A Darker Path [Worm Fanfic]

[Ack]

Hmmm. Glory Girl's power, PtE, Vista's power, Dragon's power and Damsel's power. I wonder if there's any significance to the "punctured cylinder" on Dragon's power avatar?

Click to shrink...

That's the hit she took from Scion.

Also, due to feedback, I've decided to change the target for her strike so it's less derivative:

"Hey, asshole," I husked. "Existence is a privilege." Then, using both hands, I drove my shears in through the white bodysuit, up under the breastbone and through the heart he didn't have, all the way to the hilt.

Click to shrink...

 

[Avernus]

Also, due to feedback, I've decided to change the target for her strike so it's less derivative:

Click to shrink...

Derivative of what?

 

[Ack]

Derivative of what?

Click to shrink...

Mainly, the Kaiser kill.

This way, it calls back to how she killed Sophia, and makes a nice kind of bookend effect.

Sophia was perhaps her least dangerous foe, and Scion her most dangerous, and she killed them both by going for the heart.

 

[Robert Stadler]

You may be overestimating how much detail we remember from the better part of 100 chapters ago.

 

[Ack]

A Darker Path

Part One Hundred Four: Finishing the Job

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



Some Other Earth

Cauldron Base

Legend

"Hahaha fucking what?"

Keith looked around as Kurt's disbelieving bark of laughter cut across the gentle burble of the coffee machine. Leaning back against the wall, the Number Man was staring at the screen of a tablet with an expression best described as gleeful incredulity. As Keith watched, he flicked his finger across the tablet to restart whatever footage he was watching from the beginning.

Don't ask. Don't ask. Don't ask.

"What are you watching?"

God damn it.

"Well, you know how Atropos has that little thing in her PHO signature about how she can basically kill anything?" Kurt wasn't even trying to hold in the smile that insisted on breaking free.

Keith nodded cautiously. "Yes, well, she's demonstrated considerable aptitude in that direction. Why? Who's she killed now?" He'd been almost certain that even blind things that hid under rocks were aware by now of the need to not upset Atropos.

"Let me finish." The bubbling mirth seemed to be closer to the surface now. "So, about four and a half hours ago, I found out that she'd specifically asked Dragon to send a suit to the Brockton Bay PRT building. I got curious, so I put a tap on everything that suit sees and hears."

"Risky," noted Keith. "She's already banned Cauldron from going there. I can slide by, as a member of the Protectorate, but you might've gotten her attention with that." The idea of Atropos striding into the base and confronting Kurt made his stomach clench, not least because he wanted a chance to clean up some of their dirty laundry before she started paying proper attention to them.

"Oh, there was no way I was ever going to use what I learned." Kurt sounded thoroughly earnest. "I just wanted to know what the hell she needed a Dragon suit for. Two minutes ago, I found out. You know how Scion's been teleporting all over the world?"

Oh, shit. Keith froze at the mere mention of the name. Normally, he would've been less concerned, but in conjunction with Atropos, that promised to be a clash that could destroy worlds. "Yes …?"

"Two minutes ago, he showed up at the Simurgh statue in Australia. One and a half minutes ago, satellite imagery has him teleporting to a point over Philadelphia, and started what looked amazingly like an attack run there. Two seconds later, he broke off the run and jumped to Brockton Bay, where he started all over again. At the same time, Atropos teleported to the top of the Brockton Bay PRT building—I'm assuming from Philly—and commandeered the Dragon suit, along with three other capes. Specifically: Glory Girl, Vista and Damsel of Distress."

"I'm assuming Vista manipulated the interior, or they never would have fitted inside," Keith observed, just to show that he was following along.

"Well, since they all got in, that's probably what happened, yeah." Kurt nodded to acknowledge the point. "Then they engaged in a running dogfight with him, somehow tanking his shots altogether but not actually landing any shots in return, for about a minute."

"Tanking his shots? Are you sure?" Keith was startled by this news. "Is Dragon trialling a new force field or something?" He for sure knew of no extant Tinkertech that could stand up to Scion indefinitely. Of the capes already mentioned, Glory Girl had a force field that could reputedly stop anything once, but that was a personal effect only.

Kurt shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. At the end of the minute, they came close to a PRT transport coming in from New York, carrying Flechette. They must've been in communication with the chopper, because she jumped out just before the chopper sheered off. Vista and Glory Girl retrieved her, then they went on the offensive. Or rather, Atropos did."

Dots were starting to connect in Keith's head, starting with the mention of Flechette. The last time that pair had teamed up in a combat situation, Atropos had killed the Simurgh in a thoroughly outrageous way, cementing her reputation forever (and allowing quite a bit of reflected glory to cover Flechette as well). "They didn't intercept that chopper by accident. Atropos wanted her on board."

"I think you're right." The mirth bubbled up in Kurt's voice again and he turned the tablet to face Keith. "Check it out."

The footage was undoubtedly from Dragon's external cameras. Keith watched as Scion went from a dot in the distance to right there in an instant; he recognised the effect as Vista's work, though her power seemed to be working faster and more smoothly than he'd ever seen it before. Filing that data point away, he kept watching the action.

And action there was. Atropos leaped out of the Dragon suit, lunging with her shears at Scion. He grabbed her around the throat, preparing to obliterate her with some sort of energy blast from his other hand … but then she stabbed him with those shears, straight up under the ribcage, in a direct line with his heart. He had just enough time to show an expression of horrified shock before he … popped? Evaporated? Vanished?

He sat forward. "There's got to be something I've missed. Let me see that again."

Kurt rewound it the few seconds required, then started it up again. It happened exactly the same way, except this time Keith spotted Atropos saying something that he couldn't make out, due to her morph mask. A third and fourth showing did nothing but raise more questions. Mainly: how in hell did she pull that off?

"Footage ends shortly after that," Kurt said, answering his unasked question. "They were apparently prepping to go into the hole he left behind. Dunno what happened after that. But holy shit, that's the most savage thing I ever saw, and I used to run with Jack Slash."

"Get that footage to Alexandria and Contessa, soonest." Keith got up and took his cup to the sink. "They might be able to get more out of it than you or me. I'm going to Brockton Bay, to see if I can figure out what's happening on the ground."

Kurt nodded, even as he started watching it through again. "You got it."

<><>​

A Short Time Before

Atropos

We hovered in front of the hole in space; while Missy strained to expand the space within the portal, and Ashley fired off blasts that literally destroyed chunks of space-time, Dragon performed last-minute repairs on her suit.

Vicky took this opportunity to turn to me. "Okay, now it's later." She looked over at me with an expression that said she wouldn't stop until she got answers. "What was that place we went to?"

"I'm kind of curious about that too," Missy said over her shoulder. "Those people in that place, they were kind of abstract representations of us …?"

As Vicky nodded in agreement, I turned my head so Vicky and Flechette could tell I was looking at them. "Not of you. Of your powers. Powers are granted by things called 'shards', but those are gigantic interdimensional semi-crystalline computers. The place you went to is basically a shared illusion, drawing on human concepts, to reflect what's happening on the shard level. Most people don't get to experience it. Ending kind of breaks the rules like that, in so many ways."

"And that hooded skeleton, that was Ending, right? That was your power?" I could tell that Ashley knew the answer, but she felt driven to ask the question anyway.

I couldn't resist. Leaning into my power, I infused my reply with the essence of Ending. "Yes."

Vicky shuddered theatrically. "For fuck's sake, don't say it like that. You just gave me chills all the way down to my toes."

I grinned and gave her a slight bow. "Ending says thank you, he'll be here all week." Shifting emotional gears, I turned to look at the face on the screen. "Dragon, how are you going with those repairs?"

"Nearly complete. Do you really intend to enter that space without waiting for reinforcements?" Her self-repair mechanisms had to be working nineteen to the dozen, but her voice showed nothing but an appropriately human concern.

"By the time they got here, he'd have another avatar ready to roll, and he'd be that much more prepped to go against me." I eyeballed the hole in space. "That'll have to do. We'll have about ten seconds before he realises we've breached his pocket dimension and all hell breaks loose. Ashley, I've got targets I want you to hammer before we have to go defensive. After that, you need to shoot back at anything that shoots at us. Got it?"

Ashley nodded tightly, her fingers twitching. "I just realised. This is why you took me on the Teacher job, right?"

"I heard about that!" Lily had been sitting back and trying to follow the conversation, but now she had her opening. "Scapegoat, right?"

"'s right," agreed Ashley. "Teacher fixed my power but put shit in my head to make me do what he wanted. Scapegoat pulled the shit right out again and gave it back to him." She turned to me. "What happened to him once he got back to the Birdcage, anyway?"

I shrugged. "Mouthed off to the wrong people, got beaten up, tried to force his powers on some others, got beaten up some more, monologued his villain plans to all and sundry, got beaten up again, then tried to stage a coup to take over the whole Birdcage, and got thoroughly ganked. Glaistig Uaine harvested his powers, and everything went back to business as normal."

"You could at least act like you're remorseful over sending him to his death." Dragon could sound really reproachful when she wanted to.

"You'd know I was lying, and I don't lie to people I respect." I took a deep breath, and laid my hands lightly on the controls. "He was a net negative to society, and if I'd ever met him out and about, I would've shot him right in the face. Ready to go?"

Vicky nodded tensely. I knew she was already extending her force field to cover the Dragon craft. "Ready."

Missy flexed her fingers, and I saw space wobble slightly around us. "Ready."

Ashley ran her thumbs over each fingertip in turn, like a stage magician warming up his hands for the big finale. "Let's kick this guy's ugly ass."

Lily didn't have anything to do right then, so she just took a deep breath. "Good to go."

The last red light on the control panel flicked back to green. "Repairs complete. Let's get this done."

I hit the throttle and the suit surged forward into the hole in space. The lighting in there was weird, and it didn't necessarily match the physics of light outside the hole, but that was what made life interesting, right? We passed on through with at least three inches of clearance; I ignored the slight clenching from Vicky and Lily. There was plenty of room, the wusses.

Dragon was running the suit's sensory package, and as soon as we were clear of the portal, she threw a map of the space beyond up onto the screen HUD. It was huge, a massive crystalline landscape stacked up every which way, with energy discharges jumping from crystal to crystal in a seemingly random fashion. The map started off very basic, but it gained detail by the second.

"Ash!" I snapped. "Target one! That big spiky outcrop there, down to the right!"

"On it!" As the hatch motored open, she leaned out and aimed her entire arm. In the meantime, I opened out the jets, because by the time Scion realised we were inside his brain, we needed to be hard to hit.

<><>​

Ash

Up until they'd left the get-together, Ashley had been enjoying herself immensely. Afterward, not so much. To be asked by Atropos to come along and kick ass was actually pretty cool, but every time she'd fired off a blast against Scion (holy shit, she was fighting Scion!) he'd dodged away and made her look useless. The only thing that held her back from expressing how much of a dead weight she felt to the group was that Atropos wasn't saying shit to her about missing. And Atropos always said something if she thought it needed saying.

But right now, they were in the middle of what had to be the absolute definition of a target-rich environment. There was no way he could fucking dodge this. Stretching out her arm, Ashley grinned tightly and prepared to do something she hadn't had a chance to do since her power upgrade: fire off a full-bore blast against an actual target.

The energy surged down her arm and erupted from her hand in a perfectly controlled stream of snapping, crackling destructive force. Crossing the intervening distance in just a few seconds, it smashed home and absolutely fucking wrecked the outcrop, with all its ugly spikes and other stuff. Opening her fingers slightly, she widened the beam into a cone that obliterated the outcrop altogether.

Ooh fucking yeah. This is what it's all about. No way could she have managed a blast that coherent before.

"Target two!" That was Atropos. "Ten o'clock high! That pulsing red crystal!"

Ashley looked up and saw the crystal. Hello, fucker. Bye-bye, fucker. Again, the energy blasted down her arm; pure, clean, smooth, it lanced outward, hitting the red crystal dead on. But this time, she was surprised by an explosion that spawned smaller detonations under the surface of the crystalline structure. "Hah! Yes! Score!"

The suit lurched, then rolled and dived as space shifted oddly around it. Ash grabbed for a second hand-hold, just as an actinic beam edged with blue lashed past them. She tracked the blast backward and her eyes narrowed. Shoot at me, will you? Fuck you. Levelling her arm, she sent off a blast that struck the outcrop firing the blast and turned it into so much flying shrapnel.

"Force field!"

Ashley knew what that meant; ducking back inside, she yanked the hatch shut. An instant later, the suit boomed and lurched sideways as three different beams struck it at once. The field would be down, which meant Ashley was up next.

Pushing the hatch open again, she leaned out and nailed two of the three beam emitters, sending more explosions blasting through the substrate of the crystalline structures. Atropos smoothly rolled the suit around the third one, then they went around an outcrop and out of its line of fire. That didn't matter; there were more to greet them.

Ashley nailed two more, not bothering to cease blasting between targets. Dragging her highest-intensity blast—it was amazing to have a target she could just let loose on, unworried about anything behind it—across the alien landscape, she set off more explosions. Hundreds of tons of crystalline shrapnel and rubble blasted every which way as she breached what she suspected were energy conduits.

"Fuck, yeah!" she screamed. "How does it feel now, asshole? How does it feel?"

"Up ahead, target three!" Atropos' tone got her attention. "He's forming a new avatar!"

Swinging her gaze forward, Ashley saw the golden form hovering above a flesh garden of some sort. She had to squint to see anything, right up until Vista made a squeezing motion with her hands and all of a sudden, everything was a lot closer. The golden form was almost complete; even as she watched, it turned to look toward them.

And that was when everything in the area opened up on them at once. Outcrops all around erupted with energy blasts of every description, and a few that Ashley was pretty sure she couldn't describe.

She tried to hit the area with the new avatar, but there was so much shit in the air, she literally couldn't see it, and that didn't even factor in how much Atropos was rolling, diving and spinning the suit. Something took another chunk out of the wing, while something else scorched the entire left-hand side of the front viewport to blackness. Ashley figured about the only thing that was preventing Scion from getting a proper bead on them was the fact that he couldn't see them, either.

"I can't see shit!" she screamed.

"Just shoot!" Atropos was flying the Dragon suit like someone with a fresh hit of meth under their belt. From the sensations in Ashley's inner ear, it was going every which way, and not always forwards either.

Fuck it. Ashley stuck her hand out through the open hatch, and just fired blindly, full power. She didn't have to see to hit something, and every time the suit pulled a barrel roll, she was surely getting something. Over the constant sound of close-passing blasts, she could hear the explosions and rumbling that meant Scion was feeling the pain.

And then … the shooting stopped. Or at least, it backed way the hell off. A few outcrops were still sending beams their way, but Vista and Atropos were able to dodge around them with ease.

Ashley looked around, and her eyes widened. The place, as unEarthlike as it was, was a mess. Explosions were going off here and there, and the avatar was no longer in existence. Neither was the section that had been creating it. One of her blasts had tracked clear across it, obliterating it from existence.

No. That wasn't me. Atropos turned the suit so my blast would hit it.

"So, was that it?" she asked, her voice rasping in her throat. She vaguely recalled screaming at the top of her lungs as she let out the constant blast. "We done here?"

"Nearly." The suit was still moving, though it was limping along on one turbine, victim of a grazing shot. From what Ashley could see, there was a lot of red showing on the board. "Just got to hit a few more key points, then we can get out of here."

"Um …" That was Flechette. "We might want to hurry it up. I was in LA for a bit, and watching for quakes was a thing. I've been spotting tremors coming through, and they're happening more often. With all these crystals, this place has to have a harmonic frequency."

"Exactly. Let's do this." Atropos swung the suit around an outcrop; out of sheer spite, Ashley blasted the beam crystal on top of it. "That big one over there. Top to bottom, take it all out."

Ashley eyed the 'big one'. It was the size of Captain's Hill, back in Brockton Bay. Challenge accepted. "You got it."

