Chapter Text
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William H. Brock Municipal Park ||| Jennifer Smythe (Pride)
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“Believe differently, love differently, be of different sеx or skin, and be punished. These words are truer in Brockton Bay than any other city in America. Nazis are here, on American soil. We live in the most racist city in America. Minorities have to avoid entire districts of the city for fear of being fucking lynched!” She took a deep breath and looked out at the crowd.
“We have all lived under the rule of a gang of racists and sexists exploiting us, our city. What do we have to say about that?” she shouted the question, riling the crowd.
Boos and jibes rang out across the open space.
“That’s exactly right! We are the people of Brockton Bay. The inconvenient ones, the ones that the fascists don’t want around. They want us dead! They want to drag us in to the street and fucking kill us. You know what I say to that!?
I say fuck that! Fuck the Nazis! We are loud and we are proud. Its the fucking 21st century. We have moved past this cis, straight and white means right bullshit! And the Nazis who haven’t? If you don’t move out of our way, then be trampled by the steamroller called progress.
Do you hear me people?”
She shot a large rainbow beam over the crowd with her wand. The crowd was shocked for a moment before cheering even louder. Maybe there were only about a hundred, but she was sure it would grow. I could see Jane in the crowd handing out flyers. Her speech would hopefully bolster membership. They needed all the help they could get.
“And to the so-called Kaiser I have a few words: The Pride stands for the Bay’s people. Do you?” The cheers grew in intensity further and the cops off to the side grew tense. “Good night!” She stepped back from the podium and ducked into the crowd. Amongst the rainbow flags and colors, her costume blended in surprisingly well. The crowd dispersed quickly, having gotten the hang of how to organize quickly enough.
A good third of the people here were already part of The Pride and were here to bolster numbers and help organize the crowd. The cops and Nazis, not that those two groups were so separate in the Bay, didn’t need to know that part. Soon she was getting in the back of a car with Jane.
“Fucking hell Jen! Best one yet!” the driver called back, not turning his head from the road. Marcus was a good guy, the token straight white guy in the gang which made him endlessly useful for a variety of tasks. He dressed down, simple and non-descript for this. Better if they got pulled over by cops for a normal white guy to be driving.
“You think so?” she asked.
“Where’d you get that first part? Did you come up with that?” he asked.
“Oh nah, that was all Magneto. Earth Aleph makes some good villain speeches in their media. I’m hoping that gets clipped. Should be good for image. Sarah can make good work of that,” she explained. Sarah was an indispensable member. Someone who could work PHO and the paper news media well was someone they couldn’t afford to lose.
“How many flyers did you hand out, Jane?” she asked.
“Oh a full stack at least,” she replied. Her trans voice was getting better.
“Better than we’ve ever done. Good.” Marcus took a left from some side street and finally began making his way through Westview. Their route was circuitous and nonsensical, a strategy from Ryan. A good headquarters was a hard find and keeping it would be impossible if they drove directly to it all the time. It was apparently an old intelligence agency trick.
“So we poked the bear. Now what?” Jane asked.
“Janey makes a good point. You just called out Kaiser directly, that is escalation. What is the plan?” Marcus added.
“It’s all about provoking. Nothing I said was violent, and we shouldn’t ever call for violence. What we want is for the Nazis to attack us and if capes show up even better. As long as we don’t strike first, the populace will be hard-pressed to be against us even if we straight up execute a few of them.”
“And the people who are attacked?” Marcus asked, concerned. He was a soft-hearted guy for being essentially a gang member.
No one in The Pride would call it a gang and they didn’t do any real gang activities. They didn’t sell drugs beyond cannabis and they didn’t do protection rackets. They also didn’t really commit crimes beyond trespassing. But they were an extralegal organization. They were a totally peaceful movement before she took the lead, before Pride took the lead. She chose to name herself the name of the group for a simple reason: It wasn’t about her.
She wasn’t Batman. She wasn’t a symbol and she didn’t want to be either. She wanted all of The Pride to be the symbol. When she died, and it was when in this line of work, she wanted The Pride to continue in some fashion.
“Jen? Pride?” Marcus brought her back to the moment.
“The people who get attacked… I’ll be there when it does happen and regardless they are well aware of the risks of what we are doing.” It was unfortunate, but everyone in Pride had a much higher chance of being murdered in short order.
“Quoting statistics at someone with the kind of fervor required to join a queer organization in Brockton Bay isn’t going to stop them and you know that. We have a responsibility!...” Marcus exclaimed.
“Ugh. Enough of the doom and gloom. The event went great and we totally are going to get more members soon,” Jane interrupted.
“We are. But that comes with some complications of its own,” she responded. The Pride didn’t take in income of any sort beyond donations and its main contributor was her. Jennifer Smythe was old money and really old money at that. The Smythes arrived in the Bay with the other colonists when it was first settled and hadn’t moved since. Their businesses and investments kept them going and they owned parts of most of the few remaining successful corporations in the Bay like Medhall.
The Pride wasn’t paying most members salaries, but they were helping out in the community and paid quite a few retainers and that wasn’t cheap. Bribes to public officials to hold rallies in important places were also a problem. More people meant more money. She was a rich bitch, there was no doubt, but she was using her money for a good cause.
“We’re here,” Marcus said, interrupting her train of thought. Indeed, they had arrived at the entrance to a parking garage which led them under a five story building in Westview. Marcus parked the car and she got out leading them to an elevator up into the building.
The elevator opened and they stepped out into a large open space on the second floor.
“Pride!” a bright voice greeted. At the front desk was Jade. They were what everyone affectionately called her assistant.
