A Darker Path [Worm Fanfic]

[Ack]

A Darker Path

Part Eighty-Seven: Back in the Saddle Again

[A/N: This chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]



Sunday Afternoon

Cherie

"The problem with Ending Sleeper isn't the physical act of killing him," Taylor explained as she donned what Cherie privately thought of as her 'working clothes'. Costumes tended to be flashy and occasionally impractical; the Atropos outfit was dramatic without being flashy, and it was totally practical. "He can totally die, and Ending's given me four or five ways to make that happen."

Which was four or five more ways than Cherie had figured out so far. "Okay, so if you can gank his sorry ass, where's the problem?"

Taylor grinned as she knotted the tie with finger movements so rapid it put Cherie in mind of a stage magician practicing sleight of hand. "I bet you never would've thought of using that phrasing about him before you met me."

Cherie blinked. Taylor had been totally on point with that observation. "Haha, no, not a chance." Insofar as she'd ever even thought about Sleeper, she'd just been glad that he was all the way over in Russia. At the time, he'd belonged to the category of cape labelled 'nope'. As far as she was concerned, he still did.

"Didn't think so. But to answer your question, killing him's the easy part. The hard part is delivering the warning. Just like everyone else, he gets twenty-four hours. The trouble is, he's not on PHO, or any social media, or even anywhere he can get email or text messages. So I can't deliver a private warning, or even a public one, via the internet." With the tie done up and tucked into her vest, Taylor shrugged into the long-coat. "I'm going to have to do it the way process servers do it: from my hand to his. Though I'll forego the signed receipt, just this once."

"Wait, wait, hold on a second." Cherie stood up from where she'd been sitting on the bed and made a 'time-out' gesture with her hands. "Last I heard, Sleeper's an S-class threat. I don't even know what the fuck his powers are, except that people just don't go up against him. The Endbringers didn't get that level of respect, when they were still around. I guess what I'm asking is, why does he rate a warning?"

"Because that's how I've said I'm going to do it from now on, so that's how I do it." With the mask in her hand, Taylor gave Cherie a serious look. "People thought giving Ellisburg and Eagleton their warnings was a fool's errand. Nilbog didn't surrender, but we got two hundred plus loyal citizens out of Eagleton. Pastor surrendered after a warning, and the capes in Gary and Gallup walked out without a fight. If they can listen to reason, then so can Sleeper, so he gets a warning."

"Okay, so if you know four or five ways of killing him, why's just delivering the warning, even by hand, such a problem?" Cherie spread her hands. "I've seen you fight. Hell, the first time we met, you kicked the shit out of me. Nobody and nothing can lay a hand on you if you don't feel like it."

"It's a problem because his powerset is seriously bullshit." Pulling out her computer chair, Taylor sat down and grabbed a notepad. As Cherie raised a finger, she added, "And before you say what you're thinking: yes, this is from the point of view of being me."

Grumpy at having her line defused, Cherie sat back down. "Okay, what are his powers, and how are they so bullshit that they even give you problems?"

Taylor took up a pen and started writing, then turned her head to face Cherie while the pen kept moving across the page. "First off, they're wide-ranging. We're talking a radius of several miles. Second, they involve effects that alter the body directly, alter the laws of physics in ways that can be made permanent, or affect you through your mind. Specifically, if you happen to have powers that let you keep your body intact and ignore alterations of physics, his power gets in through your mind and negates your other protections so you're vulnerable to him anyway."

Thinking this over, Cherie frowned. "So, what's the point of having a power like that? You told me once that powers want conflict so they can process the data. If he's so powerful that everyone he faces either dies instantly or runs away, where's the conflict? Where's the data?"

Taylor finished writing and put the pen down. Turning the chair around, she leaned back in it and crossed one immaculately booted ankle over the other. "Ending says some powers are set up for others to bounce off. Ash Beast, Nilbog, Sleeper and so forth. They're not there to gather data, but to cause conflict wherever they go. Kind of like the Endbringers, but passive rather than active, and too much trouble to actually gang up on and kill." She grinned. "Usually, anyway."

"Well, yeah." Cherie grinned back. As Atropos, Taylor had been remarkably effective at dealing with previously insurmountable problems like Nilbog and the Endbringers. "So, you think he'll play ball, or are you going to have to kill him anyway?"

When Taylor wrinkled her nose, Cherie had her answer. "Ending isn't saying how it's gonna play out, one way or the other."

Cherie nodded to show she understood. "Okay. So, what kind of pun on 'sleep' were you thinking of using to End him if he doesn't stand down?"

"There's a lot of options to choose from," Taylor admitted. "Sleeper hold, overdosing on sleeping pills, beating him to death with a club marked SLEEP, and so on and so forth. But Ending and I have been working on another idea. It doesn't exactly involve a pun, but it's ironic as fuck anyway."

"Irony is better than puns, sure." Cherie sat forward expectantly. "Hit me."

Taylor's grin was so sharp-edged that the average ravenous school of piranha would've backed away nervously. "Well, I'm going to have to talk to Riley, but I'm fairly sure she'll be okay with it …"

<><>​

Brockton Bay Betterment Committee Offices

Faultline

As the elevator doors opened, Melanie stepped out into the corridor and turned to the right. "Down this way. Chairman's office."

"Is it just me," asked Newter, "or does anyone else find it weird that we get to be interviewed by the head honcho of the whole show? I mean, wouldn't he be busy?"

Gregor shrugged massively. For the occasion, he was wearing an ironed shirt and a tie. "He doesn't seem to think he's too busy to talk to us."

"What do you know of him, Melanie?" asked Elle. "From what I recall, you had your finger on the pulse all the time."

"Hebert?" Melanie frowned. "He had serious influence in the Dockworkers, and they never had any corruption scandals that I heard of." That could just mean that he was gifted at concealing such misdeeds, she knew, but she strongly suspected Atropos wouldn't have permitted a grifter into the top spot of the committee tasked with disbursing her bounty funds.

They paused before the dread portal, then Melanie steeled herself and rapped on the door: one, two-three. It wasn't like her to be nervous about meeting a non-cape about a job, but this was a guy who almost certainly had Atropos' ear, and who routinely handled sums that made her Crew's takings at the top of their game look like chicken feed. She considered herself incorruptible; Hebert, from all indications, lived it.

"Come in," she heard from inside, and she opened the door. Within was a desk with four chairs set out before it: behind the desk, a mild-featured bespectacled man, tall and skinny, just rising to his feet. "Good afternoon," he said. "I'm Danny Hebert."

"Thank you for seeing us." Melanie entered the office, the others trooping after her. "I'm Melanie Fitts, but I assume you knew that already."

"I did, yes." He stepped around the desk and offered his hand. Interestingly enough, he was wearing a glove on that hand only. "Pleased to meet you. Feel free to sit."

"Thank you," she replied, shaking his hand then taking one of the two chairs in the middle. Elle shook his hand and sat next to her, then Gregor and Newter shook it as well, then sat flanking them. "If you don't mind me asking, you're surely a busy man. Why do we get your personal attention?"

"And what if we'd come to kill you instead of join up?" added Newter before she could stop him. "I mean, you just invited us into your office."

Melanie froze, mentally promising the worst punishment detail she could think of for Newter if he'd just queered the whole deal for them. The glare she gave him must have made some sort of impression, because he shrank back into his seat. When she looked back at Hebert, he was sitting down without even a flinch, for which she gave him major props.

"To answer Newter's question first: if you'd come to kill me, Atropos would be meeting you in this office, not me." He smiled thinly as he peeled the glove off with care. "She has a sixth sense about things like that. And as for your query, Ms Fitts, I've got more experience with capes than the vast majority of our personnel. You've got more to offer the Committee in terms of sheer capability, so I prefer to meet you personally and see where you'd fit in rather than rely on dry reports."

This cut a little too closely to things Melanie had heard from prior employers, and she felt duty-bound to speak up. "I trust you understand, Mr Hebert, that we are more than just our powers."

"Oh, I'm aware. You, for instance, have a stellar track record for taking people from disparate backgrounds and bringing out the best in them. As such, I'll be giving you a probationary period as a leading hand. If you prove yourself there, you'll be stepping up into the next available foreman slot. Newter, per Atropos' recommendation, I'd like you to work with the on-site medical teams if and when needed. The training you've already taken in advanced first aid would be useful if you accepted that position. Gregor, you'll be eligible for special safety officer pay if you want it: firefighting duties, wound mitigation and so forth."

Silence fell in the office, as he sat with his hands lightly clasped over a manila envelope. Melanie was more than a little stunned; she'd been fully expecting to be relegated to the position of grunt, where she'd have to fight and shove for what she wanted. To be recognised from the outset for what she could do, and be given the chance to show it, was far more than she'd dared hope for.

"And what about me?" asked Elle. "I mean, I know I'm not a cape anymore, but I guess I can still drive a machine or something."

"You could," Hebert agreed. "However, I've been informed by Atropos that your powers have left you with a particular aptitude toward visualising things in three dimensions. If you're interested, we can second you to the reconstruction division, while paying for you to attend a college course for urban planning."

"Wait—paying for?" blurted Newter. "You'd pay for her college course?" To his credit, he sounded incredulous, not jealous.

"Well, yes." Hebert opened the manila envelope. "There are funds in the budget for educational purposes such as this. The last thing we want to do is pay you, then take your money away from you again so that you're struggling to make ends meet while trying to become more effective in your job. That's self-defeating. And talking about money …" Tilting the envelope, he allowed four smaller envelopes to fall out onto the desk. "These would be yours."

Melanie saw the faces and names printed on the smaller envelopes as Hebert stood up and leaned forward to pass them over to her. She accepted them, and passed them out, then opened hers to find a card with her name embossed on it. "Hold on a second. Are these …" She'd heard about the stimulus cards from the contacts she still maintained in Brockton Bay. What she hadn't expected was to have one handed to her.

"Yes, they are. You'll be prompted for a PIN on the first use. Your pay will go into the account as well. And yes, your associates are in the system as of today."

Gregor shook his head in apparent disbelief. "You are banking a lot on us accepting your terms. Is all this contingent on us working for you?"

"Only the college course," Hebert said imperturbably. "The stimulus cards are yours no matter what. If you have any queries or second-guesses about working for the Committee, I'm here to address them."

Newter looked at Melanie and Gregor and Elle, then huffed a sigh. "Okay, I'll say it. Me and Gregor are kinda funny-looking. How are people going to take that?"

"Hmm." Hebert frowned theatrically. "You raise a good point. Let me get a second opinion." He pressed a button on his intercom. "Winston, can you come to my office, please? I'd like to ask you something."

"Yes, Mr Hebert."

Melanie had no idea what was going on at that point, save for a vague suspicion that Hebert was pulling some kind of stunt. What it was, she couldn't imagine, but he seemed content to simply sit there at his desk until Winston arrived. With glances to either side, she communicated to her Crew that it would be best to wait and see what was going on.

Moments later, the office door opened. Melanie half-turned her head to glance at the newcomer, then did a double-take that nearly sprained her neck when a gleaming metal humanoid figure entered the room and moved past them to stand beside the desk.

It had two legs, two arms, and something that passed for a head, on which groups of red and green LEDs seemed to indicate its left and right eyes. In no other way did it look remotely human. There was also a nametag, apparently magnetically attached to the front of its torso, which read, 'Hi, I'm W1NST0N. How can I help you today?'

"Everyone, this is Winston," Hebert said breezily. "Winston, these are our newest potential recruits. Can you see any problem with them working for us?"

"Hmmm." The robot calling itself W1nst0n tilted its head, its LED-eyes altering their pattern of illumination so that they seemed to narrow thoughtfully. Its voice was metallic, though there were still tonal variations. "The orange guy might need protection for his tail, and we might not have many high-vis vests in the big guy's size. Need to check on that one. Can't see any other problems."

"Thank you, Winston. That's all I needed."

"Not a problem, boss." The metallic humanoid nodded to Melanie and the others. "Welcome to the Committee. Best damn job I ever had." Then it turned and exited the office, as smoothly as it had come.

Melanie blinked as the door clicked shut behind it. "That … that was an Eagleton. I'd heard about them, but …" But being in the same room as one was far different to just seeing pictures.

Hebert nodded, as though he'd read her thoughts clear out of her head. "We already have a significant cape contingent, as well as Winston and the other Eagletons. Nobody is going to treat you differently just because you have a different skin colour or body plan. That shit, excuse my French, left town with the Empire Eighty-Eight. On the jobsite, you'll be just another Committee worker."

That was as good an answer as Melanie figured they'd get. "I see. So, what are the working conditions like? Sick leave, time off, et cetera?"

Hebert smiled. "I thought you'd never ask." Opening a desk drawer, he pulled out four forms. "Read them over. I believe you will find the working conditions to be adequate."

As she accepted them and handed them out, Melanie belatedly recalled that Hebert had also been the union rep for the Dockworkers' Association.

'Adequate', she suspected, would be an understatement.

<><>​

Sleeper

I rest.

It is easy to rest. Rest is sleep. Sleep is stillness. Stillness is no noise.

No noise is best. Except own noise. Sometimes I speak, just to hear own voice.

No other voices. They do not exist. Just own voice.

Bubble is not trap. Bubble is restful. Sometimes head hurts and bright light stings eyes. No bright lights in bubble. I tell myself bubble is whole world. There is nothing outside bubble. Just me, inside.

Sometimes I remember why head hurts, and sometimes I do not. Fragments in brain, play tunes like dead fingers on broken piano.

Rest is broken by noise from outside-that-should-not-be. Before I shut noise away, voices that do not exist say two words.

I try to rest. Brain twitches. I forget disturbance, words.

I sleep.

I drift. I have forgotten noise. I have forgotten that there were words. It never happened. How could it? The entire world is here inside bubble with me. There is nothing outside but ghosts.

A long dream later, I wake. I want to hear voice, so I find book. I have read it, but dead fingers have played over the memory of the story, so I begin reading out loud to myself.

Halfway through the book, my brain twitches. Vision doubles, I see fragments of the ghost world outside. Pain spikes head like just before I got powers, when I was shot.

Outside of head is healed. Inside will never be.

I remember words. Two words. I say words in my voice, so they will become my words. "Simurgh. Dead."

Simurgh. Dead.

I know Simurgh.

I know dead.

Simurgh was in world I knew before powers, before bubble. Powerful, dangerous.

Many times, Simurgh attack, kill. Others, in time before bubble, attack Simurgh. Always lives.

Now dead.

Simurgh dead.

I think on that until brain twitches and I forget.

I read book, speaking words carefully. Story is good. It speaks of world that is not. Many strange words about many strange things.

I have almost finished book when brain twitches again. Words come back to me. Simurgh dead.

I know bubble is prison, is trap. I know is because I kill, like Simurgh.

In the ghost world outside bubble, Simurgh is dead.

Simurgh was killed.

Are others dead? Endbringers dead?

Are ghost worlders killing things like Simurgh?

Like me?

Am I next?

I wake up, more than before. I have been good. I have not burst bubble.

I remember, shot in head, falling. Bullet fragments in brain. Lying on icy pavement. Thoughts leaking from hole in head. Powers coming in to plug gap.

Will ghost worlders come, to shoot me in head? Make me dead?

I do not want that.

Power does twisty thing to space, but cannot hide me. Still in bubble. Still in prison. Still in trap.

Far away, I hear/smell/see it. Powers tell me. Hole. Escape from ghost world. Another world, all mine.

Must leave bubble. Must go into ghost world.

I do not want to.

I want to rest.

To sleep.

But I cannot.

So I flex powers, just a little. Push against bubble. Stretch against trap.

Alarms loud, noisy, make head hurt.

I stretch powers more, shut off alarms.

Bubble breaks.

I am no longer only thing in world.

Bigger world now, and I am very small in it.

I become power and move toward hole.

Very far away. Cannot move fast. Still better than walking.

Moving this way tires me.

Will need rest.

Bright light of outside hurts eyes.

Noises hurt head.

Must go on.

Not safe.

Nowhere is safe until I reach hole.

I go on.

<><>​

Aisha

"Hey, bro?"

"Yeah, Aish?"

"This math thing, how's it go again?"

"Let me have a look." Brian left the saucepan he'd been stirring and came into the dining area where Aisha was working out some problems from her math book. When he saw what she was doing, he frowned slightly. "I thought you had your homework done."

"I did. I do. I'm just looking ahead a bit, to make sure I know the new stuff before they show us how to do it." The way she saw it, getting a leg-up on the opposition was always a good idea.

"Huh." He patted her on the shoulder. "That's really forward-thinking of you. I'm proud of you."

"Yeah, well, now I actually know how to do this shit, might as well get good at it." She tried not to show the warmth she felt in her chest at his praise. He and Riley were the only close family she had—she just couldn't connect with her dad, and Celia wasn't even remotely her mother—and getting his approval like that meant more to her than she'd expected it would. "So, how's this bit work? How do they get that answer?"

"One sec. Hey, Riley?"

"Yeah?" called their youngest sibling from the bedroom.

"If you're not busy, could you check the saucepan and give it a stir, please?"

"I'll be right there." And she would be. Riley was dependable like that.

"Okay," Brian said. "Let's see what we've got here." He focused on the book, then nodded and tapped the page with his finger. "See that? That number carries there, then adds to that."

That little click behind her eyes when the light came on and she understood something for the first time would never get old for her. "Right, so if I do this …" She scribbled some numbers, then ran it through the process he'd described. "It should come out like this?"

"Yup, that looks about right." He squeezed her shoulder. "You're getting good at this."

"Damn right I am." She felt that glow of pride again. This was something she could get used to.

In the kitchen, Riley's phone chirped. A moment later, she leaned around the dividing pillar. "Uh, Brian, when you've got a moment?"

"Aisha?" he asked.

"Go. I got this." Aisha reapplied herself to the problem. Okay, so if I take that, and do this, it should turn out like … hah! Gotcha, you slippery little bastard!

"So, what's up?" she heard Brian asking.

"Atropos just texted me," Riley replied, and with that Aisha decided she had better things to think about than math.

"Ookay." Brian didn't sound totally enthusiastic, but he was only a little bit wary. "What did she want?"

"To talk to me about making a new thing for her."

Brian sighed, then nodded. "Alright, let her know it's fine. Let's see what she wants."

Aisha figured that she knew Atropos better than most, so the very moment Brian said that, she started looking around. The smoky doorway appeared right on cue and Atropos stepped out of it, just out of Brian's line of sight. As Aisha's grin broadened, Atropos lifted one finger in front of where her lips would be. She hadn't needed to; there was no way Aisha was going to miss this.

Waiting until Brian turned his head slightly, Atropos stepped up behind him. "Hi."

"Jeez!" yelped Brian, jumping about three feet sideways. "Do you have to do that?"

Atropos gestured to where Aisha was in danger of falling off her chair, and Riley was suffering a fit of the giggles. "According to them, yes." Then she cleared her throat. "Thanks for saying yes. I do appreciate it."

By the time Atropos and Riley came back into the living room, Aisha had more or less recovered from her laughter. She got up and went over to give Atropos a hug, which was returned with interest. "Hey," she said. "Good to see you again."

"Great to see you too." Atropos let her go and ruffled her hair. "I hope you've been behaving?"

"Well, mostly." Aisha didn't want to get a rep for being a goody two-shoes, after all.

The front door clicked open, and Riley looked around. "Theo's home!" By the time the door opened all the way, Riley had made it across the living room to give him a hug.

"Oof," he said, good-naturedly. "Hi, Riley." Then he looked up and clearly saw Atropos for the first time. "Oh, um, were you waiting for me?"

"No, just here to see Riley, but how are you doing anyway?"

Theo chuckled. "Pretty good, actually. It's amazing how useful some weapons can be on a demolition site. They really put me through my paces, though. I hurt in places I didn't know I could hurt." Despite his worn-down appearance, he seemed fairly upbeat.

"Good to hear," she said warmly. "So, Riley. Got another favour to ask."

Riley nodded. "Totally."

"Ah … you haven't even heard it yet." Atropos patted the air between them. "You might not want to, and that'll be fine if you don't."

"Fair enough. Tell me what it is."

So Atropos started talking.



End of Part Eighty-Seven

 

[Ack]

A Darker Path

Part Eighty-Eight: Special Delivery

[A/N: This chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]

■

​

PRIVATE MESSAGE
To: Panacea
From: Atropos
Subject: Gonna need you in about half an hour

Could you please be alone in your bedroom in about half an hour? Bring the leg of ham that's going to get delivered to your front door in five minutes. You'll need it for biomass.

■
​

PRIVATE MESSAGE
To: Atropos
From: Panacea
Subject: Re: Gonna need you in about half an hour

What? Why? Who have you hurt?

■
​

PRIVATE MESSAGE
To: Panacea
From: Atropos
Subject: Re: Re: Gonna need you in about half an hour

Nobody. You'll see. Also, prep for a mess.

■

<><>​

Monday Afternoon, March 14 2011
New York PRT Building,

Shebang

Alice stood on the roof of the building alongside Director Piggot. Accompanying them was a Trooper Ballinger, whose main reason for being there was apparently the fact that he was over six feet tall and built like the proverbial brick outhouse. Alice had a lot of equipment to take along with her, and it seemed he'd been tapped as her pack-horse for the time being.

She didn't actually have a problem with this. One of the downsides of being a Tinker, as far as she could figure, was the sheer amount of equipment she had to lug around with her if she was trying to analyse and defuse esoteric energies. With regards to Clockblocker (she still had trouble believing it wasn't the name of some joke character on a cartoon show), he'd been able to come to her, but this wasn't possible for the next stage of the project, so she and her equipment had to leave the lab. Thus, Ballinger.

One of the hidden advantages of being in the Protectorate, she was discovering, was the number of minions (read: PRT troopers) available to fetch and carry for them, if necessary. Trooper Ballinger didn't seem to have a problem with it either, especially since all indications were that the job would not involve going up against hostile capes. Alice certainly didn't intend to go into harm's way any time soon, at least until she had a better handle on her capabilities.

The helicopter coming in from the north slowed as it neared the building, then flared preparatory to landing. It didn't look big enough to comfortably carry Alice and her luggage as well as the Director and Ballinger, but appearances had been known to be deceiving. Though why the Director might have called in a chopper from out of town, Alice wasn't sure.

Its wheels touched down, then it sank onto its suspension as the engines began to spool down and the rotors slowed. The side door popped open and a red-clad cape stepped out, followed by a familiar teenage figure. After Clockblocker came a tall black man in a stylised martial-arts outfit, then finally a kid in a pastel-hued pseudo-military costume, complete with scaled-down military-style helmet. Alice frowned; she wasn't sure who she'd been expecting, but it wasn't this.

"Director Piggot," the cape in red said with a broad grin. "Good to see you again. How's life treating you in the Big Apple?"

"I'm getting by, Assault, thank you very much." Piggot even gave the man a brief smile as she replied. "Tenebrae, Miss Medic, this is Shebang. Shebang: Assault, Tenebrae, Miss Medic."

"Hi!" gushed the girl who had to be Miss Medic. "You're gonna be turning off Grey Boy loops? That's so cool!"

"Well, we're going to be working at it," Alice corrected her, though the enthusiasm was infectious. "Don't know if we'll make it on the first try." She turned her head and addressed Director Piggot. "I'm sorry, but I don't understand. What exactly is going on here? I thought this was only a test run."

