Snek is a Good Boy [a Worm Crackfic]

Snek is a Good Boy

Part Sixteen: Beware of the Snek

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



Baumann Parahuman Containment Center
Canary

Paige stood before her cell block leader, feeling her world crumble just a little more around her. She honestly admired and respected Lustrum, but the folded arms and the unhelpful expression gave the message loud and clear: there wasn't going to be any help forthcoming from this quarter.

"I can protect you from the men," Lustrum explained, as though to a five-year-old. "That's what being in this half of the Birdcage is all about. But beyond that, I can't stand over you every second of the day. Not only do I not have time for that, but if some of my enemies figured that you mean something special to me and decided to get at me through you, then it would go even worse for you right now, you get it?"

Paige nodded. "I get it, I do. But everywhere I go, they're looking at me. And if I try to ignore them, they walk past, closer and closer. I've seen it before, out there, from obsessed fans."

Lustrum frowned. "You're presenting as someone who's vulnerable. I've told you how to not do that."

"I'm trying," Paige insisted. "They're still doing it."

"Then you're going to have to step it up. Make it clear that you're not available." Lustrum turned her head as another woman stepped into the cell. Some unseen message passed between them, and she glanced back at Paige. "Go on, get back to your living area. And for Chrissakes, learn to stand up for yourself."

The unspoken addendum I did, why can't you? hung in the air as Paige left the cell and stumbled down the corridor toward her wing. Hugging her arms around herself, she tried her best not to cry. The subtle, silent harassment from the other women had driven her to seek help from Lustrum, but that had come to nothing. Worse, if they heard she'd gone to the block leader and been rebuffed, it would just get—

"Hi, Canary," crooned a voice from one of the cells she was passing by. "Sing us a song, Canary."

She hurried on. One of her tormentors stepped out of another cell in front of her. "Going somewhere, little birdie?"

Paige fervently wished that she could've been sent to a normal prison; there, they could only shank you. Here, if you said no to the wrong person, you could be splattered all over the nearest wall before you knew it. They didn't send people to the Birdcage for being fully in control of their darker impulses, after all.

"Just back to my cell," she mumbled, trying to do as Lustrum had told her and present a façade of confidence, but the cynical gaze of the woman before her told the story loud and clear: she wasn't fooling anyone. "Let me past."

"Say please," purred the woman. "I can't hear enough of that sweet, sweet voice of yours."

"I can think of other uses for that mouth of hers," suggested the other woman, who was coming up behind her. "Why don't we—"

Why is this happening to me? she wailed silently. I don't deserve this! Why can't anyone help me?

She had the sense to not say what she was thinking out loud; it would only incite them to push harder. As it was, they were crowding in around her, terrifying her more and more.

And then the woman in front looked past her, eyes opening wide. "What the—Jesus—how did that—" She brought up her hands, purple energy flaring around them. Paige dropped to one knee, closing her eyes and wrapping her hands over her head. There was an actinic flash that briefly allowed her to see the veins inside her own eyelids, and the brittle crack of air being forcibly ionised, along with the sharp reek of ozone.

The other woman shrieked, but it was the sound of terror, not of agony or death. A moment later, Paige heard running footsteps, bolting away down the corridor. Paige wondered what had just happened, and what the woman had fired at.

Or rather, who. The scariest monsters in the Birdcage were the inmates, after all.

Unlike virtually every other inmate in the facility, she hadn't come to the Birdcage via a life of crime, so her fight-or-flight instincts were sadly lacking. A somewhat timid person by nature, she tended to freeze in moments of crisis, at least until she knew what was going on. Fully aware that there was someone behind her that the woman had fired at, then run from, she chose not to make any sudden movements that might provoke violence.

Slowly, recognising the fact that she wasn't dead yet, she opened her eyes and turned her head to see who had provided such a menacing presence that two hardened inmates had outright fled from them. When she did see, she blinked and rubbed her eyes. What she was seeing couldn't be right. It couldn't be real. Whatever she'd been expecting, be it Lustrum, the Faerie Queen or even one of the male inhabitants of the Birdcage, it was not … this.

The gigantic snake, its head larger than the average armchair, regarded her politely. "Hello," it said, a faintly sibilant undertone audible to her trained ear. "Ssnek iss Ssnek. Doess feather hair lady need help?"

She blinked again. This had to be a prank, by someone, anyone. Snakes that large just didn't exist in nature, especially talking snakes. But she didn't know of anyone who could create such a lifelike illusion, much less create a perfect projection. "Are—are you real?" she asked, immediately hating herself for asking such a stupidly inane question.

Fortunately, the snake—or whoever was behind it—didn't take offense. "Ssnek iss real," it assured her. "Feather hair lady assked for help. Ssnek can take you to Masster. Masster iss very wisse."

She decided to take the fact that it bore a fedora placed squarely in the middle of its broad head as a good sign. She'd seen a fedora like that only once before, on the head of a woman standing back in the shadows when she had her vial administered to her. The oddly familiar sight helped calm her and informed her response.

Carefully, she climbed to her feet. "Yes," she said, totally aware that she was having a conversation with either a puppeted illusion or an actual massive reptile, and not caring much at the moment. "I think I would like that."

It can't be much worse than what I've got right here.

The snake's enormous head darted forward, and she somehow ended up astride its neck. "Feather hair lady hold on," it advised her. Then a portal opened in front of them both, and it blurred forward.

<><>​

A Little Later, still in the Birdcage

Lustrum

Margaret loomed over the two women, grasping each of them by the upper arm. Power crackled as she drew energy from them, preventing them from using their powers against her.

"What happened to Canary?" she shouted, her magnified voice booming within the cell. "What did you do to her? Where did you hide her body?"

"We—we didn't do anything to her!" protested one of the offenders. "A giant snake! It was a giant snake! It must've eaten her or something!"

Lustrum squeezed hard, causing them both to cry out with pain. "Do you honestly expect me to believe that?"

"The—the giant snake that ate Leviathan!" Even in the Birdcage, they'd heard that particular news story. Leviathan's death had been as unexpected as it had been bizarre. "It must be the same one!"

"Really? That's the best you can do?" Lustrum leaned closer to them and lowered her voice to a vicious whisper. "When she came to me, I knew what you were up to. I expected her to stand up for herself and tell you 'no', and for you to respect that. But you didn't, did you? You pushed her, and she fought back, and you killed her. So where is she? What did you do with her body?"

"No," whimpered the one she figured to be the killer, in a choked whisper. "We didn't—it was the snake—"

"DON'T LIE TO ME!" It was a bellow of rage. She flexed her power-infused muscles, her hands squeezing hard enough to break bones. They screamed in agony, and she threw them from the cell with casual force. "Stay out of my way. Or join another cellblock. If I see you again, I'll kill you myself."

As they dragged themselves to their feet and stumbled away, she lowered herself to the comfortable chair that took pride of place in her cell. She looked down at her hands, regret flooding through her heart.

I promised to protect her, but the only way to truly protect her was to teach her how to protect herself.

I failed her, and I failed myself.

And now she's dead.

Deep in the world's most secure prison, Lustrum mourned the loss of a songbird.

<><>​

Canary

Paige sat blinking in the straight-backed chair. "Okay, that has got to be the weirdest thing that's happened to me. And yes, I am counting how Snek got me out of the Birdcage."

"Well, that's how the boss rolls." Riley placed the stopper on the glass jar, where the oddly swirling network of misty coils swirled in ever-changing patterns, and handed it to the tall bearded man. "Here you go."

"Thank you, Riley." The Master accepted the jar and placed it on a shelf, where it joined a whole row of similar jars. When he turned back to them, his voice and attitude became much more formal. "Paige Mcabee of Earth Bet, you have a choice before you. Stripped of the compulsive aspects of your power, you may go back to your birthworld, or you can make a fresh start in this one."

Paige considered that. Just having a choice was remarkably liberating, but she wasn't exactly thrilled with the idea of going back to Bet, the world that had already done everything but sentence her to death. Even if the PRT left her alone (she didn't see that happening anytime soon) it would be a cold day in any Hell she cared to name before they'd allow her to actually restart her singing career. If she even had a singing career to restart, after all the shit that had happened.

"I'm, uh, interested in a fresh start," she ventured hopefully. "What can I do in this world?"

"Are you kidding?" Riley threw her hands up. "With your voice, they'd beg you to sing for them. They would literally throw money at you."

The Master held out his hand and snapped his fingers. Above his palm, a scene faded into reality, of the interior of … a medieval tavern of some kind? Up on a stage was a gaudily clad minstrel, singing and playing a stringed instrument, with the crowd clapping along to the beat. As he sang and played, golden curlicues wove up off the strings, spreading out over the audience and drifting down over them in a shower of tiny shining motes.

"Whoa …" Paige murmured. "Can I … I mean, is that sort of thing possible for me to learn?"

"All that, and much more. With the right teachers, of course. You merely require a talent for music, which you have aplenty, and the will to learn." One shaggy brow rose. "Do you possess that?"

Paige nodded firmly. "Totally."

"Good." He favoured her with a measured nod. "Then you will do well. Riley, if you would show our guest to a room, and outfit her with clothing and an instrument?"

"Sure thing, boss." Riley headed over to the door that Snek had exited through shortly after delivering Paige to this room. "Come on, I'll give you the nickel tour."

"Okay, thanks." Paige turned back to the Master. "And thank you, for giving me a chance."

He nodded in acknowledgement. "Merely bring joy to my world, and I will be amply repaid."

"I can definitely do that." Paige hurried to catch up to Riley. "So, uh, if we're on top of a mountain, how do we get down to the town, where the tavern is, anyway?"

Riley grinned. "Dragons."

Paige blinked. She'd seen the stuffed one hanging from the ceiling, but … "Dragons? Actual, real dragons?"

"Yup."

Okay, I am definitely not in Kansas anymore.

<><>​

PRT ENE Building, Wards Area

Vista

Drawing in her breath, Missy prepared to shout for help again. The light over the exit door was glowing red, which meant they were in lockdown: nobody in, nobody out. That wasn't overtly dangerous to them; the Wards area had its own air-replenishment system, as well as enough water and MREs stashed away to feed a full complement for two weeks straight.

What really worried her was that Clockblocker still appeared to be deaf, and she had no idea how long the affliction would last, or even if it would ever go away. Some power effects had a strict time limit, whereas others (such as Panacea's healing) were permanent. Missy didn't want to bet on Clockblocker's debilitation being a temporary thing, not with his future as a hero at stake.

"Snek!" she shouted.

"Yess?" asked a familiar hissing voice, from about ten feet away. "Hello, Vissta. Hello, Clock. Iss good to ssee you."

"Snek!" Missy spun around, in equal parts elated and astonished. Snek had actually shown up when she called for help. "You came!" Impulsively, she hugged his broad neck.

"Ssnek likess to help." He seemed to be enjoying the hug. "How can Ssnek help Vissta?"

Doing her best to ignore the fact that Snek was comfortably coiled around the couch and gaming console, and carefully not asking herself the question how did he get in here?, Missy drew a deep breath and composed herself. "Clock was listening to the radio and something weird happened, and now he can't hear anything. And it's not just him. The whole building's in lockdown, so nobody can get in to help Clock."

At that moment, Clockblocker (who had been industriously digging in both ears with his pinky fingers at once, probably trying to dislodge whatever was deafening him, glanced around and spotted Snek's tail. Slowly, he turned his head, following Snek's length with his eyes, until he came to where Missy was standing next to Snek's head.

"Holy crap!" he yelped, still in that oddly nasal tone. "Snek's here! When did he get here? How did he get here?"

"Ssnek sseess what iss problem." The gigantic reptile peered at Clockblocker first with one gold-rimmed eye, then the other. "Clock iss under hosstile influencce. Masster hass taught Ssnek how to fix thiss."

"Oh, good." Missy felt a tremendous wave of relief sweep over her. Snek, the vanquisher of Leviathan, was here, and he knew how to fix Clockblocker. Everything was going to be—

Raising his head a good ten feet above the floor, Snek opened his jaws wide, darted forward, and ate Clockblocker whole.