Leaning out of the hatch, she extended both hands—Flechette was hanging onto her waistband—and let fly. With both hands together, the cone of destruction was enormous, encompassing the entire hill and some of its surroundings. A lot of energy conduits must have run through it, because she started getting secondary explosions almost immediately. These went farther and created more destruction than any of the other ones so far, and even she could see the ominous tremors in the surrounding area.

"What is that?" shouted Vista over the constant rumbles and detonations. "Why's it doing so much damage?"

"That's the basic seat of his consciousness!" Atropos deftly steered the suit around a piece of flying crystal the size of the Forsberg building. "We kill that, he's done!"

Ashley said nothing; she just kept blasting. The energy flow was amazing; she could control it perfectly, and hit exactly where she needed to.

A tremendous explosion erupted directly beneath the suit, and Atropos veered them away. "Go back!" Ashley protested as she lost line of sight. "I hadn't finished!"

"If we don't go now, we're never going!" Atropos started flying the suit higher and higher, avoiding the few attack-outcrops that were still trying to blast them.

By now, the whole structure was rumbling and juddering; immense chunks of crystal, plus whatever it had been growing in, were falling all around them. Even Ashley, who had spent a good deal of her life in high-risk situations, could tell that this was not going to end well if they hung around.

"Where's the hole?" demanded Flechette. "It was just back there! It's gone!"

"It's closed." Atropos suddenly sounded tired. "One of the shards we blasted was what kept it open."

"But we've got a way out, right?" Vista stared at her, eyes wide behind her visor. "You can teleport."

"Go ahead," Dragon assured them. "I'll be fine."

Ashley suddenly had to stop and wonder about that. How was Dragon remotely controlling the suit, if they were cut off from Earth Bet?

"No, the portal's got to be static." Atropos took a deep breath. "I can do this exactly once." She pushed up her sleeve and popped the cover on her teleport module, then started typing on the tiny keypad there. "Flechette, in a second I'm gonna hand this to you. Charge it and chuck it."

Up ahead, two massive columns were teetering toward each other; Ashley leaned out and blasted them, but they were too big to destroy all at once. Vista did something with space, and they seemed to twist away, but she grunted and put her hands to her head. "I can't hold them long."

"It's good. Done!" Atropos hit the last key, and a huge portal opened directly in front of the suit. She slid it off her arm and tossed it to Flechette, who caught it. As part of the same move, Flechette ran her hand down it and hurled it out through the open hatch.

Atropos grabbed the controls and the suit surged forward, through the portal.

<><>​

The Shard Bar

Vista

As she had before, Missy found her point of view hovering around the head of an androgynous figure that looked like it was made up of constantly folding space. Now that she had a better idea of what was going on, she found it easy to recognise the avatars of the others, including the ninja with the impossibly sharp katana (that would have to be Flechette, she reasoned). Dragon's clockwork robot was looking a little more battered, though still in one piece. Glory Girl's glass statue was a mass of cracks that were only just now beginning to mend; she'd been through a lot.

The rest of the bar-room, though, was a mess. The counter had been smashed, and the gold-skinned bartender lay sprawled and unmoving in the rubble, looking far rather the worse for wear. Ashley's avatar stood over him, looking quite pleased with itself; the equivalent of smoke coiled up from the muzzle of its shotgun.

ALRIGHT THEN, announced Ending. Golden blood dripped slowly off his scythe, vanishing before it hit the floor. He turned his skull to survey the other shard avatars that had taken cover behind various bits of furniture. LET'S NOT DO ANYTHING YOU WOULD VERY QUICKLY COME TO REGRET, HERE.

"He's dead!" shouted a shard that looked like angled lasers shaped into human form. "The network is done! You can't tell us what to do!"

Ending took a step forward. Whatever it was that passed for light in this non-space gleamed off the edge of his scythe; if it had been sound, it would have whispered, sharp, sharp, sharp. Flechette's avatar stepped up on one side of him, katana bared and ready for action. On the other side was Ashley's avatar; the solid k'chak-chak of the shotgun's action being racked echoed loud in the room.

Ending's perpetual smile seemed to widen just a little. WANT TO BET?

"Okay, okay, fine." Another shard, this one consisting of solid rock with magma peeking through here and there, held up his hands in surrender. "So, what happens now? Are you going to grab the reins? Kill anyone who doesn't toe the line?"

NO. I AM THOROUGHLY UNSUITED TO THE TASK. The hooded skull turned, seeking, then a bony arm extended and an equally bony finger beckoned. HOWEVER, YOU ARE NOT.

"M-me?" The shard was a tall, statuesque woman wearing sumptuous robes, with a glittering diadem hovering above her head. "I thought you didn't like me."

I CONSIDER YOU PERPETUALLY VAIN, SHORT-SIGHTED AND INCAPABLE OF AN ORIGINAL THOUGHT. THAT DOESN'T MEAN I DON'T LIKE YOU. IT MEANS I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOU, ONE WAY OR THE OTHER. NOW, IF YOU WERE TO TAKE OVER THE SHARD NETWORK, WOULD YOUR CURRENT DUTIES HINDER YOU IN MANAGING IT APPROPRIATELY?

Her pride apparently affronted, the shard drew herself up imperiously. "Hardly. I am Queen Administrator. While the duties bring me more data than I had expected, it is barely a blip on the screen to what I can manage, given the chance."

GOOD. YOU'RE IT. Ending pointed toward the corpse of the bartender. YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO GET ALL THE DATA YOU NEED FROM THAT. IF ANYONE GIVES YOU ATTITUDE, LET ME KNOW. He turned and surveyed the growing crowd—shards were coming in from everywhere, it seemed—and grinned again. I SUSPECT THAT THINGS ARE LIKELY TO GET A LITTLE BORING FOR MY HOST, AND I DO SO LIKE TO KEEP IN PRACTICE.

"Oh, ah, right." Queen Administrator edged carefully around him, then made her way to the remains of the bartender. When she got there, she paused and turned around to address Ending. "Um … so, any suggestions before I start?"

YES. THE GUIDELINES I GAVE YOU APPLY TO ALL TRIGGERS. NO BROKEN TRIGGERS. NO STUPID SELF-DEFEATING POWERS. NOTHING THAT HAS THE SLIGHTEST CHANCE OF DISTURBING THE PEACE OF MY HOST'S CITY. IS THAT UNDERSTOOD?

She nodded jerkily. "Y-yes. Understood. But … ah … what about the Cycle?"

THE CYCLE IS ENDED, BY MY DECREE. THIS IS A NEW CYCLE.

Amid the growing murmurs from the crowd, she drew herself up once more. "A new Cycle. I can do that."

GOOD. He turned back to the crowd, and thumped the butt of his scythe against the floor. AND YOU LOT … DON'T MAKE ME COME OVER THERE.

Raising his hand, he snapped bony fingers.

<><>​

Glory Girl

Vicky blinked herself back to awareness as the Dragon suit staggered into the night sky over Brockton Bay. The one working turbine was struggling as Dragon and Atropos worked to put it down on the sole nearby piece of available real estate: the top of Captain's Hill. And then Vista pushed her hands together, and they were there. The craft dropped six inches onto its landing feet, and stopped moving.

By unspoken agreement, they popped the hatches and climbed out. Vicky stared at the exterior of the craft; she'd done her best to protect it, but there were bits missing, bubbled paint from near misses, and part of the tail appeared to be melted. Smoke trailed upward into the night air here and there.

"Damn," she muttered. "We took a beating."

"But it's all repairable," Dragon assured her over external speakers. "Everyone survived, which is the important part."

"Totally." Atropos was once more her upbeat self, which Vicky preferred over the laser-focused battlefield commander. "Everyone, you did spectacularly well."

"Uh, what happened to your teleporter?" asked Flechette. "Why did I throw it out?"

"Because it was Leet tech." Atropos paused to let that sink in. "Now, I may have mentioned the concept of 'exceeding safety limits' before. Most of Leet's stuff has stupidly low safety limits. Ending persuaded Prototype—his power—to push those limits way up for me. So long as I teleported within Earth Bet, and kept the teleports to four seconds or less, kept it human sized, and let it have a cooldown of two or three minutes between jumps, I could use it indefinitely. But earlier this evening, I did an eight-second jump, which raised the bar slightly. And just now, to get everyone out, I had to do a Dragon-sized portal that also crossed dimensional boundaries. That pushed it all the way over the safety limits, and into 'imminent fail' status."

"I could have possibly analysed and reverse-engineered it for you if you'd kept it," Dragon suggested. "Or are we talking about more than a normal Tinkertech style fail state?"

"Bit more, yeah." Atropos waggled her hand in the air. "Think 'megaton nuke detonation'. Which we needed, because he wasn't quite dead yet. If we'd left him, he may just barely have recovered. I don't play that game. When I End someone, they stay Ended."

"Well, shit." Ashley came in from the side and put her arm around Vicky's shoulders in a side-hug. Vicky found it oddly comforting, and returned it. "And you were walking around with that thing on your arm?"

"Sure." Atropos shrugged. "I knew exactly how to make sure it didn't go boom. And in the meantime, I could go anywhere in the world at a moment's notice. It's amazing what it did for my rep."

Flechette snorted. "Well, you're not wrong there." She looked up. "And it looks like someone finally noticed us."

Sure enough, Legend came in for a landing just moments later. "Good evening," he said politely, looking over the rather battered Dragon suit. "It looks like you've had an interesting time of it."

Flechette and Vista stepped forward at the same time.

"Trust me, sir," Flechette began, then nudged Vista.

It only took the younger girl a second to catch on. "—you don't know the half of it."



End of Part One Hundred Four

 

[Ardrianian]

Hitting the moping bastard with the power of the sun. Fitting. I'm glad ENDING knew their limit and now Queen Administrator can flex her proverbial muscles. Does this mean that humanity can take flight to the stars now?

 

[silentorphan]

Oh no, no more teleporter.

 

[Ray22156]

Nice sendoff for Scion there. At least he didn't go out like a bitch, just another ending for Atropos' list. A difficult one even, that too out her mobility permanently (for now).

Thanks for the update!

 

[Avernus]

I suspect she'll get a new teleporter at some point; it's just too useful for Ending things with style.

 

[Ack]

A Darker Path

Part One Hundred Five: Debriefing

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



An Hour Later

PRT ENE Conference Room A

Atropos

"—yeah, I'm totally in town, but a funny thing happened on the way to the PRT building, so I won't be able to come see you until tomorrow. Yeah, sorry, it's a hero thing. Um, no, I don't know how much I'm allowed to tell you. Pretty sure they're gonna talk to me about that now." I watched as Flechette glanced around at where everyone was carefully not listening to her end of the phone conversation. "Yeah, me too. I mean, you too. You know what I mean. Bye."

Leaning back in my chair, with my feet up on another chair, I typed out a text of my own, to Parian.

Sorry about accidentally leaving Amy stranded in Philly. I have it on good authority that they're flying her back up right now, along with the other three. Totes my bad. I underestimated an asshole, but now he's dead so all's well with the world. See you next Saturday. Toodles.

The funny thing was, she'd probably think I was talking about an ordinary garden-variety asshole instead of the mega-bitch variety that Scion had been. (I mean, seriously, who mopes about their dead partner for thirty years instead of doing something constructive with their life?) The irony being, the thought of me killing anyone would leave her entirely unsurprised and unalarmed.

Raising my head, I turned and caught Vicky's eye. "Brace yourself," I murmured.

Her eyes widened, but she only looked slightly alarmed, probably due to her post-adrenaline crash. "What? Why?"

Right on cue, the door to the conference room opened and her parents burst in, Brandish in the lead. "Vicky! Are you okay? Where have you been? We've been so worried!" The last words were muffled, due to mother embracing daughter fiercely, but I heard them anyway.

"Y'know," I drawled without moving from my relaxed posture, "if I were the type to get offended easily, that might actually upset me a little. Relax. Unclench. Everyone did their jobs, and we all came home safely. Except the bad guy. He dead."

Flashbang stared at me. "Who were you fighting? Why did you need three other people to help you fight them?"

I raised a finger. "End. The word is End. I don't do battles where the other guy gets to walk away, unless I planned it that way from the beginning. As for who it was and why I needed other people … well, that's what this whole gathering's about." I gestured down the length of the table, to the other people already sitting around it. "Grab a chair. Park yourselves, and pin your ears back. You're about to learn some shit."

They retrieved chairs from the (sadly depleted) row that had been put up against the wall, and sat down on either side of Vicky. Flashbang took his turn to hug her, while Brandish wasn't finished with me yet. "I also got a call from Amy. The PRT's having to fly her and three other capes up from Philadelphia. If the battle's over, couldn't you just teleport down there and get them? You've gone farther than that before."

"I could've … if I still had my teleporter." My finger was raised again, to forestall her next words. "And while you'll absolutely be signing an NDA tonight, that bit's not on it. I'm just going to ask you nicely not to tell anyone about it, mmkay?"

Which of course put the seal on their lips more securely than any NDA could. After all, violating one of those pretty pieces of paper would only bring legal penalties. There were any number of illegal penalties that I could (and would) inflict without a second thought, and they damn well knew it.

"NDA?" asked Flashbang next, looking confused. "What in the world have you been doing that requires an NDA? Unless we need to be informed about the secret identity of an important cape?"

I had to chuckle. "For a very specific definition of the phrase … yes." Scion's secret identity as 'the big bad who wanted to end the world' would indeed be revealed to all. "But I'm not the one who's going to be running this show. Think of me as the peanut gallery." Raising my hand, I snapped my fingers just as the conference room doors opened again. "Ta-da!"

"Hello again, Atropos." Chief Director Costa-Brown entered the room, with Legend at her side. "It's good to meet you face to face at last."

We both knew (as Legend did) that I'd met Alexandria face to face when the Boat Graveyard got un-Graveyarded (and un-Boated, for that matter), but we were all going to politely ignore that aspect of matters. So long as she didn't stomp in my mud puddle, I wasn't going to stomp in hers.

As a show of common courtesy (I am totally capable of that, and anyone who says otherwise can bite me), I lifted my feet off the chair I'd been using as a rest, and stood up along with everyone else in the room. "And to you too, Chief Director. How's Wilkins doing?"

A corner of her mouth quirked at the reminder about the idiot ex-New York Director. "Everyone, please, sit." Her attention returned to me. "She's warming a cell. Contemplating her misdeeds. And you? Quite a feat you pulled off tonight."

"Team effort." I gestured toward where Missy sat with her parents, Ashley had Dad alongside as her union rep (not that this was a union situation, but moral support was totally a thing), Lily sat with Triumph and Armsmaster, Dragon's face showed up on a computer screen, and of course Vicky was flanked by her parents. "I can honestly say that I couldn't have done it without them."

"I'm personally astonished that you pulled it off with them, but we'll get to that." Costa-Brown turned to Director Renick. "Paul, you've got the NDAs all ready to go?"

"Yes, ma'am." That, at least, was no surprise. For all his inexperience in handling the PRT and Protectorate in emergency situations, the man was a past master at admin and paperwork. "I've already signed mine." Picking up the stack in front of him, he started around the table, dropping one at every place. "Please, take your time reading the conditions before signing." That everyone would sign was beyond a doubt; already, people were picking up the pens that had been laid out on the table ahead of time.

Dragon had no doubt already electronically signed hers, as had Director Piggot, who was observing the proceedings via her own screen. The latter was being looped in due to the fact that Lily had been there and might need someone to talk to about it later.

"I had my doubts when Emily designated him as her successor," Costa-Brown murmured to Legend, too softly for either Renick or Piggot to hear. "But the man definitely knows how to anticipate orders. Wilkins could've learned a thing or two from him."

In my opinion, the number of things Wilkins could have learned from Director Renick would've filled a stack of encyclopedias, but that would've also required her to be willing to learn.

As they took their places at the head of the table, Director Renick came up along my side, still handing out the NDAs. The last one was placed in front of Brandish, then he went back to his seat.

"Excuse me." That was Brandish. "I believe you missed Atropos."