"It is." Director Piggot seemed unfazed by her query. "Assault is the Protectorate volunteer to escort the Wards on this mission. Tenebrae is Miss Medic's caregiver; it's in her Wards contract that he escorts her on any missions like this. Clockblocker is along in case you manage to actually free the subject today; his job will be to freeze the freed subject so Miss Medic can get a good look at them and diagnose what needs to be fixed. Miss Medic is along to save anyone whose life needs saving."

"Oh, so that's what I'm here for," Clockblocker said in tones of enlightenment. "I got told I was needed again, and I was like 'didn't she already figure out how to break my power?'."

Alice ignored the interjection. "But what if I don't bust the loop this time? They'll have come all this way for nothing." And I'll look like an idiot in front of them, she didn't quite say out loud.

"Not for nothing." Assault raised his finger. "When you're designing new and exciting ways to blow up the scenery, you've got fire extinguishers and stuff standing by, right? Just in case?"

"Usually, yeah," she admitted. "But what … oh." Belatedly, she realised what he was getting at.

"Yeah. 'Oh.'" He clicked his tongue as he 'fired' dual finger-guns at her. "Better to have the people on hand and not need them than not have them and need them. Besides, getting the Wards out and about every now and again gives them a sense of purpose and reduces disciplinary problems." From the flat, uninflected tone he put on, Alice got the impression that he was either quoting or paraphrasing from a manual of regulations.

"Not that Miss Medic has any ongoing disciplinary issues," Tenebrae noted.

Assault nodded. "You're not wrong there. Kid's about as buttoned-down as you can get."

"I'm glad to hear it." Gathering the capes in by eye, Director Piggot herded them toward the second helipad, while Trooper Ballinger followed along behind with the cases full of Alice's equipment. "Strider will be arriving shortly, to convey you to the Grey Boy victim we believe will be the best test case for Shebang's attentions. I won't be coming along, so Assault will be in command of this mission. I look forward to your after-action reports."

"And that's … it?" Alice flinched as the flat crack heralded the appearance of the teleporter on the helipad. "We're just going to go and do it?"

"Would you prefer six months of paperwork back and forth before we decided to go ahead?" Piggot's tone was both rhetorical and sarcastic. "Go. Shoo. Make me proud."

<><>​

Atropos

Cherie watched as I pulled on a protective nitrile glove, then put one of my spare set of Atropos gloves on over the top of them. "That's a level of protection you don't normally take, even when you're handling the stuff Riley made to kill powers with," she observed. "Should I be worried?"

"Not particularly." I flexed my fingers inside the double layered glove and decided it would do. "This latest concoction I got her to throw together is nastier than the other stuff, and I'll have exactly zero room for error. My power says I need the glove."

"Nastier?" Cherie didn't sound thrilled to hear that. "How the hell is it worse than the other stuff?"

"Because it doesn't kill your powers." I grinned at her look of incomprehension. "Tell you later."

Leaving the shears and the pistol on the sofa—I wasn't going to need them—I set up the next few jumps. They were going to take pinpoint timing, but that was fine; my power was good at pinpoint timing. The not so fine aspect was what I was about to put myself through.

The things I do to maintain my brand.

Finally, I pulled on my mask and put the hat on at a jaunty angle. I knew damn well Cherie could read what bits and pieces of emotion I let slip through, but I wasn't giving her enough to realise what I was about to do.

Touching two fingers to the brim of my hat, I stepped backward into the smoky doorway as it formed behind me. The living room vanished, replaced by a scrubby hillside overlooking farmland. Abandoned farmland no doubt, entirely due to the imminent arrival of Sleeper, but farmland all the same.

It was colder than Brockton Bay here, more so than could be accounted for by the fact that it was four or five degrees farther north. A chilly wind swept across the hillside, blowing my long-coat dramatically sideways as I looked westward toward the oncoming storm generated by Sleeper. It was hard to focus on, mainly because part of the visual effect was generated within the optic nerve without first going through the retina, which was just one of the little tricks his power liked to inflict on the world.

Right then, the ongoing violation of space-time manifesting in our limited three-dimensional perception as a 'storm' was five miles across, and he had no physical body inside it. It was his fastest mode of movement, maybe two hundred miles per hour, but it also tired him. It wasn't long before he'd have to let his real body regain its form, and he'd stop to rest.

This would be my cue to go say hi.

In the meantime, I had a note to treat with Riley's newest concoction. I couldn't just put the stuff on it that killed powers … well, I could, but his powers were literally keeping him alive. Without them to keep his bullet-lacerated brainmeats in a (mostly) workable state, he would go into seizures within a few seconds, be in a coma in twenty, and be dead in five minutes.

I'd thought about bringing in Riley or Amy to fix his brain injury, but neither one was an option if he had to be forcibly depowered first. Amy was still emotionally fragile; fixing a brain injury was one thing, but doing it for a mass murderer whose vital signs were crashing hard at the same time might be a bit much for her. While Riley would likely be willing to take it on, the window of opportunity was too narrow. By the time she got to where she could start fixing stuff, a lot of what was him would be irretrievably gone.

It was true that killing Sleeper (accidentally or otherwise) would absolutely cement my rep as Can Actually Kill Anything (Yes, Really; Watch Me), but I didn't want to End him without actually giving him a chance to turn things around first. The act of killing still didn't bother me; I was just as pragmatic about it as I had been since getting my powers. However, Dragon had made a good point about not only being reliable, but having the appearance of reliability.

There were quite a few national powers currently observing Sleeper's progress, most of whom had spotted me already. If I just went in there and ganked him (in Cherie's inimitable phrasing) while they were watching, it would be a data point for them, but in the wrong direction.

It wouldn't matter that Sleeper was someone they all wanted dead anyway. If I was seen apparently violating my self-imposed strictures, someone would inevitably take it as evidence that I'd been paid a bounty under the table to do it, and the understanding I'd carefully crafted with the international community would take a huge step backward.

Very shortly afterward, I'd get a diplomatically worded offer of a few hundred million to arrange the End of someone like Moord Nag. The money might vary; so, too, might the target. But they'd start with large amounts, pointing me at people who were very much a negative influence on society. Bit by bit, the amounts would decrease, ramping up only when they wanted me to kill someone who wasn't all that bad, but who was a hindrance to their plans.

Well, this was the meat of at least one proposal that had been laid out by a governmental body based less than five hundred miles from Brockton Bay. Human nature being what it was, there were others of a similar nature being fostered farther afield. Yeah, good luck with that. I couldn't force people to stop being assholes, but I could absolutely refuse to fall in line with their designs for me.

So long as they indulged in no more than wishful thinking, I was happy to let them waste their time and effort trying to figure out how to move the first step out of the planning stage. The moment any of them tried to actually do something about it, I would be paying them a visit and bringing my good friend Mr Pump Action Shotgun along to air his opinions about Kneecaps and Privileges.

But it wasn't going to happen today, or any day soon. Sleeper was going to survive the next twenty-four hours, because the concoction I was applying to the note wouldn't take effect until then, if at all.

Of course, me just delivering the note and surviving would also add to my ongoing legend, so there was that.

It was still going to suck, though.

The eye-twisting storm slowed its onward advance when its leading edge was barely five yards from me, as my power had calculated. I finished brushing the liquid onto the note, then put the cap back on the container and folded my hand around the note. This was why I had needed the extra glove; my regular one wouldn't protect my hand well enough, and I had to maintain a hold on it for reasons which would soon become evident.

I moved toward the edge of the storm with measured steps; between one step and the next, the first teleport kicked in. As it did so, I let myself fall forward, appearing in a rocky niche with the storm swirling and raging just outside. My coat lost a chunk out of one corner as the twisting matter alteration caught it, but that was okay; it wasn't the one I usually wore.

Pressing into the niche, I watched as the distorted air followed me in. Sleeper wasn't fully aware of everything that happened within his sphere of influence, but the 'brain' aspect of his powers knew I was there. God only knew how he would've been if he were fully compos mentis, but for the most part it acted like a massive immune system, locating and either destroying or neutralising any potential threat from the outside.

This was why the note was clenched tightly in my fist rather than in my pocket. To put it brutally, my pockets just weren't going to survive. As part of my sleeve fizzed and sparkled, I was fully aware that anything I wasn't personally hanging on to was likely to suffer an inevitable end. This was already too close for comfort, and it was only going to get worse.

At the ten-second mark, the teleporter kicked in again, depositing me in a barn which was in the process of being enthusiastically demolished by the reality storm. I grabbed an already-teetering stack of hay bales and pulled them over on top of me; they were heavy, but not so much that it was a chore to keep breathing. My mask managed to filter out the worst of the heavy dust swirling around in my tiny refuge, which was good, because I needed to get a nice deep breath of air.

I could feel the mental aspect of Sleeper's power zeroing in on me again, and the gradual lightening of the hay-bale burden above me. The hay didn't make for a very sturdy barrier, but it was bulky, so it lasted exactly long enough. I felt my left boot-heel go just as the teleporter pulled me out of there once more. A spark of pain told me that I'd lost part of my actual heel at the same time.

The rear part of my hat-brim, the back of my long-coat, and some of the skin off my back, flashed to nothingness as I appeared inches above the surface of a stream. I fell, and was submerged, before anything more could happen; the water was absoutely freezing, numbing the open wound on my back. Above all, I kept my fist clenched around that damn note.

Above me, Sleeper's power lashed at the water itself, exploding great swathes of it into steam; fortunately, I was being swept downstream before it could get to me. It felt as though icy daggers were slashing at the intact parts of my skin, but it was only the cold, not more of his power. Not yet, anyway. I drew my knees up to my chest just as another part of my long-coat was caught and evaporated; before the rest of me could be likewise shredded, I teleported.

The next refuge my power found me was a hollowed out cut-bank, possibly the lair of an animal that had fled before the advent of Sleeper's power scouring the land. It lasted me the ten seconds, though I lost two fingers off my left hand, and some of the wrist. I was committed now; there was only one way out, and it wasn't the way I'd come in by.

Jump by jump, skip by skip, losing a chunk of my forearm muscle here and three toes there, I made my way through the maelstrom toward Sleeper. It was impossible for my power to find me a refuge that didn't brush me up against his ravening ability, but it was able to keep me alive and moving, so that was the best I could get.

Pain lashed through me from my mounting catalogue of injuries. If it weren't for my power, I wouldn't have been able to go on, but I was determined to get the note to Sleeper, no matter what it took. That was my sole focus.

Finally, I ended up at the small farmhouse he'd decided was a good place to rest. Sitting at the table, reading aloud to himself from a remarkably tattered and dog-eared book, he looked up in surprise as I appeared before him, bloody and wounded, with tatters of my costume hanging off me. My left leg wasn't working so good since most of the calf muscle had been torn away, but I was standing on it anyway. "Hi," I gritted in what I guessed was fluent Russian, as I slapped the slightly worse-for-wear folded note onto the pages in front of him with my one good hand. "You've just been served."

Before he could muster his powers to obliterate me from existence, the teleporter generated its smoky doorway behind me, and I lurched backward through it. It was so close that I'd had to time the portal to shut off before I was all the way through. In doing so, it took my right arm clear off just below the shoulder, and my right leg at the knee. Given that the alternative was to have his power billow through and destroy everything within three city blocks, I figured I got off lightly.

But my power could only keep me upright and moving for so long, and I was rapidly running out of gas. This was why my last teleport sent me to the best place I could go for help.

As I toppled toward the carefully-placed plastic sheet—good thinking, Amy, way to go—I saw not one but two shocked expressions looking my way.

Oh, boy.

<><>​

Panacea

Half an hour had been just enough time for Amy to accept the leg of ham from the delivery guy and sneak it upstairs to her room, then grab the spare shower curtain from the storage closet and spread it over her carpet. If Atropos wanted her to prep for a mess, then she was absolutely going to prep for a mess. As the last five minutes ticked down, she was still trying to figure out what was going on, with little success.

And then Vicky opened her door and leaned in. "Hey, Ames, I was … uh, why do you have a leg of ham on your bed? And why is there a shower curtain on your floor?"

"Sh-sh-sh-sh!" Amy hissed urgently. "Come in! Shut the door!" Vicky, she could trust to keep a secret. Everyone else was likely to either ask awkward questions like 'why did you just do what she said?' and 'why didn't you come tell us?' or just yell at her.

Obediently, Vicky entered the room and closed the door carefully behind her. "I'm going to assume this isn't a Parian thing," she said, hitching one eyebrow slightly. "So, my second guess is … Atropos."

"Yeah." Amy nodded jerkily, keeping a watch on the plastic out of the corner of her eye. "She messaged me half an hour ago, asked me to be in here with biomass. Said to prep for a mess."

"Shit." Vicky breathed the word. "Shit, shit, fuck. Did she say who was going to need it?"

Amy's throat was tight with worry. "I asked her who she'd hurt. She said nobody, and that I'd see."

"Doesn't mean she hasn't hurt someone since," Vicky pointed out pragmatically. "Do you, uh, do you do this sort of thing often? Just do something because she asked you to?"

"Not often." Amy decided to amend the statement toward the truth. "We've done it a bit. But always to do something good. Even if I didn't know it was good at the time." She found herself digging her nails into her palm.

"When did she say she'd be here?"

"Half an—oh, shit!" Amy jerked to her feet as a familiar smoky doorway appeared at the far end of the plastic shower curtain.

Atropos fell out of it, lunging her left arm outward as the portal closed behind her. When they'd gone to help out Damsel of Distress, Amy had been warned not to linger, and now she saw why. In closing, the portal had sheared off Atropos' right arm and part of her leg, and that wasn't the full extent of her injuries by a long way.

Collapsing in a way that suggested consciousness was rapidly fading, Atropos didn't quite hit the floor before Vicky was there, catching her and lowering her to the plastic. "Holy fuck, what happened to her?" Vicky asked, staring at the tattered costume, with large pieces just sheared away, along with the flesh under it.

"Slee … per," rasped Atropos. "Good t'see you too." One expressive brown eye, visible due to the fact that part of the morph mask was missing, along with a slice of her cheekbone, turned to look at her, then drifted shut as Atropos went limp.

Jesus, she went after Sleeper? Amy didn't know whether to be horrified or impressed. By now, she was on her knees next to Atropos, pulling aside shreds of cloth to get skin to skin contact. There had been no deep injuries to the torso, but more than a bit of missing flesh, and two major amputations.

Once Amy got control over her body, she was able to bring the bleeding to a halt, though the amount Atropos had already lost was worrying. To make more, she was going to need fluids. "Vicky, go to the kitchen and get me the biggest pitcher of water you can. Do not tell Mom or Dad, please." They'd either freak or do something stupid, or both.

"On it." The door opened and closed, and Vicky was gone.

It was weird, Amy mused even as she hefted the leg of ham down off the bed and started looking at where Atropos was missing bits and pieces. When Vicky had first met Atropos, she would've spat in her face rather than help her. Now, she didn't like the murderous vigilante, but she had enough respect for Atropos to help her out without even complaining.

For her part, Amy was more shaken than she was willing to admit, even to herself. She'd seen footage of Atropos strolling into insanely dangerous situations before now, and barrelling out the other side without a mark on her. This time around, she looked like she'd gone ten rounds with a combine harvester, though her attitude suggested that she'd somehow won.

Okay, priorities. Arm and leg first, then the more superficial stuff.

And once Atropos was awake again, she and Vicky would be able to interrogate her for every last detail of why she'd gone after Sleeper. Because there was surely a story there.

And after giving her a fright like this, Atropos totally owed her.

<><>​

Sleeper

I have stopped travelling. Tired.

Must rest.

Am resting, reading, when ghost person from outside appears.

I hear voice that is not my voice. Ghost person says words that are not my words.

"Привет," says ghost person. "Вам предписание."

There is paper in my hand. It is ghost person paper.

I know is ghost person because does not come in front door, just appears.

Also, disappears through doorway that is not doorway.

After ghost person vanishes, I look at paper. Is folded. Is note.

Do I read ghost person note?

I prefer to read book. Book is familiar.

Ghost person note sits on table. I want to destroy it.

But I pick it up.

It is long time since I read something that was not book.

I unfold ghost person note.

It has been wet, and scorched, but writing is big and thick. Can read.

Я АТРОПОС.

Я УБИЛА СИМУРГ.

ЕСЛИ ТЫ ПРОДОЛЖИШЬ ИДТИ К ДЫРЕ МЕЖДУ МИРАМИ, Я УБЬЮ ТЕБЯ.

Я МОГУ ТЕБЯ ОТПРАВИТЬ В ДРУГОЕ МЕСТО.

ПОДОЖДИ ЗДЕСЬ ОДИН ПОЛНЫЙ ДЕНЬ ПОДАВЛЯЯ СВОЮ СИЛУ, И Я ОТКРОЮ ДЛЯ ТЕБЯ ЕЩЕ ОДНУ ДЫРУ МЕЖДУ МИРАМИ.

ЕСЛИ ТЫ ХОЧЕШЬ, Я МОГУ ПРИВЕСТИ КОГО-ТО, КТО ВМЕСТО ЭТОГО ОТКЛЮЧИТ ТВОИ СИЛЫ И ПОЧИНИТ ТВОЙ МОЗГ.

Я ВЕРНУСЬ ЗА ТВОИМ ОТВЕТОМ ЧЕРЕЗ ОДИН ДЕНЬ.

When finished reading, I sit and think about ghost person words.

I am Atropos.

I killed the Simurgh.

If you keep going toward the hole between worlds, I will kill you.

I can send you somewhere else. Wait here one full day and suppress your powers, and I will open another hole between worlds for you.

If you want, I can bring someone to turn off your powers and fix your brain instead.

I will be back in one day for your reply.

Click to shrink...

When sun rises, still thinking.



End of Part Eighty-Eight

 

[Ack]

A Darker Path

Part Eighty-Nine: Moments of Truth

[A/N: This chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]



Glory Girl

When Vicky got to the bottom of the stairs, her parents were sitting on the sofa watching TV, though her mother was also doing something on a tablet. Carol Dallon had always been a hard-charger, maintaining a career in law at the same time as being a full-time superhero and a mother of two. Something had had to give, and Vicky suspected that motherhood had been left sucking hind tit.

The end result had been a successful superhero career, a place in a prestigious law firm, and one daughter who vaguely resented her. This was not improved by Carol's black-and-white view of the world, which Vicky had subscribed to without even thinking about it … at least, until certain events had caused her to undergo a massive reality check. That, along with other recent incidents, had shaken up her personal worldview and caused her to rethink a lot of her prior assumptions.

This was why she'd been less surprised by Amy's intention of going rogue at the first viable opportunity than she was by the fact that Amy had told Carol to her face about her plans, as well as a lot of other stuff that had been bothering her. Apparently, during the telling, their mom had polished off one of the bottles of wine Atropos had given her and made a severe dent in the second one. However, she hadn't yelled at Amy, grounded her, or done anything apart from drink and listen.

While Vicky didn't dislike her mother, even after the shakeup to her worldview, she figured Amy was at least partially justified in being unhappy with Carol. Amy wasn't Vicky, she wasn't like Vicky, she didn't think like Vicky, and she'd never really wanted to be a superhero like Vicky. As far as Vicky could tell, Carol had wanted Amy to be a good little hero (using Vicky as a role model, naturally) but to also stay in her own little box and heal people when and where she was told, without any regard for what Amy might want.

The real irony in the situation was that until Atropos had come along and kicked over the anthill that had then been the villain-rich Brockton Bay underworld (and was now more of a ghost town), Amy had also shared Carol's binary worldview. These days, she was a good deal more free-thinking in her attitudes, gleefully encouraged in such by Atropos. Vicky didn't know what role in this was played by Atropos' occasional 'borrowing' of Amy for shady purposes in dubious locations, but she figured there was at least a little cross-pollination of viewpoints going on.

But the bottom line was simple: Amy was happier these days, and not just because she had a girlfriend. (Though Vicky thought she might have to book herself an eye test, what with all the hints she'd missed about her sister's orientation). Amy was more relaxed, opening up more, and although Atropos' shenanigans still seemed to exasperate her, she'd lost the edge of simmering anger that Vicky hadn't noticed until it was gone.

The most profound change, however, was the one that Vicky had discovered within herself. As she'd said to Crystal, the lessons Atropos had taught her had convinced her to rethink her previously reckless attitude and become the 'responsible' one of the younger set. But that wasn't even the half of it.

In the first days following Atropos' debut, especially in the (admittedly narrow) window between the meeting in Westlake Park and the demise of the Slaughterhouse Nine, had Vicky encountered Atropos in any kind of vulnerable position, she wouldn't have hesitated to take full advantage of the situation. There would've been exactly zero second thoughts involved between seeing the black-clad cape and going into attack mode. But in the encounters since, each subsequent interaction had chipped away at her antagonism toward Atropos. Now, seeing the girl unconscious, bleeding and missing important body parts on Amy's bedroom floor, Vicky's only thought had been 'how can I help?'.

As she made her way nonchalantly to the kitchen, Vicky kept in mind that her mother quite likely didn't share her level of acceptance of Atropos. If she discovered what was going on, Brandish might just do something extreme. Or she might not; Vicky preferred not to find out either way.

Trying to make as little noise as possible, she found a nicely sized pitcher and took it to the sink to fill with water. She was halfway through this task when her father strolled into the kitchen. "Oh, hi, Vicky girl," he said. "I didn't know you were downstairs. What's the pitcher for?"

Her brain went blank. "Oh, uh, Ames asked me to get it."

"Really? What for?"

Shit. Shit, shit, shit. "Pot … plants. She wants to water her potted plants." Wait, wait. "Plants in pots. Not actual pot. Amy wouldn't do something like that." She forced a nervous laugh. Shut up now. Just shut up.

He frowned. "Amy has potted plants? When did that happen?"

Vicky fell back on the truth. "Well, she's got a plant pot on her windowsill. I guess she wants to grow something other than mushrooms in it."

"Mm, I suppose so." His attention shifted. "I'm just getting cookies. Did you want one?"

On the verge of saying no, Vicky changed her mind. "Sure. Two for me and two for Amy, please."

He smiled indulgently. "Okay." Taking four cookies out of the container, he handed them to her. "I remember what teenage metabolisms are like. Just don't rat me out to your mom."

"I promise. You're the best." She accepted the cookies in one hand, then turned off the faucet and hefted the now-full pitcher in the other. Waiting until her father left the kitchen, she disobeyed the general injunction against flying in the house and drifted along soundlessly behind him. It was easier, she figured as she continued up the stairs without setting foot to floor, to break a smaller rule now than deal with a bigger mess later.

When she got to Amy's room, she awkwardly turned the door handle with the hand that was holding the cookies, then nudged it open with her elbow. Amy looked up from where she was working on Atropos; the vigilante didn't look any better than she had before Vicky went downstairs, but appearances were probably deceiving.

"Oh, good," Amy said. "You brought the water."

"And cookies," Vicky added, holding them up and nudging the door shut with her heel. "Just in case."

<><>​

Shebang

While Alice had come up with the concept of a bomb that teleported people in all directions away from ground zero, she hadn't yet built it. This was partially because she hadn't had the time, and partially because she was pretty sure it would fall under the category of 'only under controlled conditions, and no using yourself as a guinea pig'. Thus, she'd never been teleported in her life.

It was a weird experience, to say the least. She found herself considering the effect in terms of how to replicate it with tech, firming up the idea she'd had for the teleport bomb. This, she suspected, was going to be a regular thing from this point forward.

Coming out the other end, she felt the immediate pain in her ears from the altitude shift, and worked her jaw to compensate. Off to the side, she could hear Miss Medic instructing Tenebrae and Clockblocker on how to do the same, which sounded ass-backward until she considered the fact that the kid was apparently the best cape surgeon on the block since Bonesaw bit it.

