Iron Rain, the younger daughter of Allfather, leads the other, decidedly more violent faction of the Empire. If Kaiser's faction reminds you as much of a business as a gang, then Iron Rain's faction reminds you as much of the stories you've heard of the Italian Mafia as it does a typical gang. Iron Rain doesn't bother with things like advertising. No, she goes out and deals with the problem "effectively"— typically, by beating a bunch of black or Asian people senseless , and-slash-or extorting their businesses into bankruptcy. They're the only gang in town with confirmed murders to their name.
The presence of Iron Rain's Brotherhood is the other reason why the Protectorate never cracks down as heavily on the Empire. The Empire has denounced the Brotherhood as misguided and foolish, although you can't help but note that they never denounce the Brotherhood's goals, only their methods.
Beneath the Brotherhood lies a more extensive list of capes. Hookwolf is most prominent amongst them, one of the deadliest capes in Brockton Bay besides Iron Rain, Kaiser, Lung and Dauntless (the latter not having any crimes on public record, but you've seen videos of the man in action). Other long-term or significant members include Krieg, Victor (you wonder briefly at the name, but decide he's probably referencing victory, rather than not bothering with a codename), Othala, Rune, Cricket, and Stormtiger. Eight capes within a single faction, and Iron Rain and Hookwolf amongst them— it doesn't surprise you terribly much that the PRT has only made a few arrests over the years, and only gotten one to stick recently.
Luckily, the Brotherhood doesn't have as much of a political presence as the Empire does. They don't bother to advertise, so there are a lot fewer people willing to work with them and publicly affiliate themselves with them. The money they make mostly comes from extortion and illegal habits like gambling and underground fight clubs... or so you assume, though you've never really looked into the whole illegal scene.
And then... You grimace down at your notebook.
The Empire factions are bad enough, but you also have the East-Asian Coalition, this "ABB". Originally a wide variety of separate factions, many of them were originally at each other's throats. It wasn't until the arrival of Lung that they began to unify, and became a threat capable of fighting off the Empire— and the PRT. Sure, many of those gangs had had minor capes of their own affiliated with them, but Lung is a far more capable combatant than any of them, having once held off Brockton Bay's entire Protectorate force off for long enough for Oni Lee to extract him.
The ABB is a loose and disparate force largely held together by Lung's sheer force of presence, and the assistance of his demonic associate, Oni Lee. From what you can tell, the minor gangs that make up the East-Asian Coalition often hate being part of it, but there's not much they can do when Lung threatens to tear them apart if they don't do what he says. And, besides, they hate the Empire more than they do each other.
That's the scary thing about the ABB. Even the name isn't correct; they were branded the East-Asian Coalition back when it was still forming and Lung was focusing on the gangs with a heavy Japanese or Chinese presence, but nowadays it was comprised of all kinds of minorities. Many of them joined up specifically to take a stand against the Empire and all they stood for. And that's hard to take action against, because how are you supposed to tell minorities that they shouldn't stand up for themselves and their rights without coming off worse?
The PRT is largely willing to let them stand, because of that. They are willing to arrest any members of the ABB they come across actively in the process of committing crimes, but it's more important to dedicate their resources to taking down the two Empire factions. The ABB can always be dealt with afterwards, after all; and it will be much easier to do so then.
And then there are the heroes.
It kind of depresses you that this section is so much smaller.
The PRT, and with them the Protectorate, are strapped for assets. It's been that way since Leviathan attacked; a lot of the heroes that were previously assigned here were killed by the Endbringer, and it was deemed to not be worth it to send more heroes in on a permanent basis.
The Protectorate's forces in town consist of seven heroes, less even than the comprised forces of the Brotherhood. They're lead by Armsmaster, a notoriously skilled combatant noted on several of your searches for being one of the only Tinkers in the world to survive a close-range encounter with an Endbringer and emerge not only alive, but having wounded it. Beneath him is Miss Militia, who acts as his second-in-command and the public face of the PRT. And then there's Velocity, Assault, Battery, Triumph, and Dauntless.
