Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The entity was alone, hanging over the world’s ocean much like how it had been when it first arrived. The cycle had failed and it had been left without purpose, guided only by the instructions of the male without a shard. Now that male had left his role as a guide, likely due to being in the terminal stage of his species’ lifecycle. He had left a female to take up the role, but even so the entity was left without the closest thing it’d had to a companion since the Thinker’s death.

Melancholy

The entity processed emotions differently from the native species of the world but if it could be described in terms they would understand it was… Sad, listless. Its partner was gone and would not return, its mission had failed and none of the acts taken since then, from testing its shards in battle to aiding the creatures of the world as per the instructions of the male had brought it fulfillment. Others of its kind still existed in the universe, perhaps it could find one of them and it wouldn’t be so lonely. Experimenting with how the local species would react without a guiding hand might provide valuable data regardless. It might return within a few thousand rotations of the planet, a longer time than the cycles usually took but still cosmically insignificant.

Conclusion

The entity was seeing the path now, abandoning the project would be enlightening in its own way, and it would no longer have to remain in the place it had come to associate with sadness and loss. 

Departure

There was no hint of what would happen, no arc of light as the golden man left the Earth’s atmosphere. If a ship had passed by where he was flying over the Pacific Ocean they would have seen him being completely impassive and then, without anything as dramatic as a flash of light or even just physically leaving the Earth’s orbit… Scion was gone. In a blink of an eye he was no longer there.

—

The drive back to the Alcott household had been quiet, Dinah spending the entirety of it staring at the PRT headquarters further and further away. I’m so sorry, Taylor. Every possible future after Taylor surrendered to the Protectorate was full of heartbreak for her saviour, and as much as Dinah told herself that it was necessary, that it would increase their chances of survival, she felt like a monster. She manipulated people and sacrificed so many for the sake of mere percentages. She exited the car, following her parents back home, taking only some bitter satisfaction at the growing probability that she’d never have to deal with Director Tagg again, she could practically see it growing in real time.

Walking towards her room, she wondered what it said about her that she could take such joy in seeing men like him die. Men like Coil. Even before she triggered, Dinah would not consider herself to have been an average preteen girl, but that and the months of captivity had made her feel completely alien to her peers. She sighed and threw herself on her bed, dark thoughts circling around her, making her second-guess all the hard choices she had made. Seeking some consolation, some sign that the path she was creating would help people in the end, she asked, like she had so many times before, what the chance of the apocalypse occurring within the next two years was.

3.9 %

This made Dinah bolt upright in an instant, confusion, dread and exhilaration all crossing her mind simultaneously. She didn’t understand why it had changed, what caused the numbers to plummet, everything she had done had so far only changed the chances incrementally. She rushed out of her room. 

“Mom! Dad! I have to get back!” She was running calculations in her head with sudden urgency, confirming that the world wouldn’t end in 20 years either.

7.8 %

Still manageable, and the fact that it hadn’t increased more than what would be expected due to the difference of 18 years between the scenarios, despite how she was now planning on trying to undo what she had done to Taylor, told her that those plans were safe to go ahead with. She had not anticipated this at all.

“Darling, what is it?” Her mother seemed deeply concerned with how agitated Dinah was getting. “What’s wrong? Is it your power?” She bent down to be at the same eye height as her.

Dinah nodded rapidly. “The end, it’s all gone, it won’t happen anymore. I don’t understand.” She was stomping her foot to convey the sense of urgency to her parents, having already slipped on her shoes.

“That’s… Good though, isn’t it?” Her mother seemed confused, but thankfully followed suit. “If the world isn’t ending, why are you so upset?”

“It means I was wrong! I have to fix things, there’s so much I have to fix.” The idea that the sacrifices she had made wouldn’t matter, that she had hurt people for no reason absolutely terrified Dinah to her core, and some of that terror was clearly getting through to her mother, who didn’t question her any further. Her father barely said a word before he was getting back out to the car, something about living in Brockton Bay, about having survived Leviathan, gave an instinctive understanding of when you should get moving without wasting time asking questions.

Dinah spent the drive thinking how to fix things and make up for what she had done, to Taylor at least. It was too late to save Tagg, she didn’t even need to ask any questions to know that, and quite frankly she didn’t care, he reminded her far too much of Coil. But Taylor had sacrificed herself again and again to save Dinah and made a leap of faith by cutting ties on her word alone, she had to make up for it, and save her from the path she had put her on, the path to create a monster capable of saving the world.

—

Colin had no idea how in the short time since he was last in Brockton Bay the city had somehow managed to get into an even worse state but yet again it had exceeded his expectations. If he was a superstitious man he’d wonder if the city was cursed, seeing how hardly a week could pass without a crisis of some sort. The fact that even the death of Alexandria at the hands of Skitter, an act that would have such enormous global ramifications he got a headache even thinking about them, wasn’t even the most catastrophic thing to have happened in the city in the past month really said something. He sighed while exiting the dragoncraft with Dragon.

“We can still salvage this. There’s still time.” Dragon said to reassure him. Her regular speaker function remained out of function but she could still communicate with him via their internal comms.

“Is this what it feels to grow older?” Colin had often grumbled to himself about his age during his time as Armsmaster, but it was always on a practical level, the fact that he was growing slower and weaker in body. It felt different now. “Seeing others repeat the same mistakes you did?”

“Neither Tagg or Alexandria were of a younger generation than you.” Dragon pointed out gently. “They had the same levels of experience as you did, if not more in the case of the latter. You can’t hold yourself responsible for their actions.”

“Perhaps not, but experience is not the same as wisdom, and mine was hard earned and only came to me recently.” He sighed again. “My greatest regret in all of this is that they won’t live to experience the same epiphany I did.”

“Colin, what happened here wasn’t your fault.”

“But it was. Maybe I couldn’t have done anything about what they did, but Skitter is here because of the choices I made. I’m as responsible for this as anyone else.” He was using the internal comms as well. This was a private matter between the two of them and he’d rather not deal with PRT personnel eavesdropping on their conversation. 

They had entered the elevator and begun descending to where Skitter was being held when the speakers on the elevator cracked on and a voice spoke through them. “Dragon, Defiant, we have urgent need of you in the lobby. Miss Alcott has important news about ‘The End’ that she wishes for you to be there to hear.”

Colin grumbled a bit at this, but changed what level they were going to nonetheless. “I guess the death of Alexandria has further worsened our odds.” He mused out loud.

Arriving in the lobby room, they do indeed find Dinah Alcott, along with Miss Militia and Deputy Director Renick, who was tapping his foot in impatience. “Right then, we’re all gathered here. What is this message you wanted to deliver to us? We’re in a bit of a crisis right now and I’d rather not have you risk getting into the crossfire if the Undersiders decide to attack.”

“They won’t hurt me.” Dinah said with the sort of quiet confidence many precogs tended to develop. Her voice carried a conviction that was difficult to argue with. “I had to come to tell you that the numbers have all changed, massively. 3.9 % chance the world ends in two years and 7.8 % chance that it ends in twenty.”

There’s silence at this. While normally an almost ten percent chance that the world would end within two decades would be bad news, the expectations for that happening had previously been well over ninety percent, and the remaining possibility could easily be attributed to ‘general danger that comes with living on a world with Endbringers’. Miss Militia was the first to finally speak up. “What… Happened?”

“I don’t know.” Dinah looked genuinely annoyed admitting this. “I don’t know what changed, I just got home and all the numbers were different.”

“Could it have been recent events here?” Suggested Renick, looking like he’s trying not to speak too openly about the brutal deaths that had happened while in front of the twelve year old. “Something to do with Alexandria, Skitter or Tagg perhaps?”

“No.” Dinah shook her head. “Today had been set in motion a while ago, and with no such changes. That’s not it.” She furrowed her brow.

After some figurative nudging from Dragon by way of sending him a private message, Colin spoke up on her behalf. “It may be a bit early to speculate what might have caused this, since it could have happened anywhere in the world. Maybe it’ll come clearer in the coming days. For now, thank you, Dinah, for the welcome news.” He did not give her an encouraging smile like Dragon had suggested, knowing his own track record when it came to how people received those, but his voice was less gruff than usual.

“Yes, and I’m so sorry.” Dinah still looked morose and for once Colin did not think that it was his fault.

“For what?” Miss Militia asked, her voice much better at conveying gentleness. “You did well to tell us about this.”

“It’s my fault, I destroyed Taylor’s life for nothing. I just hope I can make up for it and she’ll forgive me.”

Something about that statement struck Colin as a bit off. There was no lie detected from her, but he caught something of a double meaning in Dinah’s words. And the way her eyes fell on her right hand… He took it, gently so as to not hurt her with his cybernetic limb, and turned the palm of the hand upwards. On it, a cluster of ants were gathered, currently spelling out a simple message.

ITS OK

“Dinah,” He said, making sure to keep his voice level. “Have you been communicating with Skitter this whole time?”

She nodded, still looking very sad. “I had to make up for it. I shouldn’t have told her to cut ties. It’s not necessary any more.” Dinah was no longer bothering to hide that she was speaking to the ants as much as the group.

“Cameras just spotted her escaping her cell, making her way towards an exit.” Dragon informed him privately.

As if this day couldn’t get any more complicated. Colin had to resist the urge to facepalm. “Skitter, I know you can hear me, please stop trying to escape, we just want to talk to you to resolve this peacefully.”

The ants rearranged themselves to spell out two letters on the palm of Dinah’s hand.

F U

He sighed, not expecting much else under the circumstances, and hurried back to the elevator together with Dragon. “We’ll go after her, Miss Militia, be ready to cut her off if she gets this far. 

While no longer actually under his command anymore she seemed happy to defer to Defiant in this. “Understood.” She conjured up a foam gun out of thin air and hurried to her position.

The lift had already returned to the top of the building while they were talking to Dinah, and took its time returning down, apparently due to Hebert’s interference getting it to stop at every floor. She already had a good headstart and the girl had proven annoyingly adept at escaping. By the time they reached the floor where she had been she was already climbing through the vents to get into the armoury further above and there was no doubt that despite having the building’s entire security network at their disposal she was just as aware of their movements as they were hers if not more.

The elevator controls had at this point short-circuited entirely due to being crammed with bugs so they had to take the stairs in pursuit. On the one hand her paranoia and drive to escape was understandable within the current circumstances, on the other hand there was a building frustration within Colin that their last chance of avoiding full blown war was slipping away because she wouldn’t stop to listen. 

They finally cornered Skitter on one of the upper floors of the building, having stolen a foam gun and broken one of the windows, allowing her swarm to enter via it. Flies were running interference, delaying them as much as they could while she fired her gun down below. Colin couldn’t see who or what she was firing at, but he and Dragon were approaching from both sides of the corridor, the bugs a minor nuisance at best thanks to their advanced armour and technology. “Enough!” He tapped the butt of his halberd on the floor for emphasis, killing the flies currently swarming him. “Skitter, there’s nowhere to run and we don’t want to fight you. Could you please listen to us?”

The look he received from her was nothing short of pure hate. “I think the time for negotiations has passed,” she said, her voice hard. “You shouldn’t have forced my hand if you didn’t want a fight.” And with that she jumped, flipping him the bird even as she did, out through the high window to land on the ground further below.

“Curse that girl.” Colin had rushed to try to grab her as soon as he realised the rash course of action she intended to take but was too late. He really hoped she hadn’t just broken her own body out of stubbornness. Looking down he could see she had already gotten to her feet, having apparently used the foam gun to create a thick foam surface to cushion her fall. He sighed and jumped after her, his armoured body significantly heavier than that of the teenage girl, the foam not enough to stop his body from being rattled inside his suit from the impact. Still, not much else to be done, they only had ten minutes left before the attack began, and if they couldn’t get Skitter to call it off everyone would suffer.

“Remember what I said about feeling old?” He muttered to Dragon, whose landing was significantly more graceful thanks to her flight capabilities. “I think that jump added another year to it.”

“Keep up the tally, the day is not over yet.” She took off, trying to cut Skitter off from joining her allies. Miss Militia was close behind her, prepared for if something like this would happen, while Colin lagged behind, calling on his motorcycle to come to him. 

Unfortunately, now that she was free from the PRT headquarters and back out in the open, Skitter no longer had any limitations on the bugs she could call upon. Swarm clones were being summoned to obscure who the real her was, the insects crawling over her rendering her practically indistinguishable from the copies, especially with their vision so obscured by all the flying insects everywhere. They had to split up to make sure they got the right one, any attempt to pin her down from range all but impossible, either hitting one of the clones or missing entirely.

With all that said, they might still have caught her, but this chase was turning into the furthest thing from inconspicuous, and the rest of the Undersiders had been watching the PRT intently while waiting for sunset. When black SUVs with mercenaries began moving to intercept the heroes were forced to call off the chase, lest they instigate the very battle they had been trying to avoid.

—

I stopped to catch my breath as soon as I was sure I was no longer being followed, my body being sore enough at this point from being slammed into a table, tranquilised and electrocuted as well as from punching, crawling, running and falling I felt like I would throw up if I took another step. The men who’d chased the so-called heroes off were keeping a respectful distance and I surmised that Lisa has been the one to hire them. She at least should still be safe, Alexandria had promised to save her for last and none of the bodies had looked like her.

The memory of that made my blood boil and I doubted it was purely exhaustion that made my face red with heat. Adrenaline exiting my system, I allowed myself to collapse in a heap on the sidewalk, not even having the will or energy to drag myself to the nearest bench. Alec and Aisha were both captured and either Brian or Rachel had been killed because bullies with far too much power had decided to force a fight even though I had already turned myself in to avoid this exact thing. Dinah telling me that the future threat had been randomly averted didn’t help nearly as much as it should either, for now I was forced to acknowledge that one of my friends, one of the people in my life I loved the most, was dead for no reason at all.

I might have lied there without moving for about five minutes when another of the SUVs stopped right by me and a familiar pair of legs stepped out of it. Looking up I saw the familiar face of Lisa in her costume, smiling down at me. She was wearing sunglasses on top of her usual domino mask. “Well aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?”

“I…” I was confused, while Tattletale smiling to mask pain would be par for the course, her tone of voice was surprisingly at ease for someone who had just lost half her team to one of the most powerful capes in the world. Blinking, I saw the others approach as well, Grue and Bitch, Regent and Imp, even Parian and Flechette. “... You’re all okay?”

“As well as can be after you ran off on another suicide mission.” Tattletale’s smile was surprisingly gentle for her and she helped me up to sit down properly. 

“Wasn’t a suicide mission.” I muttered half-heartedly, accepting the help. “What happened?”

“Bad intel,” she explained. “They were feeding you the information they wanted you to believe, presumably to try to break you. Realised it when you started sending me messages that made no sense.”

“Oh.” I wasn’t sure what to feel about that, I was happy none of my friends were hurt but that was still a very low blow. Flechette looked very uncomfortable as well, she and Parian stood a little bit apart from the rest of the group, not fully fitting in and somewhat awkwardly hanging back.

“Is it true though?” Regent leaned against a lamppost, looking positively thrilled. “Did you actually kill Alexandria?”

“Mmm.” Was all I could muster, vaguely realising that someone, possibly Grue or Tattletale, had slid a coffee mug to me. I began drinking absentmindedly. 

“Ha! I knew it, someone owes me ten bucks.” He smirked at Grue, who gave the distinct impression he was rolling his eyes behind the mask.

Imp was just as excited. “That might be the coolest thing you’ve done so far.” She practically cackled with laughter. “Oh the PRT are going to be so mad.”

“I expect they will be.” Grue said, his tone a lot more resigned.

Tattletale was smiling broadly as well. “There goes their trump card. I’m feeling a lot more confident if we have to fight the Protectorate now. Speaking of, time’s up, so how do you want to do this, boss? Got people in position if we needed to fight to free you but now that you’re out how should we play this?”

I thought about it. Some part of me wondered if we should settle for what we got and keep the status quo now that we’ve shown the consequences of breaking it, but a much larger, more vindictive part of me was thinking that we no longer had any reason left to play nice with them and any bridges would have been burned due to today’s events anyway. “Fuck the PRT.” I finally said. “They’ve overstayed their welcome in our city.”

“Hell yes!” Imp practically jumped in excitement. “Nobody fucks with the Undersiders and gets away with it.”

Bitch had a sullen look though. “This is stupid.”

“Wait, did I hear that right?” Regent made a show of looking like he could barely recognise her. “Is Bitch actually the voice of peace and caution?”

“No.” She gave him a deeply annoyed glare. “I mean it’s stupid how we’re ignoring that Skitter just left us with that stupid plan of hers.”

“It was pretty stupid.” Imp agreed conversationally.

“Really stupid.” Regent conceded.

“I know it was.” I said glumly. “I just thought it was my best option at the time.”

“What, you thought ‘we’ve just crushed every rival gang and shown the PRT they can do nothing about us, I know what I should do! Turn myself in’ was the best option?” Regent mocked me. “Look Skitter, normally I think your plans are pretty clever but this one gets some kind of prize for terrible ideas.”

“Yeah, I know.” I did not have the energy to defend my choices.

“Guys.” Tattletale came to my rescue. “Let’s schedule the hanging, drawing and quartering of our glorious leader to until after the battle is done. I’m about to give the signal.”

“Fine.” Imp’s body language was an exaggerated version of begrudging agreement. “As long as I get to do the quartering. Whatever that actually is.”

“I’m sorry,” I said to Bitch. “I’ll tell you more after this is over, but I really am.”

This seemed to mollify her somewhat, or at least turn her focus to the fight ahead. “Alright, let’s fuck them up.”

“Yes.” I agreed, smiling despite the pain in both my body and soul. “Let us.”

Chapter Text

Tattletale and I were hanging back in the car while Grue led Regent, Imp and Bitch to the frontlines. She was still suffering from migraines and my body still felt like it wasn’t really willing to cooperate. So instead we were managing things from afar, with Lisa communicating with the Ambassadors and all the other groups she had managed to procure on such short notice while I had my bugs overrunning the enemy. Flechette and Parian were hanging back with us as well, looking unsure whether they really wanted to engage.

“You don’t have to fight,” I told them, managing the swarm in the back of my mind. “We understand if you don’t want to make an enemy with the PRT.”

“Yeah…” Flechette seemed the most awkward of the pair. “The other Wards are still my friends, I don’t think I want my first day with the Undersiders to be fighting them.”

“Understandable.” Quite frankly her being with us at all and not on the other side of the battlelines fighting us was more than I had hoped for, so I hardly begrudged her hesitancy. “Hopefully this isn’t too bad a first impression of what working for us is like.”

She shrugged. “Honestly? Feels kind of messed up what they did to you, like I knew the Protectorate has been doing a lot of sketchy things but seeing it first hand? Hits a bit differently.”

“Yeah.” I understood that feeling, all too well. I had been on both sides of it. “Still feels unreal. And my dad is still in there I think.”

She winced at that. “You don’t think they’ll…”

“No.” I shook my head. “Tagg probably would have used him as a hostage but I don’t think Miss Militia will. Probably.” She had disappointed me, but mostly in how passive she was.

Parian nodded with understanding. “If I… Sent my constructs to help, could you promise that you’ll try not to hurt anyone?”

“No more than I have to.” My face was blank as I spoke. Anyone who I actually wanted to hurt was already dead, but now was not a time to fight with one hand held behind my back.

“Right.” She looked to be vacillating between helping or not, looking at Flechette for support.

“I’m not going to decide for you, and I won’t judge you no matter which you take.” Flechette said reassuringly. “Do what you think is right.”

This bolstered Parian’s confidence a surprising amount and she stood notably straighter. I made a mental note to later look into the exact nature of their relationship and why Flechette joined our group. “Alright, I’ll help you. It’ll end this sooner.” She said the last part as if to reassure herself.

“Thanks, Parian.” I hadn’t intended to pressure her into helping us, but I wasn’t going to look a stuffed gift unicorn in the mouth either, with dragoncrafts in the sky and a full roster of heroes opposing us. Not that stuffed animals usually had mouths. The analogy might have run away from me, the point was that while I didn’t want to force her to act outside of her comfort zone I appreciated her committing to us for this battle.

Parian nodded stiffly before departing, Flechette following close behind her, leaving me with just Tattletale. She took a break from her phone calls to give me a look. “How are you holding up?”

“I could ask you the same.” I pointed out. “Don’t suppose the migraines have gotten any better?”

She grimaced. “They really haven’t.” 

“Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll be fine, and hey, now I’ve got the perfect excuse to be talking to you instead of throwing myself in Dragon’s line of fire. Woe is me.” The smile had returned to her.

I snorted at that. “How is the battle going from your end?” So far I had waited with trying to attack the PRT headquarter itself, instead providing crowd control to help our team while they pushed towards it. Grue had engaged with Triumph and I had some hornets and bees swarm the latter to intimidate him and hem him in, though I elected against actually stinging him with anything after what happened last time. Even so it was still enough to give Grue the upper hand, driving his head into a wall hard enough to break the lion helm, before leaving him to be captured by the mercenaries.

“Accord’s people are pulling their weight, just took down one of Dragon’s suits.” Tattletale observed, looking down at her phone. “That reminds me, be careful next time you meet him, because I think he’s just one incident away from turning against us.”

“That bad, huh? I take it he was not happy that I left.” Not surprising, but something that would have to be dealt with. I’d much prefer to keep him as a friend rather than a foe.

“No he was not.” She sighed. “And I may or may not have further antagonised him to keep him in line.”

“Shocking.”

“Oh don’t you try that, miss smartass. You’re the one who left me to figure out how to get him to back off while my powers were still out of commission.”

“Fair.” I conceded the argument. From what my creatures told me, the Protectorate were now falling back to defend their fortified positions by their headquarters rather than trying to suppress any hostile movements happening anywhere in town. Triumph had fallen to Grue and Crucible had been taken by Imp and Regent, but that still left Vista, Clockblocker, Kid Win, Dragon, Defiant, Miss Militia, Sere, Adamant, Assault and Dovetail, not to mention any other heroes they might have pulled in as reinforcements I hadn’t noticed. I wouldn’t be surprised to see New Wave or members of the Boston or New York Protectorate joining in.

Even without her powers, Tattletale seemed to sense what I was thinking. “We’ve got this. Even if we can’t take them all out we’ve already bloodied them and taken enough hostages we’ll be able to dictate a truce on our terms.”

“Did I make the right choice, Lisa?” I had allowed myself to slip up on using her codename, no one else was close enough anyway.

She gave me a long look. “I don’t think I’m in a position to answer that, do you feel like you made the right choice?”

I sighed. “No. I thought I’d keep you guys safe this way, make peace with the PRT and help prepare against the end of the world, but none of that worked out. According to Dinah the end of the world is no longer even an imminent threat for reasons no one knows.”

“Wait, hang on.” Tattletale turned her attention to me in full. “You’re sure the world’s no longer about to end?”

I gave her a non-commital shrug. “That’s what Dinah said at least. About 8 % chance it will happen in 20 years.”

“Huh.” She seemed to be processing this new information. “Well in that case I feel a lot less anxious about the fact that we’re burning any remaining bridges with the Protectorate as we speak.”

“Yeah.” I agreed. “Even after everything that had happened I might still have tried something else if I thought we still needed them, but… I don’t think we do. So let them burn, I say.”

We sat in silence after that, while a siege was being established around the PRT, who were bunkering down and setting up any and all equipment that could be useful to them. Kid Win’s bug zapper drones were deployed on the frontlines and a mix of heroes, dragonsuits and PRT troopers were keeping the Undersiders and their allies at bay. 

On the front stood Defiant, speaking in a booming voice amplified by one of his suit’s functions. “Skitter! You’ve made your point! Let’s talk!”

The voice was loud enough I didn’t even need my bugs to catch it, and Tattletale looked to have heard it as well. She nodded to the trunk of the car. “I made sure to pack your suit in the back if you want to meet him. I’d probably try to see what he has to say but remember he might be trying to stall you until Chevalier shows up. Time, right now, is on their side.”

“Thanks, Tats.” I went to the back of the car to change out of the ‘villain’ uniform the PRT had made me wear into my Skitter outfit while Tattletale drove us closer.

“No problem.”

—

The rest in the car and the coffee had done its job of getting me up on my legs again, but I was far from in top condition. Still, I resolved not to show any weakness while walking up to the frontline, projecting all the confidence and authority I could. I gave Defiant a curt nod. “You wanted to talk, so talk.”

He wasn’t the easiest man to read, and the suit was only part of the issue, but I got the sense he was relieved to see me, even as a swarm large enough to blot out the sun followed close behind me. “What we were trying to tell you before you ran away was that cooler heads prevailed after what happened to Tagg and Alexandria. We’re willing to agree to your terms.”

I folded my arms. “Those being?” I found it was better to let him spell it out openly. Even as we spoke I had part of my swarm detach to sneak into the building behind them by way of the hole Alexandria had made in her final flight.

“Full amnesty for the Undersiders and acceptance of their continued presence in the city, Miss Militia appointed as Director of the PRT ENE and with you employed to hunt S-class threats.” 

“I see.” I directed Imp and Othello to sneak past the enemy lines the same way my bugs did, while sabotaging as many systems I could and setting up our heavy hitters to be ready to open fire on my signal. “No.”

Defiant ground his teeth loud enough that I could hear it from across the street. “We’re trying to be reasonable here, Skitter. We’re giving you what you wanted, isn’t that enough? We don’t need to spill more blood here.”

“You’re right, I did want this.” I put special emphasis on the past tense. “But today’s events have taught me some important lessons. Like that the PRT can’t be trusted, that I can’t put myself at their mercy for they’ll show me none and that ultimately nobody will do anything about this. What did Miss Militia do while Tagg did everything in his power to break my spirit? Nothing.”

Miss Militia herself spoke up from the barricade she was taking cover behind. “Skitter, you know very well it was not my place to-”

“Cut it.” I interrupted her, the harshness in my voice being enough to silence her. “I don’t need your excuses. ‘Oh I was just following orders.’ If your superiors told you to go to war with my friends would you?”

The silence on her part was damning.

“I thought so. And you’re the ‘reasonable’ one. So thanks, but no thanks.”

Defiant sighed. “So what do you want, Skitter?”

“I want the PRT gone. I want you all to leave Brockton Bay and never return. Those are my demands.” The swarm behind me was growing ever larger as we spoke, and those I had sent to help Imp and Othello were informing me that the security cameras had been disabled and the troops inside the building were being quietly taken down.

Defiant exchanged a look with Dragon before turning to me again. “You know we can’t agree to those demands, Skitter. We’re trying to compromise here, so work with us, please.”

“Oh now you’re willing to compromise. When I hold all the cards.” I just had to hold everyone’s attention for a little longer.

“You’re overestimating your own position. We’re at an impasse here. You can’t take us all on and any minute now Chevalier will arrive with the entirety of the New York Protectorate.” 

I laughed, could hardly help it. It was high, manic and judging by the looks I was getting quite deranged. Oh well, perks of being a supervillain, I could always own it and use it to intimidate my enemies. “Good. He’ll be just in time to offer up the Protectorate’s unconditional surrender.”

Everyone tensed as I raised my right arm to point my index finger at Defiant and spoke with a billion mouths. “Attack.”

The swarm fell down on the battlefield like a tidal way, hiding my team as they rushed in and drowning the enemy in bugs. Terror swept across the lines, with several troops abandoning their posts against this show of force. The support from up high they had expected did not arrive, having been taken out while they were distracted. 

I watched them falling back to make their last stand inside the building but the momentum of our attack would not be denied. I had to tune out Vista’s screams as she was overwhelmed by spiders and forced to capitulate. Part of me felt bad for focusing on her first but rationally, taking down the space warper was the logical move when I wanted to keep the pressure on them so they couldn’t regroup. Besides, I expected the Protectorate would place a disproportionate amount of value in her as a hostage compared to the ease by which she could be captured.

With Vista out of the way I directed my men to take out as many of the bug zappers as possible before they could get inside, as well as breaking some more windows to let me fill the building. Regent was tripping people up at the entrances to either get trampled or block the way for those behind them while Grue helped further obscure the battlefield while cutting Sere off from the rest of them. Imp was still stalking the corridors of the PRT headquarters to zap anyone she ran into. The Ambassadors and mercenaries were focused on Dragon’s robots, the main threat on the battlefield since they were immune to both Regent and my bugs and the only things that could reliably spot Imp. Bitch’s dogs and Parian’s stuffed creatures were helping keep the machines in place while they were battered with various kinds of missiles.

Striding forth across the battlefield, I took a sedate place walking up to the front doors. I was in no rush, since my body’s condition meant that I was not playing the role of frontline fighter this time, and the psychological impact of me walking up to the heroes, apparently completely unconcerned, was not to be underestimated. Clockblocker was the first to break from the stress, lashing out by trying to charge me to freeze me in place. I sidestepped him using a swarm clone as distraction and covered his mask with flies, rendering him blind as well as deaf from all the constant buzzing. My prey was caught in the open and flailing wildly to try to find me. I circled around him, giving a couple of shallow cuts to his arms with my knife whenever he overreached trying to catch me, careful to not get frozen by him. The cuts were made mainly to create holes in his suit for my bugs to bite at and soon enough he was doubled over in pain from having been bitten in open wounds and I was free to move on. 

Defiant was blocking the main entrance from me, killing any insect that got too close and looking directly at me. “I can’t let you pass, Skitter.”

I stopped before him, projecting an absolute conviction in victory despite not feeling up for actually duelling the man. All my previous fights with him had been close calls and I had been in better condition then than I was now. “I don’t need to. My people are already inside and I’ve got 50 hostages, including several of your heroes.” A slight exaggeration but he didn’t need to know that. “You’ve lost.”

We stood there for a while, staring at each other while fighting raged all around us. Eventually he sighed. “It didn’t have to come to this.”

“No.” I agreed. “It did not. But it was you who constantly pushed me to this, so you don’t get to act all high and mighty now that you all reap what you sow.”

“True enough.” The look he gave me was more sad than anything else. “Well, orders be damned. If you let the hostages go and promise you won’t harm anyone else I will, how did you put it, ‘offer you my unconditional surrender’.”

“And that will fly when Chevalier arrives with those reinforcements of his?” I was feeling suspicious about letting go of my leverage with an incoming unknown factor.

“I’ll make sure it does.” He grunted. “You have my word.”

I hesitated for a bit, wondering if this was some kind of trap laid out for me. But the truth was that I wasn’t actually sure I’d be able to win if more heroes showed up and this was what I had wanted. “Fine. I accept your surrender.” Speaking through my swarm I delivered the message. “Defiant has surrendered on the behalf of the Protectorate. All fighting is to cease immediately.” The bugs hissed warningly at anyone looking like they wanted to keep the battle going. “Make sure the hostages get medical care and prepare to hand them over on my signal.”

Things died down pretty quickly from there, with people like Triumph or Clockblocker being carried over by my men to the PRT. Defiant gave me a nod. “Thank you. It’s… Unfortunate that we’re enemies, I wish things had worked out differently.”

“May I enter now?” I looked at him expectantly, opting not to reply to what he was implying. 

“Suppose you might as well.” He stepped to the side to allow me free passage. “Chevalier should land here in less than five minutes, we can discuss what exactly you want then.”

“Alright, I’ll let my people know then.” I sent my bugs to call on the rest of the Undersiders and had the rest of the swarm scatter.

—

Entering the lobby with my companions, I found a couple of civilians as well as PRT personnel, including Dinah, Mr Calle and my dad. Dinah caught my eye with a very serious look on her face, mouthing ‘after’, before focusing on her chair. Calle approached me with a smile, he reminded me of Lisa in the way he seemed to smile. Dad however looked utterly terrified, and not just in a general sense. He didn’t seem able to even look at me, a condition I found quite mutual. I had spent so much time hiding my life from him, worrying that I’d disappoint him and now… I didn’t even know what to do. Everything I was had been dumped on him with little tact or discretion and I had shown him myself at my darkest and most terrible. The memory of Tagg being drowned in bites and stings made me wince. I did not, refused to, feel sorry for him but the fact of the matter was that I had brutally killed a man in front of my own father for no other reason than my own hatred and rage. And now I was here, dressed as Skitter, surrounded by injured people, many of them by my hand, arriving as the conquering warlord I was. Any excuse I could make felt feeble to the extreme.

Thankfully Calle saved me from my mounting dread as I realised that today’s actions might have cost me my father for good. “You sure do live an exciting life, Miss Hebert. I have to say, witnessing one of the turning points in Protectorate history had not been on my agenda today.”

“You and me both, Mr Calle.” I shoved my heavy conscience away into a dark corner and focused on the man before me. “Today did not go as I had planned.”

“Plans do make fools of us all.” He smiled. “I took the liberty of presenting your version of today’s events to the world the moment connection was restored. Best to get it out early before people’s first impressions have been twisted by someone else’s agenda. I can’t promise that everyone will take your side, especially after the government releases their take on what happened, but it should at least keep opinions split.”

“Thank you.” I nodded, actually glad to hear those news. Letting the PRT dictate the narrative consumed by the public had proven rather tiresome in the past. “I’ll make sure you get some form of bonus for not only staying even when this place turned into a warzone but going above and beyond what the contract had stipulated.”

“Oh you know, it’s all par for the course when you work with Parahuman Law.” He waved me off without actually denying he’d like such a bonus. “I’ve had worse days, believe it or not.”

I snorted. “Fair enough. Sorry for making all your work on the agreement null and void, but we’re going to need a new one for my current demands.”

“I expected as much when you turned the tables on them.” Calle said dryly. “So what are you currently thinking?”

“I want Brockton Bay to be declared a PRT-free zone. Full pardons for all members of the Undersiders, myself included and a tacit acknowledgement of our right to rule over the city.”

“Hm, ambitious.” He tapped his pan to his lip while scribbling down notes. “But I suppose you could make the case that it’s already a fait accompli after today’s events, and we do have the surrender of the PRT ENE on record. I’ll need to confer with my colleagues, but I think I’ll manage to get it done soon enough.” He laughed to himself. “Not every day you get to write a peace treaty.”

“Thank you, if this adventure wasn’t too much for you we’ll be sure to contact you again if we’re in need of a legal team.”

“Don’t mention it.” He pulled out his phone while walking off, leaving me with Chevalier approaching me.

“So…” He looked unsure what to say.

“So.” I repeated, my voice dry as a desert.

“I’ve been informed by Defiant of everything that’s happened here and on behalf of the Protectorate I would like to apologise for Alexandria. Her actions were out of line, especially with how cooperative you had been until that point.”

“Cool.” My hostility had not diminished much from this apology. “Always nice to see you guys willing to apologise after the fact when there’s not much that can be done about it except salvaging your reputation. So much for the more open and humane Protectorate.”

Chevalier did have the decency to look quite ashamed at this. “I know you might not believe me, but I did not know what she had planned, and would not have authorised it if I did.”

I shrugged, not quite willing to stand down just yet. “Doesn’t really matter if I believe you, does it? She still did what she did, and now it’s your responsibility to clean up her mess.”

“Agreed. Which is why while there are many people telling me that I should go in full force, maybe even get Legend and Eidolon to join me, to make an example of you, I won’t. For a few reasons actually, the first being that I’d rather not put Defiant or the rest of the people here on the spot on whether to surrender themselves to your custody or not. Because I wouldn’t blame them if they didn’t want to and would likely need their help, but it would give you the right to call them out as being as honourless as you think we are.”

“And the other reasons?”

“Right. So we don’t actually like to pull in all of our heavy hitters unless we’re dealing with an S-class threat and you, fortunately for everyone involved, are not that. We’re pretty low on people as it is and need to be prepared for if other villains make their moves. Then there’s the fact that we don’t have the resources to control all of Brockton even if we did defeat you, which would leave a power vacuum for other villains to rise, which in turn would result in turf wars and all the problems of the past.”

“I’m quite familiar with those. So you consider us the lesser evil then?” I tilted my head, trying to get a read on the man.

“Essentially. The fact of the matter is that taking this city back is more trouble than it’s worth right now, so by abandoning it we free ourselves up to focus more on other hotspots and, not to make too fine a point of it, make Brockton Bay your problem instead of ours.” He laughed slightly. “I do sincerely hope you’ll do a better job keeping order in it than we did.”

That actually made me smile despite myself. Chevalier did not seem too bad a guy so far. “Can’t do much worse, can we?”

“No, I suppose that would be difficult. Don’t get me wrong, this will be very unpopular, the last city we officially abandoned was Ellisburg, and that was against Nilbog. A lot of people wanted to nuke the city rather than admit defeat.” He frowned. “I don’t think they’ll try anything so radical against you, but fair warning.”

“I’ll be prepared. So I take it you’ll agree to my demands then?”

“Our people will have to talk things through with your lawyer but generally yes. Though I should warn you, we won’t be able to make any deals on behalf of New Wave in case you were hoping to get them to leave.”

“Fine by me, they weren’t part of this so I have no grudge against them.” I expected I would have to deal with New Wave sooner or later, but there was no need to tell Chevalier about that.

With that, he left me with my friends, including Flechette and Parian, who had shown up now that the battle was over. Parian didn’t say anything, but I could feel her judging me for not having been as restrained as she would like. Oh well, I resolved to make it up for her somehow. Another one to the pile of guilt. The rest of the Undersiders were pretty pleased though. Even Grue, though he didn’t say much, was standing straighter and did not look as depressed and gloomy as usual.

Regent raised a glass he had managed to steal from somewhere. “A toast to victory. And to the terrible decisions that led us to it.”

“Hear, hear.” Imp said, having swiped Regent’s glass from under his nose.

“I suppose we did well here.” Grue agreed slowly. “Despite everything.” He turned to me. “We’ll still expect an explanation though.”

“I haven’t forgotten. It’s not a very good explanation, in hindsight, but Dinah wanted to talk after and she might be able to explain it better than I could.”

“Very well.” He nodded, apparently satisfied with that.

Bitch still looked grumpy though. “I haven’t forgiven you yet.”

“That’s honestly fair.” I admitted. “I should have given more of a warning before I left. I’m… Not very good at that sort of thing.” I glanced over to my dad, my stomach twisting.

“I wonder if it would be tacky of us to use this as our new headquarters.” Tattletale mused out loud, looking around herself. “Maybe a bit too obvious for my tastes.”

“And the defences really aren’t as good as they should be, all things considered,” I noted to general laughter among the Undersiders and some annoyed looks from nearby PRT people.

—

The efficiency by which the PRT packed their things up in preparation to go was quite admirable, if they had been half as good at clearing the city of villains as they were clearing their offices of anything they didn’t want to leave behind Brockton Bay would have been the picture of stability. It took two hours for Mr Calle and his counterparts within the PRT to hash out the details of the treaty, and at some point I did tune out of it entirely, but by midnight it was all over. Things were quiet, the city slumbering. I just hoped it would stay that way for a while.

Chapter Text

With everyone being tired after the intensity of yesterday, and it being very late by the time everything with the Protectorate had been resolved, we collectively agreed that it was best if we went to sleep and held a meeting at Lisa’s place first thing in the morning. I had taken a guest room and for once was not among the first to get out of bed. Lisa was brewing tea for the both of us when I got out of my room, looking better than she had before. “Morning. Sleep well?”

“Something like that.” I grumbled while sitting down at the kitchen table. “Don’t suppose yesterday was just a dream?”

“Afraid not. The others will be getting here soon, including Dinah.”

“And Parian and Flechette?” I was not too keen on seeing them so soon after the attack, but it was better to make sure they felt included.

“Parian and Foil, apparently.” Lisa picked up her phone to read a message. “They’re going to be busy today with a special rebranding by the looks of it. Also I think they’re a bit uncomfortable right now.”

That checked out, but still, better to ask. “Did your powers tell you that?”

“No, feeling a little better today, thanks for asking.” She laughed at my annoyed grunt to show she didn’t mean anything with the jibe. “But I’m trying to not use it any more than necessary. It was just written all over their faces yesterday.”

“I know.” I buried my head in my arms lying on the table. “They probably think I went overboard.”

“Drowning a thirteen year old in spiders does tend to draw out such reactions.” Lisa smiled, setting down a cup of tea before me and taking a sip of her own. “You had to know yesterday would be controversial.”

“Yes, well…” I trailed off, not sure how to counter that. “Point taken. Need to figure out how to deal with that. How’s the rest of the world taking this?”

“Just the usual. Some people calling for your head, others saying that the PRT got what it deserved, a lot of back and forth. There’s been mass bannings on PHO due to a flame war, that was fun to watch.” She kept her tone light as she said this. “No consensus as of yet, and knowing the internet I doubt there will ever be one.”

“Great. Anything else I should know of?” I took a sip of tea as well, glad to have something to refresh me.

“Oh you know, small things.” Lisa said airily. “Accord will want a meeting with you about his plans for the city and you’re going to have to humour him if we want to keep a working relationship with him. And there’s talk of cutting all state and federal support for Brockton Bay, which would be a disaster if it happens. New Wave are making loud noises about how they won’t abandon the city and are looking for heroes willing to help keep order in it, and-”

“Thanks, I get the picture.” I went back to burying my head in my arms.

“Cheer up, boss. It could be worse.” She patted me on the head. “As long as we control the portal we’ve got plenty of leverage to make sure the government tries to keep us happy in exchange for the resources we could procure for them.”

This was the point when Brian arrived to find me with my face down on the table and Lisa cheerily comforting me. “Is there a problem?” He asked, evidently unsure what was going on.

“No.” I muttered. In the midst of everything that had happened I had forgotten I had just broken up with him. Add another layer of awkwardness to that. “Lisa is just having way too much fun telling me of all the things I need to deal with.”

“Right.” There was a pause while he considered what to say about this. “Lisa, leave Taylor be. We need her at her best right now.” 

“I’ve only been telling her what she asked for.” Lisa protested, still sounding like she was having far too much fun with my misery. “I didn’t even mention-”

“Lisa…” Brian said warningly.

“Fine, fine. In some good news the Protectorate do seem to have kept their word and have told their heroes to stay out of our way, officially at least. Unofficially I wouldn’t be surprised if they try something a bit more oblique. And our supporters in town are talking about holding a parade in your honour while our enemies are too busy pissing themselves in terror to do anything that might draw your attention.”

I snorted at that, which achieved the designed purpose of getting me to look up again and drink some more of my tea. “Thanks for that mental image.”

“You’re absolutely welcome.” She beamed at me.

Alec and Aisha were next to arrive, entering at almost the same time, a fact that made Brian give a murderous look in Alec’s direction. 

“One of these days he’s going to take me out back and shoot me.” Alec immediately went to raid the fridge. “Hey, Taylor. Lisa.”

I gave Brian a confused look, not sure what had him so upset. Neither did he, apparently, because he went from glaring at Alec to looking sheepish for a minute, trying to think of what it was that had gotten him worked up. 

“Something bothering you, big brother?” Aisha had chosen this moment to appear from out of nowhere for what was to my recollection the first time.

“I’m fine, Aisha.” He waved her away, causing her to wear a smug smile broad enough to rival Lisa’s usual.

“You didn’t tell me how Dinah was getting here.” I turned away from the weirdness of that whole scene to talk to Lisa again. “Does she even have our address?”

“Sent someone to pick her up this morning, don’t worry about it.”

“I bet her parents are going to love that.” Alec commented, settling down with some food he had found. “Don’t worry, the men in black taking your daughter to a secret location are definitely not going to kidnap her. Again.”

“It’ll be fine.” Lisa was trying to look dismissive of this concern, but I got the strong impression she had actually forgotten how bad it would look and was internally panicking. “Dinah can confirm nothing bad will happen to her while here. Look, I’ll even give them a call to clear up any misunderstandings.” She stood up and pulled out her phone, walking away to a side room.

Alec sniggered while seeing her walk away. “Always a joy seeing Lisa realise she didn’t think of everything.”

—

By the time Lisa was done giving her sincerest apologies to Mr and Mrs Alcott for not having informed them beforehand that their daughter would be visiting and for having given them a massive fright both Dinah and Rachel had arrived and the proper meeting was ready to begin. Everyone was looking at me expectantly, waiting for me to begin.

“So. I…” This was the point when I realised that I had no idea how to begin my explanation. “Hi.” 

Aisha waved back to me. 

“Okay, so the reason why I left was because I was worried about how our conflict with the PRT was rapidly escalating and that soon enough they would pull in everything to try to hurt us, hurt you. So I hoped that if I offered myself up to them they would back off from the rest of you and we could deescalate things.”

“Well that sure worked out, genius.” Alec commented, before getting an elbow in his ribs courtesy of Brian. “Ow!”

“No, it’s okay. It was impulsive of me, but…”

“It’s my fault.” Dinah said in a low voice. “I told her to cut ties and I arranged so the Protectorate were more likely to both push her into joining and then accept her.”

“Okay, so that’s the part I don’t get.” Aisha looked between Dinah and I. “They were supposed to go ‘Cool, let’s join forces’ and everyone lived happily ever after? But they didn’t, so what went wrong?”

“My visions don’t work in absolutes, they only show what’s more likely, not what will happen.” Dinah explained while looking down at her feet. “I… Miscalculated.”

“More like the PRT miscalculated.” Alec opined.

Brian looked thoughtful. “Not too different from when Lisa gets the wrong result then, like at the bank.” He ignored her giving him the finger at that. “Thinker powers are useful, but they’re not foolproof.”

“There’s more than that though. Something changed drastically yesterday, like there’s no longer a chance that Jack will end the world.”

“Yeah, Taylor told me yesterday.” Lisa commented. “I’ve been trying to figure out what could be the cause, but my intuition tells me that it’s because someone important to the fate of the world suddenly died an improbable death. Haven’t found anything so far so my best bet is that either old Jackie boy kicked the bucket while no one was looking or killing Alexandria somehow accidentally saved the world.” She looked at Dinah expectantly, waiting for her to chime in.

“No, that’s not it I don’t think.” She shook her head. “Previously the world was always going to end soon, even without Jack. He just accelerated it. If Jack had died before leaving Brockton Bay the world would just have ended in 15 years instead of 2. Now it’s not likely ending in either.”

“And Alexandria?” I asked. She fit the criteria the best that I knew of, though I wasn’t sure why she’d want to destroy the world. She had been a bully used to her powers letting her roll over people but she hardly seemed like the type to want to kill everyone from what I saw of her. It takes a special type of person to want the world to end when you live in it.

“I had run the numbers, and you killing Alexandria was likely to slightly increase the chance of the world ending, though still not so much that it wasn’t worth it for getting Taylor to join the Protectorate.”

“Wait, hang on.” Brian held up a hand. “You knew that Taylor would kill Alexandria when you did this?”

“I knew that there was a chance of it happening, and I considered that chance acceptable if it served the greater good.” She looked up at him, a fierce look in her eyes. “I don’t need you to tell me that it was callous or that I knowingly arrange people’s deaths to further my plans. I know that. It’s something I have to deal with every time I act on what my powers tell me.”

“Jesus.” Brian, a grown man, who had faced the Slaughterhouse Nine and had the build that let him be effortlessly intimidating, looked absolutely terrified. Either for or of the small girl he was talking to, it was hard to tell which. “Remind me not to get on your bad side.” He muttered.

Rachel, who had been lurking in a corner, more intent on listening than talking up until this point, finally added her piece to the discussion. “So you’re another schemer then, talking and talking to get people to do what you want.” She glared at Dinah, who glared right back at her.

“I’m so sorry I have to look at the big picture and work with what’s best for everyone.” She shot back at her.

Rachel scoffed. “You gamble with lives, just like Coil.”

“Guys!” I stepped in before Dinah found some way to murder Rachel for the last comment. I had a funny feeling if she put her mind to it she’d probably succeed. “This is not helpful. Dinah is not Coil. She made a mistake, but we’ve all done that. None of us here have never ended up hurting people we didn’t want to.”

There was a general murmur of agreement to this, with Rachel grunting what was not quite an apology but at least consent to let me continue and Dinah turning away from her as haughtily as she could manage.

“So, going back to what we were talking about.” I decided it was best if I took charge of the discussion again. “Those were my reasons why I chose to go through with this plan. It didn’t work and I should have told you about it beforehand, but I just found it hard enough as it was.”

“Good enough for me.” Alec shrugged. “Can’t say I haven’t done similarly impulsive things. And it all worked out in the end.”

“Yes…” Brian looked less willing to let it drop. “But that’s the issue, you take reckless actions that put yourself in danger but so long as it all works out for you then you are willing to do it all over again.”

I had hoped somebody would speak out in my defence on this issue, but based on the awkward look Lisa gave me when I turned to her for support she didn’t really disagree with him and everyone else was quiet. “... You might have a point.” I admitted. “I’m sorry. I’ll try to be better, okay?”

He nodded, apparently satisfied. “Okay.”

Lisa was quick to change subject after that and the rest of the meeting passed without further drama, instead dealing with how we were to handle the power vacuum the PRT had left us with. Dinah returned home early and most of the others skipped out on administrative talks, leaving myself, Brian and Lisa to confer on how to divide the new territories, deal with our lack of firepower if other gangs wanted to show up and take advantage of the PRT’s absence and how best to handle the civilian administration of the city.

—

Accord was, unsurprisingly, exceptionally punctual in his arrival. Entering the office building we had designated as the meeting point together with Citrine and Othello, he gave a nod upon seeing me. “Skitter. It’s good to see you back and back to your senses.”

“Accord.” I gestured at the chair in front of me. “Please, have a seat.”

He sat down, Citrine and Othello behind him mirroring Tattletale and Grue. “You disappointed me when you chose to upset the delicate balance of the city yesterday.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I replied, my voice neutral. No concession or admission of fault to him, a mere acknowledgement of his feelings only. It wouldn’t do to show weakness in front of this man.

“Yes, it was not what I had come to expect from you, and I would prefer to be warned in the future if you take such risky courses of action again.”

“We’ll inform you if we deem it necessary. I understand that you have several proposals to bring to us.” 

“Yes.” He nodded, and gestured for Citrine to place down several stacks of papers on the table. “I was told you could not guarantee that these would be implemented, but I have spent the entire night at work writing adjustments to my plans for how to best improve the city bearing in mind the utter chaos of yesterday, so I would appreciate it if you looked them over. This should cover everything from economic revival and ending the food shortages to improving the municipal police.” The thought of yesterday's events brought a grimace to his mask.

“Impressive.” I skimmed through some of the hundreds of papers before me, Tattletale hovering over my shoulder to read with me. A lot of it I suspected would go completely over the head of anyone without a university degree on socioeconomics but the attention to detail was commendable. “Like Tattletale told you yesterday we can’t promise their implementation, but we will look over your work to see if it is viable.”

“That is more than most would give me.” He nodded, looking rather pleased for the first time since he entered. “I’d be willing to provide advice and explanations on any of these subjects. Ultimately, I believe that we both want the same thing for the city of Brockton Bay.”

“And what would that be, Accord?” I pressed my fingertips together, curious what he had to say. I suspected he was not entirely wrong about our goals, but I also suspected that Accord was perfectly alright with forming a totalitarian regime if it meant they would be better achieved.

“Order.” He answered simply. “We want society to function as it should, with no drugs or violence or poverty or any of the symptoms of it failing. Where people work together to achieve general prosperity.”

“Like clockwork.” I supplied.

“Ideally, yes.”

“And how would more abstract concepts like happiness or freedom fit into this vision?” 

“I believe that happiness will come from living fulfilling lives where you always have food on the table and no fear of being stabbed in an alley. As for freedom I’ve met enough precogs to consider it little more than a fanciful illusion, one best not indulged considering what the majority choose to use their ‘freedom’ on.” There was clear distaste in his voice. “People may have as much freedom as they can be trusted with, no more and no less.”

“How illuminating.” This was mostly in line with what I had anticipated, though eloquently enough put I suspected he’d given those ideas more thought than I might have guessed. “I can’t say I fully agree with you here, Accord, but it’s an interesting point of view. We’ll return with our answers to your suggestions very soon, since it’s in everyone’s best interests that we lay out our plan for the future quickly before any more chaos could occur.” I used his own terminology, since it seemed most effective on keeping Accord onboard.

“Agreed. Every day that goes by without a platform for the future will cause the situation to deteriorate. You’ve put a lot of pressure on yourself to grow accustomed as the undisputed director of the city’s fate, Skitter, and to do so quickly.”

I almost wanted to say ‘so no pressure then’ in response, but that was not going to work well on Accord. “Of course, rest assured we take our duties with the utmost seriousness.”

—

And so it was that I spent a second night in a row at Lisa’s place. Much as I’d like to check in on my people, maybe take care of Atlas, I could trust Sierra and Charlotte to handle them in my absence and this took priority. The two of us were sitting on the sofa, surrounded by paperwork. Lisa was humming to herself while she checked her laptop.

“Anything interesting?” I asked, taking a break from trying to parse the hundreds of pages Accord had written.

“Kind of. Just having to navigate what our public image should be like.” She massaged her temple. “It’s… Complicated.”

“Complicated how exactly?”

“It’s about you, really, and how we need to convince them of two contradictory messages at once.” She sighed upon seeing my raised eyebrow. “So on the one hand we need to convince the businesses threatening to move out, the government officials who want to cut the city’s funding and the civilians scared to live in a city ruled by supervillains that you’re not a threat. That we’re not a threat I suppose, but it’s you who’ve gotten them so scared, half of them have never even heard about the rest of us, but I digress. We need to sell you as their friendly neighborhood supervillain who won’t interfere in people’s lives, right?”

“Right.” I was seeing where she was going. “But at the same time we still need to project strength against our enemies.”

“Exactly. So you also need to be the big bad scary Skitter, killer of Alexandria, ender of the legacy of the Butcher, all that jazz. So we need you to be scary enough that rival gangs stay away, but not so scary that regular people do, and the latter are a lot more easily scared, believe me.” She rolled her eyes. “It’s unbelievable how suicidal some gangs can get.”

“I see the issue, so the public view should be that I’m a merciless threat to my enemies but benevolent to everyone else. We must convince them that the violence we could bring would be severe but also applied very selectively.”

“Pretty much. I was also thinking of taking you out on a date tomorrow.” She said casually.

“Wait, what?” The sudden non-sequitur made my brain halt to a sudden stop.

“Not a ‘date’ date.” Lisa rolled her eyes. “We go out on town as civilians, eat somewhere, buy some clothes, and show off the new normal as being perfectly alright for the people. Make sure to tip generously.”

“Lisa, did you forget that I’m outed? People know that Taylor Hebert is Skitter.”

“That’s the beauty of it! They know who you are, but it would be rude to say anything about it if you don’t wear your mask. So everyone pretends like they don’t know and we don’t know that they know, all the while you get to act more approachable, show off that you’re a normal person like them underneath the costume.”

“And if someone tries to take us out or something while we’re vulnerable?”

“Between your powers and mine we’ll see it coming from a mile away.” She waved her hand dismissively. “Now I’m not hearing another word against my idea. This may be a PR move but it’s also because you desperately need to relax, you’re too wound up and this will be good for you.”

“Fine, but if something goes wrong I will say ‘I told you so’.”

“Wouldn’t have it any other way.” She smirked. The smile immediately fell from her face however when she remembered that we still weren’t even halfway through the papers. “Stupid control freak and his self-important plans.” She grumbled.

“Hey, at least Accord is being helpful and not disruptive.”

“I don’t like it when he’s helpful though.” Lisa whined. “Makes me think that the other shoe is about to drop any moment now.”

I shrugged at that. “Maybe, but until then I think implementing some of his ideas could do us good. Except for the part about executing jaywalkers, let’s maybe leave that one out.”

She gave me a look. “It says something when I’m not even sure you’re joking because that would be completely in character.”

“Haven’t found it yet, but I haven’t read all of this yet, might be in some other folder.”

“Who knew a literal crime lord could be so hard on the pettiest of crimes?” She grumbled. “I’ll admit, some of his ideas are promising, but I don’t like handing control over how Brockton Bay is run to the obsessive-compulsive fascist.”

“Neither do I, but I don’t suppose you happen to have some alternative plans lying in your backpocket? For all of his faults, Accord is an intelligent planner, and these plans do seem better than having no plan at all moving forward.”

“What happened to the time honoured tradition of winging it? You’re not the Skitter I knew.” She shook her head. “Well, at least if this goes wrong then I get to tell you ‘I told you so’.”

It continued like this for a while, until we were both quite literally half-buried in paperwork and utterly exhausted. As I drifted off to sleep, lying on the sofa, with a folder for cushion, I resolved not to ever show Accord what had happened to his collection. He’d probably plot my assassination for having ruffled the papers.

Chapter Text

My first time out in public since I had been outed as Skitter at Arcadia was a lot more stressful than I would have liked. Lisa had insisted that I wear something nice and ‘chic’ and not the kind of inconspicuous clothes I would have preferred under the circumstances. She herself had chosen to wear a pretty summer dress that she pulled off with an effortless ease that made me rather jealous and was taking the lead in our tour of the city. The old clear distinction between the richer and poorer parts of town no longer existed after the damage dealt by Bakuda, Leviathan, Slaughterhouse Nine and Echidna had damaged or destroyed houses in every city block we could find, leaving many still in dire need of reconstruction.

“Construction industry must be booming.” I observed, wondering if Brockton Bay would even be recognisable from what it had once been by the time that it was done. Even the very landscape had been altered by all that had happened.

“Oh it is.” Lisa readily agreed. “Been investing a lot into it actually, it’s one of our biggest sources of new workers at the moment. Nothing quite like an Endbringer attack to bring in some much needed renovation.” She laughed at how morbid the thought was.

“We should probably try to establish a new highway through Downtown leading up to the Portal while we’re at it, to make it easier to transport things to and from it.” I mused. “Perhaps build some kind of new base at the portal to protect it and mark out its importance for the revival of Brockton Bay.”

“Not a bad idea, but let’s shelve the ‘work talk’ for another time. Right now the goal is to relax, not think of future projects.”

“Would be a lot easier to do that without all the staring.” I muttered. I had to suppress the urge to scare people away with bugs when I noticed some of them taking out their phones to film us.

“Just smile and act normal.” Lisa insisted, giving an easy smile of her own to demonstrate. “You’re famous now, Taylor, there’s no putting the genie back in the bottle on that account so you’re just going to have to get used to it. Unless you’re planning on spending the rest of your life as a shut-in.”

“The option does tempt me.” I did not smile, my face was locked in a stony expression.

“You’re impossible.” She shook her head. “To think the most dreaded warlord in all of North America is camera shy. This is good, no one has panicked so far, people are just curious what you’re up to.”

“You have a very low bar for what counts as good. And besides, I can’t be that infamous, what about Nilbog, or the Pastor or people like that?”

“When was the last time people heard about Nilbog?” Lisa looked at me. “He took over one small town ten years ago, that’s ancient news as far as most are concerned. You killed a member of the Triumvirate this week , not to mention coming out on top of the massive Brockton Bay power struggle. You’re all over the news right now, Taylor, and people around the world are talking about you.”

“If this is you trying to make me less nervous about being seen by people you’re doing a terrible job at it.” I made a deliberate effort not to fall back to my old Winslow posture to avoid attention. 

“Fine, fine. So what do you want to talk about?”

“Going to talk to Parian today, do you have any suggestions for how to apologise to her?”

“Simple, she loves tailoring, so offer to help her with that. And make sure to be nice to Foil.”

“Contrary to what my name might imply, I don’t think I’m a very good tailor. She probably has other people who’d do better at it than me.”

Lisa stopped walking to give me a deadpan look. “Taylor, you can literally mass produce spider silk, do you have any idea how hard that is for most people? You made a top tier costume without any prior experience. Are you seriously telling me you’d have nothing to contribute?”

“Oh.” Now I felt a bit stupid. Using my spiders to help me with silk production and weaving had become so natural to me I had forgotten that other people couldn’t replicate it. “Right, that would make sense for me to do.”

“It certainly would.” She smiled amusedly at my embarrassment and went to buy us an ice cream each. Apparently my newfound fame did mean that we didn’t need to queue before the kiosk, because the line of people ahead of us moved aside as soon as we arrived. I really hoped it was because they respected me and not because they thought I’d attack them if I had to wait in line for ice cream.

“Parian is far from the only one I need to make amends with though.” I resumed the conversation once we had gotten our prize and were on the move again. “Rachel has barely spoken to me since I came back and I don’t know what to do about my dad.” The memory of him being terrified of me brought a lot of pain.

“He’s not had the gentlest introduction to the idea that his daughter is a supervillain.” Lisa looked thoughtful. “I’ll admit, I’m probably not the best person to ask for advice on this. Maybe try to give him some space for now and apologise once things have calmed down?”

“Maybe…” The thought made me uneasy. “It’s kind of what brought me into this mess in the first place though, wanting to give him space and wait with dropping it all on him. But I also don’t know what else to do. If I go to him now I feel like I’m just going to make things even worse.”

“Yeah.” She was no longer smiling now, having a dark look on her face instead. “It’s not easy, disappointing your parents and not knowing if they’ll ever forgive you. Or if you'll ever forgive them.”

I remembered what she had told me about her past and trigger event. This probably hit a bit too close to home for comfort. “I suppose it isn’t. But hey, that’s the past, we just have to look to the future.”

This made her laugh. “Very smooth, Taylor. No wonder people consider you a mastermind manipulator.”

Still, the mood did improve after that, and Lisa took me to visit several shops despite my strenuous protests. Though when she moved away from buying new clothes for my wardrobe to visiting the local bookstore my resistance got significantly more half-hearted. 

“Need to come up with a plan for how to approach Brian as well.” I said while browsing for any interesting book. The cashier, thankfully, had either not recognised me or decided not to care. “I sort of dumped him right before turning myself in because I’d be leaving you guys and now it’s really awkward.”

“Wow. Talking about your ex on your date.” Lisa clutched her heart like she had been mortally wounded. “I don’t know if my pride can take this.”

I rolled my eyes at her. “I distinctly remember you telling me this was not in fact a date. Maybe your pride should have thought about that.”

“Now that’s just not fair, expecting me to be consistent.” She grinned at me.

“I’m being serious, Lisa.”

“Fine, fine. Brian is a big boy, I trust him to be mature about it. Besides, the relationship had been ebbing off and the breakup was pretty clean, wasn’t it?”

“I suppose. I just don’t know what we are right now, aside from coworkers.”

“Friends, maybe? Treat him as you would Alec.” She suggested.

“Someone pathologically incapable of taking anything seriously?” I raised an eyebrow.

“Well apart from that of course. Treat him as you would Alec if you actually respected him.”

We both laughed at that one. I decided to buy a fantasy book that looked interesting, partially since Lisa insisted I had spent long enough in this shop that I was not allowed to leave without buying something for myself. By the time that we stepped out I had forgotten my previous anxieties about being seen in public and the subject fell on what to have for lunch.

“Fugly Bob’s?” I suggested, not really knowing about many other restaurants in Brockton Bay. My dad and I hadn’t really gone out for food much, the only memories being grabbing something at Fugly Bob’s after a day out on the market.

“That could work. It shows your working class background, making you feel humble and like a woman of the people.” She mused aloud.

“Seriously, Lisa, I was just asking what you’d like for food.”

“What, are you telling me you don’t intend to make a political statement with your meal?” She smirked. “Next you’re telling me your style of clothing isn’t a form of social commentary.”

“You’re the one who picked these out for me, you tell me.”

“Oh yes, it’s clearly meant to signal the new winds coming over Brockton.” She somehow managed to keep a straight face as she spoke. “The European influence tells me that you’re looking for opportunities abroad and it’s not too ostentatious to show that you’re not the same as the city’s old elite.”

“... You’re just making things up now.”

“Of course. I just thought it’d look pretty on you. But anything can be political if you want it to be, you just have to be confident enough in claiming that it is.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you can be really annoying sometimes?” I started walking in the direction of Fugly Bob’s.

“My whole life.” Lisa somehow managed to make it sound like a boast.

—

After my little excursion with Lisa out on town, I went to visit Parian’s residence and atelier. It wasn’t as fancy as the one she had before the Slaughterhouse Nine but she had put in a lot of effort to apply her personal touch to it. I knocked on the door and Parian opened, wearing her black doll costume. “Skitter?” She looked a bit nervous.

“Just Taylor when I’m out of costume.” I tried to give her a smile but judging by the look she gave me I doubt I succeeded. “May I come in?”

“Of course.” She stepped aside to let me in. “Please, make yourself at home.”

Inside was Flechette, giving me a wary look. She had traded her old purple costume for a new black one vaguely reminiscent of a cross between a musketeer and a ninja, and instead of an arbalest she was carrying a rapier now. I nodded at her. “Foil is it now?”

“Yeah.” Foil nodded, then reached out to shake my hand. “It’s… Uh, a new thing I’ve got going.”

“I like it.” I said quite honestly. “Think it suits you.”

“... Thanks.” She didn’t seem sure whether she should take that as a compliment or not.

“So what can I do for you, Taylor?” Parian had walked behind the counter and was now looking up at me expectantly.

“Well, Parian-”

“Sabah.”

“Sorry?”

“If I’m to call you Taylor then please call me Sabah.”

“Right, Sabah, I’ve been thinking I could try to help out your business. We’re trying to revitalise the Brockton economy and as a member of the Undersiders I figured you might appreciate some support.”

“What sort of support are we talking about here?” She asked me warily.

“I’ve dabbled in weaving before, making costumes for the Undersiders, and with enough terrariums I could probably bring you a steady supply of spider silk.”

That did catch her interest. “How much would this cost me exactly?” She asked me in a businesslike tone.

“No cost. Just wanted to help out the community.” I held up my hands.

“Any strings attached to this spur of generosity?” Foil asked, still looking at me suspiciously.

I shook my head. “Just trying to soothe my own conscience. I know I run the Undersiders pretty ruthlessly, I know that you two probably don’t approve, and I’m sorry for having excluded you from any decision-making.”

“Ah. So it’s a bribe then.”

“If you want to be crass.” I answered, a note of irritation to my voice. “I’m working to improve Brockton Bay, I want the people living here to be happy and prosperous, and that includes you as well.”

“I accept your help.” Sabah said before Foil could continue the argument. “It’s good of you, I think. Better use of what you’ve been given. People don’t think enough about the ways they can use powers outside of fighting each other.”

“I suppose I have to think of other ways of using them now that I’ve run out of people to fight here.” I tried joking. It didn’t seem to land as well as I had hoped. “Look, I can’t promise that incidents like at the PRT won’t happen again, if people come looking for trouble I have to respond in force for them to back away. But I’ll try to show restraint otherwise, okay?”

“Okay.” She seemed a little more at ease. “Thank you, for trying.”

“It’s all anyone can do.” I went to leave, with Foil leading me out of the shop.

Once the door was closed, she turned to stare me down. “Just to be clear, if this is some kind of scheme of yours, if you’re trying to bring trouble to her door, I will end you. Got it?”

“Capisco.” I said dryly. “I have no interest in hurting either of you.”

“Good.” She relaxed. “Name’s Lily by the way. I know we haven’t gotten along great but thank you, for helping Sabah so much. It means a lot.”

—

With that done, I finally had time to return back to my lair at the Boardwalk. Both Sierra and Forrest were out and about when I returned home but Charlotte was there. “Taylor!” She looked surprised to see me. “How have you been? I haven’t heard from you in a while.”

“I’m fine, Charlotte. Been very busy.” I looked around. The place looked the same as I had left it. Atlas was in a corner on the topmost floor I could sense. Charlotte had left him food but it wasn’t until he came within my range that he had eaten. I suspected he didn’t have that much longer left to live. “And you? How are things looking on your end?”

“As well as can be. We were all very worried when you turned yourself in.”

“Yes.” I sighed. “I wish that had worked out, I really did. I wanted to be a hero, it’s all I ever wanted, but it seems that I’m doomed to mess it up whenever I try.”

“Hey.” Charlotte led me to the table, where she pulled out the remnants of yesterday’s food for me to eat. “You’re a hero to this community at least. We wouldn’t have gotten through those months of trouble nearly as well without you.”

Part of me wanted to protest, to say that they wouldn’t have had so much trouble were it not for me, but I appreciated the sentiment and so let it rest. “Thanks, Charlotte. How are the kids?”

“Doing better, though I wanted to ask you something about that.” She looked very serious all of a sudden. “Cape business.”

“Oh?” I raised an eyebrow. “Parahumans giving trouble?”

“Not exactly. It’s Aiden, and the nightmares he’s been having.”

“Right…” I wasn’t sure where she was going with this.

“It might be easier if I showed you.” She walked away to come back with a drawing done by a child’s hand. “There’s something funny about this one. He said it came to him from a dream that he forgot. A dream involving planets and stars and these two large… Things at the centre of it all.”

“Okay.” I looked closely. Something about the drawing seemed vaguely familiar but I couldn’t for the life of me remember what it was. “It’s… Odd.”

“That’s what I thought as well. It reminded me of that night when you rescued me. When the trigger event happened. You and Tattletale were both mumbling about stars and worms and weird things like that.”

“Did we?” I had absolutely no recollection of that. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

Charlotte gave me a long searching look. “Well anyway, I was wondering if you had some idea what could have caused it. He doesn’t seem to have any powers from what I can tell but could it be related?”

“I… Maybe?” It was weird, as soon as I looked away from the picture the memory of it started to get foggier. “I can’t remember. It feels important but whenever my mind focuses on it the memory slips away.”

“Really?” Charlotte frowned. “Doesn’t happen to me but maybe it’s some kind of parahuman thing. You want me to try to do some research on this?”

“Sure.” I shook my head to clear my thoughts. “Seems to be some kind of Stranger effect.”

“Hmm.” She looked at the drawing. “I’ll get back to you about this. In the meantime, was there anything else you wanted to know?”

“Any troublemakers while I was away?”

“No, not unless you count some journalists. There’s tension but we’ve managed.”

“Good.” I tried to think of what else to cover. “Will you and Forrester be okay with holding the fort on your own for certain periods? We’re going to need Sierra to help with some projects in Downtown and I have to spread my attention pretty wide right now.”

“We’ll manage. Tattletale has been providing some mercs to help train people and the community spirit is strong.”

“I’m glad.” I smiled slightly. “Well, Charlotte, it’s been wonderful being back but I’m going to go and check on my spiders. Need to breed a lot more if I’m to provide enough silk for Parian.”

She shuddered. “So long as you keep them far away from me.”

I laughed, which somehow made her even more unnerved, and went to look over my terrariums. Would need a lot more space for what I had in mind but Brockton was not lacking in unused space right now so that didn’t worry me. I found it strangely relaxing, sitting back and directing my creatures to begin weaving for me. Making sure that Parian’s business was successful would be helpful for my long-term plans to present the Bay as a haven for rogues. Heroes and villains alike would be more trouble than they’re worth, trying to interfere with my vision for one reason or another, but rogues like Sabah or Dinah could do a lot of good I’d estimate. It was simply a matter of providing incentives for them to stay.

Idling away the hours also gave me time to think further on what I wanted to achieve as the new ruler of Brockton Bay. If I restored the ferry I might bring some small amount of pride to my dad over me still. I hoped. We also needed to decide what to do with the PRT ENE headquarters now that it belonged to us, and how to resolve the New Wave situation. On the one hand striking first against them would give our enemies a lot more material to denounce us as warmongering villains, but on the other hand I highly doubted they would ever accept us, and the longer we waited the greater their chance of replenishing their manpower. Accord might have a point, everything really was so much easier when everyone moved in synchronicity the same way that each spider currently performed its role perfectly and without strife.

Chapter Text

Director Kamil Armstrong was having a very bad day. In fact he might go so far as to say he’s had a long series of bad days, starting when the Slaughterhouse Nine had attacked Boston and thrown the city into chaos before being driven out by Dragon and Defiant. The temporary relocation of the Brockton PRT to Boston had helped restore order but it also placed him directly on the frontlines in the new war being prepared against his best judgement. 

“We should at the very least declare it a quarantine zone and wall it off like we have the others.” Director Wilkins, ever the warhawk, was arguing. Many of the other PRT directors were nodding along to this.

“You’d condemn about two hundred thousand American citizens to a life of squalor if you went through with this.” Armstrong was keeping his voice as calm as possible, it wouldn’t do to lose his head here.

“And you’re condemning them to being ruled by a gang of violent psychopaths by arguing for us to do absolutely nothing.” She shot back. 

“Radicalised youth.” He corrected her. “Believing that the system has failed them. Vindicating them solves nothing. A carrot and stick approach to keep them in line by offering government benefits as long as they behave is both more efficient and humane.”

“You’d have us consort with criminals and all but legitimise their takeover when there are thousands of others wanting to follow their example?” Director Hearthrow asked pointedly.

“The damage in that regard is already done, it happened the moment we agreed to the terms of the Undersiders.”

“Something that Defiant and Chevalier went ahead with without first getting our approval.” Wilkins shot in.

Armstrong sighed. “They filed for approval as soon as they could and were granted it, the situation on the ground was understandably hectic.”

Chief Director West raised a hand to quiet everyone. “What’s done is done. Unless one of you happens to have a parahuman capable of going back in time in your backpocket we can’t undo the events in Brockton Bay. This meeting is about how to proceed going forward.”

“And I still think that if Armstrong didn’t insist on holding back, Boston would be the perfect staging ground for retaking Brockton, being close by and with most of its own criminal gangs driven away.” Wilkins persisted.

“They were driven away by the Slaughterhouse Nine.” Despite his best efforts, Armstrong was getting genuinely quite angry by now. “Do you have any idea what a visit by them does to a city, Wilkins? We’re struggling to keep order in one city, how do you expect us to handle two?”

“And we’ll all struggle a lot more until we give a show of force. Morale is at an all time low while villains everywhere are seeing opportunity.”

“All the more reason to consolidate what we have rather than try to overextend. The PRT involvement in Brockton has been an endless series of disasters, I will not sign my authorization for yet another to the list.”

“We all know about your backroom deals with Accord, Armstrong. Is this why you are going soft on them?”

“Enough!” West glared at them both. “This is getting us nowhere. So long as people keep leaving the Protectorate we won’t have the resources for a full occupation. The PRT is in grave danger, and we need to play this cleverly if we are to restore our fortunes, rather than trying to brute force matters.”

Director Seneca coughed to draw everyone’s attention. “If I may, I have a third option for consideration.”

“Go on.” West gestured for him to continue.

“The fall of Brockton Bay, while unfortunate, does present us with a unique opportunity. The city has always been a haven for supervillains, and our withdrawal will only increase its attraction to them. So why not give them an extra push?”

“I’m not sure I follow.” said Hearthrow.

“Simple. Long term detainment of supervillains has been a constant issue for us. Nothing short of the Baumann Parahuman Containment Center tends to hold them for long. And while forcing them to move to another city normally just kicks the can further down the road, if we pressured them to move in the direction of Brockton we’d be able to wipe our hands with them. So while we reassign Brockton heroes to other cities, we also send the villains of those cities back, strengthening our hold across North America at the cost of a city that’s already been written off as a lost cause.”

“And if those villains united to form a large army?” West asked, sounding sceptical but intrigued.

“Their average psychological profile would make this impossible, far too many of them are bloodthirsty egomaniacs that would rather kill their competition than make friends with them. They’ll regulate their own numbers for us, sparing us from having to kill them.”

“You would incite massive gang wars in a densely populated area.” Armstrong pointed out.

“Wasn’t that already a fact of life there?” Seneca shrugged. “If anything that only works further in our favour. If Brockton was to flourish, unlikely as that may be, people would call into question the necessity of the PRT, and our popular support would wane accordingly. If however the lack of our presence in a city meant that crime and violence skyrockets then everyone would have a very good reason to want us to stay in power, wouldn’t they?”

“Cynical, yet effective.” West nodded along, and Armstrong had a sinking feeling that most of the directors were convinced by Seneca’s arguments. “Very well. Seneca, I’m putting you in charge of Operation Sydney. Not a word of this is to be breathed to anyone, I expect you all to understand.”

“Of course, Chief Director.” He smiled thinly. “Operational secrecy is key here.”

“Good, with so many recent defectors we can’t afford to take any chances.” West folded his hands. “Which brings us to the next subject of the day: Dragon. Her behaviour has grown increasingly erratic and it may be time to consider insurance should she too turn traitor.”

—

“It’s been confirmed.” Doctor Mother spoke aloud to the gathered leaders of Cauldron. There were fewer of them than usual, with Alexandria dead and Legend absent due to his growing disillusionment with the organisation. Eidolon was the sole remaining representative of the Triumvirate at the table and she could tell that this was bothering him. “Scion is gone.”

“How can we be sure?” Eidolon asked, leaning forward.

Contessa spoke at this. “We’ve scoured every single version of Earth for him, and have found him nowhere. Moreover precogs across the world report a change in fate we believe to be related.”

“With that said.” Interjected The Number Man. “For now we’ll work under the assumption that he’s still active but has found a way to hide from all forms of observation. He might have caught on to our plan and is taking countermeasures.”

“But if he really is gone?” Pressed Eidolon. “Why?”

“Who could say? His mind is surely incomprehensibly alien to us.” Doctor Mother replied. “While I wish that I could say that it was our actions that drove him away, the truth is we have no idea.”

“Which may actually be worse than what we had previously.” Contessa had a very serious look on her face, which admittedly was not significantly different from her default look. “Before, we could monitor him and measure his capabilities while making sure that any conflict happens at a time of our choosing. Now he’s robbed us of those advantages, miniscule though they may be.”

“Still though. This is good news, we’ve averted doomsday, even if we don’t know what caused this.” Eidolon looked mildly confused at how grim everyone else at the table were.

“Assuming that he doesn’t return, which we have no way of verifying.” Contessa countered. “And until that happens what then? We’ve lost our raison d'être. How will Cauldron sustain itself in preparation of the day Scion comes back if we’re lost in purpose?”

“We could turn our focus to lesser threats to the world. The Endbringers are still out there, along with a dozen other S-class threats. Devoting resources to taking out such threats to the world would align with our goal of saving it from the apocalypse, and make it better prepared for if Scion does return.”

“A valid point. It might also help with the increasing scrutiny we’ve fallen under.” Doctor Mother agreed. “The number of people investigating us is growing daily, and even dear Contessa is struggling to keep them all silent. If they see concrete proof of the good we are doing they might lessen the pressure on us.”

“It would work as a testing ground for our theories as well.” The Number Man nodded. “Methods developed to kill Endbringers could come in use to dispose of Scion as well if he shows up again.”

“All in agreement then?” Doctor Mother looked round the table. “Good. Does anyone else have anything to- Yes, Eidolon?”

“I think it’s time we stopped ignoring the elephant in the room.” He spoke grimly. “Alexandria. Why did she die?”

Everyone at the table shifted awkwardly. To admit failure went against the idea of human perfection that Cauldron valued so highly. It made them small, mortal, not the omniscient power they needed to be if they were to have a chance to kill a god. Contessa finally broke the silence. “Our Thinker powers were effectively neutralised during the event. Miss Alcott, who incidentally was helpful in confirming Scion’s absence, countered my powers while Miss Hebert countered Alexandria’s.”

“That doesn’t really answer why we allowed this to happen though.”

Doctor Mother tried to lead the subject to something more constructive. “We’re already taking steps to rectify this loss. We’ve secured her body and are calling in a favour with Pretender to-”

“None of that changes that she’s dead!” Eidolon slammed a fist down on the table. “She was a friend, a comrade, not simply a disposable asset.”

“When the future of humanity is at stake, everyone is disposable.” Contessa met Eidolon’s glare with a cold look. “We’ve always known this, and it’s informed our decisions as you well know.”

“But why? Why take that risk? We had everything we wished for, Brockton Bay as a testing ground for cape feudalism and Skitter ready to become an agent.”

More awkward silence. It hadn’t escaped anyone that after their previous efforts to turn Brockton Bay into a warlord state had failed, it finally happened by sheer accident and despite their best efforts to stop it. The irony was staggering, and Doctor Mother would have found it amusing if it wasn’t so incredibly frustrating.

Again, Contessa was the first to speak. “Skitter is an unknown and highly unstable factor, with the potential to grow into a major threat to our interests and the world at large. Our prognosis suggests that if not corralled she could become more dangerous to humanity than all other S-class threats sans Scion combined.”

“And so we created a villain who did what over sixty Endbringer fights failed and killed Alexandria.” Eidolon’s voice was very low. “Have you ever wondered if your precognition sets up self-fulfilling prophecies?”

“Precognition doesn’t do that, the Path of Victory least of all. It changes fate, it doesn’t merely highlight it.”

“But how can you be so sure?” Eidolon shook his head and sighed. “Forgive me, recent events have… Shaken me.”

“As it has us all.” Doctor Mother said gently. “There have been some stumbles, but we must endure. The future of humanity rests on our shoulders.”

The Number Man added. “For now we’ll take the subtle path with regards to Skitter. Overt pressure appears to be ineffective to guide her to the path of our choosing, and we do have an agent within her ranks that she’s struck an accord with.”

—

Since she had met Taylor on the 8th of July, Emma had barely ever left her own room. She knew that it was irrational, if Taylor wanted to kill her she already knew her address, but she could hardly bring herself to get out of bed on most days, let alone go back to Arcadia. She hated herself for it, hated how weak she had become. The last time she had been close to death she had fought back, even returned to where it happened to prove it had no hold on her. But she just couldn’t. 

“I’m not weak.” She told herself, over and over again. “I’m not.” But the words sounded feeble to her ears. She had seen the footage of Skitter, of Taylor, declaring her intentions and the universe obeying. She had condemned Alexandria to death and Alexandria had died. Their greatest hero as children, invulnerable Alexandria, falling because Taylor had decreed such. That was true strength, and nothing Emma did could ever compare.

A fly landed on the window and Emma flinched upon seeing it. She wondered if it was one of Taylor’s spies, come to delight in her sorry state. That was another reason why she dared not go outside, she’d be defenceless if Taylor sent her swarm to scour her meat from her bones. Emma thought back on every nasty comment she had made to her former friend, every prank, every attempt to assert her dominance. Surely Taylor hated her for it, hated her enough to kill. She vividly imagined all the cruel ways by which she could torment her, take retribution. She wouldn’t blame her, it’s what she’d do if their roles were reversed.

Far more comforting than the alternative. Emma would gladly take every punishment Taylor could devise rather than contemplate the awful second option: That Taylor did not care about her. That the apathy in her eyes when they met was completely genuine. Emma had built her entire identity since the night of the attack on the idea that she was better than Taylor, stronger, her every action taken to cement this lie. The thought that she saw her as lower than the ants she controlled was just too dreadful to contemplate. Better that Emma suffered tenfold what Taylor had suffered. It would be just, and it might make her stronger, better than her current self.

“Come on.” She whispered to a spider scurrying across the ceiling. “Do it. You know you want to.”

The spider ignored her completely.

“Don’t you dare not listen to me!” She shrieked, throwing her pillow at the spider. It seemed completely unbothered by her outburst. “Just kill me if that’s what you want! Do something!”

It did not deign to respond to her, continuing with its own business like she wasn’t even there. 

Emma wept, tears streaming down from her face. Even the lowest of creatures saw her as utterly beneath notice. Pathetic. Not even worth hating. Was this Taylor’s plan all along? To break Emma’s spirit like she had broken hers? “Fine, you win. I hope you’re happy.” She sobbed herself to sleep, not bothering to get up to retrieve her pillow.

—

The new extradimensional base of operations that Bonesaw had set up for the Slaughterhouse Nine truly was a state of the art facility, packed with all the tinkertech they had stolen during their raid on Toybox. Jack didn’t know what half of it even did, and he was careful not to touch anything lest he accidentally disintegrated himself. But that was the problem: While Bonesaw worked to make all the technology operate in concert for the creation of their clone army Jack had nothing to do, and as such he was deeply, terribly bored. 

Normally the solution to such boredom was killing people, but the people he could kill while in this pocket dimension was awfully limited. Bonesaw was right out, girl was far too useful. The remaining members of the group were an option, Hookwolf, Skinslip or Night Hag, but the group was awfully low on numbers as it was, only five out of the nominal nine they ought to have. Then of course there were the clones, who were easily replaceable but also awfully boring to slay. There was no thrill to such fabricated and inorganic slaughter.

So he did the third best thing he could think of after killing and corrupting: He turned on the TV. Getting the signal to come through had been difficult but well worth it, not just to give him something to do but also keep him updated on the news. If he was to fulfill his glorious destiny of destroying the world he needed to understand it, and you never knew when he’d be mentioned, that was always flattering. 

“It-” Bzzt. “-Been confirmed that Alexandria has been killed. People-” Bzzt. “-The world are in mourning. Not since the death of Hero have we suffered a blow quite like this.”

“Huh.” Jack briefly wondered how the Siberian would have reacted to this if she was still alive. Would she be pleased, or annoyed that someone beat her to the punch?

“This is but the latest of a series of calamities that have befallen the troubled city of Brockton Bay, which is now reported to be under the control of a group of supervillains calling themselves the Undersiders.” The reporter on the TV went on to say.

“Good for them I guess.” Jack hadn’t thought that much of the Undersiders when he visited Brockton, although Skitter had proven an amusing opponent, far worthier than he had first anticipated. 

“The PRT has released some footage of the affair, but we should warn people to turn off their TV if they’re sensitive to violence. Viewer discretion is advised.” The broadcast paused to give people a chance to do so.