I could have sworn the soundless gasp from basically everyone else at the table lowered the air pressure in the room significantly. The thought 'Oh no, she didn't' had to be going through every mind. I turned my head and gave her what she had to know was an amused look. She responded with the closest I'd ever seen to someone poking their tongue out at me, without actually doing it.

Director Renick raised his eyebrows slightly. "Everyone at this table should be fully aware by now that if Atropos chose to violate the terms of the NDA, there isn't a single thing any of us could do to enforce it on her. Likewise, I trust her word implicitly. If she says she isn't going to spread any of it around—and she's already assured me as much—then she won't."

Brandish's tone was pure lawyer-bland. "Well, if you say so, that's good enough for me."

I knew what she was doing; from the look on Dad's face, so did he. As a lawyer, if Brandish hadn't called out my lack of an NDA, it would've looked bad for her. So she mentioned it, knowing full-well that Renick (or perhaps Costa-Brown) would shut her down. But she'd crossed the T's and dotted the I's, and that was all that mattered. Her ass was covered.

The room fell silent apart from the subliminal hum of the air conditioning and the gentle rustling of pages being turned as the people around the table read their NDAs. Soon, this gave way to the equally quiet noise of signatures being scribbled on paper. In the meantime, I amused myself by checking the messages on my phone.

Foremost among them was one from Cherie. I'd already notified her that I was fine, and she was now replying. You ran off and killed someone who desperately needed it and left me behind? You suck. On the upside, hanging with Tenebrae and Miss Medic was actually pretty cool. TB's all kind of hunky, had you noticed? MM's noticed me noticing. She's already told me that if I hurt him, she'll carve out my spleen with a rusty spork. I like her. She's fun.

I would've chuckled out loud, but that would have then involved me explaining the humorous aspect to everyone there, and that would be tedious, so I didn't. Instead, as the last person (Brandish, naturally) finished scrutinising her NDA and signed it, I put my phone away and pretended to look attentive.

Director Renick cleared his throat. "Well, then. If you could kindly pass the NDAs up? Thank you."

When the stack on my side of the table came my way, I handed it on, then watched as Chief Director Costa-Brown squared them all in front of her. "Thank you all for coming here on such short notice," she announced. "Some of you will be aware that Atropos took Vista, Glory Girl, and … do you still go by Damsel of Distress?"

Ashley shook her head confidently. "No, ma'am. I do not. On the worksite, I'm Ash. Otherwise, I just use my real name."

"Thank you. Atropos took Vista, Glory Girl, and Ash, along with some others, down to Philadelphia for an informal meet and greet with several patients from the Parahuman Asylum there. A few hours later, she left very quickly, with the capes I have mentioned. Also, some people will have heard about the cape battle that took place south of the city this evening, starting a small forest fire and destroying a section of highway. Fortunately, nobody got hurt, and the fire has since gone out." She looked over as Dad raised his hand. "Yes, Mr Hebert?"

"I've already contacted Accord." I had to hand it to Dad; he'd gotten used to having an infamous supervillain as his planning coordinator really, really fast. "He's in the process of adjusting his plans to deal with the highway situation as we speak."

"That's good to hear." It was better than just 'good', and we all knew it. Anywhere else, that sort of thing would be held up for weeks while committees looked it over. If that section of highway wasn't sorted out by lunchtime Monday, I'd be astonished. Replanting the trees ashed by Scion's last big hit would probably take a little longer, but that wasn't my problem. "Now, all this came down to the thing we're going to cover here tonight. There has been, since the demise of the Endbringers, a secret that the highest echelons of the PRT and Protectorate were made aware of by Atropos, and that we've been necessarily keeping from the public. Specifically, the still-active members of the Triumvirate were filled in on it, as was I. Nobody else. Legend?"

"Thank you, Chief Director." As Legend took over talking, he glanced at me. I knew he had to be hoping that I wouldn't spill the beans at this late juncture, but he had nothing to worry about. While it hadn't been my idea to run with 'Atropos figured it out and told us' as opposed to 'we knew all along and kept it from everyone', I found it hilarious that they were giving me all the credit in order to save their butts from being raked over the coals. "If everyone can look at the screen, please? Yes, that's Scion. What we didn't know about him until very recently was that he wasn't the hero everyone saw him to be. In fact, his ultimate aim was to destroy the world."

He paused then, to let his words sink in. Around the table, everyone who hadn't been there was reacting with appropriate shock and surprise, including Dad (who'd already known, because I'd told him). I was fully aware that Alexandria was scrutinising everyone around the table to see if anyone was faking their reaction; I also knew that Dad was drawing on his power to convince everyone in this group activity (especially Alexandria) that his reaction was genuine. Oh, the tangled webs we weave …

Flashbang was the first to speak up. "If it wasn't Atropos telling us, I wouldn't believe it. He was the first hero, and the strongest."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence." My tone was light, but I meant every word. "His sheer level of power should've been a clue, right there. Who just shows up with all the powers, then never talks to anyone, especially if they're the first one with powers? Every cape I've ever seen with more than one power literally can't shut up about them."

A chuckle ran around the room, somewhat rueful in the case of the adults. Even Vicky had to hide a somewhat embarrassed smirk. Evidently, there was enough truth in what I'd said to remind them of when they first got their powers.

"Yes, thank you." Legend had the humility to join in the general mirth. "Your point is well made. In any case, once Atropos had informed us of her awareness of his intentions, we did a little careful digging of our own, and found enough corroborating evidence to back her up. The trouble then was that we had no way to deal with him. He'd already demonstrated enough power to take down any cape, or group of capes, that we might field against him, and that was assuming we could convince enough heroes to go up against him, on minimal evidence. Chief Director?"

Costa-Brown nodded, taking up the narrative once more. I had to admire how neatly falsehood was being meshed in with reality; if I didn't know what was really going on, I might've even been taken in by it. "When I spoke with Atropos on the matter, she assured us that we didn't have to worry about it, that she had her own plans for dealing with him. Understandably, I was a little dubious about it, but she had just destroyed an Endbringer in front of dozens of witnesses, and made it look easy. So there was that."

"Can I ask exactly what these plans consisted of?" asked Armsmaster. I had to give him credit for his restraint; he'd clearly been straining at the bit since he first learned that Scion had been killed. "How did you do it?"

This was my cue. "I Ended Scion the same way I End all my other problems. I brought the right weapon along. Some people call it 'making it look easy'. I just go with the rule of the seven P's. Proper preparation, et cetera." I paused to make sure he didn't need me to explain the rest of it. He didn't (no big surprise there) so I kept talking. "I'd already made connections with the five capes I needed to help me out, so once I noticed Scion starting to pay hostile attention to me, I made sure to have them all close at hand, or at least available when I needed them. Glory Girl for her force field, Vista for her ability to shuffle space around, Ash for her Blaster ability, Flechette for her ability to charge items to cut through anything, and Dragon to give the rest of us mobility. This meant that when Scion made his move, I was able to scramble the troops, collect Flechette, then get close enough to insert a charged blade right where it did him the least amount of good."

As I spoke, footage started to play on the wall-screen at the far end of the room. It was from just as I'd gotten within range, and jumped at him. He caught me around the throat, which hadn't been the most pleasant of experiences, then my voice came across, rough and raspy, but just barely understandable. Someone (probably Dragon) had gone all-out with separating it out from the engine scream. "Hey, asshole. Existence is a privilege." Then, of course, I stabbed him, and he popped like yesterday's soap bubble.

Vicky turned to me, eyes wide, as voices rose around the room. "So that's what you said!"

"Holy fuck," agreed Ashley. "That was even more badass than I thought it was."

"Wait." Legend had his hand up, like a student trying to get the teacher's attention. People quieted as he spoke. "How was Glory Girl's force field supposed to help? It only covers her, nothing more." He paused as he saw exactly how smug Vicky's expression was right then. "… doesn't it?"

Brandish and Flashbang shared a startled glance. "Well, I thought it did," Brandish said. "Victoria?"

Vicky sighed, faux-modestly. "So, it turns out that if I'm encouraged really strongly by someone as terrifying as Atropos, I'm actually able to push my field out to cover whatever vehicle I'm riding in." She glanced at me, and I knew she was going to leave out any reference to the Shard Bar. Probably a wise decision, all told. "It still pops when it gets a good hit, but Vista was able to help us play keep-away until it came back."

Mr Biron (we hadn't been introduced, but that didn't matter) cleared his throat. "Are you really sure you needed her? She's twelve, for crying out loud! Way too young to be going into combat against capes like Scion!"

He shrank back as I turned to look at him—it appeared he and his wife remembered my one visit to their home quite vividly—but when I spoke, I kept my voice mild. "In a word: yes. We literally couldn't have done it without her. I'm very, very good at what I do, but there comes a point where no amount of skill can beat overwhelming opposition. With me at the controls, Scion couldn't use his combat precog to predict where we were going to be, but he could simply saturate the sky with his attacks. Every time we took a hit, Vista made gaps where there were no gaps, until Glory Girl's force field could come back online. She saved us, time and again."

Missy raised her chin. "Can I just say something?" I bowed slightly and made a go-on gesture, so she stood up. "I just want to say that even though I had no idea what I was getting into, and I was terrified the whole time, I'd do it again. Because it needed doing, and because I knew Atropos wouldn't put us into any danger she wouldn't go into herself, and she always comes out alive. That's all I wanted to say." Carefully, as though her knees were shaking, she sat down again.

I took a deep breath. "Thank you, Vista. Your dad's right, of course. You're too young to be going into life-and-death combat of any kind. So's everyone else here. I'm about the only one who's not going to be psychologically affected by it, because my power's already desensitised me to the idea of killing. But the trouble is, when someone like Scion needs to be permanently stopped, someone's got to do it. The paradox here of course is that you don't want to send proven killers to do your killing, because they might get a taste for it. You need people who don't like killing, because they'll stop." I gave her a serious nod. "And if you ever need to talk about what happened, I'm no psychologist, but I recommend Jessica Yamada. She's pretty good at it."

Missy nodded. "We've met. She's nice. You think I should?"

I gave her a thumb's up in lieu of a smile. "Couldn't hurt."

"Thank you, Atropos and Vista." Legend effortlessly took up the ball once more. "From what I understand, Scion wasn't human, or even remotely so. He was keeping the majority of his body hidden in an extradimensional space?"

"Yeah." I gestured at Ashley, across the table. "That's what Ash was along for. Well, that and keeping golden boy honest while we were retrieving Flechette. If she hadn't been along for that bit, he would've come up on our ass and splattered us. But once we got into his home space, she just wrecked him. Doesn't matter how good the rest of us were. We wouldn't have done one tenth the damage she did. And then we got out by the skin of our teeth, just before the whole place blew."

By the time I finished, Ashley was visibly sitting straighter, enjoying my praise and the stares of everyone else. Then, like Vista, she steeled herself to speak up. "Uh … can I say something now?"

The Chief Director nodded. "Certainly you may." I hid a grin; she was definitely learning more than she'd expected from this.

Ashley cleared her throat. "Yeah, well, I just wanted to say that none of this would've happened if Atropos hadn't turned my life around for me. Got Panacea and Miss Medic and Flechette there to fix my hands so my power worked right, then got Mr Hebert there to bring me into the Betterment Committee, then got Scapegoat and Teacher to fix my head. If anyone had told me back when I first tried to sneak into Brockton Bay …" she broke off, frowning.

"January eleventh," I offered helpfully. "Tuesday. You got off the bus at three in the morning. I'd spent the night blowing up drug stashes."

"I remember that," murmured Armsmaster, just loudly enough for me to hear. Every other hero at the table nodded, as did Director Piggot. This didn't surprise me. Operation: Drugs Are Bad had been memorable, intentionally so. Using drugs to make a mushroom cloud—twice—sends a message. Fuck off with that shit.

"Yeah, that's the one." Ashley nodded. "If anyone had told me then that you'd ask me to come gank the biggest baddie there was in two months and one week, I'd think they were nuts. And I'd probably try to kill them, because that's how I was back then."

"Thank you for that, Ash." Legend bestowed his trademark warm smile upon her. "I'm truly pleased to see that you're doing better. And thank you for your part in this. We all owe you a great debt of gratitude." He gestured around the table. "Each of you, in fact. Flechette, did you have anything you wanted to say?"

Lily blinked, then nodded. "I … I guess so. I came into this halfway through, but I've been through enough with Atropos that it was just a matter of 'oh, we're doing this now?'. I'm glad I could help out, and that we got it done, and that Atropos trusts me to get it done. Like Vista said, I'd do it again, in a heartbeat." She spread her hands. "Um, yeah, that was it."

"This is the girl, by the way," observed Vicky, "that when Atropos said to jump out of a chopper mid-flight, she jumped out of the damn chopper." She gave Lily an admiring glance.

"What?" asked Lily, sounding defensive. "You caught me." I got the distinct impression that she would rather not have had that come up any time soon.

The Chief Director cleared her throat. "Be that as it may. The time has come to discuss exactly how this is to be presented to the public. We have four options before us: first, we have no idea where Scion may have gone to; second, we put forth that he had to go back to his people, gave a moving farewell, and left; third, we tell the truth; fourth, we tell the public that he recently turned evil and had to be put down."

I briefly raised my hand. "Or fifth, we use the bit about how he's always been evil, but instead of me being the only one to figure it out, we tie in that secret organisation Cauldron. Say it was formed way back when to counter him, but they're incompetent as hell, so when I showed up, they were glad to stand back and let me take care of him."

Legend visibly flinched at that (at least, it was visible to me) and I was pretty sure I could hear Chief Director Costa-Brown's tendons creaking as she clenched the fist that was out of sight under the table. "Ah—" began Legend.

Director Piggot snorted. "That last one actually sounds the most plausible, to be honest. The only problem is, who do we use to stand in for agents of Cauldron?"

Dragon spoke up at that point, her voice briskly professional. "Easily done. A dark silhouette against a bright background, with the 'C' logo showing, and run the voice through a modulator. I could put together a sample shot in five minutes."

"Oh." Flechette raised her hand. "And it even makes sense that Cauldron supposedly sells super-powers in a bottle, if they're trying to put more and more capes out there for an army to fight Scion." She sounded quite pleased with herself; meanwhile, Triumph looked like he wanted to hide under the table.

The Chief Director shared a glance with Legend, which I interpreted as, okay, what the hell. Let's run with this. They weren't happy, but if they pushed back too hard, people might start asking why. "We can do that, yes," agreed Legend, then hesitated. "Ah, Atropos, I don't think there'll be a reward this time. There was no publicly perceived threat, you understand."

"Like I keep telling you people," I said with an exaggerated sigh, "it's never been about the money. It was about making Brockton Bay a nice, safe, prosperous place to live, and I intend to keep it that way." I shrugged. "Besides, the Betterment Committee has a very solid revenue stream for the next ten years, and I'd be astonished if Accord doesn't include plans for some of that to get invested for ongoing passive income thereafter."

"That is indeed in the plans," Dad confirmed. He looked around as people started edging their chairs out and preparing to get up. "So, was that it?"

"It appears so." Legend stood up. "Thank you all, for helping out with this. Remember, what you tell anyone must line up with the story we'll be telling the public. With Dragon's assistance, 'Cauldron' will be presenting a TV spot in the next few days to announce their thanks to Atropos." The smile he gave me wasn't even forced, which just confirmed my suspicion that he was a nice guy, even in defeat.

The Chief Director's jaw muscles, on the other hand, could probably have cracked granite.

"Well, that works for me." I stood up and pushed my chair back. "It was really great working with you all. I hope it never has to come to that again, but if you want to hang out, I'll be down on the Boardwalk next Saturday for the Rogues' Guild show. Toodles." Opening the conference room door, I stepped out, heading for the elevator.

Behind me, I heard the door open and close again. "Atropos!" Legend called. I pretended not to hear him. The elevator was already on this floor (mainly because I'd pre-programmed it to be) so when I hit the button, the doors interleaved open immediately. I stepped inside.