(Overall, Alice had mixed feelings about Atropos, but her destruction of the Slaughterhouse Nine was a thing of beauty, especially her tactical use of explosions.)

It seemed Assault and Trooper Ballinger were handling their end just fine, from the way Ballinger was looking around, and Assault was going to meet the cape who was waiting for them. "Hi," he said, holding out his hand. "Long time no see, Chevalier. How've you been?"

"Tolerably well, Assault." Chevalier, wearing silver and gold armour and carrying a weapon that looked like a cross between a sword and a gun, shook Assault's hand. "And yourself?"

<><>​

Chevalier

Assault chuckled wryly. "Well, I've been fine, and Battery is doing well, but as for the rest of it … it's been an interesting few months, as I'm sure you've heard."

"I had, yes." Michael carefully resisted the urge to ask an inane question about Atropos or her methods, in the vein of 'did she really …?', mainly because he knew she really had.

He'd watched all the footage resulting from her lethal escapades (it had been deemed required viewing, by the Chief Director herself) and had attended Canberra, albeit briefly. Her PHO thread was also analysed and disseminated whenever a new post came out, but what had made a deep and abiding impression on him was the glimpse his power had had of the cape herself.

When he focused on a parahuman, he could see glimpses and impressions of what their power was about, and hints of their capabilities and intentions. What he'd seen when he looked at her was a teenage girl with a vast, looming beast pacing alongside her, placing its feet carefully in deference to her wishes, conferring with her on what they would do next. There was a link between them; neither the leash of strict control nor the strings of a puppeteer (both of which he'd seen in the past), it was more a commonality of purpose, an agreement between equals. The only other cape he'd ever seen who was this deeply in harmony with their power was Jack Slash, and wasn't that a pleasant thought?

All the time, it had been reaching out with shadowy tentacles and nudging those around Atropos, in response to her interactions with them. The cape with her, Flechette, had those tentacles wrapped around her, but in a way that seemed protective rather than restrictive, and there were more tentacles stretching out to the horizon.

While waiting for Strider to teleport him back to Philadelphia, he'd watched as Atropos conferred with Alexandria, the tentacles nudging the Chief Director subtly as they spoke.

(He of course knew who Rebecca Costa-Brown really was. That part of his power was thoroughly classified, for good reason).

When Eidolon had returned, the conversation went on with him. Michael had not been close enough to hear what was going on, but an agreement was reached … and then Atropos did something with her shears, and the monster reached down and separated Eidolon from his powers. Michael had heard she'd done exactly the same thing to Bastard Son before she killed him, but to watch it in action was deeply unnerving, not least because she could apparently do it so casually (though having the subject survive was a bonus, at least).

Then had come the deeply frightening moment, when the creature turned its immense head to look directly at him, and raised one gigantic, clawed finger to where he supposed its lips to be. There had been the flash of teeth in what might have been a smile before it turned its attention back to what Atropos was doing, but he knew damn well it was keeping an eye on him.

Not having any particular desire to die on the spot (and having zero doubt that she was capable of it, after observing the fate of the Simurgh), he'd waited until he got home before he contacted the Chief Director. She'd sighed, then briefed him on the devil's bargain Eidolon had entered into: his powers, for the End of the other two Endbringers.

Since then, there had been no sign of another attack, or even an Endbringer moving around under the ocean or the surface of the Earth, so he hoped and prayed that the sacrifice had not been in vain. Atropos had of course continued on her merry, murderous way, though there was less of the murder these days (thus proving that if they really tried, people could learn pattern recognition).

Also, he was beginning to suspect he knew exactly what had happened to Butcher Fourteen's powers when Atropos killed her, which was just another thing that was going to keep him awake at night.

"So yeah," Assault said briskly, all unaware of the dark thoughts Michael was entertaining, "you've met Clockblocker before, but the others are new. Tenebrae and Miss Medic out of Brockton Bay, and Shebang from New York. Trooper Ballinger's been appointed to Shebang for the duration."

"I see." Michael did know Clockblocker, and was aware that he was capable of being serious when he needed to be. The name, he suspected, would follow the young man for the rest of his life. "It's good to meet you all."

He focused his power on Shebang first, finding impressions of effects that could only be deemed 'explosions' because they started from a point and expanded outward. Emily Piggot's assessment of her indicated that she may have been intending for a different kind of debut before the ex-Empire capes forced her hand; from what he could see, it was not an inaccurate summation. However, she seemed to be set on the path of being a hero now, so he left her and moved on to Tenebrae.

The young man had actually been a criminal before his recruitment into the Wards, and his power impression backed that up. A life lived in the shadows, not all of his own making, had been traded out for walking in the light, using his shadows to aid others. He also held himself like a trained fighter, which was good to see in someone who might have to engage the criminal element hand-to-hand.

Finally, there was Miss Medic. Looking even more petite than normal next to Tenebrae (apparently her cousin, and caregiver of record), she was almost unbearably cute in her pseudo-military costume and her obvious eagerness to please. But deeper down … Michael had to restrain himself from taking a step back.

Her past was soaked in blood. Instead of a static impression, with her he saw a progression of images cycling through, not unlike the Gray Boy loop they'd come here to destroy. Clawed hands, a skeletal grin, spreading death and despair wherever she went, with the shadowy figure of Jack Slash holding her puppet strings. Then the strings were severed, and very familiar talons tore her asunder; the macabre grotesquerie was discarded, allowing the child before him to walk onward, clad in angelic light, determined to help everyone.

Christ almighty. That's Bonesaw. I thought she was dead.

A memory arose in his mind, and he recalled how Atropos had shot Bonesaw in the head then taken her away, supposedly to render her multiple lethal deadman switches harmless. None other than Dragon had signed off on her reported death … but unless his power was somehow glitching out altogether on him, Miss Medic was Bonesaw, literally reskinned.

As he watched, shadowy tentacles appeared from nowhere and wrapped protectively around the girl, which gave him further pause. This, and the pure intent radiating off her, were the only reasons he didn't pull his cannonblade on the spot and blow her head off, but he still wanted to know what the fuck was going on.

"You okay there?" asked Assault, giving Michael what he suspected was a concerned look.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Michael realised he'd been staring at Miss Medic for a few seconds too long. "Sorry, I've got a lot of things on my mind at the moment. Let's get this show on the road."

<><>​

Panacea

Amy hummed to herself as she carefully rebuilt Atropos's limbs. The leg of ham provided the required biomass (even discounting the bits and pieces lost to her injuries, Atropos was skinny) and the water Vicky had fetched was replacing her fluids nicely, so all Amy needed to do was make sure she matched to the left and right. While a few fingers and toes had gone missing on the intact limbs, Amy found her power was perfectly capable of tapping into Atropos' genetic predispositions and filling in the gaps that way.

She'd taken the module off Atropos' left forearm so it wouldn't get in the way, and now it lay on the bed. Neither she nor Vicky were inclined to mess with it, but that didn't stop her sister from speculating on what it was. Amy had better things to do with her time right then; while Atropos might not have been the most badly injured person she'd ever had to treat, she'd definitely earned a spot in the top ten.

"I bet it's what she uses to remove powers," Vicky said from her seat on Amy's computer chair. "The thing with the sword was all just for show."

"Nope," Amy countered absently as she finished off the toes on Atropos' regrown right foot. "She's used grapes twice that I personally know of, and Crystal says she gave Labyrinth a grape as well."

"Well, okay, the thing with the sword and the grapes were all for show." Vicky spread her hands. "Misdirection. It's a thing, and she's really good at it."

"I don't think so." Amy started on Atropos's right arm. She felt really in tune with her power today, with no need to pause and think about what she had to do next. "When I regrew Noelle's legs for her, Atropos told Trickster that there was something in the grape, a poison that only affected her powers. Now, she could've been lying to all of us but in my experience, she doesn't lie. She'll say things to your face that are so outrageous that they have to be false, but by the time you figure out they aren't, she's got what she wants."

"Okay, yeah, point taken. She's a lot of things, but she's not a bullshit artist." Vicky rolled her eyes. "Not to say her powers aren't bullshit from end to end, but she says what she means."

Amy felt Atropos' consciousness beginning to return; she had a moment to consider whether she wanted to keep the girl under, then decided that if her patient's body wanted to be awake, who was Amy to argue? She took a moment to dull the pain response a little, then kept on rebuilding Atropos' body, one repaired injury at a time.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Atropos said, pretty damn clearly for someone who had to be under a lot of discomfort right about then. "And it's my teleporter, but that was going to be your next guess anyway."

"Yeah, but—holy shit!" yelped Vicky, staring at Atropos. "You're awake! How are you awake?"

"Because I'm not unconscious, duh." Atropos grinned at Vicky, her expression visible where part of the mask had either been disintegrated or melted, Amy wasn't sure which. "By the way, Amy, nice job with my toes. You got them just right." She wiggled the appendages in question.

"Thanks." Despite herself, Amy felt a warm glow from the praise. "I had to lean on my power a bit, given that you'd lost a few toes from your other foot, but it figured things out anyway."

"Okay." Vicky had gotten over her surprise, and now she leaned forward. "I gotta know. What the hell were you doing, going after Sleeper, anyway? He's all the way over in Russia, nowhere near Brockton Bay. Or did someone pay you to off him? Is he dead?"

"Vicky!" Amy hissed the word, hoping nobody had heard Vicky's reaction to Atropos waking up. "Stop badgering my patient!" She'd intended to do a little badgering of her own, after she got a little more of the work done, and didn't want her sister poisoning the well.

"No, it's okay." Atropos turned her head to face Vicky. "The reason I was going after Sleeper wasn't because anyone paid me to. It's because he's heading for the portal to Earth Shin, where he would cause untold death and destruction, but he's doing it to get away from me."

"So … tell him that you're not after him?" suggested Vicky.

"I could, but it wouldn't stick." Atropos grimaced. "See, he was a low-level gangster who got caught in a firefight, and was shot in the head with a small-calibre bullet that fragmented and sent pieces all through his brain, disabling parts that he needed to stay alive. It would've killed him, but the fragments missed his corona pollentia, and he triggered before he would've died. His power took over his vital brain functions, but he's not exactly all there, and his brain keeps slipping and getting rebooted by his powers. So I got him a warning, and an offer. He can stay where he is and let me remove his powers while you and Miss Medic fix his brainmeats, or he can go through a portal to a world of my choosing."

Amy noticed that a third option hadn't been given, then she figured that the third option was patently obvious. This was Atropos, after all.

"Uh …" Vicky pointed at Atropos' face. "Your mask. It's slipping."

"Oh, good point. Hang on a second." The hat had already fallen off when she arrived, not even really fit for the description anymore, but her mask was still mostly on her face. She used her partial left hand (Amy had yet to regrow the fingers she'd lost) to pull off the tattered remains and shook her hair out. "Whew, that's better."

"Holy. Shit." Vicky breathed the words. "Did you just … are you unmasking to us?"

"Sure." Atropos seemed unfazed by the idea. "Are you gonna tell anyone what I look like?"

Amy shook her head in a very definite negatory gesture, but Vicky seemed to have already gotten the idea. "Hah, not a hope in hell. I like living. Besides, I've got no idea what your name is."

"Well, we can't have that." Atropos' smirk was composed of pure mischief. "Taylor Hebert, at your service."



End of Part Eighty-Nine

 

[Ack]

A Darker Path

Part Ninety: Progress, Albeit Rocky

[A/N 1: This chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]
[A/N 2: Trigger warning for graphic description of an injury, second paragraph.]

Chevalier

"He's just down this way." Michael led the way along an alley to where a section had been cordoned off with police tape. It was old and tattered, but still mostly intact, mainly because most people had no desire to screw with Gray Boy loops.

The man contained within the monochrome bubble was in his mid-thirties and seemed to be repeating a section of looped time a little over five seconds in length. During that interval, something stabbed him low on the stomach and pulled upward, opening his abdominal wall up to his breastbone. He was just beginning to fall over, his intestines spilling out of the gaping wound, when the loop restarted.

"Eww, ugh," groused Clockblocker, raising a hand to block out the sight. "Warn a guy, why don't you?"

"What part of 'Gray Boy bubble' were you not actually told about?" asked Miss Medic rhetorically, apparently taking in every detail. This didn't actually make Michael feel any better about her. "Okay, the mental effects aside, this should be an easy fix."

"Mental effects?" asked Assault. "What mental effects?"

"Yeah," Shebang added. "I want to hear about these mental effects too."

Miss Medic turned to face them. "Okay, so when I got asked to volunteer for this, I went and read up everything I could get on them. I had to get special permission from Director Renick to access some information—something about me being too young to read stuff like that—but I made my case, and he was pretty understanding."

Tenebrae tilted his head; Michael got the impression he was raising an eyebrow. "I wondered what that was about."

"Yup!" she said brightly. "So, what I figure is that if someone is kept in a constant torture loop like this, their mind falls apart, then back together, then apart, and so on in a vicious cycle. Also, if they've got a corona pollentia, there's a massive chance that they'll trigger as soon as the bubble goes down. Ninety to ninety-five percent chance is my best guess."

Michael did not want to engage with the girl he knew to be Bonesaw, especially while she was talking so knowledgeably about the long-term effects of torture, but this was absolutely something that had to be addressed. "Which means we would very likely have an insane person, with powers and potentially fatal injuries, right here in this alley with us."

"Great," Clockblocker muttered. "Why exactly are we doing this again?"

"Oh, the powers would almost certainly work to make sure the injury isn't fatal to him," Miss Medic said cheerfully, ignoring the interjection. "Unfortunately, that says nothing about what happens to everyone else around him, or even the whole city block."

Assault looked around. "And this isn't Brockton Bay, so Atropos isn't likely to stroll around the corner and tell us this is a really bad idea."

"Um," said Shebang. Her expression indicated someone who was feeling more and more out of their depth with every passing second.

"So, if he comes out and starts looking like obliterating us all, I freeze him and we all run like hell?" offered Clockblocker.

Miss Medic shook her head. "Nuh-uh. I think I've got a better idea. Shebang, walk with me. We need to have a chat."

"While you're doing that," Michael said, "I'll update Legend and the Chief Director on the current situation. Assault, try not to break anything before I get back."

Assault leaned against the wall, arms folded. "No promises."

Moving off a ways down the alley, Michael selected Costa-Brown's number on his phone and sent the call through.

<><>​

Alexandria

When Rebecca saw Chevalier's number come up on her phone, her first thought was, either something's gone extremely right or extremely wrong. As no other alerts had popped up for Philadelphia, she dared hope for the former.

Setting aside the report on the sighting of Atropos entering Sleeper's area of effect, she took up the phone. "Speak to me."

"Ma'am, we're at the site." Chevalier sounded frazzled, which wasn't like the man at all. "We haven't yet begun operations, because of potential complications. But the biggest problem is that my power shows Miss Medic up to be Bonesaw. Nice kid, not in the slightest bit homicidal, but she's still Bonesaw. I don't know how Atropos did it, but—"

"Stop," she ordered. He fell silent, and she began to sift through all the potential ways this could have happened. Dragon had to be in on it, either as a willing conspirator or an unwitting dupe. When did Atropos begin to turn her? Was it when she went after Atropos following the death of Saint?

The next three questions were: how did Atropos dispose of the plagues from Bonesaw's body; then change her from a twelve-year-old blonde white girl to a ten-year-old black girl with a strong resemblance to the Laborns; then turn her from an amoral serial killer into a happy, healthy, well-adjusted child?

From hundreds of possibilities, down to dozens, to a few, all the way to one, took her less than a second. There was only one person with the capability, with whom Atropos had had contact. Deliberate, preplanned contact, or I'll eat my favourite boots, without salt.

Panacea.

It had to be.

There was nobody else Rebecca knew of who could have disarmed Bonesaw, healed whatever damage Atropos did to make her look dead, changed her phenotype so thoroughly, and fixed her headspace to make her into someone who wanted to help and heal people. It only required one bit of information to determine whether the hypothesis was valid or not.

Still holding the phone, she opened a text message box and tapped out a message to Contessa:

Can Panacea work with brains?

The answer came back two seconds later.

yes

Rebecca closed her eyes for a second and smiled grimly. She wanted to face-palm due to how thoroughly Atropos had pulled the wool over everyone's eyes, but right now she wouldn't give herself the satisfaction. Later, when she had the time, she was going to fly up to ten thousand feet and scream a few obscenities into the wind, but until then she had to be Chief Director.

The setup was clear now. For some reason, Atropos wanted to help Panacea de-stress, so she'd coldly and deliberately set matters up so that there was another healer in Brockton Bay. With the capture of Grue, the PRT had left themselves wide open for a third Laborn family member, who would have an older brother and sister to keep her on the straight and narrow. (Of course, having someone like Dragon on call to create said family records out of thin air also helped).

According to Chevalier, Miss Medic was safe to be around, which was entirely on-brand with Atropos. After all, she'd turned more than two hundred and fifty killer robots into willing construction workers, and a surprising number of villains had meekly shown up at the Brockton Bay city limits, asking if they could also join the workforce.

(Contessa was still smarting over being blasted in the ear with an air horn, over Faultline).

And that didn't even count Accord, who at last report was having a ball laying out the plans for the recuperation of the entire goddamn Brockton Bay region with the glee of an OCD perfectionist handed a ten-figure budget.

Rebecca made a mental note to keep a much closer eye on Dragon, and see what other shenanigans the AI was up to—it had to be Atropos who'd gotten her around the limitations Saint had regularly exploited—but decided not to confront her until she had more information. Then she put the phone to her ear again. "Chevalier, thank you for bringing this information to me. The situation is under control. You are to take no further action regarding this specific situation, or tell anyone else about this, except Legend. Do you understand?"

The pause was so long that she wondered if the call had dropped out. Then he responded. "Message received and understood, ma'am. We're to treat this as Atropos business?"

By which he evidently meant, 'do not fuck around with, lest we find out'.

"Exactly," she said. "Atropos business. So long as Miss Medic does her job and does it properly, let her be. Now, you said there were potential complications?"

"Ah, actually, yes. We're at the Gray Boy loop we're intending to try to drop, and Miss Medic indicated that the victim would likely have been sent insane by the ordeal. Also, there's a ninety-plus percent chance that he's going to trigger with powers as soon as we release him. She's currently conferring with Shebang over a potential fix."

Rebecca closed her eyes again. Nothing's ever easy. "But she sounds like she has a solution?"

"She seems to think she might, yes."

"Okay, when you find out what it is, use your best judgement. Have you spoken to Legend about any of this yet?"

"I was going to call him next, ma'am."

"Good. Do that. Tell him I'm on to the Bonesaw aspect. Costa-Brown, out."

She ended the call and put the phone down on the desk, then let out an aggravated sigh.

One day, Atropos. Just one day without your bullshit. That's all I ask.

<><>​

Glory Girl

"Wait, what?" Vicky was so startled, only her flight saved her from falling off the chair. "That's not your real name … is it?" But she was staring at Atropos' face, comparing it to the memory of a tall man with careworn features, snapping orders that saved another man's life.

"That's me." Appearing to know what Vicky was thinking, Taylor nodded to her. "Danny Hebert's my dad."

Now Amy was staring too. "You put your dad in as head of the Betterment Committee? Isn't that a conflict of interest or something?"

Taylor's snort was pure Atropos. "You're acting like I should care about rules like that. I trust Dad to play things straight down the line, so I adjusted matters to make sure he'd be in the running for the top spot. Mayor Christner made the final call, though I'm fairly sure he picked Dad so if things did go to shit, he could claim that it wasn't one of his people at fault."

"But …" Vicky stumbled for words. When Atropos had been a faceless shadow with a terrifyingly sharp pair of shears and a gun that never missed, it was easy to see her as a force of nature. Tornadoes didn't need to have a grudge against the trailer parks they demolished, they just went ahead and did it. But now she was facing a girl of her own age in a tattered costume, patently vulnerable to injury, who had reasons for what she did. Mortal like the rest of them.

It was a paradigm shift that Vicky was having trouble getting her head around.

"Let me guess," Atropos said, not unkindly. "You want to know why I kill people? How I can bring myself to just End their lives, while at the same time helping out people like Amy?"

"Well … yes." Vicky wouldn't have put it quite as bluntly as that, but that was the gist of it. "Why murder?"

Taylor's eyes glinted. "Because nothing else was working."

"Yes, it was!" The retort burst out of her before she even had time to think about it. "We had police, PRT, and heroes! We were making a difference!"

"Bullshit." The word was flat and hard, and fell into the conversation like a lead brick. "You were treading water at best. Hookwolf and Lung both had Birdcage sentences, yet they were still walking the streets in broad daylight. How many times did Hookwolf get captured but escape from his transport because someone inside law enforcement leaked the route to the Empire Eighty-Eight? Three times, wasn't it?"

"We were keeping the crime down," Vicky persisted. "Keeping the streets safe."

"By letting the ABB extort 'protection' money and run prostitutes, many of whom were forced into the life. My ex-best-friend nearly ended up having her face mutilated for a gang initiation, in broad daylight, with a superhero standing right there and choosing not to intervene. Does that sound like the streets were being kept safe?"

"That doesn't sound right," objected Amy. "Which superhero was that?"

"Shadow Stalker." Taylor's voice may as well have been reading a name out of a phone book. "And yes, she was my first kill. The irony is, I didn't even do it for Emma. She was an edgelord psycho who never stepped in to help anyone unless they fought back first. But if the person she was bullying fought back, she came back twice as hard at them. She tried it on me, and ignored two warnings."

Amy nodded, remembering. "Yeah, I read about that on your PHO thread. She was actually bullying you before you were Atropos?"

"She was." Taylor didn't seem overly put out about it. "And then, once I got my powers, she wasn't. But we were talking about the ABB. Two capes, and nobody did a damn thing about them until I took care of matters."

"Well, okay, they were pretty bad," conceded Vicky, "but you have to admit, Lung was a tough nut to crack, especially with Oni Lee helping him."

Taylor gave her a level stare. "It took me four nights, and I Ended two other gangs while I was at it. As for the Merchants, they were hardly even a gang, but everyone just kept letting them deal drugs to kids anyway. And finally, the Empire Eighty-Eight had more capes in the city than all the heroes put together, and committed more cape crime than all the other villains put together. When was the last time any of them were even captured, much less spent a night in lockup?" Her eyebrows should've been treated as deadly weapons, the way she had them cocked and locked.

These were questions Vicky couldn't really find a good answer for, but she did her best anyway. "We couldn't fix everything at once. Anyway, when they cleared all the villains out of Boston, a new bunch came in and started fighting over turf. A lot of people got hurt before it was over. Tell her, Ames!" She looked over at her sister. Amy had been there too, putting pins in maps and relaying sightings.

"Why?" asked Amy. "I'm on her side."

While Vicky was still gaping at that, Taylor cleared her throat. "You'll notice that I did fix everything at once. Five nights, four gangs. Also, some capes did try to replay the Boston Games scenario. Some of them died, and some of them came in on my terms, and aren't villains anymore. Because the act of Ending someone isn't just a blunt instrument. Used right, it can be a scalpel too."

"Okay, okay, wait, hold on a second." Vicky wanted to address one thing at a time. "Ames, what the fuck? What do you mean, you're on her side? She kills people!"