<><>​

Mama Mathers

In Christine's experience, nobody had ever deliberately broken away from her hold on them. Some had drifted out of her consciousness because she simply couldn't be bothered holding on to them, but that had taken literally months of not caring enough to check on them. The Ward called Clockblocker had fitted into neither category, and yet between one second and the next, he'd simply vanished from her perception. The child he was with had been babbling about the heretical creature just before the cutoff point, but what that had to do with it, she had no idea.

Did he die? Did the stress of being deafened kill him? What sort of weaklings are they recruiting, if this is the case?

She would look into it, once the monster was run to ground and destroyed.

<><>​

Vista

Jaw hanging open, Missy stared, horrified and dumbfounded in equal measures. "Wha … bwah … you … he …" It had literally happened too fast for her to react; between one instant and the next, Snek had swallowed her teammate. He hadn't even had time to scream.

But he's supposed to be the good guy!

Just as she expanded space and jumped back to the other side of the room—not that this would help if Snek really decided to come after her—Snek opened his jaws again and deposited Clockblocker straight back into his chair. An alive and well Clockblocker, who stared up at Snek with a totally dumbfounded expression. "What the heck was that, dude? You ate me!"

Apparently, sixty-foot snakes were able to put on an appearance of injured innocence; or at least, Snek could. "Ssnek did not eat Clock. Ssnek put Clock in not-eat placce. Iss placce where Ssnek putss thingss not to eat. Masster ssayss put people under hosstile influencce there. Iss fixed now, yess?"

Clockblocker blinked. "Um, yeah. I can hear perfectly, now?" He paused for a moment. "And sorry for yelling at you, dude. You meant well."

"Clock and Vissta not to know. Iss good. Clock fine now."

Slowly letting the room resume its normal dimensions, Missy walked forward to join the two again. "Sorry, Snek. I guess I overreacted. But you did kind of eat Clock just then. How about warning a girl next time, okay?"

Snek turned to look at her, and she could see the apologetic look in his eye. "Ssnek iss ssorry. Did not mean to frighten. Ssnek will warn Vissta next time."

"It's all good." Her heart rate was almost down to normal again after the scare, and she gave him another hug. "This was all happening at Fugly's, right? The place where we met Snek the first time?"

Clockblocker nodded shakily. It seemed he wasn't quite over the experience of having been forcibly ingested then ejected again. "Yeah. Gallant's there with Kid Win. He started to call in a problem, but someone told him to shut up and he did. Then someone else started talking, giving orders. I got about three words in, then my ears just … shut down. It was horrifying."

"Masster hass sspoken of ssuch thingss," Snek agreed. "Hass told Ssnek how to fix."

Missy nodded. "Put them in your, uh, not-eat place, then bring them back up again. What about the bad guys themselves? What are you going to do if they just keep inflicting people with deafness and stuff?"

Snek smiled. He was extremely good at smiling, given that he had a rather extensive mouth. "Ssnek will jusst eat them."

<><>​

Mouse Protector

Diane found herself standing on the roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, with the familiar skyline of New York around her. It was a distinct come-down from the village of raptors she'd been happily visiting up until that point. The little fluffballs had been so cute, especially with their gruff cheeping.

"Oh, well," she sighed, stretching to work the kinks out, then pulling a casual flick-flack just to prove she could. "That was fun, but real life beckons. Now, where can I find a bad guy to wreck the entire day of?"

Central Park was right there, she decided. If there wasn't a mugging or a drug deal going on somewhere in that green expanse, it was because the Big Apple's criminal element just wasn't trying hard enough. She strolled across the expanse of the roof and peered over the side, deciding exactly how she was going to parkour down to street level.

"Hello, Mouss. Ssnek hass found bad people. Mouss want to help?"

She didn't even startle when she heard his voice anymore. Snek was the rarity; a surprise visitor who was always welcome. Turning on her heel, she booped Snek's nose (because he always enjoyed that) then threw her leg over the gigantic reptile's neck. "Of course I want to help, you big goof. It's always fun watching you at work."

Snek rolled an eye back toward her and smiled. "Mouss hold on."

Diane knew what that meant. They were going on a ride. "Woo hoo!"

<><>​

Mama Mathers

"Okay," said Jake Crowley, looking around at the Fugly's patrons, who were now lining the windows. Some were standing on tables, the better to block the line of sight into the building. "You've got your hostage situation. Where do we go from here?"

Christine tutted. "They're not hostages. They're my followers." She turned to one of her latest converts. "Aren't you, child?"

Kid Win nodded earnestly as he snapped a panel shut on the side of his laser pistol and put his toolkit away. "Sure, Mama. Your wish is my command."

"And what are you going to do if any superheroes come in here?"

"Stop them, Mama." Gallant's tone was matter-of-fact. "By any means necessary."

"Good boys," she said fondly. "Now—"

"Mouser-prise!" As the heretical creature erupted from a portal that opened in the middle of the room, an armoured figure with mouse-ears on her helmet leaped off, vaulting over a table.

Gallant and Kid Win reacted immediately. Steel-grey gauntlets outstretched, Gallant blasted powerful bursts of despair and suicidal ideation at the scaled abomination. Kid Win, on the other hand, drew both his laser pistols and fired off overpowered beams at Mouse Protector. Instead of the gentle pew-pew they made for the PR clips, these pistols let out vicious cracks as they sent killing shots at their target.

Neither attack seemed to work; Gallant's emotion bursts splashed harmlessly off the snake's seemingly impervious hide, while only one of Kid Win's shots struck Mouse Protector. She dodged two more—they melted neat little holes in the windows—and literally deflected one with her sword, like the hero out of that one sci-fi movie. The one that hit her didn't seem to have any effect at all.

Still moving, Mouse Protector kicked Jake Crowley upside the head, sending him tumbling to the floor. The creature that had murdered Leviathan, on the other hand, forged straight toward Christine, mouth open wide and showing enough gleaming white fangs to give the average pride of lions a case of severe insecurity. She gave it the image of her running to the side, but it just kept coming at her.

Chort was the one who saved the day. With the gaping maw less than three feet from her, the boy seized the scaled horror by the body, turned, and threw it. Sixty feet of writhing monstrosity smashed out through the windows, taking most of the glass with it, and vanished out over the ocean.

With that taken care of for the moment—though she had the fleeting thought that perhaps Chort should have captured the profane monster instead of hurling it away—Christine turned her attention to Mouse Protector. Currently taking on Vince and Sabrina Crowley at once, and holding her own against both of them, she seemed remarkably unconcerned that her sole ally had been removed from the board.

Mouse Protector had to have seen her when she came in, so Christine went with an old favourite: making her perceive her enemies two feet to the left of where they really were. That should make it easy to—

The mouse-themed hero's boot heel slammed into Vince's solar plexus, sending him gasping to the floor. A moment later, Mouse Protector's sword sliced through Sabrina Crowley's shoulder; Sabrina screamed and fell back, clutching the wound. Mouse Protector hit the floor and rolled to her feet, her sword pointing unerringly at Christine. "I just Camembert in here to tell you, you've had a Gouda run, but it's over now."

Her dear Elijah stepped up alongside her. "Drop the sword," he commanded. "Do what Mama says."

She released the weapon to clatter on the ground, but then she kicked up in a backflip over two more laser bursts and an emotion blast. One scything boot took the laser pistols clear out of Kid Win's hands and sent them clattering across the floor. However, a second emotion shot hit her in the shoulder, and she dropped to one knee.

"Give up already!" shouted Elijah. "Why won't you give up?"

She raised her hands. "Okay, I give. I give. You should know—"

A massive pair of jaws came out of nowhere and closed over Elijah, so close that Christine felt the wind of the fangs passing her by, and looked straight into one of the great black-and-gold eyes for a split second. All around the room, people shook their heads, looking confused, as the impossible snake curled around Mouse Protector, looking back at Christine.

Mouse Protector put her thumb to her nose and waggled her fingers at Christine. "—that I was just keeping your attention so my Snekky-poo could do his thing and Roquefort your world."

Christine pointed at Mouse Protector and her infernal companion. "Get them! Kill them both! You will be greatly rewarded!"

Silence fell for a moment. Chort looked at her, then shook his head. Kid Win headed over to where his pistols had gone. Gallant mimed cracking his knuckles.

Grinning, Mouse Protector kicked the sword so it rebounded into her hand. "Hon, you are literally the only member of your little play-group left standing who didn't need brainwashing. Granted, you're a walking memetic hazard, but I'm willing to bet that's not gonna bother Snek one little bit. Am I right or am I right, Snekster?"

"Mouss iss right. Ssnek sstill hungry."

Mouse Protector nodded. "Bingo. Snek—get her!"

The last thing Christine saw were the fangs, coming right at her.

<><>​

Mouse Protector

In the aftermath of Snek's departure, while Kid Win and Gallant were busy securing the unconscious villains, Diane turned her attention to the kid wearing the wolf pelt and goat horns. "I'm guessing you're not Scapegoat's little brother, then."

He looked around, a little nervously. "Uh, no, ma'am. I'm … they called me Chort. Not sure what it means."

She shrugged. "Don't ask me. I'm not up on mythology, either. To be honest, I spend most of my reading time thinking up new puns to use. What's your power, anyway? Alexandria package?"

"No, just strength. They say I'm stronger than anyone. I've gotta be real careful, because everything's so fragile to me. Except Snek. Snek felt solid. That's why I threw him away."

"I can understand that." She stole a bunch of napkins and cleaned the blood off her sword, then re-sheathed it. "From your whole attitude, you're not with these morons willingly?"

He shook his head. "I was born into the McVeay clan, but I never wanted to be one of them. They got Valefor to mess with my head early on, though, otherwise I would've just walked out." Worry crept over his features. "Am I in trouble?"

"Hmm." She ran her thumbnail over her lips. "Wish I could tell you it was all gonna work out without a hassle, but things like this can get a bit messy. Not gonna lie; there's gonna be a bunch of idiots wanting to tar you with the same brush, just because you were with the Fallen at all. I'll give you all the help I can with that. And after all the shouting is done? Well, I'm sure there'll be no shortage of things that a guy with all the strength can do, to make a bit of money."

"Thanks," he said. "I appreciate it."

She grinned and tousled his hair. "Not a problem, kiddo."



End of Part Sixteen

 

Snek is a Good Boy

Part Seventeen: Happenings

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



Far From Earth Bet

Elmora Reborn emerged from the guildhouse with the other trainees and turned down the street toward her lodgings. As dusk came on, the sconces of everfire spaced at regular intervals self-ignited one by one, giving enough light to see by.

Her shoulders ached and her forearms hurt and her fingers twinged, but she knew she was making progress. As her teacher always said, a good fletcher makes an arrow that a master is able to place into the target. A great fletcher makes an arrow that they themselves are able to shoot accurately. But an exceptional fletcher makes an arrow that anyone can learn to hit the bull with. She wasn't an exceptional fletcher yet, maybe not even a great one, but she felt she was getting there.

The other part of the training, apart from the bowyer work, was the archery itself. She knew the basics—one could shoot arrows only so many times without learning the most efficient way to nock and loose at the right time—but doing it since her power had been taken away was a shitload more difficult. Still, she was getting there. One day, she would be shooting with a bow of her own making, once she finished learning how.

Right now, however, the learning day was over. She had coin in her pouch, courtesy of her sponsor and the other work she was doing around town to augment her earnings, so it was time to relax and enjoy herself for a while. There was a tavern not far from her lodgings that served a tasty meat stew and a good heady ale, so she directed her steps that way.

When she pushed aside the curtain and stepped inside, the warmth and smell of the fire as well as the food and drink rolled over her. Inhaling appreciatively—in the old days, she would've considered this unbearably primitive, but her attitudes had changed somewhat since then—she found an empty table and sat herself down. There was a musician up on the simple wooden stage, singing in a high, reedy voice as he plucked at a string instrument; she wondered if he was an apprentice at the Bardic College, trying for some coin on the side.

The serving girl came over and Elmora ordered a bowl of stew and a mug of ale. It wasn't overly busy, so she figured she'd get served reasonably quickly. In the meantime, she leaned back in her chair and watched the crowd, with half an eye on the door-curtain and half an ear on the stage.

The singer finished his act to a smattering of polite applause and a few copper pieces rolling across the smooth-planed boards of the stage. He picked them up then took his lute (at least, she thought it was a lute) and headed offstage. Just then, Elmora spotted the serving girl coming back her way with the bowl and mug she'd ordered.