Jack Slash turned the volume up instead.

A girl whose face he didn’t recognise but who spoke with Skitter’s voice was staring murderously at a man while he desperately tried striking her down, his appearance almost impossible to tell because of all the insects clinging to every part of his body, biting and stinging. Her words held a calm certainty that left Jack genuinely rather impressed.

“Not a promise, not an oath, or a malediction or a curse. Inevitable. Wasn’t that how she put it? I told them. Warned them.”

“Ooh, dramatic, isn’t she?” Bonesaw had snuck up on Jack while he was watching, drawn by the sound of screaming. “Still sorry you didn’t nominate her, Uncle Jack?” She teased him.

“Now more than ever.” He chuckled good-naturedly. “Who knew she had this in her?”

The reporter prattled on about how the man was someone called Tagg and how she had killed Alexandria simultaneously in a similar fashion, but Jack turned the sound off, he had gotten what interested him.

“Brockton was a lot of fun.” Bonesaw said, wistfully. “You think we could visit Amy again sometime? Must feel awfully cooped up in the Birdcage.”

“Maybe, Little B. Maybe.” Jack smiled. “How’s the work going?”

She pouted at him. “Not great, I can clone them just fine using Blasto, but the powers just won’t work. Artificially induced trigger events are hard and even though I can clone the people I can’t clone their passengers, because they don’t really exist inside them. The Corona Gemma is useless without a passenger to actually give it powers to manage.”

“Right.” While Jack did have a great interest in the psychology of parahumans, he had never held Bonesaw’s fascination with their biology. Still, he got the gist of it. “Any idea how to get around this problem?” 

“Not yet, but I’m working on it.”

“You do that, I’ll think of some alternative methods we could use.” Truthfully, Jack had never been too emotionally attached to the Slaughterhouse Nine clone army idea. It lacked his usual personal touch to atrocities and if it succeeded that meant he wouldn’t get to enjoy full credit for the devastation. Too many people would attribute it to Bonesaw even though he was the one who had led her down this path. He still had several backup plans, like riling up Nilbog, and a new one was forming in his mind thanks to the news.

“Say, would you still like to have a big sister in the family?” He asked her.

“Of course! Amy was a lot of fun, I really wish we could have taken her with us.”

“She was, but a deal’s a deal. Perhaps we could invite an invitation to Skitter to our little family, how’d you like that?”

“Ooh, I’d love to study her some more. She was so interesting. It’s a shame I got interrupted. Although…” She had a contemplative look on her face. “It was only if you left the city that the world would end, wasn’t it?”

“Yes? I remember.”

“Well, who’s to say it was the first time you left that counted? What if when you go back they’ll kill you then and the world won’t end? It would be a classic prophecy twist.” She nodded sagely.

“Hm.” Annoyingly, he had to give her that one. She had a point. “Alright, no returning to Brockton until we’ve destroyed the world, I’ll have to think of something else. Still, I do think it’s time we stepped up our game a little. Laying low is not really our style, and as long as we control the portal technology we can always return here safely from anywhere.”

“Alright, I’ll keep working on the clones though. I was so close to getting them to work, I don’t know what went wrong.” Bonesaw sighed. “And please, Uncle Jack? If you go out, take the others with you on your hunts, they’re really making a mess of my workshop.”

“Of course.” He gave her a kiss on the forehead. “I’ll give you all the time to work that you need. Just need to let off some steam, maybe pick up a few more recruits.”

Chapter Text

A week had passed since the fateful day when the PRT were driven out of Brockton Bay and things were starting to settle down. It was quite impressive, all things considered, how quick people were to adjust to the new normal. The town may be ruled by supervillains now but that was no reason not to go to work and act like nothing had changed. Perhaps it was because we had already been more powerful and influential than the Protectorate for a while, or because we had successfully convinced the people of our good intentions, but I suspected a lot of it was just because people take comfort in following old habits when forced into new situations. 

Moreover, Tattletale had managed to wrangle state and federal institutions to continue to provide their services to Brockton, though while I had not asked for details I suspected in their case it had more to do with her using copious amounts of bribes and blackmail to get them to comply than a need to pretend that everything was still normal. The PRT had remained suspiciously quiet this whole time, which all of us agreed probably meant that they were up to no good. 

I had promised myself that I would see my dad after a week had passed but looking at my schedule… No, I was far too busy today, building up our new administration, and I would already have to endure some awkward conversations with my friends. A day here and there wouldn’t make a difference. That’s what I told myself, waiting for Grue to arrive at the former PRT headquarters to have a debrief about his new role in our organisation.

It was when he did arrive, a few minutes before the appointed time, that I realised I hadn’t actually planned for how to address our current relationship. “Grue.” I paused to consider what else to say, which he took as an invitation to reply.

“Skitter.” His voice was low and melancholic. “You wished to see me?”

“Yes.” I desperately tried to think of something that I could say that would bridge the awkwardness. The only thing that came to my mind would be ‘how are you doing’ but the answer to that one was insultingly obvious. Settling on a professional approach, I gave him a nod. “Thank you for coming. I wanted to talk to you about the future of the Undersiders and how they’ll be structured.”

“Ah, I see.” His shoulders sagged almost imperceptibly. “I’m listening.”

“Right.” My mouth was very dry. “So we haven’t really updated how we operate since Coil and while our way of dividing the city into territories was useful then we believe that it has since become obsolete.”

“‘We’ being you and Tattletale.” There was the faintest bit of accusation in his tone, enough to make me almost wince.

“... Yeah. We no longer need to protect individual districts from rival gangs, not when the city is ours to defend. So we’re taking on new citywide responsibilities while leaving civilian administrators in charge of our territories. Charlotte has already taken over running the boardwalk for me and Sierra is going to be in charge of downtown. Tattletale, Bitch and myself are all getting new responsibilities because of this.”

“And now you’re moving on to me.” Grue’s voice was flat and his arms were folded while he waited for me to tell what I had planned.

“That’s right.” I thought through what I wanted to say carefully. I did not want to give the impression that I was sidelining him or belittling his work for the team. In hindsight calling his work obsolete wasn’t my best move. “It’ll be an expansion of your current duties, applied to all of Brockton. We, I, want you to take over leading our paramilitary forces. The citizen militias, Coil’s old mercenaries and all that. Train them, keep them disciplined and united and make sure nobody causes trouble.”

“Alright, I can do that.” He seemed to relax a little at this. “Where will I be working from?”

“Right here, actually.” I pointed a finger down to signify the building we were in. “Thought it’d be symbolic if we made the PRT headquarters the base for our own squads of troops. Plus, it lets you use all the facilities they already have here for training.”

“Hm.” He looked around himself appreciatively. “Works for me. Anything else you want from me?”

“Yes…” This had been the easiest part and somehow it still left me emotionally harrowed just from the smallest of microexpressions. “I was also wondering… Do you have any idea what work we should give Imp and Regent?”

“Oh.” This was not what he had anticipated, but he gathered himself quickly enough. “There’s nothing you need them for?”

“Not really.” Wow, that felt bad to say out loud. “I mean, it’s not that I don’t appreciate their work, but you know, I don’t see either of them wanting to switch to doing paperwork.”

“No I suppose not.” Grue snorted at that. “I guess I could see Regent wanting to get into the media business but…”

“But there’s no way we could trust him to not say something incredibly stupid to an international audience.” I finished the thought for him.

“Basically. I guess I could babysit them both. Sorry.” I got the distinct impression he was rolling his eyes behind the mask. “I meant to say provide them meaningful work and discipline.”

“If you’re feeling up for it.” I had gotten the impression he still didn’t feel ready to step up and become a team leader again from last time we spoke. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“It’s fine.” He waved me off. “Aisha, I mean Imp, is my sister anyway, and if I keep Regent around as well that means she won’t run off to be with him instead. And while they’ll undoubtedly set a terrible example for the rest of them, they are quite good at patrols.”

It was my turn to give a small snort of amusement. “I suppose that’s true. Most thugs are smart enough to only attack their victims when they’re alone, so letting rumours flourish that Imp could be anywhere and they wouldn’t know it might be an effective deterrent.”

“Which brings another question to bear. What about Regent’s secondary power function?” He looked very serious all of a sudden.

“Ah… I’ve got to admit I’m a bit uncomfortable about that one. Kind of creeps me out.”

“Who doesn’t it creep out? Apart from Aisha apparently.” He sighed. “Though you did let him Master Shatterbird so I thought it best to ask.”

“Shatterbird had a kill order on her!” I protested, though even as I said that I remembered that I hadn’t taken any measures to stop him from Mastering the thugs in his territory if he wanted to. Or that for all her many faults Shadow Stalker did not have a kill order when we made the plan to Master her.

Grue tactfully did not bring this up however. “Alright, so no Mastering then?”

“Well…” I already knew I was going to regret this some time in the future. “I suppose as long as you make sure he only does it to people who really deserve it. Could make people think twice about becoming rapists or serial killers, and make more use out of the ones you catch than if you just put a bullet through the head.”

If Grue had any reservations about this he did not show it, instead just giving a shrug of acknowledgement. “Works for me, I guess.”

“Good.” I shifted uncomfortably. “Take care, Grue.”

“You too, Skitter.” He looked at me rather sadly while I hurriedly extracted myself from the conversation.

I left the building soon after, filled with self-loathing both for the things I had said and the things I had not said. I had managed to hold an entire conversation with Brian without once talking about our feelings, instead choosing to suggest the strategic usage of body control to him and saddling him with responsibilities he did not want while somehow still making him feel like I didn’t value his contributions to the team. My attempt to apologise to the people I had hurt was off to a flying start.

—

My next appointment for the day was promising to be smoother at least, since I was planning on meeting Lisa and Sierra by the portal to the new Earth, dubbed Earth Gimel in continuation of the practice established with Earth Aleph and Earth Bet. Walking over to Downtown after I had dropped off my costume and changed into more inconspicuous clothes, I idly wondered who was responsible for the practice of naming Earths after the Phoenecian alphabet. I was just finished concluding that it must have been a massive nerd who thought the Greek alphabet was too mainstream and wanted to use its more niche precursor when I realised that I was the one spending my midday walk contemplating the usage of ancient dead languages in the modern day and that maybe I didn’t have much of a leg to stand on when it came to such accusations.

Arriving at the construction site where the first work to build a shell protecting the portal had begun, I was greeted by Lisa waving at me to come over. “Taylor!”

“Hey, Lisa.” I walked over to her and received a surprise hug in return, Lisa apparently sensing my inner turmoil. “How’s it going?”

“Just great. Been making friends with the rich and the powerful I’ll have you know.”

“Oh really?” I raised an amused eyebrow, having some idea where she was going with this.

“Of course, Taylor, may I present you with Sierra Kiley. Soon to be the hottest property owner in all of Brockton.” She waved Sierra over.

“In which sense of the word?” Sierra teased. “Hi Taylor, nice seeing you again.”

“Sierra.” I smiled. “It’s been a little while. What’s it like being the front woman for the Undersiders?”

“Eh, I’ve had worse bosses.” She shrugged. “Never thought I’d one day be the owner of the most important land in the Bay, but I like it. Can’t possibly do a worse job than the previous elite.”

I chuckled at that. “I suppose if you compare yourself to the likes of the Anders it’s hard not to look good. How’s your brother?”

“Can’t let go of the fact that I’m now ‘the Man’, but other than that he’s fine. He’s been less insufferable than usual, so I’m assuming he’s planning on asking me for some kind of favour.”

“Probably wise. Setting up shop here once the Portal Tower is complete?”

“That’s the plan. Got  a small house down the street right now where I’m getting up to speed with downtown.” Sierra had a distant look on her face. “Think we’ll actually manage to do it? Make a change to the city?”

“Have to, don’t we? Otherwise this will all have been for nothing.” I caught Lisa motioning me to step to the side. “Been good seeing you again, Sierra. Just keep doing what you have been doing.”

“You got it, boss.” She waved me away before returning her focus to the work going on.

As soon as we were out of earshot of anyone, Lisa switched from carefree to serious mode. “I’ve got three pieces of news that I need to talk to you about.”

“Good news or bad news?” In my experience it was usually the latter.

“A mix of both.” She grimaced. “Let’s start with the most important bit first.” She pulled out her phone and showed me a thread on PHO labelled ‘Scion gone?’

I took the phone from her and scrolled down it to read the original post and first few comments. “‘May God protect us, for Scion won’t’? These people certainly have a sense for the dramatics.”

Lisa rolled her eyes. “They’re people on the internet who think that geeking out over capes makes them the most important people in the world, of course they do. That’s not the point. Look at the date of the last confirmed sighting. 13th of July, the day before the death of Alexandria.”

“And right before Dinah predicted the world was no longer close to ending.” I saw where she was going with this. “And you think it’s related?”

“Unpredictable disappearance of someone probably capable of destroying the world who is famously hard for precogs to see? Yeah, I do.” Lisa frowned. “No idea why though. Could maybe be the work of you-know-who but I’m not getting that feeling.”

Cauldron. While I could see them trying to get rid of Scion I chose to trust Lisa’s intuition on this matter, it was usually right. “Say that it is Scion though, why would he destroy the world, and what does it have to do with Jack?”

“Oh that one’s easy. He’s basically just a big automaton, isn’t he? Doing things by rote because somebody told him he should. Can you honestly tell me that the weirdly charismatic Jack Slash wouldn’t be able to find a way to convince old goldie boy that actually blowing up the world for no fucking reason is in fact the most ‘good’ thing to do?”

“I guess. Beats all our previous theories I suppose. This does mean that we won’t be able to rely on Scion against the Endbringers any longer though.”

“Yeah, that’s the bad news with the good in that one.” She sighed. “We’ve got a decent idea of how the world was going to end and why it’s no longer at the same risk of doing so, but we’ve lost our idiot golden protector.”

“Mhm.” I nodded along to this. “I’ll still take it, but it’s not ideal, and we’ll probably end up losing more to Endbringer attacks. Speaking of which, isn’t another one coming along soon?”

“Yeah…” Lisa bit her lip. “Our first one after the Protectorate started collapsing and Scion disappeared. Not having a good feeling about it.”

“Hopefully this will be a wakeup call for people to put in more effort to contribute against the Endbringers.” I personally doubted it, and by the look on her face Lisa was on the same page as me, but a little bit of optimism couldn’t hurt. “So what are the other two pieces of news?”

“They’re both of a similar kind. The first proper challenge to our regime in the form of New Wave and the Red Hands. They’ve both finally decided to play their hand and pull some moves against us.”

“Let’s start with the Red Hands then. What can you tell me about them?” I remember having read about them when keeping myself updated on incoming gangs set on arriving in Brockton. “They’re thieves, right?”

“Right.” Lisa nodded. “Powers and personalities suited for getting in and out quickly. They’re a bit like the Undersiders back in the early days, when our jobs mostly involved stealing things as part of ‘Coil’s great master plan’.”

“Before Bakuda changed everything.” I supplied.

“Yeah. So they’ve been sighted setting themselves up here and as their honourable hosts it’s our job to welcome them into the city.” She had an ironic smile on her face.

“Just up to us to decide what sort of welcoming party we want to give.” I returned it. “Any of the others getting involved? Like Lost Garden, the Adepts or Heartbreaker?”

“Not so far, but I’ll be keeping my eyes on them. Our display of Brockton hospitality to the Fallen and the Teeth has kept them at bay so far.”

“Let’s hope it stays that way.” While the Red Hands did not seem too bad so far, and might be willing to work with us like the Ambassadors, I expected any incursion from the Lost Garden or Heartbreaker would result in a lot of violence.

“So how do we want to play this?” Lisa tilted her head. “We don’t really have much use for thieves when we already own everything, but I think these guys would be among the easier to bring in line.”

“Let’s set up a meeting with them and see if they’re willing to operate under our terms. We could probably do with more capes who aren’t Accord’s people, and the Red Hands might work as a counterweight to keep his influence in check. If they don’t agree to our terms…” I shrugged. “Probably wouldn’t be too hard to kick them out if that happens.”

“Sounds good to me. Which leaves us just with New Wave. After their crippling losses to Leviathan and the Slaughterhouse Nine they’ve been laying low, but now they’ve announced a new and broader recruitment policy in response to ‘the greater villain threat to the city’.” Lisa made quotation marks in the air. “Because apparently the Fallen and Teeth didn’t warrant it. They have two new heroes in the team called Timeout and the Modulator, who are definitely not Clockblocker or Kid Win.”

“And they think they can just get away with it?” I crossed my arms and frowned. “Our treaty with the PRT stipulates no Protectorate heroes in the city.”

“They’re probably banking on plausible deniability. Officially, Clockblocker and Kid Win have both retired from the Wards due to recent events, and these are two new and unrelated heroes. With so many resignations from the Protectorate it doesn’t raise too many eyebrows and former members aren’t tracked in any way. Meanwhile to connect them you’d have to prove they have the same identity behind the masks, which flies against many of our beloved unwritten rules. It’s rather clever in its simplicity.” Lisa grudgingly admitted.

“Hmpf. They have to see it’s a massive provocation though?”

“Oh definitely! In fact, they might even be relying on it. Goad us into attacking them so that we’ll be seen as the aggressor, thus undermining our work in presenting ourselves as a peaceful and stable alternative to the heroes.”

“This would all have been so much easier if we had just made a pre-emptive strike at them immediately during the chaos of the PRT leaving.” I grouched. I hated having to wait for my enemy to make the first move while they grew stronger.

“Maybe, but we both know that might have sabotaged our peace efforts and mired us into a much more difficult time restoring order to the Bay.”

“Well, if they’re going to be like this I think it’s time we give them a visit. Not an attack.” I hastily added upon seeing Lisa raise her eyebrows. “Just seeing if we can get them to agree to leave us be, while we’re still stronger than them. And if they won’t agree they might just provide us enough reason for war that people can accept the necessity of driving them out.”

“It could work…” She looked contemplative. “A bit risky, but we really do need to do something just in case they keep poaching more Protectorate heroes. Shall I set up meetings with both them and the Red Hands tomorrow then?”

“That sounds perfect.” I smiled. A part of me, a small treacherous part, was glad that this gave me an excuse to keep delaying having the dreaded talk with my dad. 

Lisa must have sensed my ulterior motives, being a complete cheater when it came to social interactions that she was, because she sighed. “You can’t push off meeting him forever, Taylor.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I said flatly, not wanting to admit to what I had been thinking.

—

Returning to Sierra, we stepped through the portal to the other side, where more work was at full swing establishing a new colony on this unpopulated Earth. Houses and roads were under construction and nearby trees had been cut down for room and materials. It was still in its infancy, but over time the vast amount of untapped space and resources could leave us not only self-sufficient and no longer at the whims of higher authorities but a rising power in the world at large. At least until someone else manages to open a portal to Earth Gimel.

Rachel had already been waiting on us to arrive, standing by the portal with a couple of her dogs. “‘Sup?”

“Rachel.” Lisa smiled, careful not to show any teeth. “How’s our new frontier sheriff doing?”

“Don’t know what that’s supposed to mean, but I’m good.” She gave a curt nod.

“Any problems we need to be aware of?” She asked while giving me a surreptitious nudge to start talking to Rachel.

“Nope. Just animals. I can handle those.”

“I’m really happy for you.” I gave Rachel what I hoped she’d see as a friendly look. “Liking it better here than in the city then?”

“Yeah.” She absentmindedly petted one of her dogs. “Easier. Less complicated out here.”

“That’s great.” Okay, I could do this. I was a grown girl who could talk to people about personal matters. “Rachel, I’m really sorry I didn’t tell you about my plan, I know it was unfair towards you and you probably hate me for it and feel like I betrayed your trust. I didn’t mean for it to be that way.”

Rachel stood silent for a moment, then gave another nod. “Okay.”

I blinked. That was easier than I had expected. “So no hard feelings?”

She groaned. “Ugh. Fine, I was angry with you, but you looked so miserable about it didn’t feel worth it. Happy?”

“I actually really am.” I wondered if it’d be too presumptuous of me to give her a hug, and had my question answered by Lisa giving me a shove forward. I awkwardly embraced Rachel, who looked non-plussed but didn’t try to stop me, which I considered a win.

“You’re good, Taylor.” She grunted, making me release her from the hug. “Stupid sometimes, and you talk too much, but good.”

Lisa clapped her hands together, looking very pleased with the outcome. “Wonderful! Rachel, would you be so kind as to show us what you’ve discovered about the local area?”

Rachel made a noise that seemed to be a vague approximation of ‘fine’ and whistled for her dogs to follow, before she led the way out into the world.

Once I fell in line with Lisa behind Rachel, leaving Sierra behind to talk to the workers on this side, she leaned in to me and whispered. “You did good, Taylor.”

I smiled at her encouragement, feeling one burden having fallen off my shoulders. While Rachel showed us the major natural landmarks around; the cliffs, rivers and lakes around our burgeoning colony, I was content to trod along. She did not speak much, letting Lisa and I do most of the work filling out the quiet during our hike, but the silence was more comfortable than it had been since I had left the group. One apology done, maybe the other two wouldn’t be so hard after all.

Chapter Text

The meetings with the Red Hands and New Wave were scheduled to only happen in the evening on the 22nd, leaving me with a day to fill before then. I technically still did have the time to see my dad beforehand… But no. I would need to have my head on straight and my heart in check when it happened, I couldn’t risk entering negotiations with all that potential heartbreak hanging over me. Deep down I knew this was an excuse, and that not dealing with him beforehand would just mean a different form of unease, but running away from my personal problems was a lot easier, at least in the short term.

Speaking of running, I had taken up doing my morning jogs again for the first time since being outed. It was refreshing, letting me clear my head and center my thoughts before the day, while also keeping me in shape. It wouldn’t do for me to let go of my body, not when you never knew what threats might come for my city. Besides that, Lisa had wanted me to let people see me outside of the uniform so that they could see other aspects of me than the big scary Skitter and she usually had a good head for these sorts of things so I wasn’t going to argue with her. At least not if it just meant me doing things I would have done anyway rather than going out of my comfort zone and doing things like interviews.

I shuddered slightly at the thought. No, much better to return to the comfort of old habits like running. It was soothing, sensing the different bugs going about their business in the morning as I ran past them, following their own primitive directives. I didn’t alter their behaviour, just let them do what they were doing while I let their senses wash over me. The effect was almost meditative, allowing myself to lose my own worries and- 

Danger sense flared almost too late. Behind me, a couple of bumblebees spotted a man standing on his lawn, drawing a pistol towards me. I threw myself down on the sidewalk just before a shot rang out. I hadn’t prepared for a confrontation here so my repertoire of bugs that I could draw on in a hurry was quite limited, but I sent the bumblebees that had alerted me to sting the man’s hand while a couple of flies and butterflies got up to his eyes to interfere with his sight. This brought me a second’s respite to scout out the area to see if there were any other ambushers getting ready to shoot at me. None appeared to any of my senses so, wasting no time, I rushed towards my would-be shooter to disarm him, dodging another shot as he desperately tried to get the insects out of his way. A downward strike at his hand made him drop the gun and I tripped him over as he tried to lunge at me. His form was half-decent, but nowhere near good enough, not when he had lost the element of surprise and had to contend with my growing swarm. I had more of my critters bite and sting him while I went for the gun. 

“Fucking bitch!” He turned around to look at me and halted when seeing his own weapon pointed directly at his chest.

“Talk. Who sent you?” I had every nearby insect speak with me for extra effect, drawing up ants to crawl up my legs and coat my skin. I could see a lot of people staring at us, no doubt alerted by the gunshots.

“What? Can’t a good citizen try to remove a menace to society without it being part of some secret conspiracy?” He spat at me and I had some more of my bugs bite him in retaliation. Getting a proper good look at him for the first time I saw that he was middle-aged and might have been handsome in his youth before he started balding. White and with light brown hair, he was still glaring at me aggressively but had the good sense to not try to provoke me further.

“I believe you, if only because none of my enemies would be this sloppy. They wouldn’t even know I’d run past here today.” I tilted my head at him, letting him feel like he was studied underneath a magnifying glass. “No. This was reckless and impulsive. You probably didn’t even think through the consequences of if you failed before you drew your weapon.” He flinched at that. Good.

“I was ready to die if it meant being rid of people like you.” But there was a touch of uncertainty to his voice now.

“Be careful what you wish for.” I said coldly, before drawing up my phone and making a call to Grue. “Sun B. Have a situation here and would need you to pick someone up.”

“Grass N.” He replied on the other end. “What kind of situation?”

“Some idiot tried to shoot me.” I could hear an intake of breath on the other end. “I’m fine, and I don’t think the guy was a cape. Sending you the address.”

“I’m on my way.” I could hear the worry in his voice as he hung up and I turned my full attention back to the man lying sprawled in front of me.

“There will be other people like me.” He said with some bravado. “This is not the end.”

“Unfortunately, you’re probably right.” I sighed. “Things would be a lot easier for you if you weren’t, because now I’m going to have to make an example out of you.”

“Go on then, make me a martyr. See if it works.” He was afraid, but did a decent job not showing it.

“Oh I’m not planning on making you a martyr, don’t you worry about that.” I said with a tone of voice that would make any sensible person worry. “Now then, while we wait on you being picked up, how about we play a little game I learned from a dear friend of mine?” I channelled my inner Tattletale. “I’m going to make some guesses and we’ll see how right I am on the money.”

He didn’t answer me, which was perfectly fine by me.

“A modicum of training in self-defence. Not enough to have been part of the military or police, but enough that you’ve probably been part of one of the gangs at some point.”

His eyes widened slightly in fear, but he denied me all the same. “Wrong, everyone can tell you that I’ve never fallen in with those sorts.”

“Oh I’m not done yet. You’re white and have no signs of substance abuse, which leaves me with a pretty easy candidate: the E88. No scars or tattoos, and if you ever were a skinhead you’ve long since let go of that questionable fashion choice, so probably not one of their thugs. Sympathiser then, taking some of their courses in preparation for if those dreaded minorities were to ever intrude upon your neighborhood?”

He was trembling now, which made me smile thinly. Not only did I suspect I was pretty right in my guess, but people could see him break down in real time while I tore down his self-image as the good guy in the situation.

“I’m also guessing this was more personal than you let on. Few people would try to shoot a teenage girl out on a morning run because of some abstract good. You hate me. Family member fell in with the Empire fully and got hurt in the process? Little brother, perhaps? And now you decided to hate me for it because I came out of this better than he did?”

He was actually crying now, this was more effective than I had expected when I didn’t have Tattletale’s power. “My son.” He whimpered.

“Ah. My condolences.” I said without a shred of sympathy in my voice. “Son then. Sounds like he died, and since you aren’t directing your blame to minority groups I’m thinking he was shot by one of Coil’s mercs? Must have been rough, those laser rifles go through a lot.”

He shook his head. “Fenrir’s Chosen.”

“Ouch. Hookwolf’s people? So he was with the Pure then. Would think they’d have more sense than killing potential recruits but I guess when Hookwolf gets going he doesn’t care what colour your skin is, he’ll still tear you apart. And now your faith is shaken, your will to live has been torn to shreds by the murder wolf and you’re left with a vague resentment towards capes in general, which is why you decided it was worth it to try to kill me.”

“Wow. Who told you Tattletale’s trade secrets?” I heard a voice from right next to me.

Turning my head around, I saw Imp standing nonchalantly by me. “Just arrived, I presume.”

“Yep. Sad, really. I missed most of the show. Oh well, somebody probably filmed it.”

“Probably.” I looked over my shoulder to see Grue approaching. “Well, I think I’m done with him.”

“Lucky him. Don’t think he’d be able to take any more of… Whatever it was you did.”

“This the guy?” Grue asked. He was flanked by a couple of black-clad mercenaries.

“It is.” I confirmed. I noticed he squirmed a lot under Grue’s gaze. Any initial bravado was long gone.

“Right.” He gestured, and the mercenaries dragged the man up from the grass and towards a car. “What do you want to be done to him?”

“Give him to Regent.” I did not let any hesitation show through my voice or body language. This was necessary, a means of dissuading further attacks. “He’ll handle him.”

I could tell Grue was not entirely happy with this, but he wouldn’t question me in front of others. “Alright.”

“No, wait!” The man was panicking now. “Wait, please!”

No one listened to his pleading.

“Stop! You can’t do this! Someone, do something!”

No one did anything.

“Monster!” He screamed frantically, staring at me wild-eyed. “Freak!”

I shook my head and continued running, my day thoroughly ruined. I resolved to never try to learn the man’s name or see him again if I could help it. I knew as soon as I had him at my mercy that having him Mastered was the logical solution to making sure this didn’t happen again. Would horrify people enough to think twice about trying to murder me, or worse yet, one of my friends, while depriving them of a martyr to rally around when he’s become another agent of my will. Feeling sympathy for the man wouldn’t help matters, not when ruthlessness was a necessity.

I cursed aloud when I realised that the news of the incident would eventually reach my dad as well in all likelihood. I really didn’t want to give him more of a reason to fear his own daughter. Maybe I should just bite the bullet and talk to him before he ended up seeing this performance on television. It wasn’t as if the day could get any worse after this so my previous excuse for putting it off didn’t hold much water. I shook my head, already regretting my decision, and turned my run in the direction of my old home.

—

I arrived before my resolve had managed to break and stood now in front of where I had lived for most of my life, feeling like a complete stranger. The house still looked battered and injured from Shatterbird’s attack, a wounded creature if I was feeling fanciful. I knocked on the front door, a not insignificant part of me hoping that dad had already gone to work by now. Since when did I knock on the door to my own house anyway?

Unfortunately, my dad was still at home, for he came to open the door soon enough. He looked a lot shabbier than I remembered, similar to his worst days when mom had died. He hadn’t taken care of his hair or beard properly from what I could tell and his eyes were sunken.

“Hey.” I said in a tepid voice. “... Can I come inside?”

He looked at me for a few moments and I worried, or perhaps hoped, that he’d say no, but then he walked back inside, leaving the door open. “... Sure.” I heard him say.

I took a deep breath and stepped into the house, finding that he’d been making breakfast when I arrived. Perhaps it was due to him being alone in the house now, or because of the damage that had been inflicted by Shatterbird, but the place looked like it had decayed a lot since last I was there, and I could sense more bugs creeping around than I had when I lived here. 

The awkward silence at the table dragged on for unbearably long after I sat down, neither of us quite sure what to say. Eventually I settled for a simple “I’m sorry.” Delivered in a small voice.

“Me too, kiddo. Me too.” He smiled sadly at me, and I could see he was holding back tears.

“I… I haven’t been honest with you. For years. I lied to you about Emma and the bullying, I didn’t tell you that I had powers, didn’t give you the truth about my friends.” I wasn’t as good at holding back the tears it transpired, but it felt cathartic to say nonetheless. “I’ve been a terrible daughter.”

“No, Taylor, never.” He looked absolutely devastated to hear me say this. “I’m the one who failed you. It’s the parent’s responsibility first to make it work. I just wish I knew what I’ve done wrong so I can do better.”

“There was nothing you could have done, dad.” I looked down at the table. What could he have done better? Could I ask him to not have been depressed when mom died? Could I tell him he should have helped me with the problems I hid from him? “It was never about you. Life’s just shit sometimes.”

He seemed to be divided between his parental instinct to comfort me and the lingering fear of having seen me at my worst and most terrible. “Taylor…”

“They’re not bad people. Not really.” I rambled slightly. “My friends. They’re just hurt and broken like me.”

He didn’t answer, just listening in silence.

“I should have told you ages ago, but I was so afraid of disappointing you, or making you worry. Lying was easier.”

I was really regretting having returned here, but it was too late to have second thoughts.

“I’ve always had good intentions.” I laughed bitterly. “I wanted to help people. But it always seemed to go wrong.”

“And people just never listened to me. So I wanted to prove myself to them.” Now I was barely making any sense to myself, let alone my dad.

“Who did you first kill?” He asked quietly.

“Coil. He was a bastard. Kidnapped and drugged the mayor’s niece. Threatened my friends. He’d taken over the city and was going to murder me and everyone who stood in his way.”

Dad frowned at that. “You made him get blown up at the mayoral debate?”

“No.” I shook my head. “I didn’t really do anything there. Didn’t know what was going to happen. That was just a body double though. The real Coil was the PRT Director Thomas Calvert.”

“Christ.” He whistled. “How many of their directors have you killed at this point?”

“Uh… Three. Alexandria was also one as a civilian. I… I guess all the people I’ve killed so far have been. Unless you count clones. But they weren’t really people, just crazy killers.” I really hoped that was true. Three direct deaths and several indirect ones were bad enough on my conscience.

“I see.”

“But I’ve done good too!” I tried to reassure him. “I helped stop Lung, and Leviathan, the Slaughterhouse Nine and Echidna.”

Apparently, telling my father that his daughter had engaged with some of the most dangerous threats in the world did not in fact reassure him. He stared at me like I was insane.

“I’ve saved people.” I practically pleaded with him. “Like the mayor’s niece. Dinah. I saved her. I’m not a bad guy, I’m not.” Bile rose in my throat as I thought of my actions earlier this morning. Could I really say that when I so casually condemned people to fates worse than death? Was I lying to my father yet again? “I hope I’m not.” I amended my statement.

“I hope so as well, but Taylor… I saw you. Or I saw something that wasn’t you. When you killed them… It was like you were possessed, like something else had taken over you. Who are you, Taylor? ”

“I…” I wanted to say that I was the same girl he had raised, but somewhere along the line that had ceased to be true. I was a different person now than when I started. So who was I? Skitter, the Warlord of the Bay? No, that was a persona I put on. “I don’t know.” I admitted.

He sighed. “Me neither. And that’s what worries me so much. It’s like you’re sometimes there and other times you’re not. I know I can’t order you to do anything, but I have a favour I want to ask of you. For your old man’s peace of mind.”

“What is it?”

“Step away from this. From all of this. We could move to Europe, you could finish your education and we might live a quiet, peaceful life.” The earnestness of his plea moved me, and yet…

“I can’t.” I shook my head sadly.

“Why not?” He looked at me desperately. “Taylor, please. I want you back, I’d do anything to have you back as you were, before you continue down this road you’re going.”

“I can’t just turn my back on all of this. So many people are relying on me.”

“For God’s sake, Taylor, you’re sixteen! Surely there are other people who could do what you’re doing.”

“If there are, I've yet to meet them.” More bitter laughter. “But it’s more than that. I can’t just abandon my friends.”

“You were willing to do so before.” He pointed out.

That touched a nerve. “That was a mistake.” I growled. “Done for the greater good. I was going to leave them to help save the world, I won’t do so for… Selfish reasons.”

He looked at me, apparently realising I wouldn’t budge, and just let his head sag. “... I suppose there’s nothing I can do to stop you, but please, don’t do this. Don’t become what you’re turning into.”

“I promise I’ll make you proud. I’m going to improve Brockton Bay. I’ve driven out the gangs and we’ll bring back jobs for people. We’re even going to restore the ferry like you always wanted.” I wanted him to see that what I was doing would make the world a better place, to make him proud of me.

“That’s nice.” His heart clearly wasn’t in it though and his words felt empty and toneless. Bereft of emotion.

Another long silence while we both stared down at the table. “... I should probably go. We both have work to get to, this was kind of a spur of the moment thing.”

“Taylor…”

“Goodbye, dad.” I hurried out of the house. This had been stupid and impulsive of me. Of course it would end this way, why had I expected anything different? I cursed the unnamed gunman. If it wasn’t for him this would have been a normal morning and not a rollercoaster of emotions. Death really was too good for him.

—

It was a good thing that the meetings were to be held in the evening, because I really needed those hours beforehand to get a grip on myself. Lisa had suggested another day out to make me feel better but after what had happened earlier when I showed myself in public I really didn’t feel like it, so she just decided to forbid me from doing any work until the meeting with the Red Hands and instead made me settle down and read the book I bought while she did the preparatory research close by. It was admittedly rather cozy, wrapping myself with a blanket while I sat on the sofa and Lisa used her work computer at the table. And while I didn’t get too far in the book due to how often my mind strayed I still enjoyed it.

The reason why we had scheduled the Red Hand meeting before the New Wave was that it was the one less likely to result in a war, and we wanted our hand to be as strong as possible in both meetings. The meeting itself was in one of the abandoned buildings, and Tattletale had provided me with the information on the four members of the group beforehand: Rook, Cozen, Getaway and Rifle. Their profiles really did suggest similarities with the early Undersiders. Hopefully this commonality would make reaching an agreement easier.

Their arrival was quiet and surreptitious, but not so much that I didn’t spot them with all my tiny spies, and I gestured for Imp to go and greet them.

“Hi!” She appeared beside Rook. “Don’t you know that sneaking up on people is considered rude?” 

He jumped slightly. “We just wanted to make sure we weren’t followed on the way here. Old habits. And didn’t you just sneak up on us?”

“No I didn’t. I just walked up to you, not my fault you’re not very observant.”

“Right…” He followed her to where I was waiting.

I smiled behind my mask. Imp was very good at throwing people off-balance, and at establishing to a gang of thieves that we could outsneak them if we ever wanted to. Imp returned to us and got a high five from Regent before disappearing from everyone’s perceptions.

“Rook.” I spoke. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. I’ve been wondering when you’d finally arrive.”

Rook seemed rather unnerved, and not just because of Imp. “Skitter. The pleasure is all mine.” He sat down before me while I folded my hands and stared him down.

“Now, tell me, what can the Red Hand offer that is of value to my city?” I studied the man. It felt good, being back in a situation that I was in control of.

“Anything that needs to be done quietly. We’re always open for commissions. If you want something we can get it for you, if you want someone we could probably also get them for you.” The other members of his crew assembled behind him, wearing their signature red gloves. They were outnumbered here. I had decided to bring everyone along for this, including Parian and Foil, just to make a statement. If I didn’t want them in Brockton I could take them all out before they had a chance to do anything. Getaway might escape, at least for a time, but the rest could be cut down at my signal.

“Intriguing, but we already own everything around here. You can’t give us what we already have, and I won’t tolerate you stealing from our people.”

They were tense. “You’re saying you won’t allow any work in here unless you authorised it?” One of them, Cozen, the only woman, asked.

“The Bay is our domain, everything here is under the protection of the Undersiders. And we take a rather harsh view on harming, physically or financially, the people under our protection.” I leaned back. “Of course, with that said, we wouldn’t have any problem with your work outside of Brockton if you wish to operate from here, as long as you pay your fees. We’d even be willing to sponsor you to gather some things that might be outside our reach. If you’re willing.”

“I’m listening.” Rook seemed to relax slightly now that I had given them an out.

“I’ve gone over your profiles and I find that your talents are wasted as mere thieves. If you’d be willing to join our organisation as spies we could pay you very well. There are plenty of people out there who’d be willing to hurt this city, and I prefer being a step ahead of them and knowing their plans before they happen. I think you could be rather valuable for this.”

The Red Hands looked among themselves, clearly considering this. “It’s an interesting proposal.” Rook said. “Forgive me if we can’t agree to this immediately, would need to discuss this further with my team and establish what kind of pay we’re talking about here but if the pay is commensurate with the danger involved we’d probably be interested.”

“Of course.” I nodded. From what Tattletale had told me the deal was done before they even entered the room. They were desperate for money, not in the kind of league where they’d be prepared to fight us and unwilling to leave Brockton unless they had to.

They didn’t leave immediately after that, instead staying to talk to us about the kind of pay they could expect and what people we were that they would be working with. Annoyingly, I noticed that Cozen was checking Grue out, and even approached to make small talk to him. She was beautiful, a lot prettier than I was, and I immediately disliked her for it. Tattletale noticed what I was looking at, realised what was going through my head and started grinning. I gave her a glare, which didn’t seem to deter her. 

Eventually, Rook returned to me. “Alright, I think everyone is on the same page here, so we’re willing to take the deal offered.” He reached out with his hand.

“Perfect.” I shook it. “Welcome to Brockton Bay.”

—

Unlike the Red Hands, the rest of the team were holding back for the New Wave meeting, with only myself, Grue and Tattletale approaching the meeting point and everyone else being a few streets away, ready to intervene if I gave the signal. This one was more precarious, with several members of the hero group being on a hair trigger in case of an attack. Besides, I fancied I had managed to gather enough of a reputation that me coming relatively alone was even more a statement of power, suggesting that I wouldn’t need all of my friends to take them on. 

Of course, New Wave themselves were not taking any such chances, being all gathered, including the new team members Timeout and Modulator. I was not in the least bit surprised to find that those two had the same build as Clockblocker and Kid Win respectively, Clockblocker’s suit wasn’t even that different from what he had previously worn, the white colour scheme already fitting in well with the New Wave’s aesthetics. Kid Win had a greater costume change, going for a white and red combination suit that covered his entire body, with several different pieces of technology fitted into it. Brandish and Lady Photon were taking the lead, looking at us with undisguised hostility. 

“Undersiders.” Brandish was the first to speak. “About time you showed up.”

“Our deepest apologies for being late.” Tattletale was taking point, needling them a little so that I would be the reasonable person in the conversation. We had discussed this beforehand. “Introducing new teammates, showing them the ropes. You know how it is. Congratulations by the way. Hi, Old Clock.” She smiled and waved.

Timeout made a choking noise but Lady Photon stepped in before it got any further. “You wanted to see us, why?”

“We thought it’d be wise to establish some form of relationship with our neighbours, come to an agreement now that most of the gangs like the PRT are gone.” I deliberately compared the PRT to the city’s gangs to see if any would try to contradict me. Nobody did, though Modulator shifted uncomfortably.

“Relationship? Agreement?! ” Brandish bristled. “You’re villains! You took my daughters from me!”

I gave a loud and exasperated sigh to make it clear what I thought of that. “Why is it that people insist that this was somehow our fault? And not, you know, the psychopaths out to try and break Panacea, who have a long track record of doing so to people?”

“I don’t know, boss.” Tattletale said easily. “Let’s not be so quick to give Bonesaw all the credit. I mean, would Brandish even have said daughters in the plural before all that happened?”

“True, I suppose the foundations had already been laid long before the Slaughterhouse Nine came into the picture. Still, you’d think she’d have better targets to project her failures on.”

The look Brandish gave was positively murderous, but I noticed Flashbang was looking at her somewhat askance. Trouble in their relationship? I looked at Tattletale for confirmation, and she gave an almost imperceptible nod.

“I could kill you both where you stand. It would be just, well deserved.” The venom in Brandish’s voice was thick, and I was pleased to see that the entire rest of New Wave were looking worriedly at her.

“You could try.” I affected a casual tone. “Maybe you’d even succeed. Who knows? Of course, then the rest of our team would be coming for you with a vengeance. They know where you live, they could probably kill the rest of your family in retaliation.”

“And nobody would even care that they broke the unspoken rules.” Tattletale added. “Because you broke them first, murdering someone while under a truce.”

“There will be no killing here.” Lady Photon said, as much to Brandish as to us. “We’re getting sidetracked. What is it you want?”

“Peace, really. No more fighting. Everyone has suffered far too much of that already.” I spoke calmly. “You leave us alone, and we leave you alone. It’s rather simple.”

“You can’t possibly-” Brandish began to speak, before being dragged back by Flashbang to let Lady Photon respond. Rattling her early had been a gamble that could easily make everything fall apart from the onset, but she was too much of a hardliner that no agreement had any chance of happening unless she had to take a backseat.

“You do realise that as heroes, we will respond to any crimes we find happening?” She asked.

“Fine by us. We want to stop people from getting mugged as much as you do, believe it or not. If you see someone attacking people in the streets feel free to intervene. You’d do everyone a service. What we want is assurances that you won’t try to go after us or our people and we’ll do you the same courtesy.”

“And if we don’t agree, will you visit us in our homes?” She folded her arms. “You know that people don’t tolerate that.”

“Oh yes, imagine intruding on someone’s home, while they’re with their family.” Tattletale’s grin was so sharp one could cut oneself on it. “Such a terrible, awful thing to do. Don’t you agree, Skitter?”

I wasn’t completely sure what she was referencing but I noticed all of the older New Wave members wincing like they’d just been struck and so I played along. “It would indeed. Lady Photon may be right, people just would not allow that to happen.”

“You’ve made your point, Tattletale.” Lady Photon said curtly. “You don’t need to dredge up old history.”

“Then I won’t.” She replied cheerfully. “Ignorance is bliss after all, and I’d never be so cruel as to shatter that blissful ignorance. Not unless I had to, at least.”

“So you’re admitting it, then?” Brandish thrust herself forward again. “You did this to my daughters.”

“No, I didn’t.” Tattletale rolled her eyes. “And even if I did, what does it say about your domestic life that the truth could shatter it so completely?”

“Lady Photon.” I ignored Brandish completely. “Do we have a deal?”

Lady Photon looked to the rest of New Wave. Brandish still looked like she had to restrain herself from starting a fight, but Flashbang just gave a tired shrug and Laserdream, Timeout and Modulator all seemed willing to defer to the adults. “Fine, Skitter. But only until we find that you intend to do active harm upon Brockton Bay. If that happens any deal is off and we will stop you.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it. Despite what you may believe, I do want what’s best for everyone.”

“Many villains before you have said that. Few meant it. They want what’s best for themselves, with everyone else a secondary concern at best.”

“I could say the same about most heroes I’ve met.” I shrugged. “It doesn’t really matter if you believe me, as long as you stick to your end of the agreement.”

She nodded, and the team began exiting the area. I turned to Tattletale and asked her in a low voice. “So who was it they broke the rules to catch?”

She grinned widely. “Same person they stole a child from and went on to treat as a ticking timebomb, of course.”

Chapter Text

The next few days were rather quiet, at least for me. I did not go out in public again after what had happened when I tried to take a jog and the possibility of a normal life felt once again very distant after Lisa had gotten my hopes up. Videos of the shooting and subsequent confrontation with that man had begun to circulate and were unsurprisingly very controversial. I was staying off sites like PHO, so I didn’t have to deal with the brunt of it, but it did seem to further invigorate the fear that people felt about me, for good or ill. Interestingly enough though, New Wave had declined to make a comment so far, despite their usual eagerness to condemn villainous actions. Perhaps it’s the fact that they themselves had once lost a family member to an Empire supporter shooting her while she was in her civilian identity that made them more sympathetically inclined to my point of view. 

I hadn’t spoken to my dad since that day either. While I kept his house protected in case someone tried to hurt me through him I didn't want a repeat incident of the conversation we had then. A lot of what was said then still bothered me, especially at the end. His allusions that I became like a monster when in battle were not only hurtful (and reminded me of what the gunman had screamed when I condemned him) but also in line with my own fears that my Passenger was subtly influencing my actions. I had seen what happened to Noelle, the thought that I too might one day be consumed by my own power was horrifying on an existential level. Offering a way out that was simply impossible for me to take just felt like twisting the knife further.

Atlas also finally keeled over, which was expected but surprisingly sad. He had always been just an automaton, unable to even eat without my help, but he’d saved my life several times over and I’d come to see him as a sort of pet. Ultimately, his oversized body and inefficient digestive system meant that he was doomed to starve to death no matter how much food I gave him, and it had been a while since I even dared to fly on him. His final gift was feeding entire colonies of my bugs with his body. A fitting tribute, considering how he had been conceived.

Personal issues aside, things were going well. The Red Hand had just come back from their first successful mission; Stealing a bunch of PRT files in Boston. Most of the sensitive information the PRT possessed they held in physical format, largely because half of the Tinker and Thinker villains out there could hack any digital security they put up. Lisa alone did it twice a week just for fun. The Lost Garden were on the move again, harried by PRT troops along the way, going in the direction of Brockton Bay. We needed more information on what was likely to be a future foe, and we needed to know what exactly the PRT was up to. The expulsion of all the major supervillain gangs from the Boston scene had left them with their guards lowered, and the operation to infiltrate them and steal their intelligence had gone off without a hitch. A petty part of me almost wished that they had run into trouble, Brian praising their performance as ‘textbook’ grated on me more than it should.

—

Lisa and I had dedicated the afternoon to going through our newest acquisition. We had invited Brian as well but he had declined, instead choosing to discuss how the mission had gone with the Red Hands to get a feel for their strengths and weaknesses. I tried not to take that personally, I really did. We had invited Dinah to come over though since she could use some company and her predictions were pretty useful for this sort of thing. We had even remembered to inform her parents about it beforehand. She was currently eating a sandwich while watching us at work. 

“Looks like the Slaughterhouse Nine is active again.” Lisa spoke casually. “And operating all over the place. Even as far away as in Santiago. Looks like their fancy new portal technology has got some range to it.”

“Santiago as in Chile?” I wondered.

“The very same. Got hit by an earthquake that despite initial fears about being the prelude to a Behemoth attack seems to have been entirely natural. Our dear friends were acting like their usual vulture selves in the aftermath.”

I frowned at that. “Got to be hard to catch them so long as they can do that. Even Dragon doesn’t have any teleporters that I know of.”

“Yeah, looks like they’ve been one step ahead of the PRT for now, and the current idea is to try to lure them into a trap of some kind.”

“4.1 % chance they attack Brockton Bay again,” Dinah said, for her own benefit as much as ours.

“That’s reassuring at least. Not our problem and all that.” I shrugged. “With that said, I really wouldn’t mind if they did get put down for good, of all the S-class threats out there they may be the vilest.” No other threat to the world that I knew of or had personally met took such sadistic joy in the harm they did.

“Mhm. Well, not much about them that we didn’t already know. Now Barrow and his Lost Garden on the other hand…”

Dinah made a face. “81.3 % chance you defeat him. Good. I really don’t want another supervillain focusing on young parahumans around here.”

I certainly couldn’t argue with that sentiment. “That does mean that there’s also probably at least an 80 % chance that he both sets himself up in the Bay and comes into conflict with us, so let’s assume that will happen.”

“Yes, and from the looks of it there’s a very good reason why he’s going here. Aside from the promise of his own Garden of Eden on the other side of the portal or the fact that two thirds of all the active parahumans in Brockton right now are teenagers.” Lisa was still reading. “I knew it, the PRT are actively trying to make supervillains move in our direction. PRT troops and Protectorate heroes leaving gaps for villains to escape through towards Brockton Bay.”

“They’re making us their supervillain dumping ground now that they don’t have to take responsibility for the city.” I realised. “That’s really low.”

“Looks like it. I’m willing to bet that this is what Operation Sydney is about, nothing here goes into detail on it.” Lisa clicked her tongue. “Seriously, if you want to keep your plot from being leaked don’t name it after a former prison colony. A little bit on the nose.”

“Do we have enough evidence that we could make a case to the people that the PRT are doing this?”

“Not conclusively. They’re very sparse when it comes to the subject, I’m having to fill in a lot of blanks. Could throw some doubt upon them, but that’s not what interests me.” A wide grin was breaking out on Lisa’s face. “You know one reason why Boston has almost no information on Operation Sydney? They’re not participating in it. ”

“And considering how they’re the closest PRT base to us, that is pretty curious. Almost like they’re being uncooperative with the rest of the PRT.” I finished for her.

“Exactly!” Lisa’s eyes were gleaming and her vulpine grin oddly attractive. “My oh my, am I sensing some division among the ranks?”

Dinah coughed, having seemingly choked on her sandwich. I gave her a look and she waved me off.

“Well, it would make sense. Many of them presumably either are from Brockton or have been stationed there for longer periods.” I mused aloud. “Probably not too keen on the city being used as a sacrificial lamb. Regardless, with or without Boston, the PRT are pushing Lost Garden and others towards us, and we need to be prepared.”

“Which is why we have our darling Dinah here with us.” Lisa clapped.

“You know my prices, I’m not letting you negotiate it down any further.” Dinah finished her sandwich. “If you try I’ll go back to the original one.”

Lisa gave a mock pout, before stage whispering to me. “I got her to give us a 30 % ‘Skitter saved me’ discount on any prophecies. Still absolutely extortionate prices though, greedy little bastard.” She chuckled affectionately.

“I’ll have you know that my parents are married.” Dinah deadpanned. “And wouldn’t appreciate you using such language in front of me.”

“What they don’t know can’t hurt them.” Lisa winked at Dinah, who rolled her eyes in response. 

“Alright.” I did not engage in the banter, instead focusing on how best to phrase the question I had in mind. “How likely is it that within the next year the current status quo in Brockton Bay will be significantly destabilised by an influx of new villains to the scene?”

“94.7 %.” Dinah answered, before frowning. “That… Is unusually high.”

“Shockingly so, even knowing what we do.” Lisa agreed. “Only a 5 % chance of avoiding things spiralling out of control? Even with the PRT helping them along something seems off here. Hey, if we ask for several predictions at once can we get a bundle-”

“No.”

“Worth a try.” She grinned.

I massaged my temple. This really was not what I would have liked to hear. “Something doesn’t add up here, but I don’t really know what it is. For now I think we’re just going to have to prepare for the worst.”

“The Brockton Bay municipal motto.” Lisa nodded sagely. “At least we got tons more dirt on our friends in the PRT from this.”

“You can never have enough of that.” Dinah agreed.

“Will definitely be making some calls after we’re done with this lot.” She turned to Dinah. “But let’s not forget the most important thing here: Getting you a proper cape name.”

“What’s even the point? People already know that I’ve got powers. Coil saw to that.” Dinah’s face darkened considerably at the thought of Coil.

“The point isn’t anonymity, if that was the case people would use normal pseudonyms and change them up all the time.” Lisa explained with the same tone of voice she tended to use when going into her ‘cops and robbers’ model on how cape society worked. “The point is because it’s cool .”

“So that’s why you named yourself Tattletale? You decided a playground name was cool?” Dinah looked amused, her thoughts on Coil neatly diverted.

“I’m hurt. Taylor, back me up here.”

“That cape names are part of giving an extra bit of flair to things or that Tattletale is in fact a cool name?” I smiled at her. “Because I can only do one of those.”

Dinah’s smugness rivaled the one Lisa would normally display, and the latter harrumphed. “And these are the friends I hang out with? Unbelievable.”

“Like you’re any better.” I chided her. “Clearly you’ve been setting a bad example.”

“No, I refuse to believe that I have any responsibility, clearly this is all Alec’s fault.”

“To be fair, that’s usually a reasonable assumption.”

“My visions tell me that 98 % of the time this ‘Alec’ is to blame for things.” Dinah pretended to use her powers.

“Sounds about right. But really, do think about it. We could get you a fun suit as well.” Lisa persisted.

“Out of the goodness of your heart or in exchange for another discount?” Dinah smirked. Lisa really was a terrible influence on the girl.

“Well, I certainly wouldn’t say no to one…”

“Fine, another 5 % off, but only if I get one of Parian’s new masterworks.”

“Done. Any thoughts on the name?”

“Oracle?” She suggested.

“Already taken by a precog in Europe.” Lisa answered without even looking it up. “As are Seer, Prophet, Augur and most other synonyms. Even Fortune Teller, and that one is really lame.”

Now it was Dinah’s turn to harrumph. “Why are all the good names already taken? It’s not fair that so many precogs were born before me.”

“Tell me about it.” I commiserated with her. “I got Skitter because I couldn’t think of any fitting names that weren’t already taken and then I got saddled with this one.”

“You should have embraced Bug Girl when you had the chance.” Lisa teased, getting a light punch from me in return. “In the spirit of that, what about Kid Cassandra?”

Dinah gave her a punch as well. “No.”

“You two are no fun at all.” Lisa gave a very put upon sigh. “Well, if you want some word association with Oracle then how about Delphi? As in the Temple of Apollo. Or Pythia, for the famous oracle there.”

“Hm…” Dinah thought about it. “Pythia sounds way too serpentine, people might get confused and…” She trailed off.

Lisa seemed to realise where her thought process was going. “Hey, don’t compare yourself to that man. You’re nothing like him.”

“Yeah.” I leaned over to give Dinah a hug, enveloping the smaller girl. “Unless you’ve gotten a taste for torturing people you haven’t told us it’s completely unfair to think that you’re anywhere close to akin to Coil.”

“But I hurt people too.” She said in a small voice. “I hurt a lot of people now just so that fewer might be hurt in the future.”

“Dinah, you know as well as anyone that Coil never cared about decreasing the pain in the world.” Lisa said very gently. “Everyone hurts others sometimes, that’s just being human. Coil was a sadistic fucker who got off on causing pain and suffering to everyone around him. And I know sometimes your predictions fail and it wasn’t all worth it, but mistakes are also human nature. You just have to live with them.” She looked very sad now.

“Yeah…” Dinah seemed to calm down, but she still clinged on to me hard and we let it be silent for a minute. Once she was fully recovered she spoke again. “Delphi would be a nice name. It’s pretty, and it means I could say that I’m the Delphi Oracle.” She smiled slightly at her own joke.

I decided to play along. “So, Delphi, if I were to wage war upon Ellisburg what are the chances that a kingdom would fall?”

Dinah didn’t miss a beat. “100 %.” She said with the same confident tone she used when making actual predictions.

We all laughed at that, and Dinah remained mostly cheerful for the remainder of her stay with us.

—

As promised, we took her out to meet Parian and Foil once we were done with the actual workload. There was already a customer in her atelier when we entered but even though we were going as civilians the woman quickly excused herself upon seeing us and left the shop. Parian sighed upon her leaving. “Hey, Taylor. You may just have cost me a customer.”

“Allow me to make up for it then.” I gestured towards Dinah. “We were thinking of getting Dinah her own costume and wanted to head to the best tailor in town for it.”

“Charmer. Hello, Dinah.” Sabah took off her doll mask. “Lily, be a dear and close the blinds.”

“On it.” Lily was so quick at doing so I suspected this was standard policy when it came to cape business happening here.

“So, do tell me what sort of style you’re going for, Dinah. You could start with the name you’re thinking of taking.” Despite being almost a decade older than her, Sabah was only slightly taller than Dinah.

“Delphi. Perhaps something like the Greek sibyls? I don’t really know a lot about this sort of thing.”

If Sabah was at all surprised that Dinah even knew the word sibyl she did not show it. “Right, I can definitely work with that. I assume you don’t plan on getting out in a lot of fights?”

“Not if I can help it.” Dinah shook her head.

“Good. In that case I would probably recommend a dress, with white as the primary colour if you want to stay with the theme.”

Dinah’s eye twitched slightly and I remembered that she had to wear white while in captivity. I decided to intervene. “Perhaps something a bit more colourful? White may not be the best pick for Dinah.”

Sabah looked a little confused but read the room well enough to not contest this. “Alright, we can certainly do that. Any symbols or accessories you’d like? What sort of mask?”

“... Would a blindfold work?” She asked uncertainly. “Without actually blinding me, preferably. I’m not really able to see without using my eyes.”

“Certainly. It wouldn’t be quite as good as going without but I should be able to make something that covers your eyes yet still lets you see through it.”

I had to admit, Sabah really was quite good at this. I knew she had worked a lot with kids, but her ability to get Dinah engaged in the costume designing despite her complete lack of knowledge or thought on the subject was impressive. By the time we were done she had a good sketch of what the finished product would look like and a promise that she’d put it in high priority to make and that yes, she would make use of spider silk for it. We left Dinah back home with her parents and gathered the Undersiders for a meeting, as well as Accord and Rook.

—

“Thank you all for coming here.” I did not particularly enjoy being the speaker for this. With ten people all gathered to listen it was enough for them to feel like a small crowd and it reminded me of many excruciatingly painful school projects I’ve had to present, with Accord taking on the role of the stern teacher. But needs must.

“We’ve confirmed that Lost Garden will be arriving imminently.” I saw Accord raise a single eyebrow on his mask at this. “We’ve also established a near certainty that they, and their leader Barrow, will pose a severe threat to the order of the city upon doing so.”

Regent raised a hand. “Sorry, but who are these people again?”

“Oh right. I should probably explain that first.” I was glad I was wearing my mask for this. “The Lost Garden are a cult oriented around separating themselves from the rest of society to have their own private paradise. They’re led by a middle-aged man going by the name Barrow who creates a growing otherworldly forest around himself but can’t leave it without it disappearing. While inside his zone of control he can alter the landscape and further expand its reach. He predominantly recruits children for his cult.”

“Ah.” Regent lowered his hand. He did not say anything more than that, but there was clear distaste in his voice, which was unusual for him.

“The cult rarely leaves the boundaries of his forest, other than for recruiting more members, since he can’t follow them and they’re completely self-sufficient while inside it. Instead they work to expand their master’s influence slowly, step by step, and defend it if attacked. Fighting them while they’re protected by Barrow’s power puts any attacker at a disadvantage.”

“So what’s the plan then?” Asked Grue.

“We strike first, we strike quickly and we strike hard. The longer they have to set themselves up the harder they’ll be to uproot. I don’t think they will be willing to agree to the terms for staying in Brockton, and quite frankly I’m not sure if I’d care if they did. If we can take care of Barrow the rest will fall apart, since he’s the one holding them together both literally and figuratively.”

People nodded in agreement to this. Accord didn’t speak but I could see him deep in thought at this development. 

I let them speak among themselves a little before raising my voice again. “That’s not all though. Lost Garden is only the first of many challenges we’ll have to face. More will come, many more we think. If Brockton Bay is to escape the oncoming storm unscathed we must be ready to face the oncoming trials. We must be vigilant and we must be united.” I halted, not sure how to finish this off. “That’s all I had to say.”

I walked away a bit awkwardly. Rook seemed curious if this was how it usually went with the Undersiders. Parian looked nervous about another attack happening and was being reassured by Foil. Regent and Imp were looking more serious than normal. Grue had his arms folded while traces of darkness emanated from him. Bitch was scowling at nothing in particular while her dogs paced uneasily. Tattletale masked all of her emotions behind a smile. Accord however walked up to me.

“Skitter.” He said curtly. “I’d like to ask for two minutes of your time, please.”

“Of course.” I privately started a clock in my head just to see if he would be done by exactly two minutes. Knowing Accord, I wouldn’t be surprised.

“It did not escape my notice that you were very certain that Barrow was only the first of many intruders expected. Can you tell me who else is coming?”

“I can not.” I answered, then forestalled his response. “Because I don’t know. What I do know is that Brockton Bay’s brief period of a small villainous presence is coming to an end, and that unless we have fortune on our side, the city will be thrown into chaos due to this.” I looked him directly in the eyes. “I don’t believe either of us wish to see that happen.”

“No.” He looked thoughtful. “We don’t. I could provide you with plans for how best to neutralise potential threats should you need them.”

“That would be wonderful.” I smiled beneath my mask. I expected he would try to exploit this for his own ends, but for now my greatest priority was making sure he continued to see supporting me as the means for his precious order to continue. 

“Thank you for your time.” He took a small bow and left, right on the clock. Remarkable.

With Dinah’s prediction in mind, I wasn’t overly worried about losing to Barrow per se, but the fact that either his or some other villain’s arrival was almost inevitably going to disturb the delicate balance we had been building left me uneasy. We had faced bad odds before, when she predicted the end of the world, but the fact that we didn’t even know who our enemy was made it harder to plan against them, and it gave me a paranoid itch in the back of my mind.

Chapter Text

Accord was many things, but he liked to think that a fool was not one of them. He did not need any power to read between the lines in what had been said and implied. The implication from the meeting with the Undersiders was that not only did Skitter believe that Brockton Bay was going to be a hotspot for rival gangs, but she was doubtful that they would be able to withstand this unscathed, and considering how she had access to the Alcott girl he was inclined to believe her. It was unfortunate that the girl was unwilling to sell her services to him, considering how valuable they were. Unfortunate, but not unexpected. He suspected she still held a grudge against him for having aided Coil. A bad investment, that one.

Returning to his new office, he informed Citrine and Othello on the situation and settled down in his chair to start drawing up new plans for dealing with the growing threat. The office building wasn’t quite up to the standards he’d come to expect from his time in Boston but it was almost there now, especially after he fired the last janitor. Using a gun. He’d need to accelerate his plans to bring Skitter around to his vision if they were on a strict time limit. The girl had potential, but was so incredibly frustrating to deal with at times. It perplexed him how at times she could display a level of personal discipline he found very rare among adults, let alone teens, yet at other times she was reckless and impulsive like none other. It took all of his willpower not to wring her neck when she was doing one of her stunts without any due caution. Unfortunately, she and her Undersiders were far too valuable to kill, so instead he was left to figure out how to solve the puzzle that was her character. Thankfully, she was still at the stage in her life where she could change her behaviour, adults that still hadn’t learned how to control their inner chaos were far more unsalvageable. 

Speaking of unsalvageable adults, Accord would have to eliminate some due to this debacle. Skitter’s words, combined with intelligence from his PRT spies and the hints Cauldron had dropped when they last visited him to assure him he’d have their resources at his disposal if he brought Skitter in line with their vision, all pointed towards who had arranged his misfortune: the PRT. Accord’s relationship with the organisation had always been complicated; they were necessary to stem the tide of chaos, even as they were also woefully inefficient at it at times, but this was a step too far. To deliberately create chaos in his city was nothing short of the gravest insult he could imagine and he would have to construct yet another plan for finding the people responsible for this and exacting his vengeance in a way that did not undermine the organisation as a whole. A complicated task, but those were the ones he excelled at the most. 

He took a few calming breaths to get his rage at this offense under control and began taking notes. Evidently, people had forgotten why angering Accord was bad for your health, and a message needed to be sent. He could not destroy the PRT as a whole, not without having something ready to replace it. The damage to the world stability that would cause was simply unthinkable. He just needed to make sure they understood his message.

—

The one great disadvantage with wireless phones, in Lisa’s opinion, was that you couldn’t twirl the wire while speaking through them. It was such a fun power move, even if the person on the other end couldn’t see it, and she wished that she could do that right now. So instead she took advantage of one of the benefits of her phone being wireless: She could twirl around in her chair without getting tangled up by the chord.

“Director Armstrong here. Who am I speaking to?” She could hear the voice from the other end of the phone.

“Director!” She put as much cheer in her voice as she could, just to throw him off-balance. “Just the man I was looking for! How are you doing?”

“How did you… Nevermind. It’s Tattletale, isn’t it?” He gave a weary sigh, that told her he’d been expecting this call, at least subconsciously. 

“Right on the money. I’m flattered, that you know of little old me. Is this what it feels like to be famous?”

“What do you want?” He was annoyed, but her power picked up a hint of uncertainty as well, caution, perhaps even fear. “This isn’t a social call, is it?”

“Straight to business then.” She adopted a more professional tone. “It’s come to my attention that your organisation has been… Acting against the spirit of our arrangement. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

“I assume that you were behind the recent burglary.” He knows that the Red Hands were responsible, he knows that they’ve been migrating to Brockton, he’s drawn the reasonable conclusion that they work for the Undersiders. He’s also, Lisa surmised, acutely aware of exactly what information they stole. “Which makes this a bit rich, coming from you.”

“You know the line, Director: ‘I can not confirm or deny it’.” She smiled sweetly to the phone. “If interested parties were involved however, and if they generously provided us with some of the evidence they found, then that would be a fascinating find. I wonder, does Director Seneca know what Accord will do to him if he found out he brought disorder to his doorstep?”

The brief pause told her that she had been right in her conclusion that the PRT director in Anchorage was the mastermind of Operation Sydney. “I’m sure my fellow directors would do no such thing without first thinking it through.”

“Of course not. If there’s one thing they’re known for it’s making well thought out plans that won’t backfire on them.” There was an implicit threat in her words. “But I digress. I’m sure you’ve been giving your full support to this plan, and I wouldn’t cast aspersions on it.”

“Just get to the point. I get enough doublespeak from my colleagues.” He had definitely gotten what she was leading up to now, and he didn’t like it.

“Naturally. I wouldn’t want to waste your valuable time. I was just hoping that there would be some neighbourly cooperation between our fair cities. What’s good for Brockton is good for Boston, and if someone were to try to draw the scum of North America to New England, well… Can you be sure they hit the right city?”

“What sort of cooperation are we talking about?” He had already thought all of these things before, and his undermining of Seneca had not been entirely above board, she could tell. 

“Oh nothing major, just give us a heads up whenever we’re about to attract new folks in our neighborhood. What we should expect from them.”

“And if I don’t?” He knew the answer, but still asked for formality’s sake.

“Please, director. We both know you won’t, and not just because how fragile your career would be if someone leaked half of what she knew of you. You’ve been thrown to the wolves, a sacrificial lamb considered a part of the acceptable fallout of your friends’ scheme, when really you just want to make sure that the status quo in Boston is upheld as well as possible. It’s better to have us as friends than enemies.”

“... I’ll take your suggestion under advisement.” Which she took as his way of saying that he’d accept while retaining plausible deniability. “Now I’m rather busy, so if you would?”

“Don’t let the bedbugs bite.” Lisa said with a sing-song voice, before ending the call. 

It wouldn’t be enough, not nearly enough, to change things if Dinah was right in her calculations, but every bit helped, and better to establish a working relationship with the Boston PRT early than late. 

On their own, she considered Lost Garden to be a fairly low threat, but Heartbreaker had been making moves for a while now, and if he finally got off his lazy ass and tried to take them on directly an alliance between the two could be potentially dangerous. It was why she fully supported Taylor’s plan to nip the thread in the bud early on, and why she intended to keep an eye on Accord in case he got any ideas about making power plays. Both he and New Wave could easily jump on any perceived weaknesses, which she really did not want to have to deal with. 

She sighed internally, before moving on to other matters. At some point it no longer became preparing for what was to come and just became worrying about it, which wasn’t really productive. She forwarded the plan for restoring the city’s old ferry to Sierra to handle. Lisa knew well the sentimental attachment Taylor had to it and she would not begrudge her friend it, especially not if it even slightly increased her chances of not having her bridges with her father completely burned. Taylor had been the only member of the Undersiders still on speaking terms with her parent when she first joined, and some part of Lisa wanted to live vicariously through her by repairing that relationship. She gave up hope of reconciliation with her own family when she ran away from home and nowadays she didn’t think of herself as Sarah even in her internal thoughts. 

It was a shame about the shooter incident as well. It really did ruin her attempts to get Taylor to get out of her shell again, not to mention how bad it looked to some people. She’d have to come up with a new way of convincing her to go out in public, because in Lisa’s opinion doing so regularly was important both for her mental health and public image. She noted down some options for exposure to the public through a controlled environment, like the cinema. That might be fun, even if she had absolutely no idea what kind of movies would be run there, it had been years since Lisa went to the cinema, before she even became Lisa. She hummed to herself and made a mental note to ask Taylor about it at their next meeting.

—

One of the great benefits of having access to Toybox’ portals was that you didn’t really need to wait for an invitation before showing up at the person you wanted to meet. Of course, when the person you wanted to meet was Heartbreaker this did come with some considerable risks, but Jack had always loved living on the edge. He was currently standing before the man of the house, who was scowling at him. 

“Jack Slash. I thought you were on the run. What are you doing here?” He was not bothering to hide his hostility, being half-dressed and surrounded by his children and concubines. “If you’re looking to recruit, you have five seconds to get out before we kill you.”

There was a slight pressure at the back of Jack’s head from Heartbreaker trying to exert his power over him, but fortunately Cherish’s brief tenure in the Slaughterhouse Nine had given Bonesaw what she needed to make countermeasures to her, which worked just as well against her father. He smiled pleasantly. “I assure you we’re not here to do anything of the sort. In fact, we’re here to help you.”

“Do you consider me a fool?” To which Jack had to bite his tongue to not say ‘yes’. “Everyone knows what happens to the people you ‘help’. You stab them in the back.” Heartbreaker went on to say.

“It’s what happens when people think they can hire us as weapons against their enemies.” Jack mildly corrected. “That’s not what we’re offering here.”

Heartbreaker’s spawn had them surrounded, but Jack wasn’t too worried. They were children with little experience with cape fights, while he had brought Hookwolf, Skinslip, Night Hag and a new Chilean cape named Tormenta Ígnia. The last one he was still getting a feel for, especially since she wasn’t too comfortable speaking English a lot of the time. Bonesaw was back at base, manning the portal while working on her projects. The smile Hookwolf was giving anyone looking at him was positively feral, his metal form changing and shifting on its own, while Night Hag and Skinslip both looked like childrens’ nightmares come to life. The former was in her breaker state, chalk white skin and a black dress that merged with the blackened corruption spreading underneath her on the floor. There was something fundamentally inhuman about her that even Hookwolf could not match, and none of Heartbreaker’s get could meet her eyes. Skinslip meanwhile was a massive patchwork of different people’s skin patched together. 

“Then what are you offering?” Heartbreaker’s eyes flicked over to Tormenta and Jack could easily imagine what he was thinking. She was the only woman in the group if you didn’t count Night Hag, and Heartbreaker was nothing if not predictable.

“Information. Hear you’ve been looking for your missing children. We can help.”

“Of course you can.” Heartbreaker snorted, distaste evident. “I’m not deaf to the goings of the world. You took in one of them, and then you killed her. You think I’m going to listen to you after that?”

“On the contrary, Mister Vasil.” Jack smiled broadly. “Cherish still lives, though I expect she wishes she didn’t. Sweet Bonesaw made sure she’d survive getting dropped to the bottom of the ocean.”

Anger flared from Heartbreaker, and all but the Slaughterhouse Nine winced at the empathic shockwave. “And that makes it better?! You stole from me, Jack, and I will have my due.”

And there he had him, sufficiently riled up. “Then allow me to give you something in return. You’ve heard the rumours, I imagine, about Regent of the Undersiders. I have it on good authority they’re quite true. Your son, Jean-Paul, is in Brockton right now, not just that, but his people rule the city as we speak.”

Jack could tell that the man was hooked on the bait, he was terribly vain and egocentric after all. The idea that one of his children had not only escaped but surpassed him was unbearable.

“You will tell me everything that you know.” Heartbreaker spoke slowly, the anger gone, replaced with deadly purpose. “About my son, the people he runs with and Brockton Bay. Then I will consider our score even.”

“It would be my pleasure.” He began weaving his tale, giving all the information about the Undersiders, their capabilities and their weaknesses, especially of the emotional sort, while presenting himself as in need for revenge of his own. It wasn’t hard, really, to manipulate Heartbreaker. The man was so used to people doing everything he asked them to, he didn’t think to second-guess their motives. He’d need to send his challenge to Skitter after this was done. It wasn’t how he usually did things, but Bonesaw had a point about how another visit to the Bay might interfere with the prophecy and no one could say Jack didn’t like to mix things up.

All in all, it was a win-win situation for him. If Skitter prevailed against the challenge she’d be further hardened by the experience and if she failed Heartbreaker would have his hands on an entire city and enough thralls that he’d be seen as a worldwide threat. Jack certainly hoped it would be the former outcome, Skitter was interesting while Heartbreaker bored him fundamentally with his indolence and mindless hedonism, but the latter still helped destabilise the world. Plan A with the clone army was still not working, despite Bonesaw’s insistence she had the means to achieve it, so he might as well set the ground for Plan B and start kicking some of the other powers in the world into action.

—

“Door.” Contessa stepped through the portal when it opened and exited inside a cottage near Bucharest. She was still putting out fires from when information on Cauldron got leaked and this was the latest one. Somehow, this random Romanian had learned a disconcerting amount about their organisation, and made the questionable choice of trying to publish it. 

She let her Path guide her steps, allowing herself to work on autopilot while she contemplated matters. A dishevelled man with wide eyes screamed something in Romanian before she killed him, but understanding what he meant was not necessary to complete the path. She started typing to take down and discredit everything he had published on Cauldron, take what was needed for analysis and delete anything incriminating on the computer.

While she worked, she went through the upcoming Endbringer battle in her head, one of the few things that she couldn’t just let her Path handle for her. The Endbringers were a blindspot for her, and all three of them had disappeared from view to keep people uncertain where they would strike next, but the program Number Man had made pointed to the likely next attack being in New Delhi by Behemoth, which was a good testing ground for the ideas they had been working on to destroy those things. Contessa had been hesitant to put them into practical effect, since it revealed more about Cauldron than she would have liked, and she preferred to keep the Endbringers alive due to the way they kept the world’s parahuman population strong, with them causing numerous triggers, incentivising truces between heroes and villains and providing training in how to fight beings much more powerful than any individual parahuman. Nevertheless, the others had pushed and she had allowed this, primarily due to the fact that they still had no idea when Scion would return and it wouldn’t do for the Endbringers to destroy the world while he was away, not when at this rate they were likely to have crippled the human population within two decades. Perhaps they could keep one of them alive to act as a reminder to stay vigilant without doing too much damage.

Such musings aside, Contessa’s work was done and she stepped back through the portal, leaving the cottage with the man that for all appearances had committed suicide. “Close door.”

Nothing happened and, far more disconcertingly, the Path to Victory gave the mental equivalent to an error message. This was not what it had foreseen.

“I said, Doorman, close the door.” She spoke louder this time, even though Clairvoyant should be able to hear her no matter how quietly she said it.

Again, the door to Earth Bet did not close, and the fact that her Path did not know why was deeply disconcerting, considering how few things in the world were invisible to it, and how every single one of them were incredibly dangerous.

Contessa sounded the alarm, before marching at a brisk pace towards where Clairvoyant and Doormaker would be according to her powers. She still couldn’t see what the issue was, but she was helped in finding them, since neither of them were hidden from her.

That was when another door opened in front of her and the Simurgh emerged from it. Tall, angelic and ethereal, she wore a placid smile even when every nearby object not nailed down was thrown in the direction of Contessa like a shotgun blast.

She threw herself down on the ground to avoid the worst of the attack, though she still got hit in the back by an errant waste bin. She started crawling in the direction of Doormaker while the Simurgh scanned for signs of her. 

Fortunately, her foe was just as incapable of using her precognition against Contessa as she was against her and while the Simurgh may hold mastery over the past and the future, she was blind to the present. This also came with the handy side benefit of rendering her immune to Ziz’ telepathic attacks. That was when the good news ended, because this still left her having to face a nigh-invulnerable telekine while being effectively reduced to just being a woman with a gun and while Doormaker remained apparently under the Simurgh’s control she couldn’t call in any useful reinforcements. The Number Man lacked the ability to take this thing on, and any Case 53s they had contained on site were more of a liability than help at this moment.

She had gotten halfway there and been hit several more times when the Simurgh gave up on throwing random objects around in the hopes that it would take her out and instead ripped the entire wall separating them from Doormaker and Clairvoyant apart. Seeing both of them, the picture became much clearer on what had happened, with them looking even more vacant than usual. The leak had been bait, that much was clear, fed enough information and driven to act on it in a way that would draw their attention, while Ziz lay in wait like an ambush predator, hidden from their sight, before swaying their means of transportation with her song. Normally, pulling people completely under her thrall would take longer than the time it took Contessa to deal with the leak, but normally it was assumed that the person in question would have an average human level of willpower, while both Doormaker and Clairvoyant were almost completely vacant in their heads and thus likely more susceptible. all the while Contessa’s own immunity to the song meant that she hadn’t heard this sign of the Endbringer’s presence.

The Simurgh, apparently satisfied with the outcome of this attack, opened another portal for them to go through. Contessa rose up to her feet and tried to intercept, only for another portal leading to a field of magma to open, spilling out its contents in front of her. It was only thanks to the Path to Victory that she managed to dodge it, still able to use it against her former compatriots, but once she had managed to get around that Ziz was already through, and the other two were close behind.

It only took her a split second to calculate the outcomes of different courses of action through her powers. She wasn’t close enough to either Clairvoyant or Doormaker to be able to grab either of them with the Simurgh running interference and a non-lethal takedown would result in at least one of them ending up on the wrong side of the portal and still in the Simurgh’s thrall, with the other one remaining useless without their partner and a potentially compromised asset. With this in mind, she chose the path to kill them, denying her enemy such an invaluable resource. Contessa raised her pistol and fired twice.

Doormaker was halfway through the portal when hit in the head and was immediately cut in half when it closed. Clairvoyant collapsed just behind him, not having fallen to the ground yet when it closed and he was hidden from view. 

The attack had been brief but devastating, reports from Doctor Mother and the Number Man told of the prisoners having been let loose on the facility and driven to a mad rage, a not very difficult task considering the state they had already been in. Contessa chose to disassociate, letting the Path to Victory take over while she dealt with the aftermath, neutralising the remaining threats and restoring order. She didn’t know what else to do. Their connection with Earth Bet had been severed and until Eidolon or someone else managed to restore it they were stranded here. So many paths had been cut off in an instant, threads dangling in her mind. Never before had an Endbringer tried to attack Cauldron at home and she didn’t know if it was because of their pattern changing when Scion left or the Simurgh having decided that they were too much of a threat after they turned their focus on destroying her and her brothers. The Path to escape was dark, dependent on people and factors outside of her control to influence or predict. Not since before she had become parahuman had Contessa felt this powerless.

Chapter Text

Lost Garden had just set up a new base on the outskirts of Brockton when we moved against them. Our intelligence suggested that Heartbreaker was on the move and I’d rather deal with these threats one at a time than risking them teaming up against us. Because of how quickly we moved against them, they had yet to expand their forest to surround more than the house they’d taken for themselves. Part of me had been worried that the supernatural nature of the forest meant that there wouldn’t be any bugs inside it that I could control, but getting closer I could sense that it was teeming with life for me to take command of.

The rest of the Undersiders were with me, even Tattletale, though she was planning on staying back until the fighting was over. We hadn’t brought in the Red Hands or Accord’s Ambassadors for this operation, since it was deemed an excessive amount of force and the Undersiders needed to show that they could deal with threats on their own. Bitch and Parian had brought their distinct form of backup but aside from that we were alone. 

The house in question contained four apartments and had been transformed from a nondescript building into the heart of the fey forest currently spreading outwards in real time. None of the plants existed anywhere else in the world, being signs of Barrow’s influence upon this place, and all of them swayed not by any wind or other natural means but by the will of their maker. Supposedly, the forest once it had grown large enough could shift and change to make any intruder lose track of their surroundings. This one was still too small for that, only being around 30 metres in diameter, but it was still a potent defensive tool, since we’d have to expect the plants to come alive and fight for Barrow once combat broke out.

I began tagging everyone inside with my bugs to get a lay of the land. Aside from Barrow himself, who was a middle aged man with greying hair and a bushy beard that covered his throat, wearing green robes and a wooden mask like some kind of druid, there were around twenty kids, none of them older than myself and many a fair bit younger. Of them, the greatest concern were the parahumans he’d gathered to his cause. Tattletale had managed to get her hands on their PRT bios so we were all decently aware of what they could do.

Barrow Rose was the most dangerous of the group, her powers synergising with Barrow’s own and being the main reason I couldn’t just overwhelm everyone from afar with my bugs. She was a bio-tinker with a speciality in drugs, capable of using the flora around her to synthesise concoctions with a wide arrange of effects, from combat enhancers to sleeping gas. It wasn’t mentioned that she could create pesticides, but it seemed fair to assume as much. As a force multiplier and Barrow’s second in command, she was one of the people most urgent to take down quickly.

Youngest of their capes was Wraith, whose powers worked much like Shadow Stalker’s. He was a Breaker who could turn transparent and intangible at will, becoming a ghost capable of passing through walls. Since he couldn’t be more than ten and he hadn’t figured out a way to use his power offensively he was fairly low on the list of threats though, even if we weren’t sure if there was a way to harm him while in his Breaker form. He did drop any bug I sent to tag him whenever he turned intangible rather than bothering to open a door though and it was hard for my critters to keep track of him with their poor eyesight until he turned back to normal.

Maharal was a Master of a similar type as Parian, capable of making golems out of earth and rock that she then controlled. She had never been seen with more than two or three, the working theory being that it took too much of her concentration to control several at once, but even a single one was strong enough to take on Brutes one on one.

Finally there was Pufferfish, the strangest one in the group. A Changer capable of growing substantially in size, his inflated form did not actually come with a brute package, not being any stronger or tougher than normal. Instead, it deflated when struck, enveloping its attacker and injecting them with poisons, while Pufferfish himself went back to normal. Dangerous to the unprepared, those who expected a more traditional brute, but something that could be worked around.

—

Once I was done scouting out the place and relaying what I learned to my comrades, we moved on to the next stage of the plan. Gathering together some of my bugs into a swarm clone, I had it appear in front of the leader of Lost Garden.

“Barrow, I don’t remember inviting you to establish yourself in my city.” My swarm buzzed, causing most of the nearby people to jump in fright at the sudden appearance.

Barrow himself flinched at the sight, but composed himself quickly enough. “Skitter, just the woman I wanted to see.” He smiled underneath his mask. “Please, make yourself comfortable.” He gestured at a chair.

I wished I could give my swarm clones enough detail to be able to convey a raised eyebrow. Sitting was an entirely meaningless gesture for this form. Still, it didn’t really matter, and even if it was a trap that’s why I sent this in rather than go in person. I sat down by what must have been a dinner table.

“Well then.” Barrow was using a genial tone even as his cult were warily preparing themselves for me turning hostile. He sat down opposite me. “Rest assured I’m willing to pay the tribute for passing through your lands. We’ll be on our way soon enough if you’ll let us.”

“Travelling north then?” I made the clone do a facsimile of crossing her arms. “Leaving for Canada?”