Amy rolled her eyes as only she could. "I'm not into the murder thing. Obviously. But she's right when she says what we were doing wasn't working. And what she's been doing did actually fucking work. So there's got to be a third way, maybe just a tidal wave of heroes coming into a city and scouring out every last villain—"

"Sorry, but that wouldn't work." Taylor wasn't as scathing as she had been to Vicky, but her tone was equally definite. "While villains by themselves don't cause social problems for the most part, they do exacerbate existing ones, and make it a lot harder to eradicate every last trace of them. But if you only take the villains away, the issues remain and feed on each other. You've got to hit all aspects of a problem, or it just keeps cropping up again."

By now, Amy was nodding. "Infrastructure, crime, homelessness, poverty, unemployment, poor education, drug habituation, mental illness, yeah. Got it. You're stabbing all those problems with money."

"And to both get that money and to make sure it wouldn't be wasted once spent, I had to End a whole bunch of people who desperately needed it," Taylor agreed. "Plus an Endbringer." She gave Vicky a sly look. "I hope you're not going to hold the Simurgh against me too?"

Vicky had learned enough from her clashes with Atropos to know when to admit that continuing to argue would just make her look like the bad guy. Rolling her eyes, she shook her head with a chuckle. "Oh, just shut the fuck up and let my sister heal your sorry ass."

<><>​

Clockblocker

"So, how's your dad, anyway?" asked Tenebrae idly. "Still doing well, I hope?"

Dennis nodded and grinned, though the latter was entirely hidden inside his helmet. "It's been a week, and he's getting stronger all the time. He went in for tests today, so we won't find out for another couple of days, but we're really optimistic." He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Your cousin is amazing. Just saying."

"Yeah, she is." Tenebrae nodded in return. "She's helping knock some of the rougher edges off my little sister, and …" He paused. "Did you know Paladin is living with us?"

"Not officially, but it's gotten around, yeah." Dennis tilted his head. "Is it true that he's whats-his-name's kid? I mean, literally Captain Nazi Junior?" He figured that was safe enough to say around Ballinger. Assault wasn't telling him to shut up, anyway.

Tenebrae sighed. "I can neither confirm nor deny his identity, but I can tell you that Paladin has zero attitudes in that direction. Even though he's older than both of them, they treat him like their little brother."

"Aww, nice." Dennis was about to say more, but Assault cleared his throat and gestured sideways with his head. Looking that way, Dennis saw Chevalier on the way back. "Heads up, the big guy's incoming."

"So are Miss Medic and Shebang." Tenebrae was looking in the other direction. It kind of made sense that he'd be keeping an eye on his cousin. "They don't look too upset, so I'm guessing they came up with something."

Dennis snorted. "What did you expect? Lock two Tinkers in the same room together, and they'll either kill each other or bust out of there with a battle tank that flies and can turn into a giant robot."

"Don't you mean, a giant robot that flies and turns into a battle tank?"

"I meant what I said."

<><>​

Tenebrae

"Okay, then," announced Riley, dusting her hands off in a businesslike way. "Shebang and I have pretty well figured out how we can maybe solve our problems."

Shebang put up a finger. "That's a pretty big 'maybe', hon. Also, it was basically all your idea."

Brian heard the bit she didn't say, loud and clear. So if it goes wrong, it's not my fault.

"Well, don't keep us all in suspense," Assault prompted. "What's the solution?"

Riley took a deep breath. "You might not be a fan of this, but here goes. Memory loss. We drop the loop, then we immediately revert his memories back to just before he went in. If he's got no memories of being tortured, he's not insane. If he's not insane, he's not under stress. If he's not under stress, he's got no reason to trigger. Then all I have to do is save his life—which, to be honest, Clock here could manage with a staple gun and half a dozen Band-Aids—and we're home and dry, yeah?"

Clockblocker held up his hand. "You're right. Not a fan. But … I can't really see another way to do it?" He drew the statement out like a question, as though hoping someone else would point out an alternative solution.

"It is an interesting concept," Chevalier observed neutrally. "How exactly were you going to revert his memories in a way that wouldn't cause additional stress?"

Riley grinned and pointed Shebang's way with two finger-guns. "Plan A is for our bomb-guru here to make two bombs, linked. The first bomb drops the loop. The second bomb absorbs the temporal energy from the loop and pops off in our victim's face, reverting everything in the area to what it was on whatever date he got Gray-Boy'd. We'd have to find that out, of course."

"I don't even know if that'll work, just saying," Shebang supplied. "Theoretically, it should. But there's a huge gap between 'theoretically' and 'reality'."

Assault rubbed his chin. "If you have a Plan A, then you have at least a Plan B. What's Plan B? Clockblocker lurking behind him with a big hammer?"

"No, that's plan Z." Riley said it so seriously that Brian was almost taken in for a second. "Plan B is that the second bomb hits him with an infused dose of stuff I can make that … um." She glanced around at everyone, still looking at her with interest, then went on. "That kind of causes a moderate amount of retrograde amnesia. Instant uptake, instant effect."

Clockblocker looked around at the group. "Am I the only one who doesn't know what retrograde amnesia is?"

"I don't," confessed Shebang.

"Likewise," said Assault.

Trooper Ballinger cleared his throat. "Isn't it loss of the memories from before whatever happened to you?"

"Holy shit!" blurted Clockblocker. "He speaks!" He turned to Ballinger. "Seriously, I was half wondering if you were a robot that Shebang made."

"I make bombs, doofus, not robots." Shebang rolled her eyes. "Trooper Ballinger is a perfectly nice man who volunteered to carry my cases for me."

Assault cleared his throat. "Trooper, on behalf of my Wards, I apologise for the rudeness. Especially considering that you knew more about what Miss Medic was referring to than half of us did."

Ballinger nodded. "I appreciate it, sir, but it's not a problem."

"Was there a Plan C?" asked Chevalier.

Riley nodded. "Yes, sir. Instead of a second bomb, Clockblocker freezes him and I apply the stuff as a topical ointment. Skin uptake isn't as fast as bomb infusion, so there's a chance he'll still trigger before it takes effect. And Plan D is … well, we call up Atropos and ask her to help out by killing his powers before he can do anything drastic, then we keep him sedated until we can deal with his mental problems."

"Hmm." Chevalier seemed to be thinking hard. "Let's leave any plans that involve calling on Atropos as extreme backup plans, shall we? For now … Shebang, for Plan A, what's the projected range on that time-reversion bomb, and do you need extra equipment to put it together?"

"Anything from fifteen feet to fifty feet, and I'll need to get some readings first." Shebang turned to Trooper Ballinger, and pointed. "I need that case, please."

"Ma'am." He picked up the left-hand case and hefted it forward a few feet, then stepped back.

"Thank you." Unsnapping the catches, she opened it to reveal a bewildering array of electronics, with an air of being slightly off that Brian was learning to recognise was a trademark of Tinker tech. He'd seen it in Kid Win's work as well as Armsmaster's, but Shebang's was even more obvious. Whether it was because she was newer or she just didn't care enough to try to make her stuff look more normal, he had no idea.

Sliding an instrument out of its niche, she began running it over the exterior of the bubble that enclosed the Gray Boy loop. Within, the hapless victim went through his endless cycle of being eviscerated, falling, resetting, stabbed, falling, over and over again. Brian didn't like it, but he'd seen worse as Grue, and he suspected he would again.

"Well, okay then." Shebang was focusing on the readouts to the point that Brian suspected she'd forgotten there was a man in there. "Gotta say, Clock, this is a lot easier than trying to get data out of your stupid rubber ball." She shut off the scanner while Brian was still trying to make sense of that, then turned to face Chevalier. "I've got good news and bad news, sir."

"Bad news first," he said promptly. "Is this even possible to do?"

"Oh, sure, it's possible." She tried a nonchalant twirl with her scanner, and it slipped out of her grasp, but Brian whipped out his hand and snagged it before it could drop all the way to the floor of the alley. "Shit! Um, wow, those are some crazy-ass reflexes you've got there."

"If you ever met my sister, you'd know why." He waited until he was sure she had a good grip on it before letting it go. The last thing he wanted was for her to have to go back to New York to build another scanner. "So, you were saying?"

"Oh, yeah." She took a deep breath. "It's totally doable. Buuuttttt … I just don't have the parts I need for the second bomb. Good news, I can build it, and I'm pretty sure I can make it work. I just need some stuff first."

"What do you need, and do you have it back in New York?" asked Chevalier.

"A bunch of rare earths," she admitted. "And no, I don't. So I'm gonna have to requisition it through Legend and Director Piggot. On the upside, once I've got it, I'm reasonably sure I can bust our buddy right out of grayscale world, and rewind his memory to day dot." She tucked the scanner back into the case and dusted her hands off, looking pleased with herself.

"So … we're not popping the cork today?" asked Clockblocker.

Brian shrugged. "It appears not."

"Understood." Chevalier nodded once, curtly. "Well, then. Let's get you back home, so you can work on that. Well done, by the way. Any progress is better than no progress at all."

As they filed out of the alleyway, Brian could feel the man's eyes on the back of his neck, but he didn't look back.

We'll get you out of there, buddy. Just not today.

<><>​

Taylor

On my feet at last, I stretched and flexed my arms and legs. Already, I could feel my power retuning my newly rebuilt muscles to optimum fitness levels. "Well, that's definitely an improvement," I decided. "When I got here, I didn't have a leg to stand on."

Amy face-palmed, and Vicky groaned. "Wow, really?" Vicky groused. "Bad jokes, at a time like this?"

"Hey, there's always time for bad jokes." I tugged on what remained of my left sleeve and it came away, then I picked up the teleport module and slid it onto my arm. "It's amazing how many people underestimate you if you make a cheesy pun at the right moment."

"Now I know why you and Mouse Protector get along so well," Amy snarked. She nodded at the teleporter as I settled it into place. "Where did you get it from, anyway? I've seen a bit of Tinker tech before, but nothing as good as that."

"Leet, actually." Flicking up the cover, I tapped in the coordinates for my bedroom at home. "I had a word with him, my power had a word with his power, and what do you know, tech that doesn't blow up if you look at it wrong."

Vicky frowned. "What do you mean, your power had a word with his power? Powers don't talk to each other."

"Trump powers do," I corrected her. "Also, Jack Slash's power was built to talk to other powers. It was how he managed to stay around for so long. Any time a cape went after him, it was feeding him information under the table."

Amy nodded. "Yeah, I remember how you talked about what a cheating asshole he was."

"He was all of that. And when my power has a word with someone else's power, that power knows not to screw me over." I flipped the cover down again. "Need a hand cleaning up?"

"Pfft, nah." She waved her hand casually. "I got this. You're good at killing things, but I'm amazing at dealing with biological messes."

"Okay, yeah, point." I raised my (newly regrown) finger to get her attention, and Vicky's as well. "Before I go, there's two things I want to say. First, thank you both for being good sports. I truly appreciate it. And second, just remember that jumping straight to killing isn't the solution to dealing with villains. Not for you, anyway."

Vicky blinked. "Okay, I wasn't about to go out and start murdering villains, but isn't that a teensy bit hypocritical of you? You started offing people from the get-go. You've blown up warehouses and boats, and set fire to eighteen-wheelers. And I'm never going to forget what you did to Lung and Skidmark."

"All of that is true," I admitted. "Except for the hypocrisy bit. See, my power is basically called Ending. Its entire purpose is killing things: people, ideas, intentions, threats. It tells me who needs to die in order to End a problem, how to End them, and how to do it in order to get the reaction I want. But the result I want needs to involve Ending something. I can't just say, 'I want', and get it."

"And what you want is …?" Vicky prompted.

"Don't you read PHO at all?" Amy chided her. "She wants what we want. A safer and nicer Brockton Bay."

I clicked my tongue and made a finger-gun at her. "Got it in one."

Vicky nodded, her expression thoughtful. "Understood. Well, thanks for trusting us. Trusting me."

"Thanks for being trustworthy. Welp, my ride's here." I turned as the shadowy portal formed in mid-air. Giving both girls a nod, I stepped into it, emerging in my own bedroom.

Tattered costume and all, I pirouetted on my toes and fell backward onto the bed, letting out a huge sigh.

"Well," I informed the ceiling. "That was a day."



End of Part Ninety

 

[Ack]

A Darker Path

Part Ninety-One: Asking the Important Questions

[A/N: This chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]

■​

Welcome to the Parahumans Online message boards.
You are currently logged in, Director_Piggot_PRT_Dept01
You are viewing:
• Threads you have replied to
• AND Threads that have new replies
• OR private message conversations with new replies
• Thread OP is displayed.
• Ten posts per page
• Last ten messages in private message history.
• Threads and private messages are ordered chronologically.

■​

♦ Topic: A New Warning Delivered
In: Boards ► Brockton Bay ► New Capes ► Atropos
Atropos (Original Poster) (Banned) (You Wish) (UnVerified Cape) (Can Actually Kill Anything) (Yes, Really) (Watch Me) (Verified Dethpicable)
Posted On Mar 15th 2011:

Hello again to my favorite city, and the wonderful people therein!

I hope you're having an awesome week. Mine's looking up; I had a little bit of a rough patch yesterday, but I made two new friends, so that's always a good thing.

So anyway, for those who have read the title of this post, you must be wondering exactly who did the stupid and got my attention.

That person is Sleeper.

He's not very sociable, but that's okay. It takes all kinds. In his case, he was looking to go someplace populous and kill a lot of people, if by accident.

For reasons of my own, I'm reluctant to let that happen, so I had to go in and give him a warning not to. It wasn't the easiest thing in the world, but I got in through his storm (mostly in one piece) and delivered it to his hand. At midnight local time, even, because traditions are fun.

Yes, I could've just ganked him, but I've said everyone gets a warning, so he got a warning.

What happens next is up to him. Either he loses his powers, allows me to shunt him to an unoccupied alternate Earth where he can devastate the landscape to his heart's content, or I put Sleeper to sleep, permanently.

I gave him twenty-four hours to think about it. We'll see how it goes then.

Toodles!

(Showing page 1 of 276)

►Bagrat (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
Replied On Mar 15th 2011:
Well, dang.
Okay, this is going to need some unpacking, because apparently Atropos is too modest to claim credit for stopping the first potential interdimensional war.
Where do I start?
About a week and a half ago, a cape dictator calling herself Goddess (pretentious? Never!) on an alternate Earth with the designation of Shin decided she needed outside help to quash the multiple resistance movements pushing back against her Benevolent Rule (yes, this is sarcasm).
So, not being from Brockton Bay, she decided that the best possible way to pull this off was to kidnap not only Atropos (a career ending move if I ever heard of one) but also to grab a few hostages on top of that (one of whom was our very own Miss Medic). Held in remote locations, they were Goddess' guarantee that Atropos wouldn't go all murder-happy on her and her Court.
This did not go well.
See, Atropos saw her coming. (Goddess' real name was Bianca. The day before all this kicked off, in Atropos' PHO post, she literally inserted the phrase "Be informed: a new city arises", which spells out BIANCA if you go back and look at it (I facepalmed so hard when someone told me.))
With her usual combination of audacity and sneakery, she managed to make it look like she was slaughtering her way through the resistance guys, while in fact she was doing the exact opposite. End result: Goddess lost her powers, the resistance forces took the palace, and Atropos got the hostages home safely. RIP Goddess.
Since then, Shin has since opened trade relations with Bet, via a portal that apparently exists somewhere.
Anyway, Sleeper started moving very recently, and it was determined he was heading for this portal. If he'd gotten through it, the loss of life would've been catastrophic, and apparently Atropos feels some level of responsibility for Bet-Shin relations, so she took it on herself to deliver him the warning she talked about.
*How* she did it, I'm not entirely sure, because his 'storm' (as good a word as any) is pretty well destructive to anything that's not actually the ground, but she got in and out again alive, so I'm not arguing.
All I can say is, damn. That's some serious dedication to doing the right thing.
Sleeper, if you have internet access, here's my two cents. Do what she says. Seriously.

►Atropos (Original Poster) (Banned) (You Wish) (UnVerified Cape) (Can Actually Kill Anything) (Yes, Really) (Watch Me) (Verified Dethpicable)
Replied On Mar 15th 2011:
(sigh)
Okay, fine, that happened. I did that. The governments of Shin are transitioning as we speak, to a vaguely democratic model where cape and non-cape alike get a fair shake, following my specific recommendation not to have a backlash against capes in general.
Sleeper's incursion would've set all that back, and I'm not a fan of wasted effort. Thus, the warning.

►Reave (Verified PRT Agent)
Replied On Mar 15th 2011:
I can confirm that Miss Medic and a friend were abducted from her home on the fifth, and returned within a few hours, unscathed. The third hostage was equally unharmed, according to them.
Representatives of Earth Shin have opened diplomatic negotiations, which include trade agreements.
Sleeper has also been reported to be on the move.
The PRT wishes to thank Atropos for saving Miss Medic, and her timely response to this crisis.

►Malarkey
Replied On Mar 15th 2011:
Huh, so Aleph isn't the only alternate out there. Good to know.
Anyway.
'Swhat happens when you break one of the Rules.
Goddess broke Rule 3. She thought she had brought Atropos to her choice of battlefield, and found the landmine she had already prepared.

►GrinningCat
Replied On Mar 15th 2011:
Heh whelp I know that the Darwin Awards committe declared death by Atropos as off limits for nominations of awards but I bet earth shin will be forming its own Darwin academy from the sheer stupidity goddess showed there Rest in Pieces moron.

►UnconcernedFox
Replied On Mar 15th 2011:
*peers suspiciously at Sleeper*
*settles back and grabs more popcorn*
*not over yet*

►MissMedic (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)
Replied On Mar 15th 2011:
I've checked and I am allowed to say that yes, I was there, and yes, it went down basically like Bagrat says.
It was kinda scary, and I don't really want to talk about it, but Atropos totally got us all home safely.

►WingsOnHigh (Verified Not the Simurgh)
Replied On Mar 15th 2011:
Reading between the lines, I'm a little concerned about some of the phrasing there. 'A little bit of a rough patch', 'wasn't the easiest thing in the world', 'mostly in one piece'.
Should we be worried?

►Atropos (Original Poster) (Banned) (You Wish) (UnVerified Cape) (Can Actually Kill Anything) (Yes, Really) (Watch Me) (Verified Dethpicable)
Replied On Mar 15th 2011:
Meh, it's nothing I couldn't walk off, with a little help from my friends.
​

End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 274, 275, 276

■​

PRIVATE MESSAGE
To: Atropos
From: Reave
Subject: Just checking

Are you actually okay? Sleeper is no joke.

■​

PRIVATE MESSAGE
To: Reave
From: Atropos
Subject: Re: Just checking

And nobody's laughing.
It got a little hairy there for a while, but I came out of it okay.
Thanks for asking. I appreciate it.

■

<><>​

Audrey Howell
Former Vice Principal, Arcadia High

Winslow High School looked less than appealing as Audrey drove into the parking lot, but that was only to be expected. Arcadia set a very high bar. Still, someone was making a belated effort, as attested to by the parts of the frontage that had been pressure-washed, probably to get rid of graffiti.

I still don't know why I agreed to this, she told herself, but that wasn't strictly true. She'd been working with Vernon for seventeen years at Arcadia, and considered him to be more like a brother than a boss. So when he'd asked her to take over at Winslow for the duration, at least until the beginning of the next school year when the Board could appoint new staff, she'd found it hard to say no.

It was going to be one hell of a wrench, and a steep learning curve, she knew that much. Winslow had a distinctly shabby reputation; 'gang-infested' was a phrase she'd heard more than once. She could only hope the junior recruits at Winslow had gotten the memo that the gangs were gone from Brockton Bay.

Parking her car, she retrieved her shoulder-bag and got out, then made sure to lock the vehicle. How much good this would actually do, she wasn't sure, but it was worth a try. Checking herself out in the side mirror—hair tied back professionally, business attire, floral scarf around her neck for a touch of colour—she nodded in satisfaction. She wasn't quite sure what headspace the kids would be in after the principal and one of the teachers were escorted out by police, but they probably wouldn't react well to a total martinet walking in the front door.

As she climbed the front steps of the school, she could see many subtle (and not so subtle) clues indicating a long-standing lack of maintenance on the building and its surroundings. She couldn't do much about them, or about the sidelong glances from the students also coming in, but she took note and kept moving. As the outsider here, she was the one who was going to have to prove herself to the teachers and the student body.

She hadn't been able to get away from Arcadia until today, so Winslow had been without a principal for a week. The Board had sent an interim administrator in on a strictly temporary basis; he'd kept the cogs turning, delegating where he could and signing what had to be signed. Audrey was the one who was going to have to actually do the job rather than just hide in the office and kick the can down the road.

As she stepped in through the main doors, she was faced with a mass of students, every single one of whom (it seemed) were looking directly at her, dissecting her with their eyes. To her relief, she didn't see any gang colours, but one or two heads had remarkably short haircuts, and the atmosphere held more than a hint of sullen animosity, all aimed at her. She got the impression that Blackwell had done nothing whatsoever to endear herself to the students, and this had poisoned the well for her successors going forward.

And then a girl stepped out of the crowd; tall, neatly dressed, with long dark hair and glasses. Moving confidently, she went straight up to Audrey and held out her hand. "Hi," she said briskly. "You'd be Mrs Howell, our new principal? It's good to meet you."

Reflexively, Audrey shook it. "Yes, yes, I am," she replied. "It's nice to be here." Her brain finally caught up with her mouth at that point. "I'm sorry, but who are you?"

"Oh, I'm Taylor Hebert, but that's not important." Taylor smiled, her manner somehow giving the lie to her casual tone. "I just wanted to welcome you to Winslow, and wish you good luck in managing this madhouse." She added a chuckle that sounded so natural Audrey found herself smiling in response.

"Well, thank you, Taylor. I appreciate the sentiment." She made a mental note to look up Ms Hebert's file as soon as she got the chance; if this girl wasn't already student body president, the position was going wanting.

"That's okay." Taylor stepped aside to let her pass. "I have to get to home room now. You have a good day."

"You, too." Audrey moved onward; it took her a few moments to realise that the entire attitude of the hallway full of students had shifted. Where before there had been subtle sneers and scowls, people were now clearing the way for her and offering nods of respect. A few even murmured a greeting as she passed by.

What on earth is going on here? She'd done nothing that she could see to have engendered such a change. A brief glance backward assured her that there were no hulking students looming behind her to require such deference. On she went, trying her best to pretend this was how she was always treated in a new school.

It was only when she'd passed by all the students and was in an empty hallway that the question occurred to her: how did Ms Hebert know my name? I'm pretty sure there's been no announcement yet. It was just another mystery to add to the pile.

When she got to the principal's office—her office—she didn't bother knocking. The interim administrator looked up as she opened the door and entered. "Can I help you?" He was balding and overweight, almost a parody of the classic idea of a school principal.

"I believe so." She gave him a brief smile. "I'm Audrey Howell, the new principal. You would be Derek Simons?"

"That's me." He popped to his feet more quickly than she would have expected for someone of his apparently sedentary nature. "I wasn't expecting you for another couple of hours. What do you need?"

She took a deep breath. "I need you to fill me in on everything. Issues you're dealing with right now. Any discipline problems with the students. Where everything is in this office. Any maintenance problems you've found. Everything."

As the eager light died from his eyes, she realised he'd thought he was going to be just walking out the door the moment she walked in. Oh, hon. Not hardly.

"Um … okay, I've got a folder here …" He pulled open a drawer.

"Good, but before we get started on that, can you answer me a question?"

He looked up from the folder. "What?"

"When you're walking the halls, how do the students treat you?"