"Here you go." The girl—Janis, her name was—delivered Elmora's meal for the evening. "Enjoy."

"Thanks, I will." She dropped a few coins on the tray. "What's with that guy who was up on stage before? Surely he's not a full bard yet?"

"Hah, no." Janis grinned as she expertly swept the coins into her hip pouch. "College is sending 'em over to get a taste of performing in public."

"Yeah, okay. Makes sense." Elmora took up the spoon that had been supplied with the bowl of thick stew and pulled the bowl closer.

"See you around." Janis moved off toward another patron who'd just sat down as Elmora took a taste of the stew.

It was venison—the main game animal in the area was deer, so she'd found—and nicely seasoned. As she raised the mug to her lips—the ale was moderately alcoholic and strongly flavoured—another singer came out on stage, this one a woman wearing some kind of feathered headdress.

She was fortunate in that she'd just swallowed the mouthful of drink before the singer began her song. The lyrics were unfamiliar, but that didn't matter. From the very first note, she knew that voice.

Which was ridiculous. The last time she'd heard it was years ago and far away, in a world far distant to the one she now lived in. But the more she listened, the more certain she was that it was the same person. And when she looked more closely, she saw that the feathers were not part of a headdress; they were growing amidst the captivating singer's hair.

"Holy shit," she said out loud to nobody in particular. "That's fucking Canary."

Paige Macabee, she knew, had been arrested for mutilating her boyfriend or some stupid shit like that, and then gone straight to the Birdcage. What she was doing here, Elmora didn't know for certain, but it wasn't hard to make a guess. This had Snek and his enigmatic Master written all over it. If someone like her could get a second chance and end up here, then Canary would be a shoo-in.

Taking up the spoon again, she ate a mouthful of stew while preparing to enjoy the show. Being an exile in a strange place was one thing, but not being the only exile was another thing altogether.

<><>​

Saturday, May 28, 2011

Winslow High Student/Teacher Conference Room

Principal Blackwell

This was ridiculous, Carrie Blackwell decided. Why in God's name had Danny Hebert requested a conference with her on the first day of summer vacation? Couldn't he have arranged a day during any part of the actual school year? Any day? She had enough hassles as it was since the PRT had abruptly pulled their Ward stipend from the school with zero explanation.

"Does anyone have any idea what this is about?" asked Gladly. "I had plans for today. We were going to the movies."

"I'll be sure to ask." Carrie checked the clock on the wall.

It was almost ten, which was when Hebert had requested the meeting for. He'd also requested that Gladly and Quinlan attend, for whatever reason other than they were two of his daughter's teachers, she had no idea. Was this supposed to be some kind of final appeal for them to be more careful about his precious daughter being bullied next year?

I mean, seriously, this sort of thing is better dealt with just before school lets in, not after the year's over and done with!

There was a knock at the door, then it opened. Danny Hebert stood in the doorway, not even wearing a tie. Carrie had just enough time to be irritated at that before he stepped forward. "Good. You're all here. I was hoping I wouldn't have to track you down individually."

"What?" asked Gladly. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Next into the room was a man who was in fact wearing a suit and tie, and carrying a briefcase. Carrie's irritation and confusion rapidly morphed into trepidation, which blew all the way out into worry when the man put his briefcase down on the table and unsnapped the latches. "Hello," said the newcomer, taking three folded pieces of paper out of the briefcase. "This is for you … and you … and you."

The door clicked shut, and Carrie looked that way to see Taylor Hebert herself, standing with her back to it. There was a certain determination in her posture, saying loud and clear that if they wanted to get out that door, they'd have to physically move her. While Carrie was distracted, she felt one of the folded documents being pressed into her hands.

"What the hell is this?" blustered Quinlan. "And who are you?"

The stranger smiled austerely. "I am Harold Howe of DC&H, Attorneys at Law. And you've just been served."

"It's a lawsuit," Danny Hebert added helpfully. "Against the whole school, against you three in particular, and against certain other people. All of whom managed to make Taylor's time here far more difficult than it should have been."

"But—wait—I didn't—" Predictably, it was Gladly. Carrie instead chose to open the summons—for that was what it was—to see exactly what it said.

"No." That was Taylor. "You didn't. That's the trouble. When Madison and Julia put juice or glue on my chair, or dumped pencil shavings on me, or stole my homework, or threw spitballs at me, or sabotaged my classwork, you didn't see a thing. When Emma and her friends cornered me outside the classroom while you were there, you still didn't see a thing."

Carrie read some of the wording of the summons and shuddered, folding the thing again. This had to be nipped in the bud. "Ms Hebert, you can't be serious. We are not the ones who harmed you. We can't be expected to stand over our students every second of the day."

"No, you're not the ones who pulled the pranks, who locked me in my locker." Taylor's tone was venomous, her expression implacable. "You're just the ones who enabled them. You're the ones who utterly failed to protect me from half the girls in my grade for two whole years. And every time you chose not to punish them, you taught them that it was just fine to keep at me. Congratulations." She gestured at Mr Howe. "It appears that lack of action also has consequences."

Well, fuck.

<><>​

Alan Barnes

When the doorbell rang, Alan Barnes' first reaction was irritation. He was relaxing on the sofa with the sports on and a drink in hand, so why the hell did he have to move now? But Emma was up in her room and Zoe was in the kitchen, so when the doorbell rang a second time without anyone calling out that they'd get it, he knew it was up to him.

"I'll get it," he grunted, setting the glass of cola down on a side table and heaving himself to his feet. As he did so, the doorbell rang a third time. "Coming!" he called out.

The trek to the front door was taken up with grumbling, so when he opened the door and saw a bright young man standing there, he was ready to growl at them.

"Good morning, Mr Barnes," the boy—surely he couldn't be more than twenty—said energetically. "The office sent me to hand-deliver this to you, sir. Very sorry if I disturbed your weekend."

"The office? Hand deliver?" His anger cut off at the knees, Alan accepted the Manila envelope that the kid handed to him. He had no idea what was going on, just that anything requiring hand delivery on a Saturday was not something he could fob off until Monday.

"Yes, sir. They said it was imperative that you look it over right now."

"Right, right." Alan broke the seal and reached into the envelope. Within was a stack of folded paper, which he extracted and started to open.

There was a click, and he looked up to see that the young man had taken his photo with a phone camera. He blinked. "What? What was that for?"

The kid beamed at him. "You've just been served, sir. Have a good day." Turning, he marched off back down Alan's front path to the gate.

"Served? What?" Suddenly realising that the lad didn't work in his offices, Alan opened the papers and scanned them quickly. "Summons? Lawsuit? Taylor?" Stepping back into the house, he shut the door behind him, then drew air into his lungs for a medium bellow. "Emma! Get down here now!"

Just as she called out to ask why, his phone vibrated in his pocket. He took it out and glanced at the caller ID; it showed the name of Rod Clements, a casual acquaintance since Emma had become close friends with Rod's daughter. "Alan here. Can it wait?"

"No, it damn well can't wait." Alan didn't know Rod well, but he seemed to be worked up over something. "I just got served a summons for a lawsuit naming Madison as a defendant, about damages to some girl called Taylor Hebert. What the hell's going on here?"

"I honestly have no idea," Alan confessed grimly. "But I fully intend to find out."

All of a sudden, missing the latest play on TV was the least of his problems.

<><>​

Hebert Household, Later

Taylor

Dad leaned back on the sofa and stretched his legs out. "So, that's done. How do you feel?"

I considered my words carefully. "Pleased. Nervous. Hoping all the t's got crossed and the i's got dotted. I'd hate for them to all walk away because of something I forgot to tell Mr Howe."

"No, you did just fine talking to him. Especially with that journal you've been amassing." He reached across and ruffled her hair. "He confided to me that when he saw how much material you'd put in it, the only question left on the board was how many figures we'd be getting."

"Oh, good." I drew a deep breath and let it out again to try to quell the jitters. It didn't really work. "Well, since we've decided to hold off on launching my exterminator business until after the lawsuit is over and done with, would you have a problem with me costuming up and going out on patrol?"

He hesitated, then shook his head. "I'm still not thrilled about you going off and fighting crime on your own. There are still supervillains in town, after all, and not all of them are vulnerable to bugs. Could you get someone to watch your back, while you're watching everyone else's backs?"

The tone of his voice told me that if I didn't have any other volunteers to call on, he'd step up himself. I didn't want to put that on him; he was willing enough, but he didn't have any powers. If he got hurt because of me, I'd never forgive myself.

"I can … well, I can try. Just let me get changed first." I headed upstairs and got into my costume, checking to make sure that the body cam had fresh batteries.

Deputy Director Renick had said in passing that the offer to join the Wards was still open, especially after viewing the footage. I'd politely declined, but just being told I was good enough to join had given me a heady feeling. When I asked him why the Wards didn't wear body cams like mine—they would've caught on to Sophia's shenanigans a lot quicker, or forced her to actually act like a hero on patrol, either of which would've been a worthwhile result—he'd shaken his head and muttered something about 'youth guard'.

After double-checking the rest of my gear, I trotted downstairs again with my mask in my hand. "Okay, I'm not even sure if this'll work, but I'll give it a try. And if it doesn't … well, how do you feel about driving me around and staying in the car?"

"I'm totally okay with that," he said promptly. "I'm not against you being a hero; I just want you to come home safely."

"Hey, I'm down with that too." I gave him a smile. "But let's see if this works first." Taking a deep breath, I spoke out loud. "Uh … Snek? If you're not busy, I could do with some help going on patrol? Please?"

Dad's widening eyes clued me in at about the same time as I heard the dry sound of scales on the floor behind me. Turning, I watched Snek slither in from the kitchen. "Hello, buzzy-bug girl." He was as big and as cute as ever, especially with that hat in the middle of his broad head. "Ssnek would like to help you chasse bad men. Iss alwayss fun."

"Yes, it is. Especially when you're around." I booped him on the nose like I'd seen Diane do—he seemed to like that—and gave him a hug around his enormous neck. "It's good to see you again."

"Iss good to see buzzy-bug girl and Danny again too." Snek gave us both the kind of smile that only he could supply. "Are make-ssad boy and pew-pew boy well?"

It took me a moment to figure out what he meant, then I nodded. "Uh, yeah. Gallant and Kid Win seem to be fine. I've seen them both out on patrol since the Fugly's thing." It had made the news in a big way. Snek had hung around and they'd cooked up about a dozen Challengers for him as a snack for the road. At his request, they'd loaded on all the chilli that could fit on the burgers.

Well, he did like his spicy food.

"That iss good, buzzy-bug girl. Are you ready to go chassing bad men?"

I pulled on my mask and swung my leg over his neck. "I am now. Bye, Dad!"

"Bye, hon. Take care of her, Snek."

"Ssnek will do that, Danny. Buzzy-bug girl hold on."

I held on. A portal opened up in front of him, and we launched through it. "Woo hoo!"

<><>​

On Board Squealer's Latest Contraption

Skidmark

"Are you sure this is a good idea, Skiddy?" Squealer expertly steered the armoured vehicle around the worst of the potholes. "With all the other villains gone, the heroes will be looking at us now."

"Shove it up your mung-hole, will you? We're the motherhumpin' big-ass dogs in town now." Adam took a deep drag on the pipe, then offered it to her as he held the intoxicating smoke in his lungs. She took it, steering with her knees as she applied a lighter and inhaled. In the process, the monstrous vehicle swerved from side to side, crunching up and over a derelict car, but neither of them noticed.

Handing the pipe back, she let out the smoke in a long stream to join the pre-existing fug in the cabin. "Yeah, but thing is, thing is, Protec—Protec—tectorate comes after us, we're toast."

"They'll never find us," he boasted, slapping the cabin wall. "Your shit is fuckin' amazing." He looked at the pipe and prepared to take another drag. "So's this shit. We need to get more of it."

"Uh … Skiddy?" She was slowing down.

The plan wasn't to slow down. It was to go straight to the bank, bust on in through the wall, make them open the fucking vault, and roll out of there like bandits. Or bosses. Or boss bandits. Adam didn't know how much money banks kept on hand, but it had to be like a million bucks. That would buy an absolute fuck-ton of meth.