“No, not quite. I’ve heard of that marvellous portal of yours, and the world on the other side of it. A veritable Garden of Eden, untouched by man. We’d be willing to pay quite handsomely for free passage to this world, and after that we’ll be out of your hair.”

“Right.” While I kept their attention focused on my swarm clone, Imp was sent in to infiltrate the place. I couldn’t detect her, even knowing that she was sneaking around, but I could tell that Barrow Rose’s stockpiles were steadily being depleted by something , the substances she had chosen to focus on when I first appeared being given particular attention. “No.”

“‘No’?” He tilted his head. “No negotiations? Just flat refusal? Surely we can come to some form of agreement.”

“I don’t want interference with my portal from outside parties and I consider the territory on the other side of it too valuable to be ceded.” I folded my hands, or to be more exact had the bugs making up my hands form one big clump in the middle. “Non-negotiable.” Also I personally felt off-put by the vibe he was giving and didn’t want him to have unlimited room to expand if he were to become a threat.

“You’re not making this easy, Skitter. Surely you see you can’t claim an entire world just for yourself.” he sighed, before putting on a fatherly face. “But I understand. You need time to come to trust us. We’re willing to work out an arrangement to stay here in the meantime.”

“I’d offer you the same deal I gave Accord, but the circumstances of your group warrants a different touch.” I stared him down as best I could without a proper set of eyes, my swarm chittering menacingly. “You won’t have any obligation to contribute to Endbringer fights but due to the self-sustaining nature of your community and its lack of interaction with the economy I will expect half of your income to go in taxes.” 

I ignored how he bristled at this, pressing on. “Moreover, you will provide proper education to these kids, putting them in school, with regular attendance. You’re also not allowed to spread your growths outside of property you own.”

“Come now, be reasonable.” His mask did not hide how condescending his smile looked. “You’re a young lady yourself, I’ve understood, who has realised that there are more important things than school to prepare yourself in life.”

It turned out that one facial expression my swarm clone was capable of making was the deadpan stare. I held my focus on Barrow long enough for him to squirm uncomfortably. “Fate dealt me a bad hand, that doesn’t mean I want the same for others. They will get the same chances as everyone else.” More importantly, he’d have to relinquish his control over them, which I doubted was going to happen.

“I see that the rumours about you being difficult to negotiate with haven’t been exaggerated.” He was still speaking like he was insinuating that I was a troublesome child rather than his superior here.

“I think that I’m being quite reasonable.” My spiders had been creating a noose around his neck, hidden by his own beard, made out of silk, tied to one of the branches of the trees he had made. “If you disagree you’re free to leave.”

This actually made Barrow chuckle a little. “You think that because we live an isolated lifestyle we don’t hear what’s going on in the world around us? Your posturing won’t work on me, Skitter, I know how many enemies you have. You’re here and talking to us because you can’t afford another war, so why don’t we talk this through like reasonable people, hm?”

“So you’re rejecting my demands and going to continue to squat on my territory until we come to an agreement you like?” I knew what the answer was going to be, but I needed him to spell it out, if only to make what I was about to do less of a flagrant breach of the unwritten rules.

“That I am. Don’t worry though, I’m a very reasonable man. I have some counteroffers that might interest you.” He gave his best genial smile. “If you let me and mine operate without interference we would be happy to help deal with any threats that might arise against you.”

“I see.” The final traps were in place and in my real body I was giving the signal to move in towards the Lost Garden to my teammates. “You’re quite right, Barrow. I can’t afford another enemy on my doorstep, or to be bogged down in a gang war at this stage.”

“Naturally.” He looked triumphant, taking that as me capitulating. “So we have a deal th-”

“No.” I had my swarm shake its head. “Imp? If you would?”

Barrow looked confused for a split second, then his eyes widened in fear at the realisation just in time for someone to kick out the chair from under him, causing him to fall backwards and the noose I had made around his neck to suddenly grow taut. Most of the others panicked at seeing their leader being strangled, but Barrow Rose was quick to react, spraying my swarm clone with a can containing something that rapidly killed any bugs it came into contact with.

—

The plants barring the way to the house were thrashing wildly in their master’s panicked attempts to free himself and ward off intruders. It certainly made things more difficult, but was still preferable to if he had been trying to use them strategically. Panicked people were a lot less efficient and as it was many of the trees and other vegetation were harming themselves just as much as they might have us. Bitch’s dogs cleared a way through it for us, ripping apart the undergrowth as they crashed into things like armoured tanks, felling entire trees with enough effort. One problem that faced me as soon as I jumped off them to get inside the house was the grass trying to tie itself around my ankles and I had to use my knife to cut myself free before the swarm I had been gathering descended upon the place. I’d even gotten some actual locusts in the black cloud of insects that were obscuring everything and devouring every leaf they could find.

Maharal’s golems were the first line of defence but since they lacked anything in the way of minds or eyes of their own, they were dependent on their creator to see for them. And between my bugs and Grue’s darkness she was effectively blind, allowing us to slip past them and for Foil to rip through them with her rapier while they were distracted. 

Wraith was a bigger problem, flickering in and out of existence while he harassed us. He did not share Shadow Stalker’s vulnerability to electricity, as we found out when Regent tried to tase him with his sceptre and it did absolutely nothing, meaning that we didn’t really have anything we could pull against him while he was insubstantial. It had been a bit much to hope that their breaker states would share the same vulnerability and we didn’t have time to experiment what would be effective against it, so I just signalled Grue to prioritise him. There wasn’t much he could do if he couldn’t see anything and he didn’t dare to ever become solid while inside it in case Grue would take advantage of this to hit him, effectively taking him out of the equation for the duration of the fight.

By the time we arrived at where Barrow was he had been freed from the silk noose and was barking out orders for parahuman and regular child cultists alike. Barrow Rose was trying to help out with her drugs but Imp’s previous sabotage seemed to be having her at her wits’ end, frantically trying to find where her things were supposed to be. A crucial part of our plan had been to try to avoid hurting the kids any more than was strictly necessary, doing it to Vista when we fought the Protectorate was bad enough. Without her aid, most of the cult were largely harmless and thus did not need much force to be taken down. The exception was Pufferfish, but we had already accounted for that and Parian had her stuffed animals pile onto him in what was essentially takedown hugs. They were impervious to his poisons and large enough they could handle him trying to grow in size.

They put up a valiant effort with all that said, but they simply did not have the same combat experience we did or as many powers at their disposal, and we were pushing them hard to keep them off their balance. Once I had my knife at Barrow’s throat the fight was effectively over and the rest of them surrendered soon thereafter.

—

“This is an outrage!” Barrow jabbered. “Nobody will want to deal with you if this is how you treat guests to your city. You spit on the traditions of hospitality and giving new people a fair warning before war.”

I ignored him, waiting to level judgement once Tattletale was done inspecting his followers, talking to them one at a time while she looked them over. Most were fairly subdued, still at a shock at what had happened, though Barrow Rose was silently glaring at all of us. She did seem to be the most wilful and resourceful of the lot, being around the same age as Alec and having already tried to smuggle several of her drugs with her when we bound them up and dragged everyone out of the killer forest. 

“We don’t have to be enemies.” Barrow had now shifted tactics. “If you free us we could be invaluable allies to you. I have contacts, resources and friends you might find useful. And it would spread news that you are merciful and magnanimous in victory. You’ve already proven that you can defeat challengers, but what you need to prove is that it’s better to aid you than to fight to the bitter end.”

He went on like this while I waited, until Tattletale returned to me. The fact that she had a slight grimace rather than her signature vulpine grin already told me a lot, but I waited to hear what she had to say.

“There’s definitely some signs of abuse going on here.” She said. “A lot of emotional but also a fair bit of physical abuse to a few of them.”

“And sexual?” I asked carefully.

“... Some.” She admitted, looking extremely uncomfortable. “A low degree of it has been done to most of the girls at minimum. Might have taken it further than that… I tuned my power out a little when it started giving me TMI.”

“I see.” I did not raise my voice, keeping it level and neutral, but the coldness was enough to immediately shut Barrow up. I fixed him with with my gaze and he actively scrambled back like he was afraid I’d gut him then and there. Which, admittedly, I was contemplating doing, but this development was hardly unexpected considering the rumours that had circulated around him and I already had a plan.

“Barrow. I find that your actions have greatly displeased me, and will be relieving you of your control over the Lost Garden.” I squatted down before him, knife in one hand. “I hope that you find this very fair.”

“I am the Lost Garden.” What might have otherwise been a boast sounded more like a fearful whisper. “And you are hardly one to judge me. I know the things you’ve done, Skitter.”

I tilted my head slightly and stared at him through my yellow lenses. He paled considerably. “The Lost Garden is no more. I will take these people and I will give them better homes than you provided. You, meanwhile, will run as far as your legs will take you and when you think you’ll die from exhaustion you will run some more.”

“Yes, of course.” He nodded rapidly, grabbing onto the lifeline granted with all his might. “You won’t ever hear from me again.”

“No, I don’t imagine I will.” I cut through his bindings, which caused him to flinch in fear, before standing up. “Now start running.”

He did not need to be told a second time, sprinting as quickly as he could away from myself and from Brockton Bay. He already looked like he wouldn’t be able to run much further before he’d even dropped out of sight of my own eyes. Being holed up in his own private forest hadn’t done much for his stamina I supposed.

Tattletale had recovered her usual smirk while her eyes followed the fleeing figure. “That’s that dealt with. Now for the rest of them. I could probably put the youngest with Charlotte’s foster care, though we might need to hire an assistant for her at this rate.”

“Remind me that she should probably get a pay rise as well.” I sighed. “Which leaves the teens.” I turned to Barrow Rose, who looked to be the impromptu leader of the group now that Barrow was gone.

“Is this the point where you’re going to tell me how you’ve saved me while pulling me from one master to another?” She challenged me.

“No.” I shook my head. “I’m not going to force people to work for me. It’s not how I operate and it makes for disloyal followers. I meant what I said about wanting you to have a chance for a normal life if that’s what you want. So I’m giving you a choice: Either you leave my city and we don’t contact each other again and you’re free to do whatever you want, or I give you some money for you to get a place here, we arrange the papers so you can go to school and I won’t ask anything more from you other than that you follow the rules we have around here. Join my gang or don’t, I don’t really care.”

“Wait, seriously?” She looked at me suspiciously. “You expect me to believe you’ll just hand out money for nothing after you tried so hard to get us under your yoke before? How stupid do you think I am?”

“I wanted Barrow away because I don’t tolerate trash like him, and I’m dissolving Lost Garden as a gang, that’s what I’m getting out of this. If you don’t trust me you are still free to leave, but I just want to keep these streets clean, and if giving you a new opportunity to be a respectable, or semi-respectable, citizen helps, then that’s fine by me.”

“Right…” She was scrutinising me as well as she could considering how I was still wearing my mask. “And does that mean that you’ll regulate when I can and can’t do my whole thing?”

“To some degree, probably.” I shrugged. “I mean, if I find you’ve been selling drugs that kill people I will be very unhappy with you, but I imagine you could think of ways to use your powers without making other peoples’ lives worse. You could probably make pretty good medicine if you wanted to for example.”

“And we can still leave any time we want after we accept this offer of yours?” She was still looking for a catch, which I couldn’t really blame her for.

“Yes.”

“...” She mulled this over a little. “Well, if you speak the truth I guess none of us have anything to lose from accepting your offer, and a lot to gain. I for one accept.”

“Perfect.” I was rather pleased, even if it was the logical outcome. “Welcome to Brockton Bay.”

—

Barrow was still running when he started nearing the edge of my range, though his run was slow enough at this point that it was possible to walk faster than he was running. I had been keeping an eye on him during the time while we took care of the rest of the Lost Garden and he now had a good distance from them. I gathered my swarm around him, cutting off every escape route with my bugs.

“I’m leaving your damned city!” He screamed upon seeing them. “I’m doing as you told, you don’t need to further intimidate me!”

“This is not for intimidation, Barrow.” They buzzed as they gathered on and around him.

“Wait! You said you’d spare me!” He ended up swallowing several bugs and was now sputtering helplessly, collapsed from a mixture of fear and exhaustion.

“No. I told you to run. At no point did I say I planned to spare you. I just didn’t think children should have to see your fate.”

Any protests he might have given were drowned as the swarm descended upon him, biting and gnashing. Devouring flesh and entering every orifice to tear him apart from within as well as without. It was apparent that Valefour had not been a sufficient warning to the cult leaders of America to leave Brockton Bay be. I had skirted around the spirit of the unwritten rules a bit to accomplish this, but Barrow’s carcass might send a stronger message once it was found. 

A third of a mile away, I gave a nod to the rest of the Undersiders that he’d been taken care of. “It is done.”

Chapter Text

Things settled down a little after we took care of the Lost Garden, which gave us plenty of time to prepare for Heartbreaker’s arrival. The reason we had struck so fast and so hard against them in the first place was because we couldn’t risk a third party getting involved once he came to Brockton, especially not one that was compatible enough with him that an alliance wasn’t out of the question. Now Barrow was well and truly dead and the rest of the group had been disbanded. Charlotte had taken in Wraith and Maharal in her foster care system and I was hoping to visit later in the day to see how that was working out, maybe check in on Aiden as well while I was at it. I couldn’t remember what it was he had drawn that had caught my interest but clearly there was something weird going on there that I should keep my eye on.

In the meantime, we were upping the security for her and the kids, as well as for my dad and any other high risk targets for Heartbreaker to try to get his claws on for greater emotional damage. While in the ideal scenario we would dispatch of him as easily as we did Barrow, Heartbreaker was ultimately a completely different level of villain, and in the worst case he could prove as devastating to Brockton Bay as the Slaughterhouse Nine had been. Except where Jack and his cronies hit cities like Behemoth or Leviathan, Heartbreaker was more akin to the Simurgh in the threat he posed, capable of turning any random individual into a weapon. Accord had already suggested that the most optimal path for dealing with this would be to actively monitor as many households as I could, using my bugs as well as more mundane surveillance, and force any potential enemy to assume that I had them under constant watch. I could see the merit of this idea as a means of keeping people safe and yet I found myself hesitant, worried. The idea of turning my city into a surveillance state made me deeply uncomfortable, it felt like a line that once crossed I couldn’t turn back on.

All the same, I wasn’t able to ignore the option entirely either, not when lives were at stake, and I couldn’t help but worry that I was being irrational. I had done similar things in the past, albeit on a much smaller scale, and privacy had never been a big concern for the Undersiders as a team, with Lisa and Aisha being almost as bad as I was in ignoring it, and the rest of them being largely apathetic on the matter. Only Sabah had made any real protests to the idea when it was discussed. So I kept postponing actually deciding on the matter again and again, even as the clock kept ticking.

—

And of course, because where I live not even a single week can pass without some catastrophic development, I got an urgent call from Lisa today about important news she’s just received. Making my way over to her, I idly wondered what fresh calamity had befallen us this time. Maybe Nilbog had decided that Ellisburg was too small for his creations and wanted to move to Brockton Bay.

When I did arrive though, I found her completely focused on a letter lying unopened on the table, staring at it like it was going to try to murder her the moment she took her eyes off it. 

“Hey, Taylor.” She said absently upon hearing me enter the room, still looking at the diminutive object.

“Hey, Lisa. I’m guessing this is what you called me over for.” I leaned over to get a good look at it myself. On the outside was written ‘Skitter, Brockton Bay’ in what looked suspiciously like dried blood.

“It actually wasn’t, but it’s true what they say, when it rains it pours.” She sighed. “We caught a guy holding this thing, telling us how he had to deliver it to you or else Jack was going to turn his family’s insides on their outsides.”

“Oh.” I really didn’t need to ask which Jack she was referring to. The blood had already been a major clue considering how few people were edgy enough to pick it over normal ink. “Shit.”

“That was my reaction as well, yeah. Ran it through some analysis while waiting for you just in case Bonesaw had decided to gift us with some deadly plague or something.”

“And?”

“It’s clean, as far as I can tell. Although that blood is genuine and not just for show.” She wrinkled her nose. “Which is just unhygienic, quite frankly.”

“No use waiting around, I guess.” I cautiously opened the envelope and read the letter directed to me.

‘Dear Taylor Hebert, I hope this finds you in good health.

I’m sorry that I had to leave so abruptly last time we met. You are quite the fascinating specimen, far more so than your reputation at the time had suggested. My congratulations on how you dealt with Alexandria, you’ve made quite a few fans from that performance. So much so that we’ve decided to extend an invitation to our rather exclusive club to you. Now, as you know we do like to provide some challenges to potential initiates to test their mettle, and since both you and I are operating on a larger scale than last time we met I thought it fitting if we upped the first challenge a little in terms of how it works. Not as personal as I would normally like, but I do enjoy experimenting. 

By the time this letter reaches you I expect you to already be aware that Mr Vasil has caught an interest in your little coterie, and that he will be arriving very soon. I might have had a hand in helping push him into action, and we’ve provided him with a few additional tools and advice to aid the fellow. The challenge is rather simple: Destroy him. Show your superiority to the world. Capitulate and fail the challenge. I’m very much rooting for you.

With kindest regards, Jacob.’

Lisa’s eyes had gone wider and wider as we read the letter, then double checked it again. I could see the mental gears shifting in her head. Then, she did the last thing I would have expected in this situation: She began cackling with mad laughter, to the point that she had to double over.

“Uh, Lisa, are you okay?”

“Copacetic.” It took her visible effort to straighten her face.

“Because usually that’s not the reaction people have to hearing that one of their friends is being targeted by the Slaughterhouse Nine.” I was giving her a very unamused look

“Oh no, definitely. That part is terrible .” She nodded fervently. “Expected, from the moment I saw the letter, but terrible.”

“... But?”

“But remember how Dinah told us that the chances they’d attack Brockton again were tiny? And notice how we got told via a letter, while the Slaughterhouse Nine have always had a tradition of a member telling a potential recruit about their wonderful new job opportunity in person? Not to mention how Jack wants to ‘experiment’ with outsourcing the trial to someone else?” She was smirking so badly I was almost afraid she’d injure herself from the strain to her face. “They’re scared . They don’t dare to return here in case it means Jack’s precious prophecy doesn’t get fulfilled.”

That actually got me to start chuckling as well. “A prophecy they don’t even know is already null and void.”

“Exactly! Oh this is just perfect. I’ll almost forgive him for finding a new way of making our lives demonstrably worse just because of how badly he tipped his hand about what they’re planning. Almost.”

“Still though.” It took less effort for me to straighten my face than it did Lisa, perhaps because of the differences in our default expressions. “If Jack is speaking the truth, Heartbreaker is going to be even more dangerous than we previously thought. Even if they’ve been sharing nothing but our secrets they have a lot of those from their last visit.”

“That they do.” She tapped a finger on her chin. “Going to need to make sure Brian’s and Aisha’s mom and dad are safe as well, because we have to assume that Cherie uncovered all of our secret identities with her bullshit empath radar last time.”

I groaned. “Right, that’s probably the case, and better safe than sorry. Fucking Jack Slash.”

“On the bright side, this isn’t that much worse than what we were prepared for. We already knew Heartbreaker was coming. Jack’s just giving him a little bit more ammunition.”

“True.” I took a deep breath to focus myself and pushed away my anxiety over Heartbreaker’s impending arrival. “So what was the thing you actually called me over to talk about?”

“Right. That thing. I almost forgot in the middle of all this. This one won’t have a nice neat letter telling us everything so it’s a lot more conjecture on my part. Still, I’m pretty positive about this.”

“Well, lay it on me.” I leaned back, tempted to send a bunch of insects to devour the letter just for the catharsis of it, but you never knew if we needed something from it.

“So to start with, we have now officially gone past the period when the next Endbringer attack was supposed to happen. The PRT reset the clock for it yesterday, but have made no comment about why Godzilla and co have been no-shows. There’s been rampant speculation on PHO and a bunch of other places about them having struck at some black-ops site and the PRT covering it up.”

“Please tell me they didn’t attack the Birdcage or anything like that.”

“Birdcage is still functional, thank God. But I’ve been digging around a little, and finding a lot of interesting details. Like a sudden uptick in discovered Cauldron capes with the Protectorate, or the dam holding back leaks on Cauldron beginning to falter without anyone doing something about it.”

“... You’re not suggesting what I think that you are?” 

“Darling, I’m barely even getting started.” Lisa grinned. “We’ve also got every supervillain’s favourite accountant, the Number Man, suddenly being out of commission, with no activity for the past week. Now I’m not saying that he worked for Cauldron… But it would totally be in line with what we knew of them if he did.”

“They do seem to love playing both sides, just look at Accord.” I nodded in agreement. “Is the disappearance of the Number Man going to prove a problem for our accounts?”

“A bit, but I’ve got it mostly under control. Going to need to withdraw our money to be placed elsewhere but it could have been worse if they had actively tried to fuck with us and you didn’t have the master hacker, yours truly, on your side.”

“Humble as always, I see.” I gave her a lopsided smile. “I guess as long as I don’t have to touch the banking aspect of running a warlord state with a ten foot pole I’m happy. But I do see what you mean, the amount of circumstantial evidence that Cauldron has taken a major hit is pretty massive.”

“Which leads to the question of what we’re going to do about it? This hasn’t become public knowledge yet, but I’m pretty sure the people at the top of the Protectorate at least are aware of what’s happened and are just keeping a tight lid on things.”

“Hm…” It was a good question. If Cauldron and their boogeyman were out of play that did free our hand in what we wanted to do about the PRT a bit, but I had gotten so used to assuming that we wouldn’t dare to provoke them more than strictly necessary that it took a bit of rethinking to get mentally into gear for this. “I guess the big question is if we want to play nice or not. Exposing everything we know might help turn the public against them, but it would also mean that we keep burning our bridges with them and fan the flames of instability across America.”

“I’ve got to admit, I do love being petty.” Lisa mused. “But that’s probably not a good idea.”

“Now do feel free to blackmail them if it means that they’ll get off our backs though, I’m sure you’ll get plenty of opportunities to be petty that way.”

“Taylor, Taylor, Taylor.” She shook her head. “That you would even suggest such a thing. How can you ask me to do this… When it’s what I’ve already been doing?” She smiled mischievously.

I rolled my eyes. “Ha ha. You got me. But seriously, try not to make us more enemies if you can avoid it. And before you protest, we both know that it’s something you often end up doing.”

“You’ve got it, boss. I’ll try not to get any kill orders sent my way.”

“How reassuring.” I deadpanned.

“Hey, I can’t make any promises, not if you have me in charge of our intelligence.” She threw her arms up in the air. “It’s the kind of job where you end up stepping on a lot of toes.”

“Is this you saying that you want to be replaced?” I raised an eyebrow at her.

“Heavens no! I’m having way too much fun and there’s nobody else who could do this job half as well as I do.”

“Be that as it may, if I find out you’ve been making a side hobby out of picking fights with powerful people across the world I’m going to be very cross.”

“I would never.” She stopped to consider it. “Fine, maybe I would, but I haven’t yet.”

“See to it that you keep it that way, Lisa.” I shook my head warningly. “I’d rather not lose you to some Yàngbǎn assassin or something like that.”

“Aww, how sweet!”

“Watch it, or I’ll take it back.” I grumbled, to Lisa’s great amusement.

“Perish the thought.” She was wearing her default expression of supreme smugness. “Now that the serious business has been dealt with, you’ve started to get cooped up again, so I’m taking you out.”

“That sounds like a terrible idea. Don’t you remember what happened last time?” I immediately started getting defensive.

“I remember that we had a lovely time and you enjoyed it very much. It’s not my fault some idiot tried to shoot you on a completely separate occasion.”

“Still a problem if it happens 50 % of the time I try to go outside and be normal.”

“Ah, but I’ve created a perfect solution for that. It’s called cinema.” She said it with such pride one would think she invented the concept. “Think about it, it’s the perfect controlled environment, with a set number of people who are going to be there aside from us that you can check for weapons and nobody else who’s supposed to enter while the movie is ongoing. Just some basic precautions that you could do while you’re asleep and we’re perfectly safe.”

“Hmpf.” I tried to think of a reason why this couldn’t be done. “But why can’t we just watch a movie here? It would be even safer.” I really tried not to sound whiny, though I’m not sure I succeeded.

“Because the point is to get you comfortable around people other than your friends.” Lisa spoke with exaggerated patience. “I’m not enabling your anti-social tendencies.”

“Technically it would be asocial, unless you’re insinuating that I’m acting like a psychopath.” I grumbled. 

“Occasionally, but that’s a separate issue.” She held her hands up defensively at my glare. “Hey, I’m just saying, best be aware of the issues you have so you can work on them.”

“Not helping, Lisa.”

“I know, I know. I really wish the good guys didn’t have a monopoly on cape therapists, the rest of us need them just as much. Part of me thinks that it’s a conspiracy to maintain the narrative of mentally unstable villains”

I had a reflexive instinct to protest, but then I thought a bit more about our group and the issues we each carried. “Yeah, it probably would help if we could get one.” I admitted.

“Well, I’ll keep working on a solution for that one. Who knows? Maybe if the PRT implodes I’ll be able to steal one of their psychiatrists. In the meantime we’ve got a movie to catch.”

“Hey, I still haven’t agreed to that!” I protested.

—

Apparently my protests were in vain because before I knew it Lisa had cajoled me into following her along to the cinema. Part of me still suspected the whole thing was just a scheme to torture me for her own amusement, especially after seeing the grin on her face after I was informed that we were going to watch a romcom. By then however it was too late to back out and I had to satisfy myself with plotting my elaborate revenge for this ignominy. 

The worst part of it all was that she was right, and not only did we pass through the entire experience without any incident, but I actually kind of ended up enjoying the movie in all its cheesy silliness. And Lisa being who she was, she was going to not only notice that but be extraordinarily smug about her ridiculous taste in movies being vindicated.

And right on cue, we had barely exited the theatre before she turned on me with a massive grin. “So… What did you think?”

“It was fine, I guess.” I shrugged in as non-committal a fashion as I could.

“Mhm.” She looked very triumphant about the whole affair.

“Next time though I’m going to be the one who picks what movie we watch.”

“Oh, you want to do this again, huh? Didn’t think you’d take to it that well. Sure, I’d be happy to let you.”

“... Crap.” I felt like I had just walked into a trap of my own making. “ If we do this again.” I hastily added.

“Sure thing, sweetie. Whatever you say.”

I was still thinking of some kind of stinging retort to give her when I noticed suspicious movement in the crowd outside of the cinema, with one woman heading towards us with hurried steps and a purposeful gait. I couldn’t find a weapon on her but in this world that said very little.

Lisa seemed to have caught on to me tensing up. “Trouble?”

“Maybe. Someone’s heading our way.”

“I’ve got two guys nearby in case we need help.”

I gave her a side-eye even as I spread my bugs out to see if there was someone else who might be involved. “And here I thought you were saying I was too paranoid.”

She rolled her eyes. “I take precautions, I don’t strangle my own social life. There’s a difference.”

My reply died in my mouth when the newcomer finally came close enough to us that I could see her with my own eyes. “Emma?! What are you doing here?”

It was no wonder I hadn’t recognised her with my bug senses, she hardly looked anything like I remembered. She was thinner, with bags under her eyes and her red hair having grown matted and thorny, a bushy mess rather than the sleek and immaculate look I always remembered. 

“Taylor!” Before I knew it she had thrown herself at my feet and grabbed my hand. “I can’t bear this anymore. Just take your revenge on me.”

“I… What?” I was startled, embarrassed and most of all flabbergasted. “What in the world are you talking about?”

“You were right, Taylor. You always were the strong one, but I refused to see it. Make us even. I don’t care how much you have to punish me, I deserve it.”

This was probably the weirdest attempt at suicide-by-cape I had seen, and I had witnessed a few in my life. Hell, I had done a few. “I’m not going to torture you just because you have a sudden attack of conscience. Now what brought you here?”

“I saw people talking about seeing you going to the cinema and came as soon as I could.” She pushed on, ignoring my shudder at hearing that Emma had apparently been stalking me online. In the background Lisa swore loudly. “I’m… Sorry. I was wrong and I didn’t see the truth. You’re strong, much stronger than I could ever hope to be. Stronger than Sophia. I shouldn’t have cast you aside. Just please.” She had a manic look in her eyes. “You have no reason to hold back anymore. Hurt me like I hurt you.”

I was feeling a headache beginning to form. “Emma, just no. I don’t care about that. Yeah, it hurt when you betrayed me, but I’m over it. I’ve moved on with my life, you should too.”

She looked absolutely pitiful, cowering before me. “Then… Could you please forgive me?”

“No.” That word made her flinch like I had physically struck her. “The things you did were unforgivable, you’ll just have to live with that.”

“Taylor, please…” She tried to grab a firmer hold on me but I moved out of her way.

“Go home, Emma. You’re clearly not well. I don’t have time for this, you’re not my enemy anymore and you’re certainly not my friend. Just get some help or something.”

I did my best ignoring the people who had gathered around to watch the scene, a few even filming it, as I walked away. This wasn’t quite the attempt on my life that I had feared, but in many ways it was far worse.

“Well… Speaking of people in need of therapy.” Lisa caught up to me.

“Should I have done something different?” I asked her.

“Eh, you handled it as well as could be expected under the circumstances. Better than most, honestly. I’m not going to try to untangle the mess of issues she’s carrying around.”

“It’s weird. I dreamt of a moment like this for years now, Emma placing herself at my mercy for what she’s done, begging me to forgive her. And now it happens and… I feel nothing.”

“From the looks of it, I don’t think there’s anything you could do to her that’s worse than what she’s already doing to herself.” There was a grimness to Lisa’s smile.

“It’s a strange world we live in, Lisa.”

“That it certainly is.”

—

I managed to avoid getting accosted any further that day as I made my way to visit Charlotte. She had repurposed my old lair as the foster home of the boardwalk. I could see children’s beds in the rooms I had once used for myself and a second woman helping out on the upper floors, presumably the help that had been hired after we brought in even more kids. Charlotte was making food when I entered. “Hey Taylor, will you be joining us for dinner?”

“Sure, need any help?”

“I’m good, thanks.” She gestured for me to take a seat.

“Everything alright with the kids?”

“You could ask them yourself.” She smirked.

I followed her eyes and had to stop myself from jumping when I noticed a boy staring up at me. How did he sneak up on me like that? I usually had my bugs warn me ahead of time. 

“You’re less scary when like this.” He said as a way of opening conversations.

“Christian, be nice with our landlady.” Charlotte admonished without looking up from her cooking.

“It’s alright.” I looked at Wraith, Christian apparently. “Been settling in well then?”

“Meira is happier here, and we’ve found new friends.”

I made a mental note of the name Meira. My guess was that it was Maharal’s civilian name. I could see children playing outside the house on the other side of the wall that Christian had phased through. “That’s nice. I’m glad things have worked out for you.”

Christian nodded and seemed to consider that it for the conversation, because without much further ado he went back through the wall to join the others.

“... Is he always like this?” I asked Charlotte after he had left.

“Near as I can tell.” She shrugged. “He’s difficult sometimes because if he decides he wants to sneak out there’s really nothing you can do to stop him, and he’s used to harsher discipline for misbehaviour than I’m willing to give so…” She gave another helpless shrug.

“And the other newcomers?” I tried very hard not to think of what kind of discipline Christian was used to.

“Somewhat similar issues but at least if we tell them to go to their room it’ll work. Meira is very popular with the other kids with her golems but I’ve been trying to make sure she only makes small ones out of soft clay. Last thing we need is someone getting hurt because of them.”

“Ah.” Seemed that I was right about who Meira was. “And your new assistant?”

“Cindy?” Charlotte looked thoughtful. “She’s alright, but I haven’t really had the chance to get to know her personally yet. Good with the kids though.”

“Has Aiden had any weird dreams again, by the way?” I really wished that I was able to remember the content of the dream.

“No, but I’ll definitely let you know if he does. Now, dinner’s ready, so could you get the children inside?” She took the meat stew off the plate along with the pasta.

“Sure.” I did not rise from where I was sitting, instead sending bugs out to the children, telling them “Play time is over. Time to eat.” I got a small chuckle out of seeing them jump at the sound.

Charlotte seemed to have caught on to what I was doing, because she held a spoon at me threateningly. “If I have to deal with more nightmares because you scared them you’ll be sorry.”

“Hey, it’s a very efficient method.” Sue me if I wanted to show off a little to the kids. My bugs weren’t that scary. 

The kids were apparently on my side, because they had no problem with me when they streamed inside. The same could not be said for Cindy, who still looked like she’d had a heart attack when she came downstairs.

Aiden was sitting opposite me on the table, and was staring at me unabashedly throughout the entire meal. Aside from that he seemed perfectly normal though, and if he was parahuman his power was of the exceptionally subtle sort. Which if so put him in direct contrast with both Christian and Meira, who seemed to love to flaunt their powers for social credit with the other kids. Meira’s new golems were definitely smaller than the ones she had used in the Lost Garden, being the size of children themselves rather than the gigantic brutes we had fought. She was vocally upset about the fact that Charlotte hadn’t put out plates for them too, which was honestly adorable. 

I was glad that the Lost Garden kids were adjusting themselves well, at least the younger ones. I hadn’t heard much from the older teens and part of me was worried that I’d find out one day that Barrow Rose had made the Merchants 2.0. Still, apart from the meeting with Emma this had been a good day, which only made me worry more about the future. I had found that when things were looking good that was usually a sign of something unexpectedly terrible being about to happen.

When did I become such a pessimist again?

Chapter Text

The day had come, the one we had dreaded and prepared for. Heartbreaker was here, in Brockton Bay, the first true test we had faced since the Protectorate left town. And while the way he announced his arrival wasn’t as destructive as Shatterbird’s, it still left an impact. Hijacking a television station with his Master abilities, he broadcasted himself delivering his ultimatum to us for all the world to see. 

We were all gathered together at the headquarters to watch it and plan our next move. I found that my first thought when we turned on the video was that he probably wouldn’t need to take people’s consent away to be a casanova. The man on the screen was handsome and had a smooth, pleasant voice that if it had been saying anything else might have been nice to listen to for its own sake. Somehow, it just made him seem even more despicable though, highlighting how it was entirely his own choices that made him a rapist monster.

“Good afternoon, Brockton Bay. My name, for those of you unaware, is Nikos Vasil, perhaps better known to you as Heartbreaker.” He smiled while he let that sink in. Heartbreaker didn’t get on the news often, and rarely with any video of him, but everyone knew of him, he was among the top ten most infamous supervillains in America after all. Or North America at least, the Latin American cape scene only rarely got attention in the USA and Canada and vice versa. “Now, normally I wouldn’t bother with public visits like these, but you see, you have something of mine. Something I want back. My son.” He turned grim, his eyes narrowed, while pictures of Alec both in and out of costume were shown. Not even the briefest of concern either at referring to his son as property or outing him to the entire world. “Jean-Paul, also known as Regent of the Undersiders. They took him from me and I don’t appreciate thieves. I want my son back, even if I have to tear this place apart to find him. So, to all of you Brocktonites watching this, and the Undersiders in particular, know that I have seeded agents in every part of this city. Over two hundred of them, last I checked, and they could be anyone. Your wife, your colleague, the child you walk past on your way to work. If my son is not returned to me by nightfall then every hour one of these people will do something terrible. And before you think that you can stop that from happening by assassinating me, understand that they already have their orders and will continue to act on them without me, and if they hear that I’ve died they will all take action at once. You don’t want that. But as soon as my family is reunited, I’ll leave and no further harm will be done. It’s an easy choice, really. You have until sunset.”

The video ended there, leaving the room in an uncomfortable silence. Regent was the first to break it.

“I always knew father was an old school supervillain, but this is the first time I’ve seen him do the whole televised hostage gimmick. I’m feeling kind of flattered.” He tried to joke, but his body betrayed how tense he was. “Well, I had a good run I suppose, but if you want to take the easy way out I won’t blame you. Fight you to the death, but not blame you.”

“Fuck that!” Imp said emphatically. “If anyone is even thinking that I’ll haunt them for the rest of their lives.”

“I think you’re already doing that.” Grumbled Grue.

“Yeah, but like even more!”

Tattletale for once was not engaging in the banter, looking at Regent with a calculating face. “You know, sending Regent to Heartbreaker isn’t the worst idea.”

Everyone in the room snapped their heads at her. Bitch actually growled, and I didn’t think she even liked Regent.

“I’m sorry, did you not fucking hear me just before?” Imp looked positively incredulous. “That’s it, you’ll never sleep easy again.”

“I’m not suggesting we actually give him up.” Tattletale said exasperatedly. “I’m just spitballing here. Regent is the one guy Heartbreaker might lower his guard around if they came in, and he’s also the only one of us we know is resistant to being Mastered by him. He’s probably our best shot at getting him.”

“It’s not a bad idea…” I said slowly.

“Seriously?!” Imp was about to go on a rant but I held up a hand to quiet her.

“However, if we pretend to give him up it would either mean going up to Heartbreaker with him, which risks some of us getting Mastered by him, or handing him off to his minions somewhere else, which means that he’s going to be searched before he has the chance to get to Heartbreaker, and he doesn’t have the offensive power to take him out without any tools.”

“And there’s no way old daddy would believe it if I walked up to him on my own to turn myself in. I’m not that altruistic.” Regent piped up, looking glad that we’re turning away from Tattletale’s plan. “I’m sorry, but it’s true.”

“Right, so we’d need some way for it to work believably if we went in that direction.”

“Why don’t we just beat him up and make him take back his orders or we’ll kill him?” Of course Bitch would be the one to state the simplest solution.

“That’s…” I was going to protest, but just because it was a simple solution didn’t necessarily mean that it was bad or should be dismissed out of hand. “... I suppose I could probably attack him from far enough away that he can’t affect me, and then we threaten to pump him full of spider venom if he doesn’t stand down.”

Tattletale looked sceptical though. “Regent, what are the chances you would say that he’ll take the opportunity to go full nuclear and aim for a mutually assured destruction out of spite if we did that to him?”

“Pretty damn high, I’d say. He’s too proud to let himself be humiliated by us and this would make it really easy for him to pull it off.”

“Thought so.” She nodded at his words.

“Hey, aren’t we skipping a few steps here?” Foil raised her hand like we were in a classroom. “We’re talking about how we’ll defeat him after we’ve found him, but not how we’ll find him to begin with. Or how to find his sleeper agents. You can’t do Master-Stranger Protocols on an entire city.”

“Do we know for sure he’s even in the city himself, and not operating from outside it?” Grue was catching on to her line of thinking.

“Well he’d have to at least come in every now and then if he wants to subvert people without it looking obvious.” Tattletale mused. “Otherwise you’d have a bunch of people coming to and from the place, and that can be tracked, making it easy both to find him and his victims. Can’t rule out that he sleeps somewhere outside just to avoid Skitter finding him though.”

“Does he need to come in to do that anymore though?” Parian asked. “If he’s set these people up to act like he says they will, he just needs to stand back and watch the fireworks, doesn’t he?”

“Oh I’m pretty sure he was lying about already having those two hundred people. He just came here and hasn’t had the time to do so, he just wants to put pressure on us to play his game instead of having time to dismantle him. I’d say he’s got fifty Brocktonites so far, tops. He wants more as an insurance.”

“Which means that he’s probably at his most vulnerable when he’s hunting for victims.” I concluded.

“Yeah, but it’s also when he could be literally anywhere, using someone else’s home as a hideout.”

“Can confirm, back in Montreal he used different lovers’ apartments a lot whenever the PRT actually made an effort to contain him.” Regent informed us. “Made him harder to pin down. Unbearable, constantly moving though.”

The thought that this could easily be avoided if I committed to monitoring all the people of Brockton came unbidden to my mind. I really didn’t want to give in to the temptation, not least because Jack would probably be unbearably smug about it and take it as a win, but it would make things a lot easier. It was a moral dilemma where I really didn’t like either option, but much as I wanted to push away the idea, Heartbreaker had made it perfectly clear that if I did not stop him quickly and efficiently the blood of countless civilians would be on my hands. It was 5PM on the 6th of August, and even with the longer days during summer that still didn’t leave us with too many hours before things turned bad.

“Circling back to what we’ll do when we do find him though, why don’t I just sneak up on him and…?” Imp made several stabbing motions with her hands.

“No.” Grue’s response was swift and very firm. “Absolutely not. You’re going nowhere near that beast and if I have to tie you down so be it. He knows that we are coming for him and he’ll probably have been making countermeasures for you, especially if Jack’s been trading info with him. Your powers are not foolproof and I’m not risking him taking you.” The tone of his voice made it clear that he was not joking about being willing to trap his sister if it meant keeping her safe.

“Remember also that we do need to be really delicate about this and non-lethal if we can unless we want a bunch of suicide bombers all around town to activate at once.” Tattletale added. “I don’t think he was lying about the part where his Master effect would make them do it even after he’s gone.”

“So we can’t kill him and we can’t make him willingly surrender, our only chance is to find every single person beforehand, which we just don’t have the time for or…” I turned to Regent. “Hey, is your father immune to your own Master power?”

“No, he’d just beat me within an inch of my life if I so much as made a nerve twitch on him.” A broad smile crossed Regent’s face. “Wait, are we actually doing this?”

“I’d also like to ask that question.” Foil by contrast was not smiling at all. “Are we really going to start Mastering our enemies now?”

“Only the worst of the worst.” I said, even though I had made it a lie only recently. “Rapists and mass murderers. We’ve already done Shatterbird for the latter, Heartbreaker for the former would be no different.”

Foil still didn’t look comfortable, and neither did Parian. Being reminded that Regent could, had been and was willing to Master people had unnerved them. Luckily, Tattletale came to the rescue. “If it makes you feel any better we can still shoot his brains out afterwards. We’d just need to hold him for long enough to make him rescind his orders and influence.”

This did make them relax, because Heartbreaker was still the kind of monster where hardly anyone would have a real problem with simply killing him. Though I did note that Tattletale did leave the door open with regards to whether or not we would do that.

Bitch didn’t seem to care too much about this either way except for in one regard. “Does that mean that plan ‘beat him to a pulp’ is still on?”

“Kind of. Hey, do you know if your dad can affect animals like dogs or just people?” I asked Regent.

“I dunno.” He shrugged. “Never saw him do it, but I have no idea if he can’t or he normally considers it beneath him. He’s not exactly the kind of guy who’ll tell people about his weaknesses.”

“We’ll put savaging him with Bitch’s dogs on the ‘maybe’ pile then.” I said, which got a snicker from both Regent and Imp, and a feral grin from Bitch.

“Maybe I could try to help as well?” Parian suggests. “If we want to capture him non-lethally? My creations could grab him and hold him down.”

“So long as you can stay outside of his effective range while still manipulating them effectively. And unless I’m mistaken both you and Heartbreaker require line of sight, so…” I’d very much avoid any of us being in danger of enthrallment, especially the female members of the group considering Heartbreaker’s predilections. 

“We’ve got some others aside from father dearest, starting with Guillaume.” Regent started counting off his fingers. “Can steal senses from others, letting him see through them from a distance.”

“Meaning that even people who haven’t been Mastered could easily be unwitting spies for Heartbreaker.” Tattletale noted.

“He’s almost always followed by Nicholas, who can induce fear at will. Loves to break his victims through psychological torture and cause panics in masses.” Judging by the tone of his voice, Regent really did not care if they shared their father’s fate. “With Cherie and I gone they’ll be his main enforcers I expect.”

“That’s not too bad.” Foil opined. “Just two, and while they can still compromise any civilians they meet, Heartbreaker can still do that, and they don’t sound like they’d be game changers in a fight.”

“Oh it gets worse.” Regent chuckled darkly. “We’ve got plenty more. So there’s Chastity, Striker able to make people feel defeated at a touch. Samuel, got some weird Thinker power that lets him find and torture people. Sweet little Aroa, with a Blaster ability that gets people addicted to pain. Romeo, who has a minor Brute package and can make people fall into a blind rage and try to fight him. Oh and don’t forget Juliette, who’ll paralyse you but become paralysed in return. And among the youngest you’ve got Florence, who can inflict permanent compulsions based on criteria she chooses, and Candy, who will create hallucinations that make you hate those that you loved. Not to mention any other of my many siblings who’ve triggered since I left from fatherly care or the rest using these things on them as part of the Vasil sibling love.”

There was a deathly quiet by the time Regent had finished describing all the horrifying parahuman powers his siblings possessed with a voice that made it clear that his knowledge of their powers came from personal experience. One could hear a pin drop.

Eventually, Imp spoke up. “Wow. No offense, but your family sounds terrible. ”

“Why do you think I ran away?”

I made a mental note that as creepy as Regent’s powers were, we could have gotten much worse luck, and it certainly contextualised what kind of behaviour he considered normal. Even if we did take their father out, these people sounded like they could do terrible damage if allowed to run amok, and rehabilitating them might be easier said than done.

“Well, at least we won’t lack targets for the people who can’t target Heartbreaker himself, which would be Grue, myself, Foil, Parian…” Tattletale caught the look on Grue’s unmasked face out of the corner of her eye. “And Imp.”

“I could take him.” Imp muttered to herself.

“Leaving myself, Regent and Bitch able to send minions against Heartbreaker from afar. And like Regent, i might also be able to confront him in person if I can disperse any emotions he’ll send my way through my bugs.” It seemed possible at least in theory, I had been able to dull the effects of Cherish’s manipulations reasonably well that way, and it stood to reason her father’s emotional control would work on similar principles.

“Let’s not test that theory unless we absolutely have to though.” Suggested Tattletale. “If you’re wrong the effects could be disastrous.”

“Point. So our goal right now is to find Heartbreaker himself as quickly as we can, capture him by any means necessary and let Regent take control over him for at least as long as is necessary to make him release everyone from his hold. Everyone onboard with this plan?”

I got a lot of nods from the room in answer. The plan itself was simple, the complicated part was making sure that the city did not blow up on itself before we had the chance to achieve it.

—

With the internal meeting of the Undersiders to decide our approach going forward finished, our next course of action was meeting with the other parahumans of the city to provide a united front against Heartbreaker. Accord was present, of course, with Othello and Citrine accompanying him, as were Rook and Cozen of the Red Hand. We had also invited Delphi, who was sporting her new outfit courtesy of Parian, and against both my and their better judgement we also had Lady Photon, Brandish and Flashbang. Even while they were meeting us on neutral ground and the cover of truce, the last three looked distinctly uncomfortable being the only heroes in a meeting largely consisting of villains.

“I expect you all to have seen Heartbreaker’s threats and know what we’re facing.” I started the meeting. “Like the ABB and S9 before him, his methods make him a danger to everyone in Brockton, and we’re here to coordinate our efforts to stop him before people get hurt. We have a plan for how to do so, but we’re going to need as much help as we can get to minimize any damage he inflicts.”

“Wouldn’t the simplest solution just be to give his son back to him?” Brandish asked in a rather aggressive tone.

I sighed internally. Apparently asking Brandish to behave even for a single meeting with a clear external foe was simply too much to expect. I should sympathise with her considering what she had been going through, losing both of her daughters and all that, but she was so aggravating in her petulance that she made it very hard to do so.

“Brandish, I wouldn’t have expected you to be a proponent of letting supervillains reclaim their children when they’ve been trying so hard to escape their grasp.” Tattletale said very sweetly. This was a complete lie since she had been the one betting that Brandish would try this very thing before the meeting started. “Who’d have thought you’d be the one wanting to give men like Heartbreaker what they desire and let them get away scot free? Do you always consider the children of villains to be their property?” She smiled innocently.

Brandish was grinding her teeth so hard it was audible to the room and her eyes were twitching. “Regent is a villain by his own criminal actions, regardless of his heritage.” She spat out. “I won’t consider his life worth more than the countless innocents that will die because of your grandstanding.”

“Unfortunately that is not your call to make.” I spoke coldly. “Regent is a member of my team, not yours, and I’m not about to betray that trust. If you happen to be willing to throw your teammates under the bus to placate monsters like Heartbreaker then that’s an issue for the New Wave to deal with. As it stands, unless you wish to fight us on Heartbreaker’s side to help him, this line of thinking is moot.”

Brandish scowled, but looked suitably chastised and did not argue the point any further. Lady Photon and Flashbang seemed to be okay with this as well. In truth, I doubted any of the New Wave really wanted to back down against Heartbreaker, Brandish was just being argumentative to deal with how uncomfortable she was allying with villains.

I went on. “Heartbreaker and his children have plenty of tools to turn any civilian into an agent, unwitting or otherwise, of theirs. The longer they remain active, the more people will be compromised, and the greater the damage they can deal. We need to find the man himself so we can cut off the head of the snake before things start deteriorating, but I must ask that you don’t approach him but immediately report his location if you find him. We can’t afford him subverting the local capes and we need him alive to undo the damage he’s already done. We have a plan for how to do so, but that means that we need to be the ones capturing him.”

“Will you tell us what exactly this plan entails?” Asked Lady Photon, sounding a bit wary.

“No.” There was no need to risk this getting leaked, and I suspected the New Wave would be a bit squeamish about the details of the plan. “We can’t allow any chance of him learning of it.”

She looked displeased at this, while Accord raised a single eyebrow on his expressive mask.

I pushed forward nonetheless. “We’ll need to patrol for anything suspicious, in groups of three at minimum. Isolated people are at too much risk of getting subverted by the enemy and we can’t afford that. People who have skills that lend themselves to scouting should be spread out over the groups so that most have at least one of them with them.”

This got a better reception, being something everyone assembled could generally agree on. Rook spoke for everyone with his question though from what I could tell. “Will we be mixing people from different groups for these patrols?”

“As much as people might be willing.” I glanced towards New Wave, I could easily see many of them not feeling safe operating in the same patrols as villains. “It could increase trust and let us use different tactics, but it’s not strictly necessary or something that needs to be forced.”

“And have you given more thought to my suggestions for counterintelligence doctrines?” Accord looked intently at me.

“I have.” I really did not like this, but lives were at stake and I could always withdraw these measures once the crisis was over. “We’ll take this under advisement and implement what we can on a temporary basis.”

Accord did not smile, but he looked pleased nonetheless to have his ideas implemented, even if it was just temporarily.

From there we started dividing patrol patterns to cover things as best we could. Delphi was too young and lacked the power or training to participate in them, instead providing numbers on where Heartbreaker was most likely to strike and the chances of us capturing him in different parts of the city. This would help narrow down the search patterns, even if the numbers weren’t extreme enough to allow us to completely rule out any particular place. She, Tattletale and Accord would be mission control for this operation, with Delphi being able to provide valuable precog insight. Tattletale was considered one of our potential scouting agents on the patrols, but ultimately her skills as a hacker and coordinator were more valuable, using her many contacts in the city to get access to as many security cameras as possible. After this was over both Delphi and Tattletale would probably have massive Tinker headaches to deal with, but it seemed a worthwhile sacrifice. Accord’s role meanwhile was to create and modify search patterns as more information streamed in.

Ultimately, everyone seemed willing to band together for this, even New Wave despite our history of animosity with them and the fact that they operated outside of our current system. The amount of times in recent history that the capes of Brockton Bay had to band together against an external threat probably helped make things function a lot more smoothly than it otherwise would have, and at least this time they hadn’t been asked to work together with the Nazis who murdered their sister-in-law. 

—

I was out together with Bitch and Timeout. The former because we were the two Undersiders who couldn’t operate under a secret identity. Grue and Imp were working undercover so as to not alert anyone who passed them by, but we didn’t have that luxury.

Regent had become a borderline case thanks to Heartbreaker, but at least his pictures were a few years old and Heartbreaker had exposed his old civilian name rather than his current one. Regardless, he wasn’t going to join us on patrols, since it was deemed too dangerous when anyone might try something against him, not because they were even directly controlled but simply because they feared Heartbreaker enough to try to help him. Instead he was kept in reserve to be able to act as bait when we had more information to set a trap with.

Timeout was with us as a gesture of goodwill, though I suspected it had something to do with the fact that New Wave still did not entirely trust me and wanted someone who’d be comfortable working alongside me as a way to keep an eye on me. I didn’t really mind, since I had no intention of stabbing them in the back, or at least I wouldn’t have if it didn’t turn out that Timeout still hadn’t fully matured from his days as Clockblocker.

“Wow, I never thought I’d get to work with the infamous Skitter.” He’d been trying way too hard to pretend that we’d never met before like it was some kind of joke. “Could I have an autograph after we’re done? Always thought you’d be taller in person.”

Bitch gave a deeply annoyed grunt and I agreed with her in sentiment, even if I chose not to express it outwards. “Do you ever shut up?”

“Sorry, Hellhound.” He ignored how she bristled at her Protectorate-given alias. “I’m just so excited to be in Brockton for the first time, meeting all the celebrities. Is it true you were there during the mysterious Echidna incident?”

“Stop fooling around, Clockblocker.” I gave a tired sigh. “You were literally part of how we defeated her, so you don’t need to play ignorant.”

“Clockblocker? I don’t know who this Clockblocker is.” He tried playing innocent. “Though with a name like that I’d imagine he’d have a very-”

“If you finish that sentence I will reenact what happened the first time we met.” My voice was even and left inscrutable as to my mood.

Timeout paused, remembered our fight at the bank when I had filled his mouth with bugs, and promptly shut it, leaving us with blessed silence. 

Bitch snorted in amusement at his sudden change of tune, walking all of her dogs, which were sniffing about for trouble. I myself was doing much the same, for while I could not reach the entirety of the city with my current range, walking down the centre of it still left me with a lot of city blocks to comb through with ceaseless efficiency. No person in range could avoid my attention, be they inside their apartments or out in the streets. It was just a matter of waiting until I found someone I recognised within my range, unfortunately we lacked good pictures for most of the Vasils, or someone did something suspicious. We had mundane informants out gathering information as well, but they worked more slowly than my bugs or security cameras could, and time was against us, it was almost sunset now.

Barely had the thought struck me when I heard a woman a few streets down pull out her phone and talk to someone on the other hand. This in and of itself was not terribly suspicious, though I did try to eavesdrop every time it happened just in case, but the fact that she referred to the man at the other end as ‘Nikos’ immediately made several red flags appear. The chances that she coincidentally spoke to someone with Heartbreaker’s first name seemed terribly low, and I immediately moved bugs towards her. She was on the bottom floor of a five story building and headed towards a closet containing an unknown device.

I started running in that direction while I sent what creatures I could to distract and slow her down while I had others get on the object and try to get inside it and disable it. I suspected it was a bomb and she had just been ordered to activate it. The problem was that it was really hard to incapacitate a fully grown human in a short breath of time with what I had, and I was not knowledgeable enough in bomb disposal to know how to disable it quickly, not when for all I knew having cockroaches start biting at the wires would make it go off.

When she opened the closet doors though I threw caution to the wind and just had everything swarm the bomb and start nibbling at every vulnerable part that they could. It appeared to have worked because the thing did not explode, either from my sabotage or when the woman flicked the switch that was probably intended to activate it.

I was about to breathe in relief at a disaster averted when she promptly went with option B, pulled out a nearby gun and shot herself in the head.

“Fuck!” I got looks from passersby as well as Bitch and Timeout, but I ignored it. Heartbreaker really did not pull any punches, and had apparently gotten impatient and started early. This was going to be a very unpleasant night by the looks of it.  

Chapter Text

Bitch’s dogs were the first to reach the door to the woman’s apartment, having run ahead and now barking for one of us to open the door so that they could investigate. Using my bugs to turn the lock from the inside took a couple of minutes’ work, having to use a spider silk mechanism to leverage their strength enough that the metal knob would turn over. It gave me time to read the name on the mailbox with the same number as the door; the rather alliterative Anna Adams, who I assumed was the apparent owner of the associated apartment. 

The place itself was… Normal was probably the best word to describe it. If you ignored the room with the bomb and the dead woman in it the place would be interchangeable with almost any other college student’s place. Same mundane items and small things that suggested aspects of the owner’s life, like how going by her bookshelf Anna had been a fan of science fiction in life. Not enough of these things that she was likely to have lived here for more than a year or so. Judging by the few photos I could see, Anna had been a pretty girl before she blew up her own face, and I would have to examine my own subconscious at some point considering how some instinctive part of me felt like it both made it more tragic and like she was harder to empathise with. Neither impulse made a lot of rational sense on its own, and together they were downright paradoxal. Introspection would have to wait though, we first had a Mastered suicide victim to deal with, not to mention the Master himself.

I went and picked up the phone Heartbreaker had called her on and looked over the last number. If he was any good at this he’d probably make it hard to trace back to him, but it couldn’t hurt to send this back to console, together with Anna’s full name and address. 

“God.” Timeout sounded like he was feeling sick. “And I used to make fun of Gallant for having emotion powers.” He was apparently too distressed to keep up the charade of not being Clockblocker.

“It could have been even worse.” I pointed towards the inside of the closet. “I’m pretty sure if I didn’t stop her that bomb would have taken out this entire building and the 31 people currently inside of it. Us not included in that.”

“Kind of creepy you can give an exact number like that.” He shook his head. “Fucking Masters. No offense to either of you two. ‘Isn’t it a bit girly? Like you’re some kind of magical girl or something? Maybe you should wear a dress as your outfit.’ Shows what I know.”

Bitch grunted non-verbally in response, observing while her dogs sniffed around the apartment to try to catch any scents from people other than us and the deceased owner. She didn’t show any outward distress the same way Timeout did, but her face was unusually hard even by her standards.

Taking a cue from the dogs, I made sure to memorise the smells my bugs were picking up just in case I came across a familiar one later. “This is a bit more violent than his usual MO, but stuff like this is why Heartbreaker is an A class threat on par with people like the Butcher.”

“I’d love to hear how you managed to kill her without going insane. Unless you’ve secretly been the Butcher all along.” Timeout said. “I saw the clip of you killing Tagg. I could believe it.”

“The Butcher was too scared to come near my brain.” I deadpanned. No need to tell the actual way we disposed of the resurrecting killer just in case it got leaked and some idiot decided to go deep diving. Besides, the jib about Tagg didn’t make me particularly positively inclined towards Timeout.

He looked at me for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah, I can totally see that.”

I glared in his direction but technically he had just agreed with what I already said, which made it hard to come up with a retort.

Bitch had no such reservations however. “No wonder you guys were so easy to beat.”

“You wound me. Not that we’ve ever fought each other so far.”

I left them to bicker while Tattletale sent back the information they were compiling from what we and the other teams sent them. Our flyer team, consisting of Lady Photon and Laserdream, since none of the other groups in the city had any flying capes, had just intervened at a small grocery store. One of the cashiers had suddenly pulled out a gun and opened fire on everyone in sight and unless he just happened to have snapped from annoying customers it was likely another victim of Heartbreaker, who had used him as backup to cause chaos after the bomb failed to go off. Luckily, the New Wave had managed to take him down non-lethally, and while three other people in the store did get shot before then, Heartbreaker’s own public announcement was working against him on this, since most people were staying indoors until the crisis had passed due to a declaration of an emergency by the mayor and so the place had been largely empty. 

Still, not only was it clear that Tattletale was right that Heartbreaker was trying to put pressure on us to keep us on the backfoot dealing with emergencies around the city so we couldn’t focus on tracking him down, but he was also not the sort of villain who felt a need to adhere to the rules of his own game. He’d accelerated the schedule for when the first attack would happen after we went out to comb the streets for him and his children, and after the first attempt failed he immediately made another one in a different part of the city with a different brainwashed minion rather than wait the allotted hour. As vile as Jack Slash was, at least he had a sense of fair play. Until he decided to flip the board at any rate.

The good thing about all this was that as long as they kept level heads and didn’t panic or get sidetracked, Heartbreaker’s accelerated timetable also meant that he was both providing us with more information to make out patterns from than he otherwise would have while also running through minions faster than he could create new ones. I was confident that we would find him eventually, he wasn’t exactly keeping a low profile and we had a lot of means for gathering information at our disposal, we just had to weather the damage he inflicted in the meantime.

And win the ensuing fight as well. That was also important.

For now though, in the interest of keeping casualties to a minimum, I was having my bugs buzz warningly at anyone outdoors to stay inside their home until the danger had passed. As Anna showed, it wasn’t foolproof for keeping civilians from getting injured, but it was still a lot safer than out on the streets, and it made my job of keeping tabs on anyone moving around from place to place easier since I didn’t have to filter through as many people.

Nothing of interest seemed to be within range at the moment, and Tattletale had returned with an update on the optimal route for us based on the new information, so it was time to get moving again. The police could deal with the body and broken bomb, we had to retake the initiative.

—

One of the greatest issues with finding potential sleeper agents was the sheer amount of weapons that would be considered ‘normal’ in Brockton Bay, which was high even by US standards. Years of gang violence had fostered a mentality that people without guns were liable to die to them. Most households had at least a couple of them, just in case. Since these people could be assumed to be able to behave normally until the time came, almost anyone could prove dangerous and being armed was not an inherent tell. For now, I simply had my critters dismantle any guns they could find just to be on the safe side, while anyone who had more dangerous things like grenades in their house were tied up and sent to be interrogated. Even if they weren’t Heartbreaker’s agents, possession of such items was still highly suspicious and worth looking into. 

This methodical process of pushing people inside their houses, monitoring them while there, taking away the means by which they might hurt others and capturing them to be taken away if they were considered noteworthy threats, continued while we walked through the increasingly empty streets. It was a somewhat ghostly feeling, the way that soon we were the only people around, but from what Regent had said, most of Heartbreaker’s means to spy on others were dependent on having actual people to be his eyes, without them we kept him blind.

About half an hour had passed since the grocery store shootout before our efforts brought in concrete results. Just at the edge of my range, a cluster of four kids were acting agitated, running away from the direction where Othello, Lizardtail and Rifle would be operating. One of them, a blonde boy that could easily be Regent’s younger brother, called out for the others to come to a halt.

“Wait! I think Skitter’s this way.”

His older sister turned on him with an angry look. “Damn it, Samuel! You were supposed to make sure we kept our distance from her!”

“We are keeping our distance! She’s still a few blocks away, not my fault you told us to start running.”

“Considering how it was literally your job to make sure we didn’t get hemmed in, it kind of is your fault.” A small girl with long hair piped up.

While the apparent Vasil siblings argued amongst themselves, I turned to Bitch. “Start growing your dogs, we’ve got four of Heartbreaker’s kids in that direction.” I pointed while plotting out the quickest way through the houses and streets to our prey. The bugs were useful for providing a detailed map of the surrounding area.

“Finally, something I can actually do anything about.” Bitch released her pent up frustration from wandering around waiting for something to happen into her powers, causing her dogs to transform at a rapid pace. 

While waiting for them to grow large enough to be ridden on, I contacted Tattletale. “Have the location of four of Heartbreaker’s progeny, including Samuel, currently stuck between us and Othello’s team. Samuel’s range is at least the same as my own, but they don’t appear to have any means of transportation.”

“Got it. Will be sending more people to cut off escape routes, just in case. Remember, some of them can hurt you at a glance, so be careful.” She responded.

“Oh crap, they’re heading in our direction now.” Samuel was now actively panicking and running in the opposite direction of us.

“Daddy is going to be so mad at you when he hears of this.” The youngest girl said in a sing-song voice.

“Chastity was supposed to be the one leading us! Why am I getting all of the blame?!”

“Maybe because you’re supposed to be our scout and none of this would have happened if you did your job.” Chastity shot back. “Right, can we actually still run away? I’m not getting winded for no reason.”

Samuel stopped to concentrate. “No, they’re too fast and they’re starting to surround us.”

“Fuck. Well, unless any of you plan on contacting dad to bail us out of this we’re going with Plan B.”

Apparently none of them dared to call upon their father and tell him that they had been caught, because they all started heading towards us instead of away. I had my bugs form a swarm clone in front of them while we approached.

“Children of Nikos Vasil, I’m willing to accept your surrender. If you help us we’ll make sure to provide you with everything you could need.”

“Wow, freaky.” The leader, Chastity, looked at the clone. “It’s like you’re there but also not.”

“Great insight, oh captain.” The fourth child, a surly boy who had stayed mostly quiet, snarked.

“Oh quiet you, maybe if you were a Thinker you’d appreciate it more.”

“Says the worst Thinker ever. It can barely do anything.” He shot back.

“Well it certainly can do this.” She snapped a whip at him with lightning speed and precision, hitting the boy on the top of the head.

“Come on! Do you really want to fight me?”

Part of me was actually startled. I knew that the Vasils were a dysfunctional family, but this was on the level of being barely able to operate as a Cape team at all. Perhaps the real reason why despite their formidable powers they had never achieved much was because they spent as much time fighting each other as the enemy.

I had my bugs do their best approximation of the sound of a cough. It didn’t actually sound anything like one, but it got everyone’s attention at least from the weird noise. “If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like an answer.”

“Right…” Chastity glanced towards Samuel. “Fine, we give up, there’s no way out of this.”

I had my swarm self nod at that while my real body gestured for Timeout and Bitch to move in. “They’ve surrendered but keep your guard up, they might try one final trick of some sort if they can get away with it.”

I was feeling a tad paranoid after the day’s events and these were ultimately parahumans. They were by definition never truly disarmed, it was just a matter of making acting out too dangerous a prospect to be tried.

Unfortunately, it was apparent the moment they came within visual range of us that they were desperate, afraid at either how their father would react if he learned of their failure or what we would do to them. And desperate people had a tendency to act foolhardy.

I was the first to go down, having apparently been deemed the greatest threat. My entire body was paralysed the moment the younger girl, Juliette I surmised, laid her eyes on me. She herself went perfectly still as well to maintain the effect while I slid off the dog I had been sitting on, landing ignominiously on the street.

Even as that happened, Chastity used her whip to keep Timeout off-balance, while the younger boy, Romeo, tried to engage with Bitch. They really were trying to fight their way out of this.

I was annoyed, not surprised, but certainly ticked off after having hurt my head on the pavement. Even with my mask meant to protect me it was an unpleasant experience. And if these people thought that by crippling my body they had taken me out of the fight they were in for a world of hurt.

I was feeling a little bit bad when the swarm I had kept in reserve descended down upon the now screaming kids, but they had done a false surrender and were part of the attempt to kill my people and I was feeling kind of done with them. My body returned to my control the moment Juliette flinched away from the growing swarm and everyone but Romeo threw their hands up into the air the moment they saw me stalking through the cloud of insects, and for all that he had a minor brute package he was still an eight year old boy. He was still jumped up on the rage blast he had sent against Bitch and not thinking straight, making the ensuing beatdown quite one sided. 

The fight was over within less than a minute and they all had a number of itching but not quite harmful insect bites on them as I stared them down, Romeo being the worst for wear, lying on the ground after I had knocked him down with my baton. 

“Next time, don’t try to pull something like that.” My voice was flat and empty. “Others might not be as merciful as I am.”

“Got it.” Chastity winced in pain. “Thank you, oh gracious queen.”

Timeout helped her get up. They really were young, even Chastity looked to be at Imp’s age, and she was the oldest in the group. And Romeo was a literal child jumped up on his own rage inducing power. I was starting to feel a little bit remorseful, even if they had been really foolish.

I sighed. “I don’t want to hurt you, but lives are at stake here, and I don’t have time for people messing around. Where is Heartbreaker?”

They all shifted guiltily but nobody spoke up. The mere mention of their father’s name made them pale considerably. Othello’s group were arriving at the scene as well, giving us enough people to close off any chance of escape. I really did not like wasting precious minutes, but ultimately taking them back to be interrogated by Tattletale would make this a lot easier, especially since I doubted my usual methods of intimidation would be particularly effective on people who had to grow up with Heartbreaker.

—

“So this is what it’s like to be on the other side?” Samuel quipped, trying to look relaxed while Tattletale’s eyes bore into him. “I always preferred to be the one doing the interrogating.”

She snorted at that. “They’re Regent’s siblings alright. They’re expecting to be tortured, mainly by you, Skitter. That one’s an arachnophobe.” She pointed out Chastity, who hid any sign of acknowledgement of this.

“Great company you keep, brother. I see why you like them.” She smiled at Regent, who was watching the proceedings with interest. 

“Wonderful people, aren’t they? Father really has no idea what he’s angered.” He gave a very Tattletale-like smirk. While he didn’t have the Thinker power she did, his knowledge on the mentalities of his siblings still made him useful to have as an active participant in the interrogation. “But then again, he’d never be able to admit that he’s out of his league fighting a couple of teens.”

“Any more than he would admit that he’s obviously being played.” Tattletale added nonchalantly. “Oh we know that he was set up to do this by the S9, and we know that you know what happens to people who ally with the Slaughterhouse. One way or another, Heartbreaker won’t be getting out of this alive.”

“Wait, which one of you is supposed to be the good cop and which one is the bad cop in this?” Samuel asked. “Because it’s hard to tell you apart.”

“What, it’s not obvious? And here I thought you were supposed to be a master at this.” Regent laughed. “We’re both the good cops here. She’s the bad cop.” He gestured towards me standing menacingly in the corner. I hadn’t said anything so far, but the mere reminder of my presence, and the bugs crawling over my armour, made all four of them shudder.

“Overall though, you’re quite in luck, because our boss over there may act all tough and scary, but she has a soft spot for parahuman kids like yourself.” Tattletale adopted a businesslike tone. “And deep down you do like the idea of us beating up your father and stealing his lunch money.”

“It’s not going to happen.” Romeo insisted. “He knows everything about you and he’ll make you all his, and then he’ll punish us for betraying him.”

“Does he now?” Tattletale scrutinised him. “And not just because Jack told him… He’s been trying to collect people who know about us but we find too unimportant to protect. And he’s using them to try to set up a trap for us.” She took Romeo’s stubborn silence as confirmation. “But you don’t actually know the nature of this trap.”

“... Are your interrogations usually just her monologuing to people?” Chastity asked.

“Pretty much, it’s kind of her shtick.” Regent nodded casually. “I just go with the flow usually.”

“Of course you do.”

“Says the one who never actually managed to run away.”

“I’m not stupid enough to make an enemy of my family.”

“But you are stupid enough to make an enemy of the Alexandria slayer.”

“Dad is scarier than Alexandria.”

“He’s also a lot more vulnerable to bug bites. Skitter wouldn’t even need to meet him to kill him.”

“He’s holed up just out of town, isn’t he?” Tattletale interrupted. “West? No, north. Mansion where he’s keeping most of the people he’s taken. Just off the road I’m guessing. He’s been preparing for us to arrive there. Delphi, if we follow my instructions, what are the chances of us finding Heartbreaker based on our current information?”

Delphi looked up at being mentioned, she hadn’t been participating in the discussion so far, instead reading a book while waiting for someone to need her particular form of input. “97.9 %.” She went back to reading.

A wide grin spread over Tattletale’s face, actually frightening our prisoners. “ Perfect. I love being me.”

Chapter Text

Unfortunately, the timer for the next attack did run out before we had gotten out of town. While I led a small team consisting of Bitch and Regent to deal with Heartbreaker and Grue and Parian for backup against other threats, the rest were keeping order in Brockton. And a good thing too, because Heartbreaker was escalating in his attacks. This time he had several people in three different parts of the city launch simultaneous terrorist attacks upon their neighbours. It felt wrong leaving the others to handle that, but as Tattletale assured me, that was the whole point of these attacks, especially since he probably had learned that we had captured some of his children by now. He knew we were coming after him and wanted us to hold back to deal with the chaos on the streets.

We were taking two cars, since we needed space for Bitch’s dogs, Parian’s puppets and Regent’s… Puppets of a different kind. He’d brought two thugs that he was controlling the bodies of, since it didn’t matter what Heartbreaker made them feel when they weren’t in charge of their own bodies. Everyone was equipped with containment foam guns bought on the black market since it was important that we avoided any killing. We were going into what was effectively a hostage drama except worse because the hostages and hostiles were largely the same people. Only Heartbreaker wasn’t a victim here, and we needed to take him alive if we wanted to mitigate the damage he had wrought. 

Tattletale was our handler for this mission, communicating via earpieces. Right now she was providing directions for where to go based on what her intuition had told her, as well as updating us on how the others were doing. The latest attack was being contained, but only after several more civilian casualties. The total number was still only in the double digits, which made it comparatively tame considering how Brockton had faced no fewer than four different crises with thousands of deaths just this year, but this was the first time when the defence of the city was my responsibility, and I couldn’t help but feel like I had let these people down. It gave another perspective on Armsmaster and Piggot and why they were such grim people if this was the sort of thing they had gone through regularly. Even just a major confrontation between Lung and the Empire often caused this many deaths, and those had happened pretty regularly whenever either side was feeling particularly restless.

—

I did not need Tattletale to confirm that we were approaching Heartbreaker’s hideout. The place stood out like a sore thumb to my senses. Most houses, even the very cleanest of them, contained hundreds of bugs scattered here and there, inside the walls or underneath furniture. This place was completely devoid of them, save for a few that had survived hiding from what was killing them. Sending a few insects from outside to scout out what was causing this, I caught the scent of the pesticide Bonesaw had used to protect the Nine from me, before they too died to the gas.

“I can confirm that Heartbreaker or some other affiliate of the Slaughterhouse is using this place at the moment.” I kept comms on so that Tattletale could hear as well as the rest of the group, including the ones in the other car. “The house is pumping out gas made by Bonesaw to kill any bugs I send inside.”

“Unfortunate. This would be a lot easier if we could scout the place out ahead of time.” You could almost hear Tattletale frown over the radio. “Still, getting the sense from our previous experience that the gas doesn’t have any effect on larger lifeforms so you should still be safe to approach, just keep your guard up.”

“Yeah, will do.” I myself was certainly frowning beneath my mask. This wouldn’t be the first fight where I couldn’t use my bugs offensively, but it was one of the first where I wouldn’t have access to them at all, not even to get a lay of the land. It made me feel like I was going in blind, in some ways more crippled than the time when I had actually been blinded fighting Coil.

“Oh and remember, if Heartbreaker is nearly as prepared for this as he appears to be he’ll have set up several Stranger-proof alarms, so assume that he’s aware of your presence at all times.”

Not that we had the resident Stranger of the group with us, Grue had been pretty adamant on that front after all. I noticed that he tensed up at the thought of Imp, before relaxing. “We’ll manage.” He tried to reassure me. “Most of these people won’t have any real combat experience, right, Regent?”

“Father did pick his minions based on looks more than anything else.” You could hear Regent chuckling in the other car at the absurdity of the idea. “And most of my siblings only have ‘bullying each other’ on their resumés.”

“Well, don’t underestimate them even so. There’s more of them than there are of us and they’ve got time to dig in.” We had stopped the cars and were getting towards the large house under the cover of the trees. While they might detect us as soon as we entered there was no need to make it easy for them by allowing them to snipe us on the way in. “And remember, no killing.”

“Yes, mom.” Regent’s tone suggested he was rolling his eyes. “We heard you the first time.”

The fact that Heartbreaker had scheduled his announcement so soon before sunset was coming into our advantage now, because with the sun down we actually managed to get all the way to the back door under the cover of darkness (with some assistance from Grue in that regard) before the alarm rang and we started hearing people moving towards us inside the house.

The first guard to appear was a woman wielding a shotgun, and in her rush to get into position she was easily tripped over by Regent and foamed into place. As three more guards charged towards us, shooting blindly into Grue’s darkness, I took note of the fact that Heartbreaker was the first supervillain I had met so far who seemed to have a greater female to male ratio in henchmen. Apparently his desire to surround himself with attractive women extended to his security detail as well. It would have been amusing if the subtext wasn’t so awful. The good thing about this was that it was clear that looks had been a greater priority for him than women with combat skills, and all three of the guards were soon subdued, with Parian having brought in puppets to absorb the fire for us. I suspected that more than a few of these guards had never been properly trained, but were simply women Heartbreaker had Mastered in a pique of interest and then assigned guard duties to. Not to say that they weren’t a threat, a stray bullet can still hit even in untrained hands, but these were not Coil’s military-trained mercenaries, or even the hardened street thugs of the ABB or E88.

Of course, fate immediately saw fit to punish me for these hubristic thoughts by getting me clipped by a bullet. The suit held, thankfully, but it didn’t do much to stop the blunt force trauma from hurting. I’d had worse but could probably expect a major bruise if nothing else. The shooter ducked and rolled underneath one of Parian’s puppets, only to spasm mid-roll and end up foamed lying spread out on the floor by Regent. I made a mental reevaluation: while a lot of the guards may just be random girls given guns, some of them may be former PRT, police or military. Perhaps this one was once an enemy of Heartbreaker before her life was ruined by him. Idle speculation, of course, I had no idea who she was, but such analysis brought me a strange comfort and steeled my heart before the course I was taking.

“Taylor?”

And of course, then that awful voice shattered any such resolve in moments. Part of me had expected to find her here, it made sense from what Tattletale had gathered. She had made herself an obvious target when she made a scene in front of cameras and Heartbreaker had sought her out because I would never even consider protecting her. Didn’t make me enjoy meeting her any more.

“Hello, Emma.”

She looked better than when we last met, superficially at least. More like her old self, with her perfectly done hair and dress and makeup. Her eyes told a different story though, the haunted look had not only stayed but grown worse. She was holding a gun, pointed not at me but her own head. 

“Nikos told me to do this when you showed up.” She said as a way of explanation. “Said that he wanted me to have your full attention, and that I should pull the trigger if you didn’t listen.”

Of course he did. And no doubt Emma was already sufficiently under control that she would do it too. Fool of a girl. Though admittedly it wasn’t like she had any way of knowing that her public display would draw the attention of Heartbreaker. Falling into his clutches was a fate I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, and it had been a while since Emma held that title.

“I guess you have it. Talk.” Foaming her wouldn’t stop her from shooting herself, and while Regent could potentially use his powers to disarm her, there were others ready to shoot Emma if that happened. I really wished I had my bugs here, it would make this standoff so much easier.

“Thank you.” It was disconcerting the way she beamed at me. I hadn’t seen Emma smile that way in my direction for years, and it looked really creepy in this context. “He wanted me to tell you that if you return his son to him he’ll leave and no one else will come to harm. Surrender now and everything will be over, no more suffering.”

“He’s got to know that I won’t accept that. Haven’t done it so far, won’t do it just because of you.” I may not hate Emma the way I once did, but I certainly did not care for her, and I wasn’t going to sacrifice Regent for her. The others in our team were waiting for my signal, while the hostiles were trained to gun down Emma in a demonstration of Heartbreaker’s control and capacity to hurt people.

“I told him you’d say that.” She agreed. “But it’s alright. Nikos will still be happy if it leaves you distraught, wondering if you would have saved me if I was someone else, if you finally gave in to your vindictive desire to hurt me. Maybe you’re wondering if this will prove that you’re just as bad as me, or maybe you worry that some part of what you were will disappear with me when I die.”

“... You always knew how to hurt me, Emma. I guess it’s the one thing you’re still good at.” Apparently falling into Heartbreaker’s thrall had given her new purpose for all the mind games she liked to play on me.

“It’s what he told me to do.” She smiled happily, the idea of dying seemingly inconsequential if it made Heartbreaker happy. “I’m supposed to make you give up, remind you that there’s an easier way, but if that fails I’m to tell you that you’re no hero, you’re willing to throw lives away because you’d rather fight, and that maybe they’re right and this does make you a monster.”

“Maybe.” She really was far too good at digging into all of my insecurities. I supposed it was why he picked her of all people. “But the way I see it, Heartbreaker is the one throwing your life away. Doesn’t that bother you? Him making you want to die?”

Arguing with someone who had been Mastered was an extremely long shot, but I didn’t have a lot of good options available to me. My best chance of getting everyone out of this alive was to have Regent make her drop the gun, then have Grue throw up darkness fast enough that the others wouldn’t have time to fire a shot and after that just pray that no one was killed by the blind fire. It would require perfect coordination and no small amount of luck, but it was our best option available.

“Oh I’ve wanted to die for a while now, Nikos just gave me a new purpose for it.” Now wasn’t that a statement to process once this was all over? Emma’s family really should have gotten her a therapist.

I had just resigned to letting Emma kill herself and having to live with the guilt of that when I noticed something. It took longer than it should have, with no bugs in the area and Tattletale limited to communicating with us without a visual feed, but I could see a growing collection of handgun magazines in a corner that I was pretty sure wasn’t there when this standoff began. And I had a rather good guess as to where they came from.

“I think I’ve had enough of this. I’m not stopping, no matter what you say.” I stepped forward, hoping that I was right. I really did not want to have to handle the complicated emotions that would ensue if Emma Barnes died because of me. She had made enough of a mess of my life as it was. But even if I was wrong I wasn’t going to stand down because of her.

“It’s okay, Taylor. I’m sure Nikos will forgive you.” She did not seem in the least bothered as she pulled the trigger… And nothing happened.

I took advantage of the moment of confusion when none of the enemy’s weapons appeared to be working and charged forward, tackling Emma down to the ground. It was possible that I found knocking her out so that she couldn’t harm herself or anyone else just a little bit more cathartic than was entirely healthy, but then I had just saved her life so I figured nobody was going to complain any time soon. The others were taken down with similar ease by my squad as they tried to reload their weapons, the shock putting them off-balance and making them easier targets to incapacitate.

“You’re welcome.” It was Imp of course who had emptied their guns of ammunition during the standoff. She was leaning against a wall while we captured the guards with a look of practiced nonchalance. 

“I believe I told you to stay back for this mission.” Grue’s voice was tense and disapproving.

“Did you? I must have missed that.” She shrugged like it had been a simple mistake.

“It’s too dangerous-” He began, but Imp cut him off.

“We do dangerous things all the time, and you guys need me for this. You wouldn’t have handled this nearly as well without me.”

“Let’s keep moving.” I interrupted the sibling argument. “She’s already here now and safer than anyone else, so no need to draw further attention.”

Imp gave a two-fingered salute my way, while Grue nodded grudgingly, before speaking into the comms. “You knew, didn’t you? Speaking about their Stranger alarms.”

“I suspected.” Tattletale admitted. “There was an empty seat in the other car nobody was using.”

He still looked annoyed that his little sister had followed us against Heartbreaker, but didn’t voice his complaints any further.

—

It seemed that Heartbreaker was running out of minions to throw at us, or that he was choosing to keep the rest in reserve, because there were no further obstacles on our way to the dining hall where by the sound of it he was waiting for us.

“Alright, Grue, cover the door. Parian, send in your puppets first to absorb fire. Regent and Bitch, you follow up on that. Imp… Try to be safe.” I felt so useless. Without my bugs I was basically reduced to just a woman with a gun, and if that had been enough to take Heartbreaker down the PRT would have done so ages ago. Or maybe they wouldn’t have. For all I knew keeping him alive as a complacent but looming threat was all part of Cauldron’s plan, in which case I was quite happy to sabotage it.

The impenetrable darkness was covering the entire door when we opened it and while a few stray shots were made into it, the lack of any vital organs in Parian’s creations meant that they weren’t too bothered by it. Parian herself was staying back on the other side of the door with most of us, while Bitch sent her dogs charging through to hurt anyone they found on the other side and Regent used the two thugs he had commandeered as our eyes and ears.

Heartbreaker was sitting at the end of the table, and joined by Aroa, Florence and Candy. Perhaps Guillaume and Nicholas were on a separate mission from the one led by Chastity. His remaining henchwomen/consorts were gathered as well, along with what Regent described as “a strange machine” that might be what was pouring out the bug-killing gas. He had his own minions fire at the thing with actual bullets, just in case it meant I’d be able to bring in my swarm. Was hard to tell whether it would work since it wasn’t as if all the existing gas dissipated the moment the machine stopped pouring new out but whatever its purpose, it probably didn’t hurt to deny the enemy it.

Our strategy for how to circumnavigate Heartbreaker’s line of sight powers seemed to be working even without my assistance though, with Grue and Parian keeping the group safe and out of sight and reach of the enemy, while Regent and Bitch were on the offensive with things Heartbreaker couldn’t affect. Imp was also playing along with the plan, with Tattletale being her minder for the mission, since while she could do a lot of damage assuming that the enemy didn’t have a way to find her, it was a pretty major gamble that would make a currently working plan fall apart if they did. You could tell that she didn’t like having to stand on the sidelines but for all that she liked to go off and do her own thing she still knew how to be a team player. She just usually chose not to be one.

Our plan appeared to be working rather well at any rate, we had the enemy on the backfoot, with Heartbreaker unable to do anything other than repeatedly hammering the emergency button and shouting frantic orders. It wasn’t easy, because he still had some of his best minions with him and we were having to fight with one hand tied behind our back to get around his and his children’s powers, but we had the momentum on our side and it was clear that they were panicking a bit over how far we had gotten. Of course, because nothing could never just be that simple, that was when everything began spiralling out of control rapidly.

Without warning, both of Regent’s guys fell over simultaneously with slit throats. Parian’s puppets were soon to be next, having their seams cut open to spill out their cotton innards. It was a familiar power that was turning the battle against us and I suddenly realised the crucial miscalculation I had made in my plan.

“Took you long enough.” Heartbreaker grumbled. “Where’s the rest of your people?”

“Busy, I’m afraid.” Came the smooth voice of Jack Slash, mildly distorted by Grue’s darkness separating us from them. “I never did say I would bring company, and this is more of a personal matter anyway.”