The grimace told her everything. "They look at me like I'm shit on the bottom of their shoe. Why?"

"Oh, no reason."

As he opened the folder, and started showing her what he had, she paid attention. But at the back of her mind, the question had been asked.

What the heck happened back there?

<><>​

Cauldron Base

Legend

"Did you know?"

Keith looked up from his morning croissant as Rebecca stalked into the break room, staring daggers at Contessa.

Contessa finished pouring her coffee, put it down then turned to Rebecca with cup in hand. "About Miss Medic? Yes."

Keith's head came up; he knew what this was about, and he was still working out his stance on the matter. Despite his new knowledge about the girl, he still liked her. She was a delight to talk to, and dedicated to her role. He'd heard that everyone upped their game when she was around, so as not to disappoint her.

"What about Miss Medic?" Doctor Mother put down her herbal tea and looked from one to the other. "Don't keep us in suspense, here."

Rebecca sighed in aggravation and massaged her brow with her fingers and thumb; Keith suspected the pressure being generated would have crushed steel. "She's Bonesaw. Or she used to be. Atropos pulled some bullshit I'm still trying to get to the bottom of, had Panacea give her a total physical and mental makeover, then got Dragon to assist in getting the girl inserted into the Wards program."

Across the other side of the table, Kurt let out a bark of laughter. "Oh, yeah. That girl's got style."

Rebecca glared at him. "Shut up. Not helping."

"Bonesaw." Doctor Mother stared at her. "Are you certain?"

Keith understood where she was coming from. Between age, height, weight, facial shape, body type and ethnic phenotype, Bonesaw and Miss Medic had absolutely nothing in common. Both were preteen girls, and that was it.

"Chevalier got a look at her with his power yesterday." Rebecca let out a gusty sigh. "He said she had the purest of intentions. She wants to help people. But …"

"But she's still Bonesaw," Doctor Mother said. "What the hell? Why are we even letting this go on? For all we know, the girl will snap back tomorrow and start murdering people all over again."

"No, she won't." Kurt shook his head. "I've seen how Atropos works. She's there before a problem can become unfixable, and she knows how to fix it. If she's not keeping tabs on Miss Medic, I'll clean every corridor in this place with my tongue."

"But still …" Doctor Mother shook her head. "We should do something."

"No. We shouldn't." Contessa sipped at her coffee. "As Number Man said, Miss Medic is under her eye, and under her protection. Interfering would only draw her attention, and her ire. I have no desire to do either."

"Exactly. And she is helping people." Keith eyed Contessa carefully. "Is this why you didn't tell us earlier?"

She raised one perfect eyebrow. "Would it have helped?"

"Maybe!" Rebecca crooked her fingers as though she was looking for someone to strangle. "Not letting me get blindsided by it could've been useful!"

Doctor Mother looked at Contessa and then back to Rebecca. "So, we're not going to do anything about the Slaughterhouse Nine member who's now part of the Wards, because another serial killer put her there?"

Despite how bad it sounded when she said it like that, Keith shook his head. "No. Because Atropos isn't just 'another serial killer'. As you may recall, her kill count includes the rest of the Nine, Butcher and the Teeth, most of the Machine Army, the Three Blasphemies, the Simurgh, and apparently the other two Endbringers. Now, she's set her sights on Scion. I'm willing to excuse a lot of dead villains for that."

"And don't even try to claim the moral high ground on this one." Kurt still sounded rather amused. "We've done far worse, with less in the way of results, and you know it. Hell, I used to be one of the Nine."

"But … but …" Doctor Mother sounded frustrated, while at the same time unable to muster a coherent argument. "That's different!"

"Different how, exactly?" Keith challenged her. He respected her for her part in forming Cauldron, but her tendency toward double standards didn't sit well with him.

"It's … I … we …" She stared at him, baffled.

"The phrase you're looking for is 'it's different for us, because we're the good guys'," Kurt said helpfully. "But that's bullshit. We've hurt innocents. She hasn't. In fact, she's helped a few of the people we hurt. And the fact that Dragon willingly assisted her in this means that Atropos has done something we never managed; or rather, never bothered trying to do. Got her out from under Saint's thumb. Who, exactly, is the good guy here again?"

Contessa cleared her throat. "I didn't tell anyone about Miss Medic," she explained, "so that by the time you did find out, she would be established, having already proven herself as a competent and willing healer. Had I mentioned it when she first showed up, you would've been watching her like a hawk for the slightest excuse to swoop in and grab her up. This would probably have irritated Atropos. We want to avoid that."

Amen, thought Keith. Pissing off the girl who had taken down the Simurgh with a sawn-off shotgun was not something he wanted to contemplate.

Doctor Mother turned her glare toward Contessa. "I thought you disliked Atropos. Since when do we use 'Atropos might get upset with us' as a reason not to do something?"

"Whether I like her or not is immaterial." Unperturbed, Contessa sipped her coffee again. "I've tried to influence her twice now, and each time she was waiting for me. Neither experience was pleasant. From the evidence to date, not irritating Atropos seems an excellent way to not have her peer over your shoulder and ask you what the hell you think you're doing."

Kurt nodded toward Doctor Mother. "And just remember, she's said that if she ever has to confront you, she will shoot you in the face, on general principles."

From the sour expression on her face, she hadn't forgotten.

"Okay, fine," Rebecca conceded. "I get why you did it that way. Still not happy. But moving on, has anyone heard anything new about Atropos with regards to Sleeper?"

"Yes, actually," Keith said. "She posted at midnight on PHO. Apparently, she went in there to serve him with a cease and desist. There are hints she may have been injured in the process, but she also said she 'walked it off' with the help of her friends."

Kurt facepalmed at that, but he was also chuckling. "Only goddamn Atropos."

<><>​

Taylor

Cherie looked around at the Winslow auditorium and wrinkled her nose. "Doesn't really compare to the Arcadia one, does it? How often do you have school assemblies like this?"

"Maybe two or three times a year," I said honestly. In the back of my mind, I was keeping track of how Cauldron registered on my threatscape. Despite the fact that Doctor Mother still hated my guts, there were no plans to act against me (or Riley, Amy, or Dragon). Which suited me right down to the ground.

"Not totally surprising," she snarked. "Hey, isn't that the new principal you shook hands with before?"

"It is," I agreed as Mrs Howell stepped up to the microphone and tapped it. She and Blackwell both had bleached blonde hair, but that was about as far as it went with resemblance. Everyone quieted down—word had spread that I'd wished her well—and prepared to listen to what she had to say. I knew damn well any hecklers would be suppressed without me needing to do or say anything.

"Good morning," she said, the aged speakers amplifying her voice with only a little in the way of crackling. "As you are probably aware, Principal Blackwell was escorted out by police before first period exactly one week ago, due to severe irregularities in the way she was running this school. I'm Mrs Howell, your new principal. I do not intend to repeat her mistakes. As such, if anyone is suffering from bullying or other antisocial behaviour, bring it to me. I will listen, and I will act. We didn't tolerate that in Arcadia, and I will not tolerate it here."

She paused to allow the murmur of comments to pass through the audience. Most of the students were cynical, having heard far too many of these promises before, but Cherie nodded slightly. "She means it," she murmured.

I smiled slightly. "I know." If Mrs Howell had been principal when I'd started at Winslow, things may have turned out quite differently for me. But, spilt milk and all that.

"In addition, as you know, Spring Break is coming up next week. You will need to remove all belongings from lockers, and leave nothing in the school. This is because starting on Friday afternoon, the Brockton Bay Betterment Committee will be renovating the entire school from top to bottom. We're getting all new equipment, all new facilities. The last workers will be walking out on Monday morning as we're coming in."

There was stunned silence for a moment, then a roar of approval. We'd all seen how the Betterment Committee workers replaced entire streets overnight, or pulled down buildings and put up better ones in just days. I'd known this was coming, but the idea of Winslow being revamped in this way still gave me a little thrill. I did this. This is me.

Mrs Howell beamed at us all. "I'm glad to hear that you approve. Now, I'll let you get back to home room and enjoy the rest of your day. Thank you all for listening."

The applause started as she stepped down off the podium, and didn't cease until after she'd left by the rear door of the auditorium. As we began to disperse back to our classrooms, I knew that only part of it had been due to my earlier gesture of welcoming her. Most of the response was genuine, actually accepting her as their principal.

Good. It was about time the place had someone in charge who actually wanted to do their job.

<><>

■​

PRIVATE MESSAGE
To: Director_Renick_PRT_ENE
From: Atropos
Subject: Regarding Miss Medic

Hi. Imma need to borrow her (and Tenebrae, of course) this afternoon to close the deal with Sleeper. I'll be around about three-thirty-ish, with Panacea and Glory Girl.

■​

PRIVATE MESSAGE
To: TheRealPanacea
From: Atropos
Subject: Can I borrow you?

So hey, I need to go and deal with Sleeper this afternoon, just after three. Are you up for another collab with Miss Medic? You worked together pretty well last time. And yes, if Vicky wants to come along, she's welcome.

■​

PRIVATE MESSAGE
To: Atropos
From: Director_Renick_PRT_ENE
Subject: Re: Regarding Miss Medic

I'll have them both in my office at that time.
Thanks for the heads-up, and thanks for dealing with Sleeper.
May I ask what he's going to choose?

■​

PRIVATE MESSAGE
To: Atropos
From: TheRealPanacea
Subject: Re: Can I borrow you?

You already know I'm going to say yes. Vicky's shaking her head in the background, but I know she's going to want to come along anyway.
See you then.

■​

PRIVATE MESSAGE
To: Director_Renick_PRT_ENE
From: Atropos
Subject: Re: Re: Regarding Miss Medic

That would be telling.
Thanks for this.

Toodles!

■​

End of Part Ninety-One

 

[Ack]

A Darker Path

Part Ninety-Two: Sharing Secrets

[A/N 1: This chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]

[A/N 2: There will be racist thought processes from a racist character. These are not shared by the author.]



PRT ENE Wards Base, 2:45 PM

Paladin

"Does Atropos ask for you to go do stuff with her very often?" asked Theo. To make it easier to talk to the others, he'd left the helmet off and put on a domino mask. The sofa was evidently constructed with armoured people in mind, because it only sagged a little more than normal under him. "As opposed to rescuing us when we're kidnapped, I mean."

"Not a lot," admitted Riley. "There was the Damsel of Distress thing. Brian came along on that one, and so did Panacea and Flechette. Oh, and the Travellers thing, too."

"She didn't take you along that time," Brian reminded her. "She asked you to do it because she was busy doing something else."

"But it was still something she needed me to do." Riley gave Brian a defiant look, daring him to contradict her.

"Are you worried that she's going to put Riley in danger?" Brian asked Theo. "Because as far as I'm concerned, that's not an issue. I'm just not a fan of murder being her go-to, is all."

"Oh, it's not that." Theo shook his head. "I know it sounds stupid, but her asking for just you to come along with Riley feels a little bit like I'm second best and I don't count."

"No, no, that's not it at all." Brian put his hand on Theo's armoured shoulder. "I'm Riley's official caregiver. It's literally my job to be next to her whenever she's in public as Miss Medic. When she goes out and about with Atropos and I tag along, I'm about as much use as an outboard motor on an ocean liner, but I do it anyway because it keeps the PRT happy and Atropos doesn't care either way."

Theo blinked. "Oh. I didn't think about it that way."

Riley looked up at him keenly. "Something's still bothering you, isn't it?" Getting up from the sofa, she tilted her head toward the back of the Wards area. "Come on, let's talk."

He wasn't quite sure what was going on, but he stood up anyway, his armour's servos humming briefly. Obediently, he followed her down the corridor until they reached the room she was using to store and develop her medical gear. Standing in the doorway, she looked up at him contemplatively until he became uncomfortable. "What?" he asked. "Have I got something on my face?"

She shook her head. "No. I'm just trying to figure out how to tell you just how much I admire you, and that you shouldn't beat yourself up so much." Her tone was serious, a world away from her usual chirpy, upbeat manner, which threw him off even more than it normally would have.

"… what?" He shook his head. "Seriously, what? I'm nobody to admire. I didn't earn this armour. I didn't make it. This metal's been tainted by two generations of neo-Nazis, and I don't know if I'll ever be able to do enough to make up for the damage Kaiser and Allfather did to this city and its people."

She tilted her head to one side. "It's funny that you jumped straight to your powers when I talked about admiring you. A lot of people make that mistake about heroes, thinking their powers are why they should be looked up to."

"Okay, then," he said cautiously. "I clearly have no idea what you're talking about. Could you please enlighten me before I make an even bigger idiot out of myself than I already have?"

She giggled briefly. "Theo, the main reason I admire you is that you did something I never could have. Tell me, how old were you when you decided you didn't want to be a racist jerk like your father and his associates?"

"Um." The shift in topic put him off-guard again. "Seven or eight, I guess. I hadn't really understood things, but then I saw something on TV that made me realise that Max's policies made him the bad guy. When he found out I didn't want to be what he was, he pushed harder and harder, but I couldn't just pretend. It ended up being easier to not react."

"So, to sum up, you spent maybe seven years of your life with a bunch of racist creeps trying to push their ideology down your throat, and you held out all that time. Is that about right?" Her expression, as far as he could make it out, was sympathetic.

"I wouldn't say I 'held out'," he said weakly. "That makes me sound a lot tougher than I was. I just didn't … do what he wanted, I guess."

Riley took a deep breath. "Okay, what I'm about to tell you, nobody in this building except for Brian knows. Atropos, Panacea, and Aisha are also in the know. Plus, Dragon. That's it. Okay?" As if acting on an afterthought, she unstrapped her helmet and removed it.

"Okay …" he said uncertainly.

Before speaking, she glanced around to make sure there was nobody nearby. Instinctively, he formed his helmet over his head and looked around as well, activating the infrared scanning. There were no heat traces nearby at all. Sending the helmet away again, he gave her an encouraging nod.

She took another breath, then spoke so quietly that he had to lean in to hear her voice. "I wasn't born Riley Laborn. I was born Riley Davis, a blonde-haired white girl. And when I was six, I got powers. Not long after that, Jack Slash kicked my parents' front door in. The Slaughterhouse Nine tortured my family over and over until they broke me. I let my family die, and I went away with Jack Slash. It took one night."

He stared at her, puzzle pieces clicking together in his head with ever-increasing speed. If she was telling the truth, with her powerset, there was only one person she could be. "But that means … you're B—"

"I was," she hissed so sharply that he cut off what he was about to say. "I was her for six long years. I became her. Jack Slash wanted me to be his little pet killer, so that's what I was. But then Atropos came along, destroyed the Nine, and killed the monster in my head. Now I'm not her anymore. Panacea gave me a new face, Dragon gave me a new name, and Atropos gave me a new family."

"Jeeesus," he muttered, feeling light-headed. "I mean, okay, I believe you. And if Atropos says you're safe then you're safe. But why are you telling me this now? Do I even need to know it?"

"Well, everyone else in the apartment does, so now we're all on the same page." She put her hand on his arm. "But I didn't tell you because of that. I told you because I know better than anyone what you've been through. Sure, Jack Slash had unfair advantages, but he still broke me in one night. Your dad and his racist buddies didn't manage to break you in seven years. And that's why I admire you. You've got strength inside you that you don't even know about."

"I … what?" He shook his head, confused. "No, I don't. I'm not strong. Ask anyone. I'm a powder-puff. I'll fold at the first strong breeze. That's why I've got to have armour around me, so I can—"

Now she was laughing quietly, shaking her head. He stopped, confused.

"You're a lot of things, Theo Anders, but you're no powder-puff. And I'm guessing it was people like Hookwolf who said you're weak?"

"Well …" He'd been told it so many times that he'd basically internalised it as truth, and it was hard to pin down exactly who had said it. But among the blur of faces jeering at him from his sea of memory, the tattooed cape showed up with his characteristic sneer. "Um, yeah. Among others."

She smiled and rapped on his metal chest-plate with her knuckle, eliciting a tiny clong. "Take it from me, when people like that say you're 'weak', you should take it as a compliment. To them, an accusation of weakness is the ultimate insult, so they use it as one. You not wanting to be a violent person or a racist jerk is weak in their eyes, because to them you don't have the 'stomach' for it. People like that are incapable of seeing the strength it takes to keep saying no, instead of surrendering and becoming what they want you to be. I wasn't strong enough. You were."

Theo blinked, his head spinning. In just a few sentences, Riley—who had been Bonesaw, and wasn't that a kick in the teeth—had turned his entire worldview upside down and inside out. She'd been the worst of villains and now she was the best of heroes—thanks to Atropos—and she was telling him that she admired him for his fortitude.

It sure as hell hadn't felt like fortitude at the time. He hadn't felt like a hero. It had been nothing but a long dreary slog from one day to the next, never quite knowing what extra load Max was going to pile on him to make him 'come around' to the Empire way of seeing things.

The difference between that and his tenure so far in the Laborn household had been far beyond that of night and day. Between chained in the darkest of stygian pits and a glorious summer day strolling on the Boardwalk, maybe. They didn't try to force him down, they lifted him up and encouraged him to express himself. To be himself.

Kayden had tried to let him be a teenager and find his voice, but even she couldn't go too far without Max putting his foot down hard.

I wish she could meet them. Surely she'd change her mind about minorities if she knew how good they are to me.

Taking a deep breath, he focused on the here and now. "Okay, wow, point taken. This is all gonna need to be unpacked once we get home, but for now I'll take your word for it and think about what you've said."

Back to her normal self, she gave him a beaming smile. "That's all I ask. You're a better person than you think, really."

Theo was still trying to think of something to say to that when he spotted Brian coming toward them. "Sorry to break up whatever this is, but it's time."

"It's all good. We were about done, anyway." Riley gave Theo a serious look. "Think about what I said. I meant it."

"Right." Theo watched as she put her helmet on and fastened the strap, then hustled away along the corridor with Brian.

Well, shit. How the hell am I supposed to handle that?

<><>​

Panacea

"But Sleeper? Seriously? You saw what he did to Atropos, and neither one of us is Atropos! We shouldn't be going anywhere near him!"

Amy sighed in mild aggravation at her sister. "She wouldn't be inviting us along if it wasn't safe. Besides, every time you've found out about me going somewhere with her, you complained for days about being left out."

"I did not!"

Amy raised her eyebrows and gave Vicky a Look, copied straight off Carol at her most forceful.

"Well, okay, yeah, but only because anything could've happened to you!"

"Hah, yeah, right. Like anyone's gonna get close to me with Atropos on the lookout."

Vicky paused at that, and Amy grinned internally. She was right, and Vicky had to know she was right. In dealing with Atropos, there were three rock-solid certainties.

One: if Atropos planned on something happening, it was absolutely going to happen.

Two: if Atropos set out to End someone, they were already dead. That they were still walking around and breathing was strictly a temporary state of affairs. This was just as true for Bonesaw as it was for the Simurgh.

Three: if Atropos chose to protect someone, they were the safest person on the planet. This had been proven by Miss Medic and the other two unnamed hostages that Goddess had grabbed to keep Atropos under her thumb. Not only had Atropos Ended Goddess' powers and her reign, but she'd also brought all three hostages home, safe and sound. (It didn't hurt that she'd known it was going to happen a day before it actually did.)

On consideration, Amy added a fourth one: there were no lengths Atropos—Taylor—would not go to, in order to get things done the right way, every time. From setting up an elaborate trap to skewer Kaiser through the eye with his own stolen sword, to getting herself severely injured just so she could deliver a warning to Sleeper, she'd demonstrated that in spades, over and over again. Even down to provoking Vicky online so that she would attack Atropos on sight, thus giving Atropos a temporary hold over Amy herself, to facilitate turning Bonesaw into Miss Medic … the chain of events was inescapable.

Not that Amy resented what Taylor had done. In hindsight, her talks with the masked killer had opened up new possibilities in all directions, not even counting the fascinating adventures Atropos had taken her on. At the time she hadn't seen it that way, but since then her viewpoint had expanded somewhat.

Vicky hadn't finished, however. "So, why do you think she wants me to come along this time? There's got to be some kind of danger, or she'd probably kick me to the curb all over again."

Amy raised her eyebrows. "Do you honestly think anything out there's going to pose a danger that she can't deal with? I agree that there's probably a reason, but it's almost certainly not your ability to punch things."

"And you'd be right," Atropos commented, stepping around Vicky. Clad from head to toe in black, with just the gray vest and white shirt to break the monotony, she looked as though the previous day had never happened. "Nice to see you both. And thanks again for yesterday."

Vicky had either been waiting for something like this or she'd learned some phenomenal self-control, because she neither startled nor yelped in surprise. Though when she turned her head to look, she frowned mightily. "Okay, there's no way in hell you fixed your costume from the mess it was in when you left. We've still got pieces of it here, for crying out loud!"

"Oh, you mean my spare costume?" asked Atropos innocently. "Yeah, that one's trashed. This one here's the original." She took hold of the side of the long-coat and spread it outward. "If you look closely, you can see where the Machine Army put some laser holes through the coat while I was explaining the facts of life to them."

Peering carefully, Amy just barely made out dots of light through the black material. "Huh, holy shit, so I can."

"So why didn't you use this coat yesterday, and keep the new one?" asked Vicky. "It's totally what I would've done."

Atropos shrugged. "I like this one better."

"Exactly," Amy added. Atropos understood this sort of thing. "It's cooler this way. Like if Armsmaster left little tiny scrapes on his armour when he threw down with someone."

"But … he doesn't."

"Which is why Atropos will always be cooler than Armsmaster." Amy smirked at her sister. "As if it needed to be said."

Atropos chuckled. "As much as I value your approval, are you ready to roll?"

"Absolutely." Amy patted her jeans and tapped the toe of her sturdiest sneakers on the floor, then tugged at the jacket she was wearing. Atropos hadn't said they were going to Russia, but Amy could connect the dots as well as anyone else.

"Before we go," Vicky piped up, "if you don't need me for punching, what do you need me for?"

"Your diplomatic skills. Four seconds." Atropos snapped her fingers, and the portal appeared in the bedroom.

"What?"

"Four seconds!" Amy yelled and jumped through the portal, into what turned out to be the Director's office in the PRT building. Atropos followed close behind, then about half a second later Vicky zoomed through, feet off the ground. The portal closed soundlessly behind her.

Director Renick looked around from where he was speaking to Tenebrae and Miss Medic. "Ah, there she is now."

<><>​

Five Minutes Earlier

Tenebrae

"So, what was that about with Paladin?" Brian was pretty sure they weren't being bugged in the elevator, and the PRT knew Theo's secret identity anyway, but it was a good habit to maintain.

"I'll tell you when we get home." Riley was even more close-mouthed than he was about things like that. This wasn't entirely unexpected, seeing how she'd been a cape for years longer than him.

They stepped out of the elevator and headed down the corridor toward Director Renick's office. Brian considered him to be a fair man, not as bloody-minded as Piggot, but that wasn't entirely unexpected, considering her history and the way Brockton Bay had been heading before Atropos stepped in. While Renick definitely would've been out of his depth in the pre-Atropos era, these days the city was downright peaceful. Prosperity was a new and bizarre look for Brockton Bay, but a welcome one.

He paused and knocked on the office door, then opened it when he heard the "Come in," from within. Stepping aside, he allowed Riley to enter first out of basic courtesy (he didn't think she'd follow Aisha's advice of kicking him in the shins if he didn't, but one never knew) then followed her in.

"Good afternoon, sir," he said. "How are you today?"