The Protectorate spends most of their time publicly patrolling the downtown areas of the city city— not advertising where their patrol routes are, but making people aware of their presence as they do patrol— and assisting the PRT in providing shelters, resources and protection for disadvantaged citizens. The second is probably the most effective thing they're doing in the city, both in your own opinion and according to the newspapers you'd read, although PHO begged to differ, and differ for pages.
That alone isn't very effective, but that is where their cooperation with the other hero group in town comes in— New Wave.
The PRT is limited in what they can do within the city. All their funding comes from the PRT headquarters in New York, which in turn is headed by a board of directors advised by the Triumvirate. As such, they only have a limited amount of money they can throw at the problems in Brockton Bay— and thus there are only limited results they can bring in.
New Wave doesn't have that restriction, and it shows. They work together with a lot of business owners in town, securing donations for their charities and finding placements for people who have trouble securing work for whatever reason. They've opened up several free clinics in town, and even have Panacea visit them on a weekly basis. They offer legal representation, the opportunity to find work, counselling to overcome drug addictions, help with recovering from debt, and a lot more. They work closely with the PRT, allowing the PRT to send the people who seek the assistance of their shelters to better their lives with New Wave.
It's not a perfect system, but it's helping. The Empire's influence is spreading, but the PRT and New Wave are doing what they can to counter it.
There had been a few threads dedicated to individual capes, but you hadn't had much time to browse through them, only making it through the first few and last couple pages of two of them. Which reminds you— glancing at your watch, you immediately begin packing up the newspapers. You only have five minutes before you need to leave.
The only threads you'd been able to spend any time reading were Battery and Glory Girl's, the two threads closest to the top of the pages. You hadn't learned much— there was a description of their powers and a few photos, but nothing you didn't already know. There had been at least some interesting information in there, though.
Battery's page had been fairly boring, most of the information in there consisting of official reports and a lot of discussion of her relationship with Assault (blech). There had been a few images in there of her— including one you'd saved and e-mailed to yourself for later viewing, an image of Battery with her costume partially torn, revealing an expanse of stomach topped by the underside of a plain blue bra— but nothing exciting apart from that.
The only really interesting tidbit you'd learned was about Battery's patrolling habits. Officially, the Protectorate isn't supposed to favour any one organisation over another, preserving an unbiased image so everyone can believe that the Protectorate does their best to serve everyone's needs equally. Unofficially, it seems like Battery seems to spend a lot of her off-patrol times hanging around PRT-funded battered women's shelters. There was rampant speculation in her thread for half a page or so before the wrath of the mods descended and that line of discussion ended, but you tucked the information away for future use.
Glory Girl's page was a lot more exciting. It seems that her role as a local celebrity has attracted a lot of the more "enthusiastic" fans around, and Glory Girl, if anything, seems to encourage them. On the few pages you'd read, there were a lot of people drawing pictures of her and posting photographs they'd taken of her, or writing awestruck stories about how Glory Girl had single-handedly saved them from a group of Brotherhood members or helped rescue their families from burning buildings. Unfortunately, nothing dirty— you suppose that the mods clamped down much harder on sexual discussions of people under eighteen. Fair enough, for a public board.
There is actually a wealth of information on the girl and her family. New Wave did nothing to hide their identities, so there was a lot to discuss. A few shipping discussions, cut short when someone pointed out that she was already dating someone (one brave soul dared to suggest that maybe someone like Gregor could steal her away, but was promptly verbally torn to shreds both for suggesting that she would ever cheat on her boyfriend and for suggesting such a terrible ship). A long tangent about her favourite foods, ended when the girl herself interjected and noted that she has a fondness for cheesecake and tacoes, sending the thread wild for more than a page. An eleven-post tangent about the merits of dropping a car on people, sparked by a video of Glory Girl doing just that to Alabaster (the discussion, which was growing increasingly heated, ended when Brandish popped into the thread and told everyone that it had been Shielder's car, not a bystander's, and that Shielder had already reamed her over it).