In hindsight, it really should have been obvious, and I kicked myself for not accounting for this possibility when planning. We knew that Heartbreaker had made an alliance with the Slaughterhouse Nine, and we knew that Jack had taken an interest in me. This place would be outside the limits of Brockton Bay proper, where Jack was apparently hesitant to enter in case it interfered with his prophecy, and it wouldn’t be unreasonable to infer that trying to psychologically mess with me with Emma wasn’t the full extent of the trap Heartbreaker had in store for us.

“Fall back and regroup now.” I told the others. “We’re not in a position to fight them all here and need to rethink our battleplan.”

Most of the others nodded grimly, Regent massaging his own throat from the phantom pain of having felt his minions get slashed by Jack. The problem was Bitch.

“No.” She stared at me stubbornly. “I’m not leaving them.”

Bitch always was the hardest to get to back down from a fight, and right now Jack was between her and her dogs. They were too large to escape through any side doors and if they shrank down to normal size that would leave them vulnerable to being shot or cut open.

“We don’t have a choice!” I implored her. “We won’t win this if we keep going the way we are.”

“I’m not leaving them.” She repeated, and before I could stop her she rushed into the darkness and charged Jack with a shoulder tackle. It actually seemed to be working, because you could hear him give a noise of surprise as he dodged out of her way. “Run!” She shouted at the large beasts, who obediently turned tail and rushed out the large door before anyone could stop them.

Unfortunately, that did leave Bitch out in the open and vulnerable to being dominated by Heartbreaker. “Grue! Get her!” I wouldn’t leave her behind, tactically it was too great a loss and emotionally it felt like it’d be a betrayal.

He obediently followed through to assist our teammate, using his darkness as cover while exploiting the fact that he could see through it when no one else could to fire distracting shots at Heartbreaker while he got close to assist Bitch. Imp had also disappeared in the chaos, which was to be expected, leaving myself with Regent and Parian.

“Parian, make sure Bitch’s dogs are safe.” Despite being the oldest in the group, Parian often felt like the most innocent one of us, and I would not be able to forgive myself if she fell to Heartbreaker because of me. Not least because of the group she was the one most likely to fall within his preferences. “Regent, assist Grue.” Regent wasn’t much of a fighter on his own, but his powers might give Grue the edge to take on Jack and he was the only one of us confirmed to be able to resist Heartbreaker’s influence.

They both nodded, reluctantly for one reason or another, but obeyed without question. I myself joined in with Regent because while we lacked proof that I’d be able to withstand being Mastered, it was a decent theory and I was feeling desperate enough to put it to the test. I rushed through the door and took a couple more shots at the tinkertech machine just in case it might help me get my bugs back sooner, before jumping into the darkness so that Heartbreaker couldn’t see me. As far as my dampened senses could tell, and for the hundredth time I wished that I could use arthropodovoyance here, Jack was winning against Grue, even though he ought to be blinded by the darkness and handicapped by Regent. I tried to help Bitch get out of there, only to get punched blindly by her in the confusion when neither of us could see, stumble backwards and hit Grue. Taking advantage of the confusion, Jack lunged forward with his knife and stabbed several times. He toppled and the darkness dropped all of a sudden.

—

I loved Nikos Vasil. I would do anything for Nikos Vasil. I would die for Nikos Vasil. I-

“Skitter! Taylor!” Tattletale was practically screaming inside my earpiece. Her voice was urgent enough to break through the haze. “Master protocol! Use your bugs!”

My head felt so clouded, but I did as she said. While there still weren’t many inside the house itself, though more than when we first arrived, my reach was far beyond the limits of this mansion, and outside it was crawling with life. I poured every emotion I had into it, embracing the collective mind consisting of billions of different components. 

Right. Clinically speaking I knew what had just been done to me, and I was pretty sure that once my emotions were back to normal I would be feeling incredibly violated by what had just happened. I was thankful that this particular method of defence saved me from that at least in the short term, though I was not looking forward to processing it when the mission was over. It was all about compartmentalising my emotions and keeping myself rational. It didn't matter if I loved Heartbreaker, taking him down was still absolutely necessary.

Grue was out of the fight, unconscious and wounded though seemingly still alive thanks to his silk suit. Bitch was still conscious but, judging by the vacant look in her eyes and the fact that she was holding a knife to Regent’s throat, had fallen under Heartbreaker’s spell.

Shit. Well this definitely sucked.

At least Parian seemed to have gotten away, and judging by the fact that I couldn’t see her and had almost forgotten about her so had Imp.

Luckily, it did not appear that Heartbreaker had noticed that I’d thrown off his influence, because he barely spared me a second glance as he stared intently at his son. He really was such a handsome man.

“And there we have it. You really should have come willingly, Jean-Paul. Would have spared you so much heartbreak.” He chuckled at his own terrible joke, and several women tittered along with him. I wondered if I should do the same, before deciding that there was no way I wouldn’t sound incredibly fake doing so. I had never exactly been part of the crowd who did it regularly and my monotone voice would ruin the effect for sure. “Now I’m going to have to punish you for your defiance.”

“Missed you too, dad.” Regent quipped, for all appearances unbothered by the knife to his throat. “I’m sorry that I couldn’t attend all those family gatherings.”

“Still so insolent.” He sighed, before gesturing at me. “You want me to break her in for you, Jack? Because if not, our deal is done and I’d rather you leave me.”

“Oh I’d rather you didn’t.” Jack said lightly. “Takes away a lot of the fun of corrupting wayward souls if you just pull a switch in their head. Besides, I find my methods a lot more efficient.” He gave me a meaningful smile.

He knows something is not right. Thankfully, my body language didn’t give anything away since I was currently not emoting anything and even nervousness was being pushed away. I felt strangely detached, almost disassociated, from doing this, observing the world while feeling my human brain get bombarded with unending love and affection.

Heartbreaker did not seem to pick up on what he was insinuating, because he just waved dismissively. “To each their own. You have your prize and I have mine, now will we have a fight now that business is concluded?” He eyed Jack warily, seeming to anticipate another fight. The Slaughterhouse did have a history of turning on their employers once the alliance had ceased to be useful.

“No, that’s another reason why I came alone.” Jack shrugged lightly. “Spared you a massacre, didn’t I? Not how we normally do business, and the others might have objected, but I figure you still have a purpose to serve.”

“I’m flattered.” Heartbreaker looked unamused, before glancing distastefully at Bitch. “Not much of a catch today, you do keep poor company, Jean-Paul.”

“Sorry, all the cute girls were staying far away from you. Can’t imagine why.”

“Your tongue does you no credit, my son.”

“If that’s true it makes you wonder why you want me back so badly.” Regent smiled, though it was a strained one, and I thought I could detect a subtle flinch as his father focused all of his power on punishing him.

From what some exploratory insects were telling me, the pesticide was slowly lifting around the house but it was still a while away from being safe to enter the dining hall where it was most heavily concentrated. Until that happened I contended myself to watch and wait, it wasn’t like I otherwise could take them all on my own.

“Bring him to me.” Heartbreaker gestured and Bitch obeyed, shoving Regent forward. At least our plan for getting Regent to take him out after he’s lowered his guard might still work, despite the current complications.

“You disappoint me, Jean-Paul.” He took Regent’s mask off and slapped him across the face, drawing blood from the cheek.

“Terribly sorry about that.” Regent coughed and gave him his most insincere smile. “You know how it is, teenage rebellion.”

Jack appeared content to watch this unfold, though the way he casually twirled his knife in the direction of Grue seemed to be about sending a message. ‘touch me and he dies.’ He didn’t say it out loud, but the way he smiled at me got the point across.

To expedite the disappearance of the gas, I had my bugs sacrifice themselves to open every window that was out of sight of the dining hall, letting the wind flow through the house. It was costly work, but out in the woods I already had a swarm ready to descend once the coast was clear. In the meantime, I had a few of them informing Parian, and via her Tattletale, of everything that was going on. I would have liked to be able to do the same with Imp, but the nature of her powers meant that communicating with her while she was going stealthy was really hard. I just hoped that she knew to stay her hand until the right moment came, and then strike swiftly.

Heartbreaker had grown bored beating Regent and was now looking at me. “Take off your mask.” The action to do so was all too reflexive at the moment, not that refusing would have made sense under the circumstances. “Hm, I don’t know what you see in her, Jack.”

“I don’t pick my recruits based on their looks. Much as Crawler might have insisted otherwise.” Jack’s voice was amused. “And I was right that she wouldn’t fold to you because of your threats.”

“I suppose she was more willful than expected. But still, take away her creatures and she’s not very impressive.”

“Perhaps not. You may be right, if it ends like this she hasn’t impressed me very much. Perhaps I’ll leave her to you after all, I’ve gotten what I wanted here anyway.” He took a bow as if on stage and a portal opened by which he left us. "Then again, you may be surprised still."

“How mercurial.” Heartbreaker muttered. “All that effort for the girl and he just leaves her?”

“Maybe he read up on the history of the last few people who tried to control her?” Regent piped up, amused and probably guessing what was going on despite his bruises.

“Quiet.” Heartbreaker struck him again. “If this is you trying to save her then you’ve forgotten an important rule: There is no getting out of my reach. You live or you die, but I never let go. Skitter, would you kill yourself rather than be removed from me?”

“Of course, sir.” I hoped that the utter tonelessness of my voice was interpreted to be my natural state or because I was enthralled and not because I was using everything in my power to suppress his influence.

“That is the loyalty I expect, Jean-Paul, the loyalty you’ve failed to display. You were my most promising child, but I never let go of what’s mine.” He took a deep breath, then nodded to the rest of his thralls. “Go free and wake up the others, then we’ll reclaim the other children stolen from me, and extract a tribute from this accursed town before leaving.”

We were left alone, save for Heartbreaker’s other children, who seemed content to leave their father’s attention fully focused on their older brother. None of them looked like they had been prepared for actual fighting, which was probably why they had been kept back at base. And the rooms outside of this hall were clear enough by now that I could send my swarm in.

There was a terrible buzzing as I sent them in, while Parian told Tattletale to relay to Regent and Imp that the time to move was now. Just as everyone took note of the new sound I rushed forward to Bitch, knocking her down on the floor from behind.

Regent chuckled heartily as someone threw his sceptre over to him, and with a gesture he disarmed his father of the gun he was drawing. Screaming was heard from the other rooms where my bugs were taking care of the people there.

“You always were too arrogant for your own good, father.” He put the sceptre right at the man’s heart and activated the taser. When the other siblings tried to rise up to defend the man who had controlled them for so long, they were stopped by Imp appearing out of nowhere and toppling the chairs they had been sitting in.

“And the name’s Alec now. Don’t know if you’ve heard.” Despite his face being bloody and bruised, his smile was triumphant, and he gave the man another zap at the face for good measure, knocking him out.

Chapter Text

The next hour or so was awful despite how on paper we had won. Regent had tied Heartbreaker up to a chair and was the only person allowed in the same room as him, while everyone who had been subverted by his influence, which unfortunately included Bitch, had to be kept contained as well. I was still free, partially because if I really wanted to break out there were no bonds that Parian could make on short notice to contain me, but I still had to actively suppress all of my emotions just to keep my head clear because it wasn’t like Hearbreaker’s power stopped working just because he was knocked out, and I could still feel the urge to help him. It was deeply draining and I was completely mentally exhausted by the time Tattletale showed up with reinforcements, including paramedics for Grue.

Grue was in a bad way as well, which I couldn’t even allow myself to feel bad about in my current condition. His suit had held, thankfully, but he had several internal injuries from Jack, which wasn’t going to be pleasant dealing with. Tattletale herself was hard at work gathering up information on every person in Brockton who had been enthralled by Heartbreaker, contacting the other teams to round them up as they could before news spread that he had been defeated and they decided to do something foolish in response. All the while I was doing nothing useful to help, just sitting on a chair while concentrating on making my bugs create intricate patterns to take my mind off things.

It was all about trying to not go mad while waiting for Tattletale to finish playing whack-a-mole with Heartbreaker’s remaining agents and Regent was done puppeteering the man himself. While most of the people we had captured were awake, we had sedated Bitch for the duration of this, partially because we didn’t want her to call on her dogs and for them to get involved, partially because her being awake and hating me, again, for what we were doing to her newfound master seemed… Tiresome. It was well into the night and I was feeling completely dead inside and yet there was still so much work left to do.

—

Eventually, the doors were thrown open with a great deal of fanfare and Regent marched out as dramatically as he could, before making an ostentatious bow to the man following him. 

“Make way for the king! Make way!” 

I wasn’t sure exactly where he’d found the Burger King crown, but apparently Regent had seen fit to put one on his father’s head, along with a blanket drawn across him like a parody of a cape. The man’s movements were pompous and exaggerated, an almost cartoonish look of pride on his face.

“My subjects, it’s with great regret that I must… Do whatever it is kings do when they don’t quite abdicate, I dunno.” There was something weird about hearing Nikos Vasil speaking with his son’s tone and inflection.

“Oh, right.” Tattletale was the first to get the joke. “Because you’ve become ‘his Regent’. Heh.”

“Now, I’ll admit I have absolutely no idea how to do this.” Regent spoke using his actual body. “It’s not like his powers come with a nice and simple reset button. I guess I’ll just try to send the opposite emotions that he did and hope they cancel each other out? Skitter, want to be my guinea pig? What am I saying? Of course you do.”

Heartbreaker’s eyes focused on me, and through my detached state I could distantly sense as my emotions were once again messed with, though this time to turn me against the man instead. Regent might have overdone it slightly in making me hate instead of love him, but quite frankly I doubted that neither of us cared much about that, and it wasn’t as if I wouldn’t have hated him anyway.

Hesitantly, I released the emotional barriers I had been keeping up, and immediately regretted it as the floodgates were opened to everything I had been bottling up for the last couple of hours. The anger, frustration, self-loathing, despair, desperation and disgust was overwhelming. There was a wave of nausea and I was suddenly given a good reason to be glad I had already been unmasked by the PRT. It would have been embarrassing if my face became public knowledge because I had to hastily rip my mask off so that I didn’t get sick inside of it. I emptied my stomach in the nearest waste bin I could find, feeling awfully self-conscious about the fact that everyone was looking at me. It brought back a few unpleasant memories from high school and I was given even more reason to feel sick.

Once I was sure there was nothing more coming up I gave the others a thumbs up. “‘M fine.”

“The usual reaction of people who are fine.” Tattletale said sardonically, looking like she was feeling a bit ill herself after seeing the contents of my stomach. “You really okay, Skitter?”

“Stressed.” I admitted. “Been holding back a lot today and my body didn’t agree with letting it all back at once.”

“Hm.” She looked concerned but let it go, possibly because she wanted to back away from me to avoid being given too much information about what I had eaten for dinner and the state of my stomach acids.

“Now for the test if this is working.” Heartbreaker smiled at me, the similarities with his son all the more obvious when he was using the same facial expressions. “Punch me please.”

I didn’t hesitate, releasing some of all the pent up aggression I was feeling from the overwhelming cocktail of emotions by hitting him in the stomach as hard as possible. 

Regent laughed even as his puppet doubled over. “Oh I’m going to enjoy doing this with every one of his victims.”

“Can he still feel everything that happens to him, even when you control him?” I asked.

“Oh yes, he’s fully aware of what’s happening, he just can’t even blink if I don’t allow it.” He grinned, a sadistic look on his face while he looked at the man who had spawned him.

“Good.” With anyone else I might have felt conflicted to have them suffer such a cruel fate, but with Heartbreaker I couldn’t help but find it karmic.

—

Regent paraded his father around his harem while we waited for Bitch to wake up so it could be her turn. I noted with no small amount of vindictive amusement that many of them, once his power had been turned against him, went for the groin area when asked to demonstrate that Heartbreaker held no sway over them any more. Regent himself was having the time of his life, also letting Imp get a hit in even though she had avoided being targeted by the Master. It probably wasn’t healthy to take this much pleasure out of another man’s suffering, but I didn’t have the heart to tell him off.

Tattletale sat down beside me after I was done washing my face. “I’m such an idiot.” She said without much prompting.

“True, but what got you thinking about it this time?”

She snorted at my joke. “I really should have put two and two together. I knew what restrictions were keeping Jack from directly intervening, I knew that Heartbreaker was preparing a trap for you in his base. It’s so obvious in hindsight.” 

“Ah.” I had been thinking a lot about that as well. “Hey, don’t hog all the blame for yourself, I was the one who came up with the plan without accounting for outside intervention, I think I deserve at least some of it.”

“Nope. All mine.” She grinned at me. “I’m the one whose power is literally all about letting me make these kinds of connections and the one time it failed me we nearly lost everything because of it.”

“Sure, the one time. Not like you’ve ever missed important clues before.” I made a loud cough that sounded suspiciously like the word ‘bank’.

“You’re terrible for emotional support, you know that, right?”

“Don’t I know it?” I sighed, deciding to be serious on the topic. “Jack knew I wasn’t controlled, but it was just me and Regent left at that point, if he wanted to take us out he probably could have.”

“Mhm. Been thinking about that. While his fickleness might have worked in our favour this time, I’d rather not let this be a repeat occurrence. From what I’ve gathered, Jack wasn’t lying about rooting for you to win, he views you as entertainment and Heartbreaker as a rival.” Tattletale had a wry smile. “They’re too alike to get along I think.”

“So why did he show up?” I had mostly figured out what she was saying, but there were still a lot of question marks left after this ordeal.

“To put you off-balance I think, make it clear that you’re still playing his fucked up little ‘game’. He tainted your victory, in a way. Instead of you proving that Jack’s challenges won’t phase you, we’re left feeling like we only won because Jack let us.”

That certainly seemed to fit the man’s psychology as far as I understood it. “So it’s all about control, he wants us to feel like he’s in control of the situation and what we do.”

“I think so.” She agreed. “Jack’s a simple boy, he likes to feel like he holds power over people. Guy would literally kill the entire world if it made him look more important doing so.”

The annoying thing was that even knowing what his game was, I couldn’t quite shake off the effectiveness of it. He had put us at his mercy and arranged things so that it was only by his grace that we succeeded. That made me uncomfortable thinking about.

“He wanted us to Master Heartbreaker, didn’t he?” I took the look on Tattletale’s face as confirmation. “Let me guess? Something about proving how we’re all monsters deep down?”

“Something like that.” She grimaced. “It was the optimal solution to the problem Heartbreaker posed to us, with the fewest lives lost, but it’s a pattern of the Slaughterhouse Nine to make the optimal solution highly immoral, so that their victims feel like they’re closer to them in their mentality. Because being ruthless due to necessity and being cruel because you find it fun are the same thing.” She rolled her eyes.

It was my turn to snort. “Someone should maybe tell Regent about that distinction.”

“Oh he’s definitely enjoying this way too much for his own good but what are you going to do? Tell him not to be happy he gets to live out his revenge dreams against the man who abused him all his life?”

“Speaking of abuse…” I narrowed my eyes at the figure approaching us.

Emma looked caught like a deer in the headlights under my glare. “H-hey, Taylor.” She shifted her feet nervously.

“Emma.” My voice was cold as ice.

“I-I just wanted to say thank you for saving my life-” She began before I interrupted her.

“Don’t. Go and thank Imp instead, she was the one who actually saved you. If it hadn’t been for her I would have let you die rather than compromise the mission.” I knew I was being pretty brutal with the truth, but I had no patience to sugarcoat things and it wasn’t like I owed Emma anything. Besides, maybe this would mean she would go and bother Imp instead.

She winced at my words. “Right, yeah of course. I shouldn’t presume.”

“No, you shouldn’t.”

“Uhm…” She trailed off, having apparently lost her train of thought after I gave her the cold shoulder but still not wanting to leave immediately. “I’m sorry I told him everything I knew about you.”

“Of all the things to feel sorry about, you picked the one that wasn’t your fault?” I raised an eyebrow at her. “If you’re going to feel remorse, do it about everything that you did on your own volition.”

“... Yeah, you’re right.” Emma shrunk down at my words. “I’ll just go…”

Ugh. Great, and now she of all people made me feel like a bully. I sighed, and called after her as she began slinking off. “And Emma? Don’t kill yourself. If you’re genuinely feeling sorry, becoming a better person is a lot more productive.”

It was hard staying mad at someone who was being this pitiful. I still despised her for everything that she had done to me, but at the moment I couldn’t help but see her as just another victim. I just hoped that with this business done we could go our separate ways and I’d never have to see her again. It was a shame I was rarely that lucky.

—

Bitch was sitting beside me on the drive home, her full attention focused on petting Bastard, who was lying in her lap. She hadn’t said much after she woke up, though she had given Heartbreaker a pretty vicious kick when prompted by Regent. I felt like I had a duty to talk to her about what she had gone through, but like Tattletale said, emotional support was not my speciality and Bitch was one of the harder members of the team to socially interact with. 

“Sorry I had to take you out.” Was my halting attempt to open up a conversation.

“Is okay.” She said absentmindedly. “You needed to.”

“I suppose, but…” I trailed off, not sure where I was going with this.

“Don’t.” She grunted. “Feeling sorry about that is stupid. I wasn’t myself and you saved me.”

“I guess I did.” I found it a very generous interpretation of me salvaging the mess that had become of my plan, but I didn’t feel like arguing the point. “You wanna talk about it or…”

“No.” It was a firm answer and her focus on scratching Bastard’s belly seemed to have grown to the exclusion of all else.

“Okay.” I let the silence linger while I watched her fuss over the wolf cub. There was always something rather sweet about seeing this side of Rachel and it seemed to help her handle the memories of Heartbreaker’s intoxicating power, the way it made it so hard to think clearly. At least the increased computational power I was gifted with as a side benefit of my ability to control bugs had made it easier for me to handle, she hadn’t had any such luck.

“Was worth it though.” She said after a while, apparently having been thinking along similar lines as myself.

“Yeah?” I wasn’t going to question her choice, but I was curious, and still wanted to get her to open up to me.

“Would have killed them if I didn’t.” She said, referring to her dogs. “I’d do it again if it meant saving them.”

“Fair enough.” I imagined myself in Bitch’s position, and the choice was between charging Jack and Heartbreaker or letting them kill people I cared about. “I’d probably do the same if I were you.”

She nodded, curtly but with an air of approval. Like it was the only correct course of action. “Here.” She handed Bastard over to me. 

He’d grown larger since she first got him, but he was still the size where he could comfortably lie down in my lap without me feeling crushed. It really was remarkable how effective fussing over the puppy was at banishing the dark memories of the evening that had been at the forefront of my mind.

—

It took several more hours after we got back to Brockton Bay before we had the chance to relax again, and by then it was well past dawn. Since we needed to take care of Heartbreaker’s sleeper agents before they did something that would probably end up with people dead it wasn’t like we had time to wait. Even with the other groups that had remained in the city having worked tirelessly with the help of information that Tattletale had acquired, the total death toll had risen to over a hundred people. It could have been much worse, Heartbreaker wasn’t like the Simurgh and most of his people were more a danger to themselves than anyone else, but it was still awful how many we couldn’t save.

Guillaume and Nicholas were still at large though, and of the Vasils they were among the more likely to still carry out their father’s directives even after he had been taken care of, so that was of no small amount of concern. Aside from that loose end though, most had been taken care of come morning, though by then the only thing still keeping Regent going was the sheer joy he took in seeing his father get brutalised by his former victims.

Which was the reason all the Undersiders, save for Grue who was still unconscious and being treated, were gathered together for the final business before we could head off to bed: What to do with Heartbreaker himself. It would need to be resolved before Regent fell asleep since that’d release the man from his control until he took the effort to reassert it, and we couldn’t exactly have him running loose.

“Why are you hitting yourself, why are you hitting yourself?” Regent giggled slightly to himself, having apparently decided that the best way to stay awake was to have his father punch himself in the face repeatedly, each giving him a small jolt of sensation. “I always wanted to do that.” He did not specify whether he meant punching his father or making the old childish joke.

“Hilarious.” Tattletale was using the more traditional method of caffeine to keep herself awake, drinking a cup of coffee while trying to ignore her mounting headache.

“So do we just put a bullet through his head or…” Foil gestured vaguely. Her former Protectorate allegiance had made her our best option for coordinating with the New Wave and she had spent most of the day on the hunt for Heartbreaker’s puppets. 

No one, not even the more heroically inclined members of the gang, was even considering the idea of sparing the man. The discussion was purely on the best way to neutralise him properly.

“Not necessarily.” I spoke, weighing my words carefully. 

Everyone in the room looked at me, apart from Bitch who was dozing off in a corner. She was rarely all that interested in the planning stage of the Undersiders and no one had stopped her from drifting off in the company of her dogs.

“Perhaps it would be for the best if Heartbreaker simply… Disappeared from public view. Let the rumours flourish on what happened to him. If people are unsure if he’s dead or alive they might be more careful about doing something to us.” It was a bit like what I knew of the nuclear doctrines of states like Israel, back before Scion had dismantled the atomic weapons of the world.

“We’d need to make sure he was properly contained in that case, with no chance of him being able to do anything or affect anyone while being held.” Muttered Tattletale. “Specialised cell, like with Shatterbird.”

“I don’t plan on using him unless absolutely necessary, but the implicit threat might get more people to back off.” If the PRT would stop trying to foist villains on us because they were afraid of Heartbreaker still being alive that would be nice. “And quite frankly death is too good for him. Let him suffer his own personal Hell.”

No one in the group protested this, not even Parian, who normally acted as the conscience of the Undersiders. Perhaps it was the utter disdain in my voice, or her weariness from the day’s events.

“Hear that, dad? And I was just starting to get attached to you too.” Regent made a mock gasp. “Perhaps I’ve been Mastered by him?” There were several more punches to Heartbreaker’s ruined face. The man really did look like a complete wreck at this point, a far cry from the handsome man we had fought. “Nope! All good.”

“Alright, let’s find someplace where he can’t see anyone or do anything while we set up a proper containment cell for him.” I smiled thinly, glad the day was finally getting over. “And nobody is to ever confirm or deny the survival of Heartbreaker. Let people draw their own conclusions. Good work today, everyone.”

Chapter Text

When Guillaume would say that he has eyes on the street he did mean it a bit more literally than most people. Not so much that he had placed actual eyes in the cement but he could “borrow” the eyes of anyone walking in the street who he had previously touched, and in the middle of summer people usually kept their arms so uncovered that it was child’s play to get some physical contact just by walking past them, with no one any the wiser. He prided himself on it as one of the reasons why he was father’s most trusted and effective agent. That and because he wasn’t a traitor like Cherie or Jean-Paul.

Right now though, this power might be the only reason he hadn’t been caught yet, aside from perhaps the fact that the constant chaos in Brockton made it easier for people to slip through the cracks. He had evaded patrols thus far, where Candy and her group had gotten caught due to their incompetence, and he had managed to go to ground when the raid on father’s compound took him down, though he had to lose his burner phone due to this, with the kinds of enemies he faced he couldn’t be too paranoid. Skitter alone was a nightmare to plan around, but when you included her Thinker and Stranger allies you had no choice but to assume that they were ceaselessly watching every move made. The fact that one of his unwitting spies glanced over to graffiti showing a stylised beetle captioned with ‘she’s watching you’ certainly didn’t help with the unease or paranoia he felt.

Nicholas fidgeted nervously in the abandoned apartment we had taken up residence in for the night. “Can we get moving yet?” He only had his own eyes to see with, and was getting anxious over the waiting.

His elder brother shot him an irritable glance. “Once the coast is clear.”

“It’s as clear as it’s ever going to be. There’s no capes around, let’s just move it.”

Guillaume ignored him. They’d need the perfect opportunity if they were to make a clean escape when every person, camera and insect could report them to the enemy. He didn’t know what exactly had happened to father or the rest of his siblings, but he certainly had no wish to find out, and at this point it was all about cutting their losses and getting out of this city.

Eventually, he did relent though that this was the best that they could hope for. Things had calmed down in Brockton, and while that did mean that there were a lot more people in the streets, the heat should be a bit more down with their enemies not being as watchful for anyone associated with father. He just had to wait until the streets were deserted and then it was simply a matter of finding and stealing a car and making it out before anyone realised anything.

“Alright, let’s move. And act casual.”

“Finally.” Nicholas rolled his eyes. “Was starting to think I had hit you with terror by accident with how much you were cowering.”

He slapped his younger brother in response. “Don’t be an idiot. We’ve only got one chance and it’s us against the entire city right now.”

There was a lot of grumbling but no further complaints after that. They made their way outside. It was three in the morning by the time that Guillaume felt confident enough to make a move, and more than 24 hours had passed since father disappeared. At this point, the streets would be well deserted, with even gang members having gone to sleep for the night, let alone decent folk. 

Passing through the graffiti with the beetle and message in person was almost as bad as when he had seen it with the eyes of another, but at least this time he got to see Nicholas jump at the sight. After he’d been calling him a coward for wanting to wait, some mockery over that was the least that he deserved. Unfortunately, aside from some hushed snide comments, such mockery would have to wait until they were in the clear.

Since neither brother knew how to hotwire a car, the plan was to find someone and rob them of their keys. In this regard, waiting until almost everyone was fast asleep before moving was really working against them, because there weren’t any people to be found with a parked car to take. Every car they found was either empty or moving too quickly to stop.

“Damn it.” Guillaume muttered, before flinching at the sight of a moth flying near the local street lamp. Grabbing someone from the street would be so much easier and more quiet than trying to commit a hasty burglary, but time was of the essence. And with most people asleep he was reliant on his own eyes for searching. 

They had almost given up hope and decided to risk breaking a window into a house and steal someone’s car keys that way when a prospective victim finally appeared; someone apparently getting home from a night shift. Not wishing to waste any more time, the brothers pulled themselves into action, Nicholas taking the lead. 

Fear, terror. Enough of it could be just as crippling as any amount of physical pain. The driver’s darker complexion had paled considerably and he was still as a statue in his seat. The panic welling up inside him had gone beyond fight-or-flight instincts and straight up paralysed him. He made a small unintelligible noise at whatever it was his addled mind saw while Nicholas continued to fill it with more terror.

Guillaume calmly walked up to the car, took the car keys out of the man’s hand and then dragged him out of the car. He also used his own power to blind the man for good measure since it’d make it harder for him to act against them until he got his sight back.

“Run.” He whispered into his ear, while Nicholas slightly eased up on his fear inducing power. It worked, and the owner of the car scrambled away as quickly as he could without being able to see anything. He’d probably work his way to his house eventually, but it’d buy them time.

“Come on, get in.” Guillaume took the driver’s seat while Nicholas was riding shotgun. He put the key in, started the engine, tried to back out of the parking spot and… Nothing happened.

“Forgot how to drive?” His brother drawled. “It’s not like you’ve got a license.”

“Shut up.” He tried again, and the engine just sputtered pathetically. “We finally find a car and it turns out to be… Crap.”

“You can say that again.” Nicholas had not picked up on his sudden alarm, twisting the car key to turn the car off and on again.

“No, look.” Bugs were crawling up the car, slowly covering the windows, along with everything else. A few were starting to find their way inside through the air conditioning, all but invisible in the darkness as no light got into the car from the street lamps outside any longer.

“Oh no.” Guillaume couldn’t see his brother’s face, but his voice betrayed his fear well enough. “What do we do?”

In answer, the insects covering the front window made room so that enough light got inside to form a three letter word out of the uncovered part of the window: OUT.

Guillaume tried desperately to get the car going so that they could get away from this nightmare, but it seemed that the engine was well and truly caput, clogged with insects perhaps and it wasn’t like they could see where they were going anyway like this. How long had she been watching them? Would they have gotten away if they just could have found a car to steal sooner, or had she been toying with them this entire time, waiting for them to think that  they’d get away only to crush such hopes under her heel?

Well, it seemed like there was nothing to it but to face the inevitable. He opened the door and there she was; a conglomerate of insects in the shape of a woman, filling the air with a buzzing noise straight out of Hell.

Skitter.

“Stand up.” Her voice sounded unnatural, like Beelzebub whispering in his ear. “We have much to discuss.”

“Okay.” His mouth felt very dry as he got out of the car. “Okay.” He repeated.

The second Nicholas had gotten out as well and the doors were closed, the bugs disappeared from the car like they had never been there. He could still hear them though, crawling in the darkness beyond the street lamps.

Judging by the look of concentration in his eyes, Nicholas was currently trying to ward her off by projecting as much fear as he possibly could, which was quite considerable considering how his power usually waxed in strength while he himself was afraid, and right now he looked terrified.

For all the good it did him though. Skitter just tilted her head slightly while she looked at them. “Are you trying to scare me off?” There was no trace of fear in her infernal voice, if anything she seemed faintly amused.

Nicholas flinched. “No.” He muttered.

“What do you want from us?” Guillaume cut straight to the point.

“I want Heartbreaker’s corruption excised from my city. That means collecting every person who has been tainted by him.”

“Are you… Are you going to kill us?” The way she had said it carried an implicit threat.

“No. I want to free you from his thrall, and then I’m going to release you. You may stay or you may go, but you will not steal or cause trouble here again.”

“I don’t suppose we have a choice in the matter?” He tried weakly. He thought that the years with father and siblings like Nicholas would have inured him to fear, but seeing the bug woman calmly dictate his future for him while treating him like some kind of plague bearer put a lie to that notion.

“No.” And there was a finality to that answer that made it impossible to argue with.

—

Director Seneca had endured a very busy week as head of the Anchorage PRT department. His department had to cover every case of parahuman crime in Alaska and Yukon, which were two very large states to cover in two separate countries while being considered the backwater station of the PRT to be assigned to. Not helping matters was the fact that so many wannabe warlords would move here expecting to be able to carve out their own little fiefdoms in the sparsely populated wilderness.

Then there was the fact that many Protectorate heroes in Anchorage were new, having been reshuffled from elsewhere in the wake of so many resignations and losses after the Echidna Incident. Horizon had only just been appointed as the Anchorage Protectorate Leader, and had already undergone a trial by fire that was wearing her thin, having to fly from one endangered small town to another in a never ending cycle. Not to mention wrangling her own team, who wouldn’t know discipline if it hit them in the face. Except for Cask, who was competent and professional enough to be a valued agent even before you accounted for his Tinker concoctions often making the difference between life and death for heroes and PRT agents alike come winter.

So yes, it had been a rather busy week, and Seneca was very much looking forward to the initial chaos from the Echidna Incident and the subsequent fall of the Brockton PRT department eventually dying down. At least Operation Sydney had managed to finally take Heartbreaker off the board and once the Montreal department was finished purging any remaining agents he had infiltrated them with they could reassign people elsewhere. Nikos Vasil and his children had been responsible for over 50 % of the parahuman crime in the city just on their own and had forced the local director to compartmentalise the PRT and Protectorate there to a ridiculous degree due to well founded fears of infiltrators. There had been a longstanding joke that the real reason Heartbreaker had gone free for so long was because he made sure that their Master-Stranger Protocols were the best in the entire world due to constantly testing their limits. With what he knew of how the PRT operated, Seneca couldn’t say for sure that there wasn’t a kernel of truth to that.

He’d probably have to suggest that they send an agent to verify the status of Heartbreaker in the next meeting, Seneca thought while he tried to relax in his armchair after a long day at work. And kill him should he still be alive, since while he had been fairly containable as a villain in his own right, due to his lack of personal ambitions outside of living a life of decadence, he was too dangerous serving someone with grander aspirations. His kidnappings, while sensational enough to get the news every time, amounted to fewer people lost when all put together than some villains killed in a single outing. A celebrity disappearing was a tragedy, a town dying to radiation poisoning was a statistic. And statistics were the bread and butter of government agencies even if the common man cared little for them.

Seneca was interrupted in these musings by a phonecall, and groaned internally when he saw that it was coming from his work phone. He pulled it out and spoke into it, hoping very much that another crisis hadn’t appeared in the time since he drove home.

“Yes?”

“Director, a pleasure.” The voice on the other end was crisp, clear and most importantly unfamiliar.

“Who am I speaking to?”

“You may call me Accord. I wished to contact you with regards to your work in my city.”

Ah. Accord. Seneca remembered the files on him. Formerly the biggest kingpin in Boston, he had since relocated to Brockton. A Thinker with power-induced OCD, he had a complicated relationship with the PRT similar to that held by the Elite. They considered him a lesser evil compared to the likes of the Butcher and he for his part preferred them over most of his fellow villains.

“I’m listening.” He answered noncommittally. No need to give him any information he might not already possess.

“It has come to my awareness that you have participated in a plot to sow chaos within the confines of my domain and I’ve called to express my disapproval.”

“I see. I think you may have called the wrong department, Mr Accord. Anchorage is far away from Brockton and whatever you think might have happened you’d be better off calling one of my colleagues about your issues.”

While the conversation was ongoing, Seneca hurriedly wrote down a note. ‘Accord knows Sydney. Upset.’

“No, I went to great lengths to find exactly who was responsible for this so that I could tell them what I think. I want you to understand that all I wanted is peace and order but people keep interrupting my work. So now I have to make sure that there are no further interruptions.”

“Is that a threat, sir?” At this point Seneca was pressing the emergency button and looking for any potential assassins Accord might have sent.

“No, director.” The voice sounded extremely self-satisfied. “It’s a statement.”

And with those closing words, the phone exploded with enough force to be heard from several blocks away, and all Seneca knew was darkness.

—

Ever since they took over Toybox, the Slaughterhouse Nine had constantly stayed one step ahead of Dragon and Defiant. It was hard, chasing people who could appear in any part of the world that they wanted and once they had moved the portal to somewhere else the hunt would have to start all over again. Dragon was working on finding a way to detect where the portal would open next, and ideally interfere with the process of closing and moving it, but it was slow work without a proper chance to study it up close or any pieces of the Tinkertech that went into making it to reverse engineer. As luck would have it though, by the 9th of August they did finally get a breakthrough and managed to catch up to the S9 again.

Unfortunately the reason why they managed to respond in time on this occasion was because the Slaughterhouse had decided to make Vancouver their next target. Attacking them directly at Dragon’s base of operations.

Colin had chosen Hookwolf as his first target to engage with, both because he was one of the easier people to distract from penetrating the Guild facility with the promise of a fight and because he had long experience fighting the Nazi metal werewolf from back when he had been part of the E88 and had developed several countermeasures against him.

“Feels like old times, eh Armsy?” Hookwolf’s bloodthirsty smile was accentuated by the blood staining his metal blades from a Dragon’s Tooth, one of the elite PRT troopers equipped by and answering to Dragon herself, he had ripped apart.

“Too old. Should have done this a long time ago.” Defiant had his nanothorn halberd equipped. There would be no holding back or trying to bring the monster in alive, he had more than earned the kill-order placed on him.

Hookwolf laughed in response and threw himself against the hero, shifting his form to avoid hits and try to get around Colin’s guard. Around them, fighting was in full swing, with Dragon's Teeth and Dragon’s reserve suits engaging with the remaining Slaughterhouse Nine, along with a small horde of Bonesaw’s various creations. 

Jack and Bonesaw were at the fore, with the latter hard at work using Tinkertech devices to try to break into the Guild network and get access to Dragon’s vast collection of schematics. The attempts were clumsy, hacking being quite outside Bonesaw’s area of expertise and Dragon had a long history of warding off attempts to do so, though only a few had been bold enough to try to directly attack her mainframe and it was completely plausible that someone at Toybox had been working on something to take her out.

“I wish that we could stay long enough for me to give you a nomination.” Bonesaw spoke in no particular direction but apparently intended it for Dragon. “You killed my last mother so it’s only fair that you replace her, and you make so much cool stuff!”

Colin worried a little that the girl had somehow found out that Dragon was an AI, but her next few words assuaged that fear. “And hey, if you joined us I’m sure I’d be able to fix whatever’s wrong with your body. Won’t you at least think about it?”

“I’m afraid that I have to decline.” Dragon’s voice was exceedingly polite, everything considered, even as she banished Night Hag with a blast of fire from the mouth of one of her machines, destroying her physical form and cleansing the nearby area of her corruption. From what they understood of Night Hag’s powers, this would not be enough to actually kill her properly, since she could reform her body from any area that had been tainted by her presence. It had effectively taken her out of the fight however, as she was forced to return to her lair without anything here to anchor her.

Skinslip and Tormenta Ígnia had been successfully pinned down by the Dragon’s Teeth, with the former in the process of regenerating lost skin after it had been burned away by repeated laser fire and the latter having taken over Burnscar’s role in giving the Slaughterhouse fire support. She was conjuring whirlwinds made out of fire that she threw in the direction of any soldier who poked their head out, scorching the halls of the building in the process.

Even as Colin analysed the battlefield though, he kept the pressure up on Hookwolf, cutting through a grasping arm as he made a lunge against him, then pressing the initiative before he had the chance to regrow it. His weapon was made to fight Endbringers, and even Hookwolf’s high Brute rating was not enough to save him from its bite. Every attack was anticipated, sidestepped and punished. Half his head was cut off, not that the monster seemed to notice, then his second arm even as he was regrowing the first one. Finally, he got the beast pinned to the wall with a well placed stab to the chest.

“Huh. So that’s how it goes?” Hookwolf looked down at where the weapon was stuck, destroying metal faster than he could regenerate it. “Any final words from the conquering hero? Come on, indulge me a little.”

“No.” Colin had no intention of wasting time feeding his opponent’s delusions of being a warrior in some ancient epic. He simply tore his halberd through him from top to bottom, cutting Hookwolf into two almost symmetrical halves.

As soon as he was sure that his enemy was dead and not getting up from that, he moved on to Jack, wasting no time when the success or failure of the day depended on how quickly they dispatched of this attack.

“I have to say, Mannequin must be proud, down in whatever Hell he’s found himself in.” Jack was using his knife to cut and slash Defiant from range, extending his reach through his power. It didn’t hold him back for long though, with his armour tough enough to handle it and his combat algorithms prepared to handle where Jack would attack from next. “You really did take to his teachings on the weaknesses of flesh and the strength in steel, didn’t you?”

Colin didn’t reply. It was a well known pattern of Jack’s to try to use his words to get his enemies off-balance and it was best if he didn’t engage in it and simply focused on getting past him and stopping Bonesaw.

“And not much of a talker either. You really do carry on his legacy. Tell me, how much of your body is machine at this point? Do you even know?” Jack kept talking and smiling even as the fighting continued, though Colin did tune his helmet out so he wouldn’t have to hear it. It was a common tactic of Thinkers such as Tattletale to try to break their enemies with words and he had developed countermeasures to it a long time ago.

…

Come to think of it, there was something not quite right about all of this. Colin had decades of experience fighting some of the worst supervillains out there, training every day to be at peak performance. Even without any of his augments or equipment he’d be able to match any of the Dragon’s Teeth in hand-to-hand combat, and his training standards for them were very high. They were supposed to be well enough trained and equipped that they could handle enemies like the Slaughterhouse Nine without any powers. Add to that how he had augmented strength and speed, armour capable of absorbing most of what Jack threw at him, a weapon that could cut off human limbs just by getting close to them and a combat algorithm that helped him predict his enemy’s next move and he was a very formidable fighter, and he didn’t think he was being too arrogant to hold that opinion.

Jack by contrast fought like a serial killer, not a soldier. He was used to targeting people who were fighting at a severe disadvantage and the way he fought suggested that he had never been properly trained, and had simply cobbled together a fighting style from his years killing people. Bonesaw’s upgrades didn’t put him that far above an unaugmented human in his capabilities and his power amounted to little more than an ability to turn his knife into a gun at will.

And yet , even as they continued to fight, even though objectively Colin should have all the advantages in this confrontation, he could not land a hit on the bastard. Somehow, Jack always managed to narrowly dodge his every attack, reacting faster than he ought to and staying one step ahead of him. Precog? Something like that, maybe. He silently filed the possibility over to Dragon for her consideration and got an agreement on his analysis.

At least the rest of the fight was going well, even if he found it impossible to take Jack down. Bonesaw’s creations were getting cut down, most of them lacking any special powers that would make them capable of taking on Dragon, and one of her suits had time to assist the Dragon’s Teeth against Skinslip and Tormenta Ígnia, being unbothered by the former’s skin wrappings by which he attacked her and resistant to the latter’s firestorms. With them now occupied, the soldiers could move in to help Colin take care of Jack and Bonesaw.

This finally helped break the stalemate Colin was stuck in when Jack got shot in his left arm and Bonesaw had to stop her work to get away from the weapons aimed at her. Lucky hit, or perhaps Jack’s hypothetical Thinker power got overwhelmed having to account for more than one person at a time? Either way, he withdrew with a brief look of surprise at having been hurt at all, and said something to Bonesaw that seemed to be along the lines of ‘let’s run for it’, judging by what they proceeded to do.

With that, the battle was effectively over. Skinslip was already running away and Tormenta Ígnia had gotten crushed by a robotic claw. Bonesaw was sacrificing every one of her remaining minions to cover her and Jack’s escape. They didn’t quite manage to catch up to them, but it was very close and they had cut the Slaughterhouse’s numbers back down to four, which was the lowest it had been since they lost half their number in Brockton Bay.

“How much did they manage to get?” Colin asked once it was clear that they had time to relax.

“More than I would have liked, but less than they would have hoped, I suspect.” Dragon replied. “Nothing that should compromise my suits or my identity, but some of the more basic things like the composition of containment foam.”

He hummed at that. “Would they be able to replicate it?”

“Normally I would say no, most of the things here would be well outside Bonesaw’s field of expertise, and she’s their only Tinker left without Mannequin. However, in theory even a non-Tinker with sufficient knowledge of engineering and my schematics would be able to reproduce many of the things I make. And that’s if they don’t plan on recruiting another Tinker anyway.”

“Or have already done so.” Colin pointed out. “It’s not like we’d have heard of it if they found a Tinker in Tajikistan and are keeping them a secret.” That entire region had been a black hole with regards to news ever since the Soviet-Afghan War.

“Or that I suppose.” She agreed. “Though I doubt that one specifically since I don’t believe that any of them speak Tajik, or other languages that might act as a lingua franca for them such as Russian.”

“Was just an example.”

“I know, and I do agree with your overall point. I’m a lot more limited in what I can keep an eye on outside of countries where the PRT operates.”

He nodded. “Did you get any readings on how this interdimensional technology of theirs works?”

“Oh yes.” Dragon sounded quite happy. “It’s definitely the best result we’ve had so far. It’ll take me some time to see if I can reverse-engineer anything out of it or not but aside from the minor data breach today did go rather well.”

“Agreed. The men did well, few casualties and they even managed to wound Jack, which may help us figure out if he’s been holding out on a Thinker power this whole time.”

“Mhm.” He could hear the smile in her voice. “You’re proud of them, aren’t you?”

“Of course.” Colin considered that self-evident and well earned. “First proper test and they helped us bring down two of these scum and rout the rest, I couldn't have asked for more.”

For such a sudden attack into the heart of Dragon’s domain, things could have gone a lot worse. They had gotten actionable intelligence and forced the enemy back to lick their wounds, it would likely take a while until they had enough numbers to try another larger operation. Though he did wish he knew what they wanted Dragon’s technology for. Nothing good, that went without saying.

Chapter Text

It took us the better part of two days to wrap up all of the loose ends Heartbreaker had left us with, from his two uncaught children to the small cabal of minions who had been plotting to free their master. The man himself had been under lock and key, and controlled by Regent during his waking hours as an additional security measure until the cell custom built for him was finished. It was part of the underground complex that was slowly being built beneath the colony almost everyone was referring to as New Brockton on the other side of the portal in Earth Gimel. Lisa had been particularly vocal about wanting one built and had cajoled Sierra into helping her out with it. Apparently she was still upset that Noelle had exposed and destroyed Coil’s old villainous lair before we had the chance to use it for ourselves, and Lisa really liked the aesthetics of an underground bunker for headquarters. Not that she put it that way, of course. No, it was all because of the security benefits such a thing would provide in case of an attack from above and the secrecy it afforded.

Of course, it was far from finished yet, hence why we kept Heartbreaker in a more regular prison for the time being. It should still hold him well enough though, once you removed the human factor from the equation there was little to the man’s skills or powers that lended itself to a prison break. The main threat was his minions launching a rescue operation from the outside, hence why we were being so thorough in scouring the city of them.

Still, it did mean that it took a while before everyone was available to sit down and have a proper discussion on where to move forward from this. Almost everyone, at least. Brian was still in hospital after his fight with Jack, but at least he was stable which was a relief. The rest of us were present though, even if Lisa had a pretty nasty headache from her extensive use of her power over these couple of days.

“Order, order!” I wasn’t sure where Aisha had gotten a gavel from, but she had appeared right next to Lily with it. “I hereby call this court into session!”

“Yes, thank you, Aisha.” Lisa winced at how loud Aisha was being, looking like her headache had just increased in intensity by several notches. Lily as well was glaring at Aisha, having jumped at her appearance and the sudden loud noise right beside her. Aisha herself looked completely unrepentant to the looks she was given.

“Let’s start with the most important thing that needs to be addressed: Heartbreaker’s kids.” I began. “Right now we’ve got a dozen mostly preteen kids, the majority of whom have parahuman powers and all of whom are incredibly socially maladjusted.”

“She means that they’re tiny little shits.” Alec ‘translated’ for me to Aisha.

“Yes, that was the gist of it.” I said dryly. “So we kind of have to figure out what to do with them long term.”

There were unsure murmurs all around at that. “... Adoption?” Sabah suggested weakly.

“I’m sure that’ll get a lot of volunteers.” Alec scoffed. “‘Get your own Vasil in your household today!’ The only people insane enough to do that would be those looking to exploit them for their powers.”

“Charlotte’s orphanage might be willing.” I felt bad about the idea of giving Charlotte even more work, but it seemed to have worked for the Lost Garden kids at least.

“I pity the other orphans.” Was his response. “I mean, not really. They probably did something to deserve getting into the family games.”

“Ah, so you’re saying that only a Vasil would be capable of handling a Vasil?” Lisa smirked at him.

“... I don’t like where this is going.” He was suddenly a lot less casual and more guarded.

“Well, it sounds like you don’t think that any individual family could handle them, and that regular foster care would endanger other children. So we need someone knowing what they’d get up to and able to handle their powers. Really, you’re practically volunteering yourself, leaving it the only remaining solution.” Lisa looked like she had completely forgotten about her headache upon seeing the aggrieved look she was getting.

“Not true. We could also kick them out and make them somebody else’s problem.” Alec deadpanned.

“That sounds like something that would eventually return to being our problem later down the line.” I countered. It went against my idea of rehabilitating Heartbreaker’s victims and was far too dangerous and wasteful of valuable assets besides.

“Maybe it’d do him good to actually have to be responsible too.” Lily muttered.

“I can’t believe you all think that this is a good idea. I don’t have a single nurturing bone in my body.”

“I could help.” Aisha suggested, which caught everyone by surprise. “What?” She looked offended at the stares she was given. “I’m great with kids.”

It was clear that nobody believed her about that, though Lisa did get a thoughtful look to herself. “I suppose you’ve already proven that your power works as a good counter to Alec’s, and they might listen more to you than someone… Stricter.”

Aisha looked like she was about to be offended, but then shrugged. “Eh, I’ll take it. I’ll be like their cool aunt.”

“Aren’t you the same age as many of them?” Asked Rachel.

“Being the cool aunt isn’t about numbers, it’s all in the state of mind.” She nodded sagely to herself.

“Alec and Aisha do have the freest schedules of us all right now.” It had been an issue for me finding things for them to do, it was why I had made them Brian’s responsibility in the first place, so this looked like it might kill two birds in one stone. “Could be good for them.”

“Et tu, Aisha?” Alec gave her a look of mock dismay. “But I liked having all that free time. Is this what growing up is like? Because if so it sucks.”

“At least you get spared from having to do paperwork.” I was feeling somewhat amused at how melodramatic he was being. “Trust me. It could be worse.”

“Wow. Inspiring words from our great leader there.” He rolled his eyes. “Fine, I’ll help look after the brats, but don’t blame me when it doesn’t work out.”

“Your noble sacrifice is greatly appreciated.” Lisa smiled at him.

“Fuck you too, Lisa.” He chuckled. “Hey, do I get to at least spank them when they misbehave?”

“I think that’d be counterproductive to helping them grow out of their father’s shadow.” Sabah looked a little worried at the thought.

“You guys are really boring sometimes. I guess I still get to lord the fact that I’m at the top of the pecking order over them.” Alec seemed to be cheering himself up at the idea. “I could be so petty if I wanted to.”

I sighed. “I can’t believe that I’m saying this, but Aisha, please keep an eye on Alec so that he doesn’t do anything stupid?”

“You can count on me, supreme boss lady!” She gave a mock salute.

I must have gone mad at some point in my career, to be relying on Aisha to provide responsibility. It was the only explanation I could think of.

“Moving on.” Lisa took command over the discussion. “Got some news on what our beloved Slaughterhouse Nine have been up to since they were so busy they couldn’t spare more than one to help their quote, unquote ‘ally’.” She actually made air quotes with her fingers. “Apparently they hadn’t gotten the memo that attacking a Tinker in their own base is really fucking stupid and went after Dragon herself on her home turf. Got their asses kicked so bad they’re back down to four again. That nine in their name is becoming really non-indicative at this point.”

“Good riddance.” Rachel said.

“Oh, you’ll like this one, Rach. One of their dead was Hookwolf.”

She got a feral grin at that. Hookwolf had easily been the Brockton Cape she hated the most, despite what his name might imply, due to his dogfighting rings.

“I don’t suppose we’d be so lucky as to have Jack numbered among the dead as well?” I asked.

“Afraid not. Actually got some interesting information about old Jacky boy from it. Apparently Defiant fought him and is pretty sure that he’s some kind of combat Thinker and that’s what’s been keeping him alive for this long. He’s not sure of the mechanics of it yet, but thinks it might be limited to just one person at a time that he can keep from harming him.”

“Should you really try to hack Guild intelligence from the fight in your current state?” I gave Lisa a worried look. She did have a habit of overworking her power in a way that seemed harmful to her health.

“Appreciate the sentiment, but this wasn’t any hacking on my part.” She smiled, more an expression of contentment than her usual smug grin. “Dragon herself forwarded this information to people who might have to face Jack. Said the information was too important to be hoarded.”

“It would explain how he keeps escaping every time. And it fits with the way he always tries to isolate his victims.” Lily nodded to this. “I don’t remember if I’ve seen multiple people fighting him at the same time, he always runs away if the battle has turned that far against him.”

“I could ask Brian the next time I see him.” I mused out loud. Part of me wanted to see him at the hospital to have a proper talk about things anyway, and this seemed like a good excuse to crush the cowardly part of me that wanted to postpone it indefinitely. “He might know more.”

“Wait, I’m confused.” Said Sabah. “Why would Brian know something about this that the rest of us don’t?”

“He’s a Trump.” Explained Lisa. “After his Second Trigger, he can steal a little bit of people’s power for a while when they’re in his darkness. He fought Jack inside of it, so he would get a sense if there was a Thinker power involved. It could also explain how he survived that fight, if the power is specifically oriented around stopping people from killing you.”

“Oh. That seems useful.”

“The problem, as far as I understand it, is that not only is his version weaker than the normal one, but it doesn’t come with the same kind of ‘instruction manual’ for him as it would someone who had it as part of their actual powers.” I thought back to the issues when he tried to copy Panacea’s powers. 

“Still, it couldn’t hurt.” Said Lisa. “Right, that was what I wanted to bring to the table, so if you’ll excuse me I’m going to find a very dark room to lie down in. And Aisha? If the lamps turn on on their own I’ll know it was you, and I will murder you. Ta ta.”

She left, leaving Aisha looking very conflicted. “Now that’s just a challenge if I ever heard one. She wouldn’t actually do it, would she?”

I sighed. “Don’t annoy the Thinker, Aisha. They will have their revenge when you least see it coming.”

—

The rest of the meeting wasn’t much special, mostly just people talking about falling back into the rhythm of things. Sabah explained how her business had been doing for anyone who was interested, which admittedly was just Lily and myself, but still. It felt nice that she was starting to more actively participate in group discussions. The silk I was providing her had been tremendously useful for sales, and not just due to its resilient qualities. Clothes made out of spider silk were an exotic novelty, and those always seemed to appeal to a richer clientele. 

A lot of it honestly went over my head, but I liked to hear that she was putting good use to what I provided. One small step in restoring the economy from everything that had happened. I took my leave eventually though since I wanted to check in on how Brian was doing. I owed him that much since he’d been injured while under my leadership.

I usually kept my mask on these days when walking through town unless I was actively trying to not be Skitter. The attack during my jog had scarred me more than I thought it would, and I felt safer with my suit on, due to the psychological aspect as much as any protective qualities it provided. I was in control as Skitter in a way I wasn’t as Taylor Hebert and people were less likely to start trouble around me like this. With that said, I still tried to keep out of sight and stick to the shadows where I went because while these people may not hurt me directly, I wasn’t too interested in letting them map out all the places I went to.

In this case, there was no point leading anyone with ill intent directly to the clinic where Brian was being treated, one of those that we ‘inherited’ from Coil. We could hardly take him to a public hospital, this was safer.

It did mean that he was the only patient currently interred here as well, so finding him wasn’t exactly difficult once I entered the place. He was still badly bruised from the fight with Jack, but appeared to be awake and fully alert.

“Hey.” I took my mask off when entering the room and sat down.

“Hi.” A small smile played on his lips. It wasn’t the wide grins I had been used to when I first met him, but it was something.

“How are you feeling?”

“Like shit.” His smile became a bit wry. “Hurts all over and it feels like my organs don’t function properly right now, but I’ll manage.”

“Right.” There was a pause while I thought of what to say next that dragged on for long enough to become awkward. “I’m sorry.”

“It happens.” He waved me off, though the action brought forth a grimace of pain. “We’ve had worse before and we still pulled through, didn’t we?”

“No, not that. Well, mostly not that.” I shook my head. “I just feel like I’ve done nothing but hurt you lately. Breaking up with you, leaving everyone, all of it.”

“Ah.” He took a deep breath through his nose. “You shouldn’t feel guilty about the breakup. It was a mutual choice and, I think, the right one.”

I couldn’t help but notice how he left the validity of my guilt over the other thing unsaid.

“Maybe.” I sighed. “Just been feeling like I left things on a bad note. I did enjoy our time together, just so you know.”

“I know. And I think it helped me get out of my…” He paused to search for the right word. “My malaise I guess.”

I didn’t wish to talk too much on that particular topic, anything regarding what had brought him to his low point during that time was very sensitive. Instead I just said, “I’m glad. Part of me had worried that you just… Felt obliged or something.”

It had been an all too insistent thought that he only did it due to pity, or because he didn’t feel in a position to refuse. I shifted uncomfortably in my chair upon airing it, because such an admission felt deeply wrong to say out loud, like it’d make it more real somehow. And short though our relationship had been, I wanted it to be remembered as a good one. My eyes were downcast and I had already begun regretting saying anything. It seemed like I had been navigating a minefield and just stepped on one of the mines.

“No, genuinely I appreciated our time together.” He smiled wanly at me again. “I’m just sorry I couldn’t be what you wanted me to be.”

“Me too. About appreciating our time together I mean. I don’t think it’s your fault it ended. Not that you were saying it was, but…” I felt like I was just digging myself deeper and promptly shut up.

Luckily, Brian didn’t seem to take any offense. “It’s nice to just talk again.” He said, apropos nothing.

“Yeah.” I agreed, before adding. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine. You’re here now, and if it makes you feel better you’re one of the first people to visit me so far.”

“I’m guessing Aisha beat me to it.”

“Naturally. You wouldn’t believe the things she called me.”

“Knowing her, I probably would.”

“I’d dearly like to know where she learned that kind of language from.” He seemed more amused than mad though. “El- Cozen also came by. She seems like a good sort.”

“Did she now?” I tried to keep my voice neutral. It would be petty and spiteful of me to be jealous just because a much prettier girl than I seemed to be interested in Brian. It’s not like we were a couple any more. I wasn’t going to resent her just because he appeared to like her.

… Well fine, maybe just a little bit. She’d manage.

“Yeah.” Brian appeared oblivious to my sudden annoyance. “We talked a little about life and such, as well as work. She wondered if we could show her team some of the things we’ve learned sometime.”

“I’m sure that could be arranged.” I said, ever so slightly frosty. Judging by how he had completely missed my attraction to him initially, Brian was probably just mentioning it as an innocent opportunity for inter-team bonding. But to have brought it up just after we had talked about our past relationship still got a little on my nerves. Then again, maybe I was just seeing things that weren’t there.

Nevertheless, I was quite keen to change the subject. “Hey, wanted to ask you something while I was here.”

“Yeah?”

“During your fight with Jack, while he was in your darkness, did you steal some of his power?”

“A little, but I wasn’t brandishing knives so it wasn’t like it mattered other than to weaken him a tiny bit.” He looked questioningly at me. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, there’s a theory that was forwarded to us by Dragon, that Jack has a secondary Thinker power that’s keeping him alive. And it makes a lot of sense when you think about how many fights he’s survived that his much stronger team mates haven’t, which made me think that you might be able to verify it.”

“Ah.” He considered the question. “... Maybe? There wasn’t something I seemed to be able to consciously use, but I was a little bit distracted fighting for my life. Unconsciously, who knows? Perhaps I did have faster reflexes in that fight, saw his moves earlier than I otherwise would have, or maybe it was all just adrenaline and I’m now engaging in confirmation bias.”

I frowned. “Shame, would have been good to know one way or another.”

“Sorry I couldn’t be of more help. If you’re right and this power is real I only held it briefly before he took me down and that was with a weakened version.”

“It’s okay, I think it’s safest if we assume that he is actually a Thinker until proven otherwise. It… Fits, I think.”

“That it does.” Something about that seemed to have reminded him of something. “Congratulations with Lisa by the way.”

“Hm?” This sudden non-sequitur left me rather confused. “About what?”

“Oh.” He faltered in the face of my blank look. “Uh… Never mind. Forget I said anything.”

“... Okay?” I was still very nonplussed about this change in topic but decided to leave it be. “Well, I’m glad you’re feeling better. Also you should know we put Alec in charge of taking care of his siblings for the time being.”

He actually chuckled at that. “That’s got to be some kind of ironic hell for him. Having to manage a bunch of kids who are just like him.”

“He wasn’t exactly pleased with his new responsibilities.” I smiled with him. “But I think it could do him some good and he’s honestly the best equipped to handle them. Aisha volunteered to help him as well.”

“Oh God.” That made him sigh. “I bet that’ll be interesting.”

—

I felt a lot lighter when I exited the clinic at the end of the afternoon. Okay for a given value of ‘okay’. Actually talking to Brian had been helpful, though it did leave me stuck with a brain making snarky comments about how obvious that should have been. At least it was an improvement to when it suggested I abuse my authority to arrange for Cozen’s death merely on a jealous impulse, stupid organ. It’s a wonder people put up with them sometimes.

Speaking of my authority, I might need to have another talk with Charlotte about tasteful usage of my personal tag because it was getting sprayed all over the place lately, with some cheeky people (I instinctively assumed Aisha was involved) adding ominous messages to it about how I was going to come and get the reader. It was a bit tacky in my opinion, and I didn’t really like the idea of my reputation being abused to mess with people.

It reminded me though of the fact that I probably should roll back on some of the surveillance I had been employing now that the crisis was over. Probably. Although… It was still quite useful for keeping order against regular crime. Many of the people keeping grenades hadn’t even been associated with Heartbringer for example. And it held a preemptive purpose, who knows how many people I could have saved if I already kept everything under full watch instead of only acting after he had made his move? I didn’t like it, but there was a certain sense to it, especially with how much work had already been put into the matter.

Ultimately, I resolved that there was no need to make a hasty decision, and I had time to think about the matter before I acted. It was better to leave things as they were for now until I had properly considered the question and asked for the advice of relevant people. It made me feel a little guilty, but I had done worse before, and the safety of the people of Brockton was paramount.

Even if not all of them agreed with the choices I made for their sake.

Chapter Text

The following days were very quiet, all things considered, which suited me just fine. While human memories may be short, and doubtless some fool would eventually try to challenge me again, none were keen to incur my wrath at the moment. My swarm had alerted me to two attempted burglaries and one mugging, which were dealt with without me ever needing to appear at the scene of the crime, but that was absolutely nothing by Brockton Bay standards. The city was calm, peaceful and orderly, things that hadn’t been true in a very long time. 

Lisa had finally recovered from her migraine after she overused her power wrapping up all the remaining traces of Heartbreaker in the city, and we were celebrating that by having another outing in town. The fact that she insisted, yet again, to go clothes shopping did put a bit of a damper on my enthusiasm, but it was honestly fine even if I didn’t enjoy it the way she did.

No one had disturbed us so far, most people seemed keen to keep their distance from me. Fine by me, I preferred to keep the amount of people I had to interact with to the minimum anyway and as long as people chose to express their apparent fear of me by backing away I did not have an issue.

“It’s fine to be annoyed at the fact that people are scared of you, you know?” Lisa interrupted my line of thought, having apparently guessed where it was going.

“I’m not annoyed.” I said, a little testily. “I like not having to deal with crowds.”

“Uhuh.” She nodded, looking deeply unconvinced. “I’m sure you just love social isolation and feeling like a pariah.”

“It’s not like that.” I muttered. I could see where she was heading towards, and I did not like it in the least.

“No? Are you honestly telling me you’re not just the tiniest bit resentful of the fact that they don’t appreciate what you’ve done for them?”

“When you put it like that I guess.” Her highlighting these feelings did not improve my mood. “Is this going anywhere, Lisa?”

“I was going to suggest we head down to the Boardwalk, where you might find a somewhat warmer welcome unless I’m mistaken. I also figured we could talk about the ways you want to project your image and how to do so.”

“Fine. I just don’t get why they act like I might attack them at any moment. I’m not some psychotic killer who will lash out against innocents for no reason.”

“Do they know that though?” At my questioning look she elaborated. “Look, when does Skitter get onto the news? When you’re fighting people, intimidating them or otherwise being absolutely terrifying.”

“Yeah, but only to people who are my enemies.” I said a bit defensively, even if I saw where she was getting at. “I’m not the Butcher, I don’t go after random people on the street.”

Lisa gave me a long-suffering look. “Honey, when you put on that persona even your allies get scared, let alone bystanders who’ve never participated in a real fight. Your public debut involved you putting black widows on hostages.”

“Which I never used!” I protested.

“But you convinced them that you would if they did something wrong. That’s their first impression of you.”

“Fine.” I grudgingly acknowledged her point. “Suppose I can be a little scary as Skitter, but I’m not wearing the mask right now and-”

“There’s photage of you killing Tagg and Alexandria, the woman who’s been touted as invincible for decades, without a mask.” She interrupted me.

“They provoked me.” That defence sounded feeble even to my ears though.

“And what does your average guy know about what does and does not provoke you? You’re a question mark, a mystery. Which isn’t a bad thing either.” She added. “Keeping yourself aloof and mysterious is good for being intimidating, but not if you want to be approachable.”

I didn’t speak, waiting for her to get to the point she was reaching for.

“What I mean is, it’s okay if you want to be all menace and terror, knowing that fear is kind of indiscriminate and accepting that. Or you can try to be less scary if you want people to be comfortable around you, but you have to make a sacrifice either way.”

“I just want people to know that I’ll protect them from those that would harm them while watching so that they don’t harm others.” Maybe it was vain of me to think so, but it seemed like something that ought to be achievable.

Lisa smirked at me. “There are those out there who’d be affronted at such levels of paternalism from a teenage girl.”

“I’m sure that there are.” My voice was very dry. “It’s implied in the very name.”

“It’s not impossible though but there’s a fine balancing act involved. And I think we need more of Skitter helping orphanages and less of her devouring her enemies if we want that image.”

I eyed her at that. “I don’t suppose that’s coincidental to our current destination?”

“What can I say? I’m great at combining multiple objectives.” She smiled very smugly.

“And humble too.”

“Incredibly.”

We walked in amicable silence after that, while I mulled on her words. A thought struck me though while my mind was on the subject. “Hey, Lisa?”

“Oh no.” Despite that response she was still smiling, which I took as permission to continue.

“Why do you go out with me? Won’t it undermine your own secret identity if people see us together? They already know who I am and it doesn’t take a genius to extrapolate that you might be one of my teammates.”

“Ah.” She hesitated briefly. “I don’t suppose I can convince you that I never thought of that?”

“Unlikely.”

“Thought not. Look, my civilian identity as ‘Lisa Wilbourn’ has been eroding for a while now. Some of it due to you being outed, we had been seen together before then, some of it just because of the line of work we’re in. And I’m honestly fine with that. I don’t have any friends or family I need to protect and I’m basically untouchable right now. So I’m not losing too much from doing this and I think it’s worth it.”

“Oh, okay.”

“... Just ‘okay’?” She put on an annoyed face. “You could at least have a bit more of a reaction than that.”

“I thought you said it wasn’t a big deal and I wasn’t supposed to make one out of it?” I looked at her innocently.

“Yes, but it’s basic reverse psychology! You’re supposed to reassure me that it’s a great and touching sacrifice I’m making for you.”

“No, I think you’re right.” I said blithely. “It makes sense that you wouldn’t really lose too much from going out with me so I get why you choose to do so.”

Lisa pouted at me. “You’re no fun at all.”

“Sorry.” I said, not feeling in the least bit sorry. “I guess your arguments are just too convincing.”

“It’s a terrible burden I must bear.” She snarked.

“I can only imagine.”

—

We continued with such relatively lighthearted banter while we made our way to the Boardwalk, when all of a sudden Lisa turned to me with a much more serious look on her face. “Anyone within earshot?”

There was no one close enough to listen to what we were saying, people wanting to keep their distance had its benefits and I strongly suspected she had waited with doing this until we were in the clear. Which meant that what she really asked was if my bugs could detect anyone or anything spying on us right now.

“Nothing. Is it not better to do this back at base?” It wasn’t a far leap to assume that she intended to talk business if she wanted to make sure we weren’t overheard.

“Best not, just in case Accord has managed to figure out a way to bug the place in a way I won’t detect.”

I raised an eyebrow at that. 

“Accord’s been breaking the rules.” She explained. “He’s not done anything directly against us yet, and he’s kept it outside the city as far as I know, so it’s both harder to track and something he could argue doesn’t apply on a technicality, but he has.”

“What has he done?” While I knew of Lisa’s strong antipathy for Accord, I doubted she’d make these accusations without good reason.

“Ordered the assassination of people who’ve wronged him for starters. I’ll admit some of those have benefited us.” She added grudgingly. “But the fact is he has been killing people without first acquiring permission, which is a breach of contract.”

“So he’s skirting around the letter of the rules he agreed upon when he came here, but could argue by technicalities that those only apply within Brockton Bay? Meanwhile he’s definitely not adhering to the spirit of them, but still more or less acting in our best interest?” It wasn’t great to hear but the way Tattletale, as my mind was starting to think of her as now that we were discussing cape matters, spoke she suspected active conspiracy.

“It’s not much yet.” She admitted. “But he’s been growing bolder and signs point that he’s starting to test our limits. He’s plotting something, of that I’m sure.”

“Naturally. It’s in his nature, right?”

“It is.” She agreed. “Based on the signs he’s given he plans on taking over from within, while bringing us in line with how he works. He’s still displeased about when you turned yourself in to the Protectorate, and has taken a much more active role in trying to steer the decisions we make.”

“What do you want me to do about this, Lisa? There’s not much he can really be accused of, and I don’t think it’d be worth it to make an enemy of him just as we finally have some peace and quiet again.”

“I agree, but I wanted you to be informed and keep your eyes open. If I’m right, and I usually am, he’s trying to co-opt the Undersiders and sink his claws into all of our businesses until we all dance to his tune. Although…” And now her smirk returned. “I think he’s hit a bit of a snag in that plan.”

“Oh?”

“Remember how I suspected that Cauldron’s been taken out in an Endbringer attack? I’m almost dead certain at this point, and that means that poor Accord has lost his sponsor, and his easy access to their power granting abilities. The abilities he’s been using to rapidly replenish his numbers with.” Her smirk turned snide. “Poor thing will now have to contend himself with us filthy natural triggers if he wants cape recruits, instead of his factory produced minions.”

I thought about the psychiatric profile of the average cape. “You know, I have a hard time imagining him being able to get along with most of those.”

“Puts a bit of a damper on his efforts to exceed us in numbers, doesn’t it?” She said very smugly.

“Not that he’s very far away from it as it is.” I was coming to a decision on the matter. “Don’t do anything against him yet, but do try to figure out if he’s actually looking to undermine us or he’s just trying to flex his own power.”

“He’s going to make countermeasures, you know? His power is perfectly suited to just adding ‘make sure Tattletale doesn’t find out about this’ to any plans he wants to create and it’ll make him smart enough to figure out how to do so.”

“You’re saying his Thinker power would be able to outwit yours?” I asked mildly.

Lisa looked terribly affronted. “You did not just say that!” She said with a tone that suggested I had just mortally offended her. “Oh it’s on now.”

“Hey, I’m just motivating my subordinates.” I did not want to admit how amusing I found baiting Lisa like this to be.

“And now you’re calling me predictable too.” She huffed, though I could tell she was also getting a kick out of this.

“You said it, not me.”

“You know I’m going to make you pay for this?” She gestured that we could continue walking now that the top secret subject was dealt with. “I’m going to have to figure out the appropriate punishment for insulting my intellect. Maybe I’ll hack your PHO account and post all of your most embarrassing secrets to the world. Like…” She frowned as she appeared to go through a mental list. “No. No. No. Damn it all! Why do all of the things you can think of have to be so traumatic? I just wanted some cringeworthy stories to tattle about.”

“Terribly sorry to disappoint you.” My voice was as dry as a desert. “I wouldn’t have gone through that if I knew it would inconvenience you.”

“I’m going to wring that red-haired bitch’s neck.” Lisa sulked. “Can’t use a single school memory to tease you without feeling awful because of her.”

“Better luck next time.”

She sighed melodramatically over her plight. “I think our monopoly on Earth Gimel may be coming to an end too. Faulty and company have started offering up their services in making portals to other Earths to those willing to pay them, taking advantage of my brilliance without giving me any credit.”

“Shame. I liked being able to truthfully call myself the undisputed ruler of Earth.” I smiled slightly. It was a silly thought but I kind of enjoyed it.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to crush any usurpers to the title, my queen.” Lisa’s face turned more serious. “Honestly, it could be dangerous if it started to grow unhindered. We’ve got treaties with Earth Aleph in place to limit the cross-contamination between our worlds for a good reason, and they’re pretty ‘close’ to us as a whole. If some idiot opens up a portal to some sci-fi Earth that’s much more advanced than ours and we get invaded I’ll be terribly cross.”

“Could such a place exist?” So far the few Earths I knew of, which was admittedly an incredibly pitiful sample size, seemed to be either depopulated or roughly similar to our own. “And, well, more importantly could it be reached?”

“Probably? I mean I’m no expert on how it all works but let’s say there’s an Earth where humanity began the bronze age a thousand years before us. They’ve got a thousand years of headstart to us in terms of technology. If they kept the same pace then for all intents and purposes they’d be a thousand years in the future. Would probably make our Tinkertech look outright primitive.”

“And there’s nothing stopping us from connecting with such ‘dimensionally distant’ places?” I got what she said logically, but intuitively I felt like if such alien places existed we’d have found one already.

Lisa shrugged. “Not as far as I know.”

“Maybe Cauldron sent their boogeyman to stop anyone who would have done it?”

“Possibly, but at this point I don’t have any information to work with so it’s not like I could use my power to verify this theory.”

“Hm.” I looked out over the bay, which still bore the marks of the battle with Leviathan. “Sobering thought though.”

“Yeah.” She shuddered slightly, and I didn’t think it was due to the cool sea breeze. “I don’t regret what I did, it helped with Echidna and gave Brockton Bay a reason to exist again despite everything. But sometimes I feel like I’ve just let the genie out of the bottle.”

—

Our act of broodingly looking out at sea, which for the record looked like a romanticist painting and not just two angsty teenagers, was interrupted by the phone. Scourge of all poignant moments that it was, it had chosen this time to alert me that Charlotte had sent me a couple of messages. 

‘Newcomer’

‘Claims to be dad’

‘Balding with glasses’

‘What to do?’

Lisa did not need to read the text messages themselves to get the gist of what had been said. She surmised what had been said from my face alone. “Shit. Right, this one was actually a coincidence, I did not plan for this to happen while we were here.”

“It’s actually him then?” I groaned. The last time I had talked to my dad had not gone well. Or the time before that. Or the one before then either.

“Probably.” She gave me an apologetic look. “You want to reschedule things or..?”

“No, no it’s fine. I’ll deal with this.” I typed up a quick response to Charlotte.

‘Be there in five minutes.’

“Look on the bright side. Him going out of his way to find you is probably a good sign.” She tried to reassure me.

“Yeah, I suppose.” I sighed though, despite that. Infamous supervillain I may be, I still found it difficult talking to my own father.

Admittedly, being an infamous supervillain did not actually help me in this particular endeavour.

It didn’t take long to arrive at the orphanage, and there indeed was Danny Hebert sitting and waiting for us, Charlotte looking nervous beside him. He looked up at the sound of the door opening and closing. “Taylor.” a wan smile.

“Hi, dad.” I folded my arms protectively around myself. “Why are you here?”

“Is it that hard to believe I wanted to see my only daughter?” He chuckled bitterly. “Please don’t answer that. I asked around and this seemed like the best place to find you.”

“Right. Mission accomplished I guess.” I hated this. Why did communicating have to be so hard? I drew a blank on what to say next.

Lisa came to my rescue. “Mr Hebert, so good to see you again.” She smiled pleasantly at him. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

“Lisa.” He said curtly, apparently remembering her from when she and Brian had brought me back in a concussed state courtesy of Bakuda. By the tone he was using he had evidently put two and two together about who she was and her role in all of this since then.

Lisa mouthed ‘told you so’ to me, before turning back to Danny, still clearly trying to be on her best behaviour. “How have you been? Are the dockworkers doing well?”

The corner of his mouth twisted upwards a little. “I imagine you know about how they’re doing even better than I am. A lot more shipping nowadays than there have been in decades so for once we’ve had no end of work. It’s been… Good, in that sense I suppose.”

“We do provide some rather unique investment opportunities at the moment.” She smiled. “A lot of people all over the world want to get in there before their competitors do.”

“I can imagine.”

Personally, I was staying out of this conversation. My ability to small talk with my dad had atrophied into almost nothing since mom died, and I much preferred that the subject be kept to small talk instead of something heavier. Instead, I turned to Charlotte. “Is everything going okay with the kids? We were in the area and figured we could check if you needed help even before you texted me.”

“Oh!” She was pulled out of awkwardly looking at my father by my voice. “Not as such. We’ve got the resources we need, but I’m sure that they’d love to have you around, they’re big fans, most of them.”

“Cool.” The opportunity to extract myself had presented itself. “Any chores I should see to?”

“You want to help out sweeping the floors?” The floors did not look like they were in that much of a need of sweeping, but I took the offer for what it provided.

“I’d love to.” I smiled and got to work. The broom I was provided was honestly secondary to the assistance my bugs provided. Not only could they find any dust or dirt far more efficiently than a single set of human eyes might, but they could also reach into places that otherwise would have needed furniture moved to access. Before long I had long processions of ants and other critters either eating or taking out anything they could find.

It did however distract dad from his talk with Lisa about the way that foreign companies were simultaneously both good and bad, improving trade while also buying up land from people at bargain prices and outcompeting the struggling local businesses. He looked at the marching line of ants carrying out dust from a cupboard to be disposed of with fascination.

“Do you control them all manually or just give general orders that they follow to the best of their ability?” He asked.

“Uhm.” I was momentarily stumped by the fact that I hadn’t expected him to ask a question like that. “Former. I’m currently micromanaging every insect simultaneously. It’s just something that my power lets me handle I guess.”

“Huh.” He whistled slightly. “Who would have thought I’d raise the world’s most efficient foreman?”

I twisted awkwardly, not 100 % sure that was a compliment. “Yeah, I guess.”

There was a pause while neither of us knew what to say next, until Lisa intervened again. She really was doing the heavy lifting in being social here. “She also has a natural understanding of the biology of any insect she controls, knows exactly where they all are and can use their senses all at the same time. And she could do this with trillions of them without any issue.” 

“Mustn’t that be terribly disorienting? Can you turn it off?” Dad raised his eyebrows at this information.

“... Not really.” I didn’t meet his eyes, focusing on sweeping the floor even though my minions were doing a better job of it than I was. “It’s just always on. Took me a while to get used to, but nowadays I barely need to think about it.”

“She’s also an amazing multitasker as a side effect.” Added Lisa. “Probably the best one in the entire world. Give her the tools and she could do a million things at once.”

My bugs were attracting some of the kids as well, who looked curiously at the things and were figuring out what they were doing before following them back to the source. Aiden was the first of them to realise what was happening, though I wasn’t sure if that was coincidental or if he just had greater awareness about these things. He seemed more interested in inspecting the ants than talking to the (relative) adults though, making Meira the first to check inside.

“Hello.” She hovered around the half-opened door, nervous around strangers. She shot several suspicious looks at my dad in particular. 

“Hi, Meira.” I waved at her. “You’ve been doing okay?”

She nodded mutely. 

Lisa looked between Meira and my dad, apparently realised something and turned to me. “Taylor, maybe you could have a few of your bugs entertain the kids? Outside?”

“Sure?” I wasn’t sure why this was important but it wasn’t hard to do. “I’ll talk to you some other time, Meira. Uhm, have fun.”

“It’s nothing personal, Mr Hebert, I can assure you.” Lisa said to my dad. “But some of the orphans around here have… Let’s call it bad experiences with middle aged men.”

“Ah.” His face darkened at the implication. I could see the signs of when he was actively trying to control his rage. “Common issue?”

“Not any more, it’s not.” Her polite mask dropped briefly to show a look of self-satisfied vindictiveness. 

“I see.” He gave her a questioning look but chose not to delve further into the subject.

“Started collecting them after Leviathan.” I explained. I really wanted him to see the brighter side of my work. “Charlotte’s been helping since we rescued her from the Merchants.”

Dad didn’t respond, he just hummed noncommittally. Charlotte meanwhile looked uneasy at the mention of the Merchants and busied herself with going to check that the children didn’t start eating my bugs or something. I could have told her it wasn’t the case, but I supposed it was more that she wanted to get out of an uncomfortable conversation. I couldn’t blame her, I would have done the same if I wasn’t expected to talk to my own father.

“I know you don’t approve of your daughter’s choice of career, Mr Hebert, but she’s worked hard to give back to the community.” Lisa said very gently. “You have no idea how hard it is for me to get her to spend some of her ill-gotten gains on herself instead of investing them into helping people rebuild.”

She was laying it on very thick in my opinion, but it appeared to be working, judging by how uncomfortable he was getting.

“Your daughter does get into dangerous scrapes every now and then, but her power lets her keep herself to a distance more than most and it’s becoming less common now that all the gangs have been driven out of the city.” A devilish grin briefly played on Lisa’s lips, before she schooled her face once more into concerned sympathy.

Danny however did not seem to have caught it. “I’m glad. I suppose.” He said, hesitantly. “I just want her to be safe and not have to… Absorb the cruelty of this world.”

“Of course, Mr Hebert. As any father might, you want what’s best for her.” I watched with no small amount of fascination as Lisa spoke, carrying an air of someone who is about to deliver their coup de grâce even though her tone was gentle and kind. “I won’t lie and claim that cape life doesn’t carry many dangers, but you have to understand the deep psychological need for all parahumans to exercise their powers regularly. Taylor was doomed to be unable to live a normal life from the moment she got her powers, and if she has to be a cape, isn’t it better to have friends close by who you can trust to back you up?”

“When you put it that way…” He didn’t seem to know how to counter that argument. “And no need to be so formal. I’ve already told you once before you can call me Danny.”

“Of course, Danny.” Lisa laughed lightly. “I didn’t want to impose. I understand if you might disapprove of me for my role in Taylor’s life but I promise you I’ve only ever wanted what’s best for her.”

From there she got him to ask a little about the kids at the orphanage, which Charlotte was all too happy to talk about. She had gotten comfortably into the conversation once it had moved on from being about myself and was happy to talk about her work. Though she neglected to mention the work she did for my criminal empire, which was fair enough.

I myself was mostly quiet. Even after Lisa had relaxed the atmosphere, I just felt at a loss as to what to say and dreadfully scared that I might do something that would ruin everything yet again. I only spoke when spoken too, and even then I kept my sentences short and to the point. I didn’t want to be rude but my anxiety was working overtime.

When it was time for dad to go he looked like he wanted to hug me, but then hesitated. “Well… Take care, Taylor.” He awkwardly shook my hand.

“Yeah… You too, dad.” I was looking down on the floor rather than meeting his eyes.

“Nice seeing you again, Danny.” Lisa was still all smiles.

After he had left, when we too were saying our goodbyes to Charlotte and her charges before leaving for the night, I turned to Lisa. “That was pretty manipulative of you.”

Far from looking contrite, she had a smug look on her face as we left. “Name a single lie I said to him.”