She was still slowing down. He looked at her, irritated. "Why you slowing down, Squeals?"

"That." She pointed out through the windshield. He looked.

Coiled in the road, right in front of the oncoming vehicle, was a snake. Not just an ordinary snake, either. An ordinary snake would have to get the fuck out of the way before it ended up as street pizza, when one of Squealer's creations rolled on through.

No, this snake was the snake. The one he'd seen on the news, but decided he'd been too high to see straight. Snakes didn't get that big, and even the big ones didn't talk. Fact of nature. So it was just a drug hallucination. Trying as many drugs as he did, he was totally used to hallucinations, like the purple gorilla that used to sit at the end of his bed and give him a totally judgemental glare whenever he got wasted on smack.

But the thing about drug hallucinations was that nobody else saw them, no matter how much you pointed and screamed. And everyone saw the snake. Especially when it fucking ate Leviathan.

He'd been convinced he was high when he saw that, too. Or the snake was. How hard did the munchies have to hit before you thought it was a good idea to nom down on an Endbringer?

Anyway, seeing the snake himself now, via his own (somewhat bloodshot) eyes, and knowing Squeals was seeing it too, they were either sharing the same drug-fucked vision, or it was actually there.

As was the bug-themed girl sitting astride its neck. He had no idea what that was about.

The snake opened its mouth wide, showing off a whole array of fangs more suited to something from a horror movie, and began to uncoil, slithering in their direction. Squealer brought the tank to a halt.

"What the hell you doing?" he demanded. "Run over that scaly fuck!"

It was closer now. The fangs looked really big and really sharp. For all that he knew he was sitting inside an armoured vehicle, Skidmark began to feel nervous.

"Nope, I've seen what it does to anyone who fucks with it." She slewed the tank in a half circle, demolishing a bunch of parking meters in the process. A rear screen showed the snake really close behind, so she fed it the gas, and the tank surged forward.

"And turn on the fuckin' invisibility field while you're at it!" he yelled. "That overgrown earthworm can't chase us if it can't see us!"

"The field's already on!" she yelled back. "It can see us anyway!"

The tank was now roaring down the street at what Adam suspected were unsafe speeds for anything. When he snuck a peek in the rear-view screen, the snake was closer. "Faster!" he screeched. "Go faster!"

"I'm going as fast as I can!"

<><>​

Taylor

"Get 'em, Snek!" I enthused, hanging on to Snek's neck as he slithered down the street at highway speeds. The weird vehicle ahead of us, which had only flickered into my awareness as we caught up to it, bounced and yawed through the many potholes in the road; Snek, on the other hand, glided over them without pause.

"Ssnek iss—" Snek's head came up. "Danger, buzzy-bug girl!"

His warning came too late, as a gleaming metallic cylinder arced toward us from a rooftop overhead. Even as he spoke the words, it burst, dropping a sparkling field around us. Snek tried to power through, but I felt my thought processes slowing, and saw the world outside speeding up. In an instant, the tank was gone.

"Get … help … Masster …" Snek was barely moving now, but a portal formed in front of me. He twitched his neck upward, and I tumbled through it.

In the next instant, I hit a stone-tiled floor and rolled to a halt. Looking around in confusion, I saw I was in a corridor lined with odd purple-flaring torches. Ahead of me was a large imposing wooden door. Carefully, I climbed to my feet and looked around.

The portal had closed behind me, but I suspected I knew where I was. This had to be Snek's home, where Snek's Master lived.

Raising my hand, I thumped on the thick wood with my fist. "Hello?" I called out. "Is anyone there? I need help! Snek needs help! Please!"

Abruptly, there was a metallic click, and the door swung open with nary a creak. "Enter and be welcome, Taylor Hebert of Earth Bet." The voice was warm, yet full of authority.

I stepped through the doorway, looking around for whoever had spoken. He wasn't hard to find, standing front and centre in the room. If this place was a castle, as my impressions were rapidly adding up to, then he definitely ticked all the boxes that said 'wizard'.

But I didn't care about that. I cared about getting help for Snek.

"Please," I said, stumbling forward. "If you're Snek's Master, he's in trouble. They've trapped him in some kind of time bubble that he couldn't get out of, so he sent me here."

"Really?" he asked, his tone intent. When he raised his hand, a gnarled wooden staff—another box ticked, right there—rose up and flew to his grasp. With it, he made a few simple gestures, and a three-dimensional image formed. Snek lay in the middle of the sparkling field, and two figures stood looking down at him. One, with a demonic appearance, was vaguely familiar, though I didn't know the one in the gas mask at all. "Well, well. Oni Lee and Bakuda. Her little toys are surprisingly effective. I may have to do something about that."

"Can you—" I began, but someone took me by the elbow. I looked around to see a girl a few years younger than me, dressed in utilitarian overalls, with heavy goggles pushed up on her forehead.

"Hi, I'm Riley. It's all good," she assured me. "He'll sort this out. In the meantime, want a pastry?"

"Pastry?" I repeated stupidly. "Snek's in trouble! What can he do?"

Riley grinned broadly. "Oh, trust me. You're not gonna want to miss this."



End of Part Seventeen

 

Snek is a Good Boy

Part Eighteen: No Time Lost, No Lessons Learned

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



A Few Weeks Ago, In a Lab in Brockton Bay

Bakuda

"Lung is dead." For news so momentous, Oni Lee's emotionless delivery left it somewhat lacking.

Alice Takawara looked up from her latest project, which would have the capability (if she so wished) to black out all of Brockton Bay, or any other similarly-sized city. "I'm aware. I saw the footage, too. I wish I hadn't, but I did. What's your point?"

"He was killed by a giant snake. It ate him." Oni Lee sounded like a person who wasn't quite sure what righteous anger was, exactly, but was attempting to work himself up to it anyway.

"Yes," she said with all the patience she could muster (which wasn't a lot, really). "I absolutely saw that part, too. I'm going to ask you again, what's your point?"

"You will not speak to me like that." Now he seemed to be acting out indignation without quite understanding how it went. "With the death of great Lung, I am the leader of the Azn Bad Boys."

"Wait, what?" She shook her head. "No, I'm the leader of the ABB. What makes you think you are?"

He stared at her. "I have been in the Azn Bad Boys longer than you have. I was great Lung's second in command. Of course I will be the new leader."

"You were his only subordinate with powers until I came along," she countered. "By that logic, you were also the lowest ranking cape in his organisation."

"I am still the leader," he said stubbornly. "The Azn Bad Boys know me better than they know you."

She snorted. "You teleport and kill people. I make bombs that kill people in really inventive ways. I've got more imagination and creativity than you, therefore I'm the leader."

He pulled his pistol from the holster and pointed it at her. "I could kill you now. I am the leader."

"And I triggered deadman switches on most of the bombs in here when you started this argument. You wouldn't get out the door. I'm the leader."

The pistol did not waver. "You would still be dead."

He would do it, she realised. His death would not matter to him if she died too. And he probably thought he could get out in time anyway. "Okay, fine, you're the leader." Right up until I get the chance to do something about that.

"Good." He put the pistol away. "I need a bomb to kill the snake. What does this one do?" Reaching out, he picked up the nearest one. Which, as it happened, had already been activated as a part of her deadman switch. Moving it triggered the switch.

"Don't touch my—" But it was too late. The HUD in her goggles told her that the timer was now counting down. She lunged to grab it off him; only her (warm) fingerprint could shut it down in time.

He automatically recoiled, and her reaching fingers only managed to knock it out of his hand and send it rolling down the bench, bumping other bombs as it went.

Many of which she'd already activated with the deadman switch.

bip

bip

bip

bip

bip

bip

Red warnings scrolled up her HUD. Any single one of the bombs that had just been triggered, she could've shut down before it went off. Even three or four. But there were too many.

"Fuuuck! You've just killed us both, you moron!"

"Disarm them!" he shouted, pointing the pistol at her again.

"It takes five seconds per bomb, and we've got twenty seconds!" she screamed. "We don't have time!"

He dissolved into ash, and she heard him rattling the door handle. It was electronically locked, part of her deadman switch fuck-you. "Unlock this!" he bellowed.

"How about no!" He might be able to get away if she let him out, but he had two more doors to get through before he could get line of sight outside the blast radius. She figured the various bombs would take out the block, at least. As for her, she didn't have a chance. There wasn't enough time for her to reach the door, let alone …

Wait.

Time.

As the last few seconds ticked down, she darted sideways and grabbed one of the few bombs that hadn't already been activated. This was a time grenade: impact-detonated, it was to be thrown at the target, whereupon it would skip them through time for a given interval. She'd designed it to be used on annoyingly tough foes, so she could booby-trap their landing area with bombs that could kill them.

00:01.17

As she twisted the timer, an arm went around her neck and a knife touched her behind the ear. "Save us," growled Oni Lee.

00:00.83

There was no time left. She thwacked the grenade hard on the bench.

00:00.01

The lab vanished, to be replaced by a huge crater. They were falling. She screamed, suddenly aware of all the flaws in her makeshift escape plan.

The world blinked sideways, and she landed on rubble. Even the short drop was enough to knock the wind out of her, but she still had enough wits about her to watch two tiny figures fall all the way to the bottom of the crater. One of them was screaming in her voice, and flailing wildly. The impact sprayed blood across smooth vitrified glass … then the bodies and blood turned into ash that blew away with the wind.

Yanking the gas mask off, she sat up then vomited copiously, voiding her stomach of everything she'd eaten the day before … however long ago 'the day before' was. Because they'd surely been jumped through time, exactly as the grenade was intended to do. How long it had been, she wasn't sure; she'd just spun the timer as far to the right as it would go, and hoped against hope that it would work.

"Where are we? What did you do?" Oni Lee, when she looked around, had at least sheathed his knife. He stared around at the altered scenery.

"I saved our lives, just like you said." Alice wiped her mouth and chose to ignore the fact that he'd then saved her life. He wouldn't have been able to do it if she hadn't done it first. "I jumped us forward in time. That crater is what's left of my lab after you started playing lawn bowls with my bombs."

"Forward in time?" He paused for a moment, and she wondered if she was going to have to carefully explain the concept of time travel to him, using crayons and flash-cards. "How far?"

Oh, good. He still has a couple of functioning brain cells. "Not sure. Wouldn't be hours or days, they'd still be examining the hole. Probably not years, or there'd be water and dirt collected in the bottom. So … weeks? Months?"

"The Azn Bad Boys will believe we are dead." He retrieved an old flip-phone from a pouch. "I will inform them that their leader is alive."

"Well, while you do that, Imma find out what we've missed." Getting up, Alice spat a few times to get the last of the taste of the vomit out of her throat, then pulled the gas mask back down over her face. Then she took out her own phone, smugly pleased that she'd set it up with an autopay feature, drawing from her main account, and woke it up.

A couple of firmware updates called for her attention, but she put them to one side. Then she checked the date. It was Tuesday, the twenty-fourth of May. Jeez, more than a month.

Now she knew when she was, she started scrolling through the news sites, mentally noting the headlines as she went. This came to a screeching halt a very short time later, as she stared at the feed. "Son … of a bitch," she croaked. "Lee, you need to see this."

Oni Lee came to her side. "I need your phone. Mine isn't working."

She glanced at his screen, where it was saying that it was out of credit. "How do you pay for it?"

"I buy prepaid, monthly."

Somehow, she wasn't surprised. "Yeah, it's been more than a month. Your credit ran out. Gonna have to buy more. But you need to see this." She showed him the screen.

He looked at the screen. "It says the snake ate Leviathan."

"Well, yeah. The snake ate Leviathan. It ate him. Doesn't that say something to you?"

Oni Lee did not hesitate. "It means we need a bigger bomb to kill it."

She shook her head. "I'm pretty sure you're taking the wrong message away from this."

"It killed Lung. I must kill it. You will supply the bomb to kill it with. Or I will kill you."

For a one-note asshole, Alice decided, Oni Lee knew how to make his point. "Okay, fine. You've convinced me. I'll build you a bomb."

Hopefully, her secondary workshops wouldn't have been discovered by the authorities yet. Because if Oni Lee wanted her to build him a bomb, she was going to have to build him a damn bomb.

Now, what type to make that would actually kill the damned thing …?