The thing that intrigues you the most, though, is the mention of a weekly book club headed by the girl that met on Sundays. You have written down the time and date, noting that they met on Sundays at the upper floor of a small bookstore on the Boardwalk.
You don't even have to build yourself an in, you think with a pleased smile. You were looking for a book club to join a few weeks back anyway.
Emma's house looks just like you remember it. A two-storey affair similar to Madison's house, with a pleasant soft-green exterior and a neatly trimmed lawn. They've replanted the roses, you note— the last time you'd been here they were purple, while now one side of the garden has red roses, and the other side has yellow.
Rick's car is parked in their driveway. Madison must already be here.
Alan greets the two of you at the door, evidently having heard your car. He looks genuinely happy to see the two of you, and you can see Dad's face light up in a smile at the happiness he's exhibiting. Honestly, it makes you feel like a bit of a jerk for not wanting to come earlier.
You peer around the house. It feels colder, a little more sterile than it did the last time you visited. You can't quite place why.
"Taylor," Alan says, his smile growing a little more. "It's nice to see you again. She's grown, hasn't she, Danny?"
"That she has," Dad replies. "Five foot, what, seven?"
"Eight," you reply, giving him a disgruntled look. He just smiles cheekily in response, jostling your shoulder. Alan chuckles at the interaction.
"Emma's up in her room with Madison," he tells you easily. You can't quite describe the feeling that sentence invokes in you. A mix of trepidation at the thought of seeing Emma, anticipation at the thought of seeing Madison again, and heady arousal at the image of Emma in her bedroom. Soon, you silently promise yourself. "Why don't you head on up there and say hello?"
"Okay." You try to give a nonchalant shrug at that, hoping he can't see your eagerness in the action, or the hesitation in your steps as you begin to climb the staircase and head to Emma's room. Honestly, all these stairs leading to your girls rooms' are going to kill you.
Once you're out of sight of Alan, you stop for a moment, reaching out with your power. You can feel Madison immediately— the arousal pooling in you grows stronger as you feel her lust, still strong enough after your last encounter that you can taste it from here, and her submission brimming beneath it. The sensation is exquisite.
Emma is much more muted— you have to actively search for her presence to feel it at all. There's a whole lot of boredom in there, some apathy, some disdain, some frustration, some anger— all the emotions you've come to expect from your former friend. Some cruelty, some loneliness, all directed at you. And— there, running beneath them all; a low, humming thread of lust, twined already around a weak band of loyalty stretching to you. Unexpected, although it's not strong enough to have led to anything in the past.
Before you even walk into the room, you begin tugging on her loyalty. You're not gentle about it, not at all. You need to make a good impression now, if you're going to make any progress tonight.
You wait in the hallway, stomach writhing with nerves, for nearly five minutes as you wait for your power to really take root. You can feel the loyalty in her growing, slower than you'd like, but— good enough.
Madison breaks into a smile the second she sees you step into the room, and you can see she's restraining herself from leaping up and giving you a hug. You have no such compunctions, being able to actually feel Emma's emotional state, and pull her into a hug the moment you sit beside her. Her face turns beet red and she buries her face in your neck, but she eagerly returns it. For a moment, you're tempted to pull her up into your lap again (she's wearing actual pants today, so you don't have to worry about revealing anything to Emma if you do so), but you refrain— Emma's cruelty just spiked up again, tempered only by you giving a sharp tug on her loyalty. You can't afford to push Emma quite that far just yet. Soon.
Emma narrows her eyes at the two of you. "So that's why," she says roughly.
Madison wringes her hands nervously behind your back for a moment, before lifting your shirt slightly and placing both her cool hands on your bare back, seeming to derive some comfort from the physical contact with you. "Obviously," she fires back, voice muffled through your shirt. She doesn't turn to look at the other girl.
"Well," Emma says. She probably intended the phrase to sound cruel, but her cruelty is already subsiding as you tug on her loyalty again and again, sharp pulls intended to bring it to the forefront as soon as you can. "I see."