“That’s not the point.” I huffed. “You were clearly cold reading him and telling him what he wanted to hear.”

“And what’s wrong with that? He wanted a reason to accept what you’re currently doing, I just provided him with one. Now he’ll be happier because he feels like he can reconnect with you and you’ll be happier because you feel supported by him like you wanted. Everyone wins.”

“It feels dishonest, somehow.”

“More dishonest than not telling him anything in the first place?”

“... Point taken. At least promise me you did not actually plan for him to come over while we were here.”

“I swear, hand on my heart, I had nothing to do with it.”  She solemnly put a hand on her chest in demonstration. “He was here because he’d been worried sick after Heartbreaker attacked whether you were doing fine, physically and emotionally. He’d asked one of his work buddies, I expect, who told him that you used to hang out around here.”

“Right.” I hadn’t wanted to suspect Lisa of manipulating circumstances to ‘fix’ things, but there was that gnawing bit of distrust and unease that seemed to rear its head whenever events occurred outside of my control. “In that case, thank you.”

She smiled. “Any time, Taylor.”

Chapter Text

August passed by without any further parahuman incidents, at least if you did not count the difficulties involved with wrangling the Vasil kids, colloquially referred to as the Heartbroken, as such. I’d almost feel sorry for Alec, except half the time the troubles only arose because he had done something stupid and was now trying to make someone else responsible for fixing it, so my sympathy was in short supply. Him unleashing his siblings on an unsuspecting mall and using the ensuing mayhem as a cover to go on what appeared to have been a one-person date at a restaurant had displeased me greatly. So much so I was almost willing to sic Brian on him with my suspicions as a punishment.

Alas, Alec was still more useful to me alive than dead, so I decided against it.

Speaking of Brian, he had gone through with the idea of building stronger ties with the Red Hands by holding things like sparring sessions or joint operations with them. The latter hadn’t come up much yet with the relative calm we were enjoying, but I had attended a few cases of the former. Cozen was definitely flirting with him during them and it wasn’t just me being paranoid, so I felt rather vindicated about that. A part of me had wondered if maybe I was suffering from the symptoms of Passenger-induced animosity towards the woman. It was a known phenomena that people with certain powers appeared to instinctively dislike one another, like how many Thinkers rubbed each other the wrong way. The idea that my opinions might be influenced by an outside agent was terrifying on an existential level. Luckily, this did not seem to be the case. Disliking a woman I’ve barely spoken to because she was prettier and more buxom than I and had been flirting with my ex-boyfriend was a perfectly rational human reaction that did not suggest outside influence.

… For a given definition of “rational” at least.

I tried not to take too much satisfaction in the intimidated look on her face when she sparred with me though, or in the ease at which I beat her. That would have been far too unprofessional. Her complete lack of experience in close quarter combat was a mixed blessing though, for while it meant that I could console myself with being better than her in this particular regard it also provided her an excuse to seek out Brian’s help in sparring sessions. None of the Red Hands had that much experience in fighting hand-to-hand before they came to Brockton Bay, having specialised in running away and fighting at a distance, and it was something they had to counteract if they wanted to ever rise in the leagues from small-time burglaries. And for all that I happened to feel perfectly reasonable levels of jealousy towards one of their members, I had no reason not to help them grow stronger while also growing more attached to the Undersiders. Hence me acting as a hard but fair trainer for them. 

It providing a mostly healthy outlet for my inner conflict drive while keeping me sharp in preparation for the next proper fight was a nice side benefit that I wouldn’t complain about either. 

Aside from that though, August really had been a very quiet month, more so than any since back in December of last year, when there had been a lull in the Trio’s bullying leading up to… The incident. I tried to talk to my dad a couple more times but never really mustered up the courage for it. Throwing myself into my work was a lot easier than confronting our failure to connect, I could see why he had done so after mom died and I turned inwards upon myself in response to the bullying campaign. As much as it gnawed on my conscience that I didn’t relax my security measures after Heartbreaker was taken care of like I had sort of promised myself, the results really did speak for themselves. There had been less crime done this month than there had been for any in the past decade. All of the major gangs had been either destroyed or suborned and people generally seemed to assume that anyone trying something in my streets would get a face full of bees. The PRT could never.

Even white collar crime, though still rampant, had been decreasing under the ever growing scrutiny that a Thinker regime could afford. It was too endemic to Brockton culture and we had too few resources to crush it completely, but just letting people think that they were always watched and anything they had on their computers could be accessed did a great deal to curb the worst excesses. Admittedly, a lot of our own people actively engaged in or at least condoned much of this corruption. It was a large part of how we got our income and controlled the city despite not being a part of its official government after all so we would probably never wipe it out entirely, but at least fuel it to productive ends. A small sacrifice, to cut through the legal tape required to begin civil projects like clearing up the Ship Graveyard for scraps to make way for more ships to pass through.

—

September brought the first signs of trouble, though even that was more of a long-term issue than an immediate problem. No unaffiliated villains had made their way to us yet and the Slaughterhouse Nine were still licking their wounds from the beating they had taken in Vancouver. Either Jack’s attention span had failed him and he had moved on from his whim to start trying to recruit me after I killed Alexandria or he wanted more backup before he tried anything again, he hadn’t sent another of his messed up little “tests” my way since. 

No, the real trouble was courtesy of Faultline’s Crew taking commission to set up portals for different cities and organisations. Once Dinah had recovered from her aid in making sure that no trace of Heartbreaker’s influence was left upon my city, we commissioned her to figure out where and when the first portal to Earth Gimel was likely to open. The answer was in New York, sometime in early September which was a little bit too close for comfort geographically to New Brockton. 

Which led to the thorny question of what to do about it. A direct attack on the portal to try to conquer or close it would be deeply inadvisable. As dominant as we had become in our own little corner of the USA, believing that we had the power to challenge the New York Cape scene would have been hubristic to the point of foolishness. The Undersiders had gotten where we were by knowing when to cut our losses and lay low and defeating Alexandria had honestly been a lucky fluke that wouldn’t have happened if not for her own arrogance. I highly doubted that I’d be able to repeat that feat with Legend. 

We could just leave them be and hope that they never became a problem, but I was averse to such a path on a level I could not fully explain or justify. It felt like a capitulation, a show of weakness that would rob us of the safety New Brockton had provided while making our enemies bolder from the lack of retaliation. Not everyone on the team had agreed with this view but I was adamant that a certain show of force was required, albeit one slightly more subtle than a direct attack: Psychological warfare. And at the end of the day there was only one person I needed to convince of the wisdom of my plan and she really did not need a lot of pushing for this two-woman mission.

—

I had left most of the Undersiders behind to manage Brockton while I was away, and keep up appearances that I was still there. The only person to accompany me was Bitch, who was currently riding beside me on one of her dogs. Normally, getting to New York from the Earth Gimel side would have taken several days on account of the complete lack of roads or other infrastructure and the thick vegetation, but between her ability to turn her dogs into steeds and mine to scout out the optimal path forward we were making good pace out of it.

“So when did we range beyond your previous furthest point you had explored?” I asked to make conversation. Neither of us were very good at small talk but since we had dedicated almost a week’s worth of hiking to first getting there, then staying for a few days to scout things out and finally get back I figured we couldn’t go in complete silence the whole way.

“Couple of hours ago.” She grunted. She didn’t say anything beyond that, leaving it to me to keep the conversation going.

“Do you enjoy it out here? Trekking across the wilderness instead of staying in the city?”

“Is fine.” She said laconically. I waited until she spoke further. “Better. People don’t annoy me much here and I like exploring nature I guess.”

“Yeah.” I could see where she was coming from. “Haven’t gone hiking a lot in my life myself, but I went to a summer camp once, it was fun.” I remembered what had happened after, when Emma inexplicably turned against me and my life took a sharp downturn. “... The last good memory for a long while.”

Rachel, or Bitch since we were technically on a mission and in costume, did not pry further into what I meant by that. Instead she just nodded. “Sounds fun.”

The chatter died down from there, with only the occasional comment on my part on what the best route to take would be. Rachel wasn’t like Lisa, who could talk for hours without pause if given half a chance. Instead she was mostly quiet, and preferred to let her actions speak for her. In this case her actions were focused on getting us through the wilderness to our target, something that we were making good progress with. With luck we’d be there before the portal was expected to open.

The scenery itself was beautiful in its majesty, untouched by men in a way that was becoming incredibly rare in our world, where even the deepest forests had usually been explored. We were most likely the first humans to ever pass through this land, as alien to the local fauna as the monstrously empowered dogs we were riding. It was quiet, not in a literal sense, too many birds and other creatures around in the summer, but in how there was no social pressure anywhere. Just us and our thoughts. Hence the reflections on the past month.

Also gave me the chance to really take in how easily I fell in on my bad habits again. Here I was, going on a reckless mission without ever giving the others a chance to contest my decision. Sure, I consulted them on how it was to be best executed but the decision to do this had been mine alone and they just had to accept it. Lisa had complained about it in the past. Brian too. It was why it had been so hurtful when I turned myself in to the PRT and now I was doing it all over again, albeit on a smaller scale. I felt like an idiot, and was almost tempted to abort the plan just because of this realisation, but at this point we were almost there anyway, and it was better to do this mission and apologise afterwards than to let the work we had put in so far be wasted. 

So we continued until we arrived near Earth Gimel’s Manhattan Island. It didn’t look anything like the one on Earth Bet, obviously, not just because there was no New York on this side but also because of the geological changes between this world and ours. The divergence between Gimel and Bet was significantly longer than the one between Bet and Aleph, a question of millennia rather than years. Different species of animals had gone extinct than in our world, the temperature was slightly colder resulting in lower sea levels and the tectonic plates had shifted in subtly different ways. Not to mention all the ways in which mankind had chosen to alter the terrain to better support human habitation in our world. 

—

We did manage to set ourselves up before the opening of the portal, which I found quite helpful for laying the groundwork to what I was planning. I started by having termites gnaw forth scarab imagery in a couple of trees here and there. I had admittedly found it quite tacky the way people tagged buildings with my symbol back home, but here it served an important purpose in establishing my claim to the area. It was akin to ancient explorers planting their flags in newfound lands to announce to the world that these territories belonged to them by virtue of having been the first to find them (any natives notwithstanding). Or in other words it was me saying ‘I was here first, buzz off!’

It’s a wonder history books don’t put it that way.

We only had to wait a day before the New York portal finally did open, far enough away from where we were camping that it would take a good long search to find us but close enough that I could monitor it. Rachel was off hunting with her dogs, her job of providing transport done, she was mostly free other than in having to make sure that our supplies didn’t run out while we were here. Not that we were in any particular danger of it happening, dogs were pretty good pack animals when empowered, but it gave her and her pets something to do and I wasn’t going to complain if I got to eat something other than stale rations during this journey.

Chevalier was the first person to step through, easily recognisable in his gold and silver knightly armour and with his gigantic cannon sword that always looked so unwieldy it was a power-granted miracle he could wield it with such ease. There were more though. The moment the gateway opened my range extended to the other side of it, granting me access to the bugs gathered in New York. Scrub and Labyrinth were at the forefront of course, having been instrumental in creating the portal, and the rest of Faultline’s Crew were close to them. In addition, there were more Protectorate members standing by while their leader scouted ahead to make sure everything was in order.

He was using some form of device, possibly tinkertech though there was no way to say for sure, to scan the area. Apparently satisfied, he gave a nod to the others on his team and turned to thank Faultine for her service, as well as promise her the payment she was due.

Once the mercenaries had left, the rest of the Protectorate filed through the portal to establish a perimeter around it. Prism was the first to find one of the trees I had marked, doing a double take when she saw that the bites in the bark formed a symbol. I could hear her swear under her breath, and was reminded of that time I ended up almost killing her boyfriend back when I had to dance to Coil’s tune.

“It’s Earth Gimel alright.” She muttered, before contacting the others over the radio. “Found Skitter imagery on a tree. Looks like it might have been etched into the bark by insects. Pretty fresh too.”

I could hear the responses from the others, some of them finding the other trees I had prepared. I couldn’t fight them directly, even if I won, and that was hardly guaranteed even with the terrain playing to my advantage, it wouldn’t be worth it. Should I manage to succeed despite being outnumbered and fighting strong and experienced heroes it would only result in retaliation, escalation of the kind I couldn’t handle. I had no tools at hand to either fight or evade someone like Legend. If he wanted to he could just burn me out with his lasers while being completely unconcerned about any bugs I threw at him in his Breaker state. And he was fast, if he didn’t hold back he’d catch me long before I made it back to my territory.

Hence the psychological warfare plan I had made. It started off subtle, creeping people out with strange noises produced by my bugs or random patterns that might form for a heartbeat before disappearing before they could be verified as anything more than an optical illusion. I had time, because part of the plan required that it be drawn out enough that people would start to suspect that I could somehow reach them here from all the way in Brockton Bay rather than this being a one-time thing. If I went too intense at the start, the heroes would just hold people back from going through until they were sure I had left and the effect wouldn’t be more than a note in the Protectorate report.

For now there was no sign of a direct threat, just a vague feeling of unease, and after a couple of hours they finished clearing things out and the Protectorate withdrew to deal with New York’s villain scene. They were too busy to guard an empty forest from theoretical threats when the actual city was in constant need of them to handle actual ones. Instead the PRT moved in with troops, along with civilian engineers to begin the groundwork in establishing a permanent presence in this area. An extradimensional extension of New York City.

My physical body kept Rachel company during this time. She didn’t talk much, naturally, but she let me help her take care of and pet her dogs, which I considered her way of offering companionship. All the while I began to slowly escalate in harassing my enemy. Sometimes I made the noises created in the forest sound almost like whispering words, at other times I made swarm clones to stalk people from the shadows, disappearing the moment they seemed to notice them. Infesting the construction areas with nests whose occupants were set to act territorially towards any humans delayed them due to the need to get some professional exterminators to help. 

It didn’t take long for people to get relentlessly paranoid over the slightest noise or movement. Seeing a dozen large men scramble away because I had a single spider crawl up on the table they were sitting at was honestly hilarious, especially since none of them dared to return to it until I took mercy on them and had my little spider leave. Rachel was also pretty amused when I told her the story of that, making a huffing noise at the idea. She barely even flinched when I had the same spider walk up on her arm and settle on her shoulder either, time around me had clearly inured the rest of the Undersiders somewhat to this sort of thing.

My final parting gift to New York before we left was having my bugs subtly sabotage and undermine the foundations of what these people were building, something to be found after we were gone to make them question if I was still influencing things from the shadows. People were already calling this place haunted and suspected that any bugs found on Earth Gimel were cursed. It hadn't been my usual work, normally I went for the grand scale style of intimidation rather than the looming threat. The difference between terror and dread I supposed. It was enlightening in its own way, the way that sometimes less is more when it comes to holding a steady grip on the human mind.

Maybe it made me a bad person, experimenting with this and finding the results fascinating. I fell back into an introspective mood during our return trip. The logic of my actions made sense in my mind: A New York colony on Earth Gimel represented a direct threat to New Brockton, which I wanted to protect since it represented the last line of defence for us, the place that no one could reach with bombs or missiles. Hampering its growth would keep our sanctuary somewhat more safe without demanding a retaliation from the PRT the same way a direct attack would. And yet perhaps there were other, more diplomatic solutions that I never even considered in my eagerness to establish my dominance through fear yet again.

I doubted any such solution would be superior to the one I chose, they all would rely on me extending a measure of trust to an authority that had proven itself unworthy of any such thing. But how could I ask my people to not be afraid of me when I fell back upon fear as my tool of choice every time I faced an obstacle? Perhaps this was the doing of my Passenger, the way it might influence my mind. Driving me towards conflict and new and creative usages of my powers for its own alien reasons. Dissatisfied with my complacency after we took care of Heartbreaker, it pushed and prodded me with an itch to get back into action. Stealing control over my own mind from me.

Would it be worse if it wasn’t my Passenger’s doing? If it was all me?

Chapter Text

My efforts weren’t enough to entirely deter New York from expanding into Earth Gimel, but it did slow them down, with few attempts at exploring far away from the portal being made due to concerns that ‘the bug queen’ would eat them. It was almost flattering how paranoid they had gotten about me, though I could do without the attempts to spy on me in response. Apparently this had increased interest in learning more about where I was at any time and how far my range could reach. On the one hand I supposed it was fair enough, but on the other I just wished that people could leave me alone. It wasn’t like I wanted to expand outside of Brockton Bay, I just needed to set an example that people couldn’t encroach on my interests without retaliation.

Lisa wasn’t particularly sympathetic to my plight though, probably because I hadn’t listened to her and stayed back like she wanted me to. She was, in her own words, ‘all for giving the PRT the finger’ but she didn’t like how I’d put myself in danger and invite trouble on our doorstep for so little gain. 

It was honestly kind of cute how much she huffed at me when I came back and how she insisted on informing me of every little thing she had to deal with because of my actions.

With that said, I still made sure to apologise to her and the others for having succumbed to target fixation to the point that I ignored the rest of the team. Again. Well, I apologised to the responsible team members. Alec and Aisha had been all for my mission (and wasn’t that a warning sign) and had abused my absence to start trouble. It was becoming clear that granting them authority over Alec’s siblings had not in fact made them more responsible people but instead given them access to new and interesting ways to cause mayhem. While the strange and sometimes dangerous games they held were still an improvement over the Vasils abusing their powers to torment each other, it didn’t change that they caused unnecessary panic to the people. 

I still had no idea how they managed to sneak one of the old shipwrecks to Downtown. None of them had a power that could explain such a feat. Even Lisa wouldn’t tell me, though I wasn’t sure if it was because she genuinely did not know or because they had found a way to bribe her into silence.

Such disruptions to the order of the city by the younger members of the team aside, things were progressing relatively well, but tensions were slowly growing. The PRT was getting nosy and the previous structure of our organisation was bursting at the seams with the influx of new loosely affiliated Capes to the city. At this point the core Undersiders were outnumbered by our allies by over three to one. 

New Wave was not included in this count, still not being considered true allies even if they had yet to cause any meaningful trouble to us. The younger members sometimes showed up to wave the flag, dealing with crimes that they could, but the older ones seemed to mostly stay at home to wallow in their own misery. While Lady Photon and Brandish were still the official co-leaders of the group, the loss of so many members of their family in such a short span of time had affected them deeply, and Crystal seemed to act as the unofficial leader for the ex-Protectorate members who had joined this dying organisation. Inertia, as well as PRT funding, seemed to be all that was keeping them alive these days, and after they had helped us deal with Heartbreaker we were on amicable enough terms that they were no longer considered an active threat.

No, the issue that had brought us to the meeting on the 4th of October wasn’t our nominal foes but the rapidly growing number of alleged subordinates of ours. Such as Barrow Rose, who had effectively gone independent after the Lost Garden was dissolved and turned into a Rogue (in the Cape sense) pharmacist/drug dealer. Or Accord, who was steadily gaining more influence across every aspect of the city, and apparently getting bolder in how he wielded said influence. That wasn’t even getting into the headache that was the Heartbroken. With friends like these, who needs enemies?

—

The meeting could be tentatively described as a party, though there was nothing in particular being celebrated, or a gala, even if the term was a bit too pretentious for most attending it. Every Cape in Brockton Bay, save for the New Wave and the ones being taken care of by Charlotte, was present and accounted for today, at the very same art gallery where the Undersiders had once crashed the mayor’s ABB victory party. The irony was delicious, I had to admit, though a paranoid part of my brain was keeping a tight surveillance over every aspect of the preparations and of the entire surrounding neighborhood. Irony cuts both ways, and I was not terribly keen on having our plans disrupted because someone else decided to crash the place today.

Sierra had done most of the work preparing the arrangements for the evening, with seating locations being in accordance with faction alignments for the most part. This was mostly because of Accord, truthfully. I would have liked it if we could spread people out a bit more in keeping with the theme of a unity transcending the bounds of factionalism, but I did not trust him not to murder the people sitting around him for using the wrong spoon or something, and the only people I could rely on to actually know and follow table etiquette were the Ambassadors so that meant that they at least had to be grouped around Accord to keep him defused. From there you kind of had to follow that theme in the seating arrangements or else give off a subtext of excluding and isolating Accord’s Ambassadors. At least the jealous and petty part of me was pleased that this meant that I had a perfect excuse to keep Cozen at a different table from Grue, but that was poor consolation when I was working on keeping that part of myself in check. The event hadn’t even started and Accord was already finding a way to ruin it with his neuroses, perhaps Tattletale had a point in disliking the man.

As a consolation, we had at least spread out the more independent Capes across the different groups and placed Regent and Imp of the Undersiders among the Heartbroken, keeping some of the spirit of the evening in the table arrangements. Perhaps I had been overthinking that aspect of the planning, but I wanted this to go perfectly, and had even asked Delphi a couple of questions to try to optimise the reception to our proposal. It was important that we had the maximal chance of acceptance from all parties for our plans and if that meant making sure everyone was as comfortable as they could be then so be it.

The greatest leap taken in how the party was meant to go was in the dress code however. No masks were intended here, both for practical purposes such as allowing attendees to eat without them getting in the way but also as a measure of trust between all parties involved. That was one of the main reasons why making sure everyone were comfortable was paramount, because even though I had already been publicly unmasked, even I felt a tad ill at ease at attending this without one. There was a psychological comfort brought by masks, what with how integral they were to Cape culture and the sense of strength they came with, and attending without one felt like a stark reminder of how much my non-Cape life had eroded into non-existence. How Taylor Hebert served Skitter these days and not the other way around.

On a more practical level I also didn’t particularly like the green dress I was wearing for the evening either. I wasn’t the most comfortable in dresses, they had a certain feeling of wrongness to them and I couldn’t look in a mirror with one on without feeling like it just emphasised how insufficiently feminine my body looked. Part of me had wondered if I shouldn’t just go with a suit instead, but that felt like admitting defeat to my body image issues and I wanted to look cute and pretty and feminine. I just had to trust Lisa’s judgement when she picked it out for me and told me I’d look wonderful in it.

—

The party was large, far larger than I was used to or comfortable with, even with only parahuman guests and a carefully curated serving staff. Many of the people attending I had never seen without masks before and some were easier to guess the identities of than others. Accord looked practically identical to his normal appearance, with only the removal of his wood and silver mask to mark the difference. His suit certainly fitted occasions like this more than it did any actual Cape fight. The rest of the Ambassadors were similarly dressed to impress, and made my feelings of inadequacy over my own dress all the more acute. 

The fact that I was supposed to be the hostess did not help matters either. The smiles on my face as I greeted people felt more like rictus grins than anything natural. When Lisa showed up in a cute purple dress I couldn’t help but be relieved, and it probably didn’t take any Thinker powers for her to realise she needed to take over from me in this.

“Well don’t you look nice?” She smiled disarmingly at me. “Could you go see to Dinah? I believe she’d like to talk to you.”

“Sure.” I wasn’t sure if she spoke the truth but I took the offered out for what it was. “I’ll go check on her.”

She blew me a kiss for goodbye before turning to shake hands with Rook, who looked like a rather average college student out of costume.

Finding Dinah wasn’t hard when I had every person inside the building tagged. It made it easier to keep track of everyone and worked as another precaution against infiltrators for the sake of my peace of mind. She was studying one of the few remaining art pieces that hadn’t been damaged by the fighting or Leviathan; a coral of uneven lines that together formed an egg-like shape. 

“Hello, Taylor.” She did not turn her head as I approached, instead looking as much like a cool and dignified mastermind as was physically possible for a twelve year old to do.

“Dinah.” I regarded her for a while, not in a hurry to rush into conversation. She held herself differently in times like these, when people expected the oracle Delphi. A figurative mask rather than a literal one. “You doing okay?”

She turned to me, considering my words before responding. “No, not really.” She admitted. “I hate this, being Delphi, seeing the future, all of it. And yet I can’t stop. Why can’t I stop?” She sounded almost pleading at the last note.

I could relate. Not to the foresight specifically, but the self-destructive need to indulge in our parahuman powers. “It’s… Hard. We don’t get to choose our powers, and sometimes they feel like they go for cruel irony. I mean, seriously?” I summoned a cluster of spiders from underneath my dress to my hand. “Bugs, really?”

This got a small giggle out of Dinah, who gave my spiders a look of wry amusement.

“I guess my point is that we’ve just got to make the best out of what we’ve got. And… I don’t know, accept our limitations or something?” I floundered slightly. “I’m not the best person for this.”

“Perhaps not, but I appreciate it.” She smiled up at me. “The numbers have just been really bad lately and I don’t know why.” There was a resigned sigh. “Just been giving me headaches.”

“Want to talk about it?” I wasn’t sure how much help I’d be, but this was the sort of thing that was good to know even if the knowledge might be depressing.

“Sure.” She shrugged. “There’s a 87.8 % chance that someone in this room dies this week. Cause is unknown and cancelling everything doesn’t change this. It’s not the S9 and I can’t see if it’s Endbringers. 79.5 % chance that the disruption of the status quo will happen as well. What do you do when you see death and chaos in the future but no way of avoiding it?”

“Accept the inevitable and practice stoicism, I guess.” I did not follow my own advise, immediately entering a state of frantic planning around this. “Did you ask what the chances of us killing each other were?”

There was a pause as Dinah ran the possibilities in her head. “6.3 % chance of it happening this week.”

So not that, though that number was still higher than I would like. Admittedly, there was a complete lack of context for it, so it could just as easily be due to mercy killing or friendly fire as intent to cause harm. “I see what you mean about it just hanging over you.”

“I just wish I knew what question to ask. I’m sure there is one that would tell me what I could do to fix this.” The frustration was evident in her voice.

“Perhaps, but there’s only so much you can do, so many questions you can ask, you’ll never be able to achieve everything.” I tried to be reasonable. “Pick your battles.”

“Would you be able to?” She asked caustically.

“Probably not.” There was no real use denying it. We both knew the truth. “It’s easier to say than to do.”

Dinah hummed in acknowledgement of this truth, going back to studying the art piece.

The comfortable silence, during which I could almost forget we had a throng of other guests, did not last forever unfortunately. Cozen, of all people, approached us with a nervous look to herself.

“Hi. Skitter, right?” She reached out her hand. “I’ve been meaning to speak with you.”

I shook the offered hand, keeping my face carefully neutral. “Speak then.”

“Right…” She faltered slightly. “I feel like we got off on the wrong foot at some point and wanted to change that. Name’s Elena.”

“Taylor, though you probably already knew that.” I ignored Dinah’s raised eyebrow towards me. She was probably picking up on my stand-offish air and I didn’t need to influence her opinion on Cozen due to my personal hang ups. I considered myself mature enough to realise that my opinion on the woman was not entirely fair, even if that didn’t stop me from holding it.

“Yeah, major news and all that.” She trailed off awkwardly. “It’s nice actually seeing you face to face myself though. I was a bit of a fan before we arrived here, if you can believe it.” Elena gave a self-deprecating smile.

“Cool.” I really wasn’t sure what to say about that, and not just because of my instinctive dislike of her. How do you respond to someone likely older than you telling you that they’re a fan of your exploits as a criminal?

“God, please kill me now.” Muttered Dinah. The traitor fled from the scene to avoid any further embarrassment by proxy, leaving me alone with Cozen.

“... So that’s Brockton’s famous oracle then?” Cozen tried to make more small talk. “Younger than I would have expected.”

“I guess so.” I felt an instinctive need to defend Dinah even though she had just abandoned me. “Don’t let appearances deceive though. She’s very mature for her age and one of the greatest Thinkers I know, and I’ve met a lot of really good ones.”

“Isn’t that how it goes for most child parahumans?” Cozen nodded sagely, as if imparting some deep wisdom. “Forced to mature by their trigger events and the incredible powers they wield to level the playing field with more experienced foes.”

I made a ‘so-so’ gesture. “I find that the whole idea that younger parahumans get stronger powers is a bit overrated. Sure you’ve got prodigies like Delphi or Vista, but for all that human Masters are scary, most of the Heartbroken are significantly less powerful than their father and the Lost Garden kids have some pretty average powers.”

“I see you’re not mentioning Imp in your list.” Cozen pointed out.

“That’s because there’s strong odds she’s eavesdropping on us and will conduct a campaign to annoy me to ‘prove she’s the greatest Stranger to ever live’ if I don’t rank her as such.” My voice was very dry while I checked for where the bug I had planted on Imp had gone.

“Damn straight!” Unsurprisingly, our resident mischief-maker was indeed summoned by the mention of her name. I noted with some amusement that Cozen had jumped at finding her suddenly butting into our conversation.

“Hello, Aisha.” I said very calmly. “Having fun so far?”

“Eh, could be better. This place is full of stick-in-the-muds who wouldn’t know what an actual party was if it hit them in the face. And sure, normally I’d be all over it, they make for excellent straight men in my comedy routine, but your girlfriend made it very clear what would happen if I had some fun with them.”

I gave her an unamused look. “Lisa is not my girlfriend-”

“Who said I was talking about her?” Aisha interrupted me with a look of purest innocence. “Awfully presumptuous of you, eh Skitter?”

“-And for the record she is absolutely right. I’m not engaging in hyperbole when I say that Accord would literally murder you if you pranked him.” I finished, ignoring the interruption.

“I know, I know. You may notice the distinct lack of any pies on his fancy suit.”

“You are a paragon of restraint, Aisha.”

“I know! How do you people live like this?!” With this piece said, she disappeared without a trace. 

“Is she… Always like this?” Asked Cozen uncertainly.

“Yes.”

“Huh.” She mused on this. “No wonder Brian considers her uncontainable.”

Right. She was getting close to Brian. Apparently familiar enough to comfortably refer to him on a first person basis. And now she was using him to try to find common ground with me. It had been a valiant effort, but I was calling an end to this conversation.

“She was before she even got powers, and it’s only gotten worse since.” I said politely. “Now, please excuse me, I have other guests to attend to.”

“Of course.” She looked mildly surprised at me suddenly leaving. “Take care, Skitter.”

I took refuge with Rachel, who was lurking in a corner to avoid having to talk with anyone. She was wearing one of her usual vaguely punk outfits. I doubted Lisa had even tried to get her to wear a dress, she’d probably have more luck getting Alec to wear one.

She nodded at my arrival. “Hey.”

“Hi.” I returned the nod. “How are the dogs doing?”

“Okay. Left them back home. They wouldn’t like being here, not if I wouldn’t let them greet everyone.”

“I suppose this many people would get them agitated.” I agreed. I wondered if someone had told Rachel people wouldn’t let her dogs walk around everywhere or if she figured it out on her own. “Doing okay without them though?”

She shrugged. “Would if this didn’t take so long. Just go up to the scene and say what you’ve got to say, then let’s go home. Everyone is just walking around, talking about nothing.”

“That is how parties often go.” Not that I attended a lot of them, not since mom died and Emma turned against me. Neither my dad nor I were regular party goers.

“Parties are stupid.” Rachel said succinctly. “Wasting everyone’s time.”

“Perhaps.” I agreed. “But people seem to like them nevertheless.”

She grunted in response, which told me what she thought of that opinion. I wasn’t too keen on arguing the point myself, not when I had sought her out to take a break from the mingling in the first place. Instead I just picked up a nearby glass and drank it in silence, observing the social patterns forming as I did. Rachel herself seemed marginally more relaxed with me just hanging around quietly than she had done before, so I kept near her while I did.

The alcohol content of the drinks was very low, because if letting a bunch of preteens drink alcohol was irresponsible, then letting a bunch of parahuman preteens drink alcohol was a recipe for disaster. Personally I didn’t care much either way. Underage drinking was not a teenage vice I had ever really fallen for, but it was less because I had a strong aversion to the drink and more because I didn’t really see the point. 

The plan to use the event to foster a relaxed atmosphere in preparation for dropping the news about us reshaping the Brockton Bay Cape society seemed to be working though. Even Accord didn’t look as high-strung as he usually did, though everything about his body language was still very rigid. He was talking to Brian, who was just about the only member of the Undersiders able to get along with him on a personal level. Lily was taking Sabah out on a dance, which I considered rather sweet. I was surprised how many people had ended up attending without masks. It wasn’t mandatory to attend but heavily encouraged as a token of goodwill. Perhaps it was a mixture of trust, peer pressure and the knowledge that if people wanted to use their secret identities against them they probably had the means to find out already and this way there was an element of mutually assured destruction to it.

—

I went out to give most people at least perfunctory greetings before we arrived at the main event of the evening, but left most of the job of socialising with guests to the more extroverted members of our crew. Part of me did agree with Rachel in wishing that we should just get this on with, but a greater part knew that it all had its purpose, and besides, people watching with a thousand eyes was kind of fun. Still, eventually even my patience reached its limits and I decided that if I delayed for much longer people might get tired and I’d lose their attention that way. So I gave Lisa a signal before stepping up on the main stage.

“Thank you all for coming tonight.” A fairly standard opening. I had a speech prepared and my powers made it easier to use a cheat sheet without anyone noticing it.

“When the Undersiders were formed it was just Grue, Regent, Tattletale and Bitch.” I had gone back and forth on whether to use their Cape names or not, mostly because it would be what people were familiar with but also Bitch’s kind of disrupted the ‘formal speech’ flow. “At the time the mission of the group had been fairly humble: To act as minor thieves and a disruption for the larger organisations of the Bay. Our name reflected that.”

I drew a breath before continuing. “Since then however we’ve fought wars and faced S-class threats. We’ve grown in size and added several subsidiary organisations to our roster. We’re not the group we were before and we face completely different threats now. I have it on good authority that terrible things are coming the way of Brockton Bay and we need to be prepared to deal with them.” And judging by what Dinah had said they were almost upon us.

“We need unity, cohesion and collaboration to stand against these threats. We need to work together and not distance ourselves from our fellows. We need to be strong and trust one another. That’s why I’m disbanding the Undersiders as they are to be reorganised into a series of new entities.” I paused for the gasps in the audience.

“Regent and Imp have already taken leadership over the Heartbroken.” I gestured at both of them. “Who are being elevated to a full member organisation in Brockton Bay. Meanwhile Parian and Foil have expressed their wishes to form their own group, name pending, that will focus on their businesses first and foremost.” Imp had been suggesting they name themselves the Needlepoints, which privately I thought was pretty catchy, but nothing had officially been decided yet.

“Finally Bitch plans to go independent, choosing to focus on Earth Gimel and the needs of the people there. The remainder of us, myself, Tattletale and Grue, as well as our resident oracle Delphi, will be forming a new group out of the previous assets of the Undersiders, which will organise these new teams. We intend to remain tightly knit, under the alliance we’re naming the Hive.” A lot of insect-inspired names, such as Swarm or Nest, had been suggested, and of those Hive was the least awful one in my opinion though as was usual with bug-themed names it was a bit more ominous than I would have liked.

“We’ve gathered everyone here to extend an open invitation to join the Hive. You may keep your current groups intact should you wish to, but we want to alter our relationship from landlord and tenant to something closer. We’ll share our resources with you and consider you one of us, and in return we expect you to fully trust us and cooperate with us. This, I believe, is a necessary step for the good of everyone, and I hope that you will agree.” I then belatedly added. “Thank you.” Closing my speech.

I had been watching people’s reactions intently the entire time, and I knew that Lisa was doing the same. The Red Hands already wanted a closer relationship with the Undersiders, they were the ones we had the best odds of getting to accept this proposal according to Dinah. The Ambassadors were more uncertain however, with it being hard to pin down what would get Accord to agree and what wouldn’t. Barrow Rose was dubious, but could be tempted to join by the promise of being granted authority over the other former members of the Lost Garden. 

The mood seemed tentatively positive overall, but it would probably take a few days before an agreement could be reached, with actual concrete negotiations needed and not just a fancy speech. At least there was no sign of immediate rejection or disdain by the people involved, which I considered a win under the circumstances. An attempt to fold their groups into our own, which ultimately was what this boiled down to, could easily prove very controversial, even if I genuinely believed it was in everyone’s best interests. Capes were famously headstrong and prideful after all.

The night appeared to be a success though, which of course meant that my life was just about to be made so much more difficult. Almost like clockwork, the Endbringer alarms rang out in the air, shaking everyone into silence. I hadn’t even had the chance to check which Endbringer was attacking or where, and already I was cursing Ziz for disrupting my work. I wasn’t even surprised at this point, resigning myself to having found the most probable cause for the deaths Dinah foresaw.

Chapter Text

Becoming the head of the largest corporation in Brockton Bay, Gamma Administrative Enterprises, before she had even graduated from college was not on Sierra Kiley’s bingo card for the year. Said corporation being specialised in extradimensional exploitation, and a front for a crime syndicate headed by America’s most infamous sixteen year old, just added to the surrealness of it all. It said something about the city she lived in that this wasn’t even close to being the weirdest thing that had happened to it lately, but it still took the cake for her personally.

Not that she was complaining per se, as much as she didn’t enjoy being associated with criminals, they weren’t as bad as she would have expected. Distasteful at times, but they didn’t ask anything too bad from her, and were hardly on the same level as people like Lung or Kaiser, so she took what she could get. The fact that this let her pay her college tuition and take care of her idiot brother without problem was a nice bonus too.

Still, she remained struck by the sheer unlikeliness of the circumstances that had led up to this specific scenario she had found herself in; sitting across the room to Mayor Carlene Padillo, Brockton Bay’s elected governor, discussing the city’s future. All the while being completely in control despite being only half her age.

“Thank you, madam mayor.” She smiled at her counterpart while sipping the cup of coffee presented. “It’s always a pleasure to be here.”

“The pleasure is all mine.” The mayor had a really good fake smile, Sierra had to admit. She could almost believe she meant it and wasn’t just playing along with this charade because of the large collection of blackmail on her Tattletale had stolen from Coil. “So, what can I do for you today?”

“I’m glad you asked.” She matched Mayor Padillo’s smile with one of her own and slid forward the papers that would need signing. “Permission to scrap the Boat Graveyard for materials to be used in New Brockton, purchase of the legal rights to the Brockton Ferry and some investments in the Docks to get them up to international standards.”

Credit where it was due, Padillo did read through the documents properly even while knowing that they were a fait accompli. Not that the terms were unreasonable, in fact one might call the money that was being given to the city government to facilitate this generous, but there was hardly room left for disagreement. The Undersiders wanted increased shipping and foreign companies investing in the city, clearing the waters and reconstructing the Docks from their current slum status was simply part of that. The Ferry had been thrown in while they were at it since this would incidentally give them a chance to restore it. Sierra had gathered that the thing had great sentimental value to Skitter, childhood nostalgia perhaps, that went beyond its logistical utility in connecting the Market with Downtown.

The Mayor hummed as she reached the end, before turning back up to Sierra. “This all seems perfectly in order.” That was a lie, the whole thing only had the thinnest veneer of legality to it, but neither of them had anything to gain from acknowledging this and legal or not, Sierra did have genuine faith that it would be good for the city. “I would be happy to approve these plans. Just one question.”

“Yes?”

“Why the Ferry? It seems so inconsequential by comparison to the rest, unrelated to your other plans. I can see the picture painted, but the Ferry sticks out.”

There was no need to suggest that Skitter had any emotional weaknesses when that wasn’t required, so Sierra simply smiled and answered with a half-truth. “We consider it a symbolic effort, madam mayor. A restoration of the former glories of Brockton.”

“I see.” She looked somewhat sceptical but seemed to accept that answer. “Then I suppose you’ve satisfied my curiosity.” She wrote down her signatures. “I hope that you and Mister Shang have a successful meeting, for the good of the Bay.”

Of course she couldn’t avoid that little bit of power play, insinuating that she knew about their business dealings with the Qingdao Reclamation Services, as if that was some kind of secret. The QRS were a major Chinese company specialised in disaster relief, particularly from Endbringer attacks, who often acted as a front for the interests of the Chinese Union Imperial. Mister Shang, as was the only name he had given (and likely a false one according to Tattletale), was the company representative who Sierra had to regularly deal with as part of inviting foreign support to Brockton Bay. The Chinese were very interested in the potential promised by Earth Gimel, and were as such keen in making sure that Brockton Bay remained independent from the American government. It was convenient, to be sure, even if it made Sierra sick in the stomach to think about.

She had spent so much time worrying that Skitter would one day push her to do some terrible misdeed that would demonstrate her fall from grace and cement her loyalty to her. All the while there had been so many little things she had done that had slowly added up, until she was casually committing national treason. Not because Skitter had demanded it, just because it was convenient . Another means to an end.

“For the good of the Bay.” She smiled, not letting her emotions show, not wishing to display any kind of weakness.

—

Worst part was that the mayor wasn’t wrong. Her next scheduled meeting was with Mister Shang, who had set himself up with an office in the business districts of Downtown. Most of the staff were foreigners, but the QRS had also started recruiting locally as they were expanding, especially from Brockton Bay’s Chinese diaspora. The CUI had a tendency to favour those due to its nationalist policies, and unlike the ABB they did not have a doctrine of Pan-Asianism. For all that Lung had been a vicious monster who had killed or enslaved countless innocents, he had fought back against segregation between the different Asian communities, something that Shang and his friends on the other hand seemed perfectly happy to encourage.

The man himself looked like a handsome if non-descript businessman, and was already politely waiting for Sierra to enter. 

“Punctual as always, Miss Kiley.” He gestured towards a chair. “Please, have a seat.”

“Thank you, Mister Shang.” She sat down, trying to project the same kind of strength she had shown in the mayor’s office, the same confidence. It was harder here, to feel in control of the situation. The municipal government was entirely on the Undersiders’ payroll and any posturing on their part was always just a veneer of independence in the charades they all played.

Shang on the other hand always gave off the sense that he was the most powerful person in the entire city, and not because of any Parahuman powers. He just had the backing of one of the largest and most powerful states on the planet and he knew it. The easy smile he had playing on his lips and the way his hands were folded spoke volumes.

“May I assume that your presence here means that you are now ready to continue to the next phase of our partnership?” 

“Indeed. Everything is in place and we’re increasing our shipping capacities dramatically.” It was one of their main demands, which they phrased as propositions. Ostensibly they wanted her to focus on getting the Docks up and running again because it would otherwise bottleneck how much help they could give. If you read between the lines it was because they craved Earth Gimel’s resources and any help they gave was conditional on the smooth exportation of those. A return of investments, as one might put it.

“Excellent!” There wasn’t a hint of surprise on his face, this was the outcome he had expected, the smug bastard. “Always with the good news, Miss Kiley.”

“I try my best.”

“Yes, I can see that. Ah, if only all of our partners were as reliable as you. We’ll be sure to have construction materials shipped very soon now that we know that you can accommodate them. And speaking of, we’re wondering if you’d be willing to sell some land on the other side for our purposes? Just some unused plots to help expand New Brockton.”

Not the first time he had suggested this, but he was growing bolder, more confident that she’d agree. The idea wasn’t without merit, and they did want to set up more businesses in New Brockton and for it to become a proper extension of the city in its own right, but the Undersiders were leery of granting the CUI direct access to Earth Gimel. It would be almost impossible to stop them from smuggling in Yàngbǎn agents if that happened, and Cape spies were already hard enough to be vigilant against, and it only took the right combination of powers for them to be able to cut out the middleman entirely.

“I’ll need to discuss this with our shareholders.” By which Sierra of course meant her bosses. “Can’t promise anything until then.”

“A shame, but understandable.” He took the implied rejection for what it was. “I’m sure they will see reason though, when we already have such a close relationship and they won’t be able to suborn an entire planet without help.”

“They might, but I’d caution patience. Trust takes time to be earned, and our partnership may be deep, but it remains young.” 

“Well spoken.” Shang inclined his head. “It’s not an urgent issue, we already have so much work with what you’ve provided us, but it would be to our mutual benefit, I think you’ll find.”

“Perhaps. Thank you for bearing with us in the meantime.”

“Don’t mention it.” He waved her off. “I understand the difficulty of keeping your investors happy while they scrutinise every decision you make.”

The smile Sierra gave him was almost genuine. He probably played it up for her benefit, but she could imagine him facing such issues himself with his bosses. “A thankless job?”

There was a modest smile. “Sometimes. Though I won’t complain about the salary.”

That she did not doubt, not with what she knew of his apartment. “I’d think not. But I digress, back to business?”

“Of course.”

The rest of the discussion largely came down to minutiae about what would need to be imported, extension of contracts and how soon mining operations could be set up. More than anything, Shang and his backers were interested in the idea of orienting the Brockton Bay economy around exporting raw materials from Earth Gimel, and every piece of help they gave was in the interest of furthering said goal. It was a cost Sierra was willing to pay if it meant a final end to the years of steep economical decline, but that didn’t make her less frustrated with both herself and the situation that it couldn’t be avoided.

He was a charming devil, with a silver tongue and an ability to lay out deals that were just acceptable despite how they left you more and more indebted to him. She hated him for it, for how he didn’t even bother to hide the compromises he was forcing her to make, just making them the most acceptable option available to her. She hated how he made her smile and act like she was just engaging in pleasant small talk instead of selling out the soul of the city.

—

The final meeting of the day was without a doubt the oddest of the lot, but thankfully not the most odious. Meeting with the de facto head of the dockworkers was a good palate cleanser from the previous people she had to deal with, since he was by and large an honest and straightforward person. The odd part was how he was the father of her boss, and yet unaffiliated with and sometimes ideologically opposed to her. All the while both of them had to tactfully dance around this elephant in the room like it wasn’t there.

Daniel Hebert had been looking over the offered contracts thrice now, clearly trying to find some kind of secret loophole left in there. She’d be offended if it wasn’t literally his job to make sure his people didn’t get taken advantage of and she could imagine plenty of people in the city who would do so.

After having scanned every inch of paper for a third and final time he finally seemed satisfied to look up at Sierra. “I’ll be honest, every bit of this seems too good to be true. Pay, working hours, benefits and protections, they all are better than what we’ve had since I first started working here. So I’ll ask you upfront: What’s the catch?”

“Aside from being associated with my business partners?” She gave him a wry smile.

He stared directly into her eyes. “Will said partner ask them to do any work outside of the contract?”

“No.” She shook her head. “Not without prior agreement at least. We just have a vested interest in getting the docks working again and for as many people to accept these contracts as possible.”

“Why? I’m no idiot, I can see you’re going to struggle to turn a profit from this, even assuming that you manage to reverse what an Endbringer and the world economy combined have achieved, and I don’t think you’re trying to run a charity.” The focused look he was giving her, like he could dissect her mind with his eyes, definitely reminded her of his daughter.

“We’re not.” Sierra agreed. “But I like to think that there is more than greed motivating us still. We do intend to run a profit from this, yes. My company is primarily located in New Brockton after all, and our interest is to, quite bluntly, monopolise the exportation of its resources. But to do that we need an infrastructure in place that we currently simply don’t have.”

“But…” He folded his arms. “That’s not all of it. You could have done the same just by offering us the same deals we’ve had in the past. People are desperate for jobs.”

“... Are you arguing against your own position?” She couldn’t help but feel somewhat amused about the whole thing, even though she got where Mr Hebert was coming from.

“Just answer the question.”

“Fine.” Though her inner pedant felt the need to point out he hadn’t technically asked her one. “You’re right that people are desperate, that’s exactly why we’re doing this. It’s not just because of parahumans that crime has risen over the years, unemployment is just as guilty. Over half the people of the city were left without jobs when Leviathan struck, it’s no wonder everything went to Hell after: That’s collapse of civilisation levels. We just want to see less crime on the streets and more people who keep the economy running, this is part of that initiative.”

“Now you sound more like a government employee than a businesswoman.” He didn’t show many tells, but Sierra thought she could see the corner of his lips turn. 

“Let’s not beat around the bush here.” They both knew the truth and it wasn’t as if admitting to it could really be used against her. “In every way that matters I am one.”

Another long evaluating look on Daniel’s part. “I suppose you are. Still don’t think that you are telling me the whole truth though.”

Sierra chalked the stubbornness and relentless cynicism up to another thing that father and daughter shared in common. “Nothing nefarious, I promise you. Just some lingering fondness and loyalty for the dockworkers on our part and a wish to give them a better chance.”

“Ah.” He realised what this meant, that the generous terms might at least in part be a show of goodwill from Taylor. He mulled it over. “If this was about me, I’d refuse out of principle. I will not be bribed, no matter how innocuous it may look.”

“Of course, sir.”

“But there are a lot of people, good people, who really could benefit from this. I’m not going to deny them the opportunity of a lifetime just because of my pride. So I’m going to forward this to the union with my recommendations, and I’m going to make sure that as many people hear about it as possible. In return, I expect you to keep this above board and not involve them in things they should get involved in. Are we clear?”

“Crystal.” For what it was worth, Sierra didn’t have any plans to break the terms of spirit of this agreement, they genuinely just wanted the dockworkers for dockworking. But then often that did seem to be how it started, and she couldn’t honestly say that Mr Hebert’s fear that she’d bring more people down with her in damnation was unfounded. She just hoped she’d prove him wrong.

—

She retired early from official business on behalf of the GAE that day, instead focusing on the last minute work arranging for the meeting between the Undersiders and their allies to discuss a merger. She wasn’t herself attending, but there was a lot to be done behind the scenes, especially in making sure that no faces were released and no disturbances happened during the evening. Capes were prickly about the former and like magnets for the latter.

Fortunately, the information Tattletale fed her about the party told her that things were proceeding smoothly according to plan, and no outsiders appeared to have caught wind of this or shown interest in interfering. Nevertheless, Sierra was still positively exhausted from everything she had to juggle today and was really wishing that she could just go to sleep when the sirens went off.

For a brief, dreadful moment, she feared that the Endbringers had come for Brockton Bay again and she nearly had a panic attack. Intellectually, she knew that the chances of this happening were miniscule when they had already struck earlier this year, but the instinctive, visceral reaction to hearing the sirens still made her heart jump and cold sweat run down as she remembered the destruction Leviathan wrought.

Selfish though it might have been, she still sighed with relief when she hastily looked it up and found that news was that Behemoth was about to hit Prague, capital of the republic of Czechoslovakia. 

That wasn’t to say that this wouldn’t have an immediate effect on her life as well. She knew that the Undersiders were going to attend the Endbringer battle even before Skitter sent her a message telling her such. That meant it was up to her to hold down the fort while the Capes were gone. Not that she expected a serious attack from other parahumans, Endbringer truces were sacrosanct within Cape society and only madmen like the Fallen, Teeth or Slaughterhouse Nine would dare to break them, and none of those were left in the Bay anymore. But there was always the chance that some idiot decided that this was the perfect opportunity to do what they couldn’t do while the Capes were watching.

“No rest for the wicked.” She muttered to herself as she went to make herself some coffee. Sierra didn’t need Delphi to tell her that the odds she would get any sleep that night were terrible.

Chapter Text

There was a part of me that, albeit briefly, considered not going. Not for my own sake but Dinah had given me the odds that my people would die, and they were not good. The thought that I would lead people I cared about to their deaths was harrowing, and I couldn’t help but have a selfish impulse to let Prague burn in the fires of Behemoth rather than see this happen. How many of the dismal few percentage points that none would die were entirely because I gave in to this weakness of spirit and told them to stay back? Too many, I feared.

Yet that was the reality when going into Endbringer battles: Not all would make it out of it alive. I remembered when Legend had said that even good days saw one in four people fall, and my gut told me this wasn’t going to be one of those. Dinah’s precognition just made it all feel so much more real than it otherwise would have been. My hopes of being a hero were long dead, the final embers quashed when I killed Alexandria, but I still wanted to do good and did not think I could live with myself if a million people’s worth of city was destroyed because of my cowardice. So while there was fear and doubt in me, I crushed it quickly.

Still, while I would certainly not stay back, and I resigned myself to my teammates and the Red Hands and Ambassadors following with me, I could not allow our youngest Capes, like Dinah or the Heartbroken, to risk their lives for this. The only one to get an exception to this was Aisha, and that was in no small part because she insisted she wouldn’t allow her big brother to go without her and she had already demonstrated that we couldn’t stop her from joining us whether we like it or not. Brian was significantly displeased about this, and I just hoped that her Stranger power would work on Behemoth. I did not think I could live with myself if she died on me.

Dinah would stay in contact throughout in case there were any questions we needed urgent answers to but she had already all but exhausted her reserves in the leadup to the formation of the Hive and precogs were notoriously unreliable when it came to Endbringers. It wasn’t until we heard the sirens that we could even verify that Behemoth would be the cause of the probable deaths to come. From what I understood, certain beings like Scion or the Endbringers could only be somewhat predicted through guesswork and estimates, the impact of their actions visible but they themselves hidden from view. For example, you could theoretically predict where Leviathan would strike next but scanning for every possible future flooding, but you’d get a lot of false positives in the process from things like tsunamis with only a scant few ways of telling the difference between the two.

Apparently my dad knew what my choice would be before I told him anything, and did not entertain any vain hope of convincing me otherwise, for he sent me a message almost immediately after the sirens went on.

‘Make sure to return.’

—

Unfortunately, our resolve to join the fight hit its first obstacle almost immediately: We had no transport and after having kicked the Protectorate out of Brockton we couldn’t simply hitch a ride with them like most independent groups did when they wanted to join an Endbringer battle. What followed was a series of calls, first with New Wave to see if they had already arranged anything, then with the Protectorate when it became clear that they hadn’t but that Timeout was looking into his old contacts. Eventually it was agreed that Dragon and Defiant would pick up any volunteers from Brockton Bay on their way from Vancouver to Prague since they’d fly over close by anyway and the Dragoncraft were the best options for quickly picking a lot of people up and getting there in time. We still had a couple of hours before Behemoth surfaced according to the official estimates, but transatlantic crossing took time without powers involved and there was always the chance that the monster showed up early.

It was tense at the landing pad where Dragon had agreed to pick us up, and the presence of both heroes and villains in a small area had very little to do with it. Of the New Wave, only Laserdream had showed up with Timeout and Modulator. They didn’t comment on why the adults weren’t coming, but the mood I picked up suggested that they were simply too broken to truly muster the will to fight this foe and hadn’t wanted the team to go. It disappointed me even though I recognised such sentiment as similar to my own fears about losing my friends if we went to this; that the adult ‘heroes’ of the city were less brave and willing to sacrifice themselves than either the villains or their own sidekicks. Judging by the tightness on Laserdream’s face, similar thoughts were going through her own head, and I shot a warning look to Tattletale to not needle her about it. No need to antagonise the people we were about to spend a flight with and then fight with.

At least they were less hardline in their opposition to any group identified as villains than Lady Photon, Flashbang and especially Brandish were. Timeout was talking to Foil and Modulator was fiddling with his tech to make some last minute adjustments. Laserdream was the one to approach Tattletale and I.

“Undersiders.” She nodded at us while hugging herself tightly with her arms.

“Hive, actually.” Tattletale corrected. “New brand as of today.”

“Because the Undersiders didn’t sound creepy and villainous enough for you?” She asked, though it was without much bite.

“Of course. Can’t have people think we’re the heroic underdogs or anything. What would the papers say?”

“I don’t think there’s much risk of people thinking that you’re either of those things after you took over an entire city.” Laserdream did her best attempt at copying Tattletale’s smirk. I found it didn’t look quite as good on her face though.

“All a matter of perspective, my dear hero. After all, we’re about to go and fight an Endbringer, anyone short of goldie boy is an underdog there, and you could hardly ask for a more heroic deed than trying to save a city.”

She considered it. “Fair enough. Heroic underdogs for today at least.”

The conversation died when Grue, who had been focused on the western horizon, called out. “Dragoncraft incoming.”

Everyone hurried to clear the area for it to land and soon the large vessel was touching down, having arrived with tremendous speed and only really slowing down as it was approaching the landing pad. Despite its size, there was a great deal of elegance to it, with sleek angles made to call to mind an actual dragon of myth. The doors opened and out stepped Defiant.

“This everyone?” He asked before, barely waiting for confirmation, nodding. “Good. Get inside quickly.”

Even with a large transport vessel having been picked for this mission it still got crowded when the former Undersiders, Red Hand, Ambassadors and half of New Wave all streamed into it. Bitch’s dogs were barking loudly to show their discomfort, either due to the lack of space, the foreign sensation of the thing taking off into the air with them inside it or the oppressive atmosphere they could sense from the gathered humans.

I myself wasn’t feeling much better, and not just because of my own deep inexperience with flying. I kept close to Defiant so I could speak to him.

“Skitter.” He seemed to have picked up that I wanted to talk, or he had things he wanted to say himself.

“Defiant.” I eyed him carefully. “How are things looking?”

“Not good.” He spoke candidly. “Protectorate volunteers are at an all time low after recent events and we’ve lost many of our heavy hitters like Alexandria-” I made sure not to flinch at her name. “Or Myrddin and with no one knowing where Scion is we can’t hope that he’ll swoop in and save the day.”

I nodded at that. It was what I had expected, as grim as it was. “And local Capes?”

“Don’t expect too many heroes. There’s a handful of independents but the national organisation is both understaffed and suffering from rivalries between the Czech and Slovak branches.” There was clear annoyance in his voice that I could relate to, even if he might be a tad hypocritical for it, having to deal with people being petty in times of crisis was always annoying.

Defiant shook his head and continued. “The two biggest local groups will be the Gesellschaft and the Red Gauntlet.” There was no mistaking his distaste here either. “They’re in a constant war for control over Eastern Europe, with no regard for collateral damage, and the only thing they can agree on is that they hate the Protectorate almost as much as each other.”

That certainly did not paint a pretty picture. I was familiar with the Gesellschaft: they were a Neo-Nazi society operating from out of Central Europe affiliated with Brockton’s very own Empire 88 and they had a reputation for being extremely dangerous to deal with. The Red Gauntlet, which as far as I knew were utterly unrelated to my own Red Hand, I was less familiar with, though I vaguely recalled that they were a Russian group.

“So what’s the Red Gauntlet’s deal?” I decided to ask since it paid to know local politics.

“Started off as the official Cape organisation for the Warsaw Pact back when America was first forming the Protectorate for similar reasons. After the Soviet Union fell they’ve turned into a mercenary group of villains who wield a lot of power all over the world. Call themselves non-political and are no longer Communist, but old enmities die hard.”

“So they’re a bit like the Protectorate.” Tattletale happily chimed in.

Defiant huffed in annoyance but declined to comment. I rolled my eyes at her trying to get a rise out of him and she stuck her tongue out at me.

It took a few minutes before Defiant spoke up again. “I’m glad you joined us for this.”

“Oh?” I couldn’t help myself. “Want another shot at arranging my death?” I still had not quite forgiven him for that, even if he seemed to be better nowadays.

Tattletale gave me an exasperated look for not following my own suggestion not to antagonise our allies.

“No.” He said, bluntly and firmly. “That was a mistake, one of the greatest in my career. No, I’m glad because I think Chevalier will need all hands on deck and he might have a special use for you.”

He did not elaborate further beyond that cryptic comment, but I could tell from Tattletale’s raised eyebrow that she had an idea what Chevalier’s plan might be.

—

Prague looked like a beautiful city from what I could see from above, it was a shame we did not come under other circumstances, and that after all was said and done the picturesque vistas would be permanently marred. Brockton Bay had not possessed many historical landmarks for Leviathan to deface, Behemoth would not lack for any such targets.

“Make sure to take your photos while you can.” Tattletale said beside me, having intuited my thoughts.

“I knew I forgot something!” Imp slapped herself on the head. “And I wanted to take a selfie with Behemoth as my new PHO avatar. Hey, can we turn back so I can pick up my nice phone or a camera.”

“No.” Came Defiant’s curt reply.

“Ah, you’ve got your own inbuilt cameras that you’ll use for all the sweet pics. Smart.”

“Everyone, please steady yourself, we’re landing now.” Dragon’s voice spoke from the aircraft.

Between the time it had taken to get to Prague and the time zone difference between it and Brockton Bay, dawn had come when we touched down, the autumn sun rising above the city, indifferent to the coming slaughter. The evacuation of civilians was in full swing and numerous Capes, most of whom were unrecognisable to me, were already gathered around the landing pad. Stepping down on the ground, I could feel the tremors heralding Behemoth’s imminent arrival, minor earthquakes already before anything had happened.

Chevalier himself was waiting for us, greeting Dragon as she exited what I assumed was the cockpit in one of her suits. “Glad you could make it, might I borrow your passengers for a moment?”

“Of course. The ETA is within 20 minutes though so I need to get going.” She departed to where her other machines had already been deployed to prepare a ring of defence, Defiant wordlessly joining her. From the familiar armbands people wore I took it that Dragon had already been operating for a while before she joined ‘in person’. 

I had my arms folded while waiting for Chevalier to turn his focus towards me. “I hear you’ve got a special mission for me or something like that?”

“Ah yes.” I couldn’t tell from his mask, but I got the impression from his voice that he was smiling. “I’m really glad you joined us for this, Skitter. I need your help.”

This definitely felt like him trying to butter me up, but I still couldn’t see his angle. “What for? There’s not a lot I’m going to be able to do in this fight, any bugs I use will die just from being near Behemoth.” It was a weakness I felt I could easily acknowledge. Behemoth’s kill aura would kill anything I could throw at him before it even reached him. My power would be even more useless against him than it had been against Leviathan. “I was just going to help with search and rescue.”

“I need you to lead the defence.”

…

“Pardon?” I was sure I had misheard.

He actually chuckled. “We need someone who everyone can rally around and to guide our efforts, and I’ve concluded that you’re the best pick for the job.”

“Why?” I found this honestly baffling. “Why can’t you or any of the other Protectorate leaders do it? I’m sure you’ve got a lot more experience fighting Endbringers than I do.”

“We do.” He agreed. “But they all come with a lot of baggage. Trust for the Protectorate is not great right now, and the locals…” He grimaced. “Are too prideful to accept one of our own to give them orders, just as they won’t accept each other.”

I remembered what Defiant had told me, about the rivalries between Gesellschaft and Red Gauntlet as well as their animosity towards the Protectorate. The picture was getting somewhat clearer now, and yet… “I get the idea of a compromise candidate, but what about Dragon? She’d be a lot better than I am, and the Guild is a world wide organisation.”

“It is however one with well known strong ties to the Protectorate. A lot of people see it as just another arm of it.” He held up a hand to stall any further comments of mine. “I agree with you though. Dragon is more experienced fighting Endbringers here than anyone other than Legend and Eidolon and…” Yeah, I couldn’t see them taking leadership after the Echidna Incident. “The good thing about Dragon though is that she can easily both be in the middle of the fray and help you out at the command centre at the same time.”

And there it was, now I saw what he was doing. “Meaning that you can have her ‘advise’ me while I relay it to the villains, who would accept it more easily coming from myself than her.”

“Exactly.” He was definitely smiling underneath the helmet. “Dragon has fought Red Gauntlet and Gesellschaft many times, while from what I hear they kind of like you for having given us a bloody nose. I’ll be leading the Protectorate from the frontline and making sure that they listen to you, it’s where I do best, especially after the loss of so many heavy hitters. Like you said, your powers won’t be of much use in this fight, but you’ve got good organisational skills and a lot of Thinkers with you, I’m just trying to make the best use out of that.”

“And you trust me enough to follow my directions even though we’ve been enemies?”

He shrugged before moving to leave. “I’ve read your profile. I trust that you won’t let personal rivalries get in the way of the job. Now I’ve got to get going, but the command bunker is that way and I recommend that you meet some of the other leaders before this starts. We don’t have much time left.”

—

Luckily, my newfound pseudo-authority did not involve separating people into different groups depending on their capabilities. Chevalier took the job of listing specialisations upon himself. I doubted I would have remembered all of them from my only previous Endbringer battle, and I was in no mood embarrassing myself or compromising the battleplan due to such an oversight. Tattletale and Accord were accompanying me to the command centre where people directed the flow of battle. Foil and Rifle provided long range fire while Getaway and Bitch would be rescuing downed Capes and bringing them to the healers, one of whom was Lizardtail. Citrine and Ligeia were among the people who’d try to slow down and contain Behemoth with force fields or Shaker powers. The rest belonged to the somewhat flexible miscellaneous group who’d do their best with what they had. I would have been part of the last group if it wasn’t for Chevalier’s request.

Unfortunately what I was expected to do was make some form of speech to rally morale, establish my own authority in this battle and get people used to my voice. I contemplated the possibility that this was all part of an elaborate plan to get revenge on me for all of my crimes, in which case I had to be impressed at the cruelty involved. I absolutely loathed making speeches, and had mostly managed the one announcing the Hive by a lot of preparation and cheating using my powers to calm myself and read my notes without anyone noticing. Winslow had beaten any desire out of me to stand in front of my peers and speak while they judged every word I spoke. Doing so in front of a crowd of Capes mostly older and more experienced than myself marching to their likely doom? It was a nightmare come true. What could I even say to reassure them knowing what we were about to face?

The moment when I had to present myself came all too quickly, and I still had only a vague idea of what I would say. “Hello.”

I used my swarm not only to project my voice, the low and boring monotone able to reach the far back thanks to them, but also suppress my own emotions. I had to, seeing people wince at my first word made me feel like I was going to die from embarrassment. They try being inspiring when they have this sprung upon them!

Shaking my head, I continued. “You all know what we are about to face, what it can do. You…” I caught myself, trying to think how best to segue into this. Perhaps I had been too harsh in judging Legend’s speech when we fought against Leviathan, it wasn’t easy saying something that wouldn’t hurt morale. “You’re all incredibly brave for putting your lives on the line, but this isn’t a battle of individual heroes, and I use that word to refer to all of you right now, but a war where we have to all work together to achieve victory.”

There were mutters in the crowd, most in languages I didn’t understand. How many of these people even understood English? Was I making a fool of myself while people didn’t understand a word that I said? If this was all some kind of elaborate prank I was going to murder Chevalier, Endbringer Truce or not.

I pushed on despite my apprehensions. “That means that you’re going to have to trust each other throughout all of this. It doesn’t matter what you were to each other yesterday, right now you’re comrades-in-arms and if you don’t work together you’re all going to die.” My swarm buzzed the last part out loudly and several people flinched in response. Too bad, they had to hear it.

I stepped off the platform, glaring at Chevalier, before being ambushed by a cluster of Capes who, from their fascist iconography, I was going to guess were Gesellschaft. I thought I could see Krieg in the back of the group but the rest of them were unfamiliar to me. They were predominantly male, with no Case 53s as far as I could tell, wearing far more militaristic uniforms than those of the Protectorate, sporting symbols such as black suns, swastikas or lightning bolts. They spoke what I was pretty certain was German among themselves, but their accents varied enough that I suspected it was used as a lingua franca due to the group’s idealisation for Nazi Germany rather than everyone’s native tongue. Despite my role as the mediator between these groups I couldn’t help but immediately dislike them for the arrogance by which they carried their hateful symbols.

“You’re Skitter then?” Their leader stepped towards me. A large man wearing a blindingly white uniform reminiscent of an officer in the German Empire, complete with a large felt hat sporting a bear skull as its symbol, he looked me up and down beneath his snarling bear face of a mask. I wasn’t knowledgeable enough about European languages to place his accent.

“That I am.” I stood tall before him, if I was to do this I couldn’t show any kind of weakness. “And you are?”

“The Hyperborean. You’re Jewish, girl?”

What was it with Nazis and assuming that I was Jewish? Aside from the obvious I suppose. I cast a look at Tattletale, who just shrugged helplessly. Apparently she didn’t know how to deal with the blunt antisemite any more than I did.

“Why are you asking?”

I thought I could see him scoff beneath his white bear mask. “My men aren’t about to take any orders from a Jew and I’ve heard rumours. Hebert is a pretty Jewish name.”

I ruled out him being French on that assumption. He probably wouldn’t appreciate the pedantry if I reminded him that Hebert was my father’s name and Jewish lineage was traced through the mother anyway. Didn’t seem like the sort of detail he’d care about.

“Can’t say I know enough about my ancestry to be able to tell.” I answered carefully. I needed to not antagonise him but also wasn’t interested in backing down or letting him categorise me based on some inane racial theories of his. “My family’s never been practising any religion as far as I grew up.”

He stared at me for a long moment, glancing at my dark curly hair a few times, before he was apparently satisfied. “You have the spirit of a warrior, I can tell you have Nordic blood running in your veins.” After this… Glowing verdict of his, The Hyperborean and his followers seemed satisfied with me and left me in peace while they went to prepare themselves for the battle.

“... Were the Empire this weird?” I asked Tattletale. I didn’t remember a lot of conversations with them, let alone any this bizarre. Mostly just shouted slurs as they fought us.

“Some of them, but mostly the out of towners.” She gestured vaguely. “Kaiser’s people mostly followed his lead and he always thought himself a pragmatist, a mob boss first and Nazi second. That guy I think is a true believer.”

I thought back to what I could remember of Kaiser before Leviathan killed him, mainly from the meeting at Somer’s Rock. He’d reminded me more of Coil than he did this man. “Do you think Kaiser even believed his own rhetoric, or did he just use it to control people?”

“Oh definitely the latter. Max Anders was perfectly willing to play nice with minorities when he stood to gain from this, and his attacks were always done for the purpose of cementing his gang’s power.”

“I can see why he chose to name himself like a medieval monarch. He’ll do a pogrom but only if he thinks he’ll profit from it.” I enjoyed hearing her laugh at this rather dark quip. “But seriously, Czech Nazis? What possessed people to want to join the group that tried to wipe out their entire culture? In enough numbers to make up one of their largest organisations?”

“I don’t think we have a leg to stand on there, Skitter.” Tattletale’s voice remained mirthful. “Before a few months ago we had more Nazi capes in our town than everyone else combined and last I checked they were our enemies too.”

“Point taken.”

Before we got any further on what could drive people to join the Gesellschaft though, I had another group I needed to meet. Fortunately, finding them wasn’t very hard when I had already tagged everyone in preparation for keeping track of them in the battle to come. My bugs were probably not going to survive on any of the Brutes strong enough to get into melee with Behemoth, but having a mental map of the rest would still be useful.

Like the Gesellschaft, the Red Gauntlet seemed to prefer military uniforms, but where the former carried theirs like badges of honour, looking like historical reenactors and taking pride in the overt militarism of their style, the latter went for practicality over style, with only the red markings signifying their allegiance breaking up the otherwise subdued colours. They looked more like soldiers than historical actors and for that reason (and the Nazism) I had a much better first impression of them.

“So, the fabled Skitter descends upon us.” A man who I assumed to be the leader from the commanding tone by which he had been speaking to his fellows went to shake my hand. “I would have expected something more from the one who killed the suka Alexandria.” 

“I hear that a lot.” I said dryly. I didn’t remember exactly what ‘suka’ means or which language it’s in but I could infer the general gist of it. He probably didn’t have posters of her on his wall.

“Name’s Death Harvest.” His smile was all teeth and he chuckled at the look I gave him at the name.

“Seriously?” Maybe it sounded less edgy in… Polish? But it wasn’t what I would have expected from the leader of a group that sounded like a cross between the Protectorate and Faultline’s Crew.

“No appreciation from you Americans.” He clicked his tongue. “I’ll have you know that it strikes fear at the heart of my enemies. And I was young at the time and wanted to prove myself.”

“If you say so.” I couldn’t help but be amused. Perhaps that was why he kept the name, it was a good conversation opener, and kind of metal.

“So, first time fighting Behemoth?” Behind the smile he was judging me.

“It is.” I admitted, no sense in lying about it. “But I’ve fought Leviathan before, and a pseudo-Endbringer. I know what I’m doing.”

“We’ll see.” He didn’t bother hiding his scepticism. “I’ll give you a chance, but get my comrades killed and you’ll regret it.”

“I’ll keep it in mind. Rest assured I won’t be the only person involved in making any decisions.”

“Then let’s hope we all don’t die today, eh?” He laughed. “We might still get lucky and only lose half our Capes.”

I had led my friends to a slaughter, and deep down we all knew it. I wondered how much his smiles and laughs were bravado in the face of death. Hopefully I would fulfil my father’s request, I did not wish to see him lose another family member.

“I’ll do my best to keep those numbers low, Death Harvest, but I’m not so new to Endbringer battles that I don’t know that’s optimistic. I need to get going though, so take care.”

He waved me off, singing something under his breath.

Tattletale, Accord and a handful of other Thinkers were already in the command bunker when I arrived, with a map of Prague at the central table. I had already placed ants all around it corresponding to where all the Capes were, with different types based on what category they fell in. If I was to be part of the planning I ought to pull my weight, and this seemed like the best way for me to contribute, making sure that the map was updated in live time.

“Don’t feel like the pressure is on your shoulders.” Dragon reassured me when I entered. “I’ll help you every step of the way and if anything goes wrong it will be my fault.”

“Thanks, Dragon.” I said to the voicebox she was speaking from. “I appreciate it.”

I had a tarantula prepared to step on the map as soon as the enemy emerged. Meanwhile I listened to the others speaking, preparing, receiving information and relaying it in kind, all the while the quakes got worse and worse. Then the moment came we had all been waiting for and like a volcano, Behemoth erupted.

Chapter Text

Most of my bugs lacked much in the way of long distance sight, but between them and Dragon’s cameras I had a feed on every angle of Behemoth as he emerged from beneath the earth in a cascade of rock and magma. For a being that wasn’t and had never been human, assuming that Tattletale was correct and I was inclined to think so, it certainly had a keen grasp on theatrics. While everyone took cover from the eruption it took advantage of the brief respite before battle commenced to roar with enough force to shatter every glass window in Prague, and rupture eardrums in the process. 

Before anyone else had the chance to recover, or we to give out commands, Eidolon had crashed into Behemoth like a bolt of green lightning. The speed by which he attacked was enough to cause another minor shockwave, yet the beast looked like it had barely noticed it. It engulfed him in fire and lightning even as he kept up the offensive. I cursed under my breath, the man was our best shot at stopping the Endbringer and he was going to get himself killed recklessly attacking without any support.

“That might honestly be the plan.” Tattletale muttered to me in an aside. “Either way expect him to be a loose cannon in this fight.”

“No use crying about it. Dragon, should we have our Brutes engage or stay back while Eidolon keeps Behemoth’s attention on him?”

There was the briefest of pause as she considered my quest before responding. “Hold them back for now, but have Blasters start engaging. Keep Brutes in reserve for when Behemoth gets bored and starts looking for new targets.”

Behemoth wasn’t as fast as Leviathan, and his size made it easy for people to shoot him with weapons or esoteric abilities like beams of light or bolts of lightning. One Cape seemed to be firing pure darkness, akin to Grue’s clouds in appearance if not effect. It was a strong opening barrage taking advantage of Behemoth’s distraction, and yet it barely even scratched his obsidian hide. 

And Eidolon couldn’t keep him occupied forever. Eventually it managed to strike him with enough force to send him flying off into the distance and we had to scramble our heavy hitters forward to engage him. Even then, all of them combined didn’t seem able to hold the Endbringer’s attention half as well as Eidolon had on his own. A firestorm was unleashed, to beat back or consume anyone even remotely close who wasn’t fireproof. Some of our Blasters were consumed by it, and I could feel billions of bugs dying to the oppressive heat. The evacuation of civilians from the district was already largely done, and a good thing too as the buildings themselves sagged and collapsed because their support beams bent out of shape due to how hot it was. The battle had only just gotten started and already the area looked unrecognisable to how it had been ten minutes prior.

Even fighting conservatively as we were, casualties were already rapidly mounting, dead or downed alike. I hadn’t heard a name I recognised yet, but that was not likely to remain the case forever. Tattletale was analysing Behemoth for weaknesses against anything that we threw at him, while Accord was stuck in a loop of trying to think out tactics we could use, only for Behemoth to change the battlefield enough to make the previous one redundant before he had finished it, making him start over again. He reminded me of the saying that perfect was the enemy of good. I myself had to improvise to keep up a full battlefield awareness, since too many areas had been rendered inaccessible to the bugs I’d use to monitor them. Fliers were circling above the inferno, relaying what they could pick up, while some insects worked together to transport more cameras to look through.

Down on the ground, the Endbringer’s attacks seemed near mindless lashings out, killing everything in sight, more akin to a natural disaster than a foe to be outwitted. The clarity brought by my all-encompassing view told a different story however. The lightning issued from him was used to suppress the gathered Capes, bending out of its way to strike in the direction of people who might have a shot against him and deliberately targeting high value Capes more so than people who couldn’t do anything against him. Meanwhile, the fires it created spread out unnaturally to hem in people, blocking avenues of escape before consuming cornered targets. The powers it wielded might make it reminiscent of an earthquake or volcano, but they were in the hands of what was undeniably a thinking, tactical-minded creature that was constantly adapting to anything that might slow it down.

And it wasn’t satisfied to stay put and wait for us to attack it either. While a few Capes like Eidolon or Legend might be able to distract Behemoth for a while, ultimately he was inexorably moving towards the refugee camps outside of Prague, where people were being evacuated. I had no idea what he might want from them other than a wholesale slaughter, but if he got even close to them hundreds of thousands would undoubtedly die. The path towards them also coincided with where we had set up our command base, which did mean that I wouldn’t have to move out of it to have the range to survey the battlefield, but also meant that it might just destroy our headquarters incidentally to its actual goal.

—

Even with a poorer turnout than usual though, we still had a lot of Capes to deploy against him. There were a few still coming in, but most had already arrived before Behemoth emerged, courtesy of the improved warning systems. Eidolon was still doing his thing, raw power making up for his lack of coordination even with fellow Triumvirate member Legend, who was darting around harassing the Endbringer with laser after laser. Chevalier was taking the lead in charging in with an array of more modest melee fighters, the lot of them having been empowered by a Trump called Usher. Since Usher’s ability to grant Brute ratings to people made him invaluable in helping many of our Strikers even get close enough to do anything, I had him flagged as a high priority target for us to protect and that Behemoth might attack.

There were also some people that I personally recognised scattered here and there. Assault was staying close to Chevalier while Miss Militia provided Blaster support through high ordinance anti-tank rounds. They didn’t do a ton of damage on their own, but I made a note to our little Thinker collective to nudge her close to Foil for the potential synergy between their powers.

Foil herself had gone back to using an arbalest for its ranged capabilities and stood out as one of the few Capes whose attacks looked to actually hurt Behemoth, which was all the excuse I needed to prioritise placing a buffer between her and the monster. Parian was helping the rescue efforts, but kept herself close to her girlfriend, which I didn’t mind since it meant that if Behemoth came their way they might be able to distract him from taking out Foil by sending Parian’s puppets against him.

Bitch was also helping rescue the wounded, riding around on Angelica and followed by the rest of her pack of dogs. She was too squishy herself to engage with Behemoth in combat, but the dogs were proving invaluable in transporting her from crisis to crisis, sniffing out people who needed help and moving any debris that might be in the way. The bravery and efficiency at display made me proud, especially since unlike with Leviathan she hadn’t even hesitated to immediately volunteer to do her part.

Of the last three members of the former Undersiders, Grue was providing his darkness as cover under which people might more easily approach Behemoth undetected. Admittedly, we did not understand the Endbringer’s senses well enough to know if he truly could not see people in the darkness or if he was just humoring us. My experience with Leviathan told me that a false sense of security with Endbringers could be very dangerous, but it couldn’t hurt to try, especially since it would at least contain some of the radioactive fallout. Regent was staying near him in cover, his own powers not being of much use in this fight. I couldn’t see Imp, but her armband helpfully told me that she was also alive and close by.

Apart from that, I could see Vista’s signature space warping abilities in play, and recognised the Chicago Wards from the fight against Echidna. They seemed to have picked up a couple of new members since then, a boy and a girl who I quickly pulled up some files on to familiarise myself with the exact details of their powers. The girl was a metallokinetic named Cuff, whose powers I would normally find interesting but at the moment I couldn’t find much use for against Behemoth. The boy was the one who caught my interest though for his apparent ability to create gigantic appendages out of concrete or metal. A scan of his dossier told me that if he put a limb through a surface, he could recreate that limb from a nearby surface of the same material.

His name was Golem, and he had just given me an idea, as several half-formulated plans clicked into place.

“Golem, Vista and Timeout.” I spoke through the emergency line. “I need you all to move to these coordinates ASAP.”

“Oh fuck.” Came Timeout’s response. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

—

Getting three people, each from their own group, to come together in the midst of the chaos of battle was easier said than done, especially when none of them had a Mover rating (Vista’s spatial compression aside). Behemoth might not have known the exact details of my plan (hopefully, we had no proof he possessed telepathy or precognition like his younger sister did) but he certainly was doing his best to make any form of regrouping or coordination painfully slow at the best of times. In the time it took for me to move the pieces I needed into position several more Capes had died, with Sere being the first casualty whose name I recognised, though not one who I felt particularly attached to. My most vivid memory of him was him participating in the attack on Arcadia that outed me, and what background information I remember about him and his penchant for brutality did nothing to further endear him to me.

Then Rook fell when a building toppled down upon him, pinning him down under the rubble to die from the weight and Behemoth’s kill aura, and I suddenly felt guilty for my previous apathy. I hadn’t had the chance to get to know Rook on a personal level, he was never more than a business associate of mine, but he had always been cordial as the leader of the Red Hands and seemed to be a nice enough guy. I wasn’t personally affected, but I knew people who were and it made me feel bad for momentarily slipping into thinking of these people as pawns to be sacrificed to win the game. 

There would be more deaths to come, undoubtedly, but perhaps I ought not treat this in such a blasé manner. Further reprimands would have to come later though, for now I needed to focus on the task at hand. Accord was ironing out the details of the plan, Tattletale ran it by Delphi to see whether it would work (46.2 % chance that this would cause significant damage to the Endbringer, which were odds I was willing to gamble on under the circumstances) and Dragon was helping me get everyone into position while also keeping Behemoth distracted, sacrificing two of her suits to draw him into position.

Then Golem plunged a hand into the asphalt, and one the size of a house grew out from the road, grasping towards Behemoth. At the same time, Vista applied her powers on it, twisting it to reach the Endbringer despite the distance between the trio and the monster and helping magnify the size of the hand, which despite its shape was ultimately an inorganic construct with no Manton limitations stopping her from helping it grab Behemoth by the torso. It wouldn’t be able to hold him for more than a second, already it was melting from the sheer heat he radiated and he was strong enough that he’d be able to break it apart with barely any effort, but it did hold him briefly, and that was all that we needed.

The moment the fingers closed around Behemoth, Timeout reached across the compressed space Vista had created and tapped the hand, freezing it in time. It looked strange and unnatural, difficult to look at with how warped it remained in its time frozen state even though the rest of the street was reset when Vista released her hold on her power, with it appearing both larger and smaller than it ought to be, and bent out of shape. The fingers were half-melted, frozen in the middle of dripping down to the ground. And yet despite this appearance of fragility, its grip was inexorable, locking the Endbringer in a vice that no amount of physical force could break it free of.

I immediately recalled the three to fall back, the same trick wasn’t going to work twice and if they remained close Behemoth would surely kill them. Already he was raging, unleashing catastrophic forces upon anything that would show itself to him. But he was locked in place for a couple of minutes, and there were a lot of things that you could do to a stationary target that would be too risky to try if it could move.

The rest of the Capes were told to clear the area, aiming to establish a distance of at least 500 meters from Behemoth, while I contacted Foil and Miss Militia. I had gotten a fairly good grasp on the former’s powers since she joined my team; Her attacks simply ignored the laws of physics, being able to pierce through just about anything including Endbringers. Combined with a supernaturally enhanced sense of timing she was one of our greatest damage dealers in this battle, on par with figures like Legend in terms of the injuries each attack could cause. Miss Militia meanwhile could create any weapon she knew of aside from Tinkertech. And right now I needed her to deploy something that could launch nuclear devices into the Endbringer.

“Skitter, we’ve tried nuking the Endbringers before. It’s always ended up doing more damage to us than them.” Miss Militia cautioned me.

“I know, but that’s why I want Foil to help you. You know what she can do. Please, trust her, if not me.” We really did not have time to argue when no one knew when Behemoth would break free.

She sighed, but thankfully did not argue the point any further, turning her weapon into a Davy Crockett recoilless gun, armed with small tactical nukes. Foil touched the rocket itself, granting it the same ability to phase through matter she used on her bolts, before they fired it towards the trapped monster.

The first rocket exploded prematurely, not being meant to be used as an armour piercing missile. It blew up in Behemoth’s face, causing enough of an explosion to shake every building within a kilometer, and rupture the eardrums of the Brutes who hadn’t cleared enough of a distance from the target area. If Behemoth hadn’t already levelled the city and flooded the area with radiation I’d be concerned about the collateral damage we were inflicting on Prague, but as it was I just ordered them to fire another shell. 

It said something about the sheer resilience of the Endbringer that despite having just been at ground zero of a nuclear detonation it was barely more than scratched by the damage, looking more angry than hurt. 

The second bomb flew true though, guided by Miss Militia’s years of experience and intuitive understanding of weapons and Foil’s ability to perfect her aim and timing through her powers. It pierced where the heart of the Endbringer ought to have been, driving a hole through Behemoth’s chest and nestling the bomb inside it, where it detonated. Strong the creature was, but even it did not like having a nuke trying to blow it up from the inside. Its form ripped and bulged as the supertough material it was made of tried to contain it, before the entirety of the force was ejected through the only avenue left to it: The hole the bomb had first made courtesy of Foil.

