driven there once you get to Portland. Now, while Birdcage transports rarely actually have any cape escorts, generally just relying on a small armoured convoy of PRT troopers, the nature of her threat, combined with the personal attention of Alexandria has changed that somewhat. It doesn't help that they are fully expecting you to show up at the very least. As a side note, I read the psych eval in your profile and I gotta say, they really hit the nail on the head with that one."

I don't particularly care if the PRT has a good understanding of my psyche to be honest. Really, I can only see it as a good thing, since it means they'd probably be more willing to play along with my games, because every big organisation like the PRT prefers known elements, than unpredictable ones, and even I don't know what I'd do if I offered them a game and they rejected it.

Noticing that I'm not going to say anything about the eval thing, Harlequin continues on.

"This means that you'll be dealing with some heavy resistance. First of all, there will be five armoured transports, four of which will be filled with fully armed and armoured troopers, and the fifth will also be filled with fully armed and armoured troopers. String will just be cramped in there with them, cocooned in containment foam and with about a dozen more foam nozzles pointed at her at all times. They'll have her loaded into the transport second from the back, trying to trick you into going for the middle one."

I smile at that. It makes sense I suppose, and it makes me happy to know that they're trying to trick us, especially since it means they won't be expecting us to attack the middle transport and whatever surprise they no doubt have hiding away inside of it.

"Now, for the important parts. The capes. First and most important, would be Alexandria. For some reason she seems to have taken String's threat personally or something, because she's basically been on a warpath ever since her threat to get that woman inside the 'Cage, so Alexandria will be inside the middle transport, waiting with a few troopers."

Alexandria will be there? How fun.~

I wonder if she's upset at me for spreading her naked pictures all over the internet? I don't see why she would be, she has nothing to be ashamed of. Super girl has super tits, who'd have guessed?

"I'm sure everyone knows about her, so I won't go into pointless details and will just move on to the others. She only managed to get five other capes to join her, one being in each of the transports and another trailing behind. That last one will be the biggest issue I'd guess, as they are a Trump/Thinker 3, who's power basically tells them the location of every parahuman within five clicks of themselves, so they'll see you coming and warn the others before you can do anything about it, unless you have a long distance teleporter on speed dial?"

That's annoying. I was kind of banking on us having the element of surprise to turn the battle in our favour from the get go, but oh well, I'm not overly worried.

"Nah, and I don't think Strider would be willing to help, no matter how much I offered to pay him.~"

Heroes can be so unreasonable sometimes. Strider is freelance and possibly the best mass teleporter on the planet, but he is a freelance hero, so he would probably turn down my money, no matter how much I throw at him.

Which sucks, I want a teleporter.

"Shame, the others are all more oriented to combat and containment. In the front transport there will be Osmosis, who's power is a Striker/Changer 2 and Brute 6. He's an interesting one, his power let's him slowly spread his blood vessels throughout any object he is touching, turning that object into an extension of himself, thus granting it his brute ability. Keep in mind, I'm being very literal when I say the object becomes a part of his body, he'll probably be using it on the transport, so if you manage to break past his brute rating and the innate durability of the vehicle, then not only will it bleed his blood, but it will also hurt him a lot."

What a fucking weird ass power. Does that mean he could bleed to death if we just lacerate the fuck out of the transport?

Wait, if he's 'human' and he turns the car into 'him,' then would that make the car 'human' and thus edible to me?

I'll see if I get the opportunity to test that could be interesting.

Taking a short pause, I hear some ruffling of papers from the other side of the phone, and I take the moment to glance at Lucy's face, happily taking in the shocked look she has as she stares at the phone in my hand.

Clearly she's understood the implications of this call, that I have someone with insider knowledge of the PRT, and quite a lot of it at that. If nothing else, this alone should reaffirm that joining us is a good choice, what comes next will only further cement that.

Still, I'm starting to see their plan. We rush in, start out by attacking the front vehicle to stop the convoy, fail thanks to Osmosis, at the same time someone, likely me, would try and blitz the centre vehicle, getting String out early, only to run into an angry invincible woman.

Then, if I were Alexandria, I would have the second car have someone specialising in containment, to take advantage of the person who attacked the first car still being stunned, same with the car with String actually in it, both to help contain whoever Alexandria is fighting, if she even needs the help, and to keep String from being freed, leaving whoever's in the last car to be someone good in a fight, preferably fast too, or a Blaster, I guess.

"The second car has Valiant, her power's a Mover 5 and Shaker 3. She teleports, only short distance and sight based, but everyone within a five metre diameter of her when she 'lands' has their legs frozen in space, quantum locked, for about three seconds. It varies but only by milliseconds, so you won't notice anyway."

Eh, that's not too annoying. After all, if she only targets legs then I can just rip mine off and fight without, not like I need them, I already have way too many limbs for it to ever be an issue.