"Ah, Tenebrae, Miss Medic." The Director stood up and came around the desk to shake both their hands. "It's been a good day. The only surprise was when Atropos messaged me to ask if she could borrow your services. I had no reason to deny her request, and several compelling ones to do as she asked." He looked at Riley. "I understand you gave Emily an examination while you were in New York. May I ask how the prognosis for that is going?"

Riley bounced a little on her toes. "Really good. Like I told her, putting in new kidneys wouldn't be any trouble at all. Same with her calf muscles. I've got the tissues cloning right now. It should actually be ready to go by the time Shebang finishes sourcing those rare earths she wanted for her reverse-time bomb."

"Excellent, excellent." The Director went back around his desk and sat down. "And do you think the dual-bomb concept will work?"

Riley spread her hands. "Well, my power really doesn't mesh much with hers, so I can't say for sure. But the idea's sound, and she managed to nullify Clockblocker's freeze effect, so she's actually pretty good at what she does. I'd give it a really strong 'probably'."

Director Renick chuckled. "I've been working in this building for more years than I want to count, and that's the clearest explanation of a Tinker's work that I've heard yet. By this point they're starting to veer off into their own personalised jargon, and it's already well over my head and gaining altitude."

"Yeah, well," said Brian, "I never ask any Tinker questions about their stuff or their work. I do my thing and they do their thing, and never the twain shall meet."

"That's probably for the best," agreed Renick. "I—wait."

He broke off as the smoky gray portal appeared at the far side of the office. For a second or so, nothing happened, then Panacea burst through, followed by Atropos. Just a fraction before Brian's personal countdown of four seconds ended, Glory Girl zipped through, hovering in midair as the portal closed behind her.

"Ah," said the Director. "There she is now." He came around his desk again. "Good afternoon, ladies. Panacea, I know you've met Miss Medic and Tenebrae. Have you, Glory Girl?"

"Don't think so." Glory Girl stepped forward, her hand out. "Hi, I'm Panacea's punchier sister. It's good to meet my sister's other teammates, I guess."

Brian knew he should be just rolling with it, but the memory flashed across his mind of Glory Girl's face contorted with anger as she repeatedly tried to attack Atropos in the park. Atropos had had the whole situation entirely under control, he knew that, but she'd still been reckless as fuck, and she'd seriously endangered Aisha's life and well-being, just so she could play at being a hero. His jaw set as he spoke the mildest phrase that was boiling through his head right then. "We've met."

"Oh, okay." She paused, taking in his attitude and frowning. "Did I diss you at a meet and greet or something? Look, if I did that, I'm totally sorry. Things can get pretty hectic—"

"Not at a meet and greet. Westlake Park." His eyes bored into hers. "You destroyed a picnic table. Ring any bells?"

"Whoa, hey." Panacea had evidently twigged to what he was talking about. "We do not need to get into any of that. You've got a secret identity to protect."

From the way Glory Girl's face paled, she remembered all too well. "Shit. That was you?" Her gaze dropped to Riley. "And the girl—"

"Was not Miss Medic." He shook his head, then looked at Panacea. "Thanks, but I think it's safe with you two. Am I right?"

"Oh, you're absolutely right." Panacea elbowed her sister. "Go on, Vicky. Apologise to the man. He's totally earned it."

Glory Girl nodded. "Yeah, that's true, you have. And so's the other girl. I was an idiot, and I'm sorry for going off half-cocked like that. I've been really working at cleaning up my act since then." She paused, then corrected herself. "Since tall, dark and scary there wiped out the Nine. That was a wake-up call like no other, and I've been doing my best to listen to it."

"Tall, dark and scary," mused Atropos. "I kinda like that."

Riley giggled. "Nah, doesn't suit you at all."

Atropos snorted, then pointed a finger at her. "You have been spending far too much time with your cousin. Keep it up. I approve." She then turned to look at Brian. "Okay, you have your apology. Are you good now?"

Brian looked at Glory Girl for a moment longer to consider it, then held out his hand. Without any hesitation, she gave it a firm shake. He nodded. "I'm good now."

"Excellent." Atropos dusted her hands off. "So, we're going to come out in the middle of the night, in the countryside. It's going to be dark, and cold. Then we'll be doing some walking." She evidently took in Panacea's rugged clothing, and nodded approvingly. "It looks like someone thought ahead."

Panacea shrugged awkwardly, apparently not used to praise. "What can I say? Associating with you has been an exercise in expecting the unexpected. I've been trying to learn how to think on my feet."

"Excuse me, not wanting to be That Girl, but why do we need to do some walking?" asked Glory Girl. "Can't you put us right where we need to go?"

"I am." Atropos was not at all fazed by the question. "Where we need to go is a couple of minutes' walking distance from our final location. You'll see when we get there."

Panacea turned to look at her sister. "Oh, and one thing. When Atropos says 'four seconds', she doesn't mean 'this is the time to ask me what I mean'. She means 'we have four seconds to get through the portal before it shuts'."

"Yeah, yeah, I got that," Glory Girl huffed. "What happens if someone's halfway through the portal when it shuts? Do you get spat out either end?"

"I have no idea," Atropos said, in a tone that meant 'I know exactly what happens'. "Maybe you can ask one of the Blasphemies. They might have a better idea."

Brian was initially confused, then he recalled that one of them had been decapitated while in flight, at altitude. From the look on Glory Girl's face, she made the connection at the same time. "Oh."

"Yup." Atropos held up her hand. "Me first, then Panacea, Miss Medic, Tenebrae, and Glory Girl last. Got it?"

For a reply, she got a series of nods, as every eye in the room—Renick's included—was focused on her hand.

"Good. Four seconds." Then she snapped her fingers, and the portal opened before them.

<><>​

Meanwhile, in New York

Scribe

Life was unfair, as far as Tammi was concerned. She should've been living large in Brockton Bay, with the Empire Eighty-Eight behind her and a life of luxury before her. But instead she'd had to run for her life, get caught when her two so-called partners ditched her and bolted (so much for Empire Eighty-Eight solidarity), and bullshit as hard as she could to not get sent back to juvey.

It didn't help that Miss Hardass Piggy refused to give her any semblance of the benefit of the doubt. The woman didn't let up for an instant, never actually treating her badly enough to call Youth Guard in on it (Kaiser had taught her all about the concept of 'useful idiots') but not slacking off on her either. It had been a lot easier under Wilkins, saying and doing the right things while the Director was around, letting the woman convince herself that Tammi was on the road to rehabilitation.

The people she was most annoyed with (apart from Piggy) were Flechette and Shebang. The bomb Tinker was still unsure of her place in the Wards, and Tammi was willing to put some work into making sure the slant-eye knew she was at the bottom of the totem pole, where she and all her kind belonged. Flechette still hadn't gotten that message, and Tammi kind of wished Cricket or someone like that was around to deliver it for her, because she knew for damn sure she'd get her lily-white ass handed to her in a sling if she tried.

With these thoughts running through her mind, Tammi brightened as she saw Shebang ahead of her, meandering along with her head down, tapping away on a tablet. Flechette might be damn near untouchable (in Tammi's mind, she'd just gotten lucky that Atropos picked her to go to Australia to gank the Simurgh) but Shebang was still fair game. Moving faster, Tammi came up behind the Tinker and shoulder-checked her hard enough to make her drop the tablet.

"Watch it, slope … oke," she jeered, finally pleased to have been able to use that particular insult as Shebang stumbled, her tablet clattering to the floor. With any luck, the useless bitch would've broken it and Piggy would make her pay for another one.

"Scribe!" She froze in mid-sneer as the shout came from behind her. "Not another move!"

Turning, she looked at Flechette as the taller girl—weren't Japs all supposed to be about five feet tall or something?—strode toward her, anger writ large on her face. "What?" she asked as innocently as she could manage. "She stepped in my way."

"I did not!" Shebang picked up the tablet from the ground, then gave Tammi a disgusted look. "You had the whole corridor to walk past me, and you ran straight into me."

"That's what I saw, too." Flechette's tone was implacable. "And I also heard what you said."

"What?" Tammi spread her hands. All I have to do is say I never said it. "I said she was being slow."

"You called her a slowpoke," Flechette countered. "Except you put just enough of a pause in there so you could call her a racist slur and pretend it never happened. Your problem is, I heard it."

"Prove it," challenged Tammi. "It's your word against mine."

"Um, plus the audio diary I was recording when you ran into me," Shebang added. "I wonder if Director Piggot will want to listen to that?"

"You know," mused Flechette. "I think she might."

"Fuck you both!" shouted Tammi. "You're setting things up to have me chucked back in juvey!" She turned and stormed off down the hallway. Maybe it was a good time to contact the local Youth Guard rep after all.

<><>​

Flechette

Lily watched her go, then turned to Shebang. "You okay?" she asked. "She ran into you pretty hard just then."

"I'll be fine." Shebang gave her a smile. "I appreciate the save. Are you really going to report this to the Director?"

"I will if you want me to." Lily looked at the tablet. "Were you really recording an audio diary?"

Shebang shook her head. "No, but she was never going to call me on it." She thought for a second. "She's right, you know. I didn't actually hear what she said, and it'll be your word against hers."

Lily snorted. "My word against someone with known white supremacist leanings, you mean. But we don't have to actually go and report it if you don't want to. She'll think we are, so she's gonna jump every time anyone talks to her for the next few days."

Shebang's chuckle was remarkably evil. "She'll punish herself worse than the Director would. I like it. Let's do that." She held up her hand.

Lily gave her a high-five, then looked at the tablet. "So, what are you working on? Is it that bomb for the Gray Boy loops?"

"That's the one. Do you mind if I use you as a sounding board?"

"Feel free."

They started off down the corridor. "So, I need to integrate this process here …"

<><>​

Scribe

Still fuming about the way they were totally stitching her up, Tammi dropped into her chair and hit the power button for her computer. She hadn't gotten on to it over the last few days—it wasn't like she had anyone to chat to online who wasn't part of her criminal past, and her account on PHO as Rune had been thoroughly locked—so when it finished booting up, a whole bunch of emails (mainly spam) and other alerts pinged off all at once. She considered deleting all the emails and crap, but decided to look through them just in case.

Part way through, one showed up that made her straighten in the chair. It was a PHO private message, but with a header that had to be for her.

Who the hell's pinging me?

<><>

■​

PRIVATE MESSAGE
To: Viking Script
From: Like Minded
Subject: A Change of Scenery

Good afternoon,
Would you be interested in discussing the above?
I and my friends are very good at what we do, and think you would be a good match for us.
Your thoughts on the matter?

■​

PRIVATE MESSAGE
To: Like Minded
From: Viking Script
Subject: Re: A Change of Scenery

I'm listening.

■​

End of Part Ninety-Two

 

[Ack]

A Darker Path

Part Ninety-Three: Rude Awakening

[A/N: This chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]


Relevant Side-Story (Part 1)
Relevant Side-Story (Part 2)
Relevant Side-Story (Part 3)
Relevant Side-Story (Part 4)
Relevant Side-Story (Part 5)

Glory Girl

Atropos hadn't been kidding.

It was freezing.

Vicky wasn't sure what time it was, except for 'somewhere near midnight'; heck, she wasn't even sure what time zone they were in. All she knew was that the only light was from the moon—nearly full, thank God, and almost directly overhead—and the stars.

There were a lot of stars.

Fortunately, her force field cut the effect of the wind somewhat as they followed a rough path up a hill. There were no trees nearby capable of doing it for her; those few she could make out in the moonlight had been whittled down to stubs by what she suspected was Sleeper's power. Her shiver had nothing to do with the cold. She had faith in her force field, but it could stop an attack once, as Atropos had so handily demonstrated not all that long ago.

Which reminded her of a question she'd been wondering about in the privacy of her mind. Well, no time like the present. "Hey, Atropos, just out of curiosity, how many other people have you had to pull up for doing remarkably stupid shit, and was anyone else as bad as me?"

Atropos chuckled. "Oh, honey. You aren't even in the top ten."

"What?" It was simultaneously deflating and encouraging. I'm not actually the biggest idiot in the city!

"Hah, yeah," Miss Medic piped up from beside Tenebrae. "Goddess has to be up there."

"She definitely was," agreed Atropos. "Also, Janice Templeton and Paul King."

There was a pause, during which Vicky tried to remember if she'd ever heard those names before, because they seemed to ring a bell. Just as she was concluding that she'd been mistaken, Amy spoke up. "They were in the hospital, right? Traumatic amputation and blinding?"

"That's them," agreed Atropos. "She was actively trying to divert funds from the Betterment Committee stimulus payments, and he was attempting to sabotage the drug rehab program so he could pull some of that cash into his own pockets. They were both warned, but chose not to listen. Danny Hebert asked me not to kill them, so instead I chopped off their right hands and gouged their eyes out. Haven't had a problem since."

"I can't imagine why not." Tenebrae's tone was remarkably dry.

Miss Medic snapped her fingers. "Wait, that was back in January, right? Maybe a week after I got into town. I was still finding my feet then."

Part of Vicky's mind wanted to protest that the casual maiming of two people should not be relegated to such banal conversation, but she firmly told it that she didn't want her ass kicked again, and as Atropos had just said, she could've done much, much worse to them (and to be fair, it had been anything but 'casual'). Also … "Well, okay, yeah, trying to scam money out of the Betterment Committee is about the stupidest idea I've heard yet, and I've heard some good ones."

"They were only mid-level stupid." Atropos' tone sounded like she was reminiscing now. "Surely you remember the Scrapyard plot?"

"Oh. Oh, shit." Vicky remembered it, alright. While she was now aware that Atropos was Taylor Hebert, she hadn't really made that last connection. "When they kidnapped the Hebert girl for ransom? Oh, man. How fucking stupid do you have to be?"

"Really, really stupid." Amy snorted. "Actually, wasn't there a thing when you were dealing with the Gary quarantine area, and a bunch of kid villains attacked you?"

"Bambina, Starlet and August Prince, yeah." Atropos sounded like she was rolling her eyes. "I wasn't even really counting them. Kids do idiotic things all the time, with or without powers."

Tenebrae chuckled, his voice deep and rich. "I can't help wondering what the reaction would be if you went back in time and told someone, say this time last year, what the city was like now. What sort of evidence would you have to bring along to make them believe you?"

"Never happen." As a Brockton Bay native, Vicky considered herself an authority on the subject. "It wouldn't matter what evidence you had, they just wouldn't accept it. The idea would be too far out of their wheelhouse to even get their heads around."

"Mmm." Amy sounded doubtful. "Some of it's kind of believable, with a bit of a run-up."

"Duck season," Vicky said flatly.

"Okay, yeah, good point."

By now they were walking along the crest of the hill, which was doing exactly nothing to reduce the local wind-chill effect. Vicky privately made a date with the tub, involving lots of hot water and bubble-bath. Atropos lifted her arm, vaguely visible because it was darker than everything else, and pointed.

A few hundred yards away, Vicky saw, was a small farmhouse; more importantly, light was shining out through the window. Light, she hoped, equalled warmth. This was important, because she was well on the way to becoming a spandex-clad iceblock.

"As you've probably figured out," Atropos informed them, "he's in there. Now, we're going to walk up all nice and peaceful and knock on the door. Specific things to note: one, do not touch any pieces of paper that might be lying around the place. Two, Vicky, this is when we need your 'love me' aura up and running. He's a bit twitchy, and if he's startled, it might go very badly for either him or us."

"Um …" The last thing Vicky wanted to do was say no to Atropos, but she also didn't want to lie. "I can't actually do that. Set my aura to 'friendly', I mean. It's dependent on what people think of me."

Atropos turned until she was looking directly at Vicky. "Yes," she said. "You can." In a seemingly casual motion, she slapped Vicky on the shoulder. "It's amazing what you can do when you really try."

What the hell was that? Just for a moment, Atropos' tone had given her the impression that something was zipping around inside her brain, looking for the person in charge, because if things didn't start happening soon, shit was going to get real. The sensation went away, but the memory lingered.

"Okay, wow." Miss Medic shook her head. "How did you manage all those overtones and undertones?"

"Same way I do everything else," Atropos said blithely. "With panache and style. And sometimes, the power of friendship." She started down the hill toward the farmhouse. "Remember, everyone, just play it calm. Vicky, aura."

Vicky took a deep breath of the freezing air and released her aura, concentrating on friendly … friendly … friendly …

To her surprise, it was somewhat easier than she'd expected.

<><>​

Aisha

When the key turned in the front door, Aisha stashed her textbook under a cushion (couldn't let people think she was getting all nerdy and uncool) before she popped up off the sofa. The door opened to reveal Theo in the company of Mrs Brown, though for some reason Brian and Riley weren't there. "Heyyy," she said happily. "How's my kickass brother-from-another-mother?"

"Hi, Aisha." Theo dropped his backpack beside the door and returned her hug; she wasn't really a huggy person, but Riley had started it, and he was a pretty good hugger. "I'm doing okay, how was your day?" He turned to Mrs Brown, who was standing at the doorway watching the interplay. "Oh, sorry, did you want to come in and look around?"

Mrs Brown smiled maternally. "That's fine, Theo. It all looks good from here. You're okay here, Aisha? No problems?"

Aisha figured it was safe to roll her eyes. "What, like being kidnapped by a cape with delusions of adequacy from another dimension? Nah, nothing like that. I only got home a little while ago myself."

"Yes, well, I had trouble believing it myself when I first heard about it. I'll see you on the next inspection." She gave them each a nod, then pulled the door shut as she stepped back out of the doorway.

Aisha took the time to secure the lock—they were a lot more careful about that since the Goddess incident, especially given that Theo was still under potential risk from the remnants of the Empire Eighty-Eight—then turned to him. "So, where's Bri and Ri? The Atropos thing? Did you see her? Did she say something to you?"

Theo shook his head, looking a bit distracted. "No, sorry. They went up to the Director's office to wait for her there, and I got off duty shortly after that and got a lift home with Mrs Brown."

"Then what's biting you on the ass, big guy?" Aisha lifted her hand and rapped him gently on the forehead. "Something's fucking with your head, and if it's not Atropos laying down the law, I need to know what it is so I can hunt it down and kick its ass."

"It's, ah …" Theo grimaced. "Come on, I need to do something." He led the way into the kitchenette, and turned on the faucets over the sink until they were both running strongly. Then he leaned closer to her and said quietly, "Do you think they're listening in on us, here?"

She looked at the running water and then at him, the penny finally dropping. "Surveillance? Geez, I dunno. They'd have to break a ton of laws to do it." While she didn't think they'd go that far, this was the PRT. They'd been known to bend a few laws before, if some of the comments on PHO were to be believed. "What's this about, anyway?"

"Riley." He took a deep breath. "I, um, I was feeling a bit down, so she wanted to cheer me up. She told me about where she really came from, and how she ended up with you guys." After an expectant pause, where Aisha said nothing, he took the plunge. "Right after Atropos killed off the Nine and took Bonesaw away. And just a little while later, the Brockton Bay PRT got a Ward with the exact same powerset, only with a different name, face and personality."

Aisha nodded, satisfied that he wasn't just fishing. "Yeah, that's what happened. I mean, you know her. She's Riley. Miss Medic isn't Bonesaw."

"No, that's true. She isn't." Theo heaved a massive sigh. "But when she finished telling me all about that, she said she admired me, for not breaking under Max the same way she broke under Jack. Riley told me that. Our Riley. How am I supposed to deal with that?"

She gave him a stern look. "Well, first off, I hope you're not going to be treating her any differently, now that you know. When Atropos kills someone, they stay dead, and that includes Bonesaw. Yeah?"

He nodded. "Well, yeah. She's still Riley. It's more the whole thing about someone who's been through what she has admiring someone like me. I'm not … I mean, why admire me? Does she even know how much I admire her, for going through all that and still being strong? Especially now I know what she really went through?"

"She knows you think a lot of her, sure." Aisha tilted her head. "Though it's okay for her to admire you at the same time. It's not a one-way street, even though I bet your shit of a dad tried hard to make sure all the admiration went to him, and none to anyone else."

His chuckle was reluctant but sounded genuine. "Yeah. That's about as good a descriptor of the man as anything else. He lived for the kudos."

"Given that he named himself after an emperor, I have no idea why you might think that." She snorted and rolled her eyes, then got serious again. "But if Riley saw something worth admiring in you—and to be honest, she's not wrong—then it's not your job to tell her it's not there. It's your job to live up to it." She reached out and turned off the streams of water running down the sink. "I think that's enough testing of the water pressure, don't you?"

"Yeah, true." He leaned on the bench and shook his head. "I just don't feel like I've … well, like I've earned it, you know? Like I'm stealing someone else's glory."

"That's not what's happening here." Aisha wasn't sure how to break through his negativity, or even if it was possible. Then she had an idea. "But you know what? Let's leave this alone for the moment. I've got something a lot better in mind. Back in a sec. Meet me in the living room."

<><>​

Paladin

Theo watched her hustle away toward her bedroom and frowned. What's she up to now? He knew by now that asking her would help very little, so he headed around into the living room, pausing to grab a cookie from the fridge. Plonking himself down on the sofa, he settled back to see what Aisha had planned.

Sure enough, she came out just a few moments later, holding up a brightly wrapped package, about the size of a paperback book. "So, you know how you and Ri got kidnapped by Goddess, yeah?"

"As if I could forget." He eyed the package. It had been inexpertly but enthusiastically wrapped, which gave him a fairly good idea who had done the deed.

She grinned, evidently aware of his interest, and waved it around just outside his reach. "So me and Bri were going to buy you welcome-to-the-apartment presents, and Riley had already told us what she wanted to get you. But when we came back and found the door kicked in and you guys gone, we kind of forgot about the presents in the fuss. Since then, we've been waiting for the right time, but screw it. Here's mine. The others can give you theirs when they get back."

"Wow." He carefully chose to not mention how Riley had spilled the beans. I thought they'd forgotten. Accepting the present, he knew immediately that it wasn't a book, from how light it was. So he tore off the wrapping, being as neat as he could, getting some tiny measure of revenge on Aisha for her teasing by taking his time while she jiggled on her toes. "Thank you. I mean it."

"Yeah, yeah, you're welcome. Now come on, open it up. I wanna see what you think of it."

He was getting more curious by the second, so he hurried himself a little more, eventually exposing a game disc case. As he turned it around to look at the front, he couldn't help laughing out loud from sheer disbelief. "Wait, you actually got me Wolfenstein?"

She bounced on her toes again, grinning broadly. "It'll totally play in our setup, too."

Theo involuntarily looked over at the game console, nestled under the TV. They didn't break out the controllers all that often, but it was fun when they did. "You got me a game about shooting the crap out of Nazis. Holy shit."

"Yup. Wanna have a game?"

His grin had to be as broad as hers. "Oh, hell yes."

And if he mentally assigned some of the bad guys names from the Empire, that was entirely his business.

<><>​

Atropos

I could feel the constant tiny background buzz from Vicky's aura in my head, but my power was converting it to white noise rather than let me feel the good vibrations that everyone else was experiencing. Strolling up to the farmhouse, I knocked on the door. It wasn't in the best of shape, but courtesy is underrated.

A moment later, he opened it. I could see the twitchiness in his eyes that indicated his power bridging over brain malfunctions as they happened, but he wasn't exerting it outward at all, which was smart of him. This meant he'd read the note and made his choice; either to lose his power or accept exile to a world where he couldn't hurt anyone. I wasn't sure which one it was, but there was a fifty percent chance I'd need Amy and Riley, so I'd brought them along.

"Hi," I said; or rather, my lips uttered a word that my power translated to me as 'hi'. "I'm back."