There was a blast of fire as the explosion blew out of Behemoth’s wound in a concentrated beam that torched the morning sky. For a brief moment, the Endbringer was turned into a rocket, an equal and opposite force pushing him backwards, even as the hand kept him rooted to the spot. What passed for flesh tore against each finger, leaving a hand-shaped mark on the torso where it had been pressed against the immovable object. 

The third shot was another hit, embedding itself in the right shoulder and blowing off the arm in the ensuing explosion, but that seemed to have only angered him enough to stop holding back. Before they could fire a fourth shot, the Endbringer exploded, not in a figurative sense or as an aftereffect of the bombs. There was an explosion of energy centered around Behemoth far greater than that of the nukes Miss Militia had fired. It spread out in a flash of light before anyone had the chance to even remotely react to it. Those who were too close, hoping to intervene as soon as Timeout’s power had run its course, were incinerated in an instant, even Brute toughness not saving them from this. The rest of us were thrown on the ground by the shockwave, blinded and deafened by what had happened. I had only been using cameras to look at Behemoth, and was well under cover in the command centre, but even I was taken out, sprawled on the floor while nearly all of our instruments had been destroyed. By the time people were recovering enough to do something, Behemoth was free once more.

—

He moved fast, far faster than he had been before. He leapt towards the nearest cluster of Capes in a move that nothing so huge should have been capable of. Most barely had the time to react before they were killed, and those that didn’t fall to the kill aura quickly found that even one arm was more than enough to smash them into the pavement with contemptuous ease. Rallying people from the shock of the sudden turnaround was difficult, when none of the wounds inflicted were slowing him down. He barely even seemed to notice them as he pushed us in a way that made his previous attacks look like a sedate stroll by comparison.

“Fucking Hell.” Muttered Tattletale as I helped her back up on her feet. “Did any of that even hurt him?” She clutched her head from a headache that might have been due to her powers or the explosion we had just gone through. “Yes? No? It didn’t but got really close to doing so?”

“So the tactic was effective?” I asked, using what pitiful remnants of my swarm I had left after these explosions to calm myself despite the panic that threatened. I needed to know we still had a chance.

“Kinda?” She shook her head before wincing at the pain the motion caused. “It got him enough to make him stop holding back, but anything short of lethal damage seems to be mostly superficial.”

“But we can deal lethal damage this way?” I felt the urgency in my voice, if we could do this, if we could kill him…

“I don’t know.” She shrugged helplessly. “Powers are bullshit and Endbringers are even more bullshit than usual. But maybe if we had just gotten a few more shots in the right places…” She trailed off, not having any of the clear answers I wanted.

“Damn it!” I focused on the battle, trying to find a way to engineer another scenario where we might actually hurt the Endbringer. If not kill him then at least drive him away. Eidolon was trying to distract him again while our rescue groups tried to get people out. My friends were picking up a lot of injured Capes who had been downed by the explosion, and we needed to give our healers a chance to get people back up on their feet before we made another concerted effort. Golem, Vista and Timeout had all gotten out fine thanks to Vista putting a lot of distance between them and Behemoth, but Foil and Miss Militia were both badly injured from having been knocked down by the fireball of death. A teleporter had picked them up before Behemoth could finish them off, but that still meant I couldn’t repeat the armour piercing nukes trick again. 

Legend was focusing all of his attacks on the wounds that Foil had left in Behemoth, but far from providing vulnerable organs protected by the thick skin, the only thing exposed was even stronger material than on the outside. Exponentially stronger, if Tattletale’s despairing analysis was to be believed. It was almost insulting, how we had gone through such an effort to pierce the hide just to find that the only thing it was protecting was another far more impenetrable layer of defence. In that moment, I hated it with every fibre of my being, how the Endbringers almost relished in giving us a glimmer of hope only to steal it away as soon as we grasped after it. I felt powerless, and my lack of surviving bugs had nothing to do with that. 

We had almost rallied a proper defence again when it happened: largely inconsequential to the battlefield as a whole, but as devastating to me on a personal level as it was shocking in its swiftness. She had been among the first to recover from the devastation of Behemoth’s sudden offensive, and had picked up several downed Capes, including Regent, before they could come to further harm. Perhaps it was why, because she had been so mentally resilient and so incredibly helpful in the search and rescue, perhaps it was no more than a stray attack with barely a moment’s thought to it, launched against her at random. Either way, the lightning struck faster than she or I could react, burning her organs and giving Angelica a heart attack as it coursed through her on the way down. Rachel Lindt was dead before she had even finished falling off her steed, electrocuted by the malevolent will that had steered the lightning strike past every obstacle and into her. Dragon’s voice confirmed it matter-of-factly through the damaged speakers, yet another toll of these abominations walking the Earth.

“Bitch deceased, CD-5.”

Chapter Text

It took me more than a few moments to register just what had happened. It wasn’t like the world slowed down to give me a chance to take everything in as it occurred like it did in the movies. One moment she had been leading rescue efforts, the next she was dead. One of my best friends gone in the blink of an eye. And she was one of my best friends, that much I was certain of. We had gone off to a bad start and it had taken a lot of effort on my part to get her to open up to me, but she had grown to become one of my most reliable, if not talkative, companions.

But time for grief would have to come later, assuming that I was still alive then. Behemoth would not wait for me to put myself together and there were still a lot of people in danger, people whose lives I could save. My people. I knew then that I could not allow the loss of another of my friends, that my resolve to risk their lives for the greater good had been broken.

It was selfish of me and I knew it. It made hypocrisy out of my anger at Defiant and I knew it. It compromised my leadership over this battle and I knew it. But I also knew that I would sooner allow ten Capes I didn’t care for die than another of my friends to perish. Besides, it wasn’t like a lot of people would miss a few Nazis. 

I didn’t say any of this to the others of course. I expected Tattletale to know, but she did not comment when I made sure to pull Grue, Imp and Parian back further. She hadn’t been as close to Rachel as I’d been, but by the tightness of her face I judged she had not taken her death well either. 

It made me feel like a coward, commanding others to throw themselves into the fire to keep the pressure up, while I withdrew those I cared about to safer grounds, and part of me wanted to throw myself at the monster to make up for it. But there would be no point in doing so other than to soothe my own guilty conscience, I wouldn’t be able to do anything to Behemoth other than die. Nevertheless, seeing and hearing the death tally was hard even when it was mostly Gesellschaft Capes. I had to console myself with the fact that if they were anything like the E88 they were probably mass murderers who deserved it.

At least the sacrifices made to make sure Behemoth wouldn’t attack any other members of the Hive helped slow down his rapid advance towards the evacuation camps. Presenting people as targets to attack worked as a good distraction, and our combined efforts as a think tank was still at full work making sure every person had enough support to sell their lives as hard as possible. I had won a lot of goodwill for having managed to create a plan to actually hurt Behemoth and I think most were just too focused on helping keep Behemoth in check so he wouldn’t wipe out the people of Prague to question the purity of my motives.

Eidolon was also a massive help in this, despite his lack of coordination with everyone else. Again and again he threw himself at Behemoth, each time with a new set of powers as he cycled through them for anything that could stop him. Time bubbles to trap the Endbringer, which broke when a molten house struck Eidolon like a comet and disrupted his control. Anti-gravity attacks to keep him locked in the air, which stopped the earthquakes but had to be abandoned once Behemoth adapted and simply used his elevated position to send out more lightning strikes. Sometimes Eidolon was attacked with enough force to take him out of commission for a while as he had to regenerate or return from getting smashed into the bedrock, but always he returned with a desperate fervour to find a way to kill or disable Behemoth, and he was powerful enough that whenever he did he’d have the creature’s attention on him. My main worry was that he’d get himself killed in his reckless abandon and we’d be without our best weapon in this fight.

—

It wasn’t even midday yet and much of Prague was in ruins. The fight had migrated from the west of the now boiling river Vltava to the eastern bank after Behemoth had leaped over the entire river in a single bound and landed in the city’s old town, our best defensive position simply ignored and now turned against us. The bridges had collapsed into the river from the earthquakes and a lot of people were now stuck on the wrong side with no way to cross unless they were planning on swimming through boiling water to reach the other side. 

When the evacuations of Prague began, the focus had been on getting people east of the city once it was clear that Behemoth would emerge in the west. Sound in theory, at least until the bridges were destroyed and anyone still alive in western Prague had to simply scatter where they could, but it was becoming increasingly clear that the Endbringer could and would cross the entire city if it meant reaching the main refugee camps. I still didn’t know if he had a goal other than to kill as many people as possible, but it wasn’t as if knowing his motives would change the fact that we couldn’t let him reach them. 

Defiant acted as the main line of defence on this side of the river, engaging Behemoth with his nanothorn halberd. Thankfully, he wasn’t trying to solo the Endbringer as he had been with Leviathan, having learned that lesson well enough, and instead he worked in concert with Dragon, the two going into a harmonious pattern of attacks where each filled any gaps made by the other. Other Capes were also helping, particularly the flyers like Legend who could cross the Vltava with ease, battling it out in the burning ruins of the medieval parts of Prague, which had survived two world wars only to go up in smoke thanks to yet another Endbringer attack.

Not that mourning the lost history was the highest on my agenda, not when we were now facing the problem that Behemoth was almost right on top of us. The bunker we’d been using had already been damaged by the explosion and would hardly survive if Behemoth put his full attention to it. The issue with things like bunkers or the Endbringer shelters used in Brockton Bay were that while they might protect against cursory strikes from an Endbringer, they could easily be turned into a deathtrap if any serious attempt was made to breach them. And Behemoth was smarter than he was generally given credit for and I felt it was reasonable to work from the assumption that he had figured out that there was a small box packed with high value targets close by. Squishy high value targets at that since Alexandria had very much been the exception rather than the rule when it came to how tough Thinkers were.

Another earthquake shook the entirety of our underground command centre, as if to emphasise how vulnerable we were. One of the rooms collapsed entirely upon an unfortunate soul, a Red Gauntlet Cape I never bothered to learn the name of.

“We need to get out of here.” I turned to the remainder of the group, almost glad that this was happening. There wasn’t much left I felt I could do as an organiser and it was only giving me a crisis of conscience having to decide who lives and who dies due to positioning. Leading people to survival through disaster was more in my element, something I felt comfortable doing and like I was good at. “If you all follow me I’ll get us through this.”

Thankfully, everyone selected for this role understood English, so there was no delay in communication that way. Some fear and scepticism due to the circumstances around us, but nothing I couldn’t manage.

“Good luck.” Came the staticky voice of Dragon. “I’ll handle things on this end, just get to safety.”

“You heard the robot dragon lady.” Tattletale smiled slightly, though I got the sense that it was at least partially to mask any fear or distress. “Let’s get going.”

“Accord.” I addressed the small suited man. “Any suggestions for our optimal route?”

He gestured at the serpentine alleyways drawn on the map we could use. “This way, the houses will provide cover, or what is left of them.” He looked ruffled in a way I had never seen before, his immaculate suit covered in dirt. There was an undercurrent of stress in his voice as well, and his stance was not as precise or in control as was typical. A man obsessed with order and control had been thrust into the chaos of battle against an enemy that defied our attempts to contain it.

I wisely did not point any of that out to him however, not when it might just bring him to a breaking point. Instead I simply nodded. “Stick together and keep your heads down.”

We scurried from cover to cover like rats, rushing from the exit of our bunker to a nearby church as quickly as possible. With so few bugs left in the city that could give me an overwatch I was practically blind to what Behemoth was doing and if his attention was in our direction or not. It was a nerve wracking tension being blind in a way that the mere loss of my eyesight to Coil could not compare to, especially when a single wrong move would mean the death of us all.

I wasn’t sure if abdicating any official responsibility over the course of the battle made me feel better or worse hearing the continued deaths recounted. The Hyperborean had followed Kaiser’s example in having his Nazi ambitions ended by an Endbringer, something that told me that the melee fighters who weren’t Alexandrian packages had managed to find a way to cross the river, and were paying their price for it. Perhaps it was for the best, meaning that the Nazis wouldn’t be primed to take over Prague in the wake of this attack, but I still felt guilty about placing some of his underlings as bait to get the Behemoth’s attention. It was the kind of ruthlessness that I did not enjoy dabbling in, regardless of the odious ideology of my pawns. 

—

Chevalier’s renewed charge bought us enough breathing room to take stock of the situation. With him leading the effort to keep Behemoth in place and stop him from regenerating the damage taken, the Endbringer was no longer quite so free to rampage the city at his leisure. He was still pushing east, burning down district after district and striking down anyone unlucky enough to be caught in a vulnerable position, but he was no longer tearing down our defences faster than we could put any in his way as he had been immediately after he detonated like an atomic bomb. He still had not decided to cut his losses, and he was fighting harder than he had been originally, even without one arm, but at least he was allowing us the illusion of being able to resist.

It was a lie of course, I could see that much the moment he cut loose, but it was a lie I had no issue letting him indulge in if it meant we fared even slightly better in this battle. 

Moving out had brought me in range of insects that hadn’t been burned to a crisp as well, so I finally had eyes on Behemoth again. Peeking at how things were progressing with my actual head was a death sentence, as one of our little group had found out when her curiosity won out over her fear. Behemoth was still powerful and efficient, punishing every misstep made by his attackers with blood, but there was none of the speed and ruthlessness he’d displayed when we had actually hurt him, or close enough at least according to Tattletale. He was playing with his food right now, perhaps dragging things out to get more of a proper fight. I couldn’t say I understood Endbringer motives, but their patterns, from the way they attacked with regular intervals and reasonable forewarning, to how they held back so that they were always just a little bit stronger than anything thrown at them, told me that they enjoyed the fighting more than the killing. It was a game to them, a spectacle rather than an attempt to efficiently genocide humanity. Drawing it out enough that it became a slow death spiral instead of a swift extermination. 

People often said that Endbringers were mindless killers, more akin to natural forces than human cruelty. Seeing how they operated, the measured way in which they acted, I was not nearly so sure any more. This reminded me an awful lot of the Slaughterhouse Nine. How the Siberian would draw out her hunt and provide false hope to her victims for her own sadistic pleasure. Or the way that Shatterbird liked to announce her arrival by unleashing massive devastation on everyone as a form of grandstanding. This felt like that but on a much larger scale, done to the world rather than just a city. 

Not that I thought the Endbringers were human, Tattletale had been confident in saying they never had been, and I was inclined to believe her intuition. But they, the Simurgh most of all, demonstrated that inhumanity did not preclude intelligence or an actual psychological profile. I just needed to figure out some way I could possibly use this. Knowing, or at least having a reasonably good guess as to why they acted like this wasn’t of much use unless I could get something actionable from it.

“Endbringers fight for fighting’s sake, enjoy drawing things out and pretending that we’re strong enough to stand against them.” I gave Tattletale the bullet points of what I was thinking, trusting that she’d fill in the gaps for herself. “Is there any way we can use this?”

“Make them think they’ve won so that they leave early?” She suggested. “Or make them lower their guard for a decisive blow. If they fight worse the less resistance they face, we could make him underestimate us or something. I don’t know, I can’t think of anything better than ‘give him what he wants’.”

“If it looked like he had defeated us would he leave before or after he wiped out the people of Prague?”

“... I don’t know, Skitter. Endbringer behaviour is erratic about this. You’d gamble a lot.”

A handful of Capes saved if I was right, hundreds of thousands of civilians killed if I was wrong. And there were so many ways it could go wrong, from a miscalculation in Behemoth’s primary objective to the Endbringer realising we weren't giving it our all and deciding to be spiteful. 

“... Never mind I guess.” I wanted to be able to do something to contribute, to end this, but not make this worse. I sighed. “I’ll put Accord up with Dragon and maybe they’ll figure out some form of countermeasure together.”

“People have tried for decades, it’s not your fault you haven’t immediately figured out the secret to how to beat them.” She tried to console me. “You’re setting too high expectations for yourself.”

Looking at all the people who died because I had made Behemoth even more aggressive by hurting him, or because I chose to prioritise my people over the many, I found it difficult to agree with her. Perhaps defeating Behemoth wasn’t a realistic goal, but I had been given authority, and failed to live up to it. I didn’t say as much, didn’t want to admit to these thoughts aloud, but I knew that she knew what I was thinking. 

—

We made our way to the fallback point, where our best healers were treating the wounded. The group, as it was, disbanded upon arrival, some of us needing tending while others wanted to check in on their teammates. I belonged to the latter group. Finding people here wasn’t too difficult for me, not when it was far enough away from Behemoth that local bugs could survive the area.

Regent was the first person I visited, lying on a stretcher and waiting for his turn to be seen by one of the healers. He was apparently considered a low priority subject due to being neither considered at risk of death or someone who’d make a difference in the battle if he was back on his feet. He waved at me with his good arm when he saw me.

“Skitter! How do I look? Be honest with me. Have I been so terribly scarred I’ll never be able to show my face again?” Apparently not even being surrounded by fire and death could stop him from acting whimsical.

“You’re no uglier than usual, Regent.” I deadpanned. “I hardly notice a difference.”

Tattletale snorted with amusement. “And people call me savage, I need to step up my game.”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about, she’s clearly saying that I’m as handsome as ever.” He made a motion of tossing his hair for dramatic effect, something that didn’t really work when he was lying down covered in dirt.

“I’m sure she did.” Tattletale smiled indulgently. “How are you holding up?”

“Is that a rhetorical question or are you going soft on me, Tats?” He eyed her inquisitively. “Caring for my wellbeing and not pretending that you know the answer to everything, what is the world coming to?”

“I’m just reserving using my power for more important things than you.” She smirked at him.

Regent laughed, though it sounded like doing so caused him pain. “Heh, fair enough. I’ll be fine, shame about Bitch though.”

“Yeah…” Tattletale glanced towards me. “We’ll need to deal with that after this is over.”

“Seems Angelica survived at least.” I noted. I had found the dog lying some way away from here. Miraculously, she had survived the same blast that had killed her master, no doubt a final gift of Rachel’s power, and someone had picked her up and carried her over to the wounded. 

“Who?” Regent frowned in confusion briefly before realisation hit him. “Oh, the dog, right. Neat.”

“Might be setting a record as the first dog to survive two separate Endbringer Battles.” Tattletale observed. Angelica had been the only survivor of Bitch’s original pack due to being too wounded from a recent fight with Fog to participate in the battle itself, which meant that Tattletale was technically cheating a little bit in counting the battle against Leviathan, not that I was going to argue over pedantics.

“That’s better than most Capes do.” Regent muttered, reminding us all of the blood around us.

Foil was still knocked out, and fast-tracked to being healed as she was one of the few capable of hurting Behemoth, so there wasn’t much use trying to visit her at the moment. Instead, I surveyed the battlefield with what eyes I had left while idly listening to Regent and Tattletale chatting in the background. Imp, Grue and Parian were still safely positioned a good way away from the frontlines, to my relief. I still felt nagging guilt about weakening our defensive perimeter by not having my team pull their weight, but I really could not handle the heartache of losing another friend today. Some selfishness had to be allowed, I was only human after all.

Chevalier and his vanguard force were putting in the hurt against Behemoth, protected by Usher’s power and attacking with everything they had. It put into perspective just how arbitrary the limits of the Endbringers were and when we had hurt them enough to make them fall back. Some days, they retreated after inflicting and suffering relatively minor damage (by Endbringer standards) while on others… Leviathan’s attack on Kyushu hadn’t ended until the entire island was sunk beneath the waves even when he had to wrestle with Lung going full dragon. 

I hoped that this wasn’t a case where Behemoth wouldn’t be satisfied until he had wiped the entirety of Czechoslovakia from the face of the Earth, but so far the day’s events hadn’t instilled me with much optimism.

Despite the losses suffered so far, the defenders still put in a lot of hurt. It was the death by a thousand cuts kind of deal, where no single attack did noticeable damage, but between Chevalier’s giant sword, Defiant’s halberd, Legend’s lasers and Eidolon’s… Whatever he was pulling at the moment, they were chipping away at the thing.  

It was however a defence with a single important point of failure, a weakness that if successfully exploited would make everything fall apart. Between the Endbringers being smarter than they looked and scaling their ferocity based on the resistance faced I could almost see the tipping point when Behemoth cut loose right before he did. He was the slowest of the Endbringers, but he was still far faster than one would expect from his size. He pushed forward, striking people out of the way like a bowling ball. He broke through the line of defence to get to the support line, where he deliberately went after Usher, who, much like Bitch, could not give himself the same brute package he was able to empower other people with. It was a short affair, with Behemoth simply advancing until he was close enough to telekinetically crush the man to a pulp, bypassing the Manton Effect once he was within the kill aura.

From there, he took the initiative against the suddenly vulnerable Capes, few of whom could survive his attacks without any help. Assault was among the first casualties, only natively protected against kinetik attacks and unable to survive the bright beam of light that swept through the ranks and incinerated those that it hit. We hadn’t been friends, I think he blamed me for Battery’s death at the hands of Bonesaw, but it was hard seeing yet another of my hometown’s old heroes perish. If an afterlife existed, which didn’t seem entirely out of the question when you had Capes like the Fairy Queen ferrying around what were basically the souls of the dead, I hoped that the two were reunited again. 

Chevalier lasted longer than most, his armour protecting him against many of the attacks thrown, from the lightning strikes to the blows with Behemoth’s good arm, but the man inside was mortal even if he wore empowered armour. With Behemoth treating the Manton Effect as more of a suggestion than a law, outer armour could only do so much without being backed up by enhanced toughness. The leader of the Protectorate burned from the inside out even as he used his last remaining strength to impale the Endbringer’s leg with his sword, his knightly suit still standing tall after the man inside it had been burned to cinders.

The Herokiller had lived up to his name, and did not stop because of the death of the head of the Protectorate, marching on atop the now fleeing Capes. Morale, tenuous as it had been since before the battle began, broke completely. I saw the truth writ large: We had lost. I had failed, and all the sacrifices had been for nothing.

—

Fighting continued, but it was sporadic from there, with few left with the strength to oppose the monster. Defiant had survived the break in the lines, but Dragon had to sacrifice the last of her suits to give him and others a chance to fall back. Golem, Vista and Clockblocker tried to perform the same trick I had ordered them to do earlier, if only to delay things for a little longer, but the Endbringer was ready for it this time and melted the giant arm reaching for him before it could touch his body. Judging by the way Golem recoiled with a scream, the backlash of the attack had hit him in his actual arm, which he was clutching with a whimper.

Foil and Miss Militia were both up again by now, but with the speed Behemoth was moving through our positions, killing Capes and civilians alike, any attempt to replicate the previous nukes were more likely to hurt us than him, with him not providing a stationary target and moving through more crowded areas. They still fired at him with more conventional rockets though and while it didn’t have the spectacular effects they had previously accomplished, every hit ate away at his layers of protection, exposing tiny bits more of the hyperdense core at the centre of the Endbringer.

Eidolon and Legend… Were gone.

And wasn’t that the oddest thing? They hadn’t fallen, I’d like to think people would have noticed if they had, especially myself, and while recent events had proven that they were not the paragons they presented themselves as, I still wouldn’t have expected them to just turn tail and run while others were still fighting. 

I scanned the battlefield for signs of their presence, until I found an odd ephemeral bubble a good way away from Behemoth, at the very edge of my range. It did not allow any sound or light through it, which only heightened my curiosity, but I had some of my bugs sneak inside it to spy on what was going on and found the both of them there having a private conversation.

Tattletale wasn’t near enough the anti-eavesdropper bubble itself to notice it, but she did pick up on the fact that I had found something odd, as she led me aside with a whispered “What is it?”

“Legend and Eidolon are talking about something, something they don’t want anyone else to know about.” I muttered as I gathered enough insects to get an idea what they were saying.

She narrowed her eyes behind her domino mask. “Tell me.”

“-The only way.” Eidolon was insisting. “If there’s even a chance, I have to do this.”

“You’re going to kill yourself, David.” Legend protested. “We can’t afford to lose you too.”

“Why not?!” He threw his arms out despairingly. “We’ve lost Lexi, Hero, Myrddin and so many others. You and I are the only people left of the old guard. What’s even the point of it all?”

“Fuck me, he really is suicidal.” Tattletale breathed as I relayed what they were saying. “Shit.”

Eidolon continued. “The Protectorate is dying and Cauldron is gone. Everything we did, all the sacrifices we made were for nothing!” He almost sounded like he was crying, the most powerful superhero in the world having a breakdown.

“Confirms Cauldron did get hit a few months back. Choice of words imply isolated rather than destroyed. Cauldron used portals for traversals. Cauldron was located in another dimension. Portal generation gone.” Tattletale frowned. “Eidolon’s power can provide any power it thinks he needs, Legend has been in contact with Faultline in New York. Consciously or subconsciously, neither truly wants Cauldron back.”

Legend was giving Eidolon what was halfway between a hug and a pat on the shoulder. “I know. But you don’t need to throw your life away, we can make this better. I should have looked harder at what you were doing, I should have made sure we were held accountable, but this is a fresh start, a chance to try to make the world better.”

A hollow laugh. “All my life they told me I had to be as strong as possible, that I couldn’t burn myself out or get myself killed because they needed me to fight Scion. And it never even mattered. None of what we did ever mattered because Scion didn’t bother to stick around when the Cycle was already broken.”

Tattletale clutched her head as a headache set in from this drop of information. “What the Hell? That’s… For starters, Cauldron was made to combat Scion. Cauldron considered Scion more dangerous than all the Endbringers combined. Endbringers aren’t human. Scion is not human. Scion is not from Earth. Scion is an alien.” Her eyes widened at the realisation. “Scion is the source of our power.”

“Deep down, I think the reason we never told you about what we were really doing was because we were ashamed. You and Hero were the best of us, we couldn’t let you see how ugly we’d become, or worse bring you down to our level.” Eidolon kept talking while Legend just looked at him sadly. “Please, this is my best shot, and if I manage to take him down with me then at least I’ve done something good.”

Legend sighed. “Are you sure you can do this? You’ve never managed before.”

“I think… I think on some level I’ve always held back. And I have a plan.”

“... Okay. Good luck, my friend.”

The bubble popped as Legend flew back to help against Behemoth again, while Eidolon did… Something. It was hard to understand what was happening but all of a sudden all nearby bugs died from a terrible cold sweeping through them.

“He’s on the move.” I said to Tattletale.

It seemed like Behemoth could sense Eidolon’s suicidal determination, or perhaps whatever his power was doing, because the Endbringer turned around from what it was currently doing, smashing through the regular military like they weren’t even there, to face him. There was a strange sort of anticipation in the air as it moved towards him, ignoring everyone else as they cowered behind what cover they could find. Soon, Eidolon became visible, at least in a sense of the word. His normal glowing green look had been replaced with a pitch black darkness, like the void between the stars. No light that hit him was reflected back. He walked slowly, no slot spared for any Mover power, and every step he took seemed to turn the world into a surreal frozen version of itself. The ground rippled beneath his feet, the laws of physics going haywire in face of the absolute cold, the very air around him freezing solid, requiring what looked to be great effort to push past. 

It took until a bolt of lightning fizzled out as it tried to reach him and light was absorbed with nary an issue that I realised what Eidolon’s current power truly meant. It wasn’t just cold but the total drain of any energy that came near him. A couple of Capes approached him for protection or a joint effort to attack Behemoth, only to die, their bodies falling down into shattered pieces as they were sucked dry of life.

Behemoth seemingly did not care, if anything he seemed excited that Eidolon had gone for a power that actively tried to deny him. When fire and radiation did not do the trick, the Endbringer charged him, trying to slam him into the ground. The effect was like everything going in slow motion, with Behemoth’s arm getting slower and slower the closer it got Eidolon, until it was frozen completely solid upon touching him. I did not know how Eidolon survived his Breaker state, perhaps he was dying the moment he entered it, but even so it was working. He’d become the antithesis of the dynakinetic, a void negating anything thrown at him. The Simurgh probably would have been able to find a way around this, especially since he appeared to have dropped every other power to focus on this one, but Behemoth was energy, his every attack just different expressions of the very thing that was feeding and sustaining Eidolon at this moment. If anything I got the impression that being near Behemoth was all that was keeping Eidolon alive at this point. 

He walked up the frozen arm and to his chest, where he struck an arm through one of the wounds made towards the heart of the Endbringer. It wasn’t a punch, not really, more that he latched on to the Endbringer like a leech and started sucking him dry. What happened next couldn’t really be seen as it was just a blinding few minutes while the sky was torn apart by fire and lightning, Behemoth throwing attack after attack that could more than match the massive explosion he’d used to free himself from the trap he’d been placed in earlier. But eventually it died down, to reveal the dead husk of an Endbringer and a shadowy impression where Eidolon had been.

It was over. The cost had been enormous with uncountable dead, but we had won. For the first time in history humanity had actually killed an Endbringer.

Chapter Text

The silence that had settled upon the battlefield was broken by the sound of music. It began quietly, to the point that it was hard to pinpoint when exactly it had first started. The earliest estimates being that it had begun the moment Behemoth fell, while others swore that it only became audible an hour later. That was creepy enough on its own, especially since it seemed to affect every single person in the city, but I personally noticed another cause for disquiet: None of my swarm could hear it like I could.

It wasn’t a far leap in logic to assume that the Simurgh was responsible for this song, and a fear swept through everyone that she was descending on Prague to finish the job. If that had been the case, our chances of resisting her would have been non-existent, wounded and exhausted as we all were. The truth, from the information people managed to pull from their contacts, was both better and worse than that fear. Ziz was currently flying in low orbit across the Atlantic Ocean, making no signs of descending down on any city.

Her music, and it was quickly becoming clear that there was no other being who could be responsible, was also audible across half a hemisphere. How loudly it could be heard did not seem to have any relation to how far away you were, varying from individual to individual. 

Needless to say, there was global panic over this phenomena, with years of paranoia over the possibility of becoming Ziz-bombs coming to the fore. The idea that literally anyone could be compromised upon hearing the music was something that innumerable amounts of propaganda and information campaigns about the Simurgh had taught, and even though there was no verification that it was the case on this occasion since she had never done anything like this before, people still acted out over the possibility, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Fear of the Simurgh’s song spread faster than news of our pyrrhic victory against Behemoth and I could only imagine what conclusions people might draw based on the incomplete information. Hopefully Sierra would be able to keep Brockton Bay from setting itself on fire before we’d returned.

Personally, I found the music beautiful if haunting. Perhaps that was a sign that I had already been compromised, any understanding of the melody being at the cost of an impaired judgement. I didn’t feel like I had gone mad, but I supposed no one ever did. All the same, it struck me less as the sound of a new assault and more like a mournful dirge. We’ve never quite understood what relationship the Endbringers had with one another, but perhaps she mourned Behemoth as one might a fallen brother. Some might say that only madness awaited those trying to guess the thoughts of the most esoteric Endbringer, but then the same people would probably say that I was mad already. So instead of second-guessing my every thought like some did, I simply chose to see the song as a reflection of my own sorrow at the loss of Rachel.

—

We held an informal funeral in her honour at the outskirts of Prague while we waited for transport home. Getting everyone back took some time since most of the existing Dragoncraft had been destroyed during the battle. We couldn’t retrieve Rachel’s actual body for the funeral because the area she had fallen in was now flooded with deadly radiation. With Behemoth’s corpse proving highly radioactive, it would probably take years of reconstruction before the city could be rebuilt, with word on the street being that the Czechoslovak government had relocated to Brno for the foreseeable future. At least they could probably scrounge up the money for it by selling parts of Behemoth to interested parties.

Tattletale was faring the worst of us from the music, twitching at every discordant tone and haunting melody. I caught her tapping a finger in tune while her face was scrounged up in concentration, but she kept quiet, focused on deciphering the meaning of the song, and so I let her be.

Grue was presenting himself as a stabilising presence during the funeral, an immovable rock that the rest of us could anchor ourselves around. He was standing tall with his arms folded, indomitable at least outwardly, though that ever present air of hollowness that always clung to him these days hung heavy and he didn’t speak at all. 

I was the unofficial organiser of this funeral, having gathered everyone together to say goodbye, yet when the time came for me to give my parting words I found I couldn’t voice anything. I tried to think of something to say, but no words would come out of my mouth. So we all stood there in a long silence, none of us saying anything, until eventually Regent broke the silence.

“She was a bitch but she was our Bitch.” He joked half-heartedly. When no one laughed he just shrugged. “Not on my A-game right now. Uhm… Can’t believe Behemoth went for the virgin first, breaking all the monster rules there.”

“Wait, was she a virgin?” Imp piped up. “I always assumed she’d slept with someone at some point. If anything, isn't Tattletale the token virgin here?”

“Well, she did punch me when I asked, which I suppose isn’t conclusive either way.” Regent mulled over it. “Just figured with the amount of ‘sexually frustrated’ energy she had got going…”

“Not the time or place for this discussion I think,” I cut them off. “Just try to remember all that she did for us. She was loyal, when you’d earned it, and beneath her taciturn appearance I think she really cared for us. She became like a sister to me, and I’ll really miss her.”

“Oof, the posthumous friendzoning, no wonder she died a virgin.” Imp withered under the glare I sent her, unmistakable even with the mask covering my face. “Shutting up now.”

“Since when did you learn the word posthumous?” Regent leaned over to ask her in a whisper.

“I can do words, bitch.” She shot back.

“No, no. Bitch is the one we’re mourning, try to keep up.”

Foil was giving them both weird looks, apparently still not entirely used to them defaulting to irreverence no matter the situation. She herself was hanging back a bit, never really having had the chance to get to personally know Rachel, and mostly attending this as a show of solidarity with the rest of us. 

Finding that I couldn’t come up with anything else to say as a goodbye to the departed, I let the silence reign once more until I moved on to practical matters. “She’ll want us to take care of her dogs, especially Bastard and Angelica.” 

I turned to Tattletale, who shook herself out of her minor trance. “Shouldn’t be too hard to make sure her dog shelters are kept up and running even with her gone, all of her minions were already trained to handle them. We could probably convince Cassie to take up running the place in Rachel’s honour.”

“Good.” I tried to remember who Cassie was. I seemed to recall her having been a fangirl who loved dogs and was taken under Rachel’s wing. Probably not the worst choice, at least she’d be more enthusiastic than Barker or Biter. Might need some extra muscle to keep them in line though seeing how unlike them she wasn’t parahuman. “I’d like to personally take care of Angelica though. I feel like I owe that to her.” It was my fault she had been here in the first place. 

“Well I’m not taking care of Bastard. There’s no way I’d be able to train a wolf pup properly and I don’t want Bitch haunting me for the rest of my life because I failed him.” Said Tattletale.

“I could take him.” Grue spoke up for the first time this entire funeral. “It could be… Enjoyable, and a good experience.”

He certainly could do with puppy therapy more than most, and giving him someone to take care of might help his state of mind in the long term. “I have no objection to that. I’ll also need you to take up guarding New Brockton now that Rachel can’t, if that’s alright.”

He nodded mutely.

No more words were spoken for the duration of the funeral, just all of us silently waiting for when it ended and we could go home.

—

Cozen approached me on the platform where all the people waiting to leave for Brockton Bay were hanging around. Casualties in our group had been lighter than in many others, with only Bitch and Rook lost, compared to Sere, Usher, Assault, Chevalier, Eidolon, Krieg, the Hyperborean and countless more I could not recall. She smiled awkwardly at me and waved her hand. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

“Sorry about Bitch.” She gave me her best apologetic look. “I know it isn’t easy.”

“The same. About Rook I mean. Must be tough losing your leader all of a sudden.”

“That’s what I wanted to talk about, actually. So my friends got together and started talking, and they unanimously elected me to be the new leader.” Another awkward smile.

“Okay?” It wasn’t really surprising, Cozen had always struck me as being the second in command of the group, but I got the feeling she was here to announce more than her new leadership.

“And you know how you left an open invite for us to join the Hive?”

“Yes?”

“Well, we got talking some more, and the consensus was that before he died Rook had wanted us to form closer cooperation with the Undersiders and we really don’t see any reason to object to that.”

I could see that, though the cynical part of me wondered if this sudden consensus had something to do with the fact that the Red Hands were down to just three people now, and the petty and jealous part of me could see Cozen having ulterior motives for wanting to get into a closer relationship with us. “I take it the Red Hand would like to enter our partnership then?”

“Yes.” She nodded with a slightly less awkward smile. “We’d need to talk over the details of course, but yes.”

“Then we’d be happy to have you.” I reached over and shook her hand. One down, one more to go. Pity that the Ambassadors were always going to be the harder of the two to convince. 

Accord did not approach me to offer any condolences, but I did note that remarkably he had found some way to get his suit cleaned in the time it had taken us to arrange a funeral. I wasn’t sure how he managed that with the situation being what it was, but I supposed his Thinker power was to become smarter the harder the problem he was tackling became. Coming up with a way to look presentable again seemed like the sort of mundane use of it that I wouldn’t put past him.

The Simurgh’s song was finally dying down as well, in time for one of the Dragoncraft to land and take us aboard. I’d ask Tattletale if she got anything useful out of it once we had some privacy. I wasn’t as worried as some of the others that everything that had happened up to and including Eidolon killing Behemoth was all part of her master plan and now she had ensorcelled half of humanity to her whims. There was a point when the paranoia went from reasonable levels of suspicion about the enigmatic Endbringer into outright defeatism, and assuming that everyone was already compromised definitely veered into the latter. Nevertheless, it’d be good to hear if she ever did manage to figure something out from the music, I myself was left with a distinct impression that she felt something akin to sorrow (in which case this all being part of her plot seemed all the more unlikely) but that might simply be my own feelings speaking.

In the meantime I had to deal with another awkward ride next to Defiant. The one to Prague had been bad enough, but I could not meet his gaze on the one back to Brockton Bay. I was so afraid I’d find him staring at me judgmentally, having heard from Dragon what I’d done, how after everything I had said I was no better than him. Even worse would be his pity, for I neither wanted nor deserved it from that man.

When he spoke to me, it was with pity in his voice. “I’m… Sorry. It never gets easier.”

My eyes twitched and I did not respond, which he unfortunately took as permission to continue.

“I’ve led several Endbringer response teams in my time and losing people is simply part of it. It’s a very lucky day when everyone you brought with you comes back home alive, and when they don’t you simply have to honour their bravery in their sacrifice.”

Still no response.

He sighed. “I’m not saying that you shouldn’t mourn them, but it’s not your fault. She knew the risks like we all did, and it speaks to Hellhound’s character that-”

“Bitch.”

He did not miss a beat. “It speaks to Bitch’s character that she was willing to sacrifice herself for the greater good.”

“But what if…” I did not know how to articulate my feelings, how to admit to what would surely incriminate myself. “What if I failed to live up to that? If I couldn’t… Follow her example?”

Defiant hesitated, before putting a hand on my shoulder. “You shouldn’t throw your own life away just because you lost a friend.”

“That’s not what I meant.” I shook my head. “I was supposed to lead people, to make the right choices for the greater good. But when everyone depended on me I let them down. I failed.”

“I objected to putting you in the official leadership position.” Defiant told me. “Not because I didn’t think you would be capable, don’t get me wrong. You’re a very clever girl, smarter than most of the people I know. No, I objected because no one should saddle a child with responsibility for the deaths that would inevitably happen.”

I bristled at that. “I’m not a child.”

“I’m not saying that you haven’t had to grow up fast, but I’ve seen people with three times your age and experience buckle under that kind of pressure. I’ve done it myself.”

“Ain’t that the truth?” I snorted.

To his credit, he took that jab in good spirits. “I’m not proud of my actions when faced with Leviathan. I let my pride get the better of me and a lot of people died because of it. It’s something I’ll have to carry with me for the rest of my life.”

Part of me wanted to push on, to confess that I too had let others die under my watch. But what then? Maybe he’d lock me up for being a trucebreaker, take me away to the Birdcage like the Protectorate were so itching to do. So I simply sighed and changed the topic. “My condolences about Assault by the way.”

“Yes…” Defiant’s voice took on a pained note. “Spent years working with that man, and he always got on my nerves with his stupid jokes. Never thought I’d miss hearing them.”

I could imagine the dynamic. Regent’s sense of humour could be rather tasteless at times, like his attempts to lighten the mood during Bitch’s funeral, but I still knew I’d feel hollow if he had been killed by Behemoth. “I never really knew him, but he seemed like a good man.”

“He was, despite being a former villain, he had a stronger moral character than most.”

“Wait, really?” I had never heard that part before.

“It’s the sort of thing that the Protectorate likes to keep classified, but it doesn’t really matter any longer and I think you’d appreciate that fact.” He said with a hint of faint amusement.

“Is that actually common?”

“More than you’d think. It’s part of the overall strategy of trying the soft approach for anything short of mass murderers. Villains are more useful converted than sent to prison, especially when most of them would require specialised equipment to keep them contained.”

“I wish I’d seen more of that treatment when I wanted to turn a new leaf.” I said with no small amount of bitterness. Even months after the fact, I still felt anger thinking about how they’d tried to browbeat me into submission even after I had cooperated with them as a gesture of goodwill. 

“Tagg was a special case.” Defiant sighed. “Calmer heads prevailed after he was gone but by then the damage was already done. It was terribly handled, I won’t argue with that, though you should know not all of us are like that.”

“Enough were to enable people like him.” I shot back.

“True.”

What followed was silence as I thought about what was said. Surprisingly, despite everything, I was in a little bit of a better mood from talking to Defiant. Still with that nagging guilt and sorrow, not to mention bitterness at the world for pushing me here, but he was being less judgmental and more understanding than I had anticipated.

“How is Miss Militia handling things by the way?” I asked after a while. It was strange, thinking about how at this point Defiant and Miss Militia were the only members of the Brockton Bay Protectorate I had grown up with left. There was technically also Triumph, but he’d only just graduated from the Wards when I first entered the scene so I didn’t really count him as Protectorate. Besides, last I heard he’d been sacked as part of the purges in Cauldron Capes. Figures that the mayor’s son would simply buy powers rather than earn them the hard way.

“She’s doing well. We don’t really talk much nowadays but she’s been helping out in Chicago after she got transferred there from Boston. They gave her leadership over the Protectorate there since they figured she’d know something about handling a city in crisis after the previous leader left a vacuum in his wake.” There was a self-deprecating smile on him at the last bit.

“Chicago really pulled its weight in this battle then. Tell her to send my regards to Golem by the way, we couldn’t have contained Behemoth without him.”

“I’ll be sure to.” His smile took on an enigmatic quality, the kind of ‘I know something you don’t’ smile that Tattletale loved.

“What?” I said, a bit defensively. “There’s nothing wrong with receiving compliments from a villain.”

“Certainly not.” He agreed. “At least not for something like this.”

I stared at him for a little while, but he apparently did not intend to elaborate on what amused him, so I let it lie.

—

Brockton Bay had not burned down in our absence, though an uneasy air hung around the city in the aftermath of the Simurgh’s music. Someone had actually cobbled together a placard with the old ‘The end is nigh!’ message on it and was waving it up and down the streets. The fact that they would until recently have been right just added to my amusement upon seeing this.

The New Wave said their goodbyes upon landing and went their own way, as did the other groups soon enough. Defiant stayed onboard to fly to Vancouver, leaving me at last with a chance to talk to Lisa about… Everything that had happened.

She had to help me carry Angelica back to where I lived since the old girl had only gotten the bare minimum of healing during the battle and was still not in a state to walk far herself and she was a bit too large to be easily carried by one person. Once we had put her down on the sofa and found something to feed her we took our masks off and sat down to talk.

“So…” I began.

“So.” She agreed, looking deeply frazzled. “You’re right by the way, the Simurgh was sad, or the closest approximation to sad an Endbringer can be.”

I hadn’t voiced those thoughts aloud yet but that was par for the course. “Because of Behemoth?”

“That’s the weird thing, I don’t think so. But none of the input I’m getting makes any sense and for all I know she’s deliberately fucking with me.”

“What else could it be for? Is she upset that some plan of hers failed?”

“No, if anything I think it went according to plan, but that’s making her melancholic or something?” She rubbed her temple. “Playing Endbringer psychologist is hard enough when they’re not thousands of miles away from you.”

“Understandable.” There was only so much we could learn there I supposed, and we had other significant matters to talk about. “The things you said about Cauldron and Scion…”

“Positive. The last Endbringer attack having cut off Cauldron fits the puzzle so well, and I’m almost certain that Scion is in fact an alien who is giving us our powers. In hindsight it’s so obvious I’m suspecting his anti-Thinker power is the reason I didn’t figure it out sooner.”

“But how does that fit into Cauldron wanting to kill him, because I figure there’s more to it than simply xenophobia. You don’t create an entire secret conspiracy to kill one person if you don’t have an actual reason to.” I reasoned. “Presumably you were right that he was going to end the world before he didn’t, and Cauldron knew that. So why would he do that, how did they know and what on Earth does Jack Slash have to do with all of this?”

She hummed. “Take this with a grain of salt, because I don’t know if it’s because of Scion or exhaustion, but my power is being very uncooperative right now. But Eidolon mentioned some kind of broken cycle as the reason why Scion left. The ‘cycle’ in this case I surmise being about him releasing powers into the world. So some part of that went wrong, and they thought he might flip out when he realised it?”

“Well, one of the things we know about Cauldron is that they sell powers, and if Scion is the source of the powers, and they’re his enemy, then that suggests that they somehow have been stealing powers from him.” I thought aloud.

“That sounds about right. If so, talk about self-fulfilling prophecy. Picking a fight with Scion in anticipation that Scion will get angry about it. As for Jack Slash, I don’t know, maybe he’s how Scion learns of what Cauldron’s been doing?” Lisa groaned. “I’m not in a state for theory crafting right now. Haven’t slept for the last 24 hours. Is it alright if I crash here for the night?” She looked out the window. “Day?”

“Be my guest.” I reluctantly got out of my comfortable armchair to get to bed, wondering if it’d be worth the effort taking off the rest of my suit.

“Thanks, Taylor. And FYI, you’re going to regret not taking it off tomorrow after all the armour pieces have chafed you during your sleep.”

Chapter Text

News were always slow to trickle down to the Birdcage, usually relegated to word of mouth whenever the latest batch of inmates was sent down to this particular pit of Hell. That and trying to decipher Glaistig Uaine’s cryptic ramblings like she was some kind of mad oracle. In Marquis’ opinion such a thing was usually a fool’s endeavour, at best what she said was allegorical enough that it could be connected to something that had happened in hindsight, which meant that even if she had greater insight into the world outside, her madness made it functionally useless to the rest of the inmates. He was still deeply sceptical that her wailing that ‘the Puppetmaster has abandoned the stage, and left his children without purpose’ had anything to do with the death of Alexandria like some people were insisting.

So when people started hearing singing not coming from any of the inmates or loudspeakers they understandably got rather worried and had no way of verifying what was going on. The common theory was that the Simurgh was descending down on the Birdcage, those that were keeping count of the days claimed that now would be around the time for an Endbringer attack, either to free them or kill them. The hope was the former, but the fear was the latter. There was nothing quite as frightening as the unknown, and for this reason the cell block leaders held an impromptu meeting to figure out what was going on.

The meeting was held on neutral ground as was custom, with the twelve block leaders forming a circle, one side being men and the other being women. Beside Marquis himself, the men’s half was led by Acidbath, Galvanate, Gavel, Lab Rat and Teacher while the women’s side were Black Kaze, Crane, Glaistig Uaine, Ingenue, Lustrum and String Theory. Tensions as high as these weren’t uncommon in this place, but they almost invariably resulted in bloodshed, which was not something he wanted to see happen when it would turn attention to his daughter while her position was still precarious.

With this in mind, he chose to take the lead in calling this meeting to order, tuning out the annoying buzz in his ear. “I don’t think anyone is in need of being informed why we’re gathered here, we can all hear it well enough, but do any of you have information to share about this before we proceed to what to do about it?”

He didn’t really expect a useful answer to this, good Thinkers were rare in the Birdcage, both because they weren’t sent down here as often as many other types of Capes and because those who were normally didn’t last very long in this place. He was as such not surprised when aside from a few muttered theories or obvious conclusions, no one had anything useful to contribute. None that was except the most dangerous lunatic in a prison full of them, who sat up primly in her chair and had one of her shadows draw everyone’s attention to her like a spectral herald.

Inwardly, Marquis sighed to himself, even if outwardly he took on nothing but the most courteous behaviour. “Venerable Fairy Queen, do you perchance have greater insight into this matter than the rest of us?”

“Indeed I do.” Her voice echoed into the chamber, causing several people to shift uneasily. “The Fateweaver brings word of a new age, free of the shackles of old. By granting the High Priest’s final request she has severed the fates meant for her and her brothers and joins the rest of us in our lack of destination. It is a time for sorrow and jubilation, for the old world is dead and even she knows not what the new world will bring. She must deliberate in the meaning of freedom from purpose and seek in us the answer to her riddle.”

Cryptic as always, and annoyingly it actually sounded like it might contain useful information if he could decipher it. Marquis wouldn't put it past Glaistig Uaine to have actually held a chat with the Simurgh herself and gotten something intelligible out of the buzz of noise. It was a pity that being able to talk to Endbringers and being able to talk to regular people seemed to be mutually exclusive skills. 

“Thank you, Glaistig Uaine, that was most informative.” It was hard to tell if Teacher was lying through his teeth or actually had managed to figure out what she meant, he certainly acted like it was the latter but Marquis rarely trusted anything that had to do with that man.

“What I got from it was that the Simurgh is reaching out to a bunch of inmates to figure out how to be free.” Lustrum shook her head. “I think she picked the worst people in the world to answer that question.”

“Look, I don’t care about any old existentialism.” Acidbath interjected. “Is the flying bitch going to attack us or not?”

“Seeing how we haven’t experienced anything worse than a mild headache so far, and even that seems to be waning, I’m going to go ahead and say that the answer is no.” He thought the music lacked the same intensity it had held earlier, though it was something that’s hard to verify.

Indeed, as the discussion on what to do dragged on, with their utter powerlessness to do anything about their situation hardly stopping the inmates from arguing what the best course of action was, the singing died down to nothing but a whisper. Marquis did not involve himself overly much in the continued talks. Once it was clear that things would not devolve into violence and that nothing concrete was going to be agreed upon he mostly tuned out the noise like he had the Simurgh, instead focusing his attention on Amelia. She had been quiet throughout it all, but there was an attentiveness in her gaze as she listened to the cell block leaders bickering that made him proud and while she remained all too fragile still, she was not the catatonic girl she had been a few months ago.

The debate was close to reaching its inevitable conclusion where everyone agreed that whatever this event was it seemed to have ended and there was nothing that could be done but wait and see for when news came from the outside world before they had anything more to work with when the entire facility shook. Panic rippled through the prison as everyone’s first assumption was that the avian Endbringer had in fact decided to launch a full scale attack on the Birdcage. There was a sudden lurch and then a falling sensation that ended almost as quickly as it began in a sudden stop. Marquis put an arm around Amelia, hoping desperately that all of this wasn’t a sign that the facility’s emergency functions had just activated and they were all about to be terminated for reasons beyond their control.

Fate was with them on this day however, for there was no explosive decompression as everything was opened into a vacuum, no calamitous hit into the mountain that crushed everyone to bits, no murder bots streaming in to take care of everyone. Just a great silence as everyone held a bated breath.

Then out of nowhere there stepped out a very familiar man, though it had been many years since Marquis last laid eyes on him. Jack Slash smiled triumphantly at the gathered crowd, taking a mock bow as he appeared, one hand playing with his knife. Beside him was a young blonde girl who he did not personally recognise, but based on Amelia’s reaction he could intuit who it was.

“Not her! Anyone but her!” Amelia screeched as she jumped backwards at the sight of the pair, panic and despair written across her face. 

“Oh hi, Amy!” The girl who undoubtedly was Bonesaw waved cheerfully in his daughter’s direction. “How have you been? Feels like ages since we last met, doesn't it?”

Marquis stepped forward protectively to block his daughter from the monster’s sight. “Jack Slash.” He said coldly.

“Marquis.” Jack wore a sardonic grin. “Long time, no see.” He cast his eyes over the Birdcage. “How the mighty have fallen. Should have taken my offer when you had the chance.”

He scoffed at that, ignoring the pain as he drew his bones out from under his skin to form a protective shell. “There are many things in my life I’ve done that I regret, Jack, but that is not one of them.”

“Suit yourself.” Jack shrugged languidly. “Now for the rest of you fine folks I’m here to bring you out of here. Poppin over here has been a very good girl and worked hard for these past months to bypass the Birdcage defences.”

Bonesaw beamed at the praise. “It was actually surprisingly easy once you figured out how it worked, it’s like they just left the backdoor open for interdimensional transportation. It’s such a glaring design flaw it makes you wonder if the original maker left it there originally before Dragon took over or-”

“That’s very good dear, but I don’t think these good people want to listen to your theories right now.” He patted her on her head.

Bonesaw pouted but quieted down, letting Jack take the floor.

“Friends, your freedom has arrived. At this moment you are finding yourselves in the middle of New England, far away from where you’ve previously been kept. Life, liberty and happiness are yours to pursue, at no cost at all.”

Murmurs erupted across the gathered crowd. The possibility of freedom had been long since beaten out of all but the newest of arrivals, giving way to the resigned knowledge that those who entered the Birdcage would die in the Birdcage. The hope now presented sounded far too good to be true, especially when coming from a man infamous for his untrustworthiness.

“What’s the catch?” Lustrum folded her arms. “You’re not fooling anything if you say you’re doing this out of the goodness of your heart, Jack. What’s your angle?”

“Oh I suppose I could ask you all to do what you were already going to do: Cause chaos and mayhem to your hearts’ content.” Jack bowed mockingly in her direction. “Of course if any of you wish to join my merry band of misfits as thanks for the rescue then that can be arranged too.”

The way the air in the room shifted was palpable to everyone. At the mention of an invitation everyone closed ranks, presenting a hostile united front. Despite the years of isolation from the rest of the world, they all knew what an invitation to the Slaughterhouse Nine meant, the trials you had to undergo and the monster you had to become to be a part of them. It was heartening to see in a way, how even here, among the worst of the worst of the Cape world as far as most people were concerned, no one was willing to take that step.

… Well, almost no one.

“What the Hell, sure.” Acidbath shrugged, ignoring the glares sent his way from the other inmates. “You haven’t been caught yet, so you must be doing something right.”

Disappointing, but Acidbath had always been particularly antisocial even by the standards of the Birdcage, with none of the women willing to deal with him more than what was absolutely necessary.

Jack beamed at him, no doubt already thinking of ways for him to leverage his powers to do the most damage to the world. “Glad to have you onboard. Any other takers? Perhaps-”

Glaistig Uaine interrupted him with her most imperious voice. “Cease your prattling, Broadcaster. The noise is vexing to me and I am at the limits of my patience to listen to it.”

Jack gave no outward sign of fear at her words, but Marquis was willing to bet that he was acutely remembering the fact that she was the one who once killed Gray Boy. “As you wish, oh Fairy Queen.” He took a bow that was just barely short of being mocking.

Amusing though it was to see Jack Slash being thoroughly chastised by someone who didn’t even look half his age, Marquis felt the need to take the reins of the situation and defuse it before someone did something rash. “Thank you, Jack. Now if it is as you say, most of us have hardly a reason to stay around, especially if the Protectorate is on its way to arrest us again. If I may be so bold, I’d suggest that we each go our separate ways. No need to present an easy target.” He left the part where he didn’t trust the majority of them without the harsh rules of the Birdcage keeping them in check unsaid.

There were general voices of agreement to this, as everyone considered what to make of this new opportunity. In many cases, people chose to follow their cell block leaders, though Acidbath’s block seemed reluctant to join the Slaughterhouse Nine with him and Gavel was already smashing the outer walls so he could leave without waiting for anyone to join him. He’d always despised the people around him so it was little surprise that he wouldn’t stay with them now that he no longer had to. 

Glaistig Uaine’s block were in a rather awkward position however. No one dared to openly leave her in case she took offense, but neither did they wish to stay or even imagine that she wanted them to. They shuffled around waiting for someone to take the decision out of their hands when she finally roused herself out of the melancholic mood she seemed to have fallen into as the Birdcage was steadily being abandoned.

“It would seem that my time here has come to an end.” She said to no one in particular. “With this nest no more, my bargain with the powers of the world has been fulfilled. Perhaps I should make my own court of the underworld, to safekeep until the End. Although… Yes. That would be quite splendid, thank you.” Heeding whatever voice no one else was hearing, she summoned her shades to herself, one of them transforming her prisoner’s garb into a flowing green robe, and without much further ado she was gone. Marquis couldn’t help but wonder if she had ever actually been contained by the security measures of the Birdcage, or if it was only her ‘bargain’ keeping her there.

Amelia was sticking close by him as he gathered his allies and lieutenants, men like Cinderhands and Spruce. Then there was the matter of Lung, the wild card out of his block. The large man was sizing him up, waiting for him to approach before speaking.

“You’ll be heading to the Bay, won’t you?”

Marquis smiled slightly as a way of reply. “Been a while since last I visited my home town.”

Lung nodded curtly. “Good. I have unfinished business there.”

And that, it would appear, was that. The conditional nature of Lung’s company was heavily implied, but the extra muscle certainly wouldn’t go amiss. He had plans he had idly entertained from time to time on what he would do if he ever went free, and the plans demanded a show of strength to make sure the world knew he hadn’t gone rusty while in jail.

—

Brockton Bay was not far from where the Slaughterhouse Nine had dropped the Birdcage through whatever teleportation device they had at their disposal. Dimensional tinker? He didn’t know, and it reminded him of how much he had to catch up on after a decade and a half of isolation from the world. He’d spotted some of the other inmates heading in this direction, drawn to the closest signs of civilization, but they did not bother his group and he had no intention of picking fights with what could prove potential allies himself. 

Amelia stuck close to him and did not speak even as she recognised where they were going, weighed down by guilt and regret. He was glad Lung was with them so he wouldn’t have to burden her conscience even further by asking for directions from her. Once this was done he’d make sure she had a chance to relieve some of the guilt she carried with her, so that his daughter could be happy and prosperous.

But first, a courtesy call must be made, old debts must be settled and the foundations for a New Marche must be laid.

Despite the unbearable pain that came from enveloping himself in bone matter there was a satisfaction in Marquis’ heart from remaking his old suit for the first time in a long while. It flowed over him as he stepped up to the Dallon household. The door was easily broken and tossed aside by his power. To think that his enemies had been bold enough to openly declare where they lived and they hadn’t even invested in any kind of security capable of stopping or slowing down Capes.

He’d bid his followers to stay back and guard the lawn while he dealt with this. He did not trust some of them to not break his rules and this was personal business.

Carol Dallon was standing in the kitchen as he stepped into the entryway, looking at him like she had just seen a ghost. “You!” There was a mixture of rage and terror in her voice as she drew her blades of light.

“Me.” He agreed. “My apologies for not staying in contact, I’ve been rather indisposed.”

She charged him with impressive speed, it was nice to know his enemies hadn’t let themselves go entirely since they last met. “Mark, call Sarah! It’s Marquis!”

“Excellent.” He made a rapier out of bone to engage her in a duel with. It was inefficient compared to some of his other methods and gave her the advantage but he was willing to be indulgent while it was still just the two of them. “I was meaning to meet her as well, I’m glad I did not have to travel any further for this reunion.”

Brandish growled as they clashed with blades only to suddenly stop when she looked past him. For a moment he was worried someone like Lung had chosen to disobey his orders, but her next word revealed what had happened. “Amy.”

His daughter was standing in the broken doorway, looking utterly distraught. “Hi, Carol.” She said in a weak voice.

Taking advantage of Brandish’ stunned reaction to seeing his daughter again, Marquis went in for a stab with his rapier. Rather than letting it pierce her flesh however, it transformed upon touching skin, spreading out over her and forming a bone cage to hold the woman in place. “Not that I don’t appreciate the irony of this entire situation, but I told you to stand back, Amelia. You shouldn’t have to be part of this.”

“I… Couldn’t let you kill them.” She responded, not meeting his gaze.

“I was never going to kill them- oh excuse me.” He turned around as Flashbang finally arrived from his bedroom, having finished the call with his sister-in-law and now throwing orbs of light against Marquis that he had to make a bone shield to block. “Ah, Flashbang, how nice of you to join us.”

“Marquis.” The man looked like he was half dead already, tired, worn and more sad than afraid. “It really is you?”

“In the flesh.” He shot a few projectiles of his own while dodging out of the way of Flashbang’s. It was a good thing he wasn’t planning on living in this place afterwards because it was already getting rather banged up and the Pelhams hadn’t even shown up yet. 

“How did you get out?” With Brandish held in place just behind Marquis, Flashbang couldn’t be too reckless in using his powers. But it was more than caution holding him back, that weariness that he’d detected clung to him like a shroud. Even though he had spent the years since their last fight in prison and only having to fight whenever there was an uppity subordinate who needed to be put in place, Marquis was pretty sure he hadn’t declined as much as Flashbang had.

“A series of fortunate events.” He quipped as he seeded the room with thrown bones that upon landing flowered and grew like skeletal trees to surround his opponent with their branches, constricting and reforming as they got blown up. Ultimately he had the flexibility of being able to get increased protection, battlefield control and weapons both ranged and melee against a man whose only power was to throw what were essentially grenades. On top of Flashbang’s mental and physical unreadiness the fight was blatantly unfair, but then again fairness was never a factor in these things.

For all the intensiveness of cape fights, they were often quite short, a game of tag unless Brutes were involved. In this case, the moment Marquis caught Flashbang’s wrist it was all over as even the briefest of stumbles when you couldn’t dodge out of the way of follow-up attacks usually cost you the fight. Like with Brandish before him, Flashbang was enveloped in a constricting shell of bone that left him unable to talk or move or see, with only enough space left to breathe or listen.

“Well, that was invigorating.” Two for two of the New Wave taken out so far, and Marquis was feeling better than he had in years. “Amelia dear, please don’t remove the constraints I’ve placed your adoptive guardian under. It would pain me to have to fight her again.” He noticed that his daughter had tentatively approached his first captive with a raised hand.

“I was just going to remove the blinders. She always hated the dark.”

The way she had her jaw stubbornly set he wasn’t sure he’d be able to convince her otherwise, and he supposed that Brandish’s powers wouldn’t make her a threat even if she could see so long as she couldn’t move her arms or legs. “Very well. I can do it for you.” He withdrew the bone covering the face of Brandish, as well as Flashbang while he was at it.

“Amy, listen to me. You don’t have to follow him. It’s not too late for you.” Carol immediately pleaded as soon as she could speak. 

“... I think it is.” Now that she didn’t feel the need to help Carol, Amelia was backing away from her, unable to meet her eyes. “Maybe it was a long time ago.”

“I know I haven’t been the best mother for you, Amy, but please, we can still make this right.”

“No. We can’t.” One of her hands was scratching the tattoo of Victoria on the other arm.

Marquis chose to tactfully keep quiet during this, instead awaiting the arrival of Lady Photon and whatever help she had managed to get. It was not a very long wait, since she lived close by and both she and her daughter could fly. Less than two minutes had passed since he’d defeated the Dallons when the Pelhams showed up, along with two unknown heroes they must have recruited since Amelia’s incarceration, both looking rather young.

“Mrs Pelham, thank you for the timeliness of your arrival.” He took a bow. No need to not be polite, and unlike her sister he did not think that Lady Photon would charge him mid-bow. “My condolences for the loss of your husband, I would have enjoyed sparring with him once again.”

“Mr Lavere.” She folded her arms midair and looked down sternly at him. “Release my sister and brother-in-law this instant.”

“I will, as soon as you spare me a moment of your time.” He gestured towards his allies, who against all odds had actually been staying put and watching the show instead of walking off to cause chaos elsewhere. Perhaps he had managed to teach them some discipline after all. “As you can see, I hold a distinct advantage here, even before you consider the hostages held. Now, I pride myself on not bringing harm to women and children, and I could never bear to hurt Amelia by killing people who she loves, but I’m not sure all of my friends would share such sentimentality.” He made her glance in the direction of Lung. Good, the point had landed and he genuinely would prefer no one died that night and couldn’t be sure he’d be able to take on four Capes, half of whom were unknowns, without calling in help. 

“What do you want?” She had caught on that these were negotiations, and that he held the upper hand in them.

“Many things. Power, wealth, respect, the chance to raise my daughter into the splendid young woman I know she can be. But from you, it’s quite simple: I want you to leave Brockton Bay. You took my home from me, and one good turn deserves another. I say this for your sake as much as my own. I have no Birdcage to stop you from returning, but this city is going to be very dangerous for heroes in the near future.”

“It’s not just you, is it?” She caught on to what he implied. “It’s all of the inmates.”

“Quite. Really, you were lucky I was the first to reach you, some of the others wouldn’t have been this restrained.”

Lady Photon looked between her allies, enemies and captured family, visibly calculating whether she could pull this off. Evidently the conclusion was no, because eventually she slumped. “Fine, you win. Release them and I swear we won’t cause you any more trouble.”

“Sarah, you can’t mean to-” Carol protested.

“It’s for the best, we’re not in a state to do this and if what he says is true we’re going to have to choose our battles. So many supervillains on the loose…” She shuddered. “Take care of Amy, Marquis. If I find out that you’ve been mistreating her-”

“You have my word I will be the best father I could possibly be to her.” He took another bow. “I have a great many flaws I know, but I don’t think that is one of them.”

It was a subdued affair, releasing the New Wave to go on their way while his New Marche carved out their territories for themselves. Even Brandish, always the most eager to get into a fight with him, seemed to have lost her inner fire, and put up little more than token resistance. It was a sad state, rather than being a reenactment of his battles with the Brockton Brigade in the good old days, it would seem they had lost even before he arrived. Truthfully, he pitied them, even if he couldn’t abandon the bitterness in his heart over having been locked away by them. 

—

There was another, more secretive, reason why he wanted to seize New Wave’s homes for himself though, aside from a wish to settle old scores and make a strong first impression as he reestablished himself in his old home town. Amelia had never liked talking about what had made her surrender herself to the authorities, but he had gathered from the bits and pieces she divulged that it involved her powers mutilating her adoptive sister, who she loved very dearly. Personally, Marquis felt absolutely nothing for Victoria Dallon, but it was clear to him that her fate was the cause for his daughter’s melancholia and he would move Heaven and Hell if it meant curing her of it. Now he had no idea where Victoria had been taken after whatever had happened to her and those who knew would probably not tell him, but he figured he’d be able to find the evidence in the Dallon household.

Some old-fashioned detective work proved enough to lead him to the Parahuman Asylum where she was kept and so while Cinderhands and Spruce started establishing control over their newly won territories he took Amelia with him on a road trip. Lung was also following with, because he didn’t quite trust him to be left entirely without oversight and some extra muscle could come in handy.

“I don’t know if I’m going to be able to do this.” Amelia admitted in a quiet voice from the passenger seat. “Last time I just made everything so much worse.”

Marquis ignored the snort that came from Lung, who had chosen to sprawl out over the three backseats of the car, and simply smiled at his daughter. “I’m sure you will. I have faith in you and I know that you can achieve great things with your power. Besides, I’ll lend you every bit of experience I can on the subject.”

She smiled back uncertainly, but did not look particularly reassured.

When they stepped out of the car however, Lung took him aside. “This is a lot of effort to get a hero who is going to hate us back. Any moment now, someone could be hitting our turf while we’re away.”

Marquis chose to let the implication that they were co-leaders slide away, better on a whole if Lung took it that way. “Think of it pragmatically. If this succeeds, she will be more confident in using her powers, and think of the boon they could be. Besides, I’m sure there are people in there who might join us in exchange for freedom.”

“Freaks.” Lung scoffed, but he seemed to contemplate his words. “Guess it would be nice to have a healer who actually heals though. Fine, but this better not have been a massive waste of my time.”

“I promise that it won’t.” At some point he should stop making promises he didn’t know if he could keep.

The place was lightly guarded compared to many other facilities for keeping parahumans imprisoned, and he should know. The door was entirely unprotected and easily smashed through by a Brute like Lung, and the night watches who came to respond to the disturbance were unarmoured and carrying only service pistols. Perhaps they simply trusted the inmates to not want to escape.

He noticed that Amelia shuddered and stared in horror when he filleted the guards though and scolded himself for having momentarily forgotten that he was bringing a more sensitive soul with him on this mission. It was so easy to fall back into old habits when faced with violence when he needed to be gentle. “You don’t have to look, dear.”

“I’m… I’m good.” She sounded like she was the furthest thing from good, if anything like she was going to throw up. “Just shocked is all.”

“Lung, why don’t you take care of any other guards and free the rest of these souls? Amelia and I have an appointment to make.”

“Hmpf.” Lung looked annoyed to have been ordered to do anything, but since the prospect of violence and death appealed to him more than having to babysit Marquis’ daughter as she did her work he did not protest, instead beginning his transformation into a draconic shape. 

It was late in the evening when they had arrived, so most of the facility’s personnel had already gone home by now. Most, but not all. Blocking the way to Victoria’s ward was a short therapist holding a clipboard like it was a weapon. The nametag on her read as ‘Jessica Yamada’, and she was standing firm and resolute with not a trace of fear in her eyes when faced with one of the old boogeymen of the Cape world.

“I can’t let you go any further.” She said as he approached.

“And who are you, brave doctor, to tell me no?” He stopped, amused and slightly impressed at her gumption.

“Someone who values the mental health of her patients very much. And I can tell you right away that if your plan is for your daughter to meet her sister, it would do them both a great deal of harm if a meeting happened. Neither of them would be ready for it, certainly not like this.”

“I was hoping that I could guide my daughter to resolve Miss Dallon’s plight. I think it would be for the best if you stepped aside.”

Doctor Yamada hesitated, before standing firmer. “Even if that were true and you can, these things can’t be rushed into. I’d need to make sure that Victoria’s mentally prepared for such a meeting beforehand, and Amelia as well. If you just throw them into the same room as each other the results could be disastrous.”

“Your advice has been noted but that is time I do not have.” He raised a hand to signify the threat of using his powers on her. “Stand aside.”

“I can not do that.” She did not hesitate or back down even slightly in the face of this, which earned her his grudging respect.

“I insist.” A projectile shot out, pinning the doctor against the wall.

Taking her keyring, he opened the lock to where Victoria Dallon was held and stopped as he beheld the sight of what she had become.

‘Mutilated’ was not a strong enough word for the grotesque alien monster she had been transformed into. Any resemblance to the girl tattooed on Amelia’s arm and pictured in the photos of the Dallon household seemed almost like a parody. Blonde hair atop a mound of inhuman flesh. For a brief moment, he wondered if he hadn’t bitten off more than he could chew after all, this was nothing like what he’d dealt with in his career. But then he crushed that feeling; he could not let his daughter down, and he knew in his heart that she needed this.

The thing that was Victoria quivered upon seeing her skulking behind him, making a sound that wasn’t actual speech as she seemed to look upon her with a mixture of dread and desire.

“Oh, Vicky. I’m so, so sorry.” Tears glistened as they ran down Amelia’s face. “I’m here, I’m going to make you better, I promise.”

There was a great deal of thrashing in response as Victoria blinked rapidly to signify something, but Amelia grabbed hold onto a protruding limb and she stilled instantly.

“It’s going to be alright.” She said soothingly. “I’ll fix it all, everything.”

What followed was an all too long process as Marquis did his best to help with his own experience in bonemoulding, taking out the pictures he had gathered of Victoria among the Dallons. There were booms and crashes heard as Lung tore through the rest of the facility and while he hoped that all the other fires burning across the country meant that the heroes would be too busy to respond in a timely manner to an attack on a lonely asylum, he still expected them to show up any moment now. 

Flesh rippled and reshaped itself as if by its own volition. To call it being formed like clay would belittle his daughter’s power over it. She did not need to even touch the part she was reforming, just kept a grip on Victoria as she screamed with an increasingly human-like voice. He could see why Glaistig Uaine had treated her as an equal. Calling her power healing was vastly underselling its potential. She was his pride and his joy, now more than ever, every mistake a part of the learning process. 

Eventually, she stepped back from Victoria, who was naked, struggling to stand but looking very much like the girl from the pictures, rather than whatever she had been before.

“Vicky?” She asked her hesitantly. “Vicky are you there?”

She didn’t respond, and for a moment he was worried that she had failed to truly restore her sanity as well as her body. Then she looked up with piercing blue eyes. “Amy?”

“It’s me, it’s Amy.” She smiled through the tears. “Are you… Good?”

“No.” She shook her head. “There’s so much pain. All I remember is suffering.”

“I… I can take it away. Make you forget this awful time.” There was so much hope in her voice. “Make things like they used to be.”

“No. You can’t.” Victoria unknowingly echoed Amelia’s own words to their shared mother. “It wouldn’t be right, it wouldn’t fix things.”

“Are you sure? I don’t want you to suffer, Vicky.” She raised a hand to grab hold of her. “Let me help you.”

“No!” Pure terror radiated out of Victoria, literally. It made everyone wince as their minds were bombarded with it. In a flash, she had grabbed hold of both of Amelia’s arms, using her super strength to hold her in place. “I’m not forgetting, and I’m not letting you touch me ever again.”

“Vicky, please.” She pleaded with her, looking absolutely terrified. “I just want to help you.”

“Miss Dallon, please release your hold on my daughter.” Marquis stepped in. From what he had been told of her powers, he could probably take her out, or at least disrupt her forcefield briefly so that his daughter could incapacitate her. He had no wish to test that theory however when she might easily break her arms as she lashed out in fear.

It seemed to have taken until now for Victoria to realise who he actually was. “You’re with Marquis?” She asked incredulously. Her grip tightened and Amelia gasped out in pain. “Why?”

“He’s my father. He helped me while I was locked away and promised that he’d help me fix my mistakes. Vicky, listen to me-”

“No, you listen to me!” She screamed at her. “I’m not letting you violate me again just so you can turn back the clock! It doesn’t work that way. And you!” She turned on him with a murderous glare. “You let Mrs. Yamada go, right this instant. You’re leaving this place without hurting anyone else.”

“Acceptable.” He unmade the bone pinning the doctor to the wall. “Would you kindly release my daughter and we’ll be on our way?”

She did so with a final disgusted look her way and he gently picked her up and led her out. Getting Lung to follow along wasn’t hard when he had long since gone bored waiting for them. 

Perhaps this could have been handled with a bit more tact, he privately admitted as he tried to console Amelia while she bawled her eyes out. He just hoped it would still make her feel better in the long run than if they hadn’t come. Being a father took some getting used to, and he did not think he had mastered it yet.

Chapter Text

My attempts to get some rest after the harrowing battle against Behemoth were interrupted far too soon by reports of a mass breakout from Birdcage. Normally I would have considered this Protectorate business and gone back to sleep but apparently the escapees had gone all the way from western Canada to New England in the process of breaking out. Not all of them had gone to Brockton Bay specifically, but enough had to make it a massive problem on our hands.

The problem was that not only were we all tired and exhausted from dealing with Behemoth and losing Rachel, but the information blackout about this new event was pretty total. It took hours to even find out how they had gotten out in the first place, let alone what they were doing here. Eventually, a picture started to form piece by piece: The Birdcage made extensive use of miniaturisation technology, making the entire facility no larger than a man’s fist when shrunk. It also, in an oversight that Lisa suspected to be a deliberate backdoor, lacked any kind of protections against interdimensional travel, such as the one utilised by Toybox. The Nine had used this to their advantage, plucking the entirety of the Birdcage out of its place inside a mountain in British Columbia and releasing it in New England, where it resumed to normal size. It could be inferred from this that the Nine’s attack against Dragon a few months prior had been for the purpose of acquiring more information about the defences and weaknesses of the Birdcage, since she was in charge of maintaining it. This was almost certainly what they had been working on since then.

While the breakout itself was presumably part of the Slaughterhouse’s attempts to bring about the end of the world, in this case by releasing a bunch of dangerous Capes upon society, the choice of making New England their dumping ground struck me as a bit more personal. While there was no bloody letter sent to confirm it this time, I suspected that particular decision was the second of Jack’s attempts to ‘outsource’ his tests to other people so he wouldn’t have to risk going to Brockton Bay himself.

Not that I was so myopic as to think that all the troubles currently happening were revolving around myself. A cursory glance at the news told me otherwise. Lustrum’s gang had already installed themselves in Boston, and New York and Philadelphia were also getting incursions, while Teacher had purportedly disappeared into Canada. And they were not the only ones making noise. The Fallen had taken the Simurgh’s song as a call to war to punish the unbelievers for slaying one of their gods and they had grown powerful lately absorbing Scion cults that had given into eschatological despair upon finding their messiah having abandoned them. The entire Midwest was aflame and with Eidolon dead the Protectorate of the region lacked the strength to stop them from overrunning them. It made me very glad that we’d already evicted the Fallen from Brockton Bay before this happened.

To say that the news were alarming would be an understatement, the fact that we had actually killed one of the seemingly unkillable Endbringers forgotten in the wake of news of supervillain attacks all over the country. A part of me resented not only the villains for doing this but the news stations for forgetting our achievement and the sacrifices it took to reach it so quickly. Not even a full 24 hours had passed and it had already been buried by the hectic news cycle. Rachel deserved better.

—

The first emergency meeting of the Hive since our reorganisation was a subdued affair, everyone still tired from not having had enough sleep since the Battle against Behemoth. The Red Hands were also part of it, taking up the spot Bitch had held beforehand. An uncharitable thought, perhaps, though my mood was dark enough from everything that had happened in the last day that I did not truly care. Acceptance would come in time, when they had earned it, for now I had more important things to deal with. 

“So.” I began once everyone had arrived. “As of a few hours ago, Brockton Bay suffered what can only be described as an invasion. Several people previously incarcerated in the Birdcage, including Gavel, Galvanate, Marquis and Lung, have made their way here. All of them are dangerous and presumed hostile until we can establish some kind of conversation. Any questions so far?”

“I have one.” Regent raised a hand, though he didn’t bother to wait for permission before continuing. “What the actual fuck? How do a bunch of supervillains just… Sneak up on us? Don’t we have people for this?” He shot a pointed look in Tattletale’s direction.

“We don’t truly know yet.” I pinched the bridge of my nose. This was starting about as well as could be expected. “From what we can tell there was a mass breakout from the Birdcage that may or may not have involved assistance from the Nine and which led to all of the inmates ending up around here. That’s basically it for now.”

“Ah, the classic Brockton Bay luck.” He nodded to this. “Carry on.”

“Anyway, the ‘why’ isn’t what’s important right now.” I pushed on. “They’re here and we need to actually respond before they tear the city apart.”

Tattletale brought out photos of each cape, their powers and known allegiance. The benefit of all the new arrivals having already been outed and incarcerated was that pulling information about them was far easier than usual. “There seem to be two groups staking their claims on Brockton as we speak, led by Marquis and Galvanate respectively. Most of the others appear to be following one or the other, except for Gavel who’s the wildcard here.”

“Are we seriously dealing with two guys called Gavel and Galvanate?” Imp shook her head. “What, were they some kind of duo like Uber and Leet? Did no one tell them they’d be confused with each other with names like that?”

Tattletale opened her mouth to answer, but Foil cut in before she had the chance to. “No, Gavel and Galvanate never met one another before they were thrown into the Birdcage. Gavel’s an Australian vigilante and Galvanate the former head of the Detroit mafia. The names just happen to sound kind of similar.” She shrugged at the surprised looks from the group. “Parahuman history was an important part of Ward’s training. You pick these kinds of things up.”

“Capisce.” Imp used her heaviest affected Italian accent.

“Getting back on track.” Tattletale looked mildly annoyed that Foil had gotten in with the chance to show off her knowledge before her, but quickly composed herself. “Gavel has shown complete apathy towards staking any claims of his own, instead focusing on disrupting any ‘criminal enterprises’ he finds. Guy’s a self-righteous maniac who thinks he’s a hero but shows such casual disregard for the unwritten rules or the lives of civilians that he got thrown in jail with the same people he was fighting.”

“Joy.” I said in my most dry voice. “Haven’t had enough of those around here.” I looked over the picture of Gavel taken during his days as a vigilante. “Gavel’s a short term problem, not a long term one. He’ll burn himself out quickly if he keeps up like this, but he could do a lot of damage in the process.” I furrowed my brow as I considered the issue. “The problem is that we can’t ignore him, but the time spent fighting Gavel is time for Marquis and Galvanate to consolidate their power bases.”

“Do we know what his relationship with either of them is?” Asked Grue. “I get that he doesn’t like anyone he labels villains but what are the chances he’d target them over us, or choose to cooperate with them instead?”

“Not sure yet.” The admission looked like it physically pained Tattletale to say out loud. “Only Dragon really knows what went on down in the Birdcage and she’s not giving up that information. For now, assume he’s equally hostile to everyone.”

“Right.” He didn’t sound entirely happy with that answer but there wasn’t much to do about it. “So do we know where he operates from? If we can’t afford to ignore him and can’t afford to wait in dealing with the others then it makes sense that we strike quickly to take care of the isolated threat first.”

“So far his pattern doesn’t suggest any permanent residence, but it’s too early to tell if that will last or not.” The emergency nature of this meeting did mean that Tattletale had not had her usual chance to gather intelligence beforehand, and I could tell how much that irked her. “Does our resident precog have any further insights?” She asked, turning to Delphi. 

“Depends on what the question is, doesn’t it? Can’t just pull out his address for you, but if you want to ask me the chances of any pick I’m listening.” Unlike the Red Hands, or the Needlepoints before them, Delphi seemed entirely at ease sitting here, looking casual if mildly grumpy at having been pulled in so soon again. 

“That should narrow things down at least.” I mused. “If we establish a grid pattern over the city and see what the chances are he settles in each area… But that can be settled once we think he’s found a hideout. For now, I want everyone to be ready to act if he or one of the two new gangs try a major push somewhere.”

That got a general sound of agreement from everyone except for Regent, who insisted he really needed his beauty sleep. Thanks to Delphi, we could also learn that there was a 76.8 % chance that the next strike against us, our assets or our allies would be in the southwest quadrant of the city, which made it easier to know where to allocate resources. 

Not that I was going to ignore the 23.2 % chance it was somewhere else, or the possibility that they would accidentally loophole themselves around the question by not being a direct attack against us but rather some other group that we nevertheless had to protect. As helpful as Delphi’s numbers were, trusting them blindly was a recipe for disaster. Coil’s downfall wouldn’t have been possible if Tattletale hadn’t been able to slip her activities beneath his notice, and the chaotic week leading to the downfall of the Protectorate East-North-East would not have happened if the PRT and I hadn't both put too much blind faith in Dinah’s predictions. They were useful but not infallible.

Still, I kind of hoped she’d be right and furthermore that the attack would happen soon. The current situation was the weird and entirely unpleasant combination of being very hectic and stressful as we’ve had little chance to relax and were having to operate in the dark while also demanding that we sit around fiddling our thumbs while waiting for the chance to react. I hated it, letting others seize the initiative while I just let them. Was this how the Protectorate felt, always on the defensive, unable to act first because they didn’t know where to target and couldn’t risk overextending? Upending the status quo might have been harder than upholding it, at least on paper, but it was certainly more within my comfort zone.

—

I was sitting anxiously by the computer, waiting for an alert just so that I could do something , when I noticed something not due to any response from our informants but because of an anthill a few blocks away that had grown around a boulevard in recent months. There was a girl crouched in the middle of the anthill, poking the ants for their reactions. Now normally this was not an extraordinary event, kids did things like that all the time, curiosity outweighing common sense. Except any ant that tried to climb onto this intruder to explore her and possibly give a few bites to teach her to not plant herself in the middle of their anthill found that it was impossible to find any adhesion on her, every attempt resulting in them harmlessly falling off her.

I did not think too much of it at first, simply expending a stray thought to send some gnats to explore this mild curiosity. My attention was focused on getting reports about what the escapees were up to and this somewhat odd phenomena was just one of many happening around me all the time. But I had just started to observe with my bugs’ limited senses how there were weird shadows following in the girl’s wake when she spoke.

“Hello, little ones.” There was a strange echo to her voice that I did not think was entirely down to my own perception being filtered through thousands of ears, many of which operated radically differently from each other, let alone human hearing. “Would you kindly take me to your queen?”

Far away from her, back in our headquarters, I froze. This was turning from mildly peculiar to downright unnerving. I had a distinct feeling that this girl, and I had a worrying feeling that I could guess who she was, was talking directly to me.

Tattletale of course noticed my reaction, even if she could not herself see the cause. “Oh shit.”

“Lisa.” I kept my voice calm while I tried to get a clearer picture of this person through more eyes. “I think there’s a parahuman wanting my attention west of here, looking like a young girl wearing green robes.”

Tattletale immediately went very pale and very still, while the girl continued with the same calm, even, slightly eerie voice. “There is no need to be agitated. I mean you no harm and come before you under the auspices of hospitality.”

“Glaistig Uaine.” Breathed Tattletale, confirming my fears. The Fairy Queen. Winner of the dubious award of ‘least sane Birdcage inmate’ and, with Eidolon dead and Scion gone, likely the most powerful Cape in the entire world. “Fuck. We’re so not prepared for this.”