<><>​

Four Days Later

"Holy shit. It actually worked." Alice stared off the edge of the roof at the gigantic reptile, entirely trapped—and motionless, thank all the nameless gods of science, mad and otherwise—within the sparkling field. "We got the bastard."

She'd thought they were dead when it looked in their direction just before Oni Lee threw the bomb, but it had worked perfectly, even cobbled together from substandard materials as it was. Oddly enough, she'd also thought she'd seen someone riding astride its neck, but there was nobody there and the field would've trapped anyone like that inside it. The only weird thing was the hat it was wearing in the middle of its broad head. She had no idea what that was about.

Looking back over her shoulder, she called out, "Hey, it's okay! We totally got it!" Oni Lee had immediately teleported away after throwing the bomb, but he'd left her behind. Which was absolutely something they were going to have to address, going forward.

He appeared beside her an instant later, looking down at the trapped creature. "Yes, but it is only trapped. How long will it be trapped for, and how do we kill it?"

"Oh, that bit's easy." She grinned inside the gas mask. "I can rig up a bomb that'll free its head only, and leave the rest of its body in stasis. Its heart won't be beating, and its lung won't be working either. Five, ten minutes tops, and we'll be able to start skinning the fucker. I'm thinking a snakeskin jacket would look real nice."

"No."

The single word, spoken from behind them, carried a level of power and gravitas that Alice had never heard before, even from people like Alexandria who were good at that sort of thing. She turned fast, just as Oni Lee did, wondering who could've snuck up on them like that. Part of her was impressed with how fast Lee got his pistol out and trained on the newcomer.

The rest of her brain was taken up with asking herself, okay, who the hell is this guy? Because it wasn't any cape she'd ever heard of or seen pictures of, though there was a passing resemblance to Myrddin. However, where the Chicago Protectorate leader put on a good 'wizard' act, this guy hit it right out of the park. There was the funny-looking hat, the long robes, the cool-looking wooden staff and the grey beard, but that wasn't all. There was something deeper down, something visceral, that gave her a powerful gut feeling that this guy was absolutely the real deal.

But then again, so was she.

"And who the hell are you supposed to be, buddy? The snake police?" Ooh, that was a good one. She'd have to write that down, later.

"No. I am the Master of the Castle, and Snek is my familiar." The wizard guy gestured with his free hand toward the trapped snake.

At the first move, Oni Lee shot him. Or rather, he pulled the trigger. There was a flat crack, a muzzle-flare, and a bullet flying out of the muzzle.

This last bit, Alice had never seen before. She'd also never seen a bullet slow down and stop in midair before, so that was new as well. And all the guy—the Master of the Castle, who she'd definitely never heard of before—had done was move his hand a bit.

Oni Lee was already acting. Yanking one of the grenades off his bandolier, he pulled the pin and let it go. This was something Alice had seen before, but always from a much greater distance. She knew how Oni Lee did this sort of thing; he would've started the teleport-clone thing before he ever pulled the pin, so the new version of him, wherever he ended up, would be holding a safe grenade, pin still securely in place.

All of which would've been perfectly okay—Oni Lee had honed his technique, and it worked for him—except that by doing so, the asshole had left her in the firing line again. Much more of this and she'd start to wonder if he even had her best interests at heart. Biting off the urge to yell something extremely unkind at him, she went for the only place she could see that would escape the explosion: off the roof. Hitting the pavement from twenty-plus feet up would hurt, but not as much as taking a grenade to the face from five feet away.

Alice was no stranger to high-adrenaline situations, and occasionally she'd even encountered the sensation where time seemed to stretch out to eternity when she was trying to evade danger. But this time was different. Normally, all she'd have time to think of was 'this is going to hurt' or something similar before the cracked and worn concrete stopped looming up at her and became part of her new life. But now she was halfway off the roof and had taken several breaths, and she still hadn't fallen.

She took an experimental breath, then another. Falling still hadn't happened. The grenade still hadn't gone off. Neither had Oni Lee—just barely visible from the corner of her eye—dissolved into ash. "Okay," she said out loud. "What the hell?"

And then things seemed to rewind a little. From her panicked dive off the roof, she was pulled back until she was standing in front of the wizardly cape again. The grenade was there as well, hanging in midair, with the case open and the bits and pieces spread out like a how-to manual.

"As I have already said, I am the Master of the Castle." The wizard tapped the gnarled staff on the roof of the building once, and both the grenade and Oni Lee's pistol vanished. So did all the other grenades on Oni Lee's bandolier. "I do not countenance such treacherous attacks on Snek with good grace. Bakuda and Oni Lee of Earth Bet, what have you to say for yourselves?"

Alice tried to move, but discovered that everything below the neck was totally unresponsive to her commands. From the way Oni Lee's head was twitching, he was suffering the same problem. Which meant they were dealing with a terrifyingly powerful Master, not to mention a Shaker and whatever he'd done to vanish the grenades and the gun. And Oni Lee still hadn't dissolved into ash, which strongly suggested that he couldn't.

"The snake ate Lung." Oni Lee's voice cut into Alice's frantic attempts to think of a way out of this. "It attacked the Azn Bad Boys. For that, it had to die."

Fuuuck! Fuck fuck fuck! Alice discarded her earlier notion that Oni Lee had brain cells to spare. Apparently he'd just used up his last one. "Ignore him," she blurted. "He's got a thing. His head. Brain damage or something."

The Master of the Castle glanced at her, then back at Oni Lee, his gaze piercing and knife-sharp. "So I see. You parahumans and your addictions to power. Even when they drain your very thoughts and drive you to attack one another, you cannot help but use them."

Stung, Alice struggled uselessly against her invisible bonds. "I'd like to see you do better," she spat.

"Were you to know me for who I am, you would not pose such a challenge." His voice was calm and reproving, before he raised it in a command. "Snek! Your Master calls!" Again, he tapped his staff on the rooftop.

Alice saw glowing rainbow ripples spread out from the impact point, across the roof and down the side of the building. She could not move her head to look over her shoulder, but a few seconds later she heard the dry rustling sound of the snake's scales. The huge blunt nose edged over the rooftop beside her, and she found herself under inspection by a gold-fringed eye as large as her head. Then the mouth opened to exhibit its extraordinary dentition as it spoke. "Hello, Masster. Thank you for ssaving me. Iss buzzy-bug girl well?"

"She is indeed, Snek." Where the Master's expression had been stern and forbidding the whole time he'd been talking to her and Oni Lee, for Snek he produced an austere smile. "She was quite concerned about your well-being. You have found good friends. I'm proud of you."

"Ssnek thinkss sso too, Masster." The snake seemed to preen at the praise. "Ssnek hass much fun chassing bad men with buzzy-bug girl and with Mouss. Monsster Lev-i-a-than wass alsso tassty." It curled its head around to survey Alice and Oni Lee. "Masster hass caught bad man and bad woman who caught Ssnek in trap."

"Yes, I have." The Master took on a pensive expression, one that Alice didn't trust for an instant. People with that level of power didn't do anything without having all their moves planned far ahead. "However, before I decide what to do with them, there is one other thing I must do. For fairness, if nothing else."

"Wait, what are you going to do?" Alice had already figured out that they were thoroughly screwed, but that last bit sounded ominous as fuck. "We've got rights—"

"Rights which you ignore whenever convenient," he interrupted. "However, set your mind at ease. You, I will not touch. Your comrade, on the other hand, has been sorely misused by his power."

Reaching out, the bearded man tapped Oni Lee on the forehead of the Kabuki mask he wore. A shimmering silvery glow settled over the black-clad assassin, then gradually faded out of view. Oni Lee shook his head as though dazed. "What … what did you do to me? My mind feels so clear."

"It was a simple enough spell." The Master of the Castle smiled briefly. "I reversed the damage done to your intellect by those perfidious powers you all seem to swear by. Now then, I offer you each a choice …"

<><>​

Taylor

With my mask tucked away in my storage pack, I munched on a pastry while I watched the show. I wasn't really sure who'd done the cooking but it was extremely tasty, and Snek had enjoyed larger pieces that had evidently been prepared with him in mind. "So, this happens a lot?" I asked Snek, as both Riley and the Master of the Castle were busy.

"Yess, buzzy-bug girl," Snek replied. "Ssometimess, Ssnek bringss bad men and women to Masster and he takess away problem powerss and ssendss them out into the world. They sseem happier there."

"Huh." It made for an odd kind of sense, but considering the number of villains that had simply vanished after encountering Snek, I could see how it worked. "Do you do this with every villain you catch? Because some of them are pretty nasty, just saying."

Snek didn't answer for a moment, and we watched as Oni Lee's powers were decanted from his head and stored in a large crystal-clear glass jar as swirls of flickering darkness. There were more than a few jars of this type lining the shelves of the laboratory.

"No, buzzy-bug girl. Ssome bad people, Ssnek jusst eatss." His tone was completely matter of fact. "But all otherss have chossen to losse powerss and sstay on Masster'ss world."

I tilted my head. "Aren't you worried that they might … well, go and be criminals here, too?"

The Master of the Castle placed the jar on the shelf next to Bakuda's and turned back to us. "That is always a possibility, Taylor Hebert of Earth Bet. There are indeed those who are predisposed to crime from the beginning. However, it is my observation that when removed from those influences—both inward and outward—that placed them in such a situation, many will rethink their ways. I offer that chance. And for those that choose the way of banditry nonetheless?" He chuckled dryly. "Here, justice is swift and efficient."

"Oh." I figured, in hindsight, that a world with magic might not be as medieval and backward as popular culture might describe. "Um … so. Snek, are you still up for that patrol?"

The large head came up and he smiled. "Ssnek iss always ready to have fun with friendss."

"Awesome." I handed the plate back to Riley, and retrieved my mask. "Thank you again for saving Snek."

The Master of the Castle nodded in my direction. "Thank you for being his friend."

I swung my leg over Snek's neck. "That's no problem at all. He's a good boy."

"Thank you, buzzy-bug girl." Snek turned and started wriggling toward the door. "Buzzy-bug girl hold on."

"Kick their asses for me, Taylor!" called Riley.

I gave her a thumb's up over my shoulder, just before the door opened and Snek opened a portal on the other side of it. "Totally."

And then we were gone again.



End of Part Eighteen

 

Snek is a Good Boy

Part Nineteen: New Friends and Old

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

[A/N 2: I apologise for how late this chapter is coming out. The month has been horrendous.]



Far From Earth Bet

Canary

"Hey."

Paige paused as she stepped out through the theatre's rear door. The guardsman whose job it was to patrol that area stood across the street, looking relaxed in the light of the everfire torch mounted on the wall above him. He wasn't the one who had spoken; that person was leaning against the wall alongside the door, far enough away to be non-threatening. Her arms were folded and she had her head turned to look at Paige.

"Uh … hello?" Paige asked. "Can I help you?"

The strange woman straightened up and brushed her tunic down. She was tall and elegant even in the roughspun clothing, with a long neck and long limbs. Her brown hair had been tied back with a leather cord. "I guess … I just wanted to meet you. Say hi. Maybe chat a bit, if you wanted to. Name's Elmora."

The phrasing was oddly familiar; Paige tilted her head slightly. "Wait a minute … where are you from?"

Elmora chuckled. "The Big Apple, originally. New York, New York. The city so conceited, it had to be repeated." She nodded toward Paige. "I never got to attend any of your concerts, but I liked your music. Some of your angrier songs could've been written about me."

Paige recalled her 'angrier' songs. These had been written after her boyfriend had broken up with her. He'd also been cheating on her with her manager, and the two of them had been working to sabotage her gigs, so she'd taken some satisfaction in booting both of them out of her life. Her gigs had improved after that, as had her position on the charts. She still wasn't sure whether this was due to the content of the songs she'd written in the aftermath, or the departure of the people trying to torpedo her career for their own personal gain.

"I'm glad you liked them," she said cautiously. "I wasn't in a great place when I wrote them, but it helped to express what I was feeling." She paused. "So … who were you, back on Bet, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Um …" Elmora turned her head slightly, putting her face in shadow from the everfire torch mounted above the theatre's rear door. "Promise you won't run screaming? Because I'm not that person. Not anymore."