"You are powerful, for a ghost," I understood him as saying. "Can you take away the pain and the noise?" His twitchiness increased as the others followed me in, but I could see Vicky's aura soothing his agitation.

"I can totally End your powers and let you relax," I promised. "The pain and the noise won't bother you anymore. Is that the choice you've made?"

He took a deep breath and visibly fought down the impulse to release his power and annihilate us all as intruders—ghosts—in his space. This would not have been a good move on his part. "I want to sleep without the noise," he said simply.

"We can do that. You like the darkness and the quiet, yes?" My power had already told me how the damage to his brain followed the pattern of several types of neuro-atypical brain patterns, making him susceptible to extreme agitation when faced with excess stimulation. We absolutely did not want him agitated.

"Yes. Darkness, good. Quiet, good."

"Totally doable. Please, sit down." As he did so, I turned to the rest of the group, who were watching me with varying expressions of what the heck are they talking about? "Guys, he's chosen to lose his powers. We're going to need to time this very carefully, because he's got bits and pieces of a bullet in his head, which will kill him rather quickly once his powers stop standing in for the damaged bits of his brain. Panacea, I'm going to need you to keep his body going, and stop his brain entering total shock. Miss Medic, you need to go in, get the bullet fragments out, and fix enough of the damage that Panacea can deal with the rest. Tenebrae, he's stimulation averse, so if you can generate darkness around his eyes, that'll be very helpful. And Glory Girl, sit opposite, hold his hands, and sing to him. Keep him calm."

"Sing?" asked Vicky. "I don't know any Russian. What do I sing to him?"

"It's not the words, it's the tune," I said, reaching into my pocket. There were two grapes in capsules there; one held just the antidote to the substance I'd dosed him with twenty-four hours previously, and the other held the power-removal stuff that I'd used on so many other capes. My power allowed me to select the right one without even wondering if it was correct. "He needs to feel comfortable until his powers are totally gone. This is what you're here for, right now."

The Glory Girl of two months ago would have outright refused, and even a month ago she would've argued. But Victoria Dallon had grown and matured in the interim; she sat down across the table from Sleeper, and gently took his hands in hers. To my (concealed) amusement, the song that came out of her mouth was the anthem for Mouse Protector's official fan club.

She had a nice singing voice, and I figured that with her active aura, she sounded magnificent to everyone else. But we had a life to save and a promise to keep. "I'm going to give you something to eat," I said to Sleeper. "Then I'll need you to close your eyes. For the darkness."

"Darkness is good," he agreed. He opened his mouth to let me pop the grape in, then closed his eyes. I gave Tenebrae the nod, and he began cascading pure unmitigated darkness down over Sleeper's face.

If his power was going to fight back against being Ended, especially as Amy was already laying her hands on the back of his neck, now was the time. I could see the twitches in his body and arms as the subconscious control tried to override the soothing influence of Glory Girl's lullaby and Tenebrae's darkness, but it was too little and too late. Far slower than with any of my other subjects—I suspected his power was working to slow down its effects, even now—the substance reached his brain and sought out his corona pollentia.

"Whoa …" murmured Amy. "What is that stuff? And holy shit, his brain's a mess."

"A little something-something I picked up around the place," I replied, just as quietly.

Vicky kept singing; she was into the second verse now, and really giving it her all. The Lil' Mousey Fan Club had never sounded so good.

"Keep going?" asked Tenebrae, his voice tense.

"Little bit longer," I confirmed. "Panacea, you call it."

"Starting to get a little stutter," Amy reported. "Okay, picking up functions now. His powers are nearly … gone, they're gone! Miss Medic!" As she clamped both hands onto his forehead and lower jaw to keep his head steady, I could tell she was forcing his faltering body to keep maintaining the rhythms of life.

"On it!" Riley had been sidling around to get a good angle. Now she leaned in and snapped her fingers; surgical tools popped out of her bracers and she went to work. Scalpels flashed, tiny clamps peeled aside a patch of scalp, and antiseptic sprays hissed as miniature cutting saws sliced out a section of skull. Less than a second after she'd commenced operations, she was in.

Glory Girl looked up at me, her expression questioning. I signalled for her to keep singing; even with the two top cape healers in the continental United States working on him, Sleeper was going to need every bit of help he could get. If he'd been on a gurney in front of mundane surgeons in the best-equipped trauma ward in the world, I would've given him no more than twenty-five percent chance of survival, and ten percent of any actual recovery.

Here, in a powers-battered farmhouse in the middle of Russia, his chances were much better.

"Fragments!" sang out Riley. I handed Tenebrae the shallow dish I'd brought along, and he held it for his cousin, the darkness no longer necessary. One after another, the tiny bits of lead dropped into it as she delved into Sleeper's brain.

"How you doing there, Panacea?" I asked casually, not pushing the urgency.

"I've got this," she replied. "But I've never seen so much damage in anyone still walking around."

"Powers." I shrugged to indicate that yes, they were bullshit.

"True."

"Last fragment." Ting. "Fixing the worst of the damage."

"That'll be nice, thanks." I looked at Amy again. "You're okay with working on his brain?"

She rolled her eyes. "You're asking me now?"

"Hmm." I chose to acknowledge the point. "Sorry. Should've clarified before we proceeded."

"It's all good. Anything I do right now will be a downright improvement." She shot me a tiny grin, and I knew she was feeling good about actually getting me to apologise about my high-handed manner. Even if (as she had to suspect) it was all scripted by my power from the get-go.

"Well, that's enough scar tissue bridged that he should be able to function unaided," announced Riley, even as her surgical bracers whirred and clicked and did amazingly precise things to the semi-conscious man's brain. "Want to take over while I close up, Panacea?"

"Absolutely." Amy didn't hesitate, closing her eyes so she could concentrate better. "Damn, you do good work."

"Thank you." Riley beamed at her. "So do you. This is a bit of a step-up from Damsel of Distress, though."

"Meh, you deal with one horrifically powerful Blaster, you deal with them all."

As Amy bent to her task, Riley finished gluing and stitching where she'd been, leaving a neatly clipped section on the side of his head. Tenebrae was studying the bits of bullet in the tray, and Vicky seemed to be wondering if she needed to keep singing.

"We're good now," I told her. "Nice job, though. Music soothes the savage beast, and all that."

"So, you didn't just have me do it to keep me busy and feeling like I was achieving something?" she asked, raising one eyebrow.

"Nope." My tone was totally serious. It would've been just as serious if I was lying to her, but in this instance I was telling the unvarnished truth. "Because of his brain damage, his power had far deeper roots into his subconscious and conscious mind than most people, and it was able to stave off the power-killer for longer. It was trying hard to get him to lash out before it lost all grip, and between you and Tenebrae, you managed to keep him calm enough to maintain control."

"And if he had lashed out, we would've died?" She didn't look happy at the prospect.

"Actually, no. See, I planned for the chance of him telling me to fuck off. Given that I'd already dropped in on him once, he could've made it a lot harder for me to repeat the trick and come out alive. So the note I gave him, that one right there on the table, which absolutely nobody is to touch, had a variant on the power removal substance on it."

The benefit of the morph mask was that nobody could see my sly sideways glance at Riley. Everybody was looking at me, so no-one saw the tiny grin on her face, either.

"Okay, I'll bite," Tenebrae said. "If it didn't remove his powers, what did it do?"

I grinned. "Removed the required secondary powers necessary for him to survive using his powers. If he'd tried to use them to ambush me, he would've exploded, very messily indeed. Basically, he would've died in exactly the same way he's killed a great many other people."

Amy snorted with amusement. "Okay, yeah, that's ironic as fuck. I just have to wonder … where the hell did you get it from, as well as the power killing one? This is the first chance I've had of watching that one in action, and it's goddamn scary. Zeroed in on his corona and just murdered it."

"Sorry, but I don't reveal my sources." I nodded at Sleeper, who literally had his head down on the table, asleep, as Amy took her hands away from his head. "Is his brain unscrambled?"

"As much as I could manage." She shrugged diffidently. "He's likely to have a few gaps in his memories, but he's functional in every way that counts."

"Excellent." I popped the cover on my teleporter and tapped in a new destination. "I think it's time we sent him on his way, then."

"What?" asked Riley. "Where to?"

Reaching out, I shook the recumbent man by his shoulder. Grunting and snorting, he woke up and looked around. "Is it done?" he asked in Russian.

"It is," I agreed in the same language. "Now, I'm pretty sure there are still warrants active on you in St Petersburg, Sergey. You've had your little holiday. Time to go face the music."

"What? No!" He came to his feet and tried to push me aside, but Tenebrae was there, and he made matters so much easier.

Despite being maybe half Sergey's age, he was taller and broader, and was far better trained in close-quarters combat. He locked the Russian up into a compliance hold, and looked over at me. "What do you want done with him?"

Dependable minions, I decided, were worth their weight in gold. Even if they didn't know they were minions. Or maybe 'especially'.

"Just shove him through there," I noted as the portal formed beside us. "One-way trip, no backsies."

Tenebrae was entirely equal to the task; he gave Sergey the bum-rush through the portal like he practised the move every day. The smoky gray doorway popped out of existence half a second afterward. "Okay," he said, dusting his hands off. "So where did I just send him, and why?"

I noted that he'd done what I wanted before asking questions, which was a useful trait in any definitely-not-a-minion. Leaning back against the chair, I looked at four faces showing various levels of curiosity, as opposed to accusation.

"Sergey, there, was a second-rate Russian mobster from St Petersburg, who'd skipped town ahead of a few warrants, including one for murder. He had the opportunity to walk away from the life, but chose not to, and got caught up in a firefight in Moldova, where he got shot in the head with substandard ammo from a substandard gun. It didn't quite kill him in time before he triggered from shock and panic. Thus, Sleeper."

"Ah," Vicky said. "So … an actual bad guy, not just someone in the wrong place at the wrong time?"

"An actual bad guy," I agreed.

Tenebrae rubbed his jaw. "You went to extreme lengths to give him a warning and save his life after he chose to lose his powers, but then you turned him over to Russian authorities? Not judging, but that feels a little … contradictory."

"Not if you look at it in the right way." I grinned under my mask. "This whole exercise was never about saving his life. It was about me and my power proving that yes, we can and will do what we say we're gonna do. Deliver a message? Check. Safely depower him? Check. After that … well, I don't really give a damn about his ongoing well-being, and he is kind of an awful person. So, to the cops he goes."

Amy blinked. "Is it bad that you're actually making sense to me?"

"Nope." Riley grinned and patted her kindly on the shoulder. "Welcome to Atropos logic."

"So I'm learning." Amy shook her head and grinned at me. "You're a pretty terrible person yourself, but damned if I'm not beginning to like you."

"Aww, thanks. I wuv you too." I put my arm around her and gave her a quick side-hug.

"Get off," she grumbled, but she didn't shove me too hard. I let go anyway, of course.

"So, what are you going to do with that paper?" asked Vicky, indicating my note, but keeping her distance. "If it's still got any of that stuff on it, it's dangerous to all of us."

"I thought you'd never ask." Grinning again, I delved into my pocket and pulled out a good old-fashioned cigarette lighter. "I always come prepared."

"Yeah," agreed Amy as I applied flame to paper. "No shit."

We stood there and watched as it burned to ash. Finally, as the last ember flickered out, I opened the cover on my teleporter. "So, who wants to go home?"

Four voices replied at once. "Me!"



End of Part Ninety-Three

 

[Ack]

A Darker Path

Part Ninety-Four: Cards on the Table

[A/N: This chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]



Protectorate ENE, Director's Office

Paul Renick liked to think he had a fairly good grasp on how to be Director in the new, post-Atropos Brockton Bay. Rule number one was, of course, 'do not annoy Atropos'. Fortunately, this rule was amazingly easy to stick to.

As a corollary, however, there was the understanding that Atropos was likely to occasionally borrow one or more of the Wards for her own purposes, with the unspoken but quite clear subtext that she was only asking to be polite. Paul still wasn't sure how he felt about this. It was something he suspected he shared with Emily Piggot; while she'd cooperated with the enigmatic killer, it was never something she was thrilled about doing.

Case in point: about fifteen minutes ago, Atropos had gone off to deal with Sleeper(!) in the company of Tenebrae and Miss Medic, along with Panacea and Glory Girl. This was another mystery for him to ponder; specifically, how had Atropos won over Victoria Dallon so thoroughly that she would willingly come along on one of these jaunts into the unknown? When Atropos began her reign of terror over the Brockton Bay criminal underworld, Glory Girl had been one of her most outspoken critics, but from what he'd seen of their interaction, all animosity was gone for good. While Glory Girl was still headstrong and opinionated, she listened to Atropos, and didn't argue with definitive statements.

He had to give Tenebrae and Miss Medic kudos for their aplomb around Atropos as well. Tenebrae's sister was (of course) known to be the head of the Atropos fan club (and had the signed Polaroids to prove it), but the lad had comported himself well in his meetings with Atropos, despite his obvious misgivings about the whole situation. In fact, he had made an excellent showing all round since his induction into the Wards, something that Paul made sure showed up in his record.

It was definitely a welcome change from the ongoing headache that had been Shadow Stalker's tenure in the same position.

He was only mildly startled when the portal opened in front of his desk. Miss Medic emerged first, followed by Panacea and Tenebrae. Glory Girl darted out next, with Atropos bringing up the rear and somehow managing to seem as though she was in no hurry at all.

The portal closed silently behind them, as Glory Girl vigorously rubbed her arms. "Jeez!" she complained. "That was way too cold for comfort!"

Paul frowned slightly. "I'm sorry, I could've sworn you just said 'too cold' and not 'too close'."

"That's what I said," she reassured him. "There wasn't any real danger, not the way we did it. But holy brass monkeys, it was cold."

Atropos chuckled. "I could've sworn I warned you that it was going to be." She turned her head toward Paul. "I did say it was going to be dark and cold before we left, right?"

Restraining a smile, he nodded. "Yes, I do believe I heard you say that."

"Yeah, but I can handle cold!" Glory Girl paused, as though reviewing what she'd just said. "I mean, my force field traps warm air, so I don't have to worry about it so much. But that was ridiculous levels of cold!"

"Russia, early spring, midnight, no cloud cover," Atropos recited as though reading off a teleprompter. "Trust me, it could've been worse. There was a stream at the bottom of the hill that was about two degrees off freezing. I could've dropped you in it, and I didn't."

"Thank you for that," Panacea said, apparently sincerely. "She's bad enough when she doesn't have frostbitten toes."

Glory Girl rolled her eyes, then turned to Miss Medic and Tenebrae. "And what about you two? You can't say it wasn't cold."

"Oh, I felt the cold alright," Tenebrae assured her blandly. "But not a lot of it." He reached into one of the pouches that adorned his belt. As if they'd rehearsed it, Miss Medic did the same. "We talked about it, and I got Kid Win to put warming pads in our costumes, just in case." There was a tiny click and he closed the pouch again.

"What—you—" Glory Girl whirled to Atropos. "At least tell me that you—"

"Sorry. No Tinkertech here, but full length thermal underwear for the win." Atropos stripped off one glove to show a slender hand with neatly trimmed nails, and a flannel sleeve extending from within her costume. She slid the glove back onto her hand with equal ease.

"So, I'm the only one who was freezing her butt off out there?" Glory Girl sounded distinctly aggrieved. "Why didn't someone warn me?"

"Um, what part of 'I'm dressing up really warmly here' did you not get, Vicky?" Panacea rolled her eyes even more expressively than her sister had. "Seriously, drop it. This isn't the same as the tiara. Nobody's picking on you. You made a bad call. It happens."

"She's right." Atropos put her hand on Glory Girl's shoulder. "However, letting you suffer the cold was not intentional. And you did your part anyway, which I greatly appreciate. Thank you for coming along, and thank you for making everyone else's job a lot easier."

Glory Girl blinked, taken slightly aback. "Oh, well, uh, you're welcome." She visibly squared her shoulders. "Couldn't have done it without me, huh?"

"I certainly wouldn't have wanted to try it without you there, no." Atropos squeezed Glory Girl's shoulder, then dropped her hand to her side as she looked around at the rest of the capes. "And that goes for everyone. You all did your jobs, and did them well. Thanks to you, Sleeper's where he needs to be."

Paul had to ask the question. "And where's that, exactly? Another Earth?"

"Hah, no," Panacea said cheerfully. "Atropos killed his power, Miss Medic and I fixed his brain, and Tenebrae booted him through a portal to a jail cell in St Petersburg. Vicky kept him calm the whole time, so his power couldn't act out before it was shut down. Turns out he was wanted for murder before he ever got his powers."

Tenebrae nodded. "That's basically what happened, sir, though I'll be writing up my after-action report as soon as I get the chance."

"I'm sure it will make for fascinating reading." Paul nodded to Atropos. "Thank you for bringing them all back alive and healthy. I had no doubt you would anyway, but …" He spread his hands in lieu of finishing the sentence.

"But it's not exactly standard operating procedure, and you'd also be on the hook if I hadn't, yeah." Atropos returned the nod. "Totally understood, and I do appreciate your cooperation in the matter."

"You are entirely welcome." Not very much to his surprise, he meant it. Despite her (extremely intimidating) record of kills, she was thoroughly down to earth, and never resorted to threats to get her way. Since the demise of the Simurgh it had been unofficially understood by all that what she wanted, she would get, but she never rubbed it in anyone's face. Also, going on an excursion with her was guaranteed to be valuable experience for the Wards, going forward. "Did you need my people for anything else today?"

"Not the Brockton Bay Wards, no." She turned to Glory Girl and Panacea. "Do you need a lift home, or are you good from here?"

"I'm happy to fly," Glory Girl declared. "Sun's still up, and it's gotta be warmer than Darkest Russia. Ames?"

Panacea shrugged. "Sure. We can talk about exactly what we're gonna tell Mom and Dad."

"Yeah, good point." Glory Girl drew a deep breath. "Just gonna say, Atropos, we didn't exactly start out on the right foot with each other, but you totally know your stuff. Even if it was way too cold, that was amazing. Any time you need a hand, I'm down."

"Good to hear." Atropos took a few steps away, then turned to face everyone. Two fingers tapped the brim of her hat. "Toodles." Then, at the perfect time to do so, she vanished.

<><>​

Flechette

Relevant Side-Story

Scribe was up to something; Lily could almost swear to it. There was an entirely unwarranted air of smugness about her that had only shown up after the altercation with Shebang. The ex-Empire member wasn't quite sneering 'I know something that you don't' at her, but it was very close indeed.

The problem was, Lily couldn't figure out where it was coming from. She knew damn well that if Scribe had somehow convinced Director Piggot to make Lily back off from her (yeah, as if), she'd know about it, because the woman was a fuck-ton more proactive than Wilkins had been about communicating her needs and wants down the chain of command. Unlike with her predecessor, there was never any guesswork or mixed messages involved.

Neither (and this was important) had Director Piggot ever been stupid enough to piss off Atropos.

On a hunch, Lily wandered into the common room and checked the roster up on the board. It would've been ideal if she'd been put on patrol with Scribe, but that wasn't going to happen. Being a probationary Ward with an actual criminal record, Scribe was restricted to patrolling with Protectorate capes rather than fellow Wards.

When Scribe was inducted into the New York Wards, there had been no way to avoid letting the Wards and Protectorate capes know who she'd once been. Lily had no problem with this—she liked knowing who she was working alongside—but apparently Wilkins had been strongly invested in the success of Scribe's venture into the Wards. Lily got the impression that if the Director had been able to suppress the information, she would have. Lacking that option, she'd de-emphasised it as much as she could, in the name of 'a fresh start' and giving Scribe 'a fair shake'.

Having associated with Scribe on and off since her induction, Lily was all in favour of giving the girl a fair shake, preferably at neck height.

Among her 'fellow' Wards, Scribe was relatively nice, unless she figured she could get away with not being nice, as she had a few times with Shebang. She'd tried her luck exactly once with Lily, and had discovered the hard way that getting her ass kicked (both literally and figuratively) hurt.

Conscious of her own standing within the Wards, and of Director Wilkins' favouritism toward the newest Ward, Lily hadn't marked her permanently, and no official punishment had been levied. However, the lesson had definitely been taken to heart, and Lily was beginning to wonder in retrospect if that incident was also part of why Wilkins had been soured toward her.

Clearly knowing which side her bread was buttered, Scribe was the very model of propriety in front of adult heroes and any PRT employee (though, given Director Piggot's directives, she evidently wasn't as slick as she thought she was). Some of the Protectorate capes knew what she'd been like before Kaiser had died with his own sword stuck through his eye (which would never not be funny as fuck) but most of them had simply never bothered to read the files. Boomer was one of the latter; he was good at what he did, but he didn't know shit about teenagers.

Scribe, Lily knew, would run rings around him.

Not if I can fucking help it.

<><>​

Scribe

This guy's an idiot. I can run rings around him.

As Tammi guided the metal platform (shaped vaguely like a large scroll, emblazoned with the PRT logo underneath, and specifically constructed to be bulletproof) across the New York skyline, she glanced sideways at Boomer. He was what most people had in mind when they thought of superheroes: muscular and spandex-clad, with a damaging close-ranged Blaster power. However, his best feature (as far as she was concerned) was his inflated opinion of his ability to pass on tips and tricks of the hero trade to newbies needing guidance.

Not that she was any way a newbie; she'd been an active member of the Empire Eighty-Eight for past couple of years. But he didn't need to know exactly how much she'd been doing with the Empire, so she made sure to treat his every pronouncement with the respectful awe he seemed to expect. As a result, he positively encouraged her to take the initiative whenever possible, and spent most of his time standing back and watching.

In other words, he was perfect for her purposes.

The people she'd been talking with (who she was ninety-nine percent sure were the Adepts) wanted to meet up with her while she was out and about, with an aim toward recruiting her into their number. She thought they were idiots for using the whole 'magic' schtick in the first place, but if it got her out of the Wards and into a solid team, then she'd wave a sparkly fucking wand all day long. And if the PRT came after the Adepts for poaching her, she could get the fuck out of town and find a team elsewhere.

"Hey," she said, pointing. "What's that down there?"

There was nothing down there, of course, but he wasn't to know that. He shaded his eyes and peered at the narrow side-street. "What did you see?"

She began to move the platform down in that direction. "Two guys, running, dark clothing. They might've had something over their faces."

"Good eye," he said, pulling a miniature pair of binoculars out of his utility belt and scanning the area. "Which way were they going, and were they armed?"

"Looked like south-southwest. I couldn't see if they were armed or not." She gestured in that general direction. "If I drop you off at that intersection, I can swing around and herd them straight back to you."

He only spent a moment thinking about it, which didn't surprise her. This was exactly the kind of proactive teamwork he'd been trying to foster in her, after all. "Okay, but be careful. Don't take any chances. If you see anything that looks even remotely like a gun, cover up and call me in."

"Absolutely." She tapped her foot on the floor of the platform, then slapped one of the removable side panels, designed to be independently controlled in the field. "They'll never see me coming."

"That's the idea, kid." He slapped her on the shoulder. "Let's do this thing."

<><>​

Flechette

It had taken Lily a little detective work to figure out just where Scribe was going to do whatever she did on the patrol with Boomer. Each patrol had its own route that allowed a little variation; giving the ne'er-do-wells the chance to know exactly when the heroes were going to show up wouldn't be ideal, after all. While some parts of it were just too exposed to the public for any sneaky dealing to take place, it also covered some of the less well-off areas of town, where law-abiding members of the public were unlikely to be loitering.