"I've already covered the middle transport, everyone knows Alexandria, the next one has Gorgon, a Blaster 4 who can turn anything organic to stone with a look, though it does take some time to fully take effect, not long but it's noticeable, and he only turns a thin layer to stone, so you'd probably be just fine even if he hit you with it Tear. The transmuted material returns to normal after a couple of hours."

Well that's two for two of my guesses being right, and once again, I find myself unworried, because as she said, Gorgon isn't a threat to me.

"Lastly is Prometheus, Blaster 6 with a kind of Trump/Tinker rating of 1, because his power is to produce flames, except he can choose the 'properties' that the flames burn away at. Nothing as mystical as time or anything, but he can burn away at durability, or kinetic energy, or, as I think is likely to be Alexandria's plan for you Tear, is that he could burn away at your regenerative ability, possibly removing the only thing that's kept you alive through your own stupidity."

Now that's interesting.

I wonder if it'll actually work like fire, and if I can just power through it by regenerating faster than his fire can burn my regeneration?

It'd probably be dumb to even try and test that unfortunately. Ah well, it's not like I'm making the plan this time anyway.

"I've also compiled a general assessment of their personalities. Habits and the like, alongside the psych profiles of the first three, I couldn't get you Prometheus' and I didn't even try to get Alexandria's. I'll send them to you now, and that's all I've got. I'll be keeping an eye on the news and if I see anything about you being captured or otherwise failing, I'm going to call you just to laugh at you. Later."

With that, she hangs up, not even giving me the chance to say goodbye or anything. How rude.

Lucy is still staring at the phone even after the it clicks from Harlequin hanging up, only being broken out of her reverie when the phone pings again, a quick check showing that it is those profiles as promised.

Without a word, I hand the phone over to March, who seems to be in a daze of her own, though I think the proper term is fugue, except she is likely running scenarios through her power right now, coming up with a perfect plan.

Lucy turns to give me a significant look, but I just smile at her.

"Surprised?" I ask with mirth.

"Of course I am, do you have any idea how the world sees you Clowns?" She returns, making me raise a brow and shrug.

"𝘜𝘴 Clowns, you're one of us too now, and nah, I got no clue.~"

I really don't spend all that much time online, granted, that's mostly because I tend to get banned almost immediately after I get online, and the bans usually last a week at minimum at this point, and it's not like being in the Nine is great for keeping up on current events, so I might be slightly out of the loop, luckily Lucy is happy to fill me in.

"As far as anyone is concerned, the 'Clowns' is just you and Fool, a pair of psychopaths tying to entertain themselves and their Tinker friend using them for both protection and marketing with a couple of extra capes that have banded together with you to keep out of being forced into gangs. You're basically seen as an alliance of rogues sticking together to avoid getting ganged up on."

Huh, that actually kind of makes sense, and I don't even have a problem with it.

If anything, this is perfect. I mean, it's basically correct anyway, the only difference being that people apparently are vastly underestimating just what resources we collectively have at our disposal, which is probably a good thing really.

After all, while I don't want to have a weak reputation, being underestimated is fine, if anything this is better, because it means we will still have a fearsome reputation when it comes to combat and protecting our own, but everyone will underestimate our ability in the more subtle approaches.

Well, not everyone. Important people will all obviously know, eventually at least. But again, I'm fine with that too, because how else are we supposed to be hired?

Gotta make a living somehow, as they say.

"Well, now you know. And it's only up from here.~ Once we bust String out, people will take notice and realise that joining us is a safe bet, doubly so thanks to Alexandria making an appearance, something that will only make our success all the more impressive.~ Of course, they still have to meet the two requirements if they want to join, so while you're free to invite anyone you want to join us, just keep in mind that I'll probably kill them if they're super boring.~"

Lucy gives me a look of scrutiny at my words, and I can practically see the cogs in her brain turning. In fact, I can probably guess exactly what she's thinking too.

Probably something along the lines of how unexpected it is of me that I can actually think passed tomorrow and plan for the future.

It's kind of insulting that she expected me to be dumber though.

Speaking of future plans though, I should really be thanking Alexandria. Her presence will make everything go so much better, probably speeding up my projections for my Clown's growth by at least a few months, which is nice.

I'll figure out a way to send her some flowers at some point.

=================

A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!

I just want to point it out for any who missed it, but the title to this chap is actually super fitting. It's half a Sun Tzu quote, the other half being "you must become your enemy"

Now, consider, who is the 'enemy' here, and who is giving the information on the 'enemy' and how did they get it?

Also, you know that line where lusia told Lucy to watch March work? I wrote that cuz I thought march would have a speaking role after, guess I got carried away making even more OCs

(5+)Advanced chapters with the links below!

pat/reon.com/user?u=41732867 (get rid of the first slash or check the description)

Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses