Archive of Our Own

The block is decorated for christmas, with lights, fake snowflakes, and wreaths.  We FOCUS on a poster advertising a Protectorate Meet-and-Greet in Brockton Bay.  Passersby, dressed for winter, obscure the frame.  We HEAR the sound of a car approaching, and an expensive-looking black SUV passes by to the right, before the whole screen is obscured by a passerby.

The air is uncomfortable, but not quiet.  Between the driver- - professional, hard-lined face, early forties - - who doesn’t take his eyes off the road and the passengers not making eye contact, everything is said to the car in general, not to any person in specific.

We FALL BEHIND the car, letting it speed onward, and MOVE INTO the window of a black van driving behind the happy family.  Inside, it is dark but not difficult to see.  The front seats hold two bored-looking security types in black, and in the back is at least one more sitting on the inset bench, next to a FIGURE entirely in black, hidden in the shadows.

It is a comfortable silence, lightened by the background noise of cloth shuffling and metal clicking.

Cutting through the suddenly thick tension, a head emerges between the two in front-

An unseen, gruff voice speaks up from the back.

JESPER shrugs, and returns to his seat.

TAYLOR looks slightly pained, like she needs to use the restroom- except that she’s worried that excuse may be taken as an invitation.

He leans in and she leans away.  He’s violating her personal space, and ours too it feels like.  Some space only comes when several gunshots cause both to jump.

The dense crowd moves back like filings repelled by a magnet as our three vagabonds head for the center of the room.  They’re shaping the whole room around their movements, and despite people murmuring and whispering to each other, nobody seems to even think of stopping them.

We FOCUS on JESPER and see that the joviality from earlier has been replaced by stone malice.

VISTA PEERS OUT of the crack in the door.  The noise from the party is audible, if muffled.

(she pats herself down, as if checking pockets for her keys)

(she resumes her peeping)

Walking outward from the center, the henchmen pick out individuals and quickly interrogate them at gunpoint, moving on after each desperate denial

(despite being at gunpoint, he is seemingly unafraid, almost heroic.)

His gun sprays out over the heads of the audience, causing those in the path of fire to flinch away.

All eyes, including ours, turn toward NAKATOMI and search his face for a reaction.

JESPER begins to respond, but WRAITH pushes him aside.

He clips his device to some exposed wires and launches a program

He hears a sound, and turns his head.  He’s swiped across the face with the pipe and the rest of his body continues the turning motion.  He slumps to the ground.

In the middle of the screen, a pop-up with a progress bar is filling quickly.  In the top right corner, there is a reception indicator next to a “2/3" notice.

The ‘x’ on the popup flashes and the window closes, revealing a blank command line.

She keeps her eyes down, deliberately avoiding the gaze of the roaming gunmen, but inwardly turns her attention to the feedback from her power.

The hostages are now all marked with flies, and the villain’s group with ants.  Missy is represented by a ladybug.  Wraith, Kaz, and Rollins are all conspicuously separate from the large cluster of hostages, and Vista is making her way around the upper floors.  She approaches a large shaft running through nearly the entire building.

A grate is widened by Vista’s power, and she peers out, only to immediately duck her head back after looking down.

She looks out over the edge again, and nearly chickens out.  She’s worried, but we’re almost as worried for her, a small girl with a very large drop ahead of her.

She reaches her arms out, and the space beneath her heeds her call.  The shaft beneath her folds like putty, bringing a grate similar to hers up, within arm’s reach.  It opens as well, and she picks her way down the now-solid terrain, clearly tense thinking about the towering abyss at her back.

She bends the space ahead of her as she runs, leaping over jagged holes in the construction that close to reach her just in time.

Throws her darkness knives just past Vista, arcing close enough to hear whistling by before they home in on the fluorescents and spotlights ahead, cracking and dissolving them.  She’s falling behind.

Stumbles in the darkness, unable to see a chunk of metal to bend it out of the way in time!  Her momentum is broken, and she’s lost her confidence, if not her bearings.

She leaps up and disappears into the darkness.  Her voice seems to come from everywhere at once, echoes with no source.

We focus on her tied wrists where various creepy crawlies have congregated to chew or claw away on the plastic ties.

Suddenly, she’s tugged upwards!  Several insects fall, unseen, back on the ground as one of the villain’s gang leads her away.

Matthias jabs the barrel of his pistol into Taylor’s side.  She’s clearly trying and failing to hide it, but she’s afraid and in pain.

The hero’s brightly-colored costume is marked with blood, and his power’s flickering light casts shadows on his conflicted eyes.  What is the right thing to do?  Save this one life, and let the murderer free?

Lumihawk’s power grows in intensity, the crackling shapes around his forearms coiling like a spring, or a snake about to strike.

He tenses up, before shoving Taylor forward, between him and Lumihawk.  Her hands tied, she can’t catch herself, and the unexpected push sends her off balance.

Taylor pauses before opening the car door, as if she’s forgetting something.  Finally, she does open it as we:

And see the bugs she left in the car pile out inconspicuously.

Between their torn clothes, the cuts and smudges on Missy, and Taylor’s still-aching wrists, the three look very out of place in the untouched car.

Looks at Taylor incredulously, before:

BOTH break into laughter, more out of relief than anything.

From the front seat, Missy’s father looks back at them fondly, though maybe a little worried for them.

As the car drives out into the sunlight, Taylor’s voice, still audible, begins to recede.