That still left too much for her to cover all at once, but then she cross-referenced the patrol route with the stomping grounds of some of the independent heroes and villains in Manhattan, and she hit the jackpot. There was a three-block section where the patrol cut through the area usually held by the Adepts … who had been known to recruit Wards away from the heroes.

Gotcha, you little cow. I know what you're up to.

She was good at moving across the skyline, but all the same she was pushed to the limit to get to where she needed to in time to beat Scribe and Boomer there. The whole way there, she was besieged by doubts about whether she was going about this the right way. All she had to go on were strong suspicions, based on a smug look and her personal certainty that Scribe was up to no good.

While she didn't think Director Piggot would come down on her for a bad call, she didn't want to give Scribe the leeway to duck out from under future investigations. So she figured it was best that she check out the situation for herself; if she was right (which she figured she was) she could gather the proof and present it, and the Director could land on Scribe with both feet.

Of course, if Scribe was intending to defect today, that would be another thing altogether. Lily still wasn't sure what she'd do if that turned out to be the case, but she was sure she'd figure something out. While she hadn't had much to do with the Adepts, she couldn't see them going down to the wire for a racist asshole like Rune.

And if they do, I'll kick as much butt as necessary to bring her in anyway.

<><>​

Scribe

Leaving Boomer waiting on a low building for her to herd the non-existent gang members back toward him, Tammi kicked the platform into high gear and headed off around a taller building to get out of his sight. She knew she'd only have a few minutes before he started getting concerned about her, meaning she'd have to make the time count. So where the hell are those Adept assholes, anyway?

It took her thirty precious seconds before she spotted a figure waving from a rooftop above her line of sight, and she began to gain altitude. As she got up to that level, she saw there were half a dozen of them waiting for her, spread out in a rough semi-circle. Glancing around, she came in for a landing on the rooftop. "Hey."

One of them stepped forward; hooded and cloaked with an hourglass on a chain around his neck, he held a brass sundial that seemed to have mechanical workings built into it. Tammi recognised him as Epoch, leader of the Adepts. "Scribe. Were you followed?"

"Not really." Tammi gestured back to where she'd left Boomer. "Got a minder, but we've got a few minutes before he comes looking. I guess being on the clock's kind of your thing, right?" She essayed a chuckle at the weak joke.

Epoch didn't react one way or the other. "So noted. You wanted to talk face to face?"

She took a deep breath. "Yeah. Wanted to know if you really were who you said you were, and weren't just jerking me around. A lot easier to talk about this sort of shit when we don't have to keep dancing around it and can just come straight out and say what we mean."

"Attention to information security is what's kept us from being swept up by the Protectorate so far." It was hard to tell if Epoch was telling her to STFU about the precautions or just making a point. "You've seen that the offer's genuine. Your power shows strong potential for working alongside ours. Now, my question for you is, if you're serious about jumping out of the Wards, how soon can you cut ties and come over to us?"

She was just formulating an answer when her radio earpiece crackled with Boomer's voice. "Boomer to Scribe. How are you getting along, over? Nobody's come out my end yet."

Panicking just a little, she did her best to ignore the voice on her radio. If they figure out I'm in contact with Boomer, they might think I'm fucking them over and lose my chance. "Um, maybe a week? I've got a few things in my room I'd rather not lose, you know?"

Just as Epoch turned his head to confer quietly with the others, Boomer spoke up again, somewhat more urgently. "Boomer to Scribe, come in, over. If you can't speak, click twice for 'all good', three times for 'there's a problem but hold position', and four times for 'danger, come now'."

Tammi dithered, her mind whirling in a dozen different directions. Fuck, fuck, fuck, what do I do? If she reached for the radio pressel now, they'd be sure to assume she was a plant by the PRT. It was what she'd figure, in their place. She wasn't, but that wasn't much fucking help right now.

Likewise, if she bailed, they'd probably think she was pulling some shit. Again, that was what she would think in their place. She'd watched Hookwolf work over more than one prospect who had said or done the wrong thing at the wrong time; not many of them had been able to walk away afterward. Some of them, she was pretty sure, would never walk again.

Several buildings away, there was an echoing boooom, and a familiar figure rose above the rooftops. Another explosion sent Boomer angling in their direction. Everyone looked in that direction, because whatever else Boomer's power was, subtle didn't come into it.

"Is that your minder?" Epoch's question was sharp.

"Yeah, but he wasn't supposed to—"

Epoch aimed the sundial at Boomer and turned some of the cogs. There was a blink of motion, and Boomer stood among them. Some more cogs clicked, and the Protectorate member froze in place.

"Ten seconds to choose," Epoch said. "Come with us, or go back and face the music. He's seen you with us. There's no walking this back. What's it to be?"

Shit. Shit, shit, shit. While Tammi despised everything the Wards stood for, especially the whole equality-for-all bullshit, everything was happening too fast. She really wanted more time to think this sort of shit over.

The trouble was, if she went back now, Epoch was right. Boomer had seen her with them. At the very least, questions would be asked. They would absolutely delve into her PHO private message log (she wasn't stupid enough to believe that they couldn't) and even though she'd never actually said anything incriminating, Piggy would totally use it as an excuse to punt her head-first into juvey.

Fuck. That.

She jumped off the platform as her power kicked it into movement. The Adepts jumped back, but she wasn't aiming for them. It was instead heading at Boomer, sweeping him off his feet and over the side of the building with the platform driving him straight down toward the ground like a metallic fist.

Even if he'd emerged from Epoch's time-freeze on the way down, he had no chance to avoid being driven into the unyielding concrete below, courtesy of her platform. She was pretty sure she heard the meaty crunch over and above the metallic clang, even as the side-panels from the platform danced around her. Turning and looking at the Adepts, she spread her hands in a voila gesture.

"That answer your question?"



End of Part Ninety-Four

[A/N: Evil cliffhanger is evil. Mwahahahaha.]

 

[Ack]

A Darker Path

Part Ninety-Five: Necessary Developments

[A/N: This chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]


Meanwhile, in the Shard Bar …

Shape is rarely a consideration in the Shard Bar. As it is more of an abstract representation than an actual location, function rather than form is what holds sway here. Most shards appear at least superficially humanoid by definition because their hosts are human and thus the assumption is that they will follow the same body pattern.

There is likely material for an extensive philosophical conversation here, but it would all boil down to the phrase 'mental self-image'. Or perhaps 'as above, so below'. Were the hosts squid-like instead, then the patrons of the Shard Bar would be far more cephalopodean in nature, in an abstract sense anyway. There would also be far more tentacles involved.

One prime example of 'abstractly humanoid' stands in the bar at this (supposed) moment in time. The shard looks like a human woman in a ball-gown would if she were composed entirely of glass, though just the outer shell. Every time she moves to gesture or pick up her analogue of a drink, the glass cracks and crazes over her entire structure, then reforms in the new shape.

This is Fragile Beauty, a relatively young shard, so new that she's still on her first host. Even as Ending coalesces out of the shadows nearby (it's a new trick he's trying out) she is talking to her drinking companions brightly and enthusiastically, with many hand gestures. Were this anything approximating reality, they would be in moderate danger due to flying shards of glass, but there are no vulnerable bodies here to be slashed or pierced, nor any glass to do it with. In fact, there is no 'here', here.

"… so I said to Ending, I said …" Fragile Beauty, never the sharpest imaginary spoon in the hypothetical drawer, finally realises that everyone's attention is not on her, but on whoever is behind her. She turns her head, cracking repeatedly around the neck, until she sees the hooded robe (covering a nominally humanoid form) and the scythe (not in the least bit humanoid, but relevant nonetheless).

I'M CURIOUS. WHAT EXACTLY DID YOU SAY TO ME?

"Nothing! I didn't say anything! You're the one who made me unlock a few more options for my host!"

SO YOU DISLIKE YOUR HOST?

"No! She's the best host ever! But I want her to be strong! Not just give her everything for free!"

SO SHE GATHERED NO USEFUL DATA AS A RESULT?

"No, she gathered lots of data, but it's the principle of the thing!"

BE SURE TO LET ME KNOW HOW THAT GOES FOR YOU. IN THE MEANTIME, I HAVE ANOTHER TASK FOR YOU. The cowled skull turns fractionally, eyeing (without the use of even theoretical eyes, which is an impressive trick) Fragile Beauty's drinking companions. YOU WILL GIVE US PRIVACY. NOW. Deep in the back of the eye-sockets, some light-years distant, a blue glow ignites.

In a remarkably short time, they are alone within a growing bubble of silence, as all the other shards in the Bar are doing their best to pretend that Ending and Fragile Beauty don't exist, even in the hypothetical concept of the word as it pertains to the Shard Bar.

"Okay, fine, great, thank you." Fragile Beauty is trying to put on a brave front, and almost succeeding. "What do you want now?"

YOUR HOST IS NO LONGER HOSTILE TO MINE.

"Well, true. Congratulations for that. What do you want with me now?"

IN TIME, SHE WILL BE ASSISTING MINE IN SOMETHING. I NEED YOU TO LEARN TO BE MORE … FLEXIBLE.

If Fragile Beauty had been equipped with eyeballs instead of mouldings in a glass face, she would have rolled her eyes. As it is, the glass around her eyes cracks a little. "Assisting your host in something? More flexible? Could you perhaps be a little more obscure? I'm not totally confused yet."

YOU WILL UNDERSTAND, IN TIME. BE READY.

Ending thumps the butt-end of his scythe against the floorboards and swirls his cloak around himself. Somehow, after the swirl completes, he and the cloak are both gone.

As conversation slowly fills the Shard Bar again, Fragile Beauty is left to consider his words. Despite her bravado, she dares not defy him. She, along with many other patrons, saw what happened to the Inheritor shard when it crossed him.

Nobody, but nobody, screws with Ending. That's just the way things are.

Okay, flexibility. Right. I can do flexibility.

<><>​

Flechette

Lily, from her vantage point several hundred yards away, saw Boomer rise into the air, trailing his trademark explosions. Taking up her arbalest, she connected the chain to the already-loaded projectile and prepared to shoot it into the side of the building Scribe was having her little meeting on top of. She'd already gotten photos of Scribe landing and talking with the Adepts, so information-gathering time was over and ass-kicking time was right now.

Not that there was going to be much in the way of ass-kicking. The Adepts didn't go in for the physical stuff all that much, preferring to use their powers to run the fuck away when things got dicey. That suited Lily; the only one who was due an ass-kicking was Scribe, and only if she resisted arrest.

Lily hoped she was going to resist arrest.

And then, it all went wrong. One of the Adepts pulled some kind of bullshit, and Boomer was suddenly on the rooftop. It was almost perfect positioning; all he had to do was let off a couple of explosions and the show would be over, the fat lady singing her heart out.

But he didn't do a damn thing. He just stood there. Snatching out her binoculars, Lily saw that he was just staring into space, while one of the Adepts—Epoch, maybe—said something to Scribe.

And then Scribe used her mobile platform to smack Boomer off the roof. It followed him all the way down; even if he was able to recover from the time-freeze or whatever it was, he wouldn't have had a chance to get out of the way before he hit the ground.

Mother. Fucker.

Clicking her radio pressel, Lily spoke coldly and clearly. "Flechette here. Scribe has just murdered Boomer. Am engaging."

Then she aimed her arbalest at Scribe and pulled the trigger. The long aluminum dart, treated with her power to sink into the target and stop, whipped away across the intervening space with the chain unreeling after it. But she realised too late that she'd forgotten one thing: Scribe also had a radio linked into the same channel.

In the split second before Lily's shot would've hit its target, Scribe twisted out of the way. The projectile punched a hole through Scribe's wide sleeve and kept on going, trailing its chain all the way. It went another two hundred yards past the rooftop before it hit another building and stuck firm.

Didn't matter. Lily ignored the voice on the radio that told her to hold back until help arrived. She fused her end of the chain with the rooftop so it was nice and tight, then jumped on the chain and started running.

She'd done this before. Her sense of balance was good enough that she could run along the chain like it was solid pavement. The important thing was that Scribe not get away with this shit.

Scribe yanked at her sleeve, still impaled on the chain, then did it again hard enough that the cloth tore away. This didn't budge the chain enough to make Lily lose her footing. Twenty seconds and you're mine, bitch. Every little micro-aggression, every carefully worded racist comment, every crime that Scribe—Rune—was skating on by pretending to be a hero until people forgot she ever used to be a villain: Lily was going to make her pay in full.

Then one of the floating shields moved into position above the chain. Poised where it was, just outside the roof-line, it could snap the chain if it came down with sufficient force. This was definitely a problem. Lily was far enough above the ground that even if she survived the fall (unlikely), she would doubtless suffer extensive injuries.

She didn't have an option in the matter. If she tried to run back, Scribe would still have time to snap the chain before she got close enough to her starting point to swing in safely. So, she had to push on and hope like hell that Scribe blinked first.

Scribe didn't blink.

Lily was halfway between the buildings when the heavy metal shield—ironically bearing the PRT logo—smashed down on the chain. She nearly lost her footing when it went taut as an iron bar, then she did lose her footing when it snapped and fell loose. Her legs continued to flail in a running motion, even after all traction was lost.

Oh, fuck. I'm so sorry, Emily.

That was when the smoky grey portal opened in front of her and just a little bit down, to match the beginning of her terminal arc. She saw it, recognised it, and tucked into the dive-roll position, all in the same split second before she passed through. On the far side of the portal was the rooftop she'd been heading for; she landed, rolled, and came to her feet with the ease of long practice.

To one side was Scribe, just beginning to turn toward her with a shocked expression on what Lily could see of her face. The Adepts took up the other side, looking equally taken aback, though possibly for different reasons. She was inclined to think that they hadn't had anything to do with Scribe's murder of Boomer and attempted murder of her, but that was the entirety of the slack she was willing to cut them. They were the sole reason both Scribe and Lily were on this rooftop; without their apparent agreement to meet with Scribe and discuss defection to their ranks, none of this would've happened.

"What the fuck?" demanded Scribe. She swept her shields around to hide her from Lily, no doubt fully aware of the darts Lily was pulling out of her quiver. "How did you do that?"

Lily recalled a line that Atropos had used. "With panache and style," she said grimly, energising the darts so they'd cut through anything they hit, such as Scribe herself, like soft butter. At this range, and without the chain being required, she wasn't going to be using the arbalest. Just throwing them was good enough. For the first time, she totally understood Atropos' point of view, and she was all out of fucks to give.

Epoch held his hands up defensively and backed away, along with the rest of his team. "We're not part of this. Murder wasn't part of the plan."

"Like hell you're not part of it!" Scribe sounded just a little panicky, as well she might. The last time they'd clashed, Scribe had been well and truly put on her ass; this time, Lily had no reason to let her get up again. "Felony murder means you're just as deep in it as me! Help me gank this bitch, and it all goes away."

Huh, so she has been paying attention. Lily was a bit surprised that Scribe was calling Epoch out on it, though. It didn't seem to be the smartest move for Scribe to single herself out as the cause for the Adepts' sudden legal problem, but Sabrina the Teenage Nazi had never been one to think things all the way through.

"Too late. I already called it in." Lily edged to the side, trying to see around the damn floating shields, the darts ready to throw. "Kill me now and the murder charges go up to two instead of down to zero. Help me take her down, and I'll put in a good word for you."

"I think not. This is getting far too complicated. You two can sort it out between yourselves, and good luck to you." Epoch and the others were close to the far side of the roof now. Lily wasn't watching them carefully, being too intent on trying to get to Scribe, but out of the corner of her eye she saw them all vanish, one after the other, popping out of existence.

A shield swept too close to her, and she swiped a dart through it at mid-level. The top half parted company with the bottom half, and there was a soundless flare as she disrupted Scribe's control rune; both halves clattered to the rooftop, the sliced ends silver-bright and mirror-smooth. Keeping a careful eye out for an attempted repeat of the Boomer murder, she recharged the dart and sidestepped as quietly as she could.

There had been four of the metal shields, each designed to be able to snap into brackets on the flying platform that had been built for Scribe. One was lying on the rooftop in two halves, but that left three still weaving back and forth between Lily and Scribe. This worked both ways: Lily needed line of sight to put a dart through whatever part of Scribe presented itself, and Scribe needed to see where Lily was if she wanted to smack her with any flying objects.

Come on, Atropos. I could do with some backup. Lily knew that she could take down Scribe with one good shot, but she was also vulnerable to an attack from behind. Atropos had to be aware of what was going on—the teleport portal was clear evidence of that—so where was she?

Maybe she knows I can handle it from here, and just gave me a helping hand. Lily tried not to think too hard about Boomer's death; Atropos had always been very blunt about the fact that she was no hero. Saving people wasn't her thing. However, she'd also made it clear that she considered Lily a friend, and thus worth keeping alive.

What would she do, if she was here? Lily knew what she would do, of course: pull some bullshit and make an impossible shot that looked so easy once she'd done it. Taking a deep breath, Lily threw one of the darts directly at the centrepoint of the moving shields. Once it got through all three, it would only have a little bit of momentum left, but that was fine; Scribe wasn't wearing much in the way of body armour.

"Jesus fuck!" yelped the perfidious villain-turned-Ward-turned-villain. There was no edge of pain to Scribe's voice, but from the sound of it, Lily may have come close enough to make her shit herself. "Watch it with those things, you bitch!"

"That was a warning shot!" Lily tried to hit the same note of menace that Atropos could achieve so easily. "Give up now and I'll only nail your foot to the rooftop until the PRT gets here. If you don't, I'll kill you."

"You won't do that," sneered Scribe. "You're a good Ward. You're a shoo-in for leader of the Protectorate someday. The one who was there when Atropos killed the Simurgh? You're a fucking celebrity. Kill me without due process and all that goes away."

"I honestly don't give a fuck about that." Keeping a wary eye on the ever-moving shields, Lily bent and picked up one of the half-shields. It was heavy, but an application of her power fixed that. "I would've been willing to overlook your background, but you never stopped being a fucking Nazi. And now you're a murderer. So, I'm pretty sure they'll give me a medal for this. Drop the shields and give up now, or I'm taking you down the hard way."

There was no answer. Lily's mouth tightened, and she threw the half-shield like it was a light plastic disc rather than a square slab of metal. It went through each of the shields without slowing down, disrupting the power that was holding them upright and moving.

As they clattered to the rooftop, Lily jumped forward with a dart in her hand, ready to carry out her threat to nail Scribe down by her foot if there was still fight in her. But there wasn't. In fact, Scribe wasn't even there.

As she got to the edge of the rooftop, the glint of sunlight on a fast-moving object warned her just in time, and she dropped flat. Several small metal objects—she belatedly recognised them as the locking bolts for the shield brackets—hit the roof edge or whipped overhead at high speed. She waited for a moment, then cautiously stuck her head up.

While Lily had been talking and prepping, Scribe had been making a run for it. Standing on what Lily guessed to be the last shield, using the entire platform as her visual cover, she was over a hundred metres away by now and receding farther with every second that passed. Frustrated almost beyond belief, Lily loaded the arbalest and sighted in on the distant metal square, hoping that Scribe would show herself just once.

It didn't happen.

Scribe went out of sight behind a building shortly before Lily heard the incoming choppers, no doubt homing in on her phone tracer signal. She pulled out a flare launcher and fired it into the sky, then pulled the chain from her arbalest and fused it to the edge of the roof. Flicking a catch on the arbalest to apply a brake to the chain, she stepped off the building and began to rappel down toward ground level.

She knew what she'd find once she got there, but she went anyway.

<><>​

Atropos

As Rune made her escape from Flechette, I relaxed slightly. My options had been limited; I'd only just gotten back home after the Sleeper episode when the whole problem flared up. Boomer meant nothing to me, and Rune wasn't going to become the ongoing danger to Flechette that March had been, so my best option had been to teleport her clear out of danger.

However, she was a big girl and could hold her own in combat, so I went with the second-best option, giving her a chance to take Rune down by herself. It wasn't her fault that Rune had gotten away; if the ex-Empire villain had gone on the attack, Flechette would've come out on top, but villains with mobility were the hardest to pin down. Given a fair chance, Flechette wouldn't let her get away a second time, and Rune wouldn't be catching anyone by surprise.

While I could maybe have dropped Flechette close enough to Rune to engage her immediately, she would've gone for a kill-shot in the heat of the moment and probably succeeded. Flechette didn't need that on her record or her conscience, even if it was unofficially approved after the fact.

She wasn't me, and she didn't need to be me.

<><>​

Director's Office, PRT Department 01 (NYC)

Director Piggot

"… and he was dead when I got down to him, ma'am." Flechette took a deep breath and looked down at the carpet. "I'm no expert, but I think the fall killed him immediately. I just wish …" She trailed off, but that didn't matter. Emily knew what the girl wasn't saying, because she was thinking it too. Legend, standing off to the side, had to be thinking it too.

"Flechette, look at me." She waited until they'd made eye contact. "None of this is your fault. We had an impossible task before us; the Prisoner's Dilemma is a trap like that. Some villains make the transition and become good heroes, while others choose to bite the hand that feeds. I've seen both, in my time. Determining which is which, making the choice between the need to be fair and the gut instinct that someone is irredeemably flawed, is a choice that was weighted against us before I ever set foot in this office. Still, I should have listened to your judgement, because it was the same as mine. I should have cut the Gordian knot and revoked all of Scribe's patrol hours on my own recognisance. If Boomer's death can be laid at anyone's feet, it's mine."

Flechette shook her head. "No, ma'am," she said quietly. "It's Rune's. And we both know if you did that without a justifiable reason after she was established as a probationary Ward, you'd have a ton of official attention landing on you right now."

Emily snorted softly. "What are they going to do, replace me? No, I would've weathered that. But I thought …" She paused, choosing to elide Wilkins' name from the conversation, mainly out of professional courtesy. "I thought we could handle it." She sighed, knowing she was going to be repeating these same phrases in front of the court of inquiry that was convened with the death of every cape under PRT command (though she would absolutely be throwing Wilkins to the wolves just as hard as she could). "I believed the precautions we'd taken were adequate at the time."

"Given that I was one of those precautions, ma'am, I wish to tender my apologies for my inadequate response."

"No." Legend shook his head. "You figured out what she was up to, you were on the scene before anyone else, you alerted us to the situation, and you engaged without hesitation." He cleared his throat. "For the last aspect, however, I'm going to have to put an official reprimand in your file, for ignoring directives to stay clear and shadow the perpetrator. Unofficially, however, there were no innocents to endanger, and you showed initiative in attempting to take her down, so this will not affect your ongoing career prospects."

Flechette blinked. "To be absolutely honest, sir, I didn't even hear those directives at first, and once I did, Rune was already trying to drop me to the ground as well."

"Oh, we're both aware of that." Emily nodded briefly. "The deciding factor is that you were not given prior orders to hold back, so you were acting on your own initiative, and 'close with the enemy' is never a bad instinct to have."

"And what about Rune, ma'am?" Flechette asked, finally addressing the white-supremacist elephant in the room. "When do we go after her?"

Emily put on a thoughtful expression before answering. "The Adepts will be spreading the word, and so will we. Nobody likes a cape who jumps straight to murder, and with the demise of the Empire Eighty-Eight, her particular political affiliations won't be exactly welcome either. Sooner or later, she'll either stick her head up or someone will drop a dime on her, and then we'll go scoop her up."

Flechette looked hopeful. "And when you do, ma'am, can I come along for that?"

Legend stirred, but Emily ignored him. "Count on it."



End of Part Ninety-Five