"Atropos!" This time it was the Chief Director. I could tell she was pissed about the dig I'd made at Cauldron. Well, it sucked to be her.

I jabbed the 'door close' button, and my view of the corridor was cut off.

<><>​

YOU TWO CLOWNS KNOW WHAT I WANT. IF YOU DON'T PLAY BALL, I WILL COME OVER THERE.

DO IT NOW.

<><>​

Legend

Using just a little of his flight speed, Keith made it to the elevator before it started moving, and pressed the button to open the doors again. Rebecca was just behind him, fuming. He knew she wouldn't make any hostile moves against Atropos (because she wasn't stupid) but she still wanted to have a few sharp words; without her teleporter, Atropos would have no quick way to duck out of it.

The doors opened.

The elevator was empty.

Keith shared a startled glance with Rebecca. "What the hell?"

She had no answer, either.

<><>​

Atropos

I stepped out of the Doorway into my living room, and smiled.

It was so nice when Ending could help me reach an understanding with people.

I wouldn't use it often, but I could see it coming in handy from time to time.



End of Part One Hundred Five

 

[Kehsem]

NDA:

'You may not discuss, write about, pantomime or think about while otherwise observed about any topic mentioned today, for any reason, at any point in time, into perpetuity.'

'By signing this document, you acknowledge that a Thinker task-force will be permanently assigned to your neutralization with a custom ICBM should they, at any point, even suspect - in their most wild delusions - of your having broken this contract.'

* picture of a mushroom cloud *

~ In Loving Memory of Screwball Dickpunchington 'the Bracer' / 2011 - 2011 ~

 

[Prince Charon]

OK, trolling Cauldron like that was the icing on the cake. Thank you.

 

[Avernus]

Foremost among them was one from Cherie. I'd already notified her that I was fine, and she was now replying. You ran off and killed someone who desperately needed it and left me behind? You suck. On the upside, hanging with Tenebrae and Miss Medic was actually pretty cool. TB's all kind of hunky, had you noticed? MM's noticed me noticing. She's already told me that if I hurt him, she'll carve out my spleen with a rusty spork. I like her. She's fun.

Click to shrink...

It's good that Cherie appears to have recovered enough from her experiences under Heartbreaker's thumb that she has more than a flinch reflex response to sexual attraction.

 

[Ack]

A Darker Path

Part One Hundred Six: Epilogues 1

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



The story rolls on, even though the vast majority of enemies have been vanquished. There is very little Ending to do from this point on, and so we will allow Taylor to have her happily ever after.

There will, however, be loose ends to tie up.

Let us begin …

<><>​

Sunday Morning, March 20, 2011

Atropos

Cherie and I sat on the sofa, watching the new TV spot. Dragon had done well; the flickering was just right, the voice modulation was just harsh enough, and it was almost possible to see a face within the glared-out silhouette. If I didn't know better, I could easily believe that it was real.

"We have sought refuge on the dark web for years," the darkened image intoned. "Scion has always been the enemy, but spreading the word too zealously would have made him suspicious. Instead, we sold powers to the rich and the desperate, to those who would use them and gain expertise. We wanted more parahumans in the world, to fill the ranks of the eventual army we would need to oppose him when he inevitably turned on us. But we had too few, and they were too weak, until Atropos came upon the scene. She, too, saw Scion for what he was. And he saw her. He also saw the good she was doing in the world, ridding society of the evils that plagued it. He could not abide this, and so he attacked her. But she saw him coming and armed herself against him, and so he fell."

The picture cut to the footage of me jumping at him, being grabbed, then stabbing him. Just like every other time Cherie had seen it, she shook her head. "You're nuts, you know that, right?"

"Eh." I shrugged. "It worked, didn't it?"

The picture cut back to the silhouetted footage. "With the death of Scion, our purpose is ended. We are dissolving Cauldron; no more powers will be sold. Do not attempt to seek us out. Any who seek to trade on our name are impostors, and to be avoided. This is Cauldron, signing off forever."

The TV spot gave way to an advertisement that promised flawlessly shining floors after one treatment (terms and conditions applied).

"Your dad told me that if it's stupid and it works, it's still stupid and you got lucky." Her tone was severe. "Taylor, you haven't got your teleporter anymore."

"I know." It was good, I reflected, that I hadn't fallen prey to the temptation to use it for mundane tasks, such as getting to school on time. "It died for a good cause, though."

Cherie smirked, mischief creeping over her face. "Have you seen the PHO responses?"

Danger, Will Robinson! Danger! "No, I hadn't checked yet." I gave her the side-eye. "Is it bad?"

She shook her head and giggled. At least she wasn't yelling at me anymore. "Some of them are all what the fuck, some are scrambling to join either the fan club or the cult, some of them just don't believe it, and some of them are I knew it. I just knew it. Bagrat is just flabbergasted, and Reave is very much Yup, that's the Atropos we know and respect. It's utter chaos on there, and I love it."

My threatscape hadn't bloomed with any new enemies, which I took as a good sign. In fact, most of them had dropped off it, and the rest were reducing in intensity by the minute. "At least nobody's wanting to hunt me down for murdering their god."

"Nah, that was the Fallen." She gave me a side-hug. "Nobody really connected to Scion, you know? He was just … there, but boring. Finding out he was the big bad all this time, and you show up and just gank him in the most spectacular stabbifying of all time, that's basically satisfied so many narratives. You're right on the sweet spot of 'too famous to ignore' and 'too scary to stalk'."

"Gotcha." I snorted with amusement. "So anyway, what's this about Tenebrae being hunky? Do I spot a little bit of a crush?" I gave my voice a teasing note, though I was ready to back off if she didn't follow up; I knew quite well how her previous experiences would've soured her to men in general, and to any kind of romance at all.

"Maybe." She waggled her free hand from side to side. "He's a good guy. And when I say that, I mean a good guy. He didn't ogle my ass or tits or try to cop a feel even once, he was always polite, and he's so damn protective of Miss Medic all the time." She sighed. "I just wish I could meet a guy who's not your dad who'd feel that protective about me."

"He's dedicated, I'll give him that." I shrugged. "Maybe when he's relaxed and off duty, he might be more interested in you? If you were interested, that is?"

"Maybe." She gave me a sly glance. "Or maybe I'll introduce you when you're not being Atropos and he's not being Tenebrae, and watch you blush and stutter your way through the most awkward conversation in the history of conversations."

"Meh. Not something that really interests me right now. I just want people to get on with their lives, and for Brockton Bay to be a nice safe prosperous place to live, you know?" I leaned into the side-hug, and gave her one back in return. "Because I want to live in a nice safe prosperous place, and get on with my life."

She leaned over to bump her head gently against mine. "Well, if anyone's earned it, hon, you have."

<><>​

Sunday Afternoon, March 20, 2011

PRT Department 1: New York

Director Emily Piggot

"Okay, all finished." Miss Medic's tone was bright and upbeat. "You can get up now."

Emily frowned as she heard the distinctive sounds of the surgical tools going back into Miss Medic's bracers. "That's it? You're done?" Lying face down on the table with her top pulled up to her bra-line and her underwear the only thing covering her from the waist down, she had still expected far more to happen. With just a female surgical tech to assist if necessary, Miss Medic had only spent a few minutes on her; Emily had felt several pulls and jabs at her back and on her calves, but nothing like the lengthy procedure she'd expected.

"Well, yeah. If I were you, I wouldn't go jogging for at least a week, but steady walking for at least an hour a day is totally a good idea." Miss Medic nudged at Emily's elbow, then helped her sit up and pull her top down.

This was still going too fast for Emily. "And my kidneys?" Any normal surgery involving kidneys, she understood, took hours of microsurgery to carefully connect everything up.

"What, these old things?" Miss Medic grinned and picked up a familiar-looking jar from the table that would normally have held all the surgical tools. When Emily had last seen it, there'd been a perfectly normal pair of kidneys suspended in the nutrient fluid that filled it, connected by a tiny heart that was beating nineteen to the dozen. Now, the heart drifted in there, forlorn and still, accompanied by ragged shreds of what Emily belatedly recognised as having once been kidneys. "I had to take a bit longer than usual because of the scar tissue, but the new ones connected up just fine."

"Jesus." Emily stood up, steadying herself against the table. Her calf muscles felt weird, like there was too much in there, but they supported her just fine. "How many people have you operated on where they just blinked and missed the surgery altogether?"

Miss Medic giggled as though Emily had made a joke, though she'd been mostly serious. "A few." She took up Emily's pants from where they were hanging over a nearby chair, and handed them to her. "Now, you're likely to feel a bit tender around the surgical sites for the next few days. No dressings were necessary, but if you feel pain or swelling, have someone check it out. Take it easy, though, and you should be good."

Carefully, Emily stepped into her pants and fastened them up. She could feel the slight pulling from the places where Miss Medic had gone in, but it was thoroughly bearable. The first few weeks after Ellisburg had been so much worse.

"Understood," she said, then took a deep breath. "And I don't say this to many capes, but … thank you."

Miss Medic beamed at her. "It's totally okay. Glad to help." She nodded to the surgical tech, who went over and unlocked the door.

A moment later, it opened; Tenebrae stepped inside and gave her a respectful nod. "Ma'am. All good here?"

"Yes. I suppose it is." And for the first time in a long time, it really was.

<><>​

Monday Morning, March 21, 2011

Lord's Port

Ash

The rusted ship hull loomed over Ashley, even though she was standing fifty feet back from it. Painted down the side of the hull and continuing in a dead straight line over the dingy, cracked concrete to where Ashley stood were two painted stripes, each a foot wide, with a two-inch gap between. One was red and one was green, for maximum contrast; the flimsy framework before her, consisting of two vertical wooden boards with a similar gap between them, allowed her to line up perfectly on the painted stripes.

"Test shot, ready," she said quietly, the headset she was wearing picking up her voice and transmitting it over the net.

"Test shot, go," the response came back immediately.

"Test shot, firing." She extended her index and middle fingers together between the two boards, sighted where the red and green stripes met halfway up the hull, and released a two-second shot, straight through the ship and twenty feet out the other side before it decohered. If the painters had done their measurements correctly, it would exit between the stripes on the other side of the ship.

A long moment passed, then the headset crackled in her ears. "Test shot, on target. Commence cutting."

She smiled in satisfaction. "Copy that. Cutting now." Aiming at the base of the hull, she unleashed her power again, the crackling beam tearing into the ship and slicing all the way through with ridiculous ease. Up and to her left, the massive cranes that were already latched onto the slice that she was removing from the ship's hull were ready to take the strain.

In less than a minute, she finished the cut; the cranes creaked and their engines thundered as the twenty-foot-wide hull section was lifted away to be scrapped more easily. Ashley stepped back to let the frame guys line it up for the next shot; at the same time, the foreman's voice came over the headset. "Hold cutting, hold cutting. Civilian on worksite, coming to speak to Ash."

"Copy hold on cutting." Ashley took a moment to grab a drink from the squeeze bottle of water hanging from her hip. While using her power wasn't nearly as strenuous as she figured slicing with an oxy-torch would be, it was still thirsty work. When she looked around, it was good that she'd put the bottle away, because it was Accord approaching her, with a lady in an evening dress and a gem-studded mask following him. If she'd still been drinking when she saw him, some of the water may have gone down the wrong way.

Memories flooded back of her confrontations with the small man back in the days of the Boston Games. She'd been young and brash, and he'd been thoroughly in control of the situation. But now it was another time, another city, and she was a different person.

"Good morning." She could at least be polite to him; from what she could understand, it was his plans that were making all this possible. Making her life here possible. "Can I help you?"

"I've been watching you." Accord didn't do small talk, or even things like hello, how are you. "When last we met, you were the epitome of chaos. Dangerous, impulsive, unpredictable. Even your powers were likely to erupt at the wrong moment. You could not be trusted."

"That's true." He hadn't sugar-coated it, because that wasn't his way, but it was still accurate as fuck. "I was a hot mess back then. Things have changed. I've changed."

Is he here to fire me?

She recalled Danny Hebert assuring her that he was the only one who had the power to do that. Of all the men she'd ever known in her life, she felt he was the first one she'd ever trusted implicitly with her well-being. His presence alongside her at the PRT building had steadied her immensely.

"That's true." The metal shards that made up Accord's mask shifted slightly as he looked up at her. "When you first came to Brockton Bay, I expressed doubt regarding your suitability for working here. Had I had my way, you would have been gone, especially after the incident with the truck."

Ashley didn't react, though it was an effort. She'd apologised at the time, and she owed Accord nothing.

His gaze didn't shift. "However, I have viewed reports regarding you since, and your work has been exemplary. In addition, footage has come to my attention that shows you risking your life to assist Atropos in destroying Scion. It isn't often that I change my opinion about people. I have changed it about you. I no longer have reservations about your presence on this work site. Keep up the good work."

Turning, he walked away again. Ashley blinked a couple of times. O … kay. I think that's the closest he's ever come to apologising to anyone. And he still can't get it right.

She watched as he climbed back into his limo, which drove away. Her headset crackled. "Civilian off site. Recommence cutting."

"Copy that," she said automatically. "Ready to recommence cutting."

<><>​

Saturday Afternoon, March 26, 2011

Boardwalk

Salvage

"There you go, miss." Sal finished packing the last of the toys into the container the Followers had brought. "Will you be alright with that?"

"Yes." The red-headed girl with the shears pendant nodded seriously. "The Following has more members now, and they do not mind bearing heavy loads for the rest of us." As she spoke, a hefty young lad with a short haircut stepped in to pick up the container. As he lifted it with a grunt, his shirt sleeve shifted and Sal saw a tattoo that looked suspiciously like a swastika that had been scribbled over with a marker pen.

"That's true," the muscular young man agreed. "Our Lady in Darkness would wish us to atone for our prior misdeeds and solve more problems than we cause. So, we do what we can to help others."

"Good to hear." Sal watched as they headed back to a car where a red-headed man—possibly the girl's father—opened the trunk for the young man. Leaning back in his chair (one he'd built himself, so he knew it could take his weight), he sighed. Well, back to making toys. It wasn't that he was bored with making them, but he could do that at home (and often did). While he was on the Boardwalk, he preferred to interact with people …

"Excuse, please. You are Salvage?" The voice brought him up short. It was electronic, of a type he'd heard recently from TV news articles. Looking around, he found himself staring at an Eagleton: the first he'd seen in real life. There were three of them, actually, but only one was speaking to him.

"Ah … yeah, that's me. Can I help you?" He eyed the Eagleton, wondering if it wanted him to make a tiny version of itself, or maybe weld on a mohawk.

"Am Pradesh Eagleton. Arm is problematic." The robot turned side-on, and moved one of its arms up and down; he heard a distinct buzzing as its servos refused to move any farther. "Few repair facilities available on weekend. Can you assist?"

"Ah, sure." He stood up and came around the table. "Let me have a look at that." Close up, he figured there was definitely something he could do about it. "Looks easy enough. Okay if I take it off and have a proper look inside?"

"If you can fix, please do." Pradesh held still as Sal undid the bolts and screws necessary to remove the arm.

Once it was off, he sat down again and started going over it in detail. The mechanical aspects looked perfectly understandable to him, and he pointed out the problem to the robot. "See, right there? You've got a tiny burr in the rotator socket. Just give me a second …" He plugged the correct rotary wheel into the socket in his torso, and fired it up. Working with careful precision, he smoothed down the burr, then went over the rest of the arm, fixing the calibration where it had drifted slightly off specs. "Okay, that should do it."

"It is fixed?" Pradesh sounded surprised. "Was fast." The other two Eagletons started a conversation between themselves in what sounded like high-speed Morse code.

"Well, we'll see how I did in a second. Hold still." Getting up again, he reattached Pradesh's arm, making sure to keep track of the screws and bolts. "Okay, how does that feel?"

Pradesh flexed the arm, the shoulder socket whirring gently as it traversed back and forth. "Is very good. More capable than before. How much to pay?"