"That's kind of ominous." Paige forced a giggle, then glanced across the road at the guard, who was watching the interaction with what she gauged to be bored interest. "So, I'm guessing you were a villain?" Elmora didn't seem to be armed, nor did she appear crazy, but Paige had encountered unhinged fans during her time. Anyone could snap and be dangerous.

"I was, yeah. Fourteen times over." Elmora drew a deep breath, then let it out. "Up in the Castle, they explained how having powers fucks with your head. I enjoyed being Quarrel. It felt right. It felt good. Hurting people. Killing people. But the Master rolled that back when he took my powers away. Like I said, I'm not that person anymore."

There was what Paige judged to be real regret in Elmora's voice. She'd heard it enough times in her own voice to recognise it. "That's … good to hear. So, um, you said 'fourteen times'. Did you rebrand a dozen times or something? Because I … wait. Fourteen?" That number rang a really ominous bell in her mind.

Elmora must have accurately read her expression, because she nodded. "Yeah. As Quarrel, I wasn't really famous. But then I killed the Butcher."

"Oh." Paige knew she'd gotten it right. Everyone had heard of the Butcher. If you killed the Butcher, you became the Butcher. And standing in front of her was the woman who had headed one of the most violent gangs in the continental United States. She suppressed the urge to back away. She said that wasn't her anymore. I should really give her a chance.

"Yeah. 'Oh'." Elmora grimaced, probably at the look on Paige's face. "This was a bad idea. I should go."

"No, no. It's alright." Paige really hoped it would be. The temptation to talk to someone from Bet was strong, even if she was a villain—had been a villain, she admonished herself. "How did you get here from Bet, anyway? Was it Snek?"

"Yeah, it was Snek. And Mouse Protector, but mainly Snek." Elmora shrugged. "They put down the Teeth like it was light exercise, then Snek took me to his Master to get all the voices out of my head, and my powers too. Since then, I guess I've been figuring out who I am, all over again."

"I suppose I have, too." Paige glanced back up at the theatre. "The Master of the Castle helped me sign up for the Bardic College. Fortunately, a lot of the stuff I already know can transfer across. I'll be graduating soon, and I'll be able to go out and set up my own performances. Do some travelling while I'm at it."

Elmora tilted her head slightly. "Isn't that a bit dangerous? I mean, right now you've got the College backing you. Nobody messes with a Bardic journeyman. But once you've been awarded your Harp and sash and leave town, you're on your own. And trust me when I say this from my own personal experience; there are assholes everywhere. Especially once you leave here and go out into the big wide world."

The Harp she was referring to was a large harp-headed brooch used to fasten the Bardic sash across the body for display during performances, and thus advertise that the player was a graduate of the Bardic college. The sash itself was provided to the Bard in question by the Weaver's Guild; it was woven to their personal specification, incorporating whatever designs they felt were most fitting for them. It didn't matter that most Bards didn't use the harp at all. It had been the symbol of the College for untold years, and that was all there was to it.

"Yeah, I know," Paige admitted. "I was thinking of just sticking to the main roads and bigger cities." There was danger there too, she knew, but the call was irresistible. "Besides, I do know a little Bardic magic."

"Yeah, just enough to get into trouble with." Elmora folded her arms. "Got a better idea. I'm not far from graduating as a bowyer and fletcher. At least, I know enough now that I can keep working at it on my own, and I already know how to kick ass. We can travel together. You play your music, I'll watch your back, and we split the take. Hell, I'll even take an Oathbond so you don't have to worry about travelling with an ex-supervillain."

Paige blinked in surprise. Oathbonding was a simple but powerful spell that could be performed by some casters, to ensure that any two given people carried out a specified agreement over a particular time. Both parties had to be fully aware of all parts of the agreement, and in agreement with them, before the spell would take hold. There were several people in the town who would perform one for a fee. The fact that Elmora was offering to participate in one meant she was serious.

"You'd do that for me?"

"Sure." Elmora smiled crookedly. "Might even be fun. What do you say?"

Slowly, Paige nodded. "Sure. It'll definitely be better than travelling on my own, anyway."

"Excellent." Elmora glanced up and down the street. "Walk you to your lodgings?"

"Thanks. I'd like that. So, which of my songs did you like best, anyway?"

"Well, Tears Like Acid Rain just cut straight to my heart where you said …"

They strolled off down the street under the light of the everfire torches, their voices fading away into the distance.

<><>​

Glory Girl

Vicky perched atop the Forsberg Gallery, looking out over the city. Part of her was listening for sirens or other signs that anything was amiss, but most of her thought process had been taken over by wondering about the future. Specifically, the future for her and New Wave once the Protectorate moved most of its capes out of Brockton Bay.

It was no longer even an open secret that Brockton Bay's criminal underworld had given up the ghost and moved to greener pastures. Everyone knew that the few villains left in town were keeping their heads all the way down, lest they draw the attention of the city's weirdest new celebrity: the giant snake called Snek. Once a booming Wild West of supervillain activity, the city was now more like a ghost town when it came to finding so much as a mugger to yell at.

If things got much quieter, she'd heard, the ENE branches of the PRT and Protectorate were going to shutter their premises entirely and hand over operations to Boston. As it was, they were already drafting lists of who would be transferred to other departments and who would stay behind in Brockton Bay for the duration. She kind of understood why, but she didn't have to like it.

Because Dean was one of the Wards slated to be transferred.

She sniffled—because of the chilly air this high, and totally not because she was about to cry—and wiped the back of her hand across her nose. It wasn't fair. Their relationship had been as steady as it ever was, helped a lot by the drop in crime which meant they could hang out together free of stress, and now this was happening. Just because Director Piggot wants to take early retirement …

No, she decided. That's not fair on the Director. Emily Piggot was a hardass all the way down the line, that was true, but she wasn't one to shirk her duty. If the ENE branch was being shut down—later rather than sooner, but still—and she was retiring, it wasn't from her choice.

Still, it sucked.

She'd spoken to Dean in the aftermath of the Fallen attack—too late to meet Snek, dammit!—and he'd actually supported the move. He and Chris had been cleared of any lingering Master/Stranger influence (apparently, Valefor and the enigmatic woman called Mama Mathers had been eaten alive) but the PRT higher-ups wanted him to undergo psychological testing for other side-effects. She had a particular fear of being Mastered herself, so that unfortunately made sense to her. It was just that he had to go to Boston or New York for the testing, which effectively meant a one-way transfer.

To add insult to injury, the adult members of New Wave had decided that New Wave would remain in Brockton Bay as 'hometown heroes', keeping the flag flying or whatever they were supposed to do. The unspoken suggestion was that Vicky should stay with them, even though she'd been entertaining thoughts of splitting off and joining the Wards to be closer to Dean. This was looking more and more inviting by the day, especially since even Amy had floated the idea once or twice of striking out on her own once she'd saved enough money, and going into the healing business as a rogue cape.

The trouble was, every time she'd considered her future, in her mind's eye Ames had always been there as well. Sisters in all but blood, they'd grown up together, sharing confidences and fears alike. Even after they'd both triggered with entirely different powers, they still had what Vicky considered to be a workable dynamic. But like her relationship with Dean and with the rest of New Wave, this was also threatening to tear asunder. She wasn't sure which one to save, or even if any of them could be.

I wish I knew what to do.

The whisper of scales on the roof behind her was barely enough warning before a huge serpentine head slid into place alongside her. It turned slightly, and a gold-fringed eye peered down at her. "Hello, gold princcesss girl. You look ssad. Can Ssnek help?"

She jumped a little, because who didn't jump when a sixty-foot constrictor decided to show up alongside them on top of the roof, twenty-six floors above ground? "H-hello, Snek," she replied, determined to show that she wasn't rattled, even though she was. "I'm not sure that you can, to be honest. Thanks for the offer, though."

Perched on Snek's broad head, the 'Snek fedora' made famous by the news presented a puzzle that she wasn't quite ready to question. She also decided to not touch the name 'gold princess girl' with a ten-foot barge pole. If Eric got wind of that, I'd never hear the end of it.

"Ssnek likess to help. Gold princcesss girl wantss to come chasse bad men with Ssnek?" The sheer innocent joy in the question drew her in, very likely as he'd known it would.

Despite the funk she was feeling at the moment, the notion perked her up. "Where are you going to find bad men at this time of night?"

The smile on Snek's features broadened even further. "Ssnek can alwayss find bad men. But gold princcesss girl will have to ride Ssnek'ss neck."

"Uh … I can fly, you know." She lifted off the rooftop and landed on her feet. "You don't need to carry me."

"Ssnek knowss. But Ssnek travelss through wriggle-holess. Workss besst if gold princcesss girl iss riding."

Vicky wasn't sure what Snek meant, but Mouse Protector could teleport, and there were pictures all over the net of her riding Snek into battle against villains. If it was good enough for the mouse-themed hero, she decided, it was good enough for her.

"Okay, then," she said. "Let's go do this thing." Stepping over to Snek, she swung her leg over the snake's broad neck.

"Gold princcesss girl hold on." Snek dived off the building, a portal opening up in front of him.

Oh, so that's how he gets around. But by then Vicky was too busy holding on.

<><>​

Low Earth Orbit

The Third considered the situation as it had been doing for quite some time, running simulations and determining options. Things were shaking up on the planet below, though not quite in the ways the Third would have liked them to. The destabilisation effects introduced by the Third and its counterparts were in turn being re-stabilised by an anomalous entity, occasionally intruding on the local space-time from coordinates that the Third had no way of reaching.

Worse, the anomalous entity threw all the Third's observations askew, merely by existing. Its actions could not be predicted, nor backtraced. The only way to observe it was by directly detecting its actions via the mental activity of other life-forms in real time, or by carefully observing the environment and detecting where it had been.

Several potentially useful shard-hosts had been removed from consideration while the Third was pondering this, but the most damaging action had come about when the anomalous entity had engaged the Second. Not content with merely defeating and driving off the Second, the entity had destroyed it, apparently consuming both its outer form and inner core.

This could not stand.

The Third had no experience in dealing with such entities—that, indeed, was why the creature was designated as 'anomalous'—but there existed several avenues by which it believed it could draw the anomalous entity in close enough to attack and destroy it. One potentially effective course of action involved the shard host with whom Snek associated most often.

And so, it refined its plans. Once they were complete, it set them in motion.

<><>​

Mouse Protector

It had been a long week. Diane was looking forward to having a quiet night in, maybe watching a movie then faceplanting on her bed and sleeping through until mid-morning or later. If the world needed saving in the meantime, they could call on someone else. It didn't matter that her powers gave her the agility and vitality of a twenty-year-old; rooftop running for the sake of it just didn't appeal anymore.

Pulling a brush through her long curly hair, she wandered out into the living room in her pyjamas and settled down on the sofa with her feet up and a bowl of vaguely nutritious snacks on her lap. She was just reaching for the remote with her free hand when the song reached her ears. It was faint at first, then became more and more audible as it went on. When she recognised it, her eyes widened and she bounced up off the sofa, spraying her snacks everywhere.

Fuck! Simurgh! Her thoughts were slow and dragging in contrast to the urgency she felt. Already, she could feel the twisting, turning of her thought patterns inside her head, even though there were no Endbringer sirens sounding that she could hear. Got to teleport! Got to get away! She had to tell people that the Simurgh could attack without warning.

No. The voice was part of the singing, yet separate enough to freeze her where she was. A directive settled into place: she was not to teleport. Part of her mind accepted this as the way it should be, while a deeper part raged and fought vainly against the cage being built around it.

Her attitudes continued to change, even as she calmly went to the stand where she'd stored the armour granted her by the Master of the Castle. One piece at a time, she donned it, moving as smoothly as she ever did. Once she was finished, she drew the sword from its sheath. The Simurgh-overlay of her personality smiled viciously as she examined the blade, then slid it back into its sheath.

As she opened the window and climbed out onto the fire escape, she felt the Simurgh allow the tiny, trapped portion of her to express itself one last time.

Snek … it whispered. Help me.

With the bait set out, even that part was overwritten, and Mouse Protector was all monster.

<><>​

Glory Girl

Vicky wasn't sure which city they were in, but she didn't much care either. This was fun. Snek definitely had the knack of finding bad people in the act of doing bad things, bypassing the entire 'patrolling for hours and hours' bullshit altogether. And he wasn't even finding pickpockets or smash and grab artists; while mildly satisfying to deal with, they were usually people in a bad way themselves.