I made a clone form out of the assortment of insects gathered around Glaistig Uaine, forming a shape resembling my own to better interact with her. All the while I hastily looked up how best to avoid antagonising her on my computer. “Fairy Queen. What brings you to my domain?”

“Queen Administrator.” She did an elegant curtsy before the construct. “I would like to formally ask you to host me for a night and for us to meet so that I may ask a favour of you.”

Wonderful. There was no way to say no without risking upsetting her with my rudeness so despite my reservations there was only one real answer to this. “Of course. And as our guest I expect you will follow the laws of hospitality as well. Of…” I had no idea what the Celtic word for this would be but I vaguely recalled mom talking about the Greek word for the rules of behaviour between guests and host. “Xenia.”

“Naturally.” The girl, and wasn’t it weird to think of her like that when she was actually twice my age, smiled disarmingly. “I would never break such sacred rules, or bring harm to fellow royalty without cause. You have my word, Queen Administrator.”

“Then follow me, Fairy Queen.” I said to her, while back at base hurriedly setting up some form of welcome for her together with Tattletale. Our place really was not made for hosting guests, especially not ones with delusions of royalty. At least our main point of comparison for her would be prison so we should hopefully not fail too hard.

“Excellent.” She followed the trail of bugs leading the way as the swarm clone dissolved. “I drink peppermint tea if you have any.”

… I started considering robbing the local grocery store with a bug swarm to make this work.

—

Glaistig Uaine arrived at our humble hideout with an honour guard of shades announcing her arrival. We might have to relocate yet again after this, not much point of a secret headquarters if people knew where it was, and she really was not being subtle. Somehow we had managed to get a passable presentation in the form of a table with snacks and a cleaned house in the fifteen minutes it took her to walk over here. We even had a kettle on.

“Queen Administrator.” She did another curtsy upon seeing me. “Thank you for your hospitality.” Even when meeting her in person, her voice held a strange echo to it.

“It’s no bother, Fairy Queen.” I lied as I led her inside. “Please, sit.”

She sat down at the table where she met Tattletale. “Ah, the Negotiator.” She smiled upon seeing her. “An excellent choice for a royal advisor, I approve.”

“You are too kind in your words, Glaistig Uaine.” Tattletale smiled back, though hers was a less genuine thing, a mask hiding her inner anxiety. 

“Nonsense. You’ve always been an invaluable contribution to the fae. I’m glad you and the Queen Administrator found each other again, you always work so well together.”

“You wished to ask a favour of me?” I wasn’t sure what to make of that statement, though the impression I was getting was that Glaistig Uaine believed in reincarnation of some form. “Understand that I can make no promises until I have heard what you wish, but am willing to hear you out.” Better to cover all my bases, especially if she acted anything like the fae of myth.

“Yes, we have…” She paused and frowned, as if she wasn’t sure how to phrase her request. “Gone adrift. Lost and without purpose. Perhaps a visit to another queen would help. Furthermore, we’re woefully out of date with this world and would like to know if you could help us with it.” She had dropped the otherworldly quality of her voice even as she tried to use royal pronouns. For a moment, she genuinely looked distraught and confused.

“If I may ask, what was your purpose beforehand?” Tattletale was studying her intently, no doubt trying to get every piece of useful information possible out of her power. “And why is it now lost?”

The Fairy Queen smiled woefully. “To collect the Fae at the end of the cycle and usher them into the afterlife.” Being a psychopomp certainly fit with the theme of her powers. “But the cycle is now broken, it has not reached its proper closure and continues without the guiding hand it needs.”

I remembered what Eidolon and Legend had spoken about and the pieces clicked into place. “Scion, you’re talking about Scion leaving.”

She nodded. “You feel it too, don’t you? Our mother is dead and our father has abandoned his children, our ordained future is no more. What can you do when fate itself is broken?”

“Wait, who is the mother in this and what happened to her?” Tattletale interjected.

“I… Don’t really know. There was one yet there should always be two.” She shook her head. “Something happened, something made this all out of sync. And now I know not what to do. Perhaps it would be for the best if this broken cycle was ended early…”

I was just realising what she was implying when Tattletale hurriedly stopped that line of thought. “That is not necessary, who are we to question the will of those above, or to call for the end of what is in motion? Even if the end result is a failure, what’s the cost in waiting to see, especially when there is so much more to learn from it?”

“I agree.” Glaistig Uaine nodded and I released the bated breath I did not realise I was holding. If she really had decided that the world had to end because it did not adhere to her image of how it should be, as she had been suggesting, then that would be a problem. There was a non-zero chance that in the current climate she’d actually succeed, and even if she didn’t she could do a lot of damage. We seriously did not need more omnicidal Capes out there. “Hence the dilemma on what to do with this new world. And the favour that with the Negotiator’s help, I’m certain you will find it within your capabilities to grant.”

“That being?” I asked.

“The Conjurer.”

“Who?” Usually her nicknames could be inferred from context who they referred to, but here I had no idea who she was talking about.

“He lived here once, did he not?” She tilted her head. “I would like to recruit his services for my unhallowed court.”

“You’re looking for Crusader, right?” Asked Tattletale. “Conjures spectral versions of himself? Find that he is infringing on your trademark?” She’d grown comfortable enough by now to give one of her more typical smiles.

“That is correct.” For a moment, I wondered if Glaistig Uaine was playing along with the joke, but she looked as serenely stoic as ever. “If I am to explore this mortal world again it is only fitting that I allow my court a chance to play with me properly, and the Conjurer would make a fitting addition to it.”

I wondered how high the chances that when she said she wanted to ‘recruit’ Crusader she meant ‘alive’. Then I remembered that he was a Neo-Nazi asshole and that if it meant she’d leave Brockton Bay I really did not care. “We’ll make sure to arrange it for you.”

“Thank you.” She nodded her head. “I will not forget this debt that you are owed, and should you ever need a favour you may but ask.”

Being owed a favour by the most powerful living Cape in the world would certainly be a useful thing, and yet all her words did was cause me a deep sense of unease over what had been unleashed. The worries about men like Gavel seemed so very petty when faced with the girl who held the power to end civilisations, and the fickleness to perhaps choose to do so.

Chapter Text

The choice to not assume that the first attack against us would inevitably happen in the southwest merely because it was decreed the most probable location would be vindicated all too quickly. I had assigned a security detail around my dad for months now just in case someone decided to get to me through him. While this had not happened until now, with Heartbreaker avoiding attacking my dad and instead going for Emma because the idea to protect her would never enter my mind (and indeed, even after it happened I still hadn’t bothered expending resources for her safety), it would appear that Gavel had decided to go for my old home in the relative northwest of Brockton in his attempt to strike at my ‘villainous regime’. The squad I had stationed there were trying to slow him down as best they could but ultimately Gavel was someone on similar levels of durability to Alexandria herself and there was only so much they could do.

Part of me was incensed that he’d dare to try to hurt what remained of my family in his mad crusade and wanted to call in everyone just to make sure he properly regretted his life’s choices, but unfortunately I had to take a grander view on this. Gavel was only one man, while Marquis and Galvanate commanded around 20 Capes each and I had to assume that they would take advantage of any distraction he provided while carving out their own territories. No, this required a more… Personal touch. I had killed the invincible before, perhaps it was time for me to do so again.

—

Leaving Tattletale to handle the Fairy Queen’s personal favour, and sincerely hoping that all of this wasn’t a mistake I was going to regret, I headed down all too familiar roads leading home. They were empty for the most part, people having taken cover inside of their own houses, or in some cases fled to Endbringer shelters, rather than staying out on the streets. The only sounds to be heard were loud gunshots coming from up ahead where dad and the guys I had sent as his security detail were trying to hold Gavel back as best they could as they made a fighting retreat.

Not that they were doing anything more serious than mildly annoying him, I could tell that much from the moment they came in range of my swarm. Gavel was tough, perhaps not quite as invincible as Alexandria or the Siberian, but close enough to make no difference to any weapons currently deployed against him. Even the tinkertech rifles didn’t seem to do more than slightly sting him and leave the skin a shade redder from the heat, the regular bullets just bounced off him.

Now, while the end result was often the same, the particulars of Brute powers depended a lot from individual to individual, from Glory Girl’s force field to Lung’s muscle density, scales and regeneration. In this case I had the advantage of having read up on Gavel’s powers from the moment he and the others showed up to better understand my enemy. What I found was as enlightening as it was disheartening. It was damage reduction of such an extreme that even the strongest hits barely even tickled him and only by sustained attacks over a prolonged period of time could he be slowly whittled down. Combine it with his super strength and he was a fairly conventional Brute, but that left him with few weaknesses to exploit. 

I suppose I should be thankful he at least didn’t have the flight of a full Alexandria package. It was probably the only thing that had kept my dad alive for so long, because while the construction sledgehammer he was wielding could smash through anything and anyone in his way, he was no faster than an ordinary human and the laser fire was doing its job of blinding him enough to slow him down.

Judging by the bloody smears left in his wake though, he had already killed at least two people and was bearing down on the others even as I arrived. Dad had grabbed a spare automatic rifle from somewhere in the chaos, for all the good it did him, and was taking cover behind one of our neighboring houses. It was clear from the damage to the building that even being out of range of the sledgehammer was not enough to make you safe, not when Gavel had hit a trashcan with enough force to send it hurtling through the entirety of the house and land in a wreck on the other side.

“Enough.” I spoke through every nearby insect to draw the attention of the out of control Cape. “I am here, Gavel. Leave my father out of this.”

“Taylor, don’t do anything stupid now.” Danny Hebert muttered low enough that only the bugs I had drawn close to him could hear. 

“Skitter.” Gavel’s voice was slightly muffled by the gas mask he had put on his face, presumably in the hopes of avoiding Alexandria’s fate since he hadn’t worn one before his incarceration. “Tyrant of the Bay.” He turned to where I was approaching him, unconcerned by the occasional potshot taken at him by the remaining mercenaries. “Your crimes are innumerable, ranging from sedition, to murder, drug distribution, torture, wrongful imprisonment, grand theft, terrorism-”

“Yes, I get it, I’m a horrible little criminal.” I interrupted him. “Do you need to do this spiel to justify your own actions, or do you just enjoy the rush of power from acting like you’re the judge of other people’s lives?”

There was a pause as Gavel took a deep breath to get his temper under control, before continuing like I hadn’t just interrupted him. “I find you guilty of all charges. The sentence is death.” He slammed his sledgehammer into the ground, shattering asphalt and throwing me off balance from the tremor.

Before he had the chance to take advantage of this however, I had my swarm descend upon him, biting, stinging and doing everything it could to distract him. His powers meant that each individual sting wasn’t able to break skin to inject him with venom, and it extended to his equipment so that I couldn’t just gnaw the gas mask away and suffocate him, but what they did not provide was sharpened senses. Flies gathered around the visor, blocking his sight and only turning into a large smear when his hand tried to bat them away. Smaller insects crawled into his ears, drowning him in their noise and disrupting any sense of balance. All the while I kept wearing down every bit of him my swarm could reach.

“You don’t get it, do you?” I kept a reasonable distance from him as my minions did their work. Even a stray hit from him could easily kill me and there was little that my knife or baton could do here. “I’ve dealt with men like you before.” I leapt out of the way as he charged the sound of my voice. “People who thought that their strength gave them the power to do anything they wanted. You should have asked Lung how well that went for him before you went down this road.”

“I am not Lung.” Gavel drew his hammer along the broken road with enough force to send pieces of asphalt flying everywhere. Luckily his aim was off and I wasn’t in the main scatter zone, but a few pebbles clipped me with enough force to act like bullets and the rest kept going to deal even more damage to our neighborhood. “I am bringing you to justice. Something scum like you can’t even comprehend.”

“Spare me.” I had a swarm clone mimic my own voice since he had started to use it to guide where to aim at. “Did the years in the Birdcage not teach you anything? Truth is you’re just as bad as everyone else, maybe even worse.” My clone dissolved right before he smashed into it, only to reappear further away. “I’ve read your files. You were never more than a sadist on a power trip cloaked in self-righteousness. You think that killing my dad, a civilian, to hurt me would make you a hero? I’ve met a lot of really awful heroes, but even they would be more worthy of the moniker than you.”

“Silence!” He didn’t even try to aim the next attack against me. In an act of petty spite, he charged into my old family home, collapsing the entire wall he crashed into. The perils of following Lisa’s suggestions on how best to rile him up. “I’ve fought villainy for longer than you have been alive, you do not understand the sacrifices that it takes.”

I had to admit, I was pretty angry too. I had done nothing to this man and he had immediately made it personal by trying to kill my only remaining family member. Now he had wrecked the house I had lived in since I was born. It had survived the bad old days, the rampages of the ABB and E88, it had lasted through Leviathan himself as well as both the Slaughterhouse Nine and Echidna. All of that and it had finally fallen to the petulant impotence of a man who could find no other way to hurt me. So yes, I was quite ticked off, but I channelled all the rage I felt into the aggression of my swarm while making sure to keep a cool head. Enraged people made stupid mistakes, and while I had remained in control of the battle so far even a single mistake could prove deadly. I had to hit him a thousand upon a thousand times, he had to hit me once. 

“Have you ever looked back and thought that those sacrifices might not have been worth it?” I asked while I continued to look for any weakness, gaps between his skin and mask that my bugs could infiltrate. “When innocents died because of you, did you feel regret about the path you took? When fate gave you another chance, did you consider even for a moment to do anything differently this time?”

He did not deign to retort with words, lashing out in the general direction where he thought I might be, causing wanton destruction on the off chance he got me. 

“I would have.” I continued, trying to draw him away from anything of value while keeping my distance. “I’d have stopped and hesitated before I started hurting other people again for no fucking reason.” 

I was so glad that I had my suit when a chair was launched close by me and exploded into wooden splinters flying everywhere. The silk absorbed the shattered pieces that would otherwise have torn up my left leg into bloody shreds. Still hurt though, but I was paying him back, slowly but steadily. He was slower now than he had been in the beginning, exhaustion settling in and my sustained attacks having tiny but accumulating effects. 

“But not you, no. You did not hesitate for even a second before falling back to your old ways, did you?” If I kept him focused on my taunting he might not stop and reconsider his approach into something more effective. “Which makes me wonder if you really consider this a sacrifice, or if you are just another bully who rationalises the enjoyment they take from other people’s suffering.” I snorted. “Trust me, I’ve met plenty of those.”

“So says the woman who has terrorised an entire city into compliance.” Gavel’s voice was thick with rage and loathing. “Your words won’t dissuade me, villain. At least I don't have the blood of heroes on my hands.”

“No, just innocents and bystanders. Because that’s so much better.” I was receiving messages from the others, likely about the other gangs making their moves, but did not have the time to look up what they were saying. It might be prudent to invest into inbuilt communications in our suits like what the Protectorate were using so that people could easily talk while engaged in different parts of the city. As our group grew and the territory we had to patrol had grown correspondingly larger, the amount of times when such a thing would come in handy had been increasing rapidly. 

Gavel kept trying to kill me, sometimes changing up his approach to try to catch me off guard through superstrength enhanced leaps or another ground slam, but in this battle of attrition I was slowly getting the upper hand. He was becoming slower, less focused, as every inch of skin was red from a multitude of bites and stings. And while the things he wore were more resilient thanks to his power, they still obeyed the laws of physics. Slowly, some of my smaller bugs bent open a pathway between his skin and mask and began flooding the inside of the gas mask, irritating his eyes and entering his nostrils. 

This apparently was the last straw for Gavel, who without even giving a parting word changed his approach and started running away. Perhaps he was afraid that if he opened his mouth some of my bugs would opportunistically fly into it.

It would be a completely valid concern if that was the case, obviously. I was hardly not going to use the chance to further harass him.

It gave me the chance to check on the messages I had been receiving during the fight now that I had a moment of proper calm. Glaistig Uaine had remained on her best behaviour, thank goodness, and Tattletale had managed to pull out where the Pure were last seen for her. In less stellar news, Lung had triggered Delphi’s prediction that the next attack on our allies or assets would happen in the southwest when he tried to burn down the Qingdao Reclamation Services headquarters in Downtown. It wasn’t clear if he knew of our association with them or he had personal reasons to immediately target a CUI company, but it was taking everything my friends could throw at him to stop him from setting all of Downtown ablaze, and meanwhile Galvanate and Marquis were taking advantage of the distractions to claim territory in the Docks and eastern Downtown respectively.

Which put me in a bit of a dilemma with regards to what to do next. A part of me, a very significant part, wanted to continue to pursue Gavel until he eventually keeled over from death by a thousand cuts. He’d killed my people and brought ruin to where I grew up just to pretend to be a hero, he almost killed my father. I really wanted to kill him right now, and letting him just run away almost felt like letting him win.

On the other hand, I had done what I aimed to do and driven him away, pursuing him further would probably cause a lot of collateral damage and I had no idea how long it would take to actually put him down at this rate. Meanwhile, the others needed my help at this moment and could help me deal with Gavel next time. Foil would probably be a good counter to his power.

In the end, the dilemma was between the satisfying choice and the strategic choice, and we were not in a position where we could afford to choose satisfying over strategic. With no small amount of resignation, I headed towards where the others were holding off Lung, letting Gavel get away this time. Time was of the essence with that particular villain after all.

—

Lung was gigantic by the time I arrived Downtown, having turned fully from man to dragon by then. Grue and Citrine were containing the spread of fires from incinerating everything, while Foil was darting in and out, stabbing him with her blade. Regent didn’t appear to be doing anything at first glance, but I surmised that he was concentrating on weakening our foe and hampering his movements.

I did not wait until I could see Lung with my own eyes, the moment the battle fell within my range I sent everything I could to infect the wounds Foil had made, swarming into the holes that had pierced his iron hard scales. He made an inhuman roar of pain and anger and… Started backing away?

“Won’t somebody actually fight me to the death today?!” My voice was laced with frustration. It made sense, acting as a distraction to hold my attention before making a retreat. You can’t simply ignore a rampaging Lung, but he was clearly wary about taking us all on unsupported after what happened the last two times we fought. It was what I would do if I were in his shoes. I could even see why letting this fight end with a stalemate would be better than continuing fighting until Brockton Bay was burning and Lung was the size of Godzilla. This was better than the alternative.

That didn’t mean I had to like it!

“The cavalry is here, and she looks pissed .” Came Regent’s dry voice upon seeing me. “So what body part are you claiming in tribute this time?”

“Kidneys.” I ground out. Swarms of black widows climbed inside Lung as he made a tactical withdrawal, biting any internal organs they could find. It was petty and spiteful, since he was going to regenerate any damage before we next met either way, but I was really tired of all these villains picking fights with us only to leave the moment things turned against them. Not allowing any kind of lasting victory as consolation for the meaningless damages they’ve wrought. 

“Good to see you, Skitter.” Grue was more than a little battered from the fight with Lung but didn’t seem to have any serious injuries. “Glad you came, it was becoming difficult holding him off.” He looked at where the massive but now shrinking shape of the old ABB head was disappearing into the distance. “I guess he remembered what happened when you last fought.”

“I guess so.” I did not really see this as a victory like the others were. We were assailed from all sides, and had nothing to show for it so far. Lung would come again, him choosing to not engage when it turned into five against one wasn’t a real victory, not of the kind we could afford right now.

“Hey.” Grue patted me on the shoulder, apparently sensing my bad mood. “You’re doing good. How many can say that they’ve driven off two of the most dangerous Brutes in the world on a single day?”

“Driven off just means that they’ll come back another day.” I shook my head. “Today’s been bad, and I’m not sure how to turn it around.”

“Could have been worse though.” Regent countered. “I mean, we’re all still alive.”

“Yeah…” I thought back on my dad, and how easily one of those blood smears left by Gavel could have been him. “It really could have.”

I needed to talk to him about that. Fighting was winding down by now across the city as our foes consolidated what they had managed to take and licked their wounds. Doubtless they would make another go tomorrow or later this week, but we had a moment of quiet, brief though it might be.

—

I found dad gingerly moving through the wreckage of our house, seeing what could be salvaged out of it. Half the building had collapsed, including my old bedroom. It hurt more than I thought it would, seeing so much of what I had collected during my childhood destroyed. The things I had managed to preserve from the predations of Emma and Sophia, books I had loved to read and never gotten around to moving out after I left. So much damaged beyond repair.

“Hey.” I leaned on the front door, which was still standing despite the damage around it, and took off my mask. 

“Hey.” Dad smiled upon seeing me. It was a bleak smile, but a genuine one. “I’m glad you’re alright.”

“You too.” I wringed my hands. “I’m sorry about the house.”

“It’s not your fault, and now I’ll finally be able to cash in that cape fight insurance.” He laughed weakly at his own joke.

“I could have done better, stopped him earlier if I knew he'd go after you or that he’d be petty enough to try to destroy the house.”

“It’s just a place, Taylor. It can be rebuilt.” He walked up to me and pulled me into a very dust-covered hug. “I’d let him destroy it all over again if it meant you didn’t get hurt.”

“It’s our home, dad.” I said a bit reproachfully.

“And you’re my daughter, I’m not budging those priorities.”

I’d argue it was never a choice of one or the other, but was interrupted by a sneeze as the dust and grime irritated my nose.

Dad chuckled and led me to the kitchen, which was still mostly intact.

“You’re doing okay though?” I asked him. “Got somewhere to sleep?”

“Yeah, Kurt and Lacey are letting me crash with them tonight. They’ll be coming over to help pick up and salvage what we can from here. Don’t worry about me.”

“But I do. How can I not?” I sighed. “You would never have been attacked if it wasn’t for me. And I couldn’t even… take care of the perpetrator.” I did not like admitting to having thought about killing him. “So what’s stopping other people from trying this again?”

“I don’t know.” He admitted after a moment of silence, thinking it over. “The fact that your wrath is one of the most frightful things I’ve ever seen?”

I gave him a look. “I’m being serious, dad.”

“You think I’m not? I’ve seen you angry, I would not want to be the recipient of that anger.”

“Well, it doesn’t appear that these people are so sensible.”

“No, I suppose it doesn’t.” He agreed. “I can tell you’re leading up to something, Taylor, there’s no need to beat around the bush about it.”

I took a deep breath. “I would like for you to move away.”

Danny didn’t immediately respond, he just motioned for me to continue.

“I thought about what you said, about us moving to Europe or something, creating new identities, making new lives for ourselves. I can’t do that, I can’t just abandon my friends or let these monsters take over my city. But you can, there’s nothing holding you down here any more, nothing stopping you from leaving.”

“Nothing except for you.” He pointed out.

“Sure, but other than that. I don’t want you to get hurt because of me, and they will try again if you stay. They almost succeeded this time. What if next they attack Kurt and Lacey’s place? Even if you escape they might not, and their house might be the next to get destroyed.”

He looked away, taking the point that he wasn’t the only one who might get hurt if they kept going after him. That it wasn’t just about him martyring himself rather than abandoning me or Brockton Bay. Eventually he spoke. “If this will make you happy…”

“It won’t.” I shook my head. “It will break my heart, trust me. But it will keep you safe. ”

“Okay.” A simple word that carried so much weight to it. “Okay.” He repeated.

“My people can arrange for the necessary papers and false identity. I’ll make sure you have enough money to start a new life. I just… I can’t lose you dad, not like I lost mom. And with the way things are going right now I’m not sure I’ll be able to protect you.”

“It feels wrong, leaving you to fight your battles alone, and giving up after so many years of fighting for the future of the people. But… If it means you won’t have to worry about me while you’re off fighting gods and monsters… Then I’ll do it.” He looked at me with such enormous sadness in his eyes. “Just promise me you’ll win, that you survive and put these bastards down where they belong.”

I laughed, tears streaking down my face as I hugged him. “I promise dad. I promise.”

Chapter Text

I slept poorly that night, even though I would need to get up early and had far too little sleep in these last couple of days. The amount of stress and angst that had been building up from trying to get the Undersiders and their allies reorganised, facing Behemoth, Rachel dying, Brockton Bay falling back into another gang war with us beset at all sides and having to say goodbye to my dad before he had to leave the city had all built up to leave me with the kind of exhaustion that made it harder to sleep, not easier. Could I have done something differently? Could I have avoided this if I had been more prepared? Was the idea that all this suffering had been out of my control better or worse than that I had failed and let everyone down?

When the alarm clock rang I wasn’t sure whether I was glad to call an end to this awful excuse for rest, or annoyed that I had to get up while still feeling just as tired as I had been when I went to bed a couple of hours ago. Either way, I decided that coffee was the solution to my troubles and after throwing on enough clothes to be considered decent I made my way to the coffee pot and started making some for breakfast.

Feeding Angelica came next, the poor girl still not being well after her injuries fighting Behemoth, and looking terribly sad over the absence of her master. She opened one eye as I filled her food and water bowls, before closing it, having apparently decided that just because I was going up at this unholy hour didn’t mean she had to. 

Lisa finally got up in time for the coffee to be ready, having crashed at my place yet again under the reason that if we were getting up so early she might as well save time this way. 

“Coffee.” Was her eloquent morning greeting, as she shuffled towards it like a zombie.

“Coffee.” I replied, having settled down with my own cup and a hastily thrown together sandwich. 

We finished our breakfast in complete silence after this, Lisa looking like she was about to nod off in the middle of it. It was kind of pleasant, tiredness notwithstanding, but I really wished I could just go back to bed. Unfortunately, that was not a luxury that could be afforded right now.

The fact of the matter was that we needed to retake initiative, because if we let our enemies dictate the war for us we’d only continue to lose ground fighting on multiple fronts. If we wanted to change that we would have to strike back before they attacked next, and the best way to make sure that happened was to get up earlier in the morning than they did. Hence why I was using copious amounts of caffeine as a replacement for actual rest right now.

“Lily will be here in a few minutes.” Lisa was checking her phone for messages, taking a second cup of coffee in lieu of an actual breakfast to eat. “ETA is 17 minutes.”

“That’s oddly specific.” I shot her a suspicious look. “Did you actually calculate how long it would take her, or did you just make an estimate and fiddled with the numbers a little to make it look more precise?”

She showed her most confident smile. “Wanna bet?”

“... Okay, now I’m convinced you’re either bluffing me or this whole thing is a scam meant to make me take the bait.” God, my brain was tired. “And I… Am going to call this bluff. Sure, I’ll take the bet. Uhm…” Now what did you bet on at times like this? “Loser pays for the next dinner?”

“Fine by me.” By the smug look Lisa had as she started the timer I concluded that she either had the best poker face I had ever seen or I really had walked into a trap she had set up for me. Of course, I could always cheat by interfering with Lily as soon as she enters my range to make sure she doesn’t arrive exactly on time. But that would be dishonest. And also I would definitely be caught in doing so.

Why was I so fixated on winning this spur of the moment bet? I chose to blame lack of sleep.

I tried to get my mind in order as I settled down on the sofa and rested for the remaining fifteen or so minutes I had. Choosing to focus on the plan. We couldn’t move in too large a force against any one of our enemies since that would draw attention to us and goad the others into attacking us while we were distracted, so we were doing this just as a small strike force consisting of myself, Tattletale and Foil. The target was Gavel, who had not only invited a direct attack on his home by making this personal in the first place, but was also the easiest to get rid of out of the three. Galvanate and Marquis had the backing of rows of former convicts as a dangerous and elite core of their gangs, while Gavel for all of his power was just one man. Take care of him and we’re down to just two enemy groups. Which was still a lot, but easier than having to deal with the wildcard on top of things.

So Tattletale was going to do the detective work leading us to where he had gone to ground while I provided surveillance to make sure we didn’t walk into an ambush and would know that we'd found him as soon as he entered my range and Foil had the power to actually properly take him out. Presumably. We hadn’t tested how their powers interacted yet but it was my working theory based on my observations of both of them in action and the principles they operated under.

We had other options if we needed to wage total war against the newcomers. Heartbreaker was still under lock and key, and with the Heartbroken and Lost Garden with us we could probably match our foes in numbers if not in experience. There was also the possibility of calling in the favour that Glaistig Uaine offered in return for our help or trying to recruit outside help from mercenaries or the Protectorate.

The problem was that all these solutions had a high cost, not least in terms of the destruction they would bring upon the city if enacted. They were very much last resorts because once you went down that road there was no going back and even if you won Brockton Bay would lose. 

Hence why we were doing this first, because while targeted assassinations against other Capes while they were resting in their homes would still be considered underhanded and breaking the unwritten rules of Cape culture, it was a far more selective and measured approach by comparison, and people usually agreed that men like Gavel who did not adhere to any of the principles of Cape society in the first place were not covered under the protections granted to those who were.

It only took Foil exactly fifteen minutes to arrive, Tattletale would have been right had she just said a quarter in the first place instead of going for a more odd number. We were both dressed up at that point and I was ready to open the door just as she walked up to knock on it.

“Looks like I won.” I said, to the confusion of Foil who lacked any context to this. Despite having betted that Tattletale was just making numbers up, I was kind of surprised by my victory. It was pretty rare for her to lose bets she made, to Regent’s great annoyance.

“Seems so.” She agreed, though despite her defeat she still retained her smug smile, like she had still somehow managed to scam me. “Guess I’ll be paying for dinner after this.”

“... Do I want to know what this is about?” Asked Foil, who was still standing by the door.

“Hm, probably not.” Tattletale stepped outside to get to the car we’d be using for this. “It’s more fun if you use your imagination to fill in the blanks anyway.”

—

We drove to the place where Gavel had last been spotted before beginning the investigation: A few blocks away from my old home when he ran away after realising he wasn’t beating me on his own. I couldn’t find any trace of Gavel himself within my radius, but I was still determined to help try to locate him so I set my swarm to scurry around to search for any scrap or smell of him. I had gotten a pretty good sense of what he tasted like from our last fight.

… The fact that I could recognise a person by taste was pretty gross and disturbing though come to think of it.

Unfortunately I hadn’t penetrated his skin deeply enough for him to leave a proper blood trail to follow, but I was finding a few bits of flaked off skin that I was pretty sure belonged to him.

“... You need help, Skitter.” Was Foil’s reaction when I told them of my find though. She looked slightly queasy at being informed I had found skin that tasted like it came from Gavel.

“It’s less weird than it sounds.” I muttered a little defensively. “And if it works…”

“You’re right.” Tattletale was bending down at where the trail had led us, inspecting the ground. “About him passing through here that is, not that your methods aren’t weird. Yuck.” She made a face. “There’s hints of bootprints in the gravel that match his shoe size over there and a few wooden splinters that were probably stuck in his clothes after he charged through several houses.”

I felt vindicated despite how grossed out it had made the other two. “You’ve got the direction he’s going in?”

“Well, he’s turning around a lot to try to throw any pursuers off his tail but… Of course I do. I’m me.” She gestured at herself like she was God’s greatest gift to mankind. “He’s following a pattern here, even if it’s subconsciously. If I’m right, and I always am-”

“You were wrong just earlier this morning.” I pointed out.

“Always am.” Tattletale repeated emphatically as we walked down the street. “Then he will turn right just… Here.” She turned towards an alley. “That house over there’s got its paint chipped recently like someone accidentally scraped a hammer with it, see it?”

“I’ll take your word for it.” Foil leaned in to where she pointed. “It looks exactly the same as all the other scratches all the houses here’ve got.”

“And that’s why I’m the master detective for noticing how the wood underneath is fresher than in other places and how the shape matches up with the size and form of his hammer and how he’d be carrying it if he was running away.”

“You mean for having your power do your heavy work for you.” Foil deadpanned.

I noticed that Tattletale gave her a sour look at that for belittling her efforts and decided to step in before we got sidetracked by her wanting to show off her own brilliant mind. “Good job, Tats. He’s still nowhere in range though as far as I can tell, how much further do you think he went?”

“Not that far, his hideout should be getting close soon if the pattern holds up. He might already have left it though, don’t have enough information yet to say.”

“Noted.” If he wasn’t there then that might be somewhat inconvenient, but how much really depended on where he actually was. 

Foil fidgeted nervously. She was in a bit of an awkward spot in that her powers didn’t help her track Gavel down the way that mine or Tattletale’s did, so she was basically just waiting around for a fight to start. And if he wasn’t home that would mean she couldn’t contribute at all while if he was it was likely that she’d have to be the one delivering the killing blow, because trying to capture him alive was a lot more difficult than it was worth.

Walking down the path Tattletale had laid out, we arrived at one of the many parts of town currently under reconstruction after it had been destroyed by the calamities that had befallen the Bay. I could easily see how he might have stolen the equipment he used from around here, and with the houses still empty at the moment it was the perfect place to lay low until the workers returned. There was just one problem.

“Well, he’s definitely not at home.” The presence, or absence, of a large man like Gavel was pretty easy to verify when the partially rebuilt houses were crawling with vermin of different kinds.

Foil let out a breath in equal parts relief and frustration. She then proceeded to immediately look guilty about it. “I guess at least we won’t have to kill him today.”

“Assuming he doesn’t show up elsewhere.” Tattletale was looking down at her phone to see if there was any news about Gavel elsewhere.

“He left a present behind though.” I had caught an explosive trap rigged halfway through the house as I was combing through the building. “Second room to the right. Shall I deal with it or…” I left the question open to the others, Tattletale especially. I wasn’t the most trained in bomb defusal of the group, but I was the safest option since even if something went wrong it would just cost me a few insects, not my hands. 

“I’ll deal with it.” She stepped inside and turned to carefully approach the bomb.

“Any other surprises I should know before entering?” Asked Foil.

“Not by the looks of it. He’s only occupied this place for a day, so it’s not exactly much of a villain lair.” I continued to inspect every angle of the place without moving from my spot.

“Right. Well, give me a heads-up if you find something, I’ll go and have a look.” She joined Tattletale in searching the place for clues. While her powers wouldn’t be of much help in this, she still had her Wards training to fall back on when it came to things like crime scene investigation, and she clearly wanted to still make something useful come out of the fact that she was brought along on this mission.

The bomb was defused by Tattletale without much issue, and she joined in looking over the place after that. It was pretty empty, which wasn’t too surprising in and of itself considering how soon it was since Gavel broke out of jail, but the fact that there wasn’t even a sleeping bag lying around did imply that he might already have abandoned it.

I was tense, half expecting this to all turn out to be some kind of trap laid for us, but the circumstantial evidence we were finding, along with the fact that there were no reports of him sighted anywhere else (and we had developed a pretty good network of informants in Brockton Bay) did point towards a much more simple conclusion: He had simply left. Bailed out because he knew that we’d be after him and if he couldn’t beat me alone, what could he do if I had backup? He’d either relocated to another safehouse or fled the Bay entirely.

Not the most satisfying conclusion to reach, but if he genuinely had left it would still serve to remove him as a third foe in this war, so I wasn’t too unhappy.

“Well, he definitely did rest here while he recovered from tussling with you.” Tattletale held up some thrown away patches she’d found. “But he left shortly after midnight because he was afraid we’d find him here.”

“Left the house or left town though?” Foil voiced my thoughts.

“Town, almost certainly.” She asserted. “There’s no hard evidence for it, but I think Gavel realised he couldn’t defeat everyone in Brockton Bay on his own, so he’s gone to find other likeminded vigilantes to recruit.”

“Does that mean that he will return once he’s found a team or that he will settle down in some other city and be out of our way permanently?” I asked.

“That I do not know. Luckily,” Tattletale smiled. “I know someone who does.” She pulled out her phone.

“Is it so urgent that it can’t wait for a few hours?” Pointed out Foil the moment she realised who Tattletale was going to call. “It’s not like it won’t take some time for him to come back if he’s gone, and she’ll be really cranky if we call her at this hour.”

“She makes a good point.” I nodded in agreement with Foil. “However, I do have another question I would like asked. Since Gavel is a no-show we need to decide whether we try to poke Marquis or Galvanate first, and I figure that the best way to decide is to check who’s most likely to attack us next.”

“All the reason I needed to hear.” With no small amount of glee, Tattletale pushed the button to call Dinah. “Good morning, oh wise oracle.”

“Some of us still attend school.” Came the grumbling voice on the other end. “You know that I’m not going to be able to go to sleep again after this, right?”

“Trust me, I’m not any happier about this hour than you are. We’ve been up for almost an hour by now doing some investigation, and we could really use a couple of predictions to help us move forward. Pretty please?”

There was a very long pause on the other end before Dinah responded. “Fine, you’ve already woken me up anyway, so ask your questions.”

“Thanks. So the first question is how likely is it for Gavel to return to Brockton Bay after having left it?” Tattletale increased the volume slightly to make sure that Foil and I could hear the answer.

“59.3 %.” Groaned Dinah. “He went away?”

“It would appear so. A coin toss then if he returns or not.” Tattletale mused. “Second question: What are the chances that Galvanate will attack us before Marquis does, provided that we do not strike at either party beforehand?”

“33.2 %. And now I’ll have a headache this entire morning, happy?”

“I’ll make sure to make it up for you. We’ll do something fun, a Tattletale promise.”

“So worth absolutely nothing?” Dinah snarked on the other end of the phone.

Tattletale grasped her heart theatrically. “Now you’re just being mean. Well, tata for now, and sorry for waking you up early.”

“No you’re not.” The call ended.

“So, it seems that we can’t write Gavel out of the picture entirely just yet, but more immediately Marquis is going to be first to make more trouble.” I frowned. “I doubt we could just strike directly at the man himself. Even if it somehow succeeded, that'd just pave the way for someone like Lung to take over.” And I strongly doubted we’d be able to pull it off as long as he had Panacea with him. The girl had the potential to be terrifyingly powerful if she actually cut loose and she’d be able to heal anything that didn’t instantly kill her father. It seemed reasonable to assume that we’d have to face both at once as well if we ever went after Marquis directly.

“What we can do is see if we can push back his grip and take out some of his lieutenants.” I mused out loud. “I’d like to see a concrete victory to prove that we can stand our own.” And just letting our enemies withdraw on their own terms really did not count.

“We should probably get some more backup then.” Said Foil. “As potential reinforcements in case things go wrong if nothing else. How many Capes does Marquis have at his disposal?”

“21 confirmed so far, himself included.” Tattletale provided the numbers. “With Lung, Panacea, Cinderhands and Spruce being the main ones we should worry about.”

“Even so, do try to find out what you can about the others. You never know when a stray power could ruin everything.” I considered the problem. We still did not have enough intelligence for my liking, but gathering it took time that would allow the enemy to keep pushing against us, and my instincts screamed for me to take the offensive to catch them on the back foot and they had served me well so far. “We’ll see if we can convince the Ambassadors to guard against Galvanate while everyone else is ready to help deal a proper blow to Marquis. If we manage to capture one of his lieutenants we might be able to get him to come to the table and agree to peace and then we can pull all of our focus on Galvanate.” Killing a member of the New Marche would most likely invite more retaliation and intensify the war, but if we took some alive we could maybe end the war on a high note, showing that we still had our strength intact even as we conceded the territory they had already taken.

“Tattletale, you’ll coordinate everyone. We want to strike hard and fast before they can muster up a proper response. Keep the Heartbroken in reserve.” I still thought that most of them were too young for this kind of thing. “We’ll get the old team and the Red Hands.”

“You’ve got it, boss.” She did a lazy salute. “Good luck, and try not to throw your life away.”

“I’ll do my best.” I said dryly. “Plan is to capture a guy or two and then withdraw, not fight to the death.”

“Yeah, but you could always do with a reminder. I need you in a fit state to go out to dinner later.” She winked at me.

Chapter Text

The plan was ultimately pretty simple: preempt an attack by the New Marche by hitting them with a team consisting of myself, Grue, Imp, Regent, Foil, Parian, Cozen, Getaway and Rifle. I wanted to strike fast and hard, and use powers like Imp’s unnoticeability or Getaway’s teleportation to get out of there before they or Galvanate’s faction could muster up a proper response. Ideally we’d capture one or two people and hurt a few more in the process. So long as the enemy had Panacea at their disposal any injury short of a killing blow could be reversed, but being hurt still tended to give people pause even if they could physically get back on their feet immediately and this was about sending a message just as much as it was gaining a strategic advantage. The more decisive this victory was, the more they’d hesitate to push us any further. 

We wouldn’t have to do any investigation to find a hideout of theirs to strike at either. While a single person trying to lay low might slip through our net of informants, at least for a time, a large group actively claiming territory and trying to make their presence known to the people of Brockton Bay had no such luck. Our spies had mapped out every single building they had taken residence in and our target was an apartment complex in Downtown where Cinderhands reigned as chief of this forward outpost.

I had briefly entertained the notion of trying to hit them at the head of their operations, where Marquis himself resided, and try to take someone like Panacea hostage, since she was such a force multiplier for them, before very quickly dismissing this notion. I was trying to keep the plan as uncomplicated as possible to minimise potential points of failure and trying to strike directly at the heart of their territory, against their heaviest hitters, had such an unbelievable number of ways it could go wrong. Not to mention that even if it succeeded, it was more likely to cause an escalation in the war than the truce I wanted. Going after the healer was one of the taboos of Cape society and Marquis would probably retaliate hard if anyone touched his daughter, to maintain his image if nothing else. I personally doubted her truly cared about her as a person rather than a tool but that was besides the point.

—

Unlike some of our previous foes like the Protectorate or Heartbreaker, our current enemy had not had the means or the time to set up sufficiently effective insect-repellents in their headquarters. Or perhaps it was will that they lacked, knowing Panacea’s theoretical capabilities and how little she made use out of the awesome powers at her disposal. Regardless, I had no issue infiltrating the place and tagging everyone inside while my team got into position. 

The building was three stories high and by the looks of it, Cinderhands and his goons had kicked the previous inhabitants out and seized an apartment each. The man looked like he had just risen out of bed as he was eating breakfast at the moment. There were five others with him and unfortunately bug senses were terrible for making out faces of people. I could identify each individual by their smell but if I wanted to match them to pictures of Birdcage inmates I’d have to crawl a bunch of critters all over their faces and I had the funny feeling that would give the game away a little.

None of them had any physiological or readily apparent passive aspects of their powers as far as I could tell, which at least ruled out any Case 63s among them, nor were they conveniently using their powers to show me what they were. That was the main reason I was erring on the side of caution: You never know when a plan might be ruined due to a surprise power when fighting unknown parahumans. For all I knew one of these people had the ability to kill with a stare.

Well, technically none of the hundreds of people that had been incarcerated in the Birdcage had that particular power but the point stands.

Other than that, the main thing I discovered about these people was that they were all men, which wasn’t that surprising when they were from a gender segregated prison. Marquis and Galvanate both headed gangs almost exclusively made up of the male gender because of this, Panacea standing out as the exception to the rule. 

With Rifle holding overwatch on a roof and the rest ready to move in I gave the signal to go and unleashed pandemonium as my bugs launched themselves against our enemy. It took away our element of surprise a little bit, but I considered it worth it to test what kind of powers we were dealing with. 

Immediately, the bugs around one of them started asphyxiating and lost their ability to fly and I noted him down as either an aerokinetic or some kind of vacuum creator. That was enough for Tattletale to narrow him down to a single profile: Voidling. Street thug who got sent to the Birdcage after regular prison repeatedly failed to hold him, able to suck the air away from around him, creating pockets of empty space. I was somewhat curious how his powers interacted with Grue’s, but designated him as a good pick for Parian to focus on with her puppets, which we had charge in first since they were expendable. 

Another goon started spitting poison everywhere in an attempt to get the insects I had harass him, to the loud alarm and annoyance of his fellows. It would appear that their combat discipline left something to be desired. Cinderhands of course set his hands on fire while the remaining three simply resorted to old fashioned swatting.

“Skitter’s here!” Cinderhands shouted, as if that wasn’t already patently obvious. “To your stations!”

The ‘stations’ in question involved all but one of them rushing to defend the main door while the last one went to one of the windows to see if he could find us. Perhaps he was a shaker or blaster of some kind, or just wanted to get an idea of our approach. Either way was a moot point since he was immediately taken out by a shot to the knee courtesy of Rifle.

The front doors to the complex provided no resistance for their part, being unlocked by default at this hour and the New Marche not having had the time to change that. Grue was providing cover with his darkness, through which Parian’s puppets emerged to crash into the enemy. It was amazing how even an innocuous thing like a stuffed giraffe could look terrifying when it came storming out of pitch black shadows to swing its long head at you. They didn’t really do much on account of how Parian couldn’t see through the darkness either to effectively direct them but they soaked up the first volley of gunshots and poison courtesy of the imaginatively named Spitting Cobra. With them I sent a renewed swarm of bugs, before heading inside to dispatch these people myself.

The fourth of Cinderhands’ underlings revealed himself as Pulveriser when he caused one of the stuffed animals to burst at its seams with a single hit. Like the lieutenant in charge of the place, he was a Striker, possessing the ability to destroy anything he touched. A dangerous ability, or it would be if it wasn’t also Manton Limited according to the files Tattletale pulled up. He could still demolish the walls of the house and take us down with him if we weren’t careful, but we weren’t at risk of being disintegrated at a touch.

While I darted in under the cover of bugs and darkness to engage with Cinderhands, I had Imp circle around the place to attack them in the rear, a phrase that she and she alone happened to find absolutely hilarious. There was only one proper entrance to the building but several windows on ground level. I was hoping that between her powers and our distraction, they wouldn’t notice the broken window or the sound of footsteps from behind.

“So you’re the infamous Bug Girl.” Cinderhands’ name was apt, for his lower arms looked blackened and twisted like burnt wood and were covered in dark flames. “I’d make a witty comment about you being lesser than your legend, but it seems that my banter skills have atrophied. Heh.” He looked far too pleased with himself for that excuse of a joke, and almost seemed to want me to acknowledge how apt the word was for his state of being.

“I’m glad that you didn’t.” I used the longer reach of the baton to strike him while staying out of reach of his flaming fists. “I’ve heard too many comments of that kind lately.”

“The burden of fame.” Despite his group currently being pushed back and getting hurt by our rapid onslaught, he still appeared to be pretty sanguine. It could simply be his default temperament, but I still found such behaviour suspicious. There was still one member of his gang who was unidentified and hadn’t engaged us so far, and we did not know how long it would take before their reinforcements showed up.

Spitting Cobra had already been taken out by Grue though after a bit of assistance from Regent’s power running interference. He had managed to get in under his guard and past where he could effectively use his powers on him and knocked him out with a punch to the throat. That appeared to be the unspoken signal that made the sixth member of the New Marche unleash his powers, and it immediately became clear why he’d been kept in reserve.

A shockwave of concussive force erupted from him, spreading out in a spherical pattern and causing walls to crack and people to be thrown against them. Unfortunately, at least for the enemy, it was also indiscriminate and impacted friends and foes alike. Grue and Voidling were the only people still left standing in the aftermath, the particulars of their powers apparently proving quite useful in blocking sonic attacks. 

I could see the logic in assigning this Cape, whose name Tattletale might tell me as soon as my ears stopped ringing, together with Voidling by Marquis, but all the same it was growing obvious how most of these people had no real experience in working together in combat situations before this. The attack had hurt them almost as much as it had us, and therein I saw the path to victory in this war.

Staggering back to my feet while everyone else were too dazed to take advantage of my moment of weakness, I assessed the situation, and the epiphany I had. For all that the Birdcage inmates were on the higher end of the parahuman power scale on average, and there were far more of them than there were of us unless I started drafting children, they were not a team, not truly. They were a bunch of anti-social individuals from all over the world thrown into the darkest pit to rot, and had just emerged back to the world of the living with no experience fighting side by side one another or taking advantage of their particular skills and powers. 

If correctly utilised, Powerblast (thanks Tats) could have swung the entire battle against us by luring us in together with Voidling and knocking us out before the others swooped in. As it was, while he had killed all of my nearby bugs and knocked me back it was really too little too late. Before he had the chance to repeat the trick, Imp had snuck up on him from behind and tased him in his literal rear end, their secret weapon going down to some hastily workshopped jokes about his power being a clear expression of incontinence.

“Yes, thank you, Imp.” I sighed. Useful though she was, Aisha really was a handful to deal with sometimes and I did not envy Brian’s status as an older sibling. “Now kindly surrender.” I directed the last part to Cinderhands, Pulveriser and Voidling, who were the only people left standing out of the opposing team. 

“So polite.” Cinderhands smiled. His jovial facade, so entirely at odds with his street punk appearance created by the partially shaved hair and multiple piercings, had not dropped from this mere setback. “Marquis is going to like you, Bug Girl.”

“I’m flattered but not interested.” I deadpanned. “Now come quietly for your own good. You can’t win this fight, and you’ll only hurt yourself fighting.”

It was not completely true, there were cars that I suspected belonged to Marquis’ men entering the periphery of my reach so while we held local superiority for now that might change very soon. But it did not appear that he had any means of keeping direct contact with Marquis at the moment, he wore no earpiece or anything like that, so there was no need to let him know that.

Fake it until you make it.

“Hm, no.” He shook his head. “Nice try but I- Ughlk!” He choked on a fly I snuck down his throat while he was speaking, coughing to try to get it out.

Taking advantage of the momentary distraction, I smashed my baton on his face with as much force as I could put into it. Cinderhands did not react in time and fell down on the floor, completely knocked out and with a broken nose in the bargain.

Voidling was in a standoff with Grue after the two of them had been the only people left standing from Powerblast’s attack. Neither could really effectively attack the other and their powers appeared to be cancelling each other off more or less, the vacuum Voidling created not allowing for the shadowy smoke that Grue emitted to enter it and vice versa. They were as such in an ephemeral tug-of-war, at least until the others recovered enough to come to Grue’s aid.

The issue therefore wasn’t Voidling, who had been kept from taking advantage of the shockwave and could be taken care of by Parian and Foil. It was Pulveriser, who was seeing the way the battle was going and rather than making the rational choice and simply surrendering, freaked out and tried to bury us with him.

“You won’t take me again!” The fool was so desperate to avoid another capture he was willing to risk his own death to avoid it. “You can’t!”

I jumped to tackle him before he did anything rash but as he toppled over, his flailing arms grabbed for some already damaged, and all too load-bearing, walls that shattered under his touch.

…

Figures.

—

“Skitter, can you hear me? Come in, Skitter! Taylor!”

I was vaguely aware of the buzzing comm in my ear through the pain and darkness. Turns out having a three story building fall on you really fucking hurts.

“I’m alive, I think. Something, red, something.” I tried to cough but the pressure on my body wouldn’t let me.

“Oh thank God! Thought we lost you there for a second.” I could hear the sound of Tattletale taking several calming breaths as I tried to orient myself. A few of my bugs had survived the chaos and were now sifting through the rubble. “Getaway got most of the others out fine, but you and Grue got caught in the collapse.”

“I noticed.” I was still cradling Pulveriser through all of this, my arms locked around him still. “I was just going to ransom you for peace, you moron. It didn’t have to be like this.” I said this mostly to myself, as he was very much out cold. Unconscious or dead, it was hard to tell in my position. Apparently having head protection was really useful.

I could have kicked myself though. Figuratively speaking of course, I hardly had the room to literally do so. In hindsight, fear of the Birdcage overriding rational thought could have been anticipated and I knew that he posed a particular risk to the structural integrity of the house. I should have seen this coming. 

What a disaster, instead of a simple in and out, I was injured and caught in a compromised position while the enemy reinforcements were fast approaching and I had no idea how many of the people caught in the collapse had even survived. While roughing some people up when capturing them had been fine, especially since the New Marche had Panacea, I didn’t want anyone to actually die.

Hopefully Grue was fine though, his suit was even more heavily built in its protection than mine, but if we got caught here, or even escaped with no living prisoners, I was going to count this operation as a failure that was at best only going to escalate the war.

At worst we’d end up on the exact opposite end of where we wanted to be when it came to negotiating peace.

“... Okay, I think Grue’s still breathing, but he’s not responding to me. The others are returning from Getaway’s designated extraction point to help out, so just hang tight.” Tattletale tried to reassure me.

“Marquis’ men are like two minutes away.” I informed her. They were approaching too quickly and I still hadn’t figured out a way to get out of this situation.

“... Fuck.”

“I might distract them for a little bit, just get Grue out of here.”

“Oh no! You’re not acting like a self-sacrificing martyr, Taylor, not this time. Send your bugs to delay them, sure, but we’re getting you out of here too. I have a plan.”

I’d ask her what the plan was, but breathing, let alone speaking, was proving a tad too difficult right now. I resigned myself to just throwing every insect I could find at the enemy, who were now getting out of the cars, while hoping against hope that this would somehow still work out fine. The fact that I could sense Lung leading the pack and feel my consciousness slipping away didn’t inspire much confidence though.

And yet, in hardly any time at all, I felt the pressure lift and light reach my eyes again, as strong arms dragged me through the rubble, and not ones belonging to my foe. Foil grabbed me and pulled me up, Parian hovering anxiously beside her, all the puppets she had brought for this having been crushed when the house collapsed. Regent was twirling his sceptre in the background, scanning for threats and possibly something else, while the Red Hands were getting Grue out as well.

“How?” I sputtered weakly.

“Thank Cozen.” Explained Foil. “Turns out having a pocket dimension to drop things off in is great when you want to get rid of a bunch of debris all at once.”

Cozen smiled awkwardly at the praise as she helped carry Grue by letting him lean on her and Rifle’s shoulders.

I was honestly more than a little surprised. While I had brought her along as the new leader of the Red Hands, I hadn’t expected her to actually come in handy in a proper fight and had planned more around Rifle and Getaway than her. 

There was still that slight sting of jealousy as I saw her handle Grue, but I really could not muster the energy to be annoyed about it under the circumstances. Even if she was coming onto him it wasn’t really my business and it was hard carrying a grudge against the woman who just saved you.

“They’re almost here.” I warned them. “Grab any prisoners you can and let’s go now!”

A quick check by Regent confirmed that Pulveriser had in fact ended up killing himself from being at the epicentre of the collapse when a broken floorboard went through his abdomen, and we didn’t have the time to dig for most of the others, but at least they found Cinderhands still breathing when they worked to get Grue and I out of there. 

I’d take any victory if it meant that it would make having a house fall on me worth it. The fact that this might not even rank in the top five most painful things I had experienced was honestly depressing.

As we regrouped and Getaway teleported us out of there just in time for Lung to see us before we were transported to the previously prepared teleportation zone though, I couldn’t help the nagging feeling in the back of my mind that I was forgetting something important in the middle of all of this.

—

It took until later in the evening for me to finally realise what I had forgotten, and I was suddenly extremely thankful that Brian was still unconscious. We were going to be meeting with Marquis the next day and I could only hope he’d saved her and kept her alive as a bargaining chip to even out how we managed to capture one of his lieutenants. 

In my defence, Imp’s power was literally to make herself forgettable. 

Still didn’t make me feel any better about having left her when she had been the furthest inside of us all after she flanked Powerblast. I kicked myself, still not literally, for this lapse that had cost us an easy win. It had gone so well too, we even brought down their secret weapon without much fanfare.

In fact, the whole operation annoyed me the more I thought about it. The fact that the biggest contributor to our victory had been our opponent’s incompetence was hardly comforting. Even though they were on the other side, and it had largely benefited us at least until the end, the failures in coordination and intelligence on the part of the New Marche vexed me greatly. There was this itch that I was not entirely convinced was my own to improve their efficiency when my post-battle analysis made it clear how much better they could have performed if they had updated themselves on the local Cape scene, made tactics to synergise their different powers and stayed in communication with the main group after the alarm was sounded. 

A bit of a silly thing to be annoyed over when I was down a team member and my entire body ached from getting crushed, I had to admit. At least my suit had saved me from having any organs ruptured but I still had to deal with damaged bones and bruised muscles from the ordeal, and was still expected to show up tomorrow during the negotiations with Marquis or else appear weak. The silver lining to all of this was that at least things seemed to quiet down as I got to sleep after being checked for internal bleeding. Marquis hadn't sent any goons to spring out Cinderhands so far, Galvanate was just quietly building up strength and Gavel looked to have indeed disappeared from the Bay, at least for the time being. Despite my frustration at how much everything went wrong because of a single mistake on my part, things could be worse. Marquis wasn't known as the type to mistreat captives, especially an underage girl like Aisha, and if we could get an agreement tomorrow I might still be able to fix everything.

If.

Chapter Text

I spent most of the 8th of October preparing for the meeting with Marquis. My suit needed to look presentable, coming in still carrying the damages from the fight with his people would be an unacceptable sign of weakness. At least the fact that it fully covered my body would hide my bruises. I just would have to try to avoid displaying any limp or other sign of distress throughout it. Chairs would probably be a good idea.

Of course, there was a much simpler solution to my injuries: Lizardtail of Accord’s Ambassadors, another healer who could fix both Grue and I up. There was more than my pride stopping me from calling on his services though. Accord still hadn’t actually joined the Hive, and his current contract provided no obligations to help in this regard. What’s more, the recent chaos had put him in an incredibly foul mood, the kind that made him dangerous to approach. He’d already made no attempt to hide his resentment over his gang being conscripted to help guard against Galvanate’s folk, so I hesitated to indebt myself further to him. The injuries had already been established by our private doctors to be neither life threatening or likely to cause permanent damage, and the pain would eventually pass. 

Hopefully Brian would not hold it against me for making this decision for him without consulting him. The bitter truth was that I could not bring myself to meet him before I had first returned his sister from captivity. It was cowardly of me, but this way I would save myself from his reproach until I had already fixed my mistake.

I was optimistic that this could still be resolved satisfactorily; a prisoner exchange was in both sides’ interest. Furthermore, I doubted that Marquis would allow harm to come to Aisha. It was not like when Brian himself had been captured by Bonesaw, where every moment that passed held the possibility of torturous death for him. Nevertheless, the knot of doubt and anxiety in my stomach did not disappear merely because I figured that rationally, the odds were good.

I could always try to ask Dinah for the chances of Aisha’s safe return, but what would that achieve save letting me hear what I already knew? Dinah never offered guarantees, the only way I’d get an absolute answer was if Aisha was already dead, and quite frankly if that was the case I’d learn it soon enough anyway and would prefer to not contemplate that possibility. I preferred not to ask Dinah any redundant questions, not when every one hurt her and reminded her of her abuse by Coil.

I did not want to become like him, using her powers for my convenience or relying on them entirely for the path ahead. It was a path that felt all too easy to start following and in the end it wasn’t just morally reprehensible but came with dangers of overdependence and putting too much faith in answers only as good as the questions asked. 

At least the fact that I could remember Aisha again was pretty reassuring, since based on how we understood her power to work that should mean she was at least conscious again and still alive, if not safe. It wasn’t much, but it did stop me from spiralling too hard imagining worst case scenarios.

—

Picking a suitable neutral ground for the meeting with the New Marche hadn’t been easy when we laid claim to the entire city as ours to rule. After a bit of back and forth, Somer’s Rock had been selected for its long tradition as a place where villains could meet in peace.

It felt strange returning to where my career had first picked off and I had been introduced to the wider Brockton Bay underground. Not least because it looked identical to how I remembered it. So much of the city had been changed by the events of recent months it often proved unrecognisable, and yet this dingy old bar looked like it hadn’t aged a day. I was hit by a weird sense of deja vu when the same barmaid approached me as last time. At least this time I didn’t embarrass myself by telling her my order out loud but simply wrote down a request for black tea for her to take. The memory almost made me cringe at how awkward I had been.

We’d gone for a balanced approach in terms of how many people were brought to this meeting. I had Tattletale accompanying me of course, since her insights were often invaluable for these kinds of things, along with Regent and the Needlepoints. Enough people that we could hold our own just in case Marquis tried anything but not so much that it became overbearing or left us lacking in case someone tried to take advantage of this by attacking us elsewhere.

I’d also brought Cinderhands with us as a token of good faith to show that he was alright and we were willing to offer him up in a bargain. Restraining him had proven more than a little complicated when he could make his arms hot enough to melt metal given enough time but we’d outfitted him with a shock collar as a rudimentary solution. If all went well it wouldn’t have to last very long and on this occasion the lack of any Manton Limitation on his power was working decidedly against him as he couldn’t just destroy the collar without risking giving himself burns along the throat.

There was the also obvious option of letting Regent Master him to make sure he didn’t try anything funny, which could also be used to infiltrate Marquis’ cohort if we wanted to, but that came with so many issues both moral and practical. It would be found out sooner or later, sooner if Marquis had even the most rudimentary Master-Stranger Protocols in place to guard his organisation, and was the sort of action that could easily reignite the war once that happened. It would be as ill-advised as it was uncomfortable and I didn’t like how it was the first thing that came to my mind on how to keep Cinderhands from breaking free.

We’d arrived before the New Marche had to a largely empty pub. There were probably different kinds of powerplays that could be made depending on how early or late you came but frankly I couldn’t be bothered to engage in that, I just wanted to make sure that we were on time and ready to get going as soon as the meeting started.

Marquis arrived four minutes later, accompanied by Spruce, Lung and Panacea. He made a courteous bow upon seeing me. “Skitter, an honour. And you’ve brought Cinderhands with you as well, excellent.”

“Sorry, boss. I messed up.” Cinderhands gave a wry smile at his own predicament.

“It’s fine.” He waved him off with an air of magnanimity. “I’ve already got a recounting of what happened from Voidling, the target of my ire for this debacle has already passed, and by his own hand at that.” 

“How many died in the collapse?” I asked while Marquis settled down at my table. Both Lung and Spruce seated themselves at a table just behind him, while Panacea hung around awkwardly for a moment, likely deliberating whether she ought to sit by her father or his lieutenants, before she read the room and went with the latter option. She’d discarded her New Wave outfit since I last saw her, instead going with a sleeveless shirt showing off a bunch of tattoos she’d acquired during her time in prison. She had also fixed her hand at some point after the Siberian mutilated it, presumably with the help of some other Birdcage inmate since to my knowledge her powers did not work on herself.

Marquis stared at me for a moment as if trying to gauge the reason for my question, before answering. “Just Pulveriser and Prolific, my darling daughter managed to save everyone else.”

I assumed Prolific was the guy Rifle had shot early on in the fight. “And Imp? I notice she’s not here with us.”

“Ah, yes, my apologies. Rest assured your friend is fine, but we could not bring her here without risking her just walking away from us.” He smiled apologetically, dressed in a fine suit rather than his more infamous bone armour and with his head uncovered by any mask. I supposed that there was no point in hiding his secret identity any longer, and he could always create the armour on the spot if he needed to.

“I see.” Through the gnats I had settled on Tattletale’s hands, I could feel her tapping a single finger, the signal we had agreed to mean that they were being truthful. Good. 

I was amused enough that they had suffered through the same difficulties we had that I was almost willing to let the fact that Marquis hadn’t matched my gesture of goodwill slide. Almost but not quite. “You could have just encased her legs in bone so she couldn’t move without you releasing her though.” I pointed out.

He raised an eyebrow at that. “I would have thought you’d have objections to me ossifying one of your companions.”

I did not need Tattletale’s two-fingered tap to know he wasn’t being entirely honest there, though it was good to have confirmation. “You don’t actually have to hurt her to contain her, do you? If you really wanted to, you could have brought her along without harming her or letting her run away, but you didn’t.”

“No I did not.” He agreed with a put upon sigh. “I’m not one for taking unnecessary risks, and your friend has the potential to be one for this meeting. I can give you a phone call if it will convince you that she’s fine though.”

“Do that, please.” It wasn’t just about reassuring myself that Aisha was okay, Tattletale seemed confident he wasn’t lying about that. It was about retaking control over the discussion after Marquis had put us at a disadvantage before it even started.

He had clearly been expecting this request, because it only took the press of a single button on his phone for a call to be made. “Kindly put our guest on speaker. Do not give her your phone, she will keep it if you do so.”

“Fuck you too, Bonesy.” Came the unmistakable voice of Aisha on the other end. “Also, calling prisoners ‘guests’ doesn’t make you classy, it makes you sound like a creep. If I actually am a guest then I’m leaving zero stars; terrible service.”

“I’m glad to hear that you are doing okay, Imp,” I couldn’t help but let a dry note enter my voice over the fact that this was how she chose to introduce herself and make everyone know she was still alive. At the very least it certainly reassured that it really was her and her speech wasn’t being coerced.

“Nah, I died and am now a ghost haunting you because of how you abandoned me to Bonerman, Skitter.” She said chipperly. “For shame, for shame.”

I stifled the impulse to rub the bridge of my nose, it wouldn’t look professional and the mask made it complicated. “Just hang tight, you will be out of there soon enough.”

“Great, cuz I was getting bored and these people are even more uptight than my bro. You’d think after years in prison they’d want to indulge in wanton hedonism, not stand still giving stern looks.”

I did not dignify that with a response, instead turning to look Marquis straight in the eye. “I think I’m doing you a favour here taking her off your hands.”

“Hey! I heard that!” Aisha complained.

“She does have a rather foul mouth for such a young lady, you really should make sure to educate her in proper manners.” Marquis said quite seriously.

“Duly noted.” Right, ‘old school gentleman’ type. “Now, to business. We’re willing to offer a prisoner exchange and acknowledge some of your territorial claims in exchange for a year-long truce.” We probably didn’t need a truce to last for a full year, but it had been agreed that requesting a shorter truce would actually be more difficult than a longer one, since it could easily be interpreted as us intending to turn on them once we’ve dealt with all other rivals. Which wasn’t something that I necessarily intended to do, in fact I would rather prefer if I didn’t have to because everyone could live in peace, but I had grown used to setting my expectations low and preparing for conflict and Marquis’ present company did not instill me with much in the way of faith. 

“I assume you intend to be more specific than just ‘some’.” He smiled at me.

“Naturally.” I outlined our opening offer, which only granted them the core lands they had already seized around the former New Wave turf, and sacrificed little of what we had previously controlled. It was an aggressive proposition, and I hardly expected it to be taken, but it could be useful to gauge how confident they were feeling. 

Lung snorted derisively while Spruce merely raised an eyebrow to convey his disdain for the suggestion and even Cinderhands gave me a side look as if wondering how serious I was being. Marquis however kept his face inscrutable as he replied. “You’ll understand if I can’t accept that, Lady Skitter. I have a lot of people to take care of, and this would not leave me with much space to support them through.”

Three out of five in confidence was Tattletale’s verdict from her hands behind her back, which was better than I might have expected. Not enough to actually push for this solution and I didn’t think he was bluffing in his implied threat when speaking about how many people he had, but his position was worse in his eyes than he was letting show with the calm and confident facade. 

“I’m willing to negotiate the terms if you are.” I simply stated. We’d agreed beforehand that three meant that he wasn’t completely sure he’d win if it came down to it, and while he wouldn’t agree to anything resembling capitulation he also saw the benefit in getting some breathing room to rebuild his organisation. In other words it was the best we could hope for unless he had some massive weakness he was hiding like widespread defection.

What followed was bartering for land as we divided the disputed territories like pieces on a board. I did not enjoy surrendering control over any of the people I had sworn to protect, without their knowing even, but when the alternative was a prolonged two-front war dragging the Bay down into superpowered gang fights yet again it clearly struck me as the lesser evil. At least Marquis wasn’t the type to start killing people on his newly carved turf for having the wrong skin colour, which still put him ahead of some of the previous gang leaders in Brockton.

It’s depressing how low the bar was.

We were still arguing the final details of where the border should go when Lung intervened in the discussion. “The Qingdao Reclamation Services.”

“Yes?” I wasn’t sure what to say to a non-sequitoir like that.

“I want them gone.” He stated with an aura of finality.

“... Why?” This elaboration left me even more confused. I could kind of see the logic if he thought they threatened his control over Brockton’s Asian community but it was still a weird thing to make a big deal out of all of a sudden. I didn’t get the impression this was planned beforehand either, because Marquis looked genuinely annoyed that Lung had interrupted him. 

“Because they are liars and cheats, and if they stay, they will burn.”

It was possible Tattletale knew more than I did, but the basic sign language we had developed for this couldn’t really convey whatever complex motivations the former crime lord had for wanting to destroy the QRS, only that he was being quite sincere right now. Perhaps he had a bad history with the company, or the CUI as a whole. I honestly did not know much about his background, other than rumours that he might have fought Leviathan during the sinking of Kyushu.

Regardless, it wasn’t really a point I was willing to budge on, as a matter of principle as much as because they had proven really good partners to us so far. “If you want to drive them out of your land then it’s none of my business, but you can’t dictate that sort of thing for the rest of us.”

He towered over me with his arms crossed, glaring at me behind his dragon mask. I could have sworn he’d grown an inch or two as well. I stared back at him, refusing to be intimidated by this posturing. There was a tense standoff as I gathered my bugs just in case Lung was going to start a fight then and there, the walls beginning to buzz menacingly.

After a few moments, perhaps first watching if I was going to show any weakness and give in, Marquis intervened. “Enough! Let’s not disrupt the truce around this place. Lung, stand down, we’ll talk about this later.”

There was a hint of smoke in Lung’s nostrils as he scoffed, but he did sit down beside Spruce again. Marquis turned back to me with an only slightly strained smile. “My apologies, where were we?”

Lung did not make any further moves for the remainder of the peace talks, glowering in the corner. Nor did the others for that matter, Panacea reminded me a bit of myself last time I was here, just quietly listening and trying to understand the dynamics at play as best she could. Spruce meanwhile seemed to value propriety too much to interrupt his boss, though he still gave snide looks in our direction, including at Cinderhands. Perhaps there were longer grudges in play, or he was simply disappointed in him for being captured. I still hadn’t fully grasped the intricacies of the New Marche but I was getting the impression that there was more than a little bit of tension within the group that could potentially be exploited. Though considering Lung’s militant stance, their collapse might not necessarily fall to our advantage. 

That all fell into Tattletale’s area of expertise however, I chose to focus on giving up as few concessions out of this deal as possible. Marquis was by no means an unskilled negotiator, but between Lung acting out of turn and Tattletale feeding me the intel she picked up he was put at a disadvantage. I had initially half expected him to have staged it to put me on the back foot, but when it became clear he had been just as surprised as I was that the QRS was apparently a sore topic for Lung I felt a lot more confident.

Lung himself continued to radiate aggression throughout the remainder of the meeting, but there was something about it that didn’t give me the impression that he was really upset at having been blown off. If anything, he almost looked pleased to have thrown his own side’s position into disarray, either because he disagreed with the idea of peace entirely and wanted to sabotage the process or he was looking to undermine Marquis.

Regardless, when I finally shook hands with the man I was not too displeased with the outcome. We’d freed our flank while keeping our pride intact, and while this accord meant that the New Marche was here to stay, that was a sacrifice I was willing to make to keep Brockton Bay from destroying itself once more.

Marquis meanwhile took any minor setback from what he might have gotten out of the deal in good grace, reaching out to shake my hand. “It’s been a pleasure, I’m glad we could resolve this like civilised people.”

I still felt tense as I shook it though, prepared for a sudden unexpected turnaround, for Lung to lash out against me, or Marquis to reveal that this was all his plan and we’d fallen into a trap. 

None of it happened however, Lung just stalked off on his own, while Marquis released Imp with no further issues. There was something eerie about how uncomplicated it seemed to be turning out and in a messed up way I almost ended up feeling reassured when something finally went wrong.

It wasn’t a major thing, but as soon as Lung had made some distance from everyone he snatched one of the flies I had been using to keep him under observation and spoke to it. “Enjoy your peace while it lasts, for when it ends I will break you.” He then crushed said fly to make a point.

—

So… Yeah, I considered that confirmation enough that he was indeed actively looking to end any truce between our groups. He might even have planned to undermine Marquis’ diplomatic position deliberately to breed resentment over the agreement with the New Marche. Though that last part was just conjecture and I wasn’t entirely convinced it wasn’t just an impulsive decision because he really hated the CUI. Or maybe that’s the way he wants to appear to obfuscate any cunning on his part behind the straightforward brute facade…

Ugh, I was starting to really overthink everything and ending up just going in circles. I didn’t know how much planning Lung was putting into this, but the important part was that he had not let go of his grudge against me for having repeatedly humiliated and mutilated him, which when put that way I guess is fair enough. He was going to cause trouble, that much I was sure of.

“You know that being tall, dark and broody is only sexy when guys do it, right?” Imp interrupted my thoughts. 

Maybe I had been in too much of a hurry to try to get her back after all. “Good thing I’m not aiming towards that right now then, isn’t it?”

“Glad to have you back.” Tattletale smiled wanly.

“Aww!” Imp clinged to her in an overly affectionate manner that made my eye twitch. “You guys missed me!”

“For some reason.” I deadpanned.

“Ignore Miss Sourpuss.” Said Regent. “She’s just upset she didn’t get to kill anyone today.”

“Oh, I get it.” Imp nodded sagely. “It’s a tough economy and you need to feed all of your little spider babies.”

In hindsight, perhaps leaving Imp with Marquis for a week would have provided a relief and made them beg me to take her off their hands when it came to it.

Chapter Text

It felt nice, being able to actually take a break for the first time in a little short of a week but what felt much longer. Sure, Galvanate was still mustering strength, and I wouldn’t trust Marquis as far as I could throw him, especially when he kept men like Lung around, but there was no crisis demanding my full focus right now and I almost felt like I could actually relax for a bit. 

That’s why I was visiting Lisa today, bringing Angelica with me on her first proper walk since the battle against Behemoth, when she was wounded by the same blast that had killed her mistress. The stray thought immediately darkened my mood, the hurt of losing one of my friends still fresh and raw. Rachel deserved better than the fate she’d been given, thrown from one bad situation to another her whole life, only to die far too young. There wasn’t any sense of justice to it, it wasn’t like her death was a product of her own mistakes coming back to haunt her, the way you could nod and say ‘yes, that’s a clear case of cause and effect’. It just… Happened, and if there’s anyone - apart from Behemoth, who felt too impersonal to blame - who was to be held responsible it was me for pushing her to participate in Endbringer battles. If I hadn’t entered her life, Rachel would probably be alive right now.

I schooled my features from the scowl that had crept up on them. It was a stupid and self-destructive line of thinking to go down and I knew that. Trying to find a purpose in Endbringer casualties was the province of the mad, the kind of thinking that led to people joining the Fallen in a desperate hope of there being some kind of meaning behind the calamity, some reason. Truthfully it didn’t matter if there was, not to the dead. 

I kept a slow pace during the walk for Angelica’s sake, her collection of battlewounds had grown quite large by now and she was probably never going to be entirely alright again. It gnawed at me a little, even though I wasn’t really in a hurry, just because I’d come to detest being out on the streets where people might recognise me. I’d done my best to obscure any identifying features, mostly by keeping my hood up throughout the walk and turning my head down, but there was always the risk of another incident happening, especially while Galvanate’s gang remained hostile and at large. For neither the first or last time, I just wished I could have a normal life, where I could take a walk with a dog (was still adjusting to thinking of her as ‘my dog’ and not ‘Rachel’s dog’) to a friend without worrying about assassins at every corner.

—

Despite my worries though, nothing worse than having to find a trash can to throw Angelica’s litter in happened on the way to Lisa’s, and soon enough I was knocking on her door. It opened to reveal her standing there with a smile and a pretty blouse. “Hey, Taylor. Come in, come in.”

I walked inside, quickly followed by Angelica, who abandoned her previous slow gait to jump up on the sofa and spread herself out over it, claiming most of it for herself.

Lisa ushered me into the kitchen, where bags of thai food had been placed. She gave an almost apologetic shrug at my questioning look. “I did owe you dinner, and I’m not much of a cook and figured this wasn’t the right time to go out on town, so takeout it is.”

“Thanks.” I had forgotten about our bet until this moment when she reminded me. “It smells nice.” I said as I sat down to inspect what she had bought.

“I try my best, and my best is very good.” She put out some plates and cutlery before sitting down on the opposite end of the table.

“Humble as always.” I smiled a little in amusement.

“Well, I did just admit I don’t have much experience in cooking, I think that should count for something.”

“True.” I tried some chicken with mango sauce and rice. “If you want, I could make you dinner next time we meet. Got some experience in that regard.”

“Oh so it’s fine when you praise your own skills? I see how it is.” She grinned at me. “But really, that sounds lovely.”

Feeling somewhat bashful all of a sudden, I chose to focus on the food. It really was quite tasty, I had to admit. She knew how to pick these things.

After a few minutes, I broke the silence again. “How have you been doing lately? With, you know?” I gestured vaguely. “Everything?”

“I could ask you the same thing.” There was a weariness to Lisa’s smile, a tired look in the eyes.

“You could, but then you would deflect.” I’d known her for long enough to notice the signs. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I mean, it’s a lot going on, like way too much. I still haven’t even had time to really delve into the implications of Scion and Cauldron, and you’d think that would be a priority.” She shook her head. “The ‘fate of the world’ and all that.”

“Yeah, I get what you mean.” I’d barely spent a thought on what normally should be monumental revelations, that did say a lot. “It’s like the old days. One disaster to another, with barely any time to breathe inbetween.”

“The place where you thrive.” She winced. “Sorry, that was probably insensitive of me.”

“No, you’re right. I guess I do work well under pressure. Doesn’t make it less…” I searched for the right words.

“Tough?” Lisa suggested.

“That works. It’s still stressful. It’s still… this weight hanging over me.” I made a gesture with my hands like it was a literal weight, some kind of sword of Damocles suspended in the air. It sure felt like that sometimes. 

She nodded knowingly. “Yeah, I definitely get that.”

I snorted slightly at how assured her response was. “I can look into other people taking over some of your duties, you know.”

“I know.” She said it with the kind of confidence that revealed what her reply to that would be.

We fell back into silence after that. I worried a little bit that I was too quiet, that I was supposed to fill up the air more with small talk, but that had never quite come naturally to me and I didn’t want to say something stupid or banal.

Apparently, Lisa had no such compunctions, and in a fit of either mercy or cruelty she broke the silence. “Nice weather, isn’t it?” She grinned at me, as if daring me to point out that this was exactly the sort of meaningless small talk I had rejected in my head.

I didn’t rise to the bait, just nodded in vague agreement. “I guess. Didn’t have an issue with it while walking Angelica.”

“Mhm.” She had a twinkle in her eyes. “And how was your week?”

I gave her a deadpan stare. “Lisa, we literally spent the entire week together. You know exactly what it’s been like.”

She waved me off. “Indulge me.”

I rolled my eyes. “Fine, it’s been one disaster after another, Endbringers and Birdcage people causing trouble and I’m only just starting to feel like I’ve got things under control again.”

She shook her head in mock despair. “No, no, you’re supposed to say ‘it’s been fine’ and I’ll nod and we’ll pretend we had a meaningful conversation.”

“Sorry to disappoint.” I frowned as best I could, though my treacherous mouth still twisted upwards. “It appears I still have much to learn about empty talk.”

“Luckily you’ve got me to teach you the ropes. Really, Taylor, what would you do without me?”

“Try to be a hero to make up for my lack of personal connections?”

“Well,” She nodded in concession to my point. “Yes, that. So really, I saved you from a boring life as a goodie two-shoes. And social isolation I guess.” She added the last part as if it was an afterthought in comparison.

“Perish the thought.” That got me thinking though. “Hey, do you think I’d have made a good hero?”

“Nope.” She laughed at my affronted look. “To be fair, I don’t think most people would. I mean, how many genuinely heroic capes do we have? And I’m not talking about the heroes in name only.”

“True.” I wasn’t going to argue that point, not with the sample size I had. “But I’m competent, I’d be great at finding criminals.”

“And that’s the problem. Flooding criminals with spiders in their sleep doesn’t exactly scream ‘heroic’ to me. If competence was all it took then Armsmaster would have been a great hero.” She took the look she got at that idea as confirmation. “Thought not.”

“Thanks for that vote of confidence.” I sulked.

“Hey, if it makes you feel any better I don’t think I’d make a good hero either.”

I opened my mouth to protest, then tried to picture Lisa as a hero. It was harder than I’d like to admit. “No, I guess not.”

“But hey.” She clapped me consolingly on the arm. “That’s the perk of being villains: we don’t have to pretend that we’re saints who’d do no wrong.”

“You make a compelling argument. Is this you making sure I don’t try to run away again?”

“I don’t think there’s much of a risk of that happening but you can never be too sure.” She winked at me. “And I have a civic duty to make sure you don’t become one of the white hats. It’s really not your colour.”

“Oh God.” The thought of me in a white costume was more mortifying than it should have been. “Yeah, no.”

“The true crime committed would have been against fashion.”

I almost laughed at that, and still smiled as I changed the subject. “Thank you.”

“For my dazzling sense of humour or my great insights into the world of fashion? You’re welcome either way.”

“For being my friend. I don’t really know what made you want to, but I’m glad you did.”

Lisa’s eyes softened, and she put a hand on mine. “Taylor, you’re an incredibly driven person, you’re intelligent and you have the ability to accomplish anything when you put your mind to it. Anyone would be lucky to have you as a friend, so don’t make it sound like I’m doing it out of pity.”

I blushed and averted my gaze, feeling very flustered at her switch from joking around to complete sincerity. “That’s very nice of you to say.”

“It’s the truth. You’re one of the smartest people I know, and when that group includes yours truly that says something.”

I snorted at that. “Couldn’t help but add that last part, could you?”

“Am I wrong?” She grinned mischievously at me.

“No.” I shook my head. “You’re very clever too, Lisa, even without your powers you’ve got better deduction skills than anyone I know.”

“I don’t like to brag…” She said airily.

“You absolutely do.”

“Okay, maybe a little.”

“Just a smidge.” I agreed.

Her eyes crinkled adorably when she smiled. “Thank you for being my friend too.”

We sat like that for a while, how long I wasn’t sure, the only noise heard being the low snoring of Angelica having fallen asleep on the sofa. I felt at ease for the first time in a long while, the guilt over Rachel’s death and the anxiety over the future feeling very distant. It was nice and even when she teased me a little I could feel there was no malice to it. I’d grown quite able to tell the difference when there was.

Unfortunately, however long the moment did last, it was not forever. It was interrupted when my phone started ringing, the blaring urgency of the tone resisting any attempt at ignoring it. I checked who it was from and found that it was Charlotte calling, so I answered, hoping that she had a good reason and trying not to feel irritable. “Yes, Charlotte?”

“Skitter, they’re here, they’re attacking the orphanage!”

All previous emotions were washed away like with a bucket of cold water, leaving only a sense of looming dread. “Who?” I asked sharply.

“I don’t know, they’re capes though, a lot of them. We’re trying to- Just get here quickly!” There was no mistaking the desperation in her voice.

“I’ll be there.” I hung up and turned to Tattletale, who was already busy texting to the others. “I have to go.”

“It will be a trap.” She warned me.

“I know.” How could it not be? What strategic value would exist in attacking an orphanage except to draw me out?

“I won’t be able to convince you to not go.” She said it like a statement of fact.

I shook my head.

“Fuck it.” She marched towards the door. “I’ll drive, it’ll be quicker that way.”

“You don’t have to.” I followed her, wishing I had brought my suit with me. I wouldn’t have time to get it now. At least I was already outed, but I could really have used its protection right about now. Had the pepper spray at least.

“Yes I do. I’m not letting you throw yourself into Galvanate’s trap without backup, and I’m not going to sit idle while-” She took a deep breath to calm herself. “I’m coming, non-negotiable.”

—

We didn’t say anything else during the short but tense drive there. Outwardly I kept a calm facade but inside me I was roiling with anger that even this brief respite I had could not be allowed to persist, that anyone would stoop so low as to hurt children just to lure me out. Every bug caught in my sphere of influence was added to the growing black mass that came with us, the roiling swarm by which I would enact my will. 

People were noticing that something was wrong, panic was spreading throughout the streets when out through the grates, from shadows and the dark and warm corners of the world, an army was massing. It wasn’t subtle, they would know I was coming. I did not care. Let them know that they had incurred my wrath, let them hear the chittering of billions of mouths uttering my wordless rage. 

—

It was chaos when the orphanage entered my range. The people stationed to guard this area of the Boardwalk had put up a valiant fight, that much was clear, but they had faced a concerted push from Galvanate’s thugs, who were all augmented with super strength, toughness and electrokinesis by their leader’s touch, on top of the innate powers most of them held. Too many had died just to buy enough time for me to arrive, and the rest were heavily wounded. The leader of this squad, since Galvanate himself had not dared to show his face, was holding Forrest by the throat, while the rest of the gang were breaking down the doors and smashing through the golems Maharal had built as the last line of defence.

“Let him go.” I spoke through my swarm.

Some of them twitched at the sound, hesitating, but the leader simply smiled. “Skitter.” His hand tightened its grip on Forrest, as if to make it abundantly clear how he could snap his neck at a whim.

Both of Forrest’s arms looked broken from the fight, and he was in a bad enough way that I worried he’d not survive without medical attention. Charlotte was placing herself between the orphans and the thugs, pointing a pistol at them even though she knew that they were immune to bullets. 

“Do not touch them.” Every syllable carried across my hate.

“I suppose we can be civilised. Come on out, bug girl, and nobody else needs to be hurt. My boss has a message for you.”

Tattletale had hastily put on a domino mask to cover her identity and was wording ‘trap’ to me. 

“Obviously.” I muttered. “How long does Galvanate’s power last without refreshment?”