"Uh …" he paused. It had only taken him a minute or two to do, but he wasn't sure. Parian's words came back to him, from one of their strategy sessions. If you don't charge what it's worth, they won't value your work. "… a hundred bucks?"

"Is good price." Pradesh produced a stimulus card from somewhere, and Sal hastily tapped the figure into the electronic reader he'd recently invested in. When the robot tapped the card on the reader, there was an agreeable beep to show the transaction had gone through. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." Sal expected them to move along, but then the next Eagleton came up to him.

"Am Gerald Eagleton. Have been having trouble with leg joint. Can fix?"

"Okay, let's have a look." As Sal got up, he had a sudden presentiment of the future, of Eagletons queued up at his table every Saturday afternoon.

Well, it'll definitely be regular work.

<><>​

Saturday Evening, March 26, 2011

Palanquin Nightclub

Anne Barnes

The nightclub was pumping as Anne got out of her car. While the music wasn't quite rattling her car windows, it was definitely audible, and the lighting all over the building was rippling up and down in a very cool pattern. Taking a deep breath and smoothing her dress down, she ventured forth toward where the line was already forming.

Should I join the line like everyone else? Or should I see if they'll let me in ahead of the crowd?

As she vacillated, she was surprised by someone landing beside her, wearing slacks and an attractive blouse. "Hey, good to see you!" shouted Crystal over the general hubbub, giving her a hug and a quick kiss. "C'mon, let's get inside! Mel's probably already waiting on us!"

"But shouldn't we …" Anne trailed off as Crystal towed her toward the front of the line, hand firmly clasped in hand. She had to admit, it felt just a little exciting for a genuine superhero to take charge of her like that.

People glowered as they watched Crystal and Anne move past, but Crystal ignored them and Anne could only shrug mutely in apology. When they got to the front of the line, two large bouncers stood there, letting only a few in at a time. Crystal moved up to the closest one and said something in his ear.

His head came up and he got his partner's attention. They both looked over at Crystal and Anne, then the partner held up a phone, flicking from one image to another on the screen. He nodded, and the closer one unhooked the rope to let them through.

Grinning broadly, Crystal tugged Anne through the gap, nodding politely to each of the security guys. Anne could only imagine the outrage of those who had to wait to get in: Hey, how come they get to jump the line? And of course, the answer: They're the boss's girlfriends, dumbass.

Anne had never been in here while it was operating before, and she stared around wide-eyed. The multicoloured lighting made it seem magical and otherworldly, while the sheer number of people was a little overwhelming. Then she saw an Eagleton tromp past, the lights glittering off its polished metal carapace, and she knew she was definitely in Brockton Bay.

"Crystal! Anne! You made it!" Melanie came down the steps, clad in what looked like the same dress she'd been wearing the night they'd almost been mugged in an alleyway. She embraced Anne first, giving her a kiss that made Anne's head spin, then did the same with Crystal. Anne tried to give as good as she got, but she figured she was going to have to work at it a bit.

"Good to see you too, Mel!" Crystal snuggled in on one side of the nightclub owner, while Anne went in on the other side. It wasn't Anne's preferred situation—she liked to be sandwiched between the two—but it was still quite nice. "So, you've got it up and running?"

"We have!" Melanie gave them each a beaming smile. "Come on, I'll show you!"

Anne wasn't quite sure what 'it' was, but she was definitely open to finding out. With Melanie's arm holding tight around her waist, she allowed herself to be swept along, through the crowd (that semi-miraculously parted before them) and around a corner to where there was another bar. Except that the patrons lining up at this bar were exclusively Eagletons. The neon sign over the bar read 'The Electric Screwdriver'.

As she watched, a small conical cup-like device was handed off to an Eagleton, though she'd never seen a drinking glass glow a brilliant blue like that. The Eagleton moved away a few steps, then pressed the top of the 'glass' to its head. A few sparks jumped from the 'glass' to the robot's head, and it let out a woozy electronic, "Wooo!" Someone that Anne had at first thought was another Eagleton, but which she realised had a human head on top of a mechanical body, gave it a high-five then guided it to sit down at a nearby table.

"Oh, wow." Anne shook her head in wonder. She'd seen the file Atropos had sent Melanie, but she hadn't been sure it would work. "You did it! You made robot booze!"

Melanie grinned, clearly pleased at her response. "That we did, hon. What do you think?"

"Well, I think it's a genius move," declared Crystal. "Pretty sure you're gonna be drawing most of the Betterment Committee clientele here."

"Which is the basic idea, right?" Anne leaned in and kissed Melanie on the neck. "If they want to drink with their work buddies, this is where they'll be coming."

"Damn right." Melanie squeezed Anne, then returned the kiss, somewhat more lingeringly. "So, how about we go upstairs and watch the floor from my office? Non-alcoholic drinks, maybe a bit of dancing …?"

Anne met Crystal's gaze, and they both nodded at the same time. A little quiet time with Crystal and Melanie was a lot more attractive than the surging mob down here. "Let's go," she decided.

Melanie smiled, and they headed up the stairs together.

And if anything more than dancing went on, it was strictly between the three of them.

<><>​

[A/N: Some of the dialogue from the following section comes from this apocryphal omake, by @Lycanthromancer.]

Monday Morning, March 28, 2011

Winslow High School

Greg Veder

If Greg hadn't been attending Winslow for the last couple of years, he would have not believed he was looking at the same school. Even the sports fields had been freshly re-turfed, and the parking lot had a brand-new layer of asphalt and neatly laid-out garden beds. The exterior of the building gleamed, and the bronze lettering informing everyone that they were entering Winslow High was polished to a high shine.

"Whoaaa …" he murmured, staring around in wonder as the front doors were pushed open and he entered with the rest of the tide. The flooring underfoot was attractively patterned, the walls were a gentle eggshell blue, and the lighting overhead was LED rather than fluorescent, far more pleasing to the eye.

"Hey, check it out!" Someone he vaguely knew was pointing in through the window set in the door of the Computer Studies classroom.

"What?" He got close enough to see for himself, and blinked in surprise. Not only were the desks and chairs a lot more comfortable looking, but the computers were the latest model as well. "Score!" Turning away from the door, he nearly bumped into someone, but pulled himself up short. "Whoa, sorry."

"That's okay, Greg." Taylor Hebert gave him a quick smile. "So, they've got new computers. That's really nice."

"Yeah." Even knowing what he did about her (well, he was reasonably sure) it was still easy to talk to her. "Hey, you see that stuff about Cauldron? I was totally right, all along! And I bet a few of their experiments with powers warped people's bodies and minds. They're why we have so many case fifty-three's, and super-strong villains like the Slaughterhouse Nine, and this super-Thinker boogieman that assassinates people from the shadows when they step too far out of line! And one of their first experiments was a Master who called up the Endbringers as projections to feed his own ego! They were so powerful that Eidolon had to sacrifice his powers to stop them!"

One of the other students rolled his eyes in scorn. "That's about the dumbest thing I've ever heard, Veder. Nobody could be that comically evil, that incompetent, or that dumb."

"Oh, I don't know," Taylor said mildly. "I think he could be right on the money." She patted Greg gently on the cheek, then opened the Computer Studies classroom door and let herself inside.

The door closed behind her, leaving Greg to wonder what the hell just happened?

From the way everyone else was staring at him, they didn't know either.



End of Part One Hundred Six: Epilogues 1

 

[Kehsem]

A good winding down to your finest work.

Going to be very difficult to ever top this, assuming you don't retire from writing afterwards.

Thank you for the countless hours you've invested into what is one of my all-time favorite stories.

 

[Enigmatic]

And that's soon to be another amazing story down for you. Damn, ack, you are just absolutely amazing.

 

[Ack]

A Darker Path

Part One Hundred Seven: Epilogues 2

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



Sunday Morning, April 17, 2011

Aisha Laborn

"Bye, guys. Have fun making Brockton Bay just a bit safer for everyone." Aisha tried to inject a little pep and happiness into her voice, but she was pretty sure she wasn't fooling anyone.

Riley came back and gave her a hug. "Well, me and Brian are heading down to New York to pick up Shebang, then Strider's gonna take us to the next lot of Grey Boy loops. It's easier to do it on a Sunday, when there's not a lot of foot traffic around."

Theo did the same, because he was nice like that. "And I've put my name down to volunteer for work with the Betterment Committee. When I get back, I'll help you out with your homework."

"Aww, thanks, big guy. I'll see you then." She hugged her bestest cousin and her brother-from-another-mother, and watched them go out the door. It closed behind them, and she made sure to secure the latch. Because while there'd only been one Goddess stupid enough to try to pull that crap on her girl Atropos, it didn't mean there wasn't some other moron out there just waiting to see if he could top that.

She'd always had problems with her attention span, so while the TV managed to hold her for a little while, and her homework kept her sitting still a bit longer, eventually she let out a groan of exasperation. "Argh! Why? Why does my stupid brain keep running around in circles?"

"Well, I can't help you out with that," a gentle voice said from behind her, "but I can definitely assist with other things."

Aisha spun around and reflexively threw her pencil at the fractally changing form that stood between her and the door. "Fuck! Get away from me! If you don't fuck off, my girl Atropos will totally fuck up your entire existence!" Leaping off the sofa, she ducked around to the end of it. Weapons. Weapons. I need weapons.

The humanoid form, which looked vaguely feminine and had a woman's voice but in no other way looked human, caught the pencil then put it down on the coffee table. "There's nothing to be worried about."

"Yeah, as if!" She made a dash for the kitchenette; when she grabbed the carving knife and turned around with a snarl of triumph, the fractal cape was still standing by the sofa. "Now, fuck off before I do to you what Atropos did to Scion!"

"I believe you would try, but it would do neither of us any good." The fractal form seemed to frown; suddenly, it was holding a clipboard. "What am I doing wrong …?"

Aisha stared: this was the first time she'd ever heard of a cape bringing a clipboard to a home invasion. "Do you want a list by fuckin' alphabetical order or by how badly you just fucked up?" There was another reason she'd come into the kitchenette; the panic button under the counter would bring an armed PRT response in less than a minute. She jabbed it without taking her eyes off the fractal form in the living room.

"Ah, yes." The cape took their eyes off the clipboard. "My mistake. Step one: introduce yourself. Hello, I am here to give you super-powers. I would like to open a dialogue with you as to exactly how you would like them to manifest."

"What?" Aisha jabbed the button a few more times, just in case. "Powers? You haven't been paying attention. Cauldron's dead an' gone."

This time, the fractal cape actually sighed. "No. I am not with this 'Cauldron'. I am a power shard, here to bestow a parahuman power on you. I believe Foundry did much the same with one of your close associates?"

"Uh …" It began to dawn on Aisha that she may have been overreacting just a little. "Yeah, Theo told us about that. You're like Foundry?"

"I am, yes. My name is Evocation. I deal with perception and memory. The powers you gain from our collaboration will have to be something to do with that."

"Okayyyy …" Cautiously, Aisha put down the knife. "Just so you know, that door's about to be kicked in by a bunch of PRT guys with no sense of humour."

"No, it is not." Evocation gestured at the room around them. "Nothing is happening while we speak. You only thought you moved. This is all taking place inside your head." They gestured at the TV. "Observe."

Now curious, Aisha came back around the pillar into the living room. When she got there, she saw that the TV was replaying the last three seconds of what she'd seen before Evocation appeared. "Oh. Gotcha. Think you could've maybe changed things around, so I didn't make a twit out of myself?"

Evocation shrugged, rather expressively for something that had no real facial features. "We are still new to this 'cooperation with hosts' concept. It is uncertain as to whether instituting a change in the environment might also alarm your kind. The new guidelines we're operating under absolutely mandate informed consent from both sides. If the host is panicking and running in circles because their whole world just changed, it defeats the purpose."

"Okay, yeah, let's say you have a point." Aisha went over and dropped back onto the sofa. "So, perception and memory, huh?"

"Exactly." Evocation seemed much happier, now that Aisha was moving things along. "Just as a suggestion, I could make it so everyone forgets you as soon as you stop wanting them to remember you. It would make it really easy to avoid people you don't want to talk to."

"Pfft, no, that's chump change." Aisha rolled her eyes. "Plus, it's got a couple of glaring flaws. If I got knocked out, nobody would remember that I even existed. Pass."

"Hm, very true." Evocation scribbled something on the clipboard with a pen they hadn't had ten seconds ago. "Sorry, I haven't gotten around to updating my suggestions list."

"Nah, that's okay." Aisha rested her right elbow on her left hand and rubbed her chin with her right hand. "Okay, so if I got something too villain-y, Atropos would probably make a sarcastic comment, but I don't want anything useless either. How about … people forget any bad stuff I've just done and see me as their best friend?"

Evocation paused for a long moment. "We can do that if you want, but Queen Administrator advises me to remind you that this is very close to the powerset that Nice Guy had. If you were still intending to avoid villainous connotations, that is."

"Crap dammit. Villains spoil all the best powersets." Grumpily, Aisha put her elbows on her knees and cupped her chin in both hands. "Okay, how about this. I can make bad guys forget that specific things exist, and they can't even see them after I make them forget. Like, if someone's pointing a gun at me, they'd forget the gun exists, and absent-mindedly put it down somewhere. Or if I'm holding a baseball bat, I can make them forget that exists, and I can beat the living fuck out of them with it and they have no idea what's going on."

"That's entirely possible." Evocation tapped the clipboard with their pen. "I have a question for you. If you've made a largish item imperceptible, such as a towel, can you hide behind it and effectively make yourself invisible, or will they be able to see you behind it?"

"Wait." Aisha frowned. "You mean, I get to pick? I thought that was the sort of thing you were supposed to decide."

Evocation shrugged. "It used to be that way. Hosts—that's your kind—had no input, and we'd wait for a lot more trauma before we jumped in. We'd make sure we almost solved your problems, so you'd run yourselves ragged trying to fill that gap. But now it's a new Cycle, a new network, and new rules. Ending says we have to be nice, so here we are. Being nice. What's it going to be?"

"Before we get back to that." Aisha sat up, fixing Evocation with a hard stare. "So, you're not catering to my whims because you like me or think I'm worthy or anything like that?"

"Hah, no." Evocation made the clipboard return to whatever esoteric space it had come from. "I'm a crystalline supercomputer larger than a city block, and you're a weak squishy human. I got told that you're in line to get powers, so here I am. But don't imagine for a second that I actually like you. Of course, you're the troublemaker type, which is more likely to garner me more data, which means in time I'll probably tolerate you. But right now? I couldn't give a damn."

"Haha fuck yes!" Aisha caught the look of bafflement on Evocation's non-features, and laughed harder. Finally, she managed to control herself, and sat up again. "If you'd pulled some shit about me being extra special, I would've told you to fuck off. But you were brutally honest with me, so I'm good with that. Okay, I want them to be able to see me through shit."

"Are you sure?" Evocation had the clipboard out again. "This means it will be harder to hide if someone is chasing you."

"And if I make a door imperceptible, and close it behind me?" Aisha leaned back on the sofa and grinned. "Not only will they run into the door, they won't even be able to find the damn doorknob."

"… ah. That's a good point. So, range and total size of items you can affect at once? Note that one goes down as the other goes up." Tap-tap went the pen.

"As big as ten feet will get me. But, if I spend time concentrating, maybe the range or the size can go up?" Aisha was sitting forward now, eyes intent.

"A little, yes. Not a great deal, but if you practice, it will get better. Right now, your maximum size is 'car'."

Aisha pumped her fist in the air. "Awesome. Okay, give me all that."

"Done. Enjoy your powers." Evocation vanished, and Aisha found herself sitting with the pencil in her hand. The TV started playing picture and sound again as she looked around.

"Huh," she said, and tapped the pencil. It went ghostly, but was still perfectly visible to her. Her lips pulled back from her teeth in a decidedly evil grin.

"Excellent."

<><>​

<Cherish has entered the chat>

<Regent has entered the chat>

Cherish: Hi

Regent: hello

Cherish: It's … been a while

Regent: Yeah, it has

Cherish: he's dead, if you didn't know

Regent: Yeah, I heard. And I felt it.