No, the people Snek was zeroing in on were the predators; specifically, the ones who preyed on women and girls. The ones Vicky hated with every fibre of her being.

They weren't all capes, or even mostly so, but that didn't matter. For instance, the bunch she and Snek were going after right now consisted of one guy in a mask and costume and four of his buddies, unmasked, in regular clothing. Vicky didn't recognise the costume, and didn't care enough to ask.

They'd been menacing a bunch of girls dressed for the nightclubs who had apparently wandered down the wrong street, demanding money or worse. Again, Vicky cared exceedingly little about the actual details. She was a broad-strokes sort of girl, and she was quite willing to use these assholes to sweep up the whole street in broad strokes if she had to, in order to get her message across. The message being: 'Don't attack women.'

Instead of the "Shit! Capes!" that she usually heard when she came upon such a crime in progress, one of the sidekicks—or minions, being the affiliates of a villain rather than a hero—pointed and shouted, "What the fuck is that?"

She trusted that he was referring to Snek rather than her; flying capes were almost ubiquitous in pop culture, for obvious reasons. Still, she had to wonder what rock he'd been living under that he hadn't heard of Snek or seen his image on TV. Especially since Snek had eaten Leviathan.

The PRT could even apparently get in contact with him on PHO via his friend 'Good Girl Riley', whoever that was. Through her, he'd confirmed that he was going to keep coming back to Brockton Bay because 'Snek friends live there'. Which was apparently the only reason the PRT was willing to scale back operations in the ENE region. When Snek moved into an area, crime moved out.

"It's Snek, you moron!" yelled the cape. "Run!" Not waiting to see if his friends did as they were told, he turned and started bounding off down the street, jumping higher and higher with each step with smoke and flame billowing around his feet and ankles.

"I've got the cape!" Vicky advised Snek, then powered after the fleeing asshole. She wasn't sure if his power was just super-leaping or if he could transition to actual powered flight, but she still didn't actually care. Just as he was about to touch down after a leap that had carried him sixty feet, she grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and flew upward with him. "Hi," she said.

"Let me go, you bitch!" he yelped, twisting around to point his hands up toward her.

She knew what that meant; whatever Blaster power he was using for his Mover effect was also very likely present in his hands. So she let go of the back of his costume and grabbed him by the hands. "Go ahead," she invited him. "I'm invincible, and I will break your hands if you try it." As an added incentive to behave, she gave him a shot of her aura.

He didn't try it.

When she got back to where the girls were, Snek was also there, apparently lecturing the four would-be muggers. "Hurting ladiess iss wrong," he said sternly as Vicky swooped down with the last of the group. "Ssnek doess not approve. Ssnek eatss bad men."

"Here we go," Vicky reported, dropping the cape on his ass next to the others, then addressing the girls. "Has anyone called the cops and PRT yet?"

"I have," said one of the girls, raising her hand. "They said they'd be here really soon. Thanks." She paused. "Uh … are you really Glory Girl?"

Vicky nodded. Nobody was asking Snek if he was really Snek; it would be really hard to fake being a sixty-foot snake. "That's me. Snek and me, we're just going out and about, stopping bad guys where we find them."

While the would-be muggers sulked, Snek and Vicky posed for selfies with the girls; Snek seemed to enjoy making friends more than anything else. The arrival of the authorities was the signal for Vicky to go back to professional mode, verifying once more that she was indeed Glory Girl. Just as the cape was loaded (looking very unhappy indeed) into the PRT van—it turned out they were in Minneapolis—Snek raised his head.

"Mouss!" he said, sounding more urgent than he had all night. "Ssnek musst help!"

"Mouse Protector is in trouble?" Vicky felt a surge of adrenaline. "Where?"

"Ssnek will go to. Gold princcesss girl will come help?"

"Well, duh." Lofting into the air, Vicky settled astride Snek's neck. "Let's go!"

"Gold princcesss girl hold on!" Opening up a portal, Snek blurred through it.

[A/N: Yes, evil cliffhangers are evil. Mwahahaha.]



End of Part Nineteen

 

Snek is a Good Boy

Part Twenty: Saving Private Mousey

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



Glory Girl

They emerged from the teleport portal—what Snek had called a 'wriggle-hole', if Vicky recalled correctly—into open air, over a large city. Her guess was Manhattan, unless those were two totally different Twin Towers in the distance. As a flier, she'd studied aerial photos of most of the major US population centres, just in case. But she didn't dwell on that for very long, because what was in front of both of them was a hell of a lot more important than 'where the hell am I?'.

None other than the goddamn fucking Simurgh was hovering over an apartment building, way down below them. Vicky wasn't sure what was worse; the fact that the Simurgh had chosen to visit New York, that she herself was currently in New York while the Simurgh was there, or that nobody else seemed to have the faintest idea of what was going on. Even the Endbringer sirens were silent.

Given that last data point, it would've been tempting to dismiss the supposed presence of the Simurgh as a cape trick of some sort, but Vicky never doubted its veracity for an instant. She could feel waves of influence beating on her mind, attempting to sway her into believing that nothing untoward was going on … and getting absolutely nowhere.

While she held a high opinion of her ability to take a hit—any hit—and keep on going, that didn't apply to mental attacks. Mind control was one thing she was legitimately terrified of, and to which she was just as vulnerable as any other teenage girl. Whatever was stopping the Simurgh's attacks from getting through, it was not her force field.

"Snek!" she called out as she flew downward alongside the now-falling snake. "Is that you?" Shielding my mind, she meant.

"Masster protectss Ssnek friendss," he replied blithely. "Gold princcesss girl sstop Mouss. Mouss not Mouss. Ssnek sstop turkey bird lady."

Part of Vicky's mind whited out for a second, trying to pretend that the giant talking snake had not just called the Hope-Killer 'turkey bird lady', and failing. Whatever the Simurgh had been called in the past—and she had surely been called many things, few of them complimentary—that absolutely had to take the cake. The cognitive dissonance was so strong that Vicky nearly missed the reference to Snek's Master—not something we've got time to talk about right now, dammit!—but the information that Mouse Protector wasn't herself definitely grabbed her attention.

Fuck. She's been turned into a Simurgh bomb. Is that bitch going to be hitting all of Snek's friends like this? This was something else she didn't have time to dwell on. "Got it." Accelerating downward, she started scanning the area for Mouse Protector's distinctive armour.

As Vicky veered out and around the Simurgh, the Endbringer turned and reached for her, only for Snek to arrive a moment later, wrapping his coils around the Simurgh's winged body. Vicky had an instant to register the shocked and surprised expression on the Simurgh's normally impassive features before she blinked out of existence. Wait, the Simurgh can teleport?

Again, this was something Vicky had to shove on the shelf of 'things we're going to have to talk about later, because now is Not The Time'—it was getting rather crowded—because she'd just spotted Mouse Protector.

She'd met the irreverent hero before, but only in passing. Never had she seen Mouse Protector unmasked, or even learned her name. But now, the veteran cape stood at the edge of the roof of the apartment complex, wearing all her armour save for the helmet, her face uncovered and her sword in her hand.

Okay, I can do this. She's been Mastered. I just have to stop her from doing anything bad until Snek can chase the Simurgh away. Then he can deal with it. She'd heard whispers about Snek's Master, and hoped they were all true.

As Vicky flashed down toward her, Mouse Protector looked up. The devil-may-care grin that normally adorned her face when she was thoroughly humiliating her foes had changed subtly; now it was cold and calculating. Vicky had been intending to tap her on the way past to put her on her ass, but as the sword that had sliced chunks off Leviathan came up and around, she acted on instinct and dodged aside at the last instant.

At the same time, Mouse Protector swung the sword. It sliced through the air with a sound like a razor cutting cloth, though Vicky suspected that bit was due to her imagination.

As she slowed her upward swoop and looked around, she wondered briefly if she shouldn't have pressed harder with the attack. If she hit the force field, she'd be on her ass anyway, right? Or the impact would've knocked the sword out of her hand. It had happened before. Being impervious to the first strike was sometimes very useful.

Then, as she registered the movement of air against her face, she realised that her force field was down. This was not the usual state of affairs. A punch barely carried enough force to knock it down, and while a sword blow would probably manage it, it shouldn't have stayed down for this long.

Looking down at where Mouse Protector was—still standing, still holding the sword—she saw a triangle of white cloth lying at the Mastered hero's feet. Wait, where'd that come from? She grabbed her cape and held it out to the side; to her astonishment, one corner had been neatly sliced off, as though cut with scissors.

Jesus Christ, she went straight through my force field and cut my cape! How the hell did she do that?

"Come on, let's try that again," Mouse Protector offered, holding out her free hand and doing her widely recognised 'come at me' gesture. Vicky had seen her do it with many villains on the news, and they'd always come off second best. "You're always so smug and irritating. People will positively cheer once I've removed a limb or two."

Simurgh bombs couldn't be talked down. Everyone was fully aware of that. But Vicky, even looking at the chilling expression on Mouse Protector's face, knew she had to try anyway.

"You're better than this," she urged. "You have to fight it. Fight her. You're a hero. I know you're in there somewhere."

Mouse Protector's features became strained. "Yes," she gritted. "I am a hero. I can fight this." She reached out, her expression pleading. "Take my hand. Give me strength."

"Drop the sword first," Vicky said at once. The acting was top-notch, but there was no way someone could break through the Simurgh's conditioning that quickly.

"Hah, not a chance in hell." Mouse Protector let the strained expression go, returning to the more sinister smirk. "No? Not falling for it? Why'd you even try if you weren't going to believe me?"

"Because I'm idealistic, not stupid." Vicky cast about, trying to figure out how to subdue Mouse Protector without seriously injuring or killing her. "You're basically a clone of the Simurgh in there, yeah? You do know that Snek ripped Leviathan apart and ate him, right? Said he tasted like chicken. He's gonna do the same with her too. You wait and see."

Mouse Protector laughed out loud; a high, carefree sound. It was eerie. She sounded exactly like she did in every video clip where she was kicking some lowlife's ass.

"It's not her in here with me, you idiot," she said scornfully. "I'm still me, just better. I can tell you every detail of my life. Did you know, I used to date Chevalier? He's a good guy, but I broke up with him because he's too much of a boy scout. I like a bit of bad in my bed."

Vicky's stomach clenched. She didn't know what would be worse; if Mouse Protector was telling the truth and exposing the underbelly of her life, or if she was making up details from whole cloth in a totally believable way. Either way, she couldn't afford to let the older hero keep talking like this. Even if Mouse Protector survived—and with the threat that sword posed, it was getting harder and harder to figure out how to take her down nonlethally—her career and reputation might never recover from the hit.

"Shut up." Vicky took a deep breath, and said it louder. "Shut up! You're not Mouse Protector! You're just pretending to be her!"

The sword spun in Mouse Protector's grasp; her expression was as mocking as her tone. "Go ahead. Make me."

<><>​

Snek

Snek is enjoying fight with turkey bird lady. Knows her name is really monster-Simurgh but thinks turkey bird lady is funnier. She has done something with Mouse to make her not-Mouse, but gold princess girl is there to stop Mouse from hurting other people.

Turkey bird lady can go from here to there like Snek does with wriggle-holes. She is trying to get away from Snek. Master has shown Snek how to smell monster-power, so she is always surprised when he comes out of wriggle-hole, but she does not like surprise. Snek does not understand. Surprises are fun.

Snek could swallow Mouse and put her in not-eat place, but would not fix. Turkey bird lady has done something to Mouse that only Master can help with, and if Snek tried to eat Mouse, turkey bird lady would attack another Snek friend. So Snek needs to end threat of turkey bird lady.

Wriggle-hole opens behind turkey bird lady and Snek tries to chomp on wing with big shiny ball in joint. Master has big collection of balls like that. They are very tasty, and if Master finds two the same, he lets Snek eat the other one. Snek hopes Master already has this one. Looks nice and crunchy.

Just as Snek's teeth close on wing, turkey bird lady goes away again. This time, she does not go near. She goes very far. Really high up, where no air. Snek has only been that high a few times. Very boring, nothing to do.