It seemed the obvious solution. Keep this going until their protection ran out, then force Galvanate to either come out and expose himself to me or leave them without his enhancements.

She made a mental calculation of how much time must have passed and how long he was known to be able to make it last, before shrugging. “At least a few more minutes?”

Figured as much. A few more minutes to keep them talking, or fighting me, a few more minutes that I had to prolong this without getting any more of my people killed.

I was cataloguing the entire battlefield as I approached, taking note of any potential traps or ambush spots they had placed for me. So far I couldn’t detect any, which just made me more paranoid. I took a deep breath. A few more minutes, then reinforcements would arrive and we could turn this around.

“I’m here.” I used both my own voice and my minions. A few clones had been made and my body was covered in bugs just to obfuscate which was the real me. Just because I had to walk into this trap they had laid for me or else people would die didn’t mean I had to be stupid about it. “Now release him.”

“Hm.” There was a calculating look in his eyes as he looked from one clone to another. “So you are.” He released Forrest from his grip and turned towards me, or at least towards one version of me. It was a shell game as far as I was concerned, where him finding the right version meant me losing, so I was seeding false hints and having some clones affect a more lifelike mannerism than others. “Pernicious, at your service.”

“Cool.” Aura of decay, made sense he’d be picked to counter me. “Now I know what to write on your headstone.”

“How self-assured.” His voice was mocking, no doubt seeking to rile me up to find a sign of who the real me was. Too bad better people than him had tried and failed. “Don’t suppose you want to hear my message before you kill me?”

“I might.” Still reeked of trap, but time was on my side so I played along.

“It’s quite simple, really. The boss thinks that you’re an existential threat to his organisation. He asked you kindly to die.” 

There was a whistling sound as from a far distance, beyond the limits of my range, a salvo of rockets crossed the sky to fall down towards me.

‘Well’, I thought to myself as I tried to come up with some kind of solution to this problem in the split second before they reached us. ‘I guess they don’t really have to worry about friendly fire.’

Then the world was destruction manifest, and I knew no more.

Chapter Text

Stupid, so incredibly stupid.

Lisa knew that it was a trap, it was probably one of the most transparent ones she’d ever seen. There was no strategic value in attacking an orphanage, and they were clearly hoping to lure Taylor out the way Gavel had when he attacked her father’s house. But she had expected snipers trying to kill her when she showed up, or attempts to rush her with a bunch of invincible capes. Proportionate responses that could still be handled, not this.

Stupid.

The world was fire and destruction and she briefly had flashbacks to the Behemoth fight, the raw uncontrollable power and feeling of helplessness before it. Lisa was lucky in that she was far enough back and had time to take cover, sparing her the worst of the explosion. Others were not so fortunate. An entire street had been wiped out from the face of the Earth, the buildings around it collapsing into rubble. She couldn’t see all the casualties, but she could infer from the damage that they numbered around 30 people. 

30 dead, more if you counted the people who’d been killed before they even showed up, all just to take Taylor out. It was… Absurd, when did the world get this mad?

At least Taylor herself had survived the initial blast, though barely. If she had been at the epicenter of the explosion she would have died on the spot, but her using her swarm clones to present a fake target while she was nowhere near any of the presented alternatives for who ‘the real Taylor’ was had saved her life. Made Lisa’s inner conwoman proud.

She was in a really bad way though, that much she could tell, unconscious and bleeding from several wounds left by the shrapnel. Pernicious and his goons, who had all taken little more than cosmetic damage from the rockets, were spreading out to find her and finish her off. Those bugs that had survived the explosion were attacking blindly, following their mistress’ last conscious command, but they were too few and too disorganised to be able to accomplish anything.

Left to their own devices, they would probably find Taylor before reinforcements showed up, so Lisa did the only thing she could think of in this situation: she tried to distract them.

It wasn’t a very good plan, sharp words and a pistol did not do much to these people, but it was the best she could come up with in the moment.

“Hey asshole!” A bullet pinged harmlessly off Pernicious. “Can’t beat a teenage girl on your own so you had to run to a Tinker for-”

The world disappeared into a kaleidoscope of colours beyond human comprehension. Vast beings circled overhead, too enormous to be contained within the scope of the regular three dimensions. She recognised them, she had seen them before. She remembered. The parasite gods.

One of them was Scion, the true Scion, not the human facade he’d put up, she was sure of it. A glimpse behind the curtain. The smallest of insights into their history, the death they had reaped across the universe, the death that in turn came for one of them, and drove the other far away into exile.

He could never return, must never do so, for if he did he’d reap untold destruction for reasons even he could barely understand. 

The vision ended as abruptly as it had begun, slipping away from her like water in her hands, and she found herself having fallen face first down on the asphalt, trying to figure out what on Earth had just happened. 

Event matches what happened when she infiltrated the Merchants and watched someone Trigger in real life. Likely that a Trigger Event just occurred.

That checks out, she could believe that someone would Trigger from this whole debacle.

Aiden has shown repeated signs of latent parahuman status, most probable candidate for a Trigger Event.

Oh.

Filing that particular tidbit away to be processed later, Lisa surveyed the situation on the street.

It was chaotic to put it mildly.

The entirety of Galvanate’s gang had collapsed like puppets with their strings cut off, and were only now getting back up again. But something was different now. They showed signs of discomfort over being harassed by Taylor’s bugs that they hadn’t before. 

Her first thought was that Galvanate’s power boost had simply run its course while everyone was out, but she reassessed that when she noticed that Pernicious was no longer making things rot and decay around him through his sheer presence, something that should have been capable of handling the surge of bugs.

Power nullifier. Capable of disabling access to parahuman powers, likely- Correction. Power nullifier/amplifier. Increased processing power in Lisa-self. More information being analysed. Second Generation Trigger of the Administrator class, Passenger descended from Taylor Hebert. Purpose: Administrate Passengers, temporary adding/removing of restrictions. 129.3 meter range.

And now she was suffering from a splitting headache that had nothing to do with the explosion that had just gone off by her. This was exactly the kind of power you didn’t want in a small, easily kidnapped package. People would kill to get their hands on something like this.

Focus though, none of that mattered if they didn’t make it out of this alive. In five seconds they would start working out what had happened and then they would be split between those who’d retreat and those who’d lash out and try to kill people in their desperation to end this effect. 

Normally Lisa was quite averse to killing. It felt crude and almost always proved more trouble than it was worth. The mark of a killer was not easily shaken and something she’d rather do without. 

Right now however she had no one else to rely on, and not the time to come up with a clever, non-lethal solution. She levelled her gun at Pernicious, subtly guided by her unshackled power, and fired.

The bullet went through his eye and out through the back of his skull. He was dead before he’d realised what happened. 

With all the blood and gore everywhere, Lisa really did not feel like smiling, but she put on her cockiest, most confident grin nevertheless. “I think you boys have overstayed your welcome. How about you run home to daddy while you still can?”

It was admittedly pretty funny though watching people who had been so assured in their invincibility suddenly realise how mortal they really were. With no powers to help them out, the girl with the gun was all of a sudden the most dangerous person on the battlefield.

A particularly stupid specimen tried to draw on her and got his hand pierced before he’d even touched his gun. He fell backwards on the ground screaming, which he really shouldn’t have when that put him in prime biting position for the slowly gathering swarm of bugs. 

“Last chance.” She said in a sing-song voice, and that at last got them to break and flee, chased by thousands of little critters. Leaving her to properly survey the situation. 

Nothing could be done for Forrest or the rest of the militia. Those that hadn’t been killed in the initial assault died in the rocket barrage. Charlotte and the kids were in a relatively good state meanwhile, physically at least. The fact that they had hid in the farthest corner of the orphanage to delay being captured had saved them from the worst of it. They still had a first row view of everything that had happened though and many of them, Aiden not least of all, looked absolutely traumatised by the day’s events.

Charlotte held strong feelings for Forrest. Had been planning to ask him out for a while now. Will blame herself for his death due to a misguided sense of guilt, thinking that if she had not called him for help he would still be alive.

… Yeah, not touching that if she could avoid it. Contrary to what some people might believe Lisa was not a certified psychiatrist.

Which left the most important question mark in this whole thing: Taylor. Walking around the corner, she took her first proper look at her best friend.

It was bad. Really bad. Shrapnel had embedded itself throughout her body, having torn up most of her back after she tried ducking for cover to avoid the worst of the blast. There was blood everywhere and her breathing was awfully weak.

Will expire within an hour without medical attention.

About what she expected really, but maybe if-

Regular medical care will prolong life for three additional hours at most.

Well… Fuck. She was not prepared to lose her, not here, not now, not to this. Parahuman healing it had to be if she was to have any chance, and right now there were only two people in the Bay who could provide it, and one of them was the sister-loving freak who could remake people with a touch. Even if she could somehow convince Marquis that it was in his best interest to help them out (which she highly doubted) there was no way she was going let Panacea lay one finger on Taylor.

Which left her with only one option, and that involved calling one of her least favourite people in the world to see if she could hire the services of his pet healer. Lovely.

With a sigh, she pulled out her phone and sent out a call to the contact she had labelled Idiot in a Nice Suit.

“Tattletale. To what do I owe the… Pleasure?” Apparently Accord just had to draw out the last word to make it clear how little he actually wanted to talk to her.

“Love you too, Accord.” She shouldn’t take such a glib tone with him, but he really was asking for it. “We have a problem.”

“I assume this is related to the explosion that just shook the Boardwalk.”

“Got it in one. That’s why you get paid the big bucks.”

“I don’t get paid.”

“And you won’t if you keep up that attitude. We need the services of Mister Lizardtail the Second.”

“I see.” There was a long silence on the other end, to Lisa’s mounting frustration, as Accord clearly mulled it over. She could practically see the gears clicking into place and she did not have time for this. “This isn’t a charity call, you need help because someone, likely Skitter, got mortally injured and you need me to bail them out.”

“Yup.” No use lying, but she really did not like the direction this was going in.

“I have conditions.”

“Name them.” 

“Full administrative power to manage the Brockton Bay economy, along with membership of the Hive in capacity as part of the leading council. Control over the Earth Gimel portal and responsibility to manage the growth of the extradimensional colony named ‘New Brockton’.”

The bastard was actually trying to usurp power in all but name, and so blatantly too. He wasn’t even trying to hide his goals here. He’d been preparing for this, expecting this moment to come when he held all the cards and could get them to sign any contract he wanted.

If he had been masterminding this attack she was going to strangle him with his own intestines.

Accord detests explosives as uncontrollable and chaotic, methodology of attack does not line with his modus operandi. Did not orchestrate it. However, predicted outcome: has operated under assumption that consistent reckless behaviour of Taylor Hebert with regards to personal safety would inevitably result in situation arising for him to take advantage of.

That motherfucker. Even if this was marginally better than him having been behind it all himself it did not make her hate him less in that moment, the fact that he had been proven right doing little to diminish her scorn.

And yet… Their current contract did not oblige him to provide aid outside of Endbringer attacks, and he could stall any negotiations for long enough that Taylor would expire if he so chose. The choice was between agreeing to his terms or letting her die, and that was no choice at all.

“I accept.” She spoke through gritted teeth.

“Excellent.” He didn’t even have the decency to gloat properly, just treated it with his usual businesslike disposition as if it had been the inevitable outcome. “I will be sending a team within two minutes.”

—

It felt strange and bizarre to try to adjust to a normal life, as if nothing had ever happened. Four months (though it felt like half her life) spent not as a person but a living mound of flesh and yet it was as if everyone was so keen to try to sweep it under the rug. Already, the Protectorate had tried to recruit ‘Glory Girl’ to their team twice and honestly? She got it. They were desperate, short on people and under heavy assault by Lustrum’s Amazons or whatever they had taken to calling themselves. They needed every hand on deck and had already roped her cousin into it.

But Victoria Dallon wasn’t sure if she even wanted to be ‘Glory Girl’ ever again, let alone so soon. She wasn’t the same person she had been then, and yet almost everyone seemed willing to ignore that. Her own mother was pretending like she hadn’t just spent the last four months trying her hardest to act like she no longer existed. They all wanted Alexandria Junior to somehow swoop in and save them all, hardly anyone actually wanted the real Vicky.

At least Crystal had been nice enough to let her stay with her for the time being. She was without a doubt the one who’d taken the family’s eviction from Brockton Bay the best, for while their elders languished in their misery (and had been doing so for a while apparently), she had immediately gotten to work pulling strings with the PRT to secure her own apartment and continued studies. If anything, Victoria got the impression that she was actually happy about this turn of events, not the surge of villainy but the move to Boston, because it gave her better opportunities to actually do hero work and the chance for her to go to a more prestigious university.

A tad cynical, but the more Victoria heard about what had been going on with the New Wave after… The incident, the less she blamed her. New Wave died back then and she got roped into helping prop up its corpse, and doing most of the heavy lifting while at it. A grand scheme to preserve a foothold of law and order by the PRT, failed because their parents would rather use their funding to stay at home more than be at all proactive.

“You ready, cuz?” Victoria wasn’t sure when exactly Crystal had entered the room, her situational awareness skills had atrophied a lot lately and they were never that good to begin with, but there she was, leaning on the doorframe.

“Yeah.” She nodded slowly, still not entirely certain.

“You can still back out of it if you want to.” Apparently Crystal had caught on to the hesitation, because she was frowning now.

“Yeah, but I want to see them. I’ll be fine.” She didn't have a lot of friends left who she could visit. The ones not trapped with all of Brockton Bay’s villains could be counted on one hand. And they were mainly in the Wards. She gave her cousin a more confident smile. “Besides. If the PRT tries to recruit again I can just say no.”

“Want to fly or take a cab?”

“We’ll fly, it’ll be nice to stretch that muscle again, or brain tumour made of super science I guess.” It wasn’t, her feelings about using her powers were really complicated at the moment, and she knew it was why Crystal had asked, but she disliked the idea of being locked into a cramped space even more.

“Give me a minute to get into uniform then and we’ll be off.” Crystal smiled and didn’t question her decision, even if Vicky could detect worry in her eyes, like she was so fragile she could break just from the flight to the Boston Protectorate Headquarters.

She’d be insulted if she didn’t have that fear as well, that any reminder of powers might trigger her PTSD. 

But she’d be fine. It was a beautiful day, and all was going to go well. That’s what Victoria told herself as they made their way over.

The flight itself was fine, not the liberating feeling it had once been but fine. Nothing bad happened on the way and she didn’t have an episode or anything so she’d count it as a success. Touching down on the helicopter landing pad, they made their way inside with Crystal’s Protectorate access card.

She didn’t recognise most of the people there. While the majority of the Brockton Protectorate people had been transferred to Boston while she was indisposed, there weren’t many of their heroes left at this point, and she’d never had much of a contact with the wider Protectorate of America. There were more of them here than there had been in Brockton, especially near the end, but they looked similarly worn and haggard, pushed to their limits by a world that seemed to be falling apart around them.

There was one however who burst in excitement the moment she entered the Wards’ common room and bent reality to a pinpoint just so that she could throw herself into a hug. “Vicky!”

“Hey, Little V.” She caught Vista and just briefly, things felt alright. “I’ve missed you.”

“Missed you too. Never thought I’d see you again. I would have visited, but they wouldn’t let me.”

“Probably for the best.” As much as Vicky would have loved for more company during those months, she was glad Vista did not have to see what had become of her. “You’ve grown, since last we met.”

“I know, right?” She looked incredibly proud about this fact. “I’m pretty sure I’ll be taller than Chris eventually.”

“Chris doing okay?” From what her cousin had told her, he’d spent the last few months helping out New Wave under the moniker of Modulator, which was a marginal improvement over Kid Win in her eyes, but that didn’t say much. The Protectorate were trying to recruit him again after the team’s disbandment but last she heard he wanted to take a break from hero work to focus on his studies.

“Yeah, haven’t really talked much lately. Bosses didn’t like it when it went against their whole charade that the rebranding wasn’t a completely new hero.” She rolled her eyes. “As if anyone believed that. At least when Armsmaster did it he had a new cyborg arm as part of the package. And I guess we haven’t really picked it up again.”

“You should try. He might appreciate it.”

“Suppose. But tell me about yourself, what are you doing right now?”

“Trying to get into uni, mostly. Uh, kind of just want to take it easy for a while.”

“Oh yeah, totally get it.” Missy nodded. “You don’t owe anyone anything.”

The other Wards were filing in as well now, drawn by the sound of their voices. She did not recognise most, more than that the one with fox mask was the local leader, and they not her, most assuming that she was just a guest of Vista’s, which was quite fine with her. The only exception carried an unfamiliar mask but a familiar voice.

“Vicky, long time no see. Did you know that your mom’s a bitch?” 

“Hello, Dennis.” She’d never really been close to Clockblocker during the time before, but after Leviathan she held a soft spot for all the surviving Brockton Bay Wards. Even Shadow Stalker, and last she recalled she was stuck in juvie due to some bullying incident. “So I’ve heard.”

“You looking to join up or is this just a courtesy visit?” He removed the mask now that he knew who the guest was and smiled at her.

“Just a courtesy visit, not really up for joining at the moment. Also wouldn’t be a Ward if I did.” Still felt surreal, having looked forward for so long to turn 18 only to kind of miss her own birthday. One of the most important milestones of her life, robbed from her.

“Huh. Happy birthday I guess?”

“Uhm, thanks.”

There was an awkward pause in the conversation, before Vista came up with something new to say. “So are you staying with your parents or…”

“With Crystal. My parents…” She sighed. “It’s complicated, and not just with me. I think they may be getting a divorce soon.”

“Oh.” She gave her a hug. “I know what that’s like.”

“Thank you.” She hugged her back. “It’s been great seeing you guys again though.”

She stayed a while longer, until the Wards were called in to handle a case of the Adepts trying to rob a jewelry store. They asked her if she wanted to come with, of course, and part of her wanted to say yes, to go back to the good days before everything went wrong. But if she said yes then she wouldn’t have the willpower to say no the next time, and she didn’t want to charge back into the hero business head first without any prior planning. As Doctor Yamada had been telling her, before she could take care of others she needed to be able to take care of herself.

—

Peace, order and security. All things that Brockton Bay, nay the world, wanted for. All things that Kayden now provided for Merrymount, a quaint and idyllic little community untouched by the blemishes of the last few decades. When the Pure had moved in here, they did not do so as another roving gang, or as conquerors and warlords, but simply as fellow members of the community. She shopped for groceries at the same place as everyone else, participated in their associations and community events and only put on her mask when she needed to protect them from gangsters, drug addicts and other undesirables. It was what she had always wanted but Max hadn’t allowed for her until now.

Not that it was all perfect, she still missed Theo, but Justin had been right. Leaving him had given him the chance to grow up and mature for himself without the weight of her love. As much as it hurt to watch a bird leaving the nest to fly on its own, she had to look out for Aster first. 

At least her girl wouldn’t be so damaged by Max’s influence like Theo had been.

Another nice thing she had found away from the troubles of urban life was the joy of gardening. Being out in the sun, feeling its warmth upon her, while she took care of all the beautiful flowers dependent on her guiding hand had her feeling more energised than she had in years.

This idyllic tranquility was disrupted by a knock on the door however. Kayden sighed and brought Aster back inside the house, who also seemed upset to no longer be in the garden, before walking to check who it was.

A pretty young girl in green was standing on her front porch.

Relaxing slightly now that it no longer seemed like it might be a Protectorate raid (not that she thought they would actually do it, she was making no trouble for them and they knew she was doing more good than bad here), Kayden opened the door. “Hello, can I help you with something?”

The girl smiled upon seeing her. There was something off about that smile, though she couldn’t quite place what it was. “Yes, I was told this was where the Conjurer lived, could you please direct me to him?”

“Uh, there’s no conjurer here, I think you got the wrong door. Are you going to see a magician?” She hadn’t heard about any being around and she wasn’t sure this wasn’t some prank.

She seemed to mull over the question. “It is sorcery of a certain kind, drawing upon the powers of the unseen realm, that is true. But I was informed under no uncertain terms that you would know where he was.”

Oh, she was one of those retards. “Dear, could you tell me who your parents are and I’ll make sure to call them and they’ll help you with your conjurer?”

This made her laugh, and yes, there was definitely something not right in this girl’s head. “My parents have been beyond even my reach for the past twenty years, Luminosity, but thank you for offering.”

Wait…

“You… You’re…” Dawning realisation was quickly followed by horror. “Get away from here!”

The girl frowned. “It is not wise to be rude with the Fae, and even less to be so with queens.”

“What do you want?” 

“I already told you, I wish for the Conjurer to grace my court.”

“You’re not taking anyone from around here!” She shot as powerful a blast as she could point blank, ready to blow the abomination to oblivion.

A shadow crossed between them and swallowed the light with its non-corporeal mouth before exploding into nothing.

“How… Inhospitable.” Glaistig Uaine dropped any pretense at innocence, an eldritch green fire glowing in her eyes while shades circled around her. “Very well.”

Gouts of black fire were unleashed, freezing what they touched as they seemed to suck in heat rather than radiate it. Kayden, now in her full splendour as Purity, only narrowly dodged it, frantically trying to draw some distance so that they didn’t end up killing Aster in the fighting, and so that the others could see her light shining in the sky and know that there was trouble.

The Fairy Queen looked to be in no hurry to chase after her though, she just stood there, waiting, her green cloak glittering in the light she radiated. She put up shields or dodged out of the way when attacked, but her retaliation seemed decidedly half-hearted.

It took until Night and Fog had already engaged, rushing out from the neighboring house, that it struck her why. She was using her as a beacon.

Night died almost immediately, for even when Fog obscured her from their foe, the Fairy Queen knew exactly where she was, and her monstrous resilience was of no help against the touch of death. A light tap and she keeled over, human and very much dead.

Before Purity could rethink their strategy against this unstoppable force, if they should just cut and run, Crusader had shown up, along with an army of ghosts of his own.

“Ah, finally. We meet at last, Conjurer.” Glaistig Uaine beamed at him. “Your addition to my court shall be most welcome. The fae clamour for substance, for the chance to act on this world. You shall help free your kin.”

“I recognise no kin but the white man, lunatic girl.” He scoffed. “Now grab Aster and let’s go!” He shouted up towards Purity while his army of ghostly copies charged.

The Fairy Queen snapped her fingers and pink light burst forth from one of her shadows, obliterating the first wave of spectral spearmen. Then she blinked and was suddenly standing in front of Crusader. “Your resistance is brave but futile. You can not lay your hand on one such as I unless I will it.” She grabbed his hand in demonstration and every single ghost of his evaporated in an instant as the light went out of his eyes. 

Terror such as she hadn’t felt since Leviathan coursed through Purity as she fled in to grab her daughter and flee, flee as fast as she could from this monster. Justin had been her friend, one of her only true friends and she had cut him down like he was nothing. Why? What had they done to deserve this? It was unfair, just when she thought she could live a normal life!

Aster was screaming at the noise and strange lights as she grabbed her but she had no time to calm her down. She flew through the back door into the garden and had almost made it free when she felt something grab her legs.

She turned to look and saw a black, smoky tentacle drag her in towards the green eyed thing masquerading as a girl. Like a fishing line being reeled in. She fought and struggled, fired all the energy she had stored, and yet it was inexorable. A gentle touch and it was over.

The ghost of what had been Kayden Anders watched as her body crumpled to the floor, dropping her daughter into the arms of another shade standing ready to catch her so she didn’t hit the grass. It bent over and held the toddler up to its mistress, who took her into her arms.

“Hello, little Changeling. Be at peace, for I mean you no harm.” She smiled down at the crying Aster. “I’m sorry I took your mother away, but I will always be able to bring her back for you. Now let’s go, if we tarry for much longer there will be more deaths today that need not happen, and we have a castle to build for ourselves.”

Chapter Text

I woke up to sterile white lights illuminating an equally sterile white room. There weren’t any signs of me being restrained and the few insects that were hanging around the area couldn’t detect any armed guards, so I probably wasn’t being held captive. Good, that left some form of hospital or private clinic as the most likely alternative.

“Look who’s back in the land of the living.”

Oh. And Lisa was sitting right next to my bed. That probably should have been my first clue. She looked worn and tired, like she was about to collapse any second now, but she still smiled upon seeing me blinking owlishly to try and take in my surroundings despite my lack of glasses on.

“How?” I coughed, my throat dry from dust and disuse. “How am I alive?” The last thing I remembered was the sinking feeling that there was nothing I could do to save myself, the certainty that I was going to die and in doing so fail my father one final time.

“A lot of hard work, putting you together piece by piece, taking out anything that didn’t belong. Took the combined efforts of Brooks and Lizardtail to get you back good as new.” She gave a wry half-smile. “Well, almost good as new. I’m told there’s still going to be a recovery period.”

I moved my body experimentally and found it to be stiff and sluggish, not entirely responsive to my commands. It didn’t hurt though, so I’d count that for something. “How long was I out?” 

“A week.” The tiredness in Lisa’s eyes was unmistakable now. “A lot has happened while you were recovering. Many think that you’re dead.”

“From 1 to 10, how bad is it out there?” I wasn’t looking forward to hearing the answer but I had to know.

“If 10 is Leviathan coming back to finish us off? I’d say we’re at about 7 or 8.”

“Damn.” I sunk back into the bed. “Tell me.”

“Well, obviously Galvanate has been trying to take advantage of your absence by pushing against us hard. Meanwhile Lung’s been trying to establish himself as the tyrant of Chinatown and the other Asian communities again. Officially he’s broken off from the New Marche over the truce we made with them, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that he’s still acting as a proxy for Marquis to test our limits. There’s some other stuff going on as well, but that’s the important part.”

“I see.” Galvanate’s aggression was to be expected and Lung stirring up trouble was annoying but manageable. We had defeated him before, and that was with Bakuda and Oni-Lee with him. It certainly sounded bad but I had the feeling I wasn’t getting the full picture here. “And how have our allies reacted to this?”

“Needed to trade some favours to keep everyone on board but nobody’s jumped ship so far if that’s what you’re worrying about.” She said lightly. Too lightly, if I knew anything about her she wouldn’t write it off that easily.

“Lisa…” I said warningly. “Be honest.”

A pained look crossed her face before she smoothed it out almost immediately. “You’re getting far too good at reading me.” She muttered. “Okay, I’ll tell you more later, but not here and not now. Trust me.”

“Fine.” I didn’t like it but it wasn’t like I could force the issue and she probably had a good reason for not telling me. Still, I made my displeasure known by crossing my arms. “So what can you tell me?”

“That everything is fucked up and I’m so glad to have you back.” A brittle smile. “Also… You know, about what happened after you got knocked out.”

I felt an eye twitch in response. It was the one thing I really did not want to think about but I also felt compelled to ask about. “How many died?” I said in a low voice.

“Us or them?” Despite the faux-joking tone she was using, I could tell she was not holding together well either, she sounded like she was moments away from breaking down over the stress.

“I really could not care less how many of Galvanate’s people died.” Good riddance, every single one of them. “How many did we lose?”

“... 34.” She wet her suddenly dry lips. “Charlotte made it though.”

That was something I guess. “And Forrest?”

“No.” She shook her head.

I took a breath. I hadn’t really expected anything different but it still hurt. Another person lost because I let them down. “Did the kids…”

“The orphans survived but…” She closed her eyes. “Two of the people the rockets hit were children living in nearby houses. I’m sorry, Taylor.”

“Oh.” I really wasn’t sure how to process that information. “I shouldn’t have taken the bait.”

“You really didn’t have a lot of better options, these people were perfectly willing to kill everyone in that orphanage if it meant drawing you out.” Lisa tried to reassure me. “I was the one who should have seen it coming, warned you ahead of time what they were planning.”

“I knew the general gist of it though. Could have been smarter about it, not given away my arrival.” I thought back on what I’d have done differently. “I was just so angry.”

“Yeah, I know.” She leaned over to give me a half hug from her sitting position. “I don’t blame you.”

I snorted, but did not move away from the hug. “That makes one of us.”

She didn’t respond, just kept holding me for a few minutes, while I awkwardly tried to return the hug despite lying down and my limbs still not operating as well as they should.

“How about you?” I asked her after a while. “How are you holding up?”

Lisa laughed the kind of almost hysterical laugh people sometimes did when there really wasn’t anything funny about the situation. “Just copacetic.”

“Liar.” I chided gently. 

She was quiet for a while, seemingly gathering her thoughts. I waited as patiently as I could, not in a rush and wanting to give her some space.

“I thought I’d lose you.” She said softly after some time. “You were dying before my eyes and it was all so pointlessly stupid. You’ve survived so much and got almost taken out by some discount Bakuda called the Technician. Did you know he never even figured out his speciality? Guy’s just a slightly better than average mechanic.” Another laugh that was almost a sob, I got the feeling she had been looking this man up while I was out. “Fucking Tinkers.”

“But I lived.” I tried to reassure her. “I’m here.”

“Yeah.” She snorted. “Had to make a deal with the Devil himself to make it happen though.” I heard her mutter in a low voice.

“... Lisa, what did you do?”

“I’ll tell you later, sweetie. I promise. Just… Not now.”

“I’ll hold you to that.” Not that it stopped me from theorising, and right now the theories were pointing towards a very particular mastermind that Lisa had been studiously avoiding mentioning despite his implied role in my recovery. “... Will it make you say ‘I told you so’?”

“Takes out all the joy of it if you preempt me.” She gave me her best attempt at her usual grin.

Well… Fuck. I took that as confirmation, and did not like any of the possible reasons why she was being so hesitant to talk about it. “I’m sorry.”

“As well as you should be, denying me the simple pleasures in life.”

I shot her a look. “You’re incorrigible, you know that, right?”

“Wouldn’t have it any other way.” Lisa smirked at me.

My thoughts kept circling back to Galvanate  though, to the people who died for his ambition and the way everyone who followed him was complicit in that atrocity. “I’m going to kill them all.” I said softly. It was no bold declaration, no promise, I simply realised what had to come. What had been made inevitable.

“I know.” Lisa played gently with my hair, straightening out knots that had been made.

I gave her the side-eye. “I think this is the point where you’re supposed to talk me out of it.”

She smiled, but there was no joy in it. “I told you neither of us would make good heroes, Taylor.”

“So you did.” It was funny how little the prospect of mass slaughter seemed to bother me by now. Had I really become so desensitised to violence? “So you did.”

—

She had to leave eventually, there were so many things demanding Tattletale’s attention and I was drifting back to sleep anyway. When I next woke up I was alone in the room, and feeling good enough to get out of bed properly this time. My body was still behaving oddly, like it was relearning how to operate, and I was left wondering just how much had been regrown after what happened. I hoped and assumed that my brain hadn’t been too affected, it felt like the sort of thing that should have resulted in obvious memory gaps at the best of times if they had to regenerate pieces of it and I’d rather go without the existential questions that would evoke. 

Rather than dwelling on such mildly horrifying thoughts, I started stretching and doing light exercises to get back into shape while mentally exploring my surroundings. I recognised this clinic as the same place Brian was taken to after he got cut up by Jack Slash in our last encounter with the psychopath and from there could fairly easily place the different houses around it. There weren’t any obvious signs of the troubles going on in them, but eavesdropping on people’s conversations I did get the impression that they were being more worried and stressed than usual, though I’d need more time and a greater sample size to know for sure.

Brooks was in another room, cleaning his instruments. He glared sternly at the lonesome fly I had sent in to check the room. “If you bring in another infestation to my place again I’ll have you personally sanitise every inch of it, you hear me?”

It couldn’t reply, but quickly exited the room to make it clear I got the message. I was not stupid enough to annoy my personal doctor. I made sure to get rid of some of the other vermin too while I was at it.

This did leave me dreadfully bored while I thought of what to do while waiting to be given leave to end my stay here though. It took an hour and a half of listening in to the conversations of every person in the local area and mapping out their lives before I realised that I’d been left with my phone and could just call or text the others. 

Feeling ever so slightly embarrassed, I started checking in with the rest of the Hive. Not that any of them would know that I had already been awake for a long while before I remembered that phones existed. Apart from Lisa.

I resigned myself to getting teased about this at some point in the future.

Aisha was the first to respond to my messages checking in with people, which was probably an indictment on how much time she spent on her phone. As best as I could decipher from her writing, she’d spent the last few days stalking Galvanate’s followers and making them dread the prospect of splitting up from their buddies.

… I believe that’s what she wrote, but the amount of slang and abbreviations she was using made it almost feel like a foreign language. I chose to assume she was actively playing it up just to mess with me, if only because I did not want to contemplate the possibility that this was actually how people wrote to each other.

I got some basic responses from most of the others, some sooner than others, but the one I had been wanting to talk to most and least was Brian. I had fallen back to avoiding him again, this time because of how I messed up the operation against Marquis. I wasn’t too blind to not see the pattern, but recognising it and breaking it were too different things. I still liked Brian, even if we might not work out romantically, and I wanted to be his friend, but it was always so much easier to just not talk.

The Hebert family speciality. I laughed humourlessly at the thought.

I wondered how my dad was doing. I knew that he’d made it to Liverpool but not much else. Not whether he’d found a new job or what his new place looked like. We didn’t keep up contact long distance for security reasons, because any connection might be traced and could easily jeopardise him if people who wanted to hurt me learned of his location, and there were far too many of those in the world.

Well, that was the excuse at any rate.

But one failing relationship at a time. Brian’s responses were polite and informative, detailing how he’d been rebuilding our paramilitary groups from the losses they’ve suffered from the recent onslaught and setting up safehouses for them, the locations of which he did not disclose over PMs just in case. They were also deeply impersonal, not telling me anything about what was going on for him in his own life but simply stating the goings of our organisation matter-of-factly. 

The worst part was that I was at a loss on how to actually engage with him on a more personal level, to get him to open up. I wasn’t sure if texting helped or hindered in this regard compared to talking in person. It made it easier to formulate my thoughts, but it also added another layer of separation between us. I hovered between responses like ‘what have you been doing in your spare time?’ and ‘how are you actually feeling?” before erasing them for being either too blunt or too awkward.

I laughed mirthlessly at my predicament. At least this felt more like the typical troubles of a teenager, as opposed to ‘how many people’s blood do I have on my hands now?’ and ‘what can I do to win this war I’ve found myself in?’. Smaller in scope, but no less frustrating, or difficult to find a solution for.

I already had several plans for how to get rid of Galvanate for good, but none for how to maintain my friendship with Brian. Probably said something about me, and I didn’t like thinking of what that could be.

—

Well, no use self-pitying. When Brooks finally released me to return home a few hours later when he’d done another checkup on me (though with strict instructions to avoid any further strain on my body within the near future that I would probably end up disobeying) I set myself to work planning, gathering information and updating myself on what I had missed. 

The world outside of Brockton Bay remained as tumultuous as ever, especially in the American Northeast, where law and order had all but completely collapsed in many places. Apparently the president had called it a national crisis and there were talks of sending in the army to assist the PRT, or even fold them under it due to their mismanagement.

Normally I didn’t care too much about news outside of the Bay, I had too much on my plate to think about national or international events, but in this case it was pretty relevant to our own situation. From us falling under a government crackdown to more supervillain gangs migrating to our city, there were a lot of ways for things to take a turn for the worse due to outside events. Our whole crisis was because of such events.

But it was still the Bay that held my interest the most, and it was there I was starting to find weird inconsistencies in the reports: A drop in information on the city’s counterpart in Earth Gimel, a bunch of “restructurings” happening at the same time, new commissions from China, all of it awfully vague and telling more through omission than actual fact. I might not even have noticed it normally, not usually focusing on the bureaucratic aspects of our regime, but I was currently driven by a certain form of monomania that comes from wanting to be productive while my body was recovering.

There was no evidence presented as to who was responsible, or even that something was wrong at all, but after my talk with Tattletale earlier I had a nagging suspicion about who it could be, though as to the how and why I was still in the dark. I wanted to trust that she had it handled, that there was a good reason for all of this, but a sense of unease had settled in the pit of my stomach.

Perhaps she just wanted me to focus on one problem at a time, in which case I could certainly oblige her. I had plans for Galvanate, ideas born from witnessing Behemoth of all things. Power granters may be a potent force multiplier in large scale Cape battles, but they were also the weak link in any unit they formed, and I was done fighting fair. 

Let them face an enemy they could not fight back against, and despair.

Chapter Text

It took another three days before I was ready to move ahead with my plan, and not just because I needed to exercise my healed body if I wanted it to be in a good enough condition for this. If this was to send the necessary message to the world there could be no partial successes, no second attempts. Anything less than the complete destruction of Galvanate’s group in a single night was a failure in my eyes.

So I planned, I studied my enemy, learned their weaknesses and their patterns. What powers each one used, where they patrolled and who they associated with. Imp and Tattletale had both gotten a lot of intelligence in my absence, and I complemented it with what my bugs could gather while I jogged around their patrols. They did not dare to go through the neighborhoods as individuals or without first checking in with Galvanate for a top-up in protection lest they get shanked in a dark alley, so it wasn’t very hard to avoid them while I spied on their doings. 

I probably should have reacted more strongly to the amount of blood on Imp’s knife or the way that she seemed to have turned into some kind of boogeyman for Galvanate’s Gang. It couldn’t be good for her, turning into a gangster serial killer at the tender age of 14, but then I was aspiring to be a gangster mass murderer so I really didn’t have a leg to stand on in this matter.

It was getting colder this well into October and I didn’t have as many bugs to play around with as I did in the summer but it was still not too much worse than it had been back in April when I first got started and I had plenty enough for my purposes. 

It had taken more questions for Dinah than I would normally have been comfortable with, minimising any source of failure until my operation had well above 90 % chances of unambiguous success, but I was feeling ready now. 

I didn’t like using her that way, as a tool or a crutch, not for her sake and not for my own, but sometimes the need demanded a break from my normal rules. So long as I didn’t make a habit of it I was probably fine.

—

When people spoke of sneaking through enemy lines they usually imagined it as darting from cover to cover, crouching from enemy sightlines and displaying various feats of athletics to get where you were going. This wasn’t anything so exciting, I just walked past the blind spots of the gang, which wasn’t hard when I knew exactly where every living person within a few blocks was located. The only real difference from my recon runs was that I was wearing my suit this time, but none of the civilians who saw me tried to report me to Galvanate. He’d had neither the time or the support to build a network of informants to match our own even in his own territories.

I approached the old warehouse down the docks that had been turned into the gang’s headquarters completely unopposed, spotting anyone who might have been a problem well before they had the chance to see me. Once it was within my range I stopped going further and stepped into one of the shadows of the night. While there would be time for my own body to act later, Imp had left them a bit too paranoid for me to be able to reasonably sneak into the building itself unopposed, and the truth was I didn’t need to.

The titular leader of Galvanate’s Gang - I really wished they had a more creative name, like the Galvanated, but I supposed they didn’t want too many associations with Teacher and the Taught - was easy to find. He was the beating heart of the group, in a much more literal way than was usually intended with the phrase. His power boosts were pretty long lasting overall, longer than Rachel’s had been, but they still needed to be refreshed every hour or two and his people clearly did not like going without them if they could help it, so they all checked in pretty regularly, circulating around him like a bloodstream. 

He was actually pretty unassuming to look at as far as I could tell, though I was limited by how I didn’t want to send enough bugs into the room to alert him or trigger the security measures they had in place. Not very physically imposing or very aggressively postured, if anything he looked kind of tired, either from the late hour or the pressures of leadership. His black hair was neatly trimmed and his accent was more Midwestern than Italian, no doubt to Imp’s great dismay. 

The automated security wasn’t as advanced as Kid Win’s bug zappers or Bonesaw’s pesticide gases, from what I had picked up from my scouting it simply detected any unregistered movements and sounded the alarm so that the people around the base could rush in and use their electric powers on it. It still did its job in stopping someone like Imp from just walking in and taking care of everyone one by one, but it also kept with the theme of the Technician being a fairly weak generalist as far as Tinkers went.

Aside from Galvanate himself he had one lieutenant with him at all times, a Case 53 looking like he came out of some Lovecraft story, his skin pale and mucous covered and his limbs stretching and twisting into unnatural shapes. He was a noctis cape named Rubberman, which I kind of got with the whole ‘stretchy body’ thing he had going on, but I still found it a misnomer. The texture of his skin struck me as more akin to a snail or maybe an octopus rather than rubber. His role seemed to be a mixture of bodyguard, enforcer and advisor to Galvanate and they were currently having a discussion I was eavesdropping on.

“Been three days since the Imp tried to take another one.” Rubberman’s voice was a lot more high-pitched than I had been imagining when I was looking at his pictures. “They’re planning something big, I can feel it in my bones.” Wait, he had actual bones in his body? How did that work with his power?

“Yes, obviously.” Galvanate’s voice was equal parts tired and irritable. “Why don’t you tell me that Leviathan likes water while you’re at it?”

Rubberman made a weird sound that I thought might be a snort. “And yet we’re still sitting here, doing nothing to stop it, when we should be out there striking first.”

“And what would you have me do? We’re stretched thin enough as it is, we need to consolidate and actually get some more people to join us. How am I supposed to rule an entire city with just forty guys?”

“What we need to do is stop morale from falling and finish the job with the Undersiders or whatever they’re calling themselves. Don’t even have to take over in their place, but we can’t let this go on.”

“Don’t I know it?” Galvanate sighed. “Accord still hasn’t responded to my peace offerings. You'd think that with Skitter gone they might have fractured or lost their taste for war.”

“You made her into a martyr, this won’t end until they’re destroyed or driven out of the city and you know it.”

I was tuning the rest of it out. There was something absurd about Galvanate having the gall to complain about a lack of willingness to agree to a ceasefire on our part after he blew up an entire street of civilians just to get to me. I didn’t know if his not considering it a big deal made him callous or delusional, but either way it really rubbed me the wrong way. And the mention of Accord brought another piece to the puzzle I wasn’t sure I wanted to solve. 

I pushed the implications from my mind. As much as I could see what was written between the lines confronting it would just make me angry at Tattletale for making the choices she made or angry at myself for forcing her into that position. Neither was a productive use of my time here and now.

Most of the conversations I overheard weren’t nearly so informative however. I caught on sporadic talks between various gang members about everyday subjects while slowly smuggling black widows and brown recluses into the building. Snippets of conversations without context or relevance to me.

“Need a lighter?”

“I can’t believe that the Cleveland Browns actually won a game.”

“You doing anything this weekend?”

“Cool. I like it.”

“Shame about it all.”

And so on and so forth. I couldn’t go for my usual swarm without tipping off the alarms so I went for quality over quantity in terms of what bugs I was using. That, coupled with the general need to keep them out of sight, meant I didn’t get a lot of coherent dialogue but from what I could tell it was mostly the former inmates approaching the outside world with the wonder of people who hadn’t experienced it for ages. They took such delight in every little thing you’d almost think they didn’t have the blood of innocent people fresh on their hands.

—

Another hour passed before I was feeling ready to execute the plan. Perhaps it was more than patience slowing me down. Despite everything they had done, I couldn’t say I was enjoying what I was about to do. Some part of me still wanted to be talked out of this, to be shown a better way. But I was in too deep now to hesitate, not when a better solution had failed to present itself.

A final test before I moved. A single mosquito landing on Galvanate’s leg and testing if his invulnerability extended to himself.

It drew blood, excellent.

“Beginning now.” I spoke into my earpiece.

As one, every single creature within my radius sprung into rapid motion. I couldn’t do this without tripping up any alarms, so rather than try I simply sprung all of them at the same time. Clusters of flies went in to trigger every alarm and security measure they had set up, creating a confusing and deafening cacophony of sounds intended to elicit more panic than productive responses.

Arcs of lightning and various expressions of individual powers took care of them pretty quickly, but they were only meant for distracting everyone while I moved in for the kill.

Galvanate jumped up from his chair at the sound of the alarms. To his credit, it only took him half a second before he guessed who could have set them all off at once. “Skitter!” He frantically looked around for an incoming swarm.

None came. Instead, the many small but deadly spiders I had spent the last hour smuggling into his costume started biting. Many went for the throat, so that any inflammation might constrict his airways and throttle him.

As satisfying as watching him slowly die over the course of hours would have been, I did have a schedule to keep, and couldn’t deal with the others without him gone.

Rubberman was fast to react. He couldn’t use Galvanate’s powers without hurting his boss, but he did adapt quickly, pulling out an arm and stretching it until it became flat and flappy, then pressing it against him to try to crush any spider it could catch. His other arm was pulling out antivenom from a cupboard. Apparently they hadn’t been quite so sure of my death that they hadn’t taken some precautions against me.

I couldn’t hurt Rubberman while Galvanate was still alive but I could blind him with fliers in his eyes while the remaining spiders finished the job. One managed to crawl into his mouth to bite him there while others went for where the heart should be. Individually, it would have taken them a long while to kill him, too long, but I still had over a dozen alive and strategically placed to send him into a shock from massive overdose. By the time that Rubberman had managed to inject him with the antivenom it was too little too late. Death from heart failure was imminent.

Fitting, in a way.

—

You could tell the moment the parts of Galvanate’s brain regulating his powers failed and death reached him. I had been right that his power worked on similar principles as Usher’s not only in his inability to affect himself, that much old articles about him had suggested and the mosquito had confirmed, but also in how it ceased to work on people as soon as he expired. I guess I would have to thank Behemoth for giving me the original idea, right after I spat on his corpse.

Cold satisfaction coiled around my chest at watching the murderer die painfully. I wasn’t livid with rage like I had been when the attack first happened but I wouldn’t lie and say I didn’t enjoy seeing his organs fail and his muscles spasm from massive overdose of venom. 

“It’s done. You can start moving in.”

The benefit of Galvanate’s Gang having set up shop in the Docks was that it made it easier to hem them in and cut off any escape routes. One big push to drive any patrollers to me and make sure we got all of them.

“You doing okay, Skitter?” Came Grue’s concerned voice. He was leading the main team for this.

“I really fucking needed this.” It’d been too long since I could cut loose, and I had a lot of pent up aggression to take out on people. My swarm was closing in on everyone within range and it was only just starting to sink in why they could no longer shoot lightning from their fingers.

If Behemoth had helped me with the first step of this plan, then I had the Marche to thank for the second. Galvanate’s Gang was organised along different lines than them, relying less on exceptionally powerful individuals and more on their leader’s ability to grant everyone some decent Brute packages, but they were both new as teams in any real sense of the word, composed of individuals with little in common outside of their shared incarceration. I could use that.

I didn’t have enough bugs this time of year to just kill them all at once, but I had what I needed to distract and isolate people while I went in for the kill one after the other. Even harmless moths and butterflies could draw attention when they got up in someone’s face and fists and bullets usually passed them by harmlessly, sometimes even hitting some of their compatriots if they lost their cool.

Rubberman was the next person I turned my more deadly creatures towards. His unusual biology made it hard to figure out if the venom had any effect but after enough bites he keeled over like his boss. Then I just gathered more and moved on to the next, my silk production had left me with a good source of reserves for this. 

Normally, black widow bites were unlikely to kill, but normally they just bit the hand or foot of whoever had threatened them. In the chaos of a battle stretching out over the entire block, one by one people fell to a dozen bites to vital areas. 

My friends were starting to get within range as well, tightening the noose around their neck. Most of the grunts were already dying from the venom but it would take a while before they could no longer stand. I had left one for last, hiding in his workshop.

“Technician.” My swarm chittered in his ear. I kind of wished I could have done this in person, but intruding on a Tinker’s lair always came with a lot of risks that I really didn’t have to take to do this.

“Please.” He reminded me a little of Leet. Shorter, admittedly, and without the video game theme, but with a similar scrawny physique and high pitched voice. Though that might just be fear. “I- I don’t. I didn’t know. I- please.”

“Do you know how many people you killed that day?”

“I didn’t. I didn’t mean to.” He shook his head, which wore some kind of weird steampunk hat that might have been tinkertech or just part of the aesthetics of his costume. “They didn’t tell me what I was making it for. Look, I can work for you. I can build whatever you want, just please don’t kill me.”

Bargaining, how quaint. But whatever benefit his gadgets could bring didn’t seem worth it compared to the kind of message it would send if I let him walk. “No.”

“No!” He retreated to a corner, shooting blindly at any bug he could see. “I don’t want to die! They might have killed me if I quit! You’ve got to believe me!”

I found myself more than a little sceptical. Even if it was true that he’d be killed if he left the gang (which I doubted) I had a hard time believing that he had no idea what the rockets full of explosives he built were going to do. The number of applications of those that didn’t involve mass slaughter were pretty limited. The truth though was much simpler. “I don’t care.”

I silenced any further begging or protestation via insects to the throat. I’d rather not hear more of it if he was just going to try to make me feel guilty for doing what had to be done.

—

Soon, there was nothing more left of Galvanate and his people than bodies littering the street. My actual body hadn’t done much other than slit the throats of those who were down. Awful people they may have been, both for what they did to get them sent to the Birdcage and here, but I didn’t want to extend their suffering too much, or give them a chance to recover.

Okay, maybe there was some part of me I didn’t wish to acknowledge that would have wanted to see them suffer longer for what they did, but that part of me was plenty satisfied as it was and probably shouldn’t be fed more than it already had.

Aside from one final thing…

—

“This is why I’m glad we’ve got minions to do these things for us nowadays.” Regent observed, hands in his pockets as he looked out over the Boardwalk.

“That and because you’ve never wanted to do an honest day’s work in your life.” Grue commented, voice and posture both inscrutable as to his mood.

“I don’t think the kind of shit we did counted as ‘an honest day’s work’, buddy.”

“Wait, are you feeling squeamish?” Imp sounded delighted at the thought that something had actually unnerved him.

“Nah, just lazy. It’s late and I’m not built for manual labour. Plus, I don’t want to get blood on my suit, cleaning it is a bitch.”

Foil and Parian were more than a little noticeable in their absence. I couldn’t blame them, but I had a feeling this was going to become a problem. They probably felt that I had crossed a line, or they didn’t want to look upon our works and feel complicit in them.

“So which one is your favourite?”

“Dunno. I guess I like Mr Tigermask or whoever that is. Cool aesthetic.”

“Yeah, I suppose. I’ve got to say though, real sausage party. I mean, where’s the female representation here, guys?”

“Down in Boston, I think. Guess we got the man love crew.”

Grue sighed at the both of them. “I’m calling this it for tonight. Goodnight, Skitter.”

“Wow. Not saying goodnight to your little sister? Seriously? Damn, bro.”

“That’s because we’re going to the same… Nevermind.”

They departed slowly, leaving me alone on the Boardwalk, looking at the rows we had made. It was a macabre sight, I had to admit, especially the way the lights illuminated each body and pulled it into focus. Probably would ruin any romantic walks there for a while.

It did have the effect I had wanted though, the way that for a good long stretch, every lamppost looking out over the bay had a corpse hanging from it. People were going to walk up and down this place and they would see what happened if you went too far, they would see and they would think twice about doing something like it themselves.

What had Bakuda called it? ‘The mix of certainty and the unpredictable’, that’s what truly terrified. People wouldn’t know what I was capable of, but they knew that whatever happened to them if they broke the rules, it wouldn’t be good. Some gang members dying doesn’t sell that point well enough, they’re easy to forget if they are not seen. You needed to make a spectacle of it to make sure no one forgot, and rows of hanging corpses lining the Boardwalk ought to do the trick.

I wonder whatever happened to her. She hadn’t been seen among any of the groups of escapees and she wasn’t exactly the type to lay low and try to fly below the radar. Maybe the other inmates didn’t want a lunatic capable of blowing up the prison among them and had shanked her.

Whatever happened to her, I guess she too had taught me something. I couldn’t make people love me no matter how hard I tried, but I was pretty sure I had figured out how to make people fear me enough to not want to cross me and sometimes that was enough.

Chapter Text

“Hey, mom. Been a while, hasn’t it?”

I was out of costume, crouching before my mother’s headstone once again. I had Angelica with me this time instead of Radley and the weather was cold and rainy today, but apart from that it felt very much like my last visit back when Tagg had outed me to the world. The stone was unchanged, as was the rest of the graveyard. I was the only thing here to have changed in the months that had passed.

“I should make these trips more regularly. It’s not really fair towards you that I only do it when I’ve got stuff I need to offload.”

Angelica sniffed the stone I was talking to as if trying to figure out what made it so special.

“Still a supervillain, I’m afraid. I tried turning a new leaf but it… Uh, didn’t work out so well. Guess that’s just the way the world works.”

Mom listened stoically without commenting on what I told her.

“If anything I think I’ve only gotten worse. Last time I worried about having killed one man. Now… I’ve lost count of how many I’ve killed. That’s probably not a good sign.”

I felt myself getting a little bit defensive about the conversation I was having with myself. “I mean, I could probably justify each death individually if I wanted to, it’s not like I’ve started killing without reason. But it’s turning into a long list, longer than I’d have liked.”

One hand was picking at the grass around me while the other scratched Angelica on the back, mostly as a way to take my mind off things.

“Probably not the kind of problems you’d ever imagine I’d be facing. It’d be, I dunno, boy troubles or exams I was dreading or something. Broke up with Brian in the end by the way and nowadays I don’t know how to really talk to him without it being awkward.”

I knew I should do something about that, I just didn’t know what.

“Dad’s gone too now. Not dead-gone but gone-gone. My fault, as usual. I couldn’t protect him and this was the best way to keep him safe. Sorry that he won’t be leaving you flowers anymore.”

I should have thought of bringing some of my own for this. The current vase of them was dried and decayed, with the leaves having turned brown over time. Probably a statement about the Hebert family of some kind if you wanted to look at it that way.

“I’m so lonely, mom. One of my friends died to an Endbringer and I feel like I’m losing contact with most of the others. Lisa’s the only one I still feel close to.”

And speak of the Devil, I could sense a familiar figure entering the graveyard. I didn’t need to use eyes to know it was Lisa, most of my bugs were better at differentiating people by the subtle nuances of their smell than through sight.

“It’s been good talking to you.” I rose up to my full height. “I promise I’ll get back to you soon, get some new flowers before winter sets in.”

I turned around just in time to see her wave at me while she walked down my mom’s row of gravestones.

“Thought I’d find you here.” Lisa was carrying a purple umbrella with stylised blue raindrops on it that almost looked like eyes if you squinted a bit. She bent down to rub Angelica’s still intact ear when the dog went to greet her. “You want to take a walk?”

“Yeah.” I smiled despite myself. “A walk sounds good.”

“Hey, I was talking to the dog. But I guess if you want to come too you can.” She gave me a kiss on each cheek.

—

We’d walked a fair few blocks away from the church when I finally mustered the courage to confront her about her secrets. “Tell me.”

“You really want to know?” There was no need for her to ask what I was talking about.

“Have to, don’t I? If it’s going to be a problem it’s not like I can just ignore it.”

“No, I guess not.” She sighed, a guilty look on her face. “Fuck it. Accord extorted me, that’s the gist of it. Made me sign over most of our assets to him and forced me to smile while doing so.”

“Because of me.” It wasn’t a question.

“... Yeah.”

“I’m sorry.” I offered after a moment of silence.

“Don’t be.” She waved me off. “I’d do it again if I needed to. It’s just rather inconvenient is all.”

“Hm.” I didn’t really buy how she was downplaying it all. “And why didn’t you tell me before?”

“Didn’t need to distract you with my baggage and couldn’t trust that he wasn’t bugging the place.” 

I gave her a long look. I had spent long enough in that room with nothing to do but explore my surroundings that I felt rather confident in saying that the only bugs in there were my own. More importantly, I think Lisa knew that as well. I let my silence speak for itself.

She shifted uncomfortably under my gaze, before cracking. “Maybe if I just fixed it first it wouldn’t feel so bad talking about it.” She shot me a glance just as I opened my mouth to speak. “And yes, I know that’s totally hypocritical of me to say that to you of all people.”

I snorted at that. “And I guess I would be hypocritical to say you could just rely on people around you.”

“110 %.”

“That doesn’t even make any sense.” I frowned. “... And you’re just doing it to mess with me.”

“No, never. Would I do that?” She gave her most innocent smile, which still managed to look like a fox caught in the henhouse. 

“Is that even a question?”

“You’re right, the idea is too ridiculous to even contemplate.”

I tried giving her a stern look but my mouth betrayed me. “Still incorrigible.”

“And you love me for it.” She practically dared me to contradict her.

“Somehow.” I grumbled. “And you’re distracting me. What did Accord do?”

“He’s started ‘managing’ most of our legitimate assets, including the Portal and New Brockton. Right now he controls the money and everything that comes with it.”

“And if we just killed him to take it back?” I wasn’t sure I wanted to kill him, as easily as it came to me these days, I did kind of owe him my life I supposed, and he had been useful before this. But it seemed the most obvious solution so I figured I might as well ask to see if it could be ruled out.

“Depends on how spiteful he’s feeling. Suppose he could try to go full Echidna and release Heartbreaker-”

“Oh shit.” I hadn’t thought about that. If Accord controlled New Brockton that would include the underground base we were building there, and the people inside it.

“-But we could probably get that under control as soon as we get Regent to take care of him. My real worry is him deciding to wreck the economy if we don’t play ball.”

I rubbed my eyes. “So not Coil levels of bad but still something we’d rather avoid.”

“Basically, yeah. He’s also been calling in contacts all the way from China with his new resources to secure his status, so taking him out in the first place is easier said than done. Not that you couldn’t pull it off if you put your mind to it.” She smirked and gestured in the direction of the Boardwalk.

“Right.” Yesterday’s massacre. I still wasn’t sure how I felt about that one. “... Do you think I did the right thing?” Wait, stupid question. “Uh, more, do you think I could have done something better?”

“I… Don’t know.” Lisa admitted, a strange look on her face as she looked away into the distance. “I mean, I get it. I was there too after all when they did what they did. I saw it all. I won’t say I’ll mourn them or anything…”

“But?” I pressed her.

“I don’t know.” She repeated. “Not really. All the options sucked and it wasn’t like you really could let it go unanswered.”

“They deserved it.” I said, more to reassure myself than for her sake.

“... Yeah, suppose they did.” She shifted uncomfortably.

“Something wrong?” Had I driven her away too now? Was that my curse, to always push everyone away from me? A mixture of panic and despair rose in my chest at the thought that Lisa didn’t want to be my friend anymore because of what I had done.

“It’s not about you.” She hastily reassured me, sensing my impending spiral. “It’s… Some stuff happened when you were out I haven’t really talked about.”

“Oh.” I felt relief, quickly followed by shame that this was my reaction to her confessing about something that was clearly troubling her. “Do you want to talk about it now?”

“No, but I know that I should.” She gave me a half smile. “Remember Pernicious?”

“Hard not to.” For how briefly I had known him, he certainly seared himself into my memory for what he did. “I noticed that he was already dead before I got to him too.” At first I had assumed that Imp had killed him as revenge but I was now reevaluating that.

“Yeah, well, Imp didn’t kill him.” Her face continued to display what best could be described as mixed feelings. “I did.”

“I see.” I wasn’t sure how to react. Congratulating her didn’t feel appropriate for the mood, but I wasn’t exactly going to condemn her for it. “... Cool.” I said lamely.

This made Lisa laugh. “Not very, but thank you.”

“How do you feel about it?”

“Not great.” She admitted. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, guy was a total asshole so I’m not going to shed any tears over him, and I didn’t have a lot of better options at the time, but… You know.” She trailed off a bit awkwardly.

“Yeah.” I nodded. “I get it.”

“Figured you would.” Her mouth twitched. “Fucking Gavel, and fucking Jack too. I just want to be able to sit back, relax and not have to deal with all of this shit, and now because of Accord I can’t even retire to New Brockton like I planned to. I’m never getting that underground villainous lair I always wanted for Christmas.”

“I’ll try to get you an ominous tower as a consolation present.”

“Thanks, Tay. You always know how to spoil a girl.”

—

Taking a stroll down the Boardwalk, you could feel the tension in the atmosphere of everyone passing by. None had mustered the courage to take down the hanging bodies, who I could feel slowly getting infested by maggots, but they all averted their gaze and tried their hardest to pretend that they weren’t there. There was something morbidly funny seeing people looking everywhere except at the most eyecatching sight presented.

Funny and depressing. I couldn’t really complain, since this was the intended reaction of the display, but it was a bit disquieting seeing my people so fearful of what I had wrought. What I had done for their sake.

“Circling back to the topic of things that happened while you were unconscious, there is a second, well I suppose a third actually, thing I want to tell you about.” Lisa belonged to the majority group who preferred not to look at the corpses on display, having taken the lead in where we were going and taking the long way around them so that she wouldn’t have to see or smell them.

“I’m listening.” While doing so, I absentmindedly had a wasp land on a pickpocket’s hand a few streets down as a warning. I didn’t feel as strongly about it as I did more violent crime like robbery, but I might as well still dissuade people from doing it.

“Aiden triggered.” She stated bluntly in a low voice. “I’ve only told Charlotte so far because she needed to know, but I don’t want word getting out.”

“Oh.” That made an awful lot of sense and I certainly didn’t need to ask what his trigger event was.

“That was my reaction as well.” She snorted.

“What’s his power that has you so worried?” It was more or less an open secret that there were some former Lost Garden kids at the orphanage, they weren’t exactly subtle about using their powers, but their powers were the kind that made them more trouble than they were worth to kidnap. So while I had kept people near the orphanage just in case (for all the good that ultimately did) I didn’t think people would be too likely to go after them for their powers. This did not sound like that.

“Turning off or turbocharging people’s powers around him. With a range of well over 100 yards. And the ability to do so on a person-by-person basis.” She grimaced. “I don’t think he even needs line of sight to do it, and that means he can sense any parahuman in range.”

“... Fuck.” Even one of these things could do a lot of harm in the wrong hands. Wars could be waged for control over all three, and now they were held by a five year old child with no innate defence against being kidnapped by armed mercenaries.

“Yeah.”

“So what do we do?” At least it wasn’t the most visually obvious power, except he was surrounded by other parahuman kids, making it only a matter of time before every child in the orphanage knew he could will powers to stop working around him. And I didn’t recall kids being famous for their ability to keep secrets.

“I have the adoption papers ready to be signed whenever you have the time.” Lisa half-joked, before sighing. “I honestly don’t know. Feel awful for even thinking of separating him from the rest, but we might need to.”

I hummed in agreement. “Where do they live for now?” Would take more than a week to rebuild the orphanage, assuming they were ever moving back into it, so I assumed they were living elsewhere at the moment.

“Acquired a house in Downtown for them, they should be safe there, and comfortable too.” She shot me a questioning look. “You want to visit?”

“I…” Hesitation struck me. Would they blame me for what happened? Did Charlotte resent me because of my role in getting Forrest killed? Would I bring more trouble to their doorstep by visiting? “Maybe. I don’t know.” I shrugged awkwardly. 

“Hm…” She scrutinised me in that very Tattletale way where I could feel her laying my every secret to bare. “You won’t be feeling any better about it if you avoid them.” She took my arm, turned around on her heels and started walking back down south with me in tow.

“Hey, I thought I was getting a say in this.” I grumbled half-heartedly.

“You did, but you were going to make the wrong choice so I’m helping you make the right one.” She gave me a winning smile. “You can thank me later.”

“You do know I’m supposed to be the one in charge here?”

“Oh honey, whatever gave you that idea?”

—

I did not try to struggle very hard when Lisa led me Downtown, having recognised it as a futile effort and privately hoping that she was right and my fears were unfounded. Nevertheless, I felt no small amount of guilt and trepidation when we approached the new place and knocked on the door. 

Charlotte opened the door and I was immediately struck by how awful she looked. She had the same haunted look in her eyes she had back when we first rescued her from the Merchants, her hair and clothes didn’t look as neat as they usually did and she had lost some of her previous tan. 

Lisa elbowed me in the ribs for some reason, before spreading her arms to give Charlotte a hug with such smoothness you’d almost think the elbow had been an accident. “Charlotte! How are you holding up?”

“I’m fine.” Her voice alone betrayed the lie. It sounded hoarse and broken. “Uh, come inside.” She ushered Lisa into the place, before turning to find me still standing awkwardly on the veranda. “You too, Taylor.” She said softly.

“Hi.” I didn’t meet her gaze, but stepped inside for Charlotte to close the door behind me.

The new place was, on some objective level, nicer than the old one. The walls were less shabby, the rooms were larger and the equipment newer. It had all the benefits of being located in the nicer parts of town instead of being my old lair from back when we were reconstructing the Boardwalk after Leviathan, refurbished to house an increasing number of children.

But it also felt less lived in, with fewer decorations, emptier spaces and much less of that weird and idiosyncratic character I had liked about the old place. Maybe it would get better over time, but I immediately felt like there was something deeply off about it.

“Is your assistant…” I wracked my brain for the name. “... Sandra doing okay?”

“Cindy?” Charlotte shook her head. “She quit. Couldn’t deal with it all.”

“Oh.” Well that killed my attempts to open up a conversation. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t blame her. It’s been rough.”

“I can imagine.” I scratched my neck. “Do you… Also want to quit? It’s fine if you do.” I hastily reassured her. “We’ll find someone else to handle this, and you could take some time off if you prefer.”

She hesitated, which wasn’t a great sign. “Thank you, but… I don’t want to leave the kids right now when they really need me. Maybe later.”

“Offer’s open.” Scanning the house, I did find that all of Charlotte’s orphans were still present and hadn’t lost any limbs or anything from what had happened, but they were a lot more subdued than I was used to. Aside from a couple of them checking to see who had arrived, they didn’t move about or play around as much as normal.

“I might take you up on it at some point.” She sighed as we settled down at the dinner table. “Anything I can get you two? Tea? Coffee?”

“Tea would be nice.” Lisa smiled at her.

“Yeah, I’d like some too.” I agreed with her.

She put on a kettle before sitting down on one of the free chairs.

“Is Aiden doing alright?” Asked Lisa while we were waiting.

“He’s doing better, which is all I can ask for right now, but he’s back to having nightmares every time he goes to sleep.”

I wondered how much sleep Charlotte had been getting lately. “Is there anything we can do to help?”

“You’ve done enough.” She paled further when she realised what she had just said. “Sorry! That sounded ruder than I meant. What I meant is that you’ve already helped set up a new place and I can’t ask for more than you checking in from time to time.”

“Right.” Unintentional or not, it still stung a bit. “I’m sorry.”

“Look.” A pained expression crossed Charlotte’s face. “I appreciate what you’ve been doing for us, I really do. It’s just that there’s not much that can be done to help with this except wait.”

“Yeah, of course.” I tried smiling to show that there were no hard feelings. “I’d still like to help though.”

“Well if you insist I suppose I’m in need of an assistant right now. Just help out around the house while you’re staying and that’s it.”

“Sure.” Something concrete I could work with to make things better, that’s what I needed. I helped get out the cups while having the insects of the house start working to find and fix any issues with the place. It took another couple of minutes before I spoke again. “I’m so sorry about Forrest by the way. He was a good man.”

“... He was.” Charlotte hid her face away under the excuse of checking on the kettle and the teapot.

“We’ll arrange a community funeral for him and everyone else who died that day.” Lisa offered.

“I’d appreciate that.” Charlotte’s eyes were notably red when she filled up the cups of tea for us all to drink, and her hands shook slightly as she took her own.

I stared down into my own cup while Lisa pitched the arrangements she could make and talked about everyone who’d attend. I didn’t dare ask Charlotte what she thought of how I avenged Forrest and the others. Too much of a minefield of a conversation. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder, did she appreciate what I had done, or was she also one of the people who were feeling a bit wary around me after this?

Perhaps it was a little bit of both, I thought as I looked up and took a sip. “Is it okay if I go and check in on Aiden?”

“Hm? Yeah, sure. Just be gentle with him, please.”

I didn’t need any directions for where his new room was, simply walking up the stairs to it and knocking on the door until I heard a “come in.”

“Hello, Aiden.” I said as I stepped inside. He had set up drawings he made on the wall, of the strange worms my mind refused to grasp even as my heart knew what they truly were, as well as some kind of machine like a targeting array, a spider with a thousand legs and a thousand eyes, a lightning bolt striking a mountain and a jumbled series of overlapping objects.

Aiden turned from his latest drawing to look at me with wide eyes. “You lived.”

“I lived.” Though it was a closer call than I would have liked.

“The bad ones are gone, aren’t they?”

“They are.” I walked up to him and looked over his shoulder at the thing he was drawing. Like most of the others, it had a surreal feeling to it, almost like he was drawing around the thing he wanted to depict rather than drawing the thing itself. “They won’t hurt anyone again.”

He did not respond to that, instead continuing to draw the outline of something.

“What is that?” I asked, curious. I didn’t know which of the drawings were simply the result of a child’s imagination and which held a deeper meaning, but something about it seemed familiar to me.

“Dunno.” He answered. “It’s hiding.”

“Hiding from what?”

“People, I think. Doesn’t like being seen.”

“How come?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe it’s scared.”

“Maybe. Do any of the others hide as well or just this one?”

Aiden shook his head. “The others don’t care, they just play around.”

“Hm, perhaps it just likes to keep to itself. Or maybe the others don’t like it.”

“You think so?” He looked up at me.

“It’s your drawing.” I smiled despite the slight unease that had crept up on me. “You tell me.”

He continued to look at me for several seconds before deciding on an answer. “You’re weird.”

The response was so out of nowhere and from such an unexpected direction I couldn’t help but laugh. “Yeah, I probably am.”

“You like them?”

“I do. They’re interesting. I think you’re a very good artist.”

“Thanks. Which is your favourite?”

“Probably this one.” I walked up to the black spider so large the paper couldn’t fully contain it. “I guess I’m partial to spiders.”

He nodded. “I think it likes you too.”

“Well that’s nice.” I stared into the myriad unblinking eyes. Is that you, Passenger? I wondered. Can he see you? Can you talk to him?

As always, there was no response.

One day. And then I’ll finally have some answers.

I turned back to Aiden. “What else have you been doing lately?”

“Not much. No one wants to play. Everyone’s still scared after what happened.”

“But not you?” I raised an eyebrow.

He looked at me funny. “I said everyone, didn’t I?”

“Sorry.” I coughed. “Missunderstood you.” Kids I suppose didn’t care about such subtle nuances.

He was still looking at me like he thought I was a bit stupid. “Don’t like the new bed, doesn’t feel right.”

“You’ll get used to it.”

“That’s what Char says. She says I should just wait a few nights, but I want to sleep now.”

“Sorry, not much I can do to help you there.” I ruffled his hair affectionately before getting my hand batted away.

“Why do you come here?” He asked. “And why did you move away if you like coming here?”

“Complicated adult reasons.” I smiled. “I like checking in with Charlotte, but it’s better if I don’t live here.”

“Why?”

“Makes you safer.”

“No it doesn’t.”

“...” I guess I walked right into that one.

He continued to stare at me stubbornly while I thought of a good response to give to a child.

“Trust me, it’s for your own good.” I settled on, without much in the way of conviction.

“Do grown-ups always say that?”

“Yes. Yes they do.”

Another long stare. “I don’t believe you.”

“That’s fair.” I smiled wryly. “I wouldn’t have believed me either.”

“Why do you say it then?”

“Because I am accompanied by an all too inquisitive minor.”

“... What?”

“You ask a lot of questions I can’t give good answers to. Now I’m going to go down to talk to Charlotte again, but you take care, okay?”

“Bye.”

My tea had gone cold by the time I came back down to Lisa and Charlotte but I still considered the detour to have been well worth my time. It felt a bit less awkward slipping into the conversation this time and the knot in my stomach had loosened slightly, if not entirely gone away. 

Still, I remained the most quiet of the three, having a lot to think about. From how best to approach the Accord problem without making things worse in the process to how I could help people like Charlotte or Aiden. 

There was still the problem of Lung too and my usual solution to that was made more difficult by the approaching winter killing off my reserve swarm. Ideally I’d assemble a team to take care of him, but to do that I’d first have to make sure Parian and Foil weren’t bailing on us, the latter was one of our best heavy hitters against Brutes like him, but I did not think now was the best time to ask her if she’d like to help us kill someone.

Maybe I should have just killed him on my first night out, a lot of problems could have been avoided then.

Chapter Text

After leaving Charlotte, and saying goodbye to Lisa in the process, my path took me towards Parian’s place. I needed to speak to her and Foil alike, make sure I still had their support after what had happened, both if I was to strike at Lung and confront Accord over his opportunism.

Speaking of, I probably should meet with him at some point as well, but honestly I really didn’t want to. I did not want to give him the satisfaction of seeing me approach him for an audience and I wasn’t sure I would be able to hold my tongue if we did meet. Ignoring the man for as long as I could might have been petty of me, and he would no doubt take it as a slight, but I was beyond caring about such things. If Accord had wanted an amicable partnership he shouldn’t have taken advantage of us at our lowest point.

At least peace had settled on the streets of Brockton Bay once more, a scared, uneasy peace but peace nonetheless. No gangs harassing people after what happened yesterday, no superpowered psychopaths thinking themselves untouchable. The road to Parian was quiet with no incidents spotted on the way.

I had the bugs in my hair check that I looked presentable, before knocking on the door.

It was Foil who opened it. “Skitter.” Her voice wasn’t exactly hostile, but it did sound cold and standoffish. “Here to see Parian?”

“Yes, well, I’d like to talk to you as well if that’s alright, but yes.” I considered trying to smile to ease the tension but I was afraid it would look sarcastic or insincere. “May I come inside?”

She gave me an odd look before wordlessly stepping out of the way and walking back inside to find Parian, which I took as an invitation to enter. 

The shop had gone a long way since Parian first established herself in Bitch’s old territory months ago, with mannequins providing examples of the many different dresses she’s made and stuffed animals acting as a cutesy reference to her past work as a puppeteer. While I had little understanding of the fashion that had gone into the outfits made, the fact that all these vibrant colours everywhere didn’t clash or look garish but instead complemented each other told me all I needed to know about her artistic talents. I was proud of how far she had gotten, and glad to have helped her get off her feet after the Slaughterhouse Nine’s attack.

“Taylor.” Sabah had joined me while I was quietly admiring a navy blue dress, out of her doll costume and smiling at me professionally. “How can I help you?”

“I wanted to touch base, see how you guys were holding up.” I started, feeling awkwardly out of place in this whole thing. “You, uh, declined the request to participate in last night’s operation and I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Lily narrowed her eyes at the reference to the massacre that had occurred, leaning against a wall with her arms crossed, but Sabah simply nodded in agreement. “Yes, you’ll have to forgive us if we found it… A bit beyond our sensibilities.”

“Right. I get that.” I stood by that it had been necessary, but even so my feelings on the matter remained conflicted. “I just wanted to make sure there were no hard feelings. Not that there should be any, I certainly don’t blame you. And not from you either?” I said the last part questioningly, a bit unsure of myself and not wanting to sound accusing.

Sabah was quiet for far too long as she mulled over my question, sending my anxiety into overdrive. “Believe me, Taylor, I understand wanting to protect your people.” She eventually replied, clearly weighing her words carefully. “But mass murder? Putting bodies on display as a kind of spectacle? Can’t you see what it comes across as? What it reminds me of?”

I swallowed. “I’m not them.”

“I know that, but you’re closer than you were when we first met. And I’m not sure if I… Want to have that association.” She hesitated. “Nothing’s been decided but even if I wasn’t there last night, by being on your team I’m complicit.”

“... I’m sorry.” This was not going how I wanted it to.

“So am I.” She sighed.

“But the situation demanded it.” I defended myself. “This was an extreme reaction, yes, but the cause was exceptional. It won’t happen again.”

“Until something else happens that makes you decide that killing everyone and making art out of their bodies is the best course of action.” Lily stared daggers at me.

“Lily…”

“No, she needs to hear it.” She walked up to me and poked me in the chest with a finger. “Every time she pulls shit like this she makes this big display over how sorry she is and how she won’t do it again, and every time she ends up doing something even worse later down the line. You think we can’t recognise the pattern?”

“Well what would you have done?” I glared back at her. “Let these people get away with murdering innocents and allowing it to happen again?”

“There’s a pretty wide fucking difference between ‘do nothing’ and ‘line the Boardwalk with the dead’! Maybe try to take them alive and figure out who actually did what.”

“And then what? Send them to prison? You know, the thing they’re perfectly able to escape from? How’s that different from doing nothing?”

“You could have at least tried something before going straight for murder!”

“Enough!” Sabah drew our attention by slamming the counter with as much force as she could muster. “Lily, I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but this isn’t productive. We’ll talk about this later.”

Lily backed off, but not before shooting me a final venomous look.

“Thank you-” I started before being interrupted.

“That’s not to say I disagree with her.” She turned on me next. “You never even opened up for discussion how to handle these people. Maybe you were right, maybe there was no way to do it that didn’t involve death, but you never asked, just expected us to fall in line with your decree to kill them all.”

I winced a little. Sabah’s cold, factual tone somehow hit harder than Lily getting into a shouting match with me.

“And we all know that if someone went over the line you would do it all over again, so please be honest, with us and with yourself, and don’t say it won’t ever happen again.” 

I folded my arms. “Fine, suppose that someone is stupid enough to kill civilians to try to get to me a second time I will do the same to them.”

“I know.” Sabah massaged her fist with her other hand. “And you understand why I would not want to be put in this position if it happens again?”

“Sure, I mean it’s probably bad for business for starters.”

“You don’t know the half of it.” She muttered. “But more than that, I am, or was, a pacifist. I hate hurting people. I never wanted the Cape life, never wanted to wake up feeling like I have the blood of others on my hands.”

“You just wanted to help your people.”

“Yeah.” She looked away in what I thought might be shame.

I needed to salvage this. Losing one of our teams would be a terrible blow to cohesion at a time when we really didn’t need another one and their talents were extremely useful to me. Not to mention how I really didn’t want another relationship to end on such a bitter note. “I can help with that.”

“The money you’ve provided has been really useful, and I don’t want to diminish what you’ve done for me-”

“No, you misunderstand.” I held up a hand. “What I mean is I’ve been so focused on the threats these new people bring, but not the opportunities. You need help to fix what Bonesaw did to your family and neighbors, right?”

“Right.” She nodded at this.

“Well, one person who could help with that is Panacea, and she is back in Brockton again. I could try talking to Marquis, see if he’s willing to trade some favors in return for her help.”

Sabah gave me a sharp look as if trying to find any trace of deceit. “You’re sure she could do that?”

“Could? Absolutely.” The limits on her biokinesis were frightfully few, her sister could attest to that. “Would? Not so sure, but it’s worth a try.”

“And in return you want me to stay onboard?”

“Kind of.” I hesitated. “I can’t make you stay, and I’ll do this for you even if you decide to leave, but I would really appreciate it if you gave me another chance. I want to do you right, to do everyone right.”

“Thank you, Taylor.” The smile she gave me was small but there nevertheless. “You have a lot of good qualities too, don’t forget that.”

I shot Lily a look and she just shrugged in reply. “I’m sticking with Sabah, in or out. If she stays, I stay. If she leaves, I leave.”

“Fair enough.” Best I could ask for in her case. “... Is this a bad time to bring up that I would like your help in another mission to drive out one of the violent brutes from the city?”

I got a very deadpan stare in return.

—

Walking into the dragon’s den was easier than you might think. There were no traps this time to blow up the unwary, no flunkies following his bidding. Any genuine support Lung might have once had was burned away pretty thoroughly during the dying days of the ABB and after several defeats people no longer feared him like they used to. His attempt to break off from/act as a proxy for the New Marche had been met with the rather simple problem that nobody wanted to work for him.

You’d almost feel sorry for him if it wasn’t an issue completely of his own making.

Of course, a lonely dragon is still a dragon, and best not to be underestimated, but I had learned from my time in the Cape scene that even the mightiest of parahumans still needed a support network to complement their own flaws and weaknesses and Lung was certainly no different. If it came down to it I was pretty confident I could beat him, I had done so twice before after all.

“So you finally came.” His voice rumbled through the building. Even before he started evolving his senses were sharp enough that he reacted almost as soon as I stepped inside. “Took you long enough.”

“I’ve been preoccupied.”

There was a snort as Lung walked into view of my actual eyes. “Never believed Galvanate’s boasts of having killed you. You don’t die easily, little bug.”

“No.” I had had more close calls with death than I could count. “No I suppose I don’t.”

“Something we’ve got in common.” He took a swig of some alcoholic-smelling beverage. Was it racist of me to assume it to be sake? “You’ve come a far way since we first met.”

“Didn’t take you for one to reminisce.” I was tense, prepared for when the courtesies ended and the fighting inevitably broke out.

He shrugged his massive muscular shoulders. “Last chance, today one of us dies.”

“There are other options.” I tried. I had no sincere belief he’d take any of them, but I felt obliged to at least try.

Lung scoffed. “Like run back to Marquis with my tail between my legs?”

“Or leave the city, go somewhere else, so long as you leave me and mine alone.”

“No.” He shook his head. “I have nothing but my pride left, I won’t leave it. You hurt me, little bug, and I don’t forget that.”

“There’s nothing I can say to make you let go of your vendetta?”

“Give me the woman with the fedora, give me Leviathan, give me the leader of the Yàngbǎn. Let me have my vengeance on another and I’ll let this one go.”

I stared blankly at him. “So that’s a no then.”

He smiled unpleasantly. “So many enemies beyond the dragon’s reach, but the bug willingly walks into his lair. You know how this must end.”

“I understand.” Outside, I had insects form a crosshair on the wall perfectly along the line between Lung’s head and Foil’s arbalest. “Was worth a try.”

Smoke had started to seep out of his nostrils and he was growing larger by the second when the crossbow bolt shot through the outer wall to pierce his skull, digging a hole from one end to the other. Yet despite the gaping head wound, Lung did not collapse, but instead roared in pain, anger and confusion. 

I didn’t waste any time, instead drawing my dagger and jumping towards him, releasing every venomous bug I had gathered onto my person as I slashed for the throat. Every second wasted would tilt the battle in his favour and I knew from experience that he’d adapt to my bugs sooner than they could bring him down on their own. 

An increasingly clawlike hand slapped me out of the way, but not before I had gotten two more good stabs into his chest. I rocked into a cabinet, back hurting, but that did nothing to stop spiders, wasps or ants from crawling into the open wounds and biting every vulnerable part of the body they could find.

The attempt at a follow up attack on his part was too blind and uncoordinated to be effective and I ducked down between his legs in time for him to slam into the cabinet, before leaping up on his back and stabbing him in the brain. Blood sprayed out of the massive wound as I dug deeper and deeper, searing hot as his body was increasingly heating up, but my suit was insulated and could take it.

Lung toppled and fell, either in a final gambit to try to crush me or simply because his motor functions had ceased working. He was heavy, even for his size, it felt like I was stuck under a car. Even so, he was hardly moving at this point and I still had everything I needed to keep stabbing, keep biting, until I was sure I’d reached the part of his brain regulating his powers. 

You could tell when his vaunted regeneration ceased to function, when the weight on me stopped growing. By then the floor was a mess, covered in more blood than most humans could contain, along with pieces of flesh and gray matter. It stuck to my hair and made me desperately want to take a shower as soon as humanly possible.

Yet it was finished. Halfway decapitated and with his head completely unrecognisable, Lung was without a doubt very much dead. 

“I should have done this a long time ago.” I muttered to myself, while realising that either his body was not going to shrink back to its normal size post-mortem or it was taking its sweet time doing so. “Foil.” I spoke into the comm piece. “Lung’s down but I could use some help.”

I didn’t know what she expected to find when she walked in on this scene, but considering how she stopped as soon as saw me lying on the floor, covered in Lung’s blood and Lung himself, it probably wasn’t this.

“Fucking Hell, Skitter. And you wanted to use my car after this?” She moved to start pushing him off me.

“It got messier than I’d have liked to.” I admitted. “Hoped the headshot would have taken him down.”

“No talking him down then?” She asked, looking like she was trying her best to avoid stepping into more of the blood than was absolutely necessary.

“Nope. Think he decided he’d rather die than get humiliated by me again.” With my arms free, I pulled against Lung’s shoulder until I had gotten out from under him.

“I guess he got that wish.” Foil nudged his ruined head with the tip of her boot. “Please tell me you’re not going to make a trophy out of him too.”

I shook my head. “I’ve already sent the message people needed to hear, Lung was just wrapping up unfinished business before he hurt anyone else.”

“That’s not the ‘I would never do that’ I’d have liked to hear, but I’ll take it.” 

“I thought you wanted honesty?”

“Touché, now let’s leave. This place is making me sick. And you’re paying for the car wash.”

—

I took a long shower the moment I was back home. Despite the grossness I was fairly pleased with the day. The plan to take down Lung had been pulled off without too many serious complications and I felt like I had mostly brought the Needlepoints back in line. The main problem of course being that their continued support was implicitly conditional on me actually getting Panacea to help me out and that was probably going to be harder than I let on. Maybe Lisa would have some idea on what to do.

The immediate threats in the form of Galvanate and Lung had finally been taken care of, but long-term ones like Marquis and Accord still remained and unlike the former they were not ones best solved through excessive violence.

Though it was still a good backup to have just in case the subtle touch failed, I thought to myself as I got dressed in fresh clothes. Most parahuman plans, no matter how clever or intricate, usually ended up requiring violence at one stage or another to be completed. It just seemed to be a universal rule.