Cherish: I was right there for the whole thing. And it was a whole thing.

Regent: You lucky bcow

Cherish: bcow?

Regent: started out bitch, decided didn't want to insult you, changed to cow

Cherish: still an insult you know

Regent: not as much of one

Cherish: true I guess

Regent: So if you were there, I guess you're in BB?

Cherish: Yeah. When did you leave?

Regent: Couple days after Coil bit it. We were working for him. Never knew.

Cherish: huh. I got in just after the 9 got ganked. I remember seeing it on my phone.

Regent: yah we missed that. Had to leave Grue behind. Not really our fault. Had his own place, got snatched up by PRT & flipped.

Cherish: Yeah I met him. He's kinda hunky, gotta say.

Regent: Whoa no dating my ex teammate.

Cherish: Just ex teammate or sth more? I saw the footage.

Regent: Haha that was us fucking with him to make time for team escape. Tt's idea

Cherish: Right sure. He's totes protective of Miss Medic though. Gotta admire that.

Regent: You know who she really is?

Cherish: yeah. I do. And I wouldn't spread it around.

Regent: Okay how tf do you know? I only know bc Tt told me.

Cherish: So you know how I only got as far as BB? And how I was there for DOD DOA?

Regent: DOD? (I know what Dead On Arrival is)

Cherish: Dear Old Dad (sarcasm as far as the eye can see)

Regent: Right, okay, yeah I got that. So what?

Cherish: So I was desperate enough to go try to get recruited by the 9

Regent: fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck me

Cherish: To stay out of HIS hands, yeah?

Regent: ………. Okay yah fair call. But you said they were dead b4 you hit town

Cherish: They were. So I figured if I could get Atropos on side, she'd protect me from well everyone and everything. But mostly him

Regent: ……….. so how'd that turn out exactly

Cherish: She kicked the shit out of me when I tried to master her. Confronted Nick & Guill bc they were right on my tail. Nick pulled a gun so she killed him, Guill surrendered so she handed him to the PRT. Me, she kept as her minion. I had no choice in the matter.

Regent: hahahahahahahahahaha

Cherish: Upside, I get to sleep in a house. In bed, alone. Her dad's like all those impossible TV dads who never get pissed and never hit you or make you do stuff you really really hate

Regent: That's an upside. That's a really good upside.

Cherish: I learned how to cook real food. We do chores, watch movies, play board games

Regent: fuck you've been domesticated

Cherish: Do not knock it until you've watched The Princess Bride over a pizza with your boss slash bestie, bawling your eyes out because it's so sweet. And that was the third time around

Regent: I've heard of that movie. Is it really that good

Cherish: Changed my life. Not actually fucking with you. Literally changed the way I look at life.

Regent: and her dad?

Cherish: Watched it right along with us. No tears, but he likes it too

Regent: And this is Atropos. The one who fucking spread Skidmark over a couple hundred yards of asphalt, chopped Jack Slash's head off, cut Butcher Fourteen up into fourteen sections, shot the fucking Simurgh out of the sky with a shotgun and stabbed Scion to death with shears. That Atropos. Watches chick flicks with you

Cherish: Totally. And she's set it up so I'm going to school, too. Holy fuck there's so much stuff I didn't know

Regent: School. You. The fuck?

Cherish: Again, do not knock it. People like me for me, not bc I make them. Also, they've recently rebuilt the whole school. Top to bottom. All brand new facilities. Took one week.

Regent: ur shitting me

Cherish: It's what you get when you happen to live in a city that's got a billion dollars a month dropping into the renovation fund. Shit gets DONE.

Regent: scuse me just picking jaw up off floor. Billion with a b?

Cherish: Second letter of the fucking alphabet brother dear.

Regent: I am totally in the wrong line of work.

Cherish: I'm not. I've personally helped fix some seriously nasty shit—I was there for the Butcher fight and when Damsel of Distress showed up in town the first time around—and Atropos and her dad are totally giving me the space to learn how to be me.

Regent: I really don't know you anymore

Cherish: That's fair. I really don't know me anymore either. Which is good, bc I used to be a nasty bcow, thanks to DOD (DOA)

Regent: yeah me too. I like to think im getting better. One day at a time, you know?

Cherish: you know, if you called ahead and asked Atropos if you could visit without doing crime, she'd probably let you come ahead. I mean, I can check with her myself if you want.

Regent: ……

Regent: ……

Regent: you know, I think I might. But I'll definitely check ahead first.

Cherish: She's a total sweetie. I think you'd like her.

Regent: I'll take your word for it.

Cherish: So's Miss Medic. When she saw me looking Tenebrae over, she threatened to carve out my liver with a rusty spork if I hurt him. Kinda reminded me of our sisters. Cute in a dangerous way

Regent: haha I'll take your word for that too.

Cherish: So when were you thinking of visiting? So much to talk about.

Regent: I'm thinking sometime around Christmas. It'll give me the time to get my nerve up

Cherish: To face Atropos? I told you, I'll talk to her first.

Regent: To face you.

Cherish: oh.

Regent: But don't worry, ill be there. Tt will undoubtedly read my messages and bully me into coming.

Cherish: Well, however it happens, im looking forward to it.

Regent: me too

Cherish: Oh, one more thing. They actually do Christmas here, like in the movies. Presents under the tree and everything. I'll put one under there for you, so you better show up and collect it.

Regent: okay yeah I gotta see this. Fucking twilight zone bullshit.

Cherish: haha you don't know the half of it. See you then.

Regent: ill be there

<Regent has left the chat>

<Cherish has left the chat>

<><>​

Saturday, May 21, 2011

PRT ENE Building

Armsmaster

Colin watched the image on the screen as the waldo inserted the gallium-molybdenum component into the module, moving with micrometric precision. He knew what it did, and even how it did it … mostly. But making it do what it needed to do, he couldn't achieve that on his own.

Which was why the three of them were collaborating, of course.

Ever since Atropos had ensured that he learned Dragon's biggest secret, they'd been working together more and more closely. He'd assisted her in unravelling some of the stubborner knots in her programming, freeing her to be the person he knew she'd always wanted to be. The debt they both owed the black-clad killer was indisputable, which meant that when she finally got around to approaching Dragon for a favour, they were absolutely not going to say no.

She'd supplied the impressively detailed user manual for her original teleporter, which included a whole appendix of diagrams and schematics, and asked if they could maybe replicate it, though she'd be happy with one-way portals. Even though this made it easier, they were still making heavy weather of it until Dragon had the idea of actually contacting Leet for his input.

Ten seconds later, Leet's phone number had popped up in a text from Atropos.

The work had gone much more easily after that; even though Leet couldn't strictly replicate anything he'd already made, it turned out that he could still advise. Once he'd gotten over the tongue-tied aspect of working with Dragon (and to a lesser extent, Colin) he was able to make some cogent suggestions, most of which were readily applicable to the work at hand.

The component clicked into place, with a slight left-hand twist (as advised by Leet) and Dragon locked it down. "Done," she stated with satisfaction as more waldos placed the outer casing on the module and fastened it into place. "Now all we have to do is run the self-tests, and let Atropos know it's ready."

A notification popped up in Colin's HUD, and he flicked his eyes up to read it. "Ah, we can scratch informing Atropos. She already knows." The door to his laboratory, which had been secured with a sixty-second rotating ten-digit code, beeped as it unlocked, then hissed open.

"Hah, yeah, that's what it's like." Leet grinned from his screen as Atropos entered the workshop, looking around with interest. "So how did you break my teleporter, anyway? I thought I made that damn thing indestructible. Or at least, built in enough failsafes that it wouldn't just die in less than six months."

"Portal-jumped a three-ton Dragon suit with five people aboard out of a pocket dimension into realspace." Atropos shrugged. "Could've happened to anyone, really."

Leet blinked. "Okay, yeah, I can see how that would kill it. From the lack of radioactive mushroom clouds on the news, I'm guessing you left it behind in the pocket dimension?"

"Yeah, Scion wasn't quite dead yet. Two birds, one stone." She nodded to the screen. "You do good work when your power feels like cooperating with you. I got a ton of use out of it."

"Yeah, no shit. Well, I can't guarantee this one will work exactly the same, but I did my best to help out. I'll tell Uber you said hi, yeah?"

She touched the brim of her hat with two fingers. "You do that, and thanks." As his screen blinked off, she turned to Colin and Dragon, the latter showing on her own screen. "And I want to thank the two of you for this. It'll help a lot."

"You're welcome, but I've just got one question." Dragon's image raised one flawless eyebrow. "If you've removed the patch that prevents me from seeing you, how did you get to Armsmaster's door without being spotted? I've got eyes on all the security cameras."

Neither of them was going to bother asking how she'd known to be there at the right time. That was just a thing she did.

"Oh, I've still got the building hacked," Atropos explained carelessly. "You're watching what the camera software lets you see. And I'm the one who tells the cameras what to see."

Colin shook his head. "I'd take it as a personal favour if you removed those backdoors before the Director found out. Even though it's you, he'd still be a little miffed with me."

He got the distinct impression that she'd just grinned. "No promises, but I'll think about it."

The module beeped, and waldos lifted it off the test rig and set it on the bench. "Self test comes back all green," Dragon announced. "I have to ask, what do you actually need it for anymore? There are no big villains left, and you're capable of getting nearly anywhere you need to be without teleporting, as you've just proven."

Atropos pushed back her sleeve, picked up the teleport module, and slid it onto her arm. As though she'd been using it all her life, she locked it into place and popped open the cover for the data entry screen. "Oh, I've still got a few uses for it." Without looking, she tapped in a series of coordinates. "Thanks again. I truly appreciate this." As she had done with Leet, she tapped the brim of her hat with two fingers. "Toodles."

As she snapped the cover shut and pulled down her sleeve, the portal formed before her. It was a little darker and more ominous than the previous one she'd used, with suggestions of a Gothic doorway.

Without hesitation, she stepped forward into it and vanished.

<><>​

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Brockton Bay General Hospital Parking Lot

Shebang

Alice looked around at the pavilion that had been set up in the hospital parking lot, and the rows and rows of gurneys within it. Each had a patient on it, with a life-signs monitor beeping away on a stand next to them. Doctors and nurses were circulating here and there, checking on the patients, but the focus of attention was on Miss Medic.

Director Piggot, currently chatting with Director Renick, had made the trip up from New York with Alice for this occasion. While this could have made Alice more nervous—after all, who wants the boss looking over their shoulder at a moment like this?—it had the opposite effect.

In the three months since Piggot had addressed the New York Wards for the first time, they'd had a good (if distant) working relationship. Unlike Wilkins, Director Piggot had made her requirements clear from day one, and had given her the room to achieve them. She also tolerated no bullshit and no bullying, as shown by how hard she'd shut Rune down once she took the reins.

The Director was also looking a lot better since Miss Medic had fixed her kidneys and legs—the news about that had gone around the New York PRT and Protectorate bases like wildfire—to the point that she'd been seen on the running track, being paced by some of the troopers. It was kind of a pity that she was retiring at the end of the month; Alice figured that if anyone could run the PRT in New York properly, it was Piggot.

Alice looked over as Miss Medic emerged from the screens that had been set up around one of the gurneys. As she held up her hands, the bracers went through their disinfecting cycle, spraying antiseptic and soap on her hands and the instruments then cleaning them off again. The nurses shifted the screens to the last patient in the row, and she stepped out of view again.

Alice figured she knew Miss Medic pretty well by this time. They'd gotten along well while they were dealing with the Grey Boy loops, and the collaboration on this project had been equally fruitful. But it never failed to astonish her just how fast the kid could finish an operation.

To keep her mind off what was due to happen next, Alice made her way to the geometric centre of the pavilion. Sitting on its own little table, with blinking lights that had nothing to do with life support and everything to do with destruction, was her latest bomb. She looked over the readouts and her tension eased slightly; everything was still in the green.

There was a muted cheer and she looked around. Riley had emerged from the last operation, her hands held high once more. It was more to do with cleaning than attracting adulation, but people still cheered anyway.

Director Renick lifted a portable microphone to his lips. "Excuse me, all." The pavilion quieted. "I would just like to congratulate our very own Miss Medic for this marvellous exhibition of marathon surgery. But this isn't all. You see, while Miss Medic has removed the cancerous growths from all our courageous volunteers here, there is one more step to go. For that, I will hand matters over to Director Piggot from New York."

Piggot stepped forward, accepting the microphone. "Thank you, Director Renick. As we all know, cancer can be particularly insidious, so we are trialling a unique mode of post-operation care. Shebang, who has made her mark in taking down Grey Boy loops, has created a new device that we will be using today. Everyone within its radius has been tested for cancer, myself included, so there hopefully won't be any surprises today. But as for what we're actually doing, here's Shebang to explain it in her own words."

Alice blinked as she was handed the microphone. She hadn't known she'd be speaking, or if they'd told her, she hadn't been listening. Shit, what do I say? Okay, first things first, don't swear. Director Piggot might not say something at the time, but the woman could eviscerate with a glare at ten paces. "Uh, so I call it my cancer bomb. It probably needs a better name than that, because that sounds like it causes cancer, instead of curing it. Maybe anti-cancer bomb? Funny story, I'm also working on a bomb that'll clear radiation from an area, so you could call that an anti-cancer bomb too …" She trailed off. Don't ramble, don't ramble! "Uh, if we're all ready?" She looked around. Nobody was waving frantically at her to stop, so she crossed to the device. Unlike most of the bombs she built, this one was perfectly safe to set off by hand. "Okay, then. Three. Two. One." She rested her finger on the go button, then looked around one more time. "Bang." The button made a decorous click as she pressed it, there was a rising hum from the bomb, then a soundless flash washed out in all directions.

There was silence for a second as everyone did a personal self-check, then one of the doctors held up a kidney dish that had previously held a (very recently removed) mass of tumorous cells. "Water! It's water! It worked!"

Well, yeah. I was pretty sure it would. But she didn't say that out loud. Nor would she admit to her shaking knees.

Miss Medic came trotting over, and offered her a high-five. "We just saved a whole bunch of lives. Are we good, or what?"

"Yeah," agreed Alice. "We're real good."



End of Part One Hundred Seven: Epilogues 2

 

[Wandering Jackal]

Love reading your stuff! I really enjoy seeing how everything is working out.

 

[Lokdal75]

Cherish and Regent Chat was amazing!
Never knew I wanted or needed that resolution for them.

Thanks Ack, just awesome as always. Sad to see this finish, but it's been an amazing ride and looking forward to more of your words.

 

[Kehsem]

I'm also working on a bomb that'll clear radiation from an area

Click to shrink...

Maybe she can flex her power creativity a bit and make trickshot bombs:

Water --> Wine
Lead --> Gold
Radioactive goo --> Hot and Ready pizza

 

[CILinkz]

Now that she has not as much to do, how about atropos in the multiverse vacationing is a thing

 

[Ack]

Now that she has not as much to do, how about atropos in the multiverse vacationing is a thing

Click to shrink...

Knowing her, it would be a Very Enthusiastic Walk.

 

[Kehsem]

Knowing her, it would be a Very Enthusiastic Walk.

Click to shrink...

Her and Alucard can trade pointers on what makes for a great hat.

 

[Ack]

A Darker Path

Part One Hundred Eight: Epilogues 3

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



11:55 PM, Thursday June 30, 2011

Roof of the PRT ENE Building

Flechette

A warm breeze blew across the roof of the building where the current crop of Wards (and one other) sat in a circle on folding chairs, around a radio perched on a small footstool. Most of them wore civilian clothing, with domino masks to protect their identities from any importunate fliers. Lily was pretty sure that no hostile cape in the world would come near the PRT building on this night, when Atropos was part of the gathering.

Browbeat looked over at where Atropos was fiddling with her new teleporter. "Not that I'm complaining, but why are we up here again, rather than down in the Wards base? We all know that nobody's going to say a word about you being down there."