Snek pops out of wriggle-hole far behind turkey bird lady. She is staring down at world and smoothing wings and feathers. Snek has bitten one arm and some smaller wings off. They were tasty, but not as nice as crunchy ball in big wing will be.

Turkey bird lady is still staring at world. Snek cannot see face, but thinks she is worried. Master has shown Snek how to move in no-air-place. Wriggling carefully, Snek sneaks up behind turkey bird lady.

This time she loses two more wings and lots of feathers when Snek chomps down.

She goes away again.

Snek follows.

This is lots of fun.

Snek enjoys playing hide and seek.

<><>​

Glory Girl

The standoff came to a head when Mouse Protector pulled out a small rubber puck, held it for a moment, then hurled it far out away from the building. Vicky knew exactly what it was: a teleport marker. Without hesitation, she swooped after it and caught it, then crushed it in her hand.

She wasn't sure if Mouse Protector's markers could be placed on literally anything or if they required something over a certain size, but she was going with 'over a certain size'. The rubber resisted her strength for a moment, but she could bend steel in her hands so it didn't resist long. Bits and pieces of the puck fell toward the street below as Vicky turned back … just in time to see Mouse Protector throw two other pucks in two different directions at once.

Fuck it. Vicky knew that Mouse Protector was not in her right mind, but there was a limit to the amount of restraint she should be using. She was sure that Mouse Protector herself, were she in her right mind, would agree to this. Flying directly at the mouse-themed hero, she dipped down at the last second and punched the parapet, sending a spray of pieces at Mouse Protector.

The sword came out faster than Vicky would've believed possible, and the largest chunks were cut in half before they could reach Mouse Protector. More than a few got through the defence, but bounced off her armour without even leaving a mark.

"Mice try, Gory Girl. I rate that C for Cheddar." Mouse Protector saluted her with the sword, then vanished.

Great. Now she pulls out the mouse and cheese puns?

Vicky didn't even spend time thinking about the mangling of her own cape name as she flew out over the building, searching for where Mouse Protector might have gotten to. She'd seen the directions they were thrown in, but not how far, or where they might have bounced to.

There was nobody near where the first one seemed to have gone to, so she flew on. As capable as she was, she knew damn well she was in over her head. But if she took the time to send out an alert on her phone, Mouse Protector could kill ten people by the time she got as many words out. And she would kill people so long as she was under the Simurgh's influence; Vicky didn't doubt that for an instant.

The screech of tyres on asphalt got her attention and she accelerated around the corner, flying ten feet off the street. Up ahead, a car had swerved and struck a light-pole; one of its headlights was out, though Vicky couldn't be sure if that was because of the accident or due to Mouse Protector's attack.

For she had surely struck the car, carving off a large section of its front corner and possibly damaging the front wheel, which was probably the cause of the crash. Right at that moment, Mouse Protector was leaping from the hood of the car to land next to the driver's side door. Another slash with that impossibly sharp sword, and most of the door was sliced away, to crash onto the roadway.

As Mouse Protector drew the sword back to skewer the unfortunate driver, Vicky came hurtling in. She briefly considered tackling Mouse Protector, but the corrupted hero's reflexes were just short of insane, and she could probably both kill Vicky and evade the attack at the same time, thus making a mockery of the whole attempt. So instead, Vicky tried to play it smart.

Flying up to the front of the car, she slowed down just enough that running into the front of it wouldn't drop her force field; then she exerted her power in a burst of power and speed, shoving the whole car (disabled wheel and all) backward down the street as far and fast as she could. Mouse Protector's sword flashed in the corner of her eye, and she felt agony bite into her calf muscle, but then she was past the point of direct danger.

"Run!" she shouted to the people in the car. "Get away from here!"

Hovering upward as they obeyed, she looked for Mouse Protector, knowing the cut on her leg had to be pretty serious from the warm feeling of blood running into her boot. But right now, her priority had to be stopping the hero-turned-villain. She didn't have the option of stepping back and letting someone else deal with it while she tended to her wound.

Lazily, Mouse Protector flicked her sword so that the blood flew off it. She started toward Vicky, one measured step at a time. "Fly away, and I'll go after those people," she promised. "Fight me, and I won't."

Vicky opened her mouth to reply, but was distracted by the Simurgh appearing overhead, apparently hiding behind a building. She was a mess; her wings were even more chaotically disarranged than normal, she only had half a left arm, and several of her wings had no feathers at all on them. This was the worst shape Vicky had ever seen her in, in all the footage she'd viewed of Endbringer fights. Even more unexpected was the expression on her face: normally impassive in the midst of the destruction she caused, now she was showing actual fear.

And then, from above, Snek appeared out of one of his 'wriggle-holes'. Impressively fanged mouth wide open—seriously, Hookwolf at his most metallic looked less dangerous than Snek's dentition—he dropped straight down toward her, body held vertical as he fell. Vicky had heard of 'death from above', and had even applied the principle herself a few times, against Brutes and the engine blocks of cars, but this was a whole new level of the concept.

Mouse Protector raised her sword and pointed, and the Simurgh looked up; the last expression that Vicky saw on her face could've been most readily described as 'oh, fuck me'. Then Snek arrived with an impact that drove the Simurgh downward to smash into the asphalt between Vicky and Mouse Protector, his jaws clashing shut around the Endbringer's head, body and largest wing. The word 'chomp' probably sufficed, but Vicky still felt it was less than adequate.

With the Simurgh's legs and a couple of her minor wings still sticking out of his mouth, Snek grinned at Vicky, then flicked his tail around, knocking Mouse Protector clear off her feet. The sword flew out of her hand, tumbling end over end to land point-first in the street in front of Vicky. Mouse Protector struggled to her feet, only to be wrapped up in an unbreakable bear hug by the end of Snek's tail. Snek turned his attention to Vicky and nodded at the sword, then ducked his head in the same way he'd done when offering her a ride before. He was evidently polite enough to not speak with his mouth full, but the invitation was clear.

Pulling her cape off, Vicky wrapped it around her leg wound and tied it tight. It stained red almost immediately, and she was starting to feel woozy, which meant she needed medical attention really damn soon, but pre-Simurgh Mouse Protector had waxed lyrical about Snek's Master, so she decided to make a leap of faith. With her waning strength, she grabbed the sword and yanked it out of the asphalt. When she settled down over Snek's neck, she found herself slumping forward over his broad head. "Snek … don't feel so great …"

"Glld prnnccsss grrl hlld nnn."

Not my call.

<><>​

A Short Period of Awe and Wonder Later

"Almost done," Riley said. Lying face-down on the padded table with her head pillowed on her arms, Vicky knew she should be feeling the needle stitching her leg wound closed, but all that was coming through were faint tugs. "How are you doing? Any problems?"

Vicky shook her head. "Nope. I'm feeling pretty great, actually." She'd been woken up to the smell of delicious pastries shortly after her arrival. Somehow, they'd boosted her energy levels and made up for the prior blood loss. Since then, she'd been trying to get her head around the impossibilities she was seeing.

"Excellent." Riley made a couple more stitches, then seemed to tie it off. "This is enchanted thread—I have no idea how it works, but I know it does—which will speed the healing process, keep the wound clean, and vanish once you're healed. It won't even leave a scar."

"Not sure how Amy will deal with that," Vicky mused with a grin. "She's used to being the healer. Though I get the impression she isn't thrilled with that sometimes."

"Maybe she could come through to this world for a vacation," Riley suggested. "You can get up now, by the way. There'd be people down in the towns who could do with a bit of healing, but not as egregiously as they were back in Bet. She could have the leisure to stop and smell the roses in between times."

"I might mention it," Vicky agreed, rolling over and sitting up to swing her legs down over the edge of the table. One of her boots sat nearby; the other had been borne off, along with her cape, to deal with the sword damage and the extreme bloodstains.

Sliding off the table to land on her bare feet, she took a few tentative steps. Her calf muscle twinged very slightly, but showed no other sign of having been nearly severed by an insanely sharp blade less than fifteen minutes before. "Damn, you are good. Or is that magic too?"

Riley shook her head with a chuckle. "I don't do magic. I am actually that good. So thanks; it's nice to hear that I haven't lost my touch."

"Yeah, about that." Vicky tilted her head. "You're clearly from Bet, and you're a medical expert, but I don't think I've ever heard of you. If you don't mind me asking, how did you get here, and who were you back home?"

"You're thinking 'hero'," Riley said, a shadow seeming to pass over her features. "Think 'villain'. I was one of the worst of the worst. Then Snek brought me here, the boss dug all the crap out of my head, and I was given a second chance."

Vicky frowned. There couldn't be that many blonde-haired tweenage villains who specialised in medicine … "Oh." It was horrifically obvious once she looked past the overalls, the bright pink T-shirt and the brass-bound goggles pushed up onto Riley's forehead. "Oh, shit. Bonesaw?"

"I was," Riley said firmly. "Very much past tense. Turns out Jack Slash was a low-level Master. Ninety-nine percent of Bonesaw was his creation. The one percent was my powers. Take away the Mastery, and you get me." She shrugged, and offered a half-smile. "There's nothing and nobody waiting for me back on Bet, so I opted to stay and help out around the place. It's been fun."

As Vicky opened her mouth to argue that nobody could become a villain just on somebody else's say-so, she recalled Mouse Protector. The personality and mannerisms had still been there, but she'd been deeply, irredeemably evil. And Riley had absolutely given Vicky the best medical attention she could've asked for. "… right. So, uh, Mouse Protector? Is she going to be okay?"

"Sure." Riley tilted her head toward the doorway into the main workroom. "Why don't we go see?"

"Okay." Vicky followed her out into the high arched room, with what Vicky still had trouble believing was a real dragon stuffed and hanging overhead, where Mouse Protector was sitting in a comfortable-looking chair and chatting with Snek and his Master.

Up until now, Vicky had thought Myrddin had the 'wise old wizard' look nailed, but this guy just took it away from him. There was a level of gravitas to the Master of the Castle (the capital letters just slipped in there) that not even the members of the Triumvirate could muster, as well as a sense of deep and abiding power. As Vicky watched, Snek opened his mouth (now free of bits of Simurgh, she saw) and a multi-forked tongue passed out a softly silvery glowing orb to the hands of the Master.

"Thank you, Snek," the Master said politely. "This will also go well with my collection."

Mouse Protector seemed to be unconcerned with the comment, but Vicky looked up at the shelf where the orb was going, and at the long row of other orbs, glowing in different colours, that were already there. "Uh, excuse me. What … are those things?"

"They are the power cores to the same kind of creatures that plague your world," the Master explained, placing the orb carefully in its spot. "Each is unique, and offers new insight into how these creatures can be brought into being. Of course, if I end up with a duplicate, Snek finds them delicious."

"Yess," agreed Snek, his tongue sliding along the length of his mouth and back again, like that of a certain cartoon coyote. "Ssnek likess crunchy ssnackss."

Vicky looked again at the row of orbs. There seemed to be a lot of them. "These aren't all Endbringers … are they?" As far as she knew, only two had been killed (and eaten; that part was very important) by Snek.

"They go by different names in different worlds." The Master dusted his hands off, causing tiny sparks to fly. "Kaiju, Endbringers, Angels, the Horsemen, Great Old Ones … destroyers. City-killers. Designed to bring death and pain, and to distract me from my chosen duties. This is why I find it preferable for Snek to hunt and kill them, and return the cores to me."

"Right," Vicky said faintly. "I see." He doesn't have time for the Endbringers, so he sends Snek after them. Gotcha. I thought I was kind of important in the grand scheme of things. Haha, wow, nope.

"You get used to it," Mouse Protector said kindly, rising from her chair. Her sword, Vicky saw, was back in its scabbard. "And thanks, by the way, for keeping my attention until Snek could get to me. That was a thoroughly unpleasant experience, until the Master could get my head straightened out again." She put her hand on Vicky's shoulder. "If you ever get tired of New Wave, look me up; I could do with a competent sidekick."

"Uh … thanks?" This was not how Vicky had imagined her night would go. A random thought flitted across her mind. "Would I have to do cheese puns?"

Mouse Protector grinned. "Only if you have an Abondance of Emmental Feta-tude. We wouldn't want to create a Munster now, Spenwood we?"

As Riley laughed out loud, Vicky facepalmed.

Yeah, I walked right into that one.



End of Part Twenty