June 10th 2013, 4:09 PM
Damn, damn, damn.
Steelmind had to run. To get out of the assassin’s line of fire (what was that, bullets that shut down tinker effects near them? There had never been a power like that!) and to get out of his sister’s line of fire. If she’d wanted to kill him she could have, so either she wasn’t willing to do it in public or she had just forgotten because of being distracted.
He, personally, was a weak point; his entire army was under his direct control, but his defensive abilities were limited to the Durendal. His tools for surviving situations were “his armor” and “not being in a room with anyone who wanted to kill him.” Until the war was over, he had no reason to appear in person himself.
It was a quick escape to a prepared robot car large enough for him, and he could relax while he thought about it. The next step was the war council. He’d need to call… Junia (he missed her, suddenly, impulsively, missed the person he could remember who always saw things as if from a parallel universe full of all the richness and detail and vividness of virtue that he never found in his grey life). He’d want Mercy if he could get her, any friendly neutral would be an advantage, especially Prudence’s older daughter. His allies among the counts, Steelstorm and Proteus, went almost without saying; there was no need for stealth now. They could meet at the eighth district’s palace - its keep had been nigh-impenetrable before the superhero attack, and Steelstorm had heavily reinforced it since. Lizzy might expect him to raise the city’s shield in person and lay an ambush there for him, but the precautions meant to prevent remote access wouldn’t work for him and that would give him more time to get to safe haven.
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Yes, the shield would need to go up, and she knew that as well as he did. There was no risk of her lowering it; it would hurt her odds of success as much as his if Novapest’s internal politics became external. With the shield raised no foreign capes and no foreign powers could interfere during the war. When he had the system under control and his sister was dead or otherwise taken care of, when he could express his willingness and ability to destroy Washington before any American missiles or heroes reached the palace, he could safely afford to lower the shield again.
But now it was time for war. Again.
It was the duty of a king.