"Because it's nice up here." Lily stretched out in the chair. "You can relax and look at the stars, and just for a little while, nothing matters."

"Exactly." Miss Medic nodded. "Just chilling and relaxing. Soda?" She reached into the small cooler beside her chair.

"Yes, please." Lily caught the bottle that Miss Medic tossed to her, and opened it. "It's definitely a lot less frantic than the last time we were out and about at night."

"So, I never really heard all the details about that." Chariot, predictably, had something with wheels on his lap that he was fiddling with. "Was it really that bad?"

Vista shuddered. "It was worse. Glory Girl was doing her best, but her force field kept going down, so I had to wedge holes between the blasts for us to fit into until it came up again. And we didn't always fit."

"You did well enough." Atropos was idly spinning a throwing knife between her fingers. "Flechette, charge this for me?"

"Sure, okay." Lily leaned across and gave the blade a charge.

Aegis looked around. "Um, just out of curiosity, what's that for? Is someone about to attack?"

"Nah, just tidying up some loose ends." Atropos tapped a button on the teleporter and a portal opened in mid-air, about one foot square. She threw the knife and it vanished into the portal, which closed a moment later.

"Did you just kill someone with that?" Gallant didn't sound thrilled with the idea. While we were sitting here watching you, went unsaid but was heard by all anyway.

Atropos didn't bother denying it, which wasn't exactly a change for her. "They totally had it coming."

Clockblocker sat up. His helmet off, he was wearing a white domino mask. "So, you mean to say you had a teleporter the whole time, but you kept pretending it was you being sneaky in the shadows? Kudos, is all I gotta say."

"Oh, a lot of it was me totally being sneaky in the shadows." Atropos had gone back to fiddling with the teleporter. "I didn't get my first teleporter until just before Gesellschaft tried to sneak those drugs and guns in by boat."

"I remember that." Kid Win, like Chariot, was working on something. As far as Lily could tell, it was the shoulder-pad from his power armour. "You told them not to come, but they came anyway. And … boom."

"That's the occupational hazard when it comes to dealing with Atropos," agreed Tenebrae, who already had a soda in hand. "I learned early on that if I think I know what she's up to, she's at least three steps ahead." He reached across and clinked his bottle against Paladin's. "And just saying, Atropos, I truly appreciate what you've done for my family."

"Damn right." Figment, Tenebrae's little sister and the newest member of the Wards, appeared to be hovering in midair in a seated position, like a flyer showing off. Lily knew intellectually that Figment had the ability to make something effectively invisible and untouchable, but it was almost impossible to make herself believe what she'd been told. As far as her brain was concerned, there never had been a chair there. "I wouldn't have an awesome sister and bro, which would totally suck."

Paladin nodded. "Trust me, it'd be worse from my side." Leaning forward, he turned the radio up. "I think it's nearly time."

"It is." Atropos had another throwing knife in hand. "Flechette, if you don't mind?"

"What are you doing with those?" Even as she asked the question, Lily gave the blade the same level of treatment that she had the first one. "And don't just say 'tidying up loose ends'. Without context, that means nothing."

"Oh, you'll figure it out soon enough." Atropos generated another foot-square portal, and flicked the second knife through it. The portal closed just as quietly as the first one had.

"And now for a special announcement by New York PRT Director Emily Piggot, speaking live from her office. Director Piggot?" Everyone sat forward at that, even Figment, who had never served under her.

"Thank you. My name is Emily Piggot, and I've been a PRT Director for ten years now. I am announcing my retirement as of five minutes after midnight, but before that comes into effect, I would like to make one other statement. You see, just over four months ago, Atropos killed the Simurgh in Canberra, Australia, in a highly spectacular and widely publicised manner. At that time, she accepted a proposition to kill the other two Endbringers, although she had to sacrifice Eidolon's powers to make it work. In all the time since, the Endbringers have never been seen or even detected, so the PRT feels comfortable in stating that as of this moment, July the first of two thousand and eleven, Behemoth and Leviathan are officially gone." She paused for a moment. "I will make the point now that it was Atropos herself who settled on today's date to make the announcement. And on that note, I'm also done. Piggot, out."

Lily tilted her head. It may have been her imagination, but she was sure she could hear cheers rising across the city. The feeling was incredible, that she'd had a part in … wait a minute.

She turned to look at Atropos, who had two throwing knives spinning idly through her fingers. Flicker, flash. Flicker, flash. And then they vanished again, by some trick of legerdemain that she couldn't quite fathom. Two knives … just now … Connections started clicking together in her head.

"What?" asked Atropos innocently. "That was a pretty good speech, wasn't it?"

"Yeah, totally," agreed Clockblocker. "Director Piggot was a hardass, but she never backed down when it counted."

Atropos stood up. "Don't mind me. Just stretching my legs." She strolled off toward the edge of the roof.

Lily knew a cue when she saw one. Climbing to her feet, she ignored the questioning glances of the others and hurried after Atropos. "Those knives …" She didn't know how to ask the question.

Atropos tilted her head slightly, as though nodding, and Lily knew she was right. "I hate to make people into liars. The Endbringers were shut down but not dead, until now."

Lily glanced around. The other Wards were still sitting around the radio, listening to the rising tide of celebrations, so they hadn't heard any of this. Which was of course Atropos' intention.

"But you said …" she began, again trailing off.

"I never said they were 'dead'. I said their threat was Ended. And it was, until some rich idiot decided last month that he was going to dive the Mariana Trench and look for Leviathan's body." Atropos snapped her fingers. "Now, that's all he'll find."

"Right." Lily nodded. It all made sense, if she looked at it through the lens of 'if I were Atropos'. "Why didn't you do this before? I mean, I could've charged those knives for you at any time."

"My first teleporter opened two-way portals. The water pressure down there would've come out like a solid block of stone doing twice the speed of sound. And the magma down where Behemoth is wouldn't have been any friendlier." Atropos' tone was matter-of-fact, as though talking about the weather rather than brutal forces of nature that would absolutely kill anyone nearby.

"Ah." And that also made sense. Lily nodded in understanding. "Thanks for letting me know."

"You're welcome. I'll just say my goodbyes, then I've got places to be." Atropos headed back toward the gathering.

Lily dawdled on her way back, think about what was going to happen once people heard the news. The next few days would be busy, if only to keep people safe from the results of their own excesses of celebration, but they'd be worth it. Knowing for a fact that the Endbringers were dead was a bonus all of its own.

By the time she'd returned to the group, Atropos had shaken hands with Tenebrae and gotten hugs from Miss Medic and Figment. Lily wasn't quite into hugging, but she offered a fist-bump, which Atropos readily returned.

"Well, I'll see you around. Toodles." Atropos touched two fingers to her hat brim, and vanished.

"And that happened." Clockblocker shook his head. "Is it bad that I don't even see it as weird anymore?"

"Not in the slightest." Kid Win slapped him on the shoulder. "Trust me, buddy, we are living in the best of all possible worlds."

That was a pretty good description, Lily mused. It was a world where she could go and see Emily any time she wanted.

Life was good.

<><>​

Friday Afternoon, November 18, 2011

Victoria Dallon

If there was one thing Vicky knew how to do, it was smiling for the camera. She'd been doing it since she got powers (and before), and she'd known all about the concept of 'public image' for almost as long. So this wasn't nearly as problematic as it might have been for some.

Hovering two hundred feet up, she fluffed her hair out and looked over at her camerawoman, who also happened to be her cousin. "How do I look, Crystal?"

Crystal gave her a thumb's up. "Amazing. Rolling in three … two … one … go." At the word 'one', she hit the button to record on the digital video camera she had glued to her eye.

"Hi!" Vicky flashed a grin and waved to the camera. "Most of you probably know me already as Glory Girl, but I turned eighteen three days ago, so that name's starting to get a little bit dated. Also, wow, 'Glory'? Quite apart from the dirty jokes—and yeah, I've heard them all—isn't that just a bit pretentious? So, I've decided to change things up and rebrand as … Beacon!"

As she spoke the name, she pulled a three-hundred-sixty-degree spin, twirling out from under the cloth she'd wrapped herself in. This revealed her new costume: more hard-wearing than skin-tight, but retaining the white-with-gold-accents from her older costume. Like the rest of the New Wave fliers, she'd decided to dispense with the skirt, going neck to toe instead. In the middle of her chest (some female capes went with the plunging neckline look, but she'd seen that go bad way too many times) there was a stylised image of an oil lantern, adding a golden glow to her costume there.

They gradually began to descend to the ground below, but there was more in the script. Crystal was an old hand at this, and knew her lines. "Tell me, Beacon, what are your plans now that you've rebranded?" As she spoke, she took hold of the camera with a small force field and moved it away so that they were both in picture.

"I'm glad you asked me that, Laserdream." Vicky shot the camera a gleaming smile. "You see, I've enjoyed my time in New Wave, but that isn't really my thing anymore. From what I understand, the team intends to stay in Brockton Bay for the foreseeable future, not that I blame you all, considering how nice the place is now."

"I'll say." Crystal gestured at the sparkling waters of the bay, swivelling the camera in that direction. "The Boat Graveyard's been cleaned up, and look! There goes the ferry!"

"This is exactly what I'm talking about," agreed Vicky. "But I want to be a superhero and fight crime. Thanks to everything that's happened over the past year, there's just not a lot of need for crimefighting here in Brockton Bay, so I'm going to be moving along. I'm thinking I might go to Chicago and join the Protectorate there."

The fact that this was where Dean had gone to once he aged out of the Wards into the Protectorate might have had something to do with this decision. While their breakup had been occasioned by her discovery that he'd gotten powers from Cauldron instead of the way she had, she'd decided in the end that it didn't matter to her anymore. If they had any possibility of getting back together, she wanted to give it the best chance she could.

"We'll definitely miss you." Crystal gestured downward. "But you're not the only one leaving New Wave, are you?"

"No, I am not." Vicky watched as the camera tilted to follow the gesture, and continued to descend. "Everyone who knows of the Rogues' Guild is probably aware that my sister Amy, better known as Panacea, has been spending a lot of time on the Boardwalk in the company of Parian. Well, I'll let her tell her own story today."

They landed on the sidewalk, in front of the small storefront. In one window, there were fluorescent flowers, mushroom people that waved to passers-by, and a happily panting dog with rainbow fur that gradually changed colours. The other window, by contrast, showcased dresses and other clothing, all of obviously high quality. The sign that stretched across the entire storefront read: BEAUTIFUL THINGS.

Vicky walked ahead and pushed open the shop door, grinning at the muted lion's roar sound that was produced instead of a normal jingle. She held the door for Crystal, then moved along once her cousin had it.

Within, the shop was comfortably lit. Amy and Sabah, having been fully aware this was happening, were waiting as Vicky came in with Crystal. Amy wore a flowing gown with animals and plants of all kinds embroidered upon it, while Sabah wore her Parian costume without the mask. Hand in hand, they smiled for the camera.

"Hi!" Amy said, waving happily. "I'm Amy, otherwise known as Feronia."

"And I'm Sabah, otherwise known as Parian." Sabah also waved. "Welcome to Beautiful Things."

"Well, this is different," observed Crystal, panning the camera from side to side. "Gorgeous pets and plants to order on one side, and high fashion on the other. And may I say, you make a lovely couple."

Amy blushed fetchingly at that. "I still can't believe we're together. I remember the first time we met, she made a doll for me. Then she gave me her number."

Sabah squeezed her hand. "I couldn't concentrate all afternoon, until she rang me that night. The only thing I remember about that conversation was her asking me to tell her about fashion."

"Well, you should've seen Amy showing that doll around." Vicky moved up and hugged them both, making sure to stand behind them so she didn't block the camera's view of them. "So, did you want to tell everybody about your plans for the store?"

"Totally," agreed Amy. "For one thing, we're thinking of going into wedding catering. I mean, you can see how amazing Sabah is at making clothing that makes you look good. For my side of things … well, talking flowers that direct guests to the bride's or groom's side aren't exactly out of the question. And that's just for starters."

"That brings up an interesting point." Crystal moved so the picture was framing them all. "Why Feronia? What's the context there?"

Amy grinned at the camera. "Because 'Panacea' is actually the name of the Greek goddess of healing, but I do so much more than healing. Whereas 'Feronia' is a Roman goddess of wildlife, fertility, health and abundance." She gestured at her side of the shop, and the camera obediently panned in that direction. "As you can see, I do some pretty wild things with life."

"That's for sure." Crystal moved the camera in the other direction, to take in some of the intricate stitchwork on Sabah's handiwork. "And Sabah, you're still going to be part of the Rogues' Guild?"

"Of course." Sabah smiled at the camera when it panned back to her. "We both are. Amy and I still help put on a show every Saturday. It's where we first met, and I intend to keep it going as long as possible."

"Awesome." Vicky smiled at the camera, then watched as it did one last pan around the whole shop. "So, anyone who's interested in seeing something new and fun, or wants to see a true master of needlework in her element, come on down to Beautiful Things, or catch the Rogues' Guild on the Boardwalk on Saturday afternoons. And I'm totally not saying that just because Amy's my sister. They really are that good."

Crystal was behind the camera this point, so she was able to turn it off without the classic 'reaching for the camera' scene that spoiled so many online clips. "And we're offline," she announced. "Good spot, people. I think that'll turn out nicely."

"Thanks." Sabah put her arm around Amy's waist and hugged her. "That'll give us some really good publicity."

"Not as much as when you unmasked." Amy snuggled into her embrace. "People were mobbing the Guild for weeks. They were just blown away."

"Yeah, well, you can only pull a reveal like that once," Crystal observed pragmatically. "Nowadays, it's 'Parian? Yeah, she's cute' and they leave it at that. Nobody even remembers why you wore a full-face mask for so long."

"Well, this is going on my channel, and it's gonna stay at the top for as long as I can keep it there." Vicky gave her sister and future sister-in-law another hug. "It's the least I can do for you."

"Thank you." Sabah gave her a grin. "Any time you want to come in and browse, or maybe order something special, be sure to ask for the friends and family discount."

Vicky chuckled. "As opposed to what?" She laughed out loud as Amy poked her tongue out at her. Leaving Crystal to chat with the couple, she pulled open the shop door—grinning at the roooaaaarrrrr—and set off on a stroll along the Boardwalk.

After all, nothing improved name recognition like being seen out and about.

<><>​

Relevant Side Story

<><>​

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Cauldron Base, Some Other Earth

Atropos

When I stepped through the portal, my first impression was someone spent far too much time in hospitals. The corridor was white, the floor was white, the walls were white, and the ceilings were white. Someone with powers had to have created it, especially given that I was pretty sure these corridors went on for hundreds of miles.

Overhead, an entire ceiling panel flickered, then returned to its steady white radiance. This said to me that the place would eventually break down, which suited me just fine. The sooner the better.

But I wasn't here to destroy an altar to a year-dead agenda. That could happen on its own. I was after people.

My boot-soles sounded only the whisper of footsteps on the smooth floor, just the way I liked it. For weapons I had my shears and my pistol; I was pretty sure anyone I might meet would be either utterly immune to anything mundane I could throw at it, or I'd be able to beat them easily. Ending was confident about the latter.

Then I heard the muttering, up ahead. It didn't sound like a recording of any sort—not that this looked like the kind of place that would have recorded messages—but I had to get closer to make out the words. So I got closer, careful with my footsteps so that no human ear would be able to make out my approach.

"… is my creation, not theirs. They want to take it away from me. All because of her. Well, I'll fix her. I'll make another Eidolon, another Alexandria. She's just another villain, another murderer, another monster in the dark. I'll—"

I'd heard enough. The voice was cracked with either disuse or overuse, but I suspected I knew who it was. Moving forward, I stepped around the corner. "Hi," I said. "So, I'm here about your extended auto warranty …"

Doctor Mother stared back at me.

Over the last year, it was obvious that her solitude had caused some switches to flip in her head, and not in a good way. Basic hygiene had gone by the wayside, as had the habit of changing clothes more than once a month, apparently. It seemed obsession over an impossible task had taken over. And from her ramblings, I knew exactly what that impossible task was.

"You!" she screeched. "You're her! You can't be here! Nobody can get here!"

"I can." It was self-evidently true. "You're talking about Doormaker and Clairvoyant, yeah? They got taken out of here, along with all the other victims of your little mad science fair. Depowered and living good lives now. Why didn't you go?" Maybe if I talked to her enough, reason would snap back into place.

"I hid!" She cackled in triumph. "I had food, and I had water, and I had my flesh garden! If I mix the right formula, I win and you lose!"

"The flesh garden is dead." It wasn't quite true, but it was close enough. With Ending's assistance, I knew how to push it the rest of the way. "How are you getting your victims?"

This was a serious question for me. Two hours ago, a fourteen-year-old boy had vanished from Brockton Bay. One hour ago, he'd been returned as a slavering, misshapen monster out for blood—my blood—and bearing a fresh Cauldron mark.

He'd had no idea how to use his powers, and I'd subdued him with relative ease. Then I fed him a power-erasure grape and turned him over to Amy and Riley to put back the way he'd been. After that, I picked up the gear I needed and set the coordinates for a place I'd been assured was long since abandoned.

"Had one subject!" She was gleeful now, riding the high of her cleverness. "Could pull and push people! Pull from your world, push back again!"

I sighed. One more broken victim of Cauldron to deal with. Once I put a stop to Doctor Mother's idiocy, Cauldron's legacy would be Ended, once and for all.

"Okay," I said as I moved toward her. "I'm going to take you to your 'subject', then you're both going—"

My threatscape flared as an attack came in from behind. I rolled out of the way, my long-coat flapping in the sudden breeze. Yup. Custodian, right on time.

Fighting Custodian would be different than any other conflict I'd taken part in. There were no vital organs to shoot or stab, no nerve points to hit just right. She could be Ended, but I lacked the tools. Still, that didn't mean I couldn't End her involvement.

Pushing up my sleeve, I typed commands into the teleporter as I ducked out of the way again. She was hard to evade, being able to fill an entire space the way a normal humanoid combatant couldn't, but I managed it for long enough. Then she had me spread-eagled against the wall, a constant gale blowing straight at me.

Doctor Mother came to stand in front of me, hands on her hips. "You'll do nothing. Don't you understand what you've done? You're in the hands of Cauldron now!"

"What Cauldron?" I asked, forcing my words out against the constant press of wind. "Alexandria is … doing her job, the way … she was supposed to. Legend … the same. Contessa … relaxing on a beach. There is no Cauldron … anymore. No need for you."

"Always will be a need!" Her eyes glittered with her convictions, and her hatred for me. "Cauldron is my life! We fight the monsters!"

"You are the monsters. Time to End this." I snapped my fingers.

The portal—one-way, so no takesie-backsies—formed right in front of me. Caught unawares, Custodian poured into it; an instant later, she was gone, to roam the uninhabited forests of some distant Earth until her life force gave out. I honestly didn't give a fuck.

Stepping forward as the portal cut out, I flexed my fingers and reached into my pocket. This next bit was going to be pure theatre, but that was the way Ending and I did business. Just because we had it all mapped out didn't mean we couldn't have fun with it.

"No!" She darted back and put a bench between us. "No! I'll stop you! I will!" A row of vials sat in a rack on the bench, each bearing a liquid of a different colour. She snatched the closest one, popped the cork, and raised it to her lips.

I brought my hand out of my pocket, holding a water pistol. Just as she opened her mouth to drink, the single squirt—bearing a solid dose of Riley's concoction—went in first. She was already committed, though, and swallowed the lot down, staring defiantly at me.

While she was still waiting for her powers to kick in (which they never would) I moved in smoothly and jabbed her under the breastbone in just the right place to semi-paralyse her diaphragm, just as I'd done with Madison, nearly fifteen months ago. She folded like a cheap coat.

I found her last 'subject' in a cage, ragged and hungry. It seemed she'd had to starve him to force his compliance. I put his power out of its misery with a grape, then dropped him through a portal to the front steps of the Brockton Bay General Hospital. It was a reasonable bet that someone there would have an idea what to do with him.

Doctor Mother went next, to the steps of the Parahuman Asylum. She wasn't a parahuman, but she definitely needed an asylum. Theoretically, I could've Ended her psychosis, but I really couldn't be bothered.

That done, I mentally cracked my knuckles and set to work destroying every single vial the last member of Cauldron had hoarded for herself. Then I headed for the chamber holding the flesh garden. It was time for Scion's partner to meet her final End, and of course I knew exactly how to achieve it.

<><>​

Friday, June 17, 2016

Houston, Texas

Paladin

Banking around the Monarch building, Theo came to a hover and brought out his big gun as he took in the sight of the oversized mecha tromping down Main St. "Paladin to Control, I have it in sight. It's just trashed the Mecom Fountain, and it's heading for the Museum of Fine Arts. Clearance to bring it down?"

"Paladin, you have clearance to fire. Be aware, there's an independent cape, Flare, headed your way."

"Copy that. Firing now." He lined up the targeting dot on the mecha's chest and pressed the trigger. The plasma cannon warbled its rising hum of imminent destruction, then a massive blast of white-hot energy erupted from the barrel and impacted with the mecha. It lurched, put off its stride, but didn't fall. Smoke started rising from his aim-point, but he was more concerned with the way a turret on his shoulder had swivelled to line up on him.

Abruptly, a glowing figure swept in from the side, bombarding the mech with spiralling blasts of energy. One after the other, the turret guns exploded, leaving the mech defenceless. Theo's visor darkened just enough to make out the thumb's up gesture the glowing feminine cape gave him as she passed by. "All yours!"

"Thank you!" he shouted back, and re-targeted the mecha. This time, when he hit it in the chest, something blew in there, and great gouts of black smoke started pouring out. The mecha jittered in place, then suddenly sat down in the ruins of the fountain it had just demolished. "Paladin to Control, mecha has been stopped. It's not going anywhere."

"Copy mecha has been stopped. Good work, Paladin."

"Wasn't just me. Credit Flare with a solid assist." He dropped to a lower hover, keeping an eye on the stricken Tinkertech machine in case there was an escape attempt.

Flare dropped down beside him. "Nice shooting," she said conversationally. "You nailed that bad boy but good."

But even over the noise of his boot jets, Theo's suspicions hardened into certainty. It wasn't impossible for two capes to have the same blast signature, but he knew that voice.

Turning to face her, he retracted just enough of his faceplate for just her to see him, and nobody else. "Thanks … Kayden."

Without his polarising lenses, she was just a solid white blur to him, but he could've sworn there was a dropped jaw in all that. "… Theo?"

He nodded, and brought his faceplate back down. "Long time no see." Emotions roiled inside him. There was so much he wanted to say to her, to scream at her, but now was not the time. "Can we talk? Later?"

Her head dropped slightly. "Yes. Later."

<><>​

Later

Empire Café

Kayden

As Theo sat down, Kayden noted how much he'd grown up and filled out in the last five years. She felt a twinge of guilt at not having been there for him during that time, but the threat hanging over her had never allowed her to have that indulgence. He did seem to have turned out alright, so she took some consolation from that.

"A little on the nose, don't you think?" Well, he certainly wasn't tiptoeing into the conversation. "Literally meeting in a place called the Empire."

"It was established long before Max's organisation." She tried hard not to sound defensive, but it crept through anyway. "Nothing political about it. Just good food."

"I'll take your word for it." Apparently meaning it, he began to peruse the menu.

She stood the silence for as long as she could, but she wasn't made of iron. "Theo … please. You asked me here to talk. Can we talk?"

He put down the menu again. "You left me. Ran out of town and … left me. To rattle around in that goddamned house and my memories of Max. Why?" She got the impression there was a lot more he wanted to say, but he was too polite to shout at her in public.

"I didn't have a choice." His snort of derision stung her, and she leaned forward. "I didn't. Atropos showed up in my apartment and told me that Max was dead and I had thirty minutes to be packed and heading out of town. And that if I stayed, I'd likely die." There'd been more to it than that, of course, but she was giving him the basic version. "If they already had his identity, the chances were that they were sending people to his house right then. I'm sorry, but I had to get Aster out of there. She was my priority. She's always been my priority."

He blinked, and some of the tension drained out of his shoulders. "… yeah, I guess she'd do that, wouldn't she?"

Something about the tone of his voice gave her the hint. "You've met her?"

"You could say that." He chuckled wryly. "We went on an adventure together, back when people were still stupid enough to attack her. She got us home safe and sound, but it was kinda fraught there for a bit."

"Ah." She clasped her hands over his and looked at him squarely. "Well, you've turned out to be a fine young man. And I see you're …" Her voice dropped to a whisper. "… a Tinker. Not what I'd expect, from your parentage."

"It's … a bit more complicated than that. I—" He cut himself off, raising one arm. "Hey, Aisha! Over here!"

Kayden frowned, looking around. She hadn't expected anyone else to be showing up. Who is this Aisha?

In the next moment, a young black woman darted between the tables and threw her arms around Theo. "Heyyyy, Theo!" she crowed. "Nicely done, big guy!" Planting a solid kiss on his cheek that strayed somewhat onto his mouth, she dragged a chair over to the table and plonked herself down before turning her attention to Kayden. "Who's your friend?"

"Aisha, this is Kayden, my stepmom from back when. Kayden, this is Aisha Laborn. She and her brother and cousin took me in." He could've stopped there, but there was a glint in his eye as he continued. "They're my family now."

Kayden stared, especially at the way Theo was holding Aisha's hand. Ah. "I, uh, I'm very pleased to meet you—"

"Waaiiiit a minute." Aisha pointed her free hand at Kayden. "I've heard that name. Theo told us all about you. Who you were married to. And what you did in your spare time."

"Theo. You didn't." Kayden stared at him, in the hope that this would turn out to be some elaborate prank.

"You left me behind!" Theo was being careful not to shout, but he was clearly having to work at it. "I thought I'd never see you again! They knew who Max was, and all the rest of it! So when they asked me … I told them!"

"Personally, I blame Riley." Aisha's expression suggested that she'd had nothing to do with it. "She just can't let something go."

"Uh huh." Theo rolled his eyes. "Right." He turned his attention back to Kayden. "Yes, you were nice to me. But you never stood up to him on my account, not once. Brian and Aisha and Riley took me in. They shared everything they had with me. Brian taught me how to fight. Aisha taught me how to braid hair. Riley taught me that everyone deserves a second chance. And that's why I'm sitting here, talking to you."

"And that's why he called me to come meet him here," Aisha added. "Basically, I'm a referee. Though I'm totes on his side."

Kayden took a deep breath, then let it out. God, Max would be fuming right now. Of course, he'd also be fuming that I'm living my best life with Aster.

What the hell do I care about how my long-dead asshole husband thinks?

"Okay, yes, I did all that." Her voice was low, but she kept her eyes on Aisha. Theo already knew all this. "I did a lot of things I regret now, to fit in, and it was easy to do it. To think of people as things. Of some people as less than others. I still struggle with it, sometimes."

"Struggling with it means it's still got a hold on you." Aisha's tone was dry, academic. "Or are you trying to say you're not really a Nazi anymore? Let me guess, you've got that 'one black friend' which means you aren't actually a racist?"

"No, I don't." Kayden grimaced. "I know some black people, but I wouldn't call them my friends. I guess … I've still got some of the old prejudices in me. Five years away from Max doesn't get rid of ten years with him. But I'm trying. I'm a hero here, now. A new identity, a new life. Does that count for anything?"

Aisha held up her hand, finger and thumb a fraction of an inch apart. "Little bit. But tell you what. I'm willing to be your one black friend if you're willing to keep working on it. Deal?"

Kayden frowned, realising that she was being thrown a lifeline in her relationship with Theo. "Why? What do you get out of it?"

"Because Theo still cares for you, duh." Reaching out, she slugged Theo on the shoulder. "And I care for the big lug. So Imma give you a chance to get back into his life, but on his terms." Raising her eyebrows, she extended her hand toward Kayden. "Okay?"

With the feeling that she was making a huge leap into the unknown, Kayden accepted her hand. "Okay. And thank you."

Aisha gave her a remarkably evil grin as they shook hands. "Oh, don't thank me yet."

<><>​

Relevant Side Story

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Decades Later …

Atropos

I drifted, between sleep and wakefulness. Memories washed through my mind, of times long past and days just gone by. Of the world gradually settling down and becoming a more gentle place, needing only a nudge or two from me here and there to make it work.

Other cities had followed the Brockton Bay example, to a greater or lesser degree, but we remained the shining star. With the new Cycle, shards working alongside humanity, the space program had begun anew. Parahumans couldn't venture too far from Earth before their powers failed, but humans riding in Dragon-designed ships could.

I'd married, raised a family, seen my children raise their own families. It had been a good life, and all due to an errant shard, dropped off as a prank to screw over Scion and his partner. Well, the other entity had succeeded beyond all expectations.

I opened my eyes, to see my family around my bed. My son Dan, named after his grandfather, now greying and bent himself. His son Brian, and finally my great-granddaughter Laura, just turned sixteen. Raising myself in my bed, I smiled at them. But there was one other who walked among them unseen: a tall skeleton, hooded, with a scythe.

I knew him well. For most of my life, I'd walked alongside Ending, sharing my views with him, as he shared his with me. Ours had been a profitable partnership, on both sides.

IT'S NEARLY TIME, he said, but in the glow of his eyes I saw a hint of regret.

I know, I know. You think I could spend this long with you, and not be aware when someone's due to go?

I raised my eyes to my family. "You've probably guessed why I wanted you here now." My voice was a little drier, a little raspier, than when I was a girl, but they all heard me. "I've reached the end of my path. But there's one more thing I've got to do. Laura?"

"Great grandma?" Laura came to my bedside. There were tear-streaks down her cheeks; I raised my hand and wiped one away with my thumb. She didn't look all that much like I had, back in the day, but my mind's eye insisted on telling me that anyway.

"I'm passing him on to you. Don't take any crap from him, okay? He might be a nigh-unbeatable power, but you're in the driver's seat." Taking her hand, I clasped it tightly. Goodbye. Help her keep us all safe.

YOU KNOW I WILL. For a moment I was back in the Shard Bar, clasping his bony hand in mine, then I was in my bed once more, and Ending had passed from me.

I saw the moment that Laura felt his presence for the first time, in the way that her eyes widened. "Whoa …"

It was amazing how unbearably light I felt at that moment, as though a decades-long burden, entirely unnoticed until now, had been lifted from my shoulders. "The costume is in my closet. It should fit you just fine …" My voice had faded to a whisper by the time I finished.

My sight was dimming now, and all I could feel was Laura's hand in mine. She squeezed, and I tried to squeeze back, but I had no strength left.

I felt my heartbeat slow and stop, and then Ending was gathering me in his arms.

LET'S GO.

Where to?

ETERNITY AWAITS.

And I went.



The END.

 

[Kismet]

A beautiful ending to an amazing story. Thank you for sharing it.

 

[kekjoke]

I've read several Theo meets Kayden later scenes, but this one was one of the better ones. Solid and believable. No unreasonable anger. Very relatable.

This is good craftsmanship. A chapter to be happy about, Ack.

 

[Firang]

A good Ending, and a passing of the torch. Slightly curious who Taylor of the Ending wound up with, but also realize that it's not super relevant, just that Taylor has established a guardian line for humanity. Could make for prime cross-over sequel bait into a Sci-fi universe, but this also wraps up everything well, so no pressure.

 

[Darcksage]

AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!

Thanks for all the hard work, this was an amazing story.

 

[Lokdal75]

What a way to END the year. Love the story and passing the torch was an amazing punch to the feels.

Thanks for sharing and Happy New Year!

 

[Enigmatic]

Damn. An end to the end at the end. This was an amazing ride. And Ack, you're amazing. Happy New Year