“Jade, anything on the docket for tonight?” she asked. They certainly made scheduling easier on her between identities.
“A General Strategy meeting is scheduled in twenty and after that we have a knitting night for the seniors down by the College.” She had to imagine the Empire didn’t have that kind of thing. It was a holdover from when The Pride was simply an outreach org and they kept it around for a couple reasons. The first was that it actually was doing good for the community, but beyond that it was also a good cover for their more controversial activities.
“Alright, let’s get to it.”
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Protectorate ENE Headquarters (The Rig/PHQ) ||| Patty Wilson (Challenger)
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“What is this meeting about anyway, Armsy?” she asked with a big grin.
“I am unsure, Challenger,” he responded. Colin was what anyone in the know would call: a stick in the mud. He was very conservative in his words and word count. That did make him fun to tease though, so there was that.
“Maybe a new villain called the Legsmaster appeared and you have to duel for the Master title.”
“I doubt that.”
“Aw, come on. It could happen.”
“If you are done?” a harsh voice asked. Emily Piggot sat at the head of the meeting room table. She had recently taken up the position of PRT Director for the ENE branch and she was, according to Patty’s estimation, a total hardass. The room quieted and turned their attention to the woman. “Good. I called this meeting because the situation in Brockton Bay has changed.”
“Changed how Director?” asked Hannah, Miss Militia in costume. The director fiddled with the computer in front of her for a moment before an image was displayed from a projector. The image was of a large crowd of people dressed in colorful clothing
“This. Is a rally organized by The Pride. They are ostensibly an organization dedicated to community outreach focusing on Homosexual and Transexual people, as well as other minorities. And before you ask, what we are here to talk about is this.” The Director changed the image to one focusing on the person at the podium. A video played showing the woman creating a rainbow with what looked like a scepter or wand of some sort she conjured.
“So a cape has taken over then?” she asked.
“Yes. While she has been seen giving speeches at a few of their rallies, this is confirmation that she is indeed a Parahuman and furthermore she said this.” This time a video played of a speech. Once it ended, Assault spoke up.
“She’s charismatic and genuinely passionate from what I can see,” he commented. Ethan was a people person in every sense of the word. It was probably what kept him from being caged as far as she knew. Even Piggot valued his input despite his other traits.
“Her words for Kaiser are troubling. They may very well be slaughtered by the Empire,” Colin added.
“So what do we do?” Battery spoke up for the first time. She had only just joined so Patty figured she was still a little shy.
“Our hands are practically tied here. Patrol routes are tight enough as it is and we have no clue when this cape will next appear or even what their organizational goals are now beyond being opposed to the Empire,” Hannah explained. That gave her an idea. A crazy idea, but an idea none the less.
“Why don’t I just join them?” she asked. Everyone in the room turned to look at her.
“Uh… what?” Ethan asked.
“I can go join the community outreach side in my civvie identity,” she elaborated. Piggot scowled at her.
“You’re serious?” The Director asked.
“Deadly,” she said pleasantly.
“You understand this could very well compromise your civilian identity?” The Director asked.
“No big deal,” she responded.
“Are we actually considering allowing this?” asked Hannah.
“It could be a boon for information gathering,” Colin added, seemingly ambivalent.
“Alright then, Challenger, you are authorized to join The Pride and gather information on their activities,” the Director stated.
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The Pride Headquarters (PHQ) ||| Jennifer Smythe (Pride)
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“Alrighty then. Today you, we, debuted and made a statement. Let’s talk about it,” Ryan started. He was taller than most at six feet something and nicer than anyone else she had ever met. He was a huge nerd for spy stuff both in media and real life and that information was a boon to The Pride’s more risque activities. He was even studying something to the effect at BrockU. Everyone at the table was silent, waiting for someone to speak.
“I’ll start then, we have effectively declared war on the Nazis and we don’t know how seriously they are going to take that. We can almost definitely expect some retaliation from the goons at the lowest levels of the gang. More so than what we have dealt with historically,” Marcus stated.
“I can’t imagine Kaiser is taking one cape and some random crowd too seriously just yet. While he may send a cape at us, he won’t be coming down personally or with the whole organization. It would make him look weak,” Maddie commented. Maddie was quiet, but resolute. She had some sort of history with the Empire and understood them better than anyone else here which made her perspective quite valuable.
“Then let’s plan for two capes attacking and however many goons,” Jane said.
“First off, where are they attacking? What are we doing?” Ryan asked. Everyone present looked to her for direction.
“Let’s do something with low civilian presence. I figure we can expect the Empire to respond to us pretty much immediately. What we need is to look weak and still win. Sarah?” she asked, turning to her. Sarah was in charge of The Pride’s image and for good reason. She was a large part of how they were still running in the Bay in the first place.
“We want to project fairness above all else. We can’t have you using powers on regular goons unless the amount of them is overwhelming and they are attacking you or it is in defence of others lives,” she explained. “If you use powers on the goons unprompted, then the Empire has plenty of ‘excuse,’ no matter how bullshit, to start using powers on our members and smearing us in the media. We want it to look like the Empire picking on a small activist group rather than like intergang violence.”
“So we need to do something that makes the Empire look incompetent and evil and makes us look like weaklings in need of protection. Tough ask,” Jane summarized.
“And ideally we need to film it and post it on PHO,” Marcus added.
“That’s the framework. Any ideas?” Ryan asked. Jennifer rolled it around in her head. Something with low civvie presence, made them look good and weak, made the Empire look evil for stopping it and incompetent when they tried.
“I’ve got